Milkman by Anna Burns

Milkman is a novel by Anna Burns. It won the Booker. It is a book. It's a book about a place, a place which is not named, but we know where it is because its divisions, borders, red lines, call them what you may, are currency in its social divide and international renown. It's a place that's part of somewhere else, or isn't, depending on your view of history, even though it's the present, its present that is the only relevant place to inhabit. There is another place over the border, and, yes, another one over the water, but in the past those from over there have often been this side of the ditch to leave their marks and then go home again, or not, which is at the root of the problems of this place with its border, its division, its divides, this side of the water. Like anywhere, there are people throughout to this place, but, unlike almost everywhere, they very rarely have names, or if they have them, they don’t want to use them, believing, clearly, that the name would incriminate, accuse, label, even identify in this situation where to be known always carries risks. If you are Milkman, or even a milkman, you can live with the label, possibly because it strikes fear into those who hear it, fear of association, or of reprisal, or of identification, or even of not getting your pinta. That's what the capital letter can do, or undo, if you don't have one, just one, at the start, making one a name and the other, well, a name, but not a name to identify, only a name to label. But then there are lots of labels this side of the water. There are labels above all others, which might determine where you live, might reveal what you believe, might dictate where you might walk, and where you might not, where you might drink, or buy chips, where the rest of the shop snubs you and you might even forget to pay, for your chips, of course, for you are always likely to pay, eventually, in other ways. It's these labels that make you walk faster through the ten-minute zone that divides the divisions, the road where you are being watched, counted, logged, photographed, recorded, identified as identifiable, in the future as well as in the present, which itself will become a permanent past if your name, still unspoken, receives the celebrity of appearing on someone’s file. Unless, of course, you are that Somebody McSomebody who is already known, already logged, already identified, probably already filed, in which case that Somebody McSomebody would probably not want to be seen, not want to venture into that ten-minute no-somebody's land, not anybody's land, that works like the border between over there and over here or the ditch between over here and over the water, keeping apart, keeping division. Unless, of course you are family, in which case you are known as brother or sister and by number, first, second, third etc., or you are known intergenerationally, like mama or papa or granddad, who might even still have a name, like one of your brothers, which is better not said in any case, being that it would be recognized, labelled, identified or merely chiseled into a headstone. That's always the risk, especially when your family is known to be sympathetic to causes unspoken in private but inevitably adopted in public, because the photographs, the records, the files prove you still live over there, on that side of the ten-minute zone that marks the division. And, when you have decided who you are or who you might become, should you agree to continue to see a milkman or other for the purpose of something other than acquiring milk, then you need to watch your back to make sure your maybe-boyfriend is not watching you while you are at your deception, which is not deception, because you're not trying to deceive. And then, in the end, you are at the end of the book, which is not really a book, but a train of thoughts, events, thoughts about events, and analyses, rationalizations of the irrational, all inside the head of an eighteen-year-old woman, who happens to come from one side or other of the divide, in the divided land, that's one side of the border and another side of the water ditch that separates it from over there. You have travelled the roads, lived the short lives, felt the threats, been taken to all the places the eighteen-year-old has deemed you will see, felt the confusion life has brought to her life, and experienced the lack of ending that inevitably applies to things that have no end. The only certainty, and this at least is certain, that this book, that actually might not be a book, but thought, experience and imagination, is a worthy Booker and arguably one of the greatest achievements in the history of things that generally are called books.

Families in Conflict - Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne

Brixton Beach by Roma Tearne presents a vast project. Its story crosses the globe, beginning in Sri Lanka and ending in Britain. Great events befall its characters, but throughout their lives seem to be writ small against a backdrop of history. The novel opens with an apt quote from Jack Kerouac – All life is a foreign country. This idea forms substantially more than a theme, in the no matter how secure the book’s characters might appear – and equally however insecure – they never really seem to be at home with themselves.

We meet the Fonsekas in Colombo. They live near the beach in this frenetic city. Alice is a nine-year-old. Her parents, Stanley and Sita are a mixed marriage, Tamil and Sinhalese. Alice’s grandparents, Bee and Kamala, are happily married in their own way. Bee is something of an artist. The grandparent show significant wisdom. But things are stirring in Sri Lanka. There is a smell of conflict, a hint or war.

