Noontide Toll Read online

  ‘Battles, here?’ Paul leant closer.

  ‘Naturally. Fort, no?’ Mrs Cooray pointed at a few pieces of random rubble near a pinkish wall. ‘That must have been Kruys Kirk.’

  She started walking towards it. We followed. What she hoped to find, I don’t know but she moved with an admirable sense of purpose. Her plump heels seemed to swell with every step in the sun.

  I know churches get bombed all over the world, from Coventry to Sarajevo, but it was still unsettling to see the results so close up. This was the damage we had done to ourselves like those drunks down by Union Place who smash their faces in the mirror because they don’t like the reflection.

  Paul touched his friend’s arm. ‘Look,’ he pointed at an egret settling on the ramparts, surrendering to the sea view.

  Vince made a low whistle. ‘The guidebook says the waterbirds out here are amazing.’

  Mrs Cooray turned to him. ‘Guidebook? What guidebook?’

  ‘Just something I picked up in Colombo.’ Vince pulled out a slim red book from the cargo pocket of his trousers.

  Dilshan glanced at the cover and scrunched up his face. His compact skull looked ready to explode. It frightened me like the anger you would see boiling up in the old days. ‘What happened here is not written in a book.’ He tapped his head with three fingers, the way my father used to do. ‘Only in here.’

  My father crooked three fingers like that for his gravest warnings. He was only a barefoot caddie at the Royal Colombo, but off the course he was a red-card Cassandra who kept only the Party manifesto close to his heart. The night our nearby Nazim Stores was attacked by a mob chanting their vile pieties, he drummed his three fingers on his temple in fury. ‘The trouble with this country is religion. It puts demons in their heads.’ What he would have made of a country at war with itself for three decades, of mad artillery shelling, of armoured divisions and Tiger troops, of air-to-surface missiles and suicide bombers, all the bloody battles of nation and separation, I don’t know. Although he rejected religion, he did believe in consequences. It sometimes sounded like dialectical hogwash but, in his view, one thing always followed from another. ‘The past,’ he would say, ‘is unforgiving.’

  *

  ‘Madam,’ Dilshan said, sharply bringing everyone back to the heat of the moment. ‘They say the prison is over there.’

  Mrs Cooray seemed to deflate; her mouth puckered by a rush of flattish air. ‘What prison?’

  ‘From olden days. Government prison. Judge comes to tea here, bad men go to prison there.’

  ‘You know about the judge?’

  ‘No, madam. Only the prison, and up there, the hanging hole.’

  Vince leafed through his guidebook. ‘I understand. Yes, that must be the gallows.’

  A small cube made of four pillars but no walls stood like a cartoon warning, on the ramparts, visible to all on land and sea. It looked crude enough to have been hatched in a hurry just yesterday.

  Mrs Cooray gazed up at it, tilting her polka-dots. Her face was streaming with sweat. ‘That’s not a hole. Who would they hang up there?’

  ‘Traitors, madam. Have to execute, no? Nowadays we can shoot to execute, but those days they are always using rope.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Dilshan shrugged. ‘Have to do it. Orders.’

  ‘You do it? With a rope?’

  ‘No, madam, in war we use the T56. Basic Chinese assault rifle. Very reliable. We go on a mission. We find the target. We execute.’ He stared at her, his eyes hard and unblinking. ‘Sometimes the target is a woman.’

  ‘You were shooting women?’

  ‘Our enemy had women commanders. Very powerful.’

  Vince carefully made a note with his biro. ‘Matriarchal system. The warrior mother,’ he mumbled. I wondered if he knew about all our queens, prime ministers and presidents. First-timers and old-timers. But before I could say anything, Dilshan turned to him.

