the city. There was no twilight in this part of the tropics. The heat had brought out the local families. Small children played on the beach, lovers strolled, young men loitered, buying sweep tickets, hoping to win the money to purchase a dream. All along the roadside were small shanty kadés glowing with green and white lights, selling everything from cheap plastic toys and brooches and bangles, to multicoloured drinks and string hoppers, hot sambals and sweetmeats. The betel seller rolled his leaves, red and white goo dribbling from his toothless mouth. He waved at Vijay. But Vijay did not stop to talk tonight. His niece’s death had been in his thoughts all day. He was certain: two more deaths would follow. He walked on through the meat market, with its stench of rancid fat and congealed blood. The heat of the day had penetrated even here, even into this subterranean part. There were flies on every surface, on the vaulted ceilings, clinging to the carcasses, their blue wings hanging like drops of moisture. Vijay walked on seeing none of this, his feet picking their way swiftly and fastidiously through the filth. Unseeing, towards the clock tower, a lone figure in a white sarong, trembling into the distance, silhouetted against the darkened sky.
At some point during the evening, out of a sense of nostalgia and probably because he was bored, Aloysius looked around for his wife.
‘This is entirely your mother’s fault,’ he told Frieda grumpily. ‘Why do we have to be here, wearing all this finery, suffering this silly party?’
Frieda was watching Robert. She too wished they were at home. Percussion instruments jarred in her head. One look at Alicia and I no longer exist. No one cares, he has forgotten about me! On and on went Frieda’s thoughts, round and round. She felt dizzy. Aloysius, thinking his younger daughter seemed a little glum this evening, helped himself to his third whisky and wandered off. Grace was standing on a balcony overhanging the private beach. She could see the top of Mount Lavinia Hill, with its whitewashed houses and its funfair. Someone on the beach below was flying a box kite and its tail flickered lazily in the wind. As always, whenever she was alone, Grace’s thoughts strayed back to Vijay. She had told him she would look across the bay and think of him. Tonight the view was hazy and the horizon had become blurred by a storm far out at sea. In the distance, forked lightning speared the water. The sky was heavy and full of menace. Soon the storm would reach the shore.
‘I see Thornton has found all the good-looking women again,’ Aloysius greeted her peevishly, breaking into her thoughts.
Grace laughed lightly and went inside to see for herself.
It was quite true; Thornton was having a wonderful time. He saw no reason to be as morose as his elder brother Jacob, or bad-tempered like his younger brother Christopher. Not, of course, that anyone knew where the devil Christopher was. Gone, no doubt, to some political rally. Thornton could never understand how anyone would deliberately choose a meeting over such a good party. Well, wasn’t that Christopher all over. Always making life difficult for himself. Still, Thornton was not one to try to change the world. No, no, he thought, seriously, shaking his head, frowning a little. He did all of that with his poetry. In the new ‘voice’ he was developing.
‘Can I read some of your poems, Thorn?’ asked the pretty nurse he was chatting to, anxiously seeing his frown. She hoped she wasn’t boring him.
Thornton smiled, and the world tilted. Before righting itself again. The girl’s knees locked heavily together, making her sway towards him. Thornton did not notice. He had begun to recite one of his poems.
‘Oh!’ the girl said breathlessly when he had finished. ‘I think that was wonderful!’ She felt that she might, at any moment, swoon with desire.
‘Oh please,’ asked another girl, joining the group belatedly, looking at Thornton’s glossy hair. ‘Please say it again. I missed the first verse.’
Jacob, deep in conversation with someone very dull, glanced up just as his brother was tilting the world again. There was nothing new here as far as Jacob could see, nothing suspicious, he thought, satisfied. Although, he paused, frowning, it suddenly occurred to him that lately Thornton had been out rather a lot. Feeling his elder brother’s eye on him, Thornton coolly tried tilting the world at him too, with no success. Jacob merely shook his head disapprovingly and went back to his dull conversation. Oh dear, thought Thornton regretfully, no joie de vivre. None whatsoever.
The Prime Minister had asked their sister to play the piano. He had made a little speech about the lovely Miss de Silva. He told them all how proud he was of this home-grown talent. Then he led Alicia to the piano. Everyone fell silent as Alicia began to play. She played as though she was alone. As though she was at home, and the Prime Minister had not held her hand and smiled at her. She played as though there was no one there at all. Life was like that for her, thought Frieda, standing beside Robert with her breaking heart, watching him watch Alicia. Life was so easy for her sister. On and on went Alicia’s fingers, galloping with the notes, crossing boundaries, lifting barriers, drawing everyone in this elegant room together without the slightest effort. Aloysius reached for another drink. No one noticed.
Sunil watched Alicia from the back of the room. Words like ‘majority language’ did not matter to her. Her language was simpler, older, less complicated. If only life could be like Alicia, he wished, filled with tender pride. It had been a useful evening for Sunil, meeting the Prime Minister, being noticed. His hopes for a united country were strengthened in spite of all the talk of civil unrest.
Alicia was playing when a telephone rang for the Prime Minister. She was still playing when he received the news that rioting had broken out all over the city. The police needed the Prime Minister’s authorisation to deal with it. She was still playing as he left the party in his dark-tinted limousine with Sir John and the Chief Constable. No one saw them go. Sunil, suspecting an incident, went in search of more information. He learned that the rioting had got out of hand. What had been a slow protest, a silent march, days of handing out leaflets had turned into crowds of angry people, voices on the end of a megaphone. Someone had been injured. Then the number had risen and there had been some fatalities. A petrol bomb had been thrown. It was a night of the full moon, this night before the eclipse. There was a rumour that a Buddhist monk had been involved. An unknown passer-by had seen a young priest running away, a thin smear of saffron in the night. If a Buddhist monk had really been involved Sunil knew it would be bad for everyone. It would only take one single gesture, he thought, one furious shaven head, for centuries of lotus flowers to be wiped out forever.
Alicia had just finished playing when the intruder broke in. Walking swiftly past the guard, past the doorman who tried and failed to stop him and past the servants who then appeared, he burst in, blood clinging to his shirt. His face was streaked with sweat and dirt. He was no more than a boy, his hands were cut and bruised, one eye was swollen and bleeding. There was glass in his hair and he smelt of smoke and something else. Someone screamed. The servants, having caught up with him, twisted his arms behind his back. The boy did not struggle. He stood perfectly still, searching the faces in the room until he found the face he had been looking for, crying out in anguish,
‘They killed them! They killed them! I saw them burn! Oh Christ! I saw them burn!’
Grace, recognising him before anyone else, stepped forward saying in Sinhalese, in a voice seldom heard in public, coldly, sharply to the servants, ‘Let him go! He’s my son!’ And then in English, ‘Christopher, who has done this to you?’
Outside, the rain they had all longed for began to fall with a thunderous noise, in long beating waves. Drumming on the earth, on the buildings, lashing against the land in great sheets. But no one heard.
THE RAIN DESCENDED WITH A VENGEANCE. It filled the holes