A mixed marriage is hard to sustain, and its offspring don’t fit into anyone’s interests or desires. Alice grows into a rather isolated child. She has friends, but then she doesn’t. She does well at school, and then she doesn’t. She makes things, shares her grandfather’s artistic bent. Lives in paradise grow steadily more complicated, apparently less sustainable. Stanley, Alice’s father, decides that his future, and eventually his family’s, lies in Britain. He books a sea passage and an unscheduled stop-over in Greece opens his eyes to ancient cincture and provides other activities that always threatened, but until then never materialised.

In Britain he ekes out an immigrant’s lot, doing whatever he can. When Sita and Alice eventually join him, he has changed and they don’t fit in. They can’t. Perhaps no-one ever does, anywhere. Sita mourns the child she lost to her own destruction as she works from home on her sewing machine. Alice doesn’t get on at school, except with a chain-smoking art teacher. And so life progresses, from one mistake to the next, with an idealised past becoming a new paradise, a place that it perhaps never was. But there is no going back. Conflict has intervened. Lives have been lost and there will be more to follow. Marriages fail. There are short passionate affairs.

There is much imagined longing. Roma Tearne’s story thus meanders through its themes, but without ever concentrating on any particular one to create a lasting impression. The characters seem more confused than reflecting, more victims of events than their instigators. Wherever they are, they remain foreign.

Reflecting on a review of A Glance Away by John Edgar Wideman

When reviewing a book I try to keep myself out of the argument. The purpose is to reflect upon the work, to enter its world in its own style. It’s a process that often clarifies issues and prioritises arguments for the reviewer as much as it helps inform the review’s reader. Whether I liked or disliked the book in question is an opinion that’s perhaps less than irrelevant, because it adds a double confusion. You, the reader, don’t know the book, but then you know even less about me, so what price my humble, unexplained, unjustified recommendation?

I used to work on a market stall. Alongside household cleaners and soap powder, the stall also offered kitchenware and fancy goods, items to be considered considerably less often than weekly. Running up to Christmas, we also carried large, high cost toys, such as board games, construction kits and the like. The stall’s owner handled that end of the business, leaving the dealings in shoe polish, soap, bleach and toilet paper to his minions at the other end. The minions, incidentally, were his daughter and me. If a potential customer dithered over a purchase, the vendor’s shock tactic was to offer the reassurance of solidarity. “We’ve used it” or “We have one at home” were the phrases he used. “And we are happy with it” then followed in judgment. Often – more often than not – the punter smiled, purchased and so profit was pocketed. But there was nothing cynical about this process.

The stall-owner came weekly to each pitch. He would take things back if they were broken – but usually not if they were merely disliked. People didn’t bring things back if that was the case, except, of course, to exchange. And, given his household’s general pursuit of novelty, he probably had tried out the products in question, at least for a while. He had, personally, what twenty-first century capitalism calls a brand. He was a trusted face – not a name, because none of his customers knew anything other than his first name – and his recommendations carried the authority of that trust. He did good business and made a good living, his punters’ trust being well-placed.

But as an internet reviewer, what might my opinion be worth to a browsing punter? If a reader regularly follows my opinion, of course, then a pattern might emerge and some conclusion might be drawn. The chances are, however, that you are not that reader, that you have stumbled almost randomly upon my thoughts and thus what I say is potentially worthless. I present a double unknown, an unread book and an untried, untrusted opinion. I am prompted to reflect on the nature of the internet book review because I have just finished A Glance Away by John Edgar Wideman. 

It’s a short book but far from succinct. The style is often sparse, its words deliberated over, even missing for effect, unsaid on behalf of communication. On the fly-sheet it’s a novel at the front and, in a quoted review at the back, an autobiography. I too was confused. But not by the style… There’s a family. There are brothers. With apparent prescience of some stylistic devices used later by Toni Morrison to both define and characterise a specifically black culture that is both part of but also separated from the general, John Edgar Wideman allows the reader into a family’s passion, conflicts and confusion. The brothers live different lives, meet different people and aspire to different ideals. There may be reasons, explanations, but what people think is largely hidden by a profound opacity. Perhaps the characters themselves are confused. Perhaps that’s also the point.

As an experience, A Glance Away is a powerful, sometimes provocative novel. But its detail often reads as obfuscation, demanded by its lack of continuous thread. Perhaps it’s a book to read again, its challenge not met by a punter who was unfamiliar with its brand.

