‘How many?’ said DD with his chin over your knees. You were doing sit-ups and he was coaching. ‘Twenty? Fifty?’
You once attempted counting and stopped when you had passed three figures.
‘Less than ten? Bullshit. Twice that, must be. I knew it. More than that? More than twenty? That’s disgusting.’
‘We all like eggplant, what’s the issue?’
‘I only like yours.’
You told him how circumcision at birth instils rage in the subconscious and makes men violent.
‘That’s both stupid and bigoted,’ he said. ‘I’m cut, you’re not. Who’s more violent?’
‘Hmm.’
‘You think I’m violent?’
‘You have passion.’ You cradled the barbell over his pretty neck and watched him lift. ‘When you’re excited, it’s terrifying. I can’t imagine rage.’
He grins as the weight obeys gravity and his chest fills with blood.
‘You’ve never seen me excited.’
‘Untrue.’
‘And your theories are horseshit.’
‘Then how come Americans and Jews and Muslims are always waging wars? It’s the rage in their subconscious from losing their foreskins as infants. A baby howls when it bumps its head. Imagine the agony of…’
‘That’s the most ignorant thing you’ve said. And you’ve said some really dumb shit.’
‘I read it in a WHO report. All warmongering nations are circumcised. Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, USA. Congo…’
‘The Soviets, the Germans, the Brits, the Chinese? Also cut?’
‘No theory is perfect.’
‘Ha.’
He smirked as he handed you the weights.
‘What about Sinhalese and Tamils?’ he said. ‘Neither are cut.’
He raised his eyebrows and flexed his dimples. DD had the annoying habit of occasionally making a valid point.
After that, you would wrestle and then you would roll on the floor. Then DD asked about the largest and smallest you’d ever seen and you told him of the simple farmer in the Vanni and a burly rocker in Berlin. You omitted that the farmer, hung like a horse, was a corpse when you’d met him. Or that the guitarist beat you up in a sidestreet, despite being uncut and tiny – or, maybe, because of it.
You tell him the pecker is proof that man has no free will. There is a pause and, then, DD snorts: ‘That is the lamest excuse ever.’
‘We do not control what sends blood to our pricks. It is like there are devils whispering in our ears and placing blinkers on our eyes.’
‘For you, maybe.’
That night you removed an envelope from the box. You had not given the envelope a title, but if you had it might well have been ‘Eggplant’. In it was an assorted array of male genitalia, taken with and without the knowledge of their owners. You saved the very best of them, put them in the envelope marked ‘Jack’ and destroyed the rest. DD had taken to rifling though your photo boxes and this would be too much a sight for his pretty little eyes.
The box had five envelopes, each named after a playing card. Ace had pictures sold to the British Embassy. King had photos commisioned by the Sinhalese Army. Queen were snaps bought by a Tamil NGO. But Jack was just for you.
The fifth envelope was titled Ten, and had pictures taken of DD, and of Sri Lanka at its prettiest.
‘You’re the perfect ten,’ you once told him. ‘On a scale of one to thirteen.’ Trained Butchers
The van starts to move. Kottu lights another Gold Leaf and scratches his belly. The interior is humid and smells of rust and ashtrays and rotting meat.
‘I’ll tell you what makes me fully angry?’ says Balal.
‘The big boss?’ says Kottu.
‘The whole unprofessionalism.’
‘Of the big boss?’
‘Everything with you is “big boss”. Is he cupping you?’
‘I am a small man doing a dirty job,’ says Kottu. ‘If I can get a proper job, I would. But who will hire a thief?’
Kottu strokes his moustache with sorrow, while Balal cracks his knuckles. Balal’s arms are toned from years of chopping. Kottu’s cheeks sag from decades of betel chewing.
‘That’s what I’m also saying,’ says Balal. ‘Do a proper job. Can’t do a mad rush like this. Have to saw the fingers, smash the teeth, pulp the face. Then can’t identify also. After that can dump anywhere.’
‘This is not a proper job,’ says Drivermalli to himself in the front seat.
‘You said you had a plan?’ says Kottu, patting his paunch. ‘The fridge at the fourth floor is fully full. Can’t take this back there.’
‘Shall we chop them to pieces and bury them somewhere?’
‘How many holes do you want to dig? Cannot solve everything with a cleaver.’
‘I’m a trained butcher. But this work pays better than the chicken farms.’
Drivermalli calls out. ‘Mr Balal. Mr Kottu. I’m very tired. When can we go home?’
The garbage men ignore him.
‘Aiya, I’m saying we do it right,’ says Balal. ‘We gut, we drain, we chop, we bury. Different place every time.’
‘Why not dump the garbage in the jungle and light a match?’
‘What jungle here, Aiya? Sathutu Uyana kid’s park?’
‘So what’s the big plan? They float in the Beira. They wash up in the Diyawanna. Beach is fully guarded. You need a permit for bonfires.’
‘At Crow Island, there is a rubbish dump.’
‘Too many human crows there.’
‘I have eaten crow,’ Drivermalli smiles with his mouth but not his eyes. ‘Tastes like goat.’
‘There’s the Labugama forest reserve. They say STF and the IPKF are dumping bodies left, right and centre,’ says Kottu.
‘Can’t just go there. Need permit for sure,’ says Balal.
‘I will talk to the big boss,’ says Kottu. ‘Must follow the law even when killing, no?’
‘OK, so I have a plan,’ says Balal as the van strands itself in traffic.
‘This should be good,’ says Kottu.
‘We feed them to my cats.’
‘Huh?’
Balal laughs, the giggle is mirthless and shrill. Drivermalli mutters to himself while Sena in the passenger seat whispers in his ear. You shiver by the bags of meat and put your camera to your eyes.
‘Joking, joking. But I have enough and more cats at home. One is a fishing cat I found in the sewer. It’s always hungry.’
‘Fishing cat? Really?’ says Kottu. ‘Not a swamp crocodile? Or a zoo panther?’
Kottu is taking liberties with his tone and Balal is beginning to notice.
‘Why do you have cats?’ asks Drivermalli, who has stopped laughing and begun tooting his horn.
‘It’s good side business. The Chinese buy from me.’
‘The Chinese Embassy? Don’t lie.’
‘No, Aiya. Chinese restaurants in Grandpass. Chinese never ask questions.’
They laugh like witches as they pass around the last cigarette.
‘Balal, you’re a filthy fucker. Drivermalli, let’s go back to the hotel. We’ll have to somehow find room in those fridges.’
‘Any more pickups today?’ Drivermalli neither smiles nor frowns, as if any answer would please him.
‘No, malli. Let’s get some sleep, no?’
‘I never sleep,’ says the driver as he kills the engine. Light the Corners of Your Mind
You don’t remember learning to walk or talk or being taught to shit in a pot. Who does? You don’t remember being in a womb, coming out of one, or being in an incubator. Or where you were before that.
Memory comes to you in bodily ailments. In sneezes, in aches, in scratches and in itches. Strange, as you no longer have a body, though maybe the hypnotists are right; maybe pain and pleasure reside only in the mind. Memories come to you in gasps and chokes and loose motions.
They happen each time you pull the camera to your eyes. In its glass peephole, you catch glimpses of light falling on faces, shadows spreading over hills, of pictures you took, and lenses you cracked. You remember bits and you retrieve pieces.