Michael Ondaatje - Anil's Ghost

‘I lost her a few years ago, she did-She killed herself.’

‘Jesus. I’m so sorry, Sarath. I’m so…’

His face had become vague. ‘She had left me a few months before.’

‘I’m sorry I asked. I always ask, I’m too curious. I drive people mad.’

Later, in the van, to break the longer silence. ‘Did you know my father? You’re how old?’

‘Forty-nine,’ Sarath said.

‘I’m thirty-three. Did you know him?’

‘I’ve heard of him. He was quite a bit older.’

‘I kept hearing my dad was a ladies’ man.’

‘I heard that too. If someone’s charming they say that.’

‘I think it was true. I just wish I had been older-to learn things from him. I wish I’d had that.’

‘There was a monk,’ Sarath said. ‘He and his brother were the best teachers in my life-and it was because they taught me when I was an adult. We need parents when we’re old too. I would meet him once or twice a year when he came to Colombo, and he’d somehow help me become simpler, clearer to myself. Nārada was a great laugher. He would laugh at your foibles. An ascetic. He stayed in a little room in a temple when he was in town. I’d visit him for a coffee, he sat on the bed, I sat on the one chair he’d bring in from the hall. Talking archaeology. He’d written a few pamphlets in Sinhala, but his brother, Palipana, was the famous one in that field, though there never seemed to be any jealousy between them. Nārada and Palipana. Two brilliant brothers. Both of them were my teachers.

‘Most of the time Nārada lived near Hambantota. My wife and I would go down to visit. You walked over hot dunes and came upon the commune for unemployed youth he’d set up by the sea.

‘We were all shaken by his murder. He was shot in his room while sleeping. I’ve had friends die who were my age, but I miss that old man more. I suppose I was expecting him to teach me how to be old. Anyway, once a year, on the anniversary of his death, my wife and I would cook the food he was especially fond of and drive south to the village he’d lived in. We were always closest on that day. And it made him eternal-“persistent” might be a better word-you felt he was there with the boys in the commune who loved the mallung and the condensed-milk desserts he was partial to.’

‘My parents died in a car crash after I left Sri Lanka. I never got a chance to see them again.’

‘I know. I heard your father was a good doctor.’

‘I should have been a doctor, but I swerved off into forensics. Didn’t want to be him at that time in my life, I guess. Then I didn’t want to come back here after my parents died.’

She was asleep when he touched her arm.

‘I see a river down there. Shall we have a swim?’

‘Here?’

‘Just down that hill.’

‘Oh, yes. I’d love to. Yes.’ They pulled towels out of their bags and clambered down.

‘I’ve not done this for years.’

‘It will be cold. You’re in the mountains, two thousand feet up.’

He was leading the way, more sprightly than she expected. Well, he’s an archaeologist, she thought. He got to the river and disappeared behind a rock to change. She yelled, ‘Just taking my dress off!’ to be sure he wouldn’t come back. ‘I’ll wear my underclothes.’ Anil was conscious of how dark it was around her on this slope of the forest, then saw they would be able to swim farther down to a pool full of sunlight.

When she reached the water, he was already swimming, looking up at the trees. She took two steps forward on the sharp stones and dove in with a belly flop. ‘Ah, a professional,’ she heard him drawl.

The brightness on her skin caused by the river’s coldness stayed with her during the last leg of the drive-small bumps of flesh on her forearm, the subliminal hairs upright. They had walked up the slope into the heat and light and she stood by the van drying her hair, beating it gently with her hands. She rolled her wet underclothes into the towel and wore just her dress as they travelled into the mountains.

‘At this altitude you get headaches,’ Sarath said. ‘There’s one good hotel in Bandarawela but we’ll stop and set up a work space at a rest house instead, what do you say? That way we can keep our equipment and findings with us.’

‘That monk you told me about. Who killed him?’

Sarath went on as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘And we’ll want to be near the site… There was a rumour that Nārada’s murder was organized by his own novice, that it was not a political killing as most thought at first. Those days you didn’t know who was killing who.’

Anil said, ‘But you do now, don’t you?’

‘Now we all have blood on our clothes.’

They walked with the owner through the rest house and Sarath selected three rooms.

‘The third room is full of mildew, but we’ll take the bed out and get the walls painted tonight. Turn it into an office and lab. This okay?’ She nodded and he turned back to the manager with instructions.

In 1911, prehistoric remains were discovered in the Bandarawela region and hundreds of caves and rock shelters began to be explored. Remains of cranial and dental fragments were found, as old as any in India.

It was here, within a government-protected archaeological preserve, that skeletons had once again been found, outside one of the Bandarawela caves.

During their first few days there, Sarath and Anil recorded and removed ancient debris-freshwater and arboreal gastropods, bone fragments of birds and mammals, even fish bones from distant eras of the sea. The region felt timeless. They found charred epicarps of wild breadfruit that still grew in the region, even now, twenty thousand years later.

Three almost complete skeletons had been found. But a few days later, while excavating in the far reaches of a cave, Anil discovered a fourth skeleton, whose bones were still held together by dried ligaments, partially burned. Something not prehistoric.

‘Listen,’ she said (they were in the rest house looking at the body), ‘there are trace elements you can find in bones-mercury, lead, arsenic, even gold-that don’t belong to them, they seep in from the surrounding soil. Or they can move from the bones into the adjacent soil. These elements are always passing into and out of bones, whether they are in coffins or not. Well, in this skeleton, there are traces of lead all over him. But there is no lead in this cave where we found him, the soil samples show none. Do you see? He must have been buried somewhere else before. Someone took precautions to make sure the skeleton was not discovered. This is no ordinary murder or burial. They buried him, then later moved him to an older gravesite.’

‘Burying a body and then moving it is not necessarily a crime.’

‘It’s a probable crime, no?’

‘Not if we find a reason.’

‘All right. Look. Use that pen and move it along the bone. That way you can see the twist in the bone clearly. It’s not as straight as it should be. There’s also transverse cracking, but we’ll leave that for now, just more proof.’

‘Of what?’

‘Twisting happens to bones that get burned when they are “green,” that is, flesh-covered. An old body whose flesh withered away with time and then was burned later on-that’s the pattern with most of the Bandarawela skeletons. This one was barely dead, Sarath, when they tried to burn him. Or worse, they tried to burn him alive.’

She had to wait a long time for him to say something. In the freshly painted room at the rest house, the four cafeteria tables each held a skeleton. They had labelled the bodies TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SAILOR. The one she was talking about was Sailor. They faced each other across the table.

‘Can you imagine how many bodies must be buried all over the island?’ he finally asked. He was not denying anything she had said.