View this book on amazon A Glance Away

Victims

Thursday

I need urgent advice and assistance. Please read the following in the context of my previous reports over the last fortnight, especially the details of my visit to P... last week. I have transcribed my tapes verbatim, omitting items of little or no substance. What follows is as accurate a rendition as I can manage, given the shortage of time. Some spellings and local names may not be wholly accurate. My sessions with Father Peter all took place in Room 258 of the Mount Gardenia Hospital. I have indicated in parenthetic comment the source of interruptions or other events that caused either remark or pause from either myself or Father Peter. I, of course, am AG throughout.

Tuesday

I started the recorder as we exchanged greetings.

AG: So, Father Peter, I’ve found you at last.
Peter: Alison! Hello there, Miss Grady. I didn’t expect… How did you find out I was here?
AG: I was in the agency office when the news came down from the north. There’s been nothing in the press yet, One of the relief officials arrived from the camp at M.... He said you would be here in Mount Gardenia. They didn’t seem to know you at the main reception, but when I said the man with shrapnel wounds, they told me to check Room 258.
Peter: What else did the man from the camp say? Did he know what happened last Friday? Who else was hurt?
AG: He only had news about you, because you were transferred via the camp, I think. Please tell me what happened, Peter.
Peter: We had obviously been targeted. They used helicopters. The convent wasn’t touched - only the church and the buildings along the road.
AG: Those were the places where the displaced people were staying?
Peter: Yes, that’s right. I was told that some of them were killed.

We were both silent for a while. I remember not knowing how to proceed. I could neither confirm nor deny.

Peter: When was it that you visited us?
AG: It was just last week, on Friday. I arrived at around eleven thirty. We left Colombo at eight and landed at the military airfield at nine. It took two hours to get to you because we were going through the blockade.
Peter: I remember that you left around four.
AG: That’s right.

A nurse came in and addressed Peter directly, cutting across me. She asked whether he was comfortable. She started in English, but then continued in Sinhalese. I remember Peter nodding towards me – as best he could, given the fact that he was connected to a battery of machines and bottles and had very restricted movement. In any case, it seemed that he had no movement at all in the lower half of his body, which was protected from the weight of the bedding by a tent frame. The nurse fussed a little at his pillow, checked his drip and then left. I remember looking around the room and noticing for the first time that his was not the only bed and that I was not the only visitor. Though the room was small, there clearly was another bed behind the curtains beyond Father Peter. The drapes that ran from floor to ceiling. They stretched across something rigid at one point as they turned the corner. I assumed this was a chair back and, indeed, its position moved just a little when the nurse squeezed her way past, having satisfied herself that all Father Peter’s inputs were in place and working. So there was someone sitting on the chair by the other bed when I arrived.

Peter: Where were we?
AG: I left at around four on Friday afternoon. It was already going dark by the time I reached the airfield and it was after eight before we landed back in Colombo. We had to wait for the plane to come back from where it had gone after dropping us off that morning. The officer who made the trip north with me was also going back.
Peter: Miss Grady, please don’t think in any way that I am suggesting that you may be responsible…
AG: Did I tell him about my visit? Yes, I did. But all I said was that I was visiting you on behalf of the relief service…
Peter: Did you mention the displaced people?
AG: Only to confirm that anyone who was displaced by the fighting might need humanitarian assistance. I said nothing about where they might be from, where they might be or how many there were. I spoke only in the most general terms.

I remember how quiet Peter became. The tape ran on for over a minute before either of us spoke again. The chair by the other bed nudged back against the curtain a little. I pointed towards it and asked Peter without speaking if he knew who was there. He shrugged, as best he could.

Peter: I arrived on Sunday, but I came into this room late last night. I was sedated. When I woke this morning, that’s all I could see. It hasn’t changed.

For some reason both of us began to whisper. I have had to interpolate the words in some of the following exchanges because we spoke so quietly the tape did not pick them up. I believe my memory of what was said remained clear.

AG: So how do we handle this?
Peter: I have nothing to hide. Have you?

I shook my head, thinking how futile a gesture it was. I thought I had been careful with my words the previous Friday and yet, perhaps, someone had read into them whatever they had wanted to hear.

