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“I will inquire some more,” Ajith promised.

“Oh, sir. A lot of merit to you, sir. He is this boy’s father. I also know the sorrow of not having a father,” She started to cry nonstop.

“Don’t cry,” Ajith blurted out without a second thought. “Crying won’t bring him back.”

Though Janaki wiped her tears with the sash of her sari, her tears renewed.

All of a sudden the boy leapt forward and muttered something. Ajith vaguely heard the words as “Kallan-Kill you.” Janaki yelled at the kid. “Oh, sir. This boy is growing up no good.”

“Did he say he will kill?”

“No, sir he said Maram, maram. Maram means this tree. This tree.” She pointed towards the tree. “Ketta podiyan.. you bad boy!” She yelled at the boy some more. “Please, sir, could you inquire a little more? I will come again to see you.”

“I will do the best I can.” Ajith said this without really knowing how much he could do. This was not a promise. “Give me your home address.”

The address in Neveli which Janaki gave him, Ajith wrote down in his notebook. While doing this, from the corner of his eye, he could see her looking at him. He started to sweat as never before. When Janaki fanned with her sari sash, he could feel the blowing breeze slightly. He wondered whether she did that fanning purposely to fan him as well.

Suddenly, Vasantharaja started to run away. “Come here,” Janaki shouted.

“Enaku vare eladu,” the boy yelled back from afar.

“He is not coming back, sir. I am going too, sir.”

“Does the boy understand Sinhala?”

“A little bit, sir. I still have the book I learned from when I was small. I taught him some Sinhala. And he learned some in Wellawatte as well.”

“That is good. When I was young I learned some Tamil as well. Now of course I have forgotten most of it.”

“Is that true, sir?”

Ajith replied only with a smile. He remembered how once when he was small he had sung some words of a Tamil song to his mother, which he had picked up somewhere. But now he could not remember those words or the song. Though Janaki forced a smile onto her lips, soon it faded away.

“Oh, sir, please look for my man, sir.”

“Yes. now that I have the address, I will do the best I can. And I will let you know.”

“That would be a great merit to you, sir. we also lived in Nugegoda, sir.” Her eyes were filling with tears once more. “I am going to go now, sir. There’s so much sorrow…”

All at once, she turned around and walked away. A little further she started to run in the hope of catching Vasantharaja. Standing under the shade of the tree, Ajith kept looking at her walking away. She disappeared in a could of dust that was raised by a truck that drove towards the camp. As the dust subsided, he saw her again walking away while holding on to her son’s hand. She turned around one more time. Then she covered her head with the sash of her sari.

An unspeakable sorrow was born within Ajith’s heart. Most of the painful despair was on behalf of Janaki. Though the boy was stubborn, Ajith felt a sympathy towards him as well. It was not unfair that the boy would have an animosity, an anger and a hatred, towards the police and the army because of his father’s disappearance in the hands of the forces, Ajith argued. Though he took a decision to look for Janaki’s husband Shivankaram, he could not keep to his promises.

The reason for this was an unforeseen unfortunate incident that took place that July. An army unit traveling in the town of Jaffna was blown up by a land mine. Even though Ajith was also traveling with this unit, perhaps because of a good fortune the jeep he was in was not the center of this explosion. Only the jeeps at the front of the cavalcade were destroyed by the land mine. Ajith did receive some injuries. A sliver of iron that flew by from somewhere, dug into his left arm. All that Ajith could remember was an echoing loud noise.

He woke up in the hospital in Vavuniya. Colonel Wanigasekara was standing by his bed.

“Thirteen of our men are gone, I say,” As he heard Wanigasekara’s broken voice, Ajith felt a pang in his heart. “The bodies were taken to Colombo last night. Everything is burning up in Colombo.”

“Why is that, Colonel?”

“When our people saw the bodies of our men, our people had gone crazy and they have started to burn down everything that is owned by Tamils. All the shops and the stores.”

“Oh, my,Appey!”

“We sent a massage to your father, letting him know about the condition you are in.”

“I can’t move this arm, sir .” Ajith could feel a pain all down his left arm.

“Is it very painful?”

Yes, sir. Very much so.”

“Let me get you some medicine.”

“Who and who died, sir?”

The colonel muttered several names like a mantra.

Certain names he heard brought great pain to Ajith. “Buddhi Gunasekera….. our driver, Manathunga.”

Ajith cried out loud. Buddhi….. Manathunga ……. It was as if someone had pulled away a piece of his heart. “Oh, sir ….. oh, no!”

“Just a minute, Ajith.” Saying so, Wanigasekera walked away. Ajith could feel the pain in his arm increasing. Now he could feel it right in his heart. As if unable to escape to the out side through the bandages, that pain was now running all through his body. The echo of the explosion was reverberating inside his head.

A nurse who came with Wanigasekera, injected a sedative into Ajith’s buttock. He did not feel the sting of that needle because he was suffering from a greater pain. Buddhi ……Manathunga …… Colombo is on fire …… The Black July ….Deadly July……

Gradually Ajith lulled into unconsciousness. But as he fell into slumber what he saw was Janaki’s face and her tear filled eyes. Out of his lips came the word “Ja…na…ki.”

When with the aid of the narcotic drug he floated into a dream the first thing he saw was Janaki. Her smiling face kept turning round and round as if on a silver screen. After a few revolutions, the face turned into that of a young girl. Then he saw a man holding onto the hand of this little girl and walking. On the man’s head was a large wicker basket. This man had a dark skinny body.

Holding the girl’s hand, the man walked into a shed with a corrugated roof. Inside the shed in the semi darkness stood a woman carrying a little baby. The woman’s face had a similarity to that of Janaki.

The woman handed the baby over to the man. Carrying the baby, the man came out of the shed while the little girl followed him. Outside the shed a muddy canal was flowing. The man holding the baby sat by the canal and fell into a deep reverie.

After this, the dream changed. Ajith saw that man crying. He was now sitting on an asphalt road. Around him was a whole lot of people. All of a sudden, a fire erupted from the middle of the crowd.

Ajith found it hard to breathe. The fire that was leaping up from the center of the crowd slowly changed into a bitter darkness.

Ajith woke up in a cold sweet. Hearing his crazed yelling several people came to his bedside.

” Shell shock.” someone said. “It must be shell shock.”

“Shall we give him another injection, doctor?”

“No, let him sleep like that.”

Hearing such voices Ajith fell into slumber once more. After this he did not have that dream.