throw pillows from Ikea; the painted Sinhalese devil mask with bulging eyes and a hanging tongue looked down on plastic figurines of Jesus and Mary; the old gramophone sat next to the television from Singapore. The floor was polished red cement; the white walls were decorated with school photos and souvenir tea towels.
Faintly Rudy heard his aunt in the kitchen. He let himself in and sorted through the mail. There were two advertisements, a telephone bill, something from the bank, and a single letter, from his brother. He turned it over, looking for Aunty’s name. Adam’s letters were always to the two of them. “To Aunty Mary and Rudy,” the envelopes always said, and inside would be short, chatty updates on his job at the campus bookstore, his swimming, his motorcycle, family goings-on, and other things of that sort. But this letter was addressed simply to “Rudy Vantwest.” Frowning, Rudy folded the envelope in half and stuffed it in his trouser pocket.
In the kitchen, Aunty Mary was dusting Easter cookies with sugar. A kitten with matted orange fur had stationed itself at her feet, while a mob of tiny flies hovered over a jack fruit on the counter. Rudy deposited the bananas next to the jack fruit and kissed his aunt’s cheek. She smoothed her cotton dress and patted the thick twist of silver-black hair at the back of her head.
“You’re home late, son.”
“Yeah. The bus was slow.” He reached above her head for a glass.
“Want tea?”
“No, thanks. Water is fine.”
“Ah, yes. My doctor is telling me I should drink more water. Very good for the health, isn’t it. You’d like chicken for dinner?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll just finish this. It shouldn’t be long.”
“No hurry,” he said distractedly. “I’ll get started on my marking.”
He filled his glass from a pitcher in the fridge, drained it, then went out back to wash at the well. Bathing at the stone well in the pink-gold light of late afternoon was one of those entitlements, like eating rice with his fingers or shitting in the outdoor toilet under a leafy canopy, that Rudy indulged in simply because it was not—could never be—part of his Canadian life. With renewed determination to distance himself from that life, he drew a pail of cool water dotted with dead leaves, emptied it into the plastic washtub, and rolled up his sleeves. A pair of mosquitoes—enormous brutes with long, dangling legs and abdomens—danced threateningly over the tub. He clapped them both dead, pried a bar of soap from the rim of the well, and scrubbed his hands and face. Completing the ritual, he emptied the tub over the dirt and shook his hands.
Adam’s letter weighed heavily in his pocket as he returned to the sitting room and installed himself at his grandfather’s desk. His knapsack was on the floor, Kanda’s essay inside. It was a queer twist of fate, being confronted with both on the same day—though the coincidence didn’t particularly surprise him. He reached down and unzipped his bag. He would start with the essay; the letter could wait.
Skimming Kanda’s introduction, he put a check mark next to the thesis statement. (The boy had a thesis; two-thirds of the class would-n’t.) He made a few more check marks throughout the paper, circled some errors, then, turning to the back page, considered what comments to make. A further response had entered his mind, joining those he’d come up with earlier: What if your sister got in the way of a Tiger attack, Kanda? What then? But he couldn’t write that—or anything else he’d come up with, for that matter.
He leaned back, and his gaze drifted up to the framed oil painting hanging above the desk. The painting, an awkward, immature work, apparently done by Uncle Ernie, had been in Aunty’s house for as long as Rudy could remember. Its subject was Adam’s Peak, the mountain his brother was named after, rendered as a dappled green oblong under a yellow sun. Despite the clumsiness of the brush strokes, the light on the peak showed a certain sensitivity to nature, while the surrounding hills cast convincing shadows on the landscape. At the summit of the oblong was a red pavilion. The lopsided building was too large for the scale of the painting, and it seemed to Rudy that the picture would be more effective without it.
As he sat pondering this, Aunty Mary emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea.
“I thought you might like this since you are working.”
He turned and sighed. His aunt’s attentions embarrassed him—the cooking, the laundry, the cups of tea. He planned to move out, of course. Buy a house closer to the city, ship his belongings from Canada. But for now, for Aunty Mary, he was still a child. He took the cup and thanked her.
“How are your pupils doing?” she said.
“Oh, most of them are fine.” He paused. “I just finished reading the new kid’s essay. Seems he supports the Tigers.”
“Aiyo.” Aunty shook her head. “These Tigers only care about making trouble. You must explain to him.”
Rudy looked down at the half-page on which his comments would be written. “There’s nothing I can explain to him that he does-n’t already know, Aunty. He believes that violence is the only option left for his cause.”
Aunty frowned. “And why is a young man so worried about a cause like this? He has more important things to think about, no?”
Feeling oddly compelled to defend his student, Rudy shrugged and sipped his tea. “Kanda identifies himself mainly as a Tamil. He thinks his language and culture will be best served in an independent country.”
“He is full of strange ideas then,” Aunty said. “What’s most important is our family, no? We should worry about those people, whether they are healthy and living a good life. Language and culture will look after themselves, isn’t it.”
Rudy opened his mouth then shrugged again. “You may be right.”
“Do you think this Kanda is involved with the Tigers?”
“I doubt it. But who knows? The Tigers employ kids a hell of a lot younger than him.”
“Ah, yes.” Aunty shook her head. “They give machine guns to children. It’s a sin.”
Rudy gulped down most of his tea and stared at the back page of Kanda’s essay. In the brief silence, the ticking of Grandpa’s old clock and the thrum of the electric fan were strangely loud.
Then Aunty sighed. “I think our government is putting itself out on the murunga branch.”
Rudy looked up, surprised. His aunt never discussed politics. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, it’s an old expression. When someone is feeling very proud of himself, we say he is sitting on the murunga branch.” She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and shook it out. “As you know, the murunga is a very tall tree. It also has very brittle branches. You can climb high up in this tree, but then the branch breaks ...” Her voice trailed off.
“And how does that relate to the government?”
Aunty wiped her forehead and cheekbones. “The government is feeling very proud these days. They believe that capturing Jaffna will put an end to all this fighting. But I think these Tigers will make sure the army’s murunga branch comes crashing back to the ground.”
“You and Kanda agree on that much,” he said with