  ‘Yes, sir. Even the mother, we have to.’ His face stiffened. ‘One target we ID’d by her baby. We got notice the K2 area commander was giving milk, so we wait by the hut where the baby was. They try to fool us with ayahs and all, but we know she will be the one who comes and goes and comes again. When I see her slip in like a real kotiya, early one morning, and open her blouse, I knew she is the one. I watch her on a stool, cradling him in her arm, you know. The head just there in the bend of the elbow. I see her lips move, very softly lullabying. She thinks she is safe but I am there. So close, I am hearing her. Same tune, you know, that we have. Tamil words, but same sweet tune we all hear when we come into this world. I wait for her to finish the song and for the baby to have his fill. Let her pat the back and burp him, no? I don’t know why but I think it is better if the little one is not left hungry. I watch the sun spread on her face. I see the chain around her throat, with that cyanide capsule of theirs, catch the light.’ He twists his hands. ‘I have no doubt then what to do, even when she shields the child’s eyes and smoothes his head, watching over him as only a mother could.’ Dilshan looked down. His eyelids crushed the fluttering memory. ‘I don’t know if it is right to kill a mother as she is suckling her baby. A hunter will not do that to any animal. You think of your own mother, no?’ He paused and started to scratch the palm of his left hand like he wanted to dig something out of it. ‘But I wait only for the baby to come off the tit so I can get a clean shot. I made sure I didn’t hurt the little one. I waited over my time, no? Maybe that will count for something.’

  Without thinking, I said, ‘I didn’t know they had babies.’

  ‘Why not? They eat and drink and do the same like us. Before a battle the urge is very strong. Man or woman. So, if the war goes on, always you find a lot of babies. Compensation, no? But to us they—mothers, fathers, kids, if they can carry a gun—are first of all, the enemy. That is all. Only now, after it is all done, I feel I am the enemy of myself. I have wounded myself, no? I cannot ever look at my mother again. Never. Not without always seeing that face behind her.’ His voice lost its way. The air around us seemed to thicken. Then he added slowly, as though it had never occurred to him before, ‘I don’t know what that baby will think of us, when he grows up. But I had to do it, no?’

  Mrs Cooray pulled out a white hanky and started walking again. Streaks of moisture marked the yellowy folds of her back. Paul caught up with her.

  ‘Interesting fellow, our guide. I had no idea they had to do things like that.’

  ‘It is not like My Lai, or something.’ Mrs Cooray snorted and shook the top of her blouse to let some air in. ‘So, what do you think of the fort? Is it a viable project for you?’

  ‘There are possibilities. The heritage dimension is interesting to us but the question is the cut-off point. Architecturally, the Dutch period will be rewarding but expensive. The British period may well be the easiest, especially with the gallows.’ He paused. ‘The war period, I suppose, is too sensitive?’

  ‘The war is not heritage, Paul. The priority is tourism. What will attract the foreign tourist? We know what the Chinese and Indian tourist wants. Bargains, no? But what about the modern European tourist? They say the beach is not enough these days.’

  ‘Personal stories. That is the best. A pity these soldiers’ stories can’t be used. You have a living archive, you know.’

  ‘A bigger dead one, I think.’ Mrs Cooray patted her face with the hanky. ‘I have stories too. My grandfather had many stories about this place. He lived here in the fifties, you know. Apparently the gardens and the tennis courts were all maintained by prisoners. Part of their sentence was this kind of work.’

  ‘The ones not sent to the gallows.’ Paul stifled a soft, nasal laugh.

  ‘He never mentioned the gallows. He was a judge here. I don’t think it would have been in use in our day.’

  ‘When was capital punishment abolished in this country, Mrs Cooray?’

  She looked blank. ‘I don’t remember.’ She pressed a finger to her beaded lip. ‘Actually, I don
’t even know if it ever was. Or whether it got abolished and then came back. Laws come and go, no? That’s the thing about Parliament. Everything is changeable. But I haven’t heard of any actual death penalty recently. Not even for treason. We had a failed coup in ’62. No one was executed for that. Just prison for a while and then they were let out by the Privy Council in London, I think. Anyway, that was already donkey’s years ago.’

  ‘But our guide said . . .’

  ‘That is very different, Paul. He was talking about war. A different matter altogether. That is not what we are talking about, is it? Not war. That is not a topic for us.’ She knew how to shut them up. The small questions that were stirred in my mind quickly evaporated. I could understand her point. You need to check your rear-view mirror, but you can’t be looking back all the time—not unless you are in permanent reverse.

