THE
SEVEN MOONS OF
MAALI ALMEIDA
SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Aadhil Aziz, Aftab Aziz, Amrit Dayananda, Andi Schubert, ARL Wijesekera, Arosha Perera, Arun Welandawe-Prematileke, ASH Smyth, Chanaka de Silva, Chiki Sarkar, Chula Karunatilaka, Cormac McCarthy, David Blacker, Daya Pathirana, Deshan Tennekoon, Diresh Thevanayagam, Diya Kar, Douglas Adams, Erid Perera, Ernest Ley, Faiza Sultan Khan, George Saunders, Haw Par Villa, Imal Desa, Jeet Thayil, Jehan Mendis, Kurt Vonnegut, Lakshman Nadaraja, Ledig House, Mark Ellingham, Marissa Jansz, Meru Gokhole, Michael Meyler, Nandadeva Wijesekera, Natasha Ginwala, Naresh Ratwatte, Nigel de Zilwa, Pakiasothy Sarvanamuttu, Patsy de Silva, Philips Hue, Piers Eccleston, Prasad Pereira, Rajan Hoole, Rajeeve Bernard, Rajini Thiranagama, Ramya Chamalie Jirasinghe, Ravin Fernando, Richard de Zoysa, Rohan Gunaratna, Rohitha Perera, Roshan de Silva, Russell Tennekoon, Shanaka Amarasinghe, Smriti Daniel, Stanley Greene, Stefan Andre Joachim, Steve de la Zilwa, Stephen Champion, Sunitha Tennekoon, Tracy Holsinger, Victor Ivan, William McGowan, www.existentialcomics.com, www.iam.lk, www.pinterest.com.
Special thanks: Natania Jansz, Eranga Tennekoon, Lalith Karunatilaka, Kanishka Gupta, Manasi Subramaniam, David Godwin. Andrew Fidel Fernando, Govind Dhar, Wendy Holsinger, Jan Ramesh de Schoning, Mohammed Hanif.
Drawings by Lalith Karunatilaka.
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a work of fiction. Its characters are imagined. However, some politicians and others, active at the time the book takes place (1989/90), are mentioned by their real names.
For Chula,
Eranga
and Luca
THE
SEVEN MOONS OF
MAALI ALMEIDA
There are only two gods worth worshipping.
Chance and electricity.
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
FIRST MOON
SECOND MOON
THIRD MOON
FOURTH MOON
FIFTH MOON
SIXTH MOON
SEVENTH MOON
THE LIGHT
COPYRIGHT
FIRST MOON
Father, forgive them,
for I will never.
Richard de Zoysa
‘Good Friday 1975’
Answers
You wake up with the answer to the question that everyone asks. The answer is Yes, and the answer is Just Like Here But Worse. That’s all the insight you’ll ever get. So you might as well go back to sleep.
You were born without a heartbeat and kept alive in an incubator. And, even as a foetus out of water, you knew what the Buddha sat under trees to discover. It is better to not be reborn. Better to never bother. Should have followed your gut and croaked in the box you were born into. But you didn’t.
So you quit each game they made you play. Two weeks of chess, a month in Cub Scouts, three minutes in rugger. You left school with a hatred of teams and games and morons who valued them. You quit art class and insurance-selling and masters’ degrees. Each a game that you couldn’t be arsed playing. You dumped everyone who ever saw you naked. Abandoned every cause you ever fought for. And did many things you can’t tell anyone about.
If you had a business card, this is what it would say.
Maali Almeida
Photographer. Gambler. Slut.
If you had a gravestone, it would say:
Malinda Albert Kabalana
1955–1990
But you have neither. And you have no more chips left at this table. And you now know what others do not. You have the answer to the following questions. Is there life after death? What’s it like? Soon You Will Wake
It started ages ago, a thousand centuries ago, but let’s skip all those yesterdays and begin last Tuesday. It is a day you wake up hungover and empty of thought, which is true of most days. You wake up in an endless waiting room. You look around and it’s a dream and, for once, you know it’s a dream and you’re happy to wait it out. All things pass, especially dreams.
You are wearing a safari jacket and faded jeans and cannot remember how you got here. You wear one shoe and have three chains and a camera around your neck. The camera is your trusty Nikon 3ST, though its lens is smashed and its casing is cracked. You look through the viewfinder and all you see is mud. Time to wake up, Maali boy. You pinch yourself and it hurts, less like a short stab and more like the hollow ache of an insult.
You know what it’s like to not trust your own mind. That LSD trip at the Smoking Rock Circus in 1973, hugging an araliya tree in Viharamahadevi Park for three hours. The ninety-hour poker marathon, where you won seventeen lakhs and then lost fifteen of them. Your first shelling in Mullaitivu 1984, stuffed in a bunker of terrified parents and screaming children. Waking in hospital, aged nineteen, not remembering your Amma’s face or how much you loathed it.
You are in a queue, shouting at a woman in a white sari seated behind a fibreglass counter. Who hasn’t been furious at women behind counters before? Certainly not you. Most Lankans are silent seethers, but you like to complain at the top of your lungs.
‘Not saying your fault. Not saying my fault. But mistakes happen, no? Especially in government offices. What to do?’
‘This is not a government office.’
‘I don’t care, Aunty. I’m just saying, I can’t be here, I have photos to share. I’m in a committed relationship.’
‘I am not your Aunty.’
You look around. Behind you, a queue weaves around pillars and snakes along the walls. The air is foggy, though no one appears to be exhaling smoke or carbon dioxide. It looks like a car park with no cars, or a market space with nothing to sell. The ceiling is high and held by concrete pylons placed at irregular intervals across a sprawling yard. What appear to be large lift doors mark the far end and human shapes crowd in and out of them.
Even close up, the figures look blurry-edged with talcum skin and have eyes that blaze in colours not customary for brown folk. Some are dressed in hospital smocks; some have dried blood on their clothes; some are missing limbs. All are shouting at the woman in white. She seems to be having conversations with each of you at the same time. Maybe everyone is asking the same questions. If you were a betting man (which you are), you’d take 5/8 on this being a hallucination, most likely induced by Jaki’s silly pills.
The woman opens a large register. She looks you up and down with neither interest nor scorn. ‘First must confirm details. Name?’
‘Malinda Albert Kabalana.’
‘One syllable, please.’
‘Maali.’
‘You know what a syllable is?’
‘Maal.’
‘Thank you. Religion?’
‘None.’
‘How silly. Cause of death?’
‘Don’t remember.’
‘Time since death?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Aiyo.’
The swarm of souls presses closer, berating and badgering the woman in white. You gaze upon the pallid faces, sunken eyes in broken heads, squinted in rage and pain and confusion. The pupils are in shades of bruises and scabs. Scrambled browns, blues and greens – all of which disregard you. You have lived in refugee camps, visited street markets at noon, and fallen asleep at packed casinos. The heave of humanity is never picturesque. This heave throngs towards you and heaves you away from the counter.