Bone China. Roma Tearne

could. Two young people with no idea of what their future held, but planning it anyway.

      After a while they decided to go back up the hill towards the centre. Someone said there was a street fair and Christopher thought they might try the tombola. He had forgotten about the Tamil strikers’ demonstration. It was Kamala’s father, catching sight of them retracing their footsteps, who remembered. But by the time he had found someone to mind his stall they had vanished from sight. The crowds had grown. Away from the sea breeze the smell of sweaty bodies mixed with the fetid slabs of meat in the market as he hurried through the maze of stalls. An air of nervous tension hung over the neighbourhood. Outside, close to the Fort and behind the market, a few mounted policemen in white uniforms waited expectantly. Most of the shops in this area were shut or closing, there was no sign of the fair, and no sign of Kamala or Christopher. One or two men on bicycles rode by. A few dogs scavenged in the gutters. Kamala’s father quickened his pace.

      The whole of this part of the city was in darkness. A muffled sound of voices, the faint throb of a loudspeaker could be heard in the distance, but still he could not see anyone. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a movement, but when he turned there was nothing there. He hurried on knowing he could not leave the stall for long. He needed to find Kamala and Christopher, to warn them to keep away from the demonstration. He was now in St Anthony’s Road and in front of him was the great Roman Catholic cathedral. Close by was Temple Tree Square where the Bo trees were tied with offerings. Kamala’s father breathed more easily, for this was a sacred site with an open aspect and lights. Through the trees, on the other side of the square, he could see the reason for the silence. The demonstrators, with their banners, had gathered together to listen to the speaker. The march had ended peacefully after all and as he approached Kamala’s father saw with relief that Christopher and Kamala were on the edge of the crowd.

      ‘Kamala,’ he had called. ‘Kamala, Christopher. Come here.’ He waved urgently, becoming suddenly, unaccountably afraid.

      Only then did he see the shadow of a saffron robe. Only then did he smell the petrol and see the ragged flames, one after another, until too late, a circle of fire surrounded him. Drawing closer and closer. A Kathakali dance of death.

      ‘Watch out,’ he had shouted in vain. ‘Be careful. Chris, Chris, take her away.’

      They heard him shout but the words were indistinct. Kamala turned and ran towards him. For a brief moment, in the flare of the burning rags, Christopher saw them both clearly, her wide bright eyes reflecting the light, her hair aglow. Then he heard only their screams, father and daughter, mixing and blending together with the sound of his own anguish. Flesh against flesh, ashes to ashes.

      The night was nearly over now. For Christopher there would never be such a night again. He stared at his hands. They oozed liquid through the bandages his mother had used. The burns covered both palms, crossing his lifeline, changing it forever. He had heard afterwards, there had been many others. One of them, he had cried, hardly registering the look on his mother’s face, had been the man she knew as Vijay.

      The dawn rose, the sun came out. Beach sweepers began clearing the debris from the night before, but still Christopher stood motionless, Kamala’s name tolling a steady refrain in his head. A newspaper seller shouted out the headlines, riots, petrol bombs, fourteen dead, seven injured. The government was to impose a curfew. But Christopher heard none of this. It was the day of the total eclipse.

      They found his bicycle first. It was another four days before they found him. He had wandered for miles along the outskirts of the city, without shoes, his bandages torn off, his hands a mass of sores and infected pus, his face covered in insect bites. He did not see the eclipse as the moon slipped slowly over the sun. Or the many thousand crescent shadows that drained the warmth from the earth. Or hear the birds, whose confused, small roosting sounds filled the sudden night. And, as his family searched frantically for him, Christopher remained oblivious of the darkness that slipped swiftly across the land before sinking at last, gently, into the Bay of Bengal.

       6

      GRACE, FACE DOWN, FISTS CLENCHED, was lying across the bed. She was trying to control herself. Somewhere far in the distance a train hooted. The sound sliced the air. She shuddered as though she had been hit by it. Aloysius was frightened. Closing the bedroom door, he stood for a moment staring at her in horror.

      ‘What is it, Grace?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘Nothing happened to Christopher in the end. What’s wrong?’