  Vince who had been scribbling away stopped and closed his notebook. He went over to a section of the rubble cordoned off with white ribbon. He nudged a couple of stones with his foot and then bent down to pick up a fragment of plaster stuck on a brick. ‘More graffiti,’ he said to the others. ‘This is in English.’

  ‘What does it say?’ Paul asked.

  Vince read out the words slowly. ‘Justice of peace.’

  ‘That’s not graffiti,’ Mrs Cooray said.

  ‘Come and look. It is not an official sign. The words are not complete.’

  The egret flapped up from the ramparts. I clutched the keys in my pocket and started to head back to the van, leaving them huddled by the rubble. Dilshan started to say something, but then stopped. Maybe he did know when to keep his mouth shut. My responsibility was only to bring these people to the fort, and take them back without mishap. What they saw, what they heard, what they thought and what they remembered was their problem, not mine. A driver’s job is to stay in control behind the wheel and that is all. The past is what you leave as you go. There is nothing more to it.

  Mess

  In November, I had my first military encounter in Jaffna. Not what you think. Not a skirmish. The war was over. But you could say it was an encounter with the war within: guilt, which I am beginning to see riddles everything. I was asked to take Father Perera and his friend Patrick from England—a younger, balding acolyte—to a military base for a meeting with a big major. Maybe the officer had turned to Christ, in the wilderness, and was looking for the necessary sacrament, or else it was part of the reconciliation effort the bishop was going on about on the radio. At any rate, my mission was to find the camp and deliver the pastors in time for an army dinner. That was fine. I have no problem with our armed forces. They are all heroes now. We have nothing to fear.

  A small town about twenty miles from Jaffna was our turn-off. At the crossroads by the municipal market, where prawns and pumpkins are bartered and old ammunition shells bought for scrap, a monument commemorated a Sinhala king’s first victory over a Tamil prince in the second century BC. It did not seem to point to much of a reconciliation route to me but I took the turn, as I had been told, and tried to pick up some speed. My plan was to do most of the drive before nightfall so that there would be some light to guide me, but my passengers had been too slow getting out of the Hibiscus. I could hear them on the veranda discussing redemption versus education instead of brushing what remaining hair they had on their heads and putting on their evening cassocks, but what could I do?

  As we got out of the town, the dark enveloped us. I have heard that in some parts of the world the light of humanity has made a black night impossible—darkness has been dispelled by what Time magazine calls ‘light pollution’. We could do with some of that pollution here. Especially, if humanity is what causes it. My headlights illuminated nothing. The stars scattered across the sky thinned out. Fortunately, the road was straight. A whitish crumble fell off the edges but I couldn’t tell whether it turned into marshland or salt pans further out.

  ‘Father Perera, did they say how far before the next turn?’ The numbers of the milometer tumbled in the glow of the dashboard.

  ‘I was told about half an hour’s drive.’

  ‘But at what speed, Father? The army has to march, no? Or they go by tanks. Not Toyotas.’

  The acolyte, Mr Patrick, said, ‘I have Google Maps on my phone.’ Our interior lit up as he switched on his cell.

  I slowed down, more out of instinct than practicality. There was no real alternative to carrying on as we were. I heard him tap the screen. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought he swore in the bluish glare. ‘No signal, sir?’

  ‘The map showed nothing. Just a blank space like a bloody desert and now it’s gone off.’

  ‘War zone, sir. Army business, no?’

  We carried on mapless in no man’s empty sand. After about another fifteen minutes, my headlights picked out a jeep parked by a bumpy white culvert. I made out one soldier leaning against the back, smoking, while another irrigated the desert. I stopped and rolled down the window.

  ‘Is the Samanala Camp on this road?’ I asked, in Sinhala.

  The smoker came over and peered into the van. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  I said I was bringing a priest for an important meeting with a big major. ‘He is waiting for us,’ I said.

  The soldier puffed on his cigarette. I thought Father Perera might offer him some guidance on protocol, and that he might take it out of his mouth for a moment, but there was only the tinkle of piss in the dark. Then the soldier barked something at his companion. The other soldier did up his flaps and pulled out his phone. He had a signal but then, of course, he would. How else could an army function? We waited for the talk to subside outside. Then the first one smacked the windscreen and said, ‘OK, uncle. Can go.’

