them within the sound of the frogs. She got up and strolled towards the twangings and croaks. She was lost in the antiphonies until she felt Sarath’s hand on her shoulder.
‘Come. Let’s see it now.’
‘Before he passes out? Yes, yes. No criticism.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I humour him. I humour you. When do I get my turn?’
‘I don’t think you like being humoured.’
‘A favour then, sometime.’
In the courtyard a torch of twigs was stuck into the earth. Sailor’s head was on a chair. Nothing else, only the two of them and the presence of the head.
The firelight set the face in movement. But what affected her—who felt she knew every physical aspect about Sailor, who had been alongside him now in his posthumous life as they travelled across the country, who had slept in a chair all night while he lay on the table in the Bandarawela rest house, who knew every mark of trauma from his childhood—was that this head was not just how someone possibly looked, it was a specific person. It revealed a distinct personality, as real as the head of Sarath. As if she was finally meeting a person who had been described to her in letters, or someone she had once lifted up as a child who was now an adult.
She sat on the step. Sarath was walking towards the head and then walking backwards, away from it. Then he would turn, as if to catch it unawares. She just watched it point-blank, coming to terms with it. There was a serenity in the face she did not see too often these days. There was no tension. A face comfortable with itself. This was unexpected coming from such a scattered and unreliable presence as Ananda. When she turned she saw that he had gone.
‘It’s so peaceful.’ She spoke first.
‘Yes. That’s the trouble,’ Sarath said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’
‘I know. It’s what he wants of the dead.’
‘He’s younger-looking than I expected. I like the look on him. What do you mean by that? “What he wants of the dead”?’
‘We have seen so many heads stuck on poles here, these last few years. It was at its worst a couple of years ago. You’d see them in the early mornings, somebody’s night work, before the families heard about them and came and removed them and took them home. Wrapping them in their shirts or just cradling them. Someone’s son. These were blows to the heart. There was only one thing worse. That was when a family member simply disappeared and there was no sighting or evidence of his existence or his death. In 1989, forty-six students attending school in Ratnapura district and some of the staff who worked there disappeared. The vehicles that picked them up had no number plates. A yellow Lancer had been seen at the army camp and was recognized during the roundup. This was at the height of the campaign to wipe out insurgent rebels and their sympathizers in the villages. Ananda’s wife, Sirissa, disappeared at that time. . . .’
‘My God.’
‘He told me only recently.’
‘I . . . I feel ashamed.’
‘It’s been three years. He still hasn’t found her. He was not always like this. The head he has made is therefore peaceful.’
Anil rose and walked back into the dark rooms. She could no longer look at the face, saw only Ananda’s wife in every aspect of it. She sat down in one of the large cane chairs in the dining room and began weeping. She could not face Sarath with this. Her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she could see the rectangular shape of a painting and beside it Ananda standing still, looking through the blackness at her.
Who were you crying for? Ananda and his wife?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ananda, Sailor, their lovers. Your brother working himself to death. There’s only a mad logic here, no resolving. Your brother said something, he said, “You’ve got to have a sense of humour about all this—otherwise it makes no sense.” You must be in hell if you can seriously say things like that. We’ve become medieval. I saw your brother once before that night in the hospital with Gunesena. I’d cut myself badly and gone to Emergency Services to get some stitches. Your brother was there in a black coat and he was covered in blood, covered in blood reading a paperback. I’m sure now it was Gamini. I thought he looked familiar when I saw him with you. I thought he was a patient, part