Michael Ondaatje - Anil's Ghost

Another page reveals just bird life. The twenty species of bird out of the four hundred native to Sri Lanka, such as the blue magpie, the Indian blue chat, the six families of the bulbul, the pied ground thrush with its fading hoot, the teal, the shoveller, ‘false vampires,’ pintail snipes, Indian coursers, pale harriers in the clouds. On the reptile map are locations of the green pit viper pala-polanga, which in daylight, when it cannot see well, attacks blindly, leaping to where it thinks humans are, fangs bared like a dog, leaping again and again towards a now hushed and fearful quietness.

Sea-locked, the country lives under two basic monsoon systems-the Siberian High during the northern hemisphere winter and the Mascarene High during the southern hemisphere winter. So the northeast trades come between December and March, while the southeast trades travel in from May to September. During the other months mild sea winds approach the land during the day and reverse their direction during the night.

There are pages of isobars and altitudes. There are no city names. Only the unknown and unvisited town of Maha Illupalama is sometimes noted, where the Department of Meteorology once, in the 1930s, in what now seems a medieval time, compiled and recorded winds and rainfall and barometric pressure. There are no river names. No depiction of human life.

Kumara Wijetunga, 17. 6th November 1989. At about 11:30 p.m. from his house.

Prabath Kumara, 16. 17th November 1989. At 3:20 a.m. from the home of a friend.

Kumara Arachchi, 16. 17th November 1989. At about midnight from his house.

Manelka da Silva, 17. 1st December 1989. While playing cricket, Embilipitiya Central College playground.

Jatunga Gunesena, 23. 11th December 1989. At 10:30 a.m. near his house while talking to a friend.

Prasantha Handuwela, 17. 17th December 1989. At about 10:15 a.m. close to the tyre centre, Embilipitiya.

Prasanna Jayawarna, 17. 18th December 1989. At 3:30 p.m. near the Chandrika reservoir.

Podi Wickramage, 49. 19th December 1989. At 7:30 a.m. while walking along the road to the centre of Embilipitiya town.

Narlin Gooneratne, 17. 26th December 1989. At about 5:00 p.m. at a teashop 15 yards from Serena army camp.

Weeratunga Samaraweera, 30. 7th January 1990. At 5:00 p.m. while going for a bath at Hulandawa Panamura.

The colour of a shirt. The sarong’s pattern. The hour of disappearance.

Inside the Civil Rights Movement offices at the Nadesan Centre were the fragments of collected information revealing the last sighting of a son, a younger brother, a father. In the letters of anguish from family members were the details of hour, location, apparel, the activity… Going for a bath. Talking to a friend…

In the shadows of war and politics there came to be surreal turns of cause and effect. At a mass grave found in Naipattimunai in 1985, bloodstained clothing was identified by a parent as that worn by his son at the time of his arrest and disappearance. When an ID card was found in a shirt pocket, the police called an immediate halt to the unburial, and the following day the president of the Citizens’ Committee-who had brought the police to the location-was arrested. The identity of others in this grave in the Eastern Province -how they died, who they were-was never discovered. The warden of an orphanage who reported cases of annihilation was jailed. A human rights lawyer was shot and the body removed by army personnel.

Anil had been sent reports collected by the various human rights groups before leaving the United States. Early investigations had led to no arrests, and protests from organizations had never reached even the mid-level of police or government. Requests for help by parents in their search for teenagers were impotent. Still, everything was grabbed and collected as evidence, everything that could be held on to in the windstorm of news was copied and sent abroad to strangers in Geneva.

Anil picked up reports and opened folders that listed disappearances and killings. The last thing she wished to return to every day was this. And every day she returned to it.

There had been continual emergency from 1983 onwards, racial attacks and political killings. The terrorism of the separatist guerrilla groups, who were fighting for a homeland in the north. The insurrection of the insurgents in the south, against the government. The counterterrorism of the special forces against both of them. The disposal of bodies by fire. The disposal of bodies in rivers or the sea. The hiding and then reburial of corpses.

It was a Hundred Years’ War with modern weaponry, and backers on the sidelines in safe countries, a war sponsored by gun- and drug-runners. It became evident that political enemies were secretly joined in financial arms deals. ‘The reason for war was war.’

Sarath drove into the high altitudes, climbing east towards Bandarawela, where the three skeletons had been found. He and Anil had left Colombo several hours earlier and were now in the mountains.

‘You know, I’d believe your arguments more if you lived here,’ he said. ‘You can’t just slip in, make a discovery and leave.’

‘You want me to censor myself.’

‘I want you to understand the archaeological surround of a fact. Or you’ll be like one of those journalists who file reports about flies and scabs while staying at the Galle Face Hotel. That false empathy and blame.’

‘You have a hang-up about journalists, don’t you.’

‘That’s how we get seen in the West. It’s different here, dangerous. Sometimes law is on the side of power not truth.’

‘I just feel I’ve been cooling my heels ever since I got here. Doors that should be open are closed. We’re here to supposedly investigate disappearances. But I go to offices and I can’t get in. Our purpose here seems to be the result of a gesture.’ Then she said, ‘That small piece of bone I found, the first day in the hold, you knew it wasn’t old, didn’t you?’

Sarath said nothing. So she continued. ‘When I was in Central America there was a villager who said to us: When soldiers burned our village they said this is the law, so I thought the law meant the right of the army to kill us.’

‘Be careful what you reveal.’

‘And who I would reveal it to.’

‘That too, yes.’

‘I was invited here.’

‘International investigations don’t mean a lot.’

‘Was it difficult getting the permit for us to work in the caves?’

‘It was difficult.’

She had been taping his remarks about archaeology in this part of the island. Now the conversation strayed onto other subjects, and she eventually asked him about the ‘Silver President’-the populace’s nickname for President Katugala because of his shock of white hair. What was Katugala really like? Sarath was silent. Then his hand reached over and took the tape recorder from her lap. ‘Is your tape recorder off?’ He made sure it was switched off and only then answered her question. The last time she had used the machine was at least an hour earlier; it lay there forgotten by her. But he hadn’t forgotten.

They turned off the road and stopped at a rest house, ordered lunch and sat outside above a deep valley.

‘Look at that bird, Sarath.’

‘A bulbul.’

She put herself into the position of the bird as it took off, and was suddenly vertiginous, realizing how high they were above the valley, the landscape like a green fjord beneath them. In the distance the open plain was bleached white, resembling the sea.

‘You know birds, do you?’

‘Yes. My wife knew them well.’

Anil said nothing, waiting for him to say more or to formally digress from the subject. But he stayed in his silence.

‘Where is your wife?’ she asked finally.