AG: Please tell me what happened.
Peter: At around seven on Saturday morning we heard helicopters. It’s quiet around P..., as you know, so we heard them when they were still a long way off. I went outside to see where they were heading. The current operation started over a month ago, so we have grown used to going outside to watch the comings and goings. Since the displaced people arrived, I have had regular conversations with several of the men about exactly what and where was being targeted.
AG: So Saturday morning was nothing special.
Peter: No. Quite ordinary, at least to begin with. There were six of us – all men – standing near the store house at the back of the shops. There’s some raised ground there at the side from where you can get a better view.
AG: Was it the men who had their bunks inside the store house? Were they the ones who were interested in what the military were up to?
Peter: One or two of them were there…
AG: When I visited on Friday, the whole store house area was deserted. There were six bunks inside, but there was no-one around. In the other buildings – the ones occupied by the families – there were clear signs of life. Had those men cleared out because of my visit? Who are they?
Peter: Who were they…?
AG: I’m sorry…
Peter: As I told you last Friday, all I can relate to you is what I am told myself. The people came from two villages in the line of fire. The military gave them one hour to leave their houses. They all arrived at my church with only the things they could carry. They had walked ten miles or so. And that was a month ago. I can hardly claim to have got to know them in the last month, but I at least know something about them. All I can tell you is what they told me. The families were clearly travelling as groups, but the single men seemed to keep apart, apart from the families and apart from one another. The families immediately negotiated shelter in the shops. As you know there is no commerce any more in our area so those shops have not been in business for some time. But the families wanted the single men to be separate, and the men, themselves, also seemed to want to stay apart. So they offered to build themselves bunks in the store house at the back. None of the men were related to any of the families. I was told later that they were employed as labourers. They used to sleep in shacks set apart in the paddies. They never even went to the village. Also, they were originally plantation people…
AG: So they had to be segregated from the rest? Not quite clean enough, not quite pure enough to rub shoulders with the real thing?
Peter: Now you are being judgmental. It’s the way things are…
AG: (interrupting) Please go on. I’m sorry. Please tell me what happened.
Peter: Well the story is short and simple. We heard the helicopters and went out to watch. We started to chat and speculate about which way they would go. It was only a minute or so later when we realised that they were heading directly for us. I can’t remember who ran first. I can’t even remember if anyone ran. By the time we were ready to admit that they were heading our way it seemed almost too late to move. I remember thinking that they might fly straight over us on their way to somewhere beyond, but then that wasn’t at all likely. There’s not much past us in that direction, only a few mangroves and sandbanks before you get to the sea. I don’t remember much more. Only that there was a lot of smoke for a while – and then I couldn’t stand. It was a while before I felt any pain – and then it was unbearable. I must have passed out. I can remember someone with a syringe. The person said something, but I couldn’t hear. And then it was Sunday evening and I was in the camp at M.... I recognized the French doctor as soon as I saw him He told me I was going to be air-lifted to Colombo immediately. I still don’t know what happened to any of the others. The military on the plane told me that people had been killed. One said six, another ten. The pain had gone. I couldn’t feel anything, but my hearing was starting to return. I arrived here late on Sunday and then went under after another injection. I woke up yesterday evening and have been here in this bed ever since. I have not moved. I felt a little bit better this morning when the doctor came to see me. He said I have shrapnel in my lower legs and some small pieces in my back. They have removed what they can. He said that the MSF doctor in the camp saved my feet. Without him I would now be a double amputee. I still may be, because I can neither see nor feel anything below the waist. And I can’t move.
AG: How long will you be in here?
Peter: I asked the doctor this morning. He says it is too soon to judge how long things will take. But for a start he says that I’ll have to stay here for a month. They have to change the dressings twice a day. And then they say we’ll have to wait and see. It took me a while for his words, “We hope you will be able to walk again” to sink in. I have had a day to get used to the idea and it’s still hard to know what it really means.

Peter paused here and looked again towards the other bed on his right. Nothing stirred behind the curtains. He then turned back towards me.

Peter: So how did you know I was here?
AG: I was at a meeting of the relief agency all day yesterday. I heard news of the operation in your area early yesterday morning and it was around midday when some people arrived from M.... They had been travelling for a full day. They came straight into the meeting because they knew we were discussing how to get relief supplies up to the north. The first thing they did was tell us what happened to you. But they didn’t know where you were. It took most of yesterday evening on the telephone to find you. And then I was told that you could not take visitors until the afternoon because you were in surgery. No-one seemed to recognize your name…
Peter: That’s because they would have used my other name…

I didn’t pursue this at the time. I now wish I had done. Peter William clearly had another name, perhaps a Tamil name, by which he is also, perhaps more commonly known. His baptismal name, it seems, is for external use only.

Peter: … and of course he came in yesterday…

He nodded vaguely towards the curtain.