  The phone boy waved a tainted hand as if he was tossing a grenade. ‘Go until you come to a fork in the road. Take the left. One K down you’ll come to the camp.’

  ‘How do we recognize it?’

  ‘You will know. There is nothing else.’

  *

  About ten minutes later, we passed a fence made of barbed wire and brown twigs. Then another soldier stepped out on to the road with a flashlight. He pointed it at a gate. I turned the wheel. It was good to be guided. I felt deep down I must be a believer like Father Perera. I drove slowly. Long, low buildings disappeared into black. I felt we should be on camels, or at least donkeys. Something more biblical than my van.

  ‘Father, where now?’

  ‘Keep going. There will be a sign.’

  A man of faith has much to be thankful for in a world as dark as ours.

  Small red border plants flared in neat lines. Clumps of starry flowers blinked. This was a military village with civic pride. An oasis of luxury, rather than a lean fighting unit out of Spartacus or The Guns of Navarone. The road curved. We came to a lighted building with three magisterial mango trees guarding it. The building had its own inner fence made of dried palmyra fans, more decorative and intricate than anything else around. There was yet another soldier waiting for us. He was the sign. He came forward and opened the side door for my passengers. Father Perera got down first. The soldier clicked his heels. He didn’t say anything. Mr Patrick looked ghostly in the lamplight. Father Perera turned to me. ‘Vasantha, you must join us.’ He sounded like Jesus must have done among the Pharisees, and I began to wonder whether this was how conversion worked. Tonight, I thought, I could be an officer and an apostle. It felt good. I suppose that’s the thing about it.

  I asked the soldier whether I could park the van around the side. He shrugged. In the military I thought one had to be more decisive and heroic, but perhaps that was further up the chain of command and only in times of real conflict. Peace has made us all dozy, I guess. Even the crickets were muffled.

  The room was enormous and had electricity. You could do a wedding party in there, no problem. Red cloths had been laid with crisp folds at the corners. We were ushered to the bar area that had been fitted out with cushioned rattan furniture. The TV in the corner w
as droning Rupavahini news.

  Father Perera took the chair in the centre of the row lined up against the wall; Mr Patrick sat next to him. I went for the smallest corner seat. Outside my van, I never quite know my place. Only that it is very easy to make a fool of oneself in unknown territory.

  No one said a word. On TV, Chinese VIPs were shaking hands. Why do people shake hands? Why do the Chinese do it? Did Chairman Mao ever do it? Do any of them wash their hands properly? From what I have seen in comfort stops up and down the country, it is a big surprise who does and who does not wash their hands. Not all foreigners do. Pontius Pilate did, but the Unilever man from Birkenhead, the other day, definitely didn’t, despite the discount he must get on soap products. Ordinary soldiers in a desert obviously can’t. Or if they are in the middle of a battle or something. That’s why hygiene-wise it is always better to keep one’s hands to oneself. But perhaps in China they are commanded to wash their hands regularly. Cleanliness is next to godliness, my father used to say. As a Party-wallah, he would have known.

  A few minutes later, a small man in white livery limped in carrying a tray with glasses of orange juice and beer and something colourless and sparkling. Father Perera picked a juice, Mr Patrick, a beer. I asked what the other drink was and the man serving cringed as if he thought I might scold him. His skin was flaky. ‘Lemonade,’ he whispered.

  But one needs to know. I have responsibilities. I can’t be drinking army gin and tonic and driving back blind as a baboon, whatever the state of the nation.

  ‘So,’ Father Perera raised his glass. ‘This is very impressive, isn’t it?’

  ‘I expected a camp to look more temporary,’ Mr Patrick replied. ‘Not so solidly built. This is all very settled.’

  ‘Concrete beneath the palmyra.’ Father Perera reached behind his seat and slyly prodded the pale-brown leafy wall.

  Mr Patrick took out his phone and scrolled through something on the screen. ‘A clear shot is all we need,’ he muttered. He seemed a long way from ordination.