‘How do I find out?’
‘About yakas?’
‘About how I died.’
‘Thought you weren’t interested.’
‘Thought you said you knew.’
Sena fiddles with his garbage bag cloak.
‘I’m not your Helper, sir. I only help those who help me. If you don’t want my help, I can leave.’
‘You sound like the UN.’
The morning sun is completing its ascent. The road has filled with cars and folk wandering towards lunch. You look down at the blood on your clothes. Doesn’t look like you died in your sleep. The LTTE took out Dr Ranee Sridharan, the government took out Richard de Zoysa, the JVP took out movie heart-throb Vijaya Kumaratunga. So who took you?
The trees are lined with eyes and the pathway is blocked by ghouls. There are three funerals in session and each is attended by a throng of spirits. Sena tells you that ghosts love funerals more than humans love weddings.
You have to push through the wind and are blown across graves of Colombo’s dead. Here lie hero soldiers, slain politicos, journos with big mouths. You look for familiar faces, celebrities like Dr Ranee or Prince Vijaya perhaps. All you see are spirits as anonymous and as forgotten as they were in life. And among the bombed, the burned and disappeared is you, cause of death as yet undetermined.
‘How come ghosts stay here?’ you ask.
‘It’s where their bodies are,’ says Sena.
‘What about the ones who don’t have graves?’
‘Keep your eyes down. Do not talk to anything.’
The heat does nothing to deter the ghosts who cavort along the pathway. Two funerals are in procession and are well attended by ghouls and pretas, the hungriest of all ghosts, both looking for people to confuse and steal from.
Sena leads you to the crematorium building which is less crowded than the pathways through the graves. The two Engineering students stand by the crematorium wall next to a barrel of charcoal. Sena reaches into the barrel and rubs his hands. He then floats to the wall and starts marking out letters on it. He fills it with six names written in charcoal. The Engineering students look on in awe.
Drivermalli
Balal
Kottu
The Mask
Major Raja
Minister Cyril
He lets the hood fall from his face. He looks at the students and then you.
‘This is the death squad that killed me months ago. It killed you two last week. And it killed Maali-Sir last night.’
‘Has this been confirmed by a reliable source?’
‘I will make them all suffer. Each one. Will you help me?’
The Engineering students bow their heads and Sena smiles.
‘How will you make them suffer?’
‘I have a plan.’
You are used to having people you don’t trust talk you into things you don’t want to do. Not this time.
‘Sorry, Comrade Sena. I’d love to learn how to write on walls. But I need to go.’
‘Don’t call me comrade, Maali hamu. You are just a champagne socialist.’
‘Why call me hamu? I’m not your master.’
‘From a young age, we are brainwashed into calling mediocre people “hamu” and “sir”. It is part of growing up poor. I have worked as a servant boy. I sold vegetables on the street even after I got my degree. The only way we can enter parts of this city is by calling the rich “sir”.’
You listen at the wind and think of all the things you never understood. ‘My friends. My mother. I have to see them.’
‘Why?’
‘To tell DD I’m sorry. To tell Jaki about the box. To tell Amma that I blame Dada.’
‘That’s touching, sir, but we have work.’
‘I need to see them.’
‘I didn’t rescue you to talk baila.’
‘I didn’t ask you to rescue me.’
‘No one asks for anything. No one asks to be born poor, no one asks for disease, no one asks to be born queer.’
‘I am not queer,’ you say, as you have said many times before.
‘Did hamu lose his mind when they threw him off the roof? Or did you lose it at some Colombo 7 drug party?’
‘I live in Colombo 2. Who says I was thrown off a roof?’
‘Look at your broken body. Maybe your mind broke too.’
You look down and see only the absence of a slipper. Like Cinderella, except your half-sisters in Missouri weren’t as wicked as you were.
‘Every godaya envies Colombo 7. I needed a lot of silly pills to get through those parties.’
‘You don’t remember joining the JVP, do you?’
‘I don’t remember dying. I don’t remember a death squad. I don’t remember being thrown off roofs.’
‘So you’re only interested in photographing the poor. Not in helping them.’
‘OK, OK. If I help you, will you stop preaching?’
‘Of course.’
‘And will you help me?’
‘Why not?’
You are getting the hang of riding winds, though you struggle to explain it to yourself. Like gravity is a bus that lets you hang on its footboards. Like holding your breath until your breath holds you. Like a magic carpet without the carpet bit. You float like a particle must do when it’s tipsy. But which wind will take you to DD?
‘When they chop up your corpse, it doesn’t matter if you’re campus Marxist or café Marxist. Grass-roots socialist or champagne socialist. The flies will shit on you and the maggots will munch.’
Sena’s garbage bag cape flutters behind him. He looks less like a superman and more like a broken umbrella.
‘Where we going?’ you ask.
‘The mara tree at the edge of the kanatte.’
‘What for?’
‘I am helping you.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t believe in many things. But I believe in mara trees.’
The mara tree stretches its limbs across shaggy grass and toppled rock. On every branch is a creature hanging by its claws. Rats, snakes and polecats hide among tombstones. There are many shadows to disappear into, though no one present appears to cast one. Sena climbs to a vacant branch and you follow. ‘Why are we sitting here?’ you ask.
‘Mara trees catch winds. Like radios catch frequencies. So do bo trees, banyan trees and probably any other big tree that blows wind.’
‘I thought the wind blows the trees.’
‘Your grandfather thought the world was flat. Do you want to be a ghost or a ghoul?’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘A ghost blows with the wind. A ghoul directs the wind.’
‘What are we doing here?’
‘If you quiet your mind, you may hear your name spoken. If you hear your name, you can go there. Do it while your corpse is fresh, so to speak. After ninety moons, no one will care about your Colombo 7 arse.’
‘I liked it better when you were calling me “sir”.’
You snort and look around at meditating spirits. Everyone on the tree mutters while rocking back and forth. It is tough to know who is in meditation and who is catatonic.
‘Silence your mind and listen,’ he says.
‘I haven’t meditated since the ’70s,’ you reply.
‘Meditation is only for those who have breath.’
‘What am I listening for?’
‘Your name. Have you forgotten that also? Hear your name spoken, share in its shame.’
‘Where did you learn poetry?’
‘Because I went to Sri Bodhi College, I can’t know poetry?’
‘How many chips does that shoulder carry?’
‘Listen!’
The sun is beginning its descent and the light has begun to play its tricks. The funeral processions scatter, while more hearses roll towards more graves. You remain still and listen for a song in your head. There is none. Not even Elvis or Freddie.