THOSE LEFT- BEHIND

Viharamahadevi Park can be quite a complicated place if one is looking for a particular tree in a particular grove. But for Shamala it wasn't. She had been here before. For her this place had a strange timelessness about it.

To someone walking through its tree-lined avenues, with only the thought of going to one particular canopy of green, every thing else, lovers, children, vagrants, belonged to the oblivion that passed by. Oblivion never seemed to change.

Shamala's feet moved confidently. The tree, its location, its shape, its colour, its very personality was familiar to her. It refused to be forgotten.

Arjun was also able to recognize the place. His hand slipped out of hers in his excitement as they came close to the tree. She stopped, there wasn't anyone else around. She took Arjun's hand in hers again. The moist warmth of his fingers comforted her. Arjun looked at her, trying to understand the expression on her face. He took his hand away quickly.

Not many people liked this place. But she did. In a strange way she wasn't sure if she liked it for what it is, or for what it meant to her.

The old tree was still there. Its fallen leaves made a soft carpet for her, as they always did. Her senses absorbed the entirety of her surroundings in one deep breath of benumbed nostalgia. She looked at the leaves above her, the silver sun flecks blotched her face with light. She closed her eyes and bathed in the light. Some wild, uninhibited, childish sensation surged, but was quickly muffled from within. She opened her eyes.

"It's a mahogany tree," she said, still looking up. Then sat on one edge of the cement bench at the root of the tree. "I still think it's a mahogany tree."
"I still say it's not a mahogany tree," Rohan said.
"You always knew it wasn't a mahogany tree. But you still don't know what it is." She said, looking up again.

"You look beautiful." Rohan said. Shamala smiled. She held her breath tightly. So tightly that a cold thrill ran through her.

"It's been a long time." She exhaled slowly. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to come like this." "Don't you want to?" Rohan asked.

"I don't know." She stumbled over a flutter of images that passed through her mind. She picked up a leaf from the ground and looked at it, trying to think of nothing else, trying to focus her thoughts, to keep them in control.

"You don't want to come here anymore?" Rohan asked. Shamala didn't answer. She couldn't.

"Remember the first time we came here?" She said. "You brought me here saying that there was a deity in this tree. You said the deity would grant me any wish I made here."

"Remember the pilgrimages?" Rohan said. She could see one of his mischievous smiles spreading across his face.

"Yes, our pilgrimage every Saturday morning." Shamala smiled, almost laughed. "I thought there really was a tree-deity. I was scared."

"Of what?"

"About, you know, the things we used to do here under this tree. The things we talked about, the promises we made."

"We were young."

"We still are." Shamala put in cautiously.

"You are," was the reply. The silence that followed screamed out accusations of some guilt, some fault that she could not comprehend.

"Anyway, I soon realised that there was no "tree-deity" She broke loose from it. "He wouldn't have tolerated us. It was just you and me" She tore the leaf along its axis, slowly separating the two halves.

"I kept all my promises." Rohan said slowly. Shamala held her breath.

"Rohan, is it still just you and me?" She asked. "Or is it just me? Am I alone here?"

"Why do you think like that?" He asked.

"I feel like that," she said, trying not to look away from the leaf. "You need another man?" He asked.

"No," Shamala cut in vehemently. Then hesitated. "I don't know, yes, maybe that's what I need. But I don't know whether that is what I want." "You can if you want to." He said.

"What?"

"I've always told you. I'm telling you now. You can have another man if you want to," he reiterated.

"I know," she said, tearing up the leaf into strips. "But who, where? No one can take your place." She threw the fragments of herbage away. She looked up at the trees around her. Who; where; the words echoed in the leaves, in the sunlight.

The park was unusually quiet today, except for the intermittent wail of the cicadas on the trees. "I hate you Rohan," she said almost to herself. The cicadas wailed on at an ever-heightening pitch. "I hate you so much"

"I know." He said. "I don't blame you."

Shamala looked around. She wanted to go, to get away from all this. She tried to remember the reason for her visit to this, their shrine. Shrine? She felt a despondent laugh burst within her at the thought of it. The pilgrims are here. The shrine is still here, but the deity had fled. Or the deity never existed. There are no such things as deities, no gods, no meaning.

