Michael Ondaatje - Anil's Ghost

This rock hand could have been his wife’s hand. It had a similar darkness and age to it, a familiar softness. And with ease he could have re-created her life, their years together, with the remaining fragments of her room. Two pencils and a shawl would have been enough to mark and recall her world. But their life remained buried. Whatever motives she had for leaving him, whatever vices and faults and lack he had within him that drove her away had remained unsought by Sarath. He was a man who could walk past a stretch of field and imagine a meeting hall that had been burned to the ground there six hundred years before; he could turn to that absence and with a smoke smudge, a fingerprint, re-create the light and the postures of those sitting there during an evening’s ceremony. But he would unearth nothing of Ravina. This was not caused by any anger towards her, he was just unable to step back to the trauma of that place when he had talked in darkness, pretending there was light. But now, this afternoon, he had returned to the intricacies of the public world, with its various truths. He had acted in such a light. He knew he would not be forgiven that.

He and Gunesena pushed the trolley against the incline. There was hardly any air in the tunnel. Sarath put on the brake.

‘Get some water, Gunesena.’

Gunesena nodded. There was irritation in the formal gesture. He went off, leaving Sarath in the half-dark, and returned five minutes later with a beaker of water.

‘Was it boiled?’

Again Gunesena nodded. Sarath drank it and then got off the floor where he had been sitting. ‘I’m sorry, I was feeling faint.’

‘Yes, sir. I had a tumbler too.’

‘Good.’

He remembered Gunesena drinking the remnant of cordial, Anil holding the bottle, the night they had picked him up on the Kandy road.

They continued a while longer with the trolley. Pushed the double swing doors and broke out into daylight.

The noise and sun almost made him step back. They had come out into the officers’ parking lot. A few drivers stood in the shade of the one tree. Others remained within their cars, the air-conditioning purring. Sarath looked towards the main entrance but couldn’t see her. He was no longer sure she would make it out. The van that was to carry the skeleton they were going to give Anil pulled up beside them and Sarath supervised the loading. The young soldiers wanted to know everything that was going on. It had nothing to do with suspicion, they were just curious. Sarath desired some pause or quiet but he knew he would not get it. The questions were personal not official. Where was he from? How long had he been…? The only way he could escape them was to answer. When they began asking about the figure on the trolley, he waved his hands in front of his face and left Gunesena with them.

She hadn’t come out of the building. He knew, whatever had happened, he couldn’t go in looking for her. She would have to go through the hurdles of insult and humiliation and embarrassments on her own. It was almost an hour since he had last seen her.

He needed to keep busy. Beyond the fence a man was selling sliced pineapple so Sarath bought some through the barbed wire and sprinkled the salt-and-pepper mixture on it. A rupee for two slices. He could go into the lobby, out of the sunlight, but he didn’t know whether he could trust her not to lose her temper and endanger herself more.

An hour and a half now. When he turned and looked back for the fourth time he saw her at the doors. Just standing there, not moving, not knowing where she was or what she was supposed to do.

He came towards her, his fist clenched, his mind swirling.

‘Are you all right?’

She looked down, away from him.

‘Anil.’

She pulled her arm from him. He noticed she was carrying no briefcase. No papers. No forensic equipment. He put his hand on her chest to feel for the small test tubes in the inner pocket of her coat but they were not there. She didn’t react to that. Even in her state she did at least understand what he was doing.

‘I told you I would return to the walawwa.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘Everyone pays attention. My brother told you that. People knew you were in Colombo the moment you got here.’

‘Damn you.’

‘You have to leave now.’

‘No, thanks. No more help from you.’

‘Take the skeleton I’ve given you and get in the van. Go back to the ship with Gunesena.’

‘All my papers are in that building. I have to get them back.’

‘You’ll never get them back. Do you understand? Forget them. You will have to re-create them. You can buy new equipment in Europe. You can replace nearly everything. It’s just you who has to be safe.’

‘Thanks for your help. Keep your fucking skeleton.’

‘Gunesena, get the van.’

‘Listen…’ She swung her look towards him. ‘Tell him to take me home. I don’t think I can walk there. I really don’t want your fucking help. But I can’t walk. I was… in there…’

‘Go to the lab.’

‘Jesus, keep your-’

He slapped her hard. He was aware of people on the periphery, her gasp, her face as if it contained fever.

‘Go with the skeleton and work on it. You don’t have long. Don’t call me. Get it done overnight. They want a report in two days. But get it done tonight.’

She was so stunned by his behaviour she climbed slowly into the van, which had drawn up beside her. Sarath watched her. He handed Gunesena the pass through the window. He saw her lowered burning face as the van curled out of his sight.

There was no vehicle for him. He went past the guards at the gate, out onto the street, waved down a bajaj and gave the driver the address of his office. You could never settle back and relax in a bajaj; if you lost concentration you were in danger of falling out. But sitting forward, his head in his hands, he tried to lose touch with the world around him as the three-wheeler struggled through the traffic.

Anil climbed the gangplank, then walked along the upper deck. A harbour in the afternoon. She could hear whistles and horns in the far reaches of the port. She wanted openness and air, didn’t want to face the darkness in the hold. Farther down the quay she saw a man with a camera. Anil stepped back so he would be out of sight.

She knew she wouldn’t be staying here much longer, there was no wish in her to be here anymore. There was blood everywhere. A casual sense of massacre. She remembered what a woman at the Nadesan Centre had said to her. ‘I got out of the Civil Rights Movement partly because I couldn’t remember which massacre took place when and where…’

It was about five now. Anil found the arrack bottle and poured herself a glass, and walked the narrow steps down into the hold.

‘Everything all right, miss?’

‘Thank you, Gunesena. You can go.’

‘Yes, miss.’ Yet she knew he would stay with her, somewhere on the ship.

She turned on a lamp. There was the other set of tools, which belonged to Sarath. She heard the door close behind her.

She drank more arrack and spoke out loud, just to hear the echo in the dim light so she would not feel alone with the ancient skeleton she had been given. She cut the plastic wrapping with an X-acto knife and rolled it down. She recognized it immediately. But to be certain moved her right hand down to the heel and felt the notch in the bone that she had cut weeks earlier.

He had found Sailor. Slowly she directed another lamp onto him. The ribs like struts on a boat. She slid her hand between the arched bones and touched the tape recorder that was there, not believing this now, not yet, until she pressed the button and voices began filling the room around her. She had the information on tape. Their questions. And she had Sailor. She put her hand between the ribs again to press the button to stop it, but as she was about to, his voice came on, very clear and focused. He must have held the recorder close to his mouth as he whispered.