Come to the Leo Bar at 11 p.m. tonight.
I will have news.
Love, Maal.
You had left it on DD’s badminton racket and, while it was possible that DD had read it and given it to his Appa, the odds are six to seven to one that Appa found it first.
‘Would you like something to drink, Malinda?’
‘I’m actually meeting DD at 11 p.m.’
‘He was in bed when I left. I don’t think he’ll be coming.’
‘He didn’t get my note?’
‘You left it on the wrong racket.’
‘But I spoke with him.’
‘Did you? Jesus, Maali. We don’t talk for weeks. And now you want to party.’ Stanley elongated his vowels, so his accent resembled the British public school poshness that DD kept trying to shed in public. Father and son shared the same walk, the same skin and the same toffee voice.
‘So what did you want to tell my son?’
‘None of your business, Uncle Stanley.’
‘Fair enough. This won’t take long,’ said Stanley. ‘I just came to ask you one thing.’
You noticed that the bar downstairs had gone quiet and that no one was likely to trespass on this terrace, unless they were looking for an illicit smooch.
‘I’m waiting for the punchline, Uncle.’
‘In the note you say you have news. I am not interested in your news. I just want to know one thing. What is your price?’
‘Price?’
‘How much will it take for you to be gone from Dilan’s life?’
‘Maybe a million dollars,’ you say with a smirk. ‘Or the amount they paid you to join the Cabinet. Whichever’s larger.’
Stanley doesn’t appear offended.
‘There must be a realistic figure.’
‘If DD wants to kick me out of his life, he can tell me himself. I’m hardly around, anyway.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been up north reporting on the IPKF.’
‘For whom?’
‘None of your business, Uncle Stanley.’
‘Dilan thinks it’s the army, but apparently you haven’t worked there for years.’
‘They called me to cover Wijeweera’s capture.’
‘They say you were sacked for being HIV-positive.’
‘That’s untrue.’
‘Have you checked?’
‘I’m positive. That I don’t have AIDS.’
An old punchline, delivered with Stanley’s cadence.
‘Dilan is a good boy. A brilliant boy. But he is distracted. I think it is best for him to focus. Don’t you?’
‘So, he should join your firm and hide money for rich thieves?’
Uncle Stanley lights a cigarette and passes you the pack. Of course he would smoke Benson and Hedges, a brand that tasted of imperialism, despite being made in the same factory as Gold Leaf and Bristol. You take one and light it and watch the tip flare like a filament and then fade to soot. He watches you struggle with the matches but does not offer his lighter. DD boasted that his Appa had given up a two-pack habit after their mother croaked and how you could too if you listened to him.
‘I thought you gave up.’
‘Dilan didn’t smoke till he met you. He used to blame me for his mother’s cancer. We’ve had rough times but we’re OK now. He is what I have. You must understand this.’
You puffed and wondered how you could extricate yourself from this chat. A bathroom break, perhaps.
‘You were doing an unnatural act with that waiter, no? Have you tried that with my son?’
Stanley is leaning forward and smoking his Benson through a cupped hand.
‘Why is it unnatural?’
‘This is my son, you pig. I didn’t send him to Cambridge to come home and get AIDS from a queer.’
The bodyguards in the corner are also smoking. They take a step forward when Stanley raises his voice and then step back when his hand goes up.
‘You raised a pampered fool who knows nothing of this land or its people. I opened his eyes.’
‘It is easy for a Malinda Kabalana to preach. You mix a young Tamil boy in your politics and you know what happens.’
‘I would never put DD in danger.’
‘That’s why you invited him to Jaffna?’
‘I would have looked after him,’ you say.
‘You wrote the word “Love” on this note. This is not natural.’
‘Marriage is not natural. Cutlery isn’t. Nor is religion. It’s all man-made shit.’
‘What would you know of love?’
‘I care for him more than you do.’
‘Then. You will take this money. And you will go.’
You looked at the sack on the table and the rupee notes on it.
‘You caught me on a good night. Tonight finds me debt-free. I have quit all my clients. And I’m ready to go wherever DD wants. San Francisco, Tokyo, Timbuktu. I’m done with this shithole. And he’ll be safer abroad.’
Stanley smoked silently and watched your face. You imagine a chessboard between you, his bishop versus your knight, both of you scheming to turn your pawn into a queen. But all that is on the table is an almost empty pack of Bensons, and a wad of cash that costs too much.
‘Will you let him do his doctorate?’
‘Whatever he wants.’
‘And what will you do?’
‘Photograph weddings and bar mitzvahs. Maybe get back into insurance. Whatever.’
‘And the gambling habit?’
‘I’m done.’
It didn’t feel like a lie when you said it this time.
‘Will you keep doing unnatural acts with bartenders?’
You paused and you considered and you took a breath.
‘No, sir. I will be true to DD. And no one else.’
Stanley stubbed out the last cigarette and smiled. ‘That’s all I needed to hear, putha.’ He raises his hand again and two shadows emerge from the dark.
You had seen them around the casinos many times before you knew who they were. In the years since 1983, Balal Ajith had shaved his beard and Kottu Nihal had acquired a belly, so you did not recognise them from the photos you enlarged at the behest of the Dark Queen and the Handsome Jack. The beast with the cleaver and the man lighting the fire.
How strange for the lone Tamil Cabinet Minister to be working with two thugs from ’83, you thought, as they grabbed you and held you down. A stack of notes fell from your jeans and Kottu pocketed it, while Balal pulled on the things around your neck. You felt the chains cutting into your nape and you knew what each one felt like. The black string of the Panchayudha was coarse, the silver chain of the ankh was cool, and the twine of the cyanide capsules drew blood. As you felt your skin being garrotted, you thought that if they wanted to throttle you they should be pulling from the other end.
‘I had all your chains cursed by a holy man. That’s when I saw these capsules. Why should you wear a capsule around your neck if you are not a terrorist? Why garland yourself in poison unless you are ready to die?’
You could explain to Stanley that you did it in case you were captured, you did it in case someone else needed it, you did it to remind yourself that we are all a phone call away from a fade to black. But Stanley slapped you and punched your nose and squeezed the liquid into your mouth. You tried to spit but he locked your jaws with his paws. You bit down on his finger and he screamed and pulled at the Nikon 3ST around your neck and then brought it down on your face. Your eye exploded and your head snapped back and you caught a glimpse of Kottu and Balal. They both looked as astonished as you.
The camera smashed into your face two more times. Then you received the kick to your stomach that made you heave and gasp and swallow.
‘Dilan is all I have. The rest can go to hell. You understand, no?’
You could not breathe, and you needed to breathe so you could vomit, and there was a chisel in your head and a hammer in your chest and needles in your gut. And you no longer wondered who the ‘you’ was, and who the person saying the ‘you’ was. Because both were you, and you were neither.