Every time you look around, the tree has changed texture. The bark is a different shade of coffee, the leaves are flecked with gold, the foliage veers between rainforest and moss. It could be the light, your imagination, or neither.
The hot air fills with the groans of traffic, the yawns of dogs and the slither of spirits. You empty yourself of thoughts and let the faces come to you, faces you recognise and cannot name. Among them is a large white man, a man with a crown, a dark lady with ruby lips and a boy with a moustache.
The faces turn to playing cards. A Diamond Ace, a Club King, a Queen of Spades and a Jack of Hearts flutter before you and that’s when you start to hear. At first a whisper, then a word, then many, then millions. The whispers weave into one another, some create harmony, some static.
Then like ants with mics crawling over a carcass. Then like pebbles in plastic boxes shaken by horrid children. Then like Portuguese, Dutch and Tamil spoken at the same time. The airwaves are jammed with spirits cursing. Each voice hissing into the ether, screaming at the universe, bellowing into unused frequencies.
And then you hear the name. It is said once, then repeated, then shouted.
‘His name is Malinda Almeida. He works for the British Consulate.’
‘We don’t know any Lorenzo Almeida.’
‘You think this is a joke? Malinda Almeida. I have a letter from Minister Stanley Dharmendran. Will you kindly check?’
You know the voice and you have heard it angry on many occasions. You look around and the tree is reduced to brush strokes, an impressionist painting of greens and golds with nothing to focus on. Next to you, Comrade Sena Pathirana is smiling. He gives you a mock salute as you evaporate before his dead eyes. Twenty Mothers
‘His full name is Malinda Almeida Kabalana,’ says the young man with the spiky hair. ‘This is a copy of his ID. Can you check, please?’
‘It says here Malinda Albert Kabalana,’ says the assistant superintendent of police. ‘You don’t know your friend’s name?’
‘Yes,’ says the old lady in the corner. ‘Bertie was the father’s name. He changed it after the father left.’
‘We’ll use the name on his ID,’ says the Detective at the desk.
For the past year, the city’s police stations have entertained wailing parents inquiring after sons and daughters who never came home. On busy days, they round the worried and the frantic into poorly ventilated corridors and make them queue all the way to the cycle bay.
There are three mothers sweating in the hallway, their cries now silent. Inside, a beautiful boy leans across a desk and shows a photograph to the police. The young man, his spiky hair, the two women and their contrasting handbags have all managed to jump this endless queue.
‘I’m Dilan Dharmendran. My father is Minister Stanley Dharmendran,’ says the beautiful boy. ‘This is Malinda’s mother. This, his girlfriend. Yesterday morning since he missing.’
DD spoke Sinhala as well as Mahagama Sekara spoke Afrikaans. And, when he was nervous, he lost all syntax.
‘Sorry, but nothing to be done,’ says the ASP standing at the doorway. ‘You must understand. Until seventy-two hours we can’t call him missing.’
‘Has he been arrested?’ asks the girl in the red dress. ‘Can you check on that, please?’
The young lady wears silver earrings, black lipstick and dark mascara that trickles down her cheek. She wraps herself in a jacket as a draught enters the room, despite all windows being closed. You float on it and perch on the sill.
‘What are your names, please?’ says the older woman, putting her hand on the girl’s shoulder.
‘I’m ASP Ranchagoda. That is Detective Cassim. He will note your complaint. But cannot file report for three days, very sorry.’
Dilan Dharmendran looks at both ladies. One in her seventies, one in her twenties, one scowling, one crying.
Detective Cassim is stocky and fidgety, like a chubby child in uniform. Ranchagoda’s body looks made of coat hangers and his uniform drapes upon it. Cassim hands over a form and peers through the doorway as more mothers enter the lobby flanked by men in sarongs.
‘Madam, please fill this. Mr Dharmendran. When you last see Malinda Albert Kabalana?’
‘Almeida. He was away in Jaffna since last week. He called my office yesterday, said he was back in Colombo.’ says DD. ‘He said he had big news and he’d call me later that night.’
DD takes a deep breath and pulls at the chain around his neck. ‘He didn’t call.’
‘Maybe he’s still outstation.’
‘His bags are back at the flat. His damp towel’s hanging in the bathroom. He called my office from our flat. Said he had to meet some clients. Then he’d call me.’
‘What clients?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘It’s very dangerous these days in Jaffna. Why was he there?’
‘He was on a work assignment.’
‘What kind of work?’
‘He is a photographer.’
‘Weddings?’
‘Newspapers.’
‘For?’
‘He does work for the army, the Associated Press, a few other news agencies,’ says the little girl with the big hair, the only one who listened to you recount your day.
‘Sri Lankan Army?’
‘That was a few years ago. He’s not with them now.’
‘Then he might be doing another assignment for a newspaper, no?’ ASP Ranchagoda has turned his attention from the corridor. His head wobbles as if it is unconnected to his shoulders.
‘He tells us when he goes outstation. He calls us when he’s back,’ says DD. ‘He was supposed to pick up Jaki this morning. Not a word.’
‘I do the night show at SLBC,’ says Jaki. ‘Maali always picks me up.’
Detective Cassim looks up from the illegible things he is scrawling. He turns to the older woman. You know her as Amma.
‘Madam, why don’t you all go home and see if he comes back.’
‘You think we’re here for a joke?’ snarls Amma. ‘He called me yesterday. We haven’t spoken in months. Said he wanted to meet for lunch. Which he never does. Something wasn’t right. I knew it then.’
What? Lunch with Amma. The last time you did that, Elvis was still in the building. You shake your camera, hoping it will dislodge a memory that would make all of this make sense. But the lens stays muddy.
Detective Cassim and ASP Ranchagoda exchange a look that is noticed by everyone in the room. The former nods, while the latter shakes his head.
‘You all have ID?’
DD extracts a card from the wallet you gave him two birthdays ago. Your Amma, who lost her ID to a washing machine, pulls a maroon Lankan passport from a leather bag. Jaki produces a blue British one from a cloth bag and rubs a hanky over her eyes.
Detective Cassim moves his lips as he transcribes. The ASP walks over to peer over his shoulder.
‘Jacqueline Vairavanathan. Twenty-five. Tamil,’ says ASP Ranchagoda. ‘Lakshmi Almeida. Seventy-three. Burgher.’ He looks to the older lady. ‘Malinda Kabalana is a Sinhalese name, no?’
The lady looks up from the form she is filling. She speaks in a voice as cold as her stare. ‘His father was Sinhalese. I am Burgher. We are Sri Lankan. Is there an issue?’
‘No issue, madam. No issue.’
Ranchagoda makes a laugh so awkward it sounds like a snort.
Outside in the waiting room, there is wailing. Ranchagoda walks outside to console the weeping woman. He does so by pulling out his baton and asking a constable to remove her.
‘You have checked the hospitals?’
‘Yes. And the casinos,’ says Jaki.
‘He’s gambling again?’ asks DD.
‘He’s a gambler?’ asks Detective Cassim.
DD says no and Jaki says yes, and mother dearest shakes her head and looks at her purse.
‘You come back Thursday, ah,’ says ASP Ranchagoda, nodding as the Detective pushes his pen across a paper no one will read. ‘Nothing we can do till then. Nowadays, so many missing cases.’