the pediatric wards in the North Central Province, the blue light above that jaundiced child which somehow also comforted him, its specific frequency of 470 to 490 nanometres that all night kept breaking down the yellow pigment. He remembered the books, the four essential medical texts and the stories he never finished reading though he kept them in his hands for hours as he sat in the cane chair trying to rest, trying to come down to some kind of human order, but instead only darkness came down on him in the room, his eyes peering at the pages while his brain stared past them to the truth of their times.
It was one a.m. when Sarath and Anil arrived in the centre of Colombo, having driven through the city’s empty grey streets. As they got to Emergency Services, she said, ‘Is it okay? Us moving him like this?’
‘It’s okay. We’re taking him to my brother. With luck he’ll be somewhere there in Emergency.’
‘You have a brother here?’
Sarath parked and was still for a moment. ‘God, I’m exhausted.’
‘Do you want to stay here and sleep? I can take him in.’
‘It’s okay. I’d better talk to my brother anyway. If he’s there.’
Gunesena was asleep and they woke him and walked him between them into the building. Sarath spoke to someone at the desk and the three of them sat down to wait, Gunesena’s hands on his lap like a boxer’s. There was a daylight sense of work going on around Admissions, though everyone moved in slow motion and quietly. A man in a striped shirt came towards them and chatted with Sarath.
‘This is Anil.’
The man in the striped shirt nodded at her.
‘My brother, Gamini.’
‘Right,’ she said, flatly.
‘He’s my younger brother—he’s our doctor.’
There had been no touching between him and Sarath, not a handshake.
‘Come—’ Gamini helped Gunesena to his feet and they all followed him into a small room. Gamini unstoppered a bottle and began swabbing the man’s palms. She noticed he wasn’t wearing gloves, not even a lab coat. It looked as if he had just come from an interrupted card game. He injected the anaesthetic into the man’s hands.
‘I didn’t know he had a brother,’ she said, breaking the silence.
‘Oh, we don’t see much of each other. I don’t speak of him either, you know. We go our own way.’
‘He knew you were here, though, and what shift you were on.’
‘I suppose so.’
They were both intentionally excluding Sarath from their conversation.
‘How long have you been working with him?’ Gamini now asked.
She said, ‘Three weeks.’
‘Your hands—they are steady,’ Sarath said. ‘Have you recovered?’
‘Yes.’ Gamini turned to Anil. ‘I’m the family secret.’
He pulled the bridge nails from Gunesena’s anaesthetized hands. Then he washed them with Betalima, a crimson sudsing fluid that he squirted out of a plastic bottle. He dressed the wounds and talked quietly to his patient. He was very gentle, which for some reason surprised her. He pulled open a drawer, got another disposable needle and gave him a tetanus shot. ‘You owe the hospital two needles,’ he murmured to Sarath. ‘There’s a shop on the corner. You should get them while I sign out.’ He led Sarath and Anil out of the room, leaving the patient behind.
‘There are no beds left here tonight. Not for this level of injury. See, even crucifixion isn’t a major assault nowadays. . . . If you can’t take him home I’ll find someone to watch him while he sleeps out in Admissions—I’ll okay it, I mean.’
‘He can come with us,’ Sarath said. ‘If he wants I’ll get him a job as a driver.’
‘You better replace those needles. I’m going off duty soon. Do you want to eat? Along the Galle Face?’ He was talking again to Anil.
‘It’s two in the morning!’ Sarath said.
She spoke up. ‘Yes. Sure.’
He nodded at her.
Gamini pulled open the passenger-side door and got in beside his brother, which left Anil in the back seat with Gunesena. Well, she’d have a better view of both of them.
The streets were empty save for a silent patrol of military moving under the arch of trees along Solomon Dias Mawatha. They were stopped at a roadblock and asked for their passes. A half-mile beyond that they came to a food stall and Gamini got out and bought them all something to eat. On the road the younger brother looked thin as his shadow, feral.
They left Gunesena sleeping in the car and walked onto Galle Face Green and sat near the breakwater by the darkness