It was just at that moment that the curtains moved for the first time. There was a clear swish on the tape as the runners slid on their track. The complete silence that Peter and I maintained was a reflection of our surprise at what was revealed. And it was a while before I realised that, from his fixed position, Peter could not see everything that I could. Peter would have seen the policeman, but not the patient in his bed. The policeman was the occupant of the chair near the foot of the bed. What threw me was the fact that he also had a tape recorder. It was on the bed next to where he sat, alongside an open spiral-bound notebook on top of which lay a pen. The young man in the bed seemed to be unconscious, his head lolling to one side at a strange angle.
The policeman studied me. He studied my tape recorder. I must have done the same to him. It seemed like an age at the time, but my tape revealed that it was just a few seconds before the curtain swished closed.

I looked at Peter, who quizzically returned my gaze. He sensed my apprehension, because he said nothing. I did not know what to do. I feared the worst, though I had no idea what that might be.

I remember leaning over towards Peter and whispering. I told him what I had seen, words that did not register on my recording, though the tape was still running. I can recall sensing an irony in my willingness to confide in a man whose acquaintance I had shared for only a few hours in total.

My mind was suddenly full of imagined fears. The policeman was recording us, I concluded. We had already mentioned Father Peter’s “other” name. There was clearly a lot I didn’t know, didn’t understand, or alternatively there was much from which I was deliberately excluded. Peter’s lack of reaction could have been resignation. It could have been simply “so what?” Or it could have been expectation. I started to get up.

Peter: What’s the problem, Miss Grady?
AG: I thought I might go and ask someone about…
Peter: We have nothing to hide. What’s the problem?

Then the nurse reappeared. She carried a metal tray in which some small bottles rattled. She immediately registered my concern. I must have looked at her, across to the other bed and back again. She paused. Then Peter spoke, craning his neck forwards as far as he could. The words are there on the tape but I can’t transcribe them because they are in Sinhalese. Perhaps Peter merely asked who was in the next bed. The nurse answered at length and went behind the curtain.

Peter: It’s a man with gunshot wounds. He is in a coma. He has been shot by the police, having been caught dealing drugs on the street. He tried to run away, but the officers were armed and they shot him. They hope he will be able to talk if he comes round. She says he was admitted in the middle of the night, but obviously I must have been heavily sedated at the time.

Peter and I listened to various noises that followed. It was an injection being administered, with an associated rattle of glass and cellophane, breaking of seals and clanking of enamel that seemed to last an age. The noises are all clearly recorded on my tape, which means that anything we had said could be on the policeman’s tape. The nurse reappeared. As the policeman held the curtain aside for her, they exchanged a few words.

Peter: So we are both full of metal?
Nurse: You are, but he has two pieces, whereas you have many. Unfortunately for him, his pieces are big and in places where we can’t take them out.

She then left the room.

Peter: She asked if the man had said anything. The policeman answered, “Not a word.” There probably isn’t much more you can accomplish by staying here, Miss Grady. But I would like to ask you a favour. Could you…

At this point there was a growling and a muttering from behind the curtain. The policeman’s chair moved. The voice was almost liquid, as if passing through oil.

Peter: Could you get a message back up to M... for me? I want someone to go back to P... and take some pictures. I need to see what damage has been done. I think the agency truck is scheduled to go up there tomorrow or maybe Thursday. Can you ask someone to arrange a camera for whoever will visit? We need pictures of the damage and also of any injured people who are still there.
AG: I’ll certainly do that. Whom should I ask?

The tape now has several long guttural sounds from the next bed. They are not intelligible, I think, but they go on for several seconds, during which time both Peter and myself instinctively try to listen. I cannot tell if Peter understood anything, but he certainly seemed to register something. I recall inviting him to tell me, but he ignored my request.

AG: So whom should I ask?
Peter was still listening.

Peter: Alicia will know. The woman who runs the office. Try her. And also can you check if there is any mail for me at the office? I am expecting some letters. If you are planning to visit me tomorrow, could you bring them here?
AG: I’ll try. I have a meeting there at nine. Perhaps I could get here by twelve?
Peter: That will be fine. And please can you phone Alicia this evening to ask her about the trip to the north? Please don’t leave it until tomorrow.

I switched off the tape at this point before I said my goodbyes and left.