The cries of children from the playground broke through her thoughts. She remembered the purpose of her visit.

"I don't know what he is going to turn out to be." She said.

"Why what's wrong with Arjun?" He asked.
"He's very naughty," she breathed out, looking in the direction of the boy on the swing. "He's becoming very difficult."
"Difficult?"

"Yes, like his father." She touched the gold bangle on her wrist.

"Me?" Rohan laughed. She didn't answer for some time.

"Stubborn, disobedient."

"Is that why you want another man?"

"No, I don't know. I don't think he wants a father." She rotated the bangle slowly, pressing it against her skin.

"Doesn't want?" Rohan asked.

"He doesn't know what a father is like."

"He was very young."

"Every time I bring him here, I tell him we are going to see thaththi, but the only thing he does is play and then goes back home. He doesn't care."
"He doesn't know, Shamala." Rohan pleaded.
"Maybe he thinks thaththi is one of the trees or one of those stone statues near the road." "He's not so stupid, he's eight now."

"Yes, he certainly is not stupid." Shamala said.

"Haven't you told him?" Rohan asked. "About me."

"I don't have to." Shamala complained. "Everyone else does. His grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbours, they all tell him the same thing."

"What?"

"They all tell him about what a brave soldier his father is. How he goes out there to what are those places? Arjun knows most of those towns, those battlefields, he knows those places better than he knows Colombo. He knows about all the famous battles, Vadamarachchi, Jaffna and I don't know." Shamala felt a dull pain in her head. The cicadas were only making it worse. "He knows how great you are. They all tell him that you are leading the troops against the Tigers. Fighting fiercely, just like ;like in the films, the TV."

"Doesn't he ask why I don't come home?" Rohan asked.

"They have told him that you will come home when the war is over."

"And you, don't you tell him anything about me?" He asked.

"I don't know what to tell him." Shamala slowly turned the bangle around several times; "Remember this?" She held the bangle still.

"Yes," he said. "I'm glad you are still wearing it, even though it's a little loose."

"Do you ever think of the woman you plundered it from?" She asked after some time.

"I didn't plunder it. I bought it for you." Rohan put in sharply.

"Or did you kill her to get it, and rape her also?"

"I told you;" Rohan clenched his teeth.

"Have you ever thought of where that woman is now, at this moment, what she is doing, what she is thinking of, what she is wanting?"

"I bought you the bangle from a shop." Rohan reiterated.

"Why did you do it?" Shamala asked.

"You know very well." He warned. "Don't start, Shamala."

"I don't know, tell me," she persisted, "I want to know at least now. How can I tell your son the truth if I don't know."

"Because you are my wife." He put in bluntly.

"And that woman, she might have been somebody's wife."

"Yes, and her husband would have killed you to take your bangle to give his wife." Rohan argued.

Shamala looked away from her immediate surroundings, as far as she could. At the road beyond the park, the vehicles that passed by, their noisy haste was not near enough to annoy her. The city went about its own business. It is always quiet here. Everything is quiet from here. She thought of the price she had to pay for that quietude.

"Because I'm your wife?" She almost asked herself. "Is that why you did it?"

"And the mother of my child," he said resolutely. "I had to take it from her before he took it from you."

It was too much of a price to pay. She thought of the woman whose bangle she wore. She tried to imagine her face, the expression of her face at the moment that price was plundered from her. It was just the face of a woman. Just another woman. She tried to take in the whole picture, to understand it in its entirety. The logic was only too familiar, so familiar that she was afraid that she too would start thinking like that. It was difficult to think outside the realm of war. It was difficult to think in any other way.

"Because I'm your wife," she felt herself saying. She tried to keep away the myriad of thoughts that came to her mind at the dull hiss of the word.

"Yes, mine." He said. The words embraced her very being. A tender, passionate, brutal embrace that was so desired, pulsating, constricting.

"That's all?"

"What?"

"That's the only difference, isn't it?"

"Look, if you don't want the bangle, throw it away." Rohan said.

"That's not the point." She argued.

"Then what is?"

"I don't know;" She muttered, "to be plundered, raped, killed; I don't know; the only difference ;;"

"Throw it away," he challenged her. She hated this heartless masculine logic. "Go on, throw it, its not yours. You hate me for bringing it to you. All you have to do is throw it into one of those bushes there."

