Since the death of his wife, Sarath had never found the old road back into the world. He broke with his in-laws. The unopened letters of condolence were left in her study. They were, in reality, for her anyway. He returned to archaeology and hid his life in his work. He organized excavations in Chilaw. The young men and women he trained knew little about what had occurred in his life and he was therefore most comfortable among them. He showed them how to place strips of wet plaster on bone, how to gather and file mica, when to transport objects, when to leave them in situ. He ate with them and was open to any question in regard to work. Nothing was held back that he knew or could guess at in their field. Everyone who worked with him accepted the moats of privacy he had established around himself. He returned to his tent tired after their day of coastal excavations. He was in his mid-forties, though he seemed older to the apprentices. He waited until the early evening, until the others had finished swimming in the sea, before he walked into the water, disappearing within its darkness. At this dark hour, out deep, there were sometimes rogue tides that would not let you return, that insisted you away. Alone in the waves he would let go of himself, his body flung around as if in a dance, only his head in the air rational to what surrounded him, the imperceptible glint of large waves that he would slip beneath as they rose above him.
He had grown up loving the sea. When he was a boy at school at St. Thomas ’s, the sea was just across the railway lines. And whatever coast he was on-at Hambantota, in Chilaw, in Trincomalee-he would watch fishermen in catamarans travel out at dusk till they faded into the night just beyond a boy’s vision. As if parting or death or disappearance were simply the elimination of sight in the onlooker.
Patterns of death always surrounded him. In his work he felt he was somehow the link between the mortality of flesh and bone and the immortality of an image on rock, or even, more strangely, its immortality as a result of faith or an idea. So the removal of a wise sixth-century head, the dropping off of arms and hands of rock as a result of the fatigue of centuries, existed alongside human fate. He would hold statues two thousand years old in his arms. Or place his hand against old, warm rock that had been cut into a human shape. He found comfort in seeing his dark flesh against it. This was his pleasure. Not conversation or the education of others or power, but simply to place his hand against a gal vihara, a living stone whose temperature was dependent on the hour, whose look of porousness would change depending on rain or a quick twilight.
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.’