Wednesday

Room 258 was jammed with people when I arrived just after twelve thirty. Peter was completely surrounded. There was a pair of nurses, one either side of the bed-head. They had clearly just manoeuvred him into a semi-upright position with the assistance of several pillows under his shoulders. A doctor stood to the side. He asked me to wait until he had finished his examination. As I stood in the corridor outside, I could see past the group around Peter’s bed to the policemen beyond. The curtains around the other bed were fully open. I could see the young man clearly this time. His head was bandaged and an apparent multiplicity of tubes and cables connected him to various bottles and machines. Two uniformed officers stood slightly apart at the foot of the bed, whilst two men in plain clothes stood on either side of the young man. One held a microphone near the boy’s face while the other bent low over the bed and occasionally spoke. The boy appeared to be conscious, but only just. He was clearly responding to the prompts, however, and whenever he spoke, the questioning plain clothes man repeated his words so that the boy could confirm with a nod and also so that one of the uniformed officers could take notes.

I watched this scene for ten minutes or more. Peter’s doctor was checking all of the wounds on his feet and lower legs. His right foot in particular seemed to be very badly damaged. But I was distracted throughout by what seemed to be happening beyond Peter’s group. It seemed that the interrogator was deliberately trying to hurt the boy, who started to cry out. Neither the nurses nor the doctor paid any attention to this, however, so I thought no more of it at the time. Only now has its incongruity full registered. A nurse noticed my interest. She told me that the boy was a drug dealer and did not deserve my sympathy. She said that this was the first time he had regained consciousness and the police were keen to learn what he knew.

When the doctor finished examining Peter I was allowed into the room. I greeted Peter and placed my recorder in the recess near the top of the side table, to Peter’s left. I remember thinking that the interrogating policeman might object to its presence, but he did not seem to be interested. Or maybe he just did not notice it.

AG: So what did the doctor say?
Peter: He seemed to be pleased with the operation. He thinks that there are still many small bits of shrapnel in my right foot, but my left foot is probably clear. They did an X-ray before the operation, but they want to operate again. He said he would have to consult a colleague, but he thought they might have to wait a couple of weeks for everything to settle down before making a decision.

It was obvious that Peter was much stronger. The previous day’s conversation had not been punctuated by the head rocking that is so characteristic of the region. Today, almost every phrase Peter said was accompanied by a virtuoso performance from the neck up. It seemed like he was trying to write the words with his nose. I nodded towards the policemen.

AG: It’s a bit dramatic…
Peter (quietly): They have been questioning him for an hour. The boy is incoherent. They are feeding him with statements and sometimes he makes a noise. They then tell one another that he has confirmed what they have said.
AG: I spoke with people in the office this morning. Your story is now in the newspapers. It appeared only today. Basically all the reports have reproduced a press release from the military. They say that the church compound in P... was bombed because it had been occupied by guerrillas and that they had taken you and the nuns hostage. They regret the fact that you were hurt in the attack and cite that as proof that the guerrillas were using you as a human shield. They claim to have killed all of the guerrillas.
Peter: What about the families?

There was a pause in our conversation here. As Peter asked his question, a doctor came into the room. He was polite but forceful with the plain clothes men. He was clearly saying that the boy needed rest. They argued for a while, during which time we were silent. Just as they finally agreed to leave, a nurse came in with a tray and gave the boy another injection. Three of the policemen then did leave, but one uniformed man stayed. They left the tape recorder with him.

AG: They should move you out of this room.
Peter: Human shield? What are they talking about?
AG: At least they have not accused you of harbouring the rebels.
Peter: What they say in the papers and what they say to one another are quite different things. Take nothing for granted, Miss Grady. Do you know what happened to the other people?
AG: No-one knows. At least no-one is saying. There is currently no communication open with P..., not even with the convent.
Peter: Did the reports say anything about the military moving in to the area?
AG: No. They only mentioned the air strike.

Another nurse appeared. She spoke to Peter.

Nurse: We want you to have another X-ray. The doctors need to know how much shrapnel is left. We can do it now that the tissues have had some time to settle down after the operation. They think you are well enough to move.
Peter: When?
Nurse: We will come for you in a few minutes.

As the nurse left, she cast a glance towards the other bed. In the short time that she had been in the room, much had changed. Possibly as a result of the injection the boy had been given, possibly because he had drifted into semi-consciousness, he began to rant. He started making strange noises, half-singing, half-speaking. Sometimes they were high pitched and shouted. Sometimes they were barely audible, merely mumbled.