"I don't hate you for bringing it to me," she cut in desperately. "I just hate the way you got it."

She could hear him laugh, a primitive, brutish laugh. She wanted to scream over it. She wanted to get up and walk and never come back. The very thought of never coming back gripped her. She looked at her familiar surroundings. She couldn't walk away. There was a purpose for her visit.

"What am I to tell Arjun about his father?" Shamala asked after some time. "He asks me if you can fight."

"Well, what did you say?"

"If I say yes, how can I tell him not to fight? He fights with his friends, with his grandparents, with me." She looked at the distant trees. "If I say no, I don't know how he will feel."

"I don't know, I'm not sure;"

"You don't know?"

"I'm not sure of anything. How can I tell him that his father killed people, burnt their houses, raped II their women, and what else? The papers are full of it. Everyday it's the same, ten of them, five of ours, does it matter?" She paused, to control herself. "How can I tell my son that?"

"That is only one side of the story, Shamala. You know that. Why do you want to see only one side of it? You are obsessed. Do you hate me so much that you cannot say anything else?"

"I don't hate you, Rohan, not the way you think." She put in quickly. Then she waited, almost expecting a reply. She looked down slowly, penitently. "It's different." "I know. You don't have to take so much trouble to explain." He said. "No, its not what you think, it's... difficult." "Difficult." "I want to tell him...I don't know. Can't you see, how can I explain this to him? I want to tell him that his father was so..." She struggled to find her words, "so gentle." She wanted to say something else quickly, something that will erase what she just said, something that would sound more reasonable, more logical. "He thinks you are a fighter, that you kill people. That's all he knows." "That is all he is told." "1 want to tell him... Rohan. I don't know whether he will understand. Your rough hands, all that military training... you had such rough hands. But so gentle. You wiped the tears from my face before you I went. You held me in your strong arms and said you '11 be back... does it matter now whether those arms! were strong or weak or lame?" She breathed out. "1 haven't forgotten, Rohan. What was so real, what was mine, mine alone in all the world, is now so... unreal. I want to forget." "As easy as that?" Rohan put in slowly. "No, it's not easy. I just don't know how to say it, how to explain.... ""To whom? To our son, or to yourself?" "To myself and to Arjun I want to tell him that his father could sing the most beautiful love songs... your old guitar is still there. Arjun plays with it sometimes." She smiled. "I didn't know there were songs like that till I met you." "I didn't know there were songs like that till I joined the Army." Rohan said. "Those are the songs we sing in our minds late into the night, as we stare at the darkness from our guard posts." He paused slowly, "you must see to it that he learns to play the guitar.Then he can sing to you." "I want to tell him everything," Shamala explained to herself. "I don't know. I don't think he'll believe." "Why?" "I don't know. I cannot understand, I don't think he will." "He will." Rohan said softly. "But he has to hear it." "No, he won't understand. He won't know which is true. I don't want him to know what he is missing. It's better this way. It's better to have never known you, Rohan. To have never, ever known you." She looked away towards the children's playground. "Arjun!" She called out and the boy ran up to her. "Come here," she said as he approached. "What happened?" The boy asked, looking closely at her face. "What?" "You are crying." He tried to touch her face. "Rubbish." She said, turning away. "We must go now." She got up, took a deep breath, and looked around at her surroundings. "We shouldn't come here. Never again." She stood there a little longer. Every beat of her heart marked another moment spent too long in a place too sacred. "What about thaththi?" the boy asked suddenly. She took him by the hand and walked away quickly. "If we don't come how can we see thaththi?" "We must learn to see him as he is." She explained as they walked hurriedly away from the tree. "He is everywhere, in the trees, the sky, the air, the fountains, we don't need to come here to see him." "Where?" The boy asked. "I'll show you how you can see your father." Shamala stopped and stooped down to look at the child. "Close your eyes." She said, and waited. "Now do you see your father?" "Yes," the boy smiled. "You can even talk to him like that. And if you listen carefully, he'll talk to you." She took his hand in hers and walked out of the park. She held hard to his soft, light fingers. She knew that someday they would become rough and hard. There was nothing she could do to stop it.