The policeman scribbled away madly on his pad. He repeatedly pushed the tape recorder closer, or pulled it back, depending on the volume of the boy’s utterance. I couldn’t understand anything. Presumably it was Sinhalese, but Peter’s reaction suggested that it might have been Tamil. He seemed surprised, but said nothing.

Peter: Well, I suppose that’s progress. I hope they are not going to operate again before I have had some more time to recover. I feel very weak.
AG: But you don’t seem to be in pain…
Peter: That’s because of the medication. I can’t feel a thing. I’ve also had nothing to eat…
AG: That’s a point. Shall I go and get you something?
Peter: That would be wonderful. Please do.
AG: There’s a shop just over the road. I’ll go and get you some snacks.

I was away for longer than I had planned. It ought to have taken only a few minutes, but the shop was full and there was an argument about money. Both of the shop’s proprietors were involved and all other activity seemed to be suspended until the problem was solved. It was over half an hour before I returned to Peter’s room. I knew immediately there was a problem. Peter had gone. His bed, presumably with him still in it, had been wheeled out of the room. I assumed he’d gone for the X-ray. The man was still ranting. There was an absolute torrent of words flowing from him, but still he seemed only barely conscious. Though the curtains around his bed were now completely drawn back, he offered no acknowledgement whatsoever of my entrance. But the policeman had also gone. Earlier he had been so careful to write and record every word that was uttered, so diligent in checking his recording level for every sound the poor man made. And now there was this torrent of words and yet the policeman had left, taking his tape recorder with him. It didn’t make sense. I found a nurse – not easy, since the ward seemed deserted and I had to go right through to the end of the corridor – and asked what had happened to Peter. She had to ask two others before one clearly senior nurse confirmed that he had gone for his X-ray. She estimated that he might be back in half an hour or so.

I decided to go back across the road for a cup of tea. When I returned, about an hour later, Peter’s bed was back in the room, but it was empty. The man was still ranting and there was still no policeman. There was, at least, a nurse in the corridor. But she said that she had only just come on duty and could tell me nothing. I went down to the main reception and asked if they knew where Peter was. They said they had no idea, a response which I found strange, to say the least. I asked them to check the patient record of the occupant of Room 258 and they gave me one name only, the name of the drug dealer, I assumed, because it clearly wasn’t Peter’s name.

By the time I got back to Room 258, the nurse was re-making Peter’s bed. I asked again where he was and she also said she had only just started her shift. She speculated that he might have been transferred. I asked to where and she merely shrugged her shoulders.

I was about to set off again when I noticed that I had left my tape recorder on Peter’s side table. I had placed it there when I first entered the room. I had set it running to record our conversation and it had been recording ever since. I went across to retrieve it. When I turned it off, the nurse clearly registered the click. She was about to say something, but I left the room immediately, not giving her a chance to speak, dropping the recorder in my bag. I went back to the main office where I tried to explain who I was and whom I was trying to contact. They claimed to have no knowledge of a priest with shrapnel wounds having been admitted.

I must have stayed with them for fifteen minutes or so. Then I decided my only course of action was to find the nurse who had told him about the X-ray. Even if she was no longer on duty, I decided my best bet was to talk to the ones upstairs who had replaced her.

I went back upstairs and along the corridor to Room 258. There was still no sign of Peter and, strangely, no sign of anyone else either, no policemen, not even nurses. The place was deserted. I took the opportunity to go behind the service counter that separated the nurses’ work area from the rest of the foyer. I looked around a little, thinking I might be able to see a paper, a register or roster with Peter’s name.

And then all hell broke loose. The swing doors flung open and two men ran along the corridor away from me. Instinctively, I crouched down behind the counter, but I could still tell what happened. I heard a door open and close and then several muffled shots. I then heard the men leave, their haste leaving the doors swinging back and forth several times. Barely twenty seconds had elapsed between their entrance and exit.

I stayed behind the counter for several minutes. No one appeared. I stood up and checked the corridor and lift area before going down to Room 258. The man, obviously, was dead. I didn’t go close. There was no need. The top of the bed was just a mass of blood. But still there was no-one around.

I hurried back to the ground floor. I paused only to tell a nurse on reception what had happened. She looked shocked and told me to wait, but I was already on my way out of the hospital’s main entrance. I went back to the reception desk and spoke to the nurse and a colleague she had called over. They looked sincerely shocked. They didn’t believe what I was saying. They told people in the office behind and someone went upstairs to check. He returned less than a minute later in a highly agitated state.

And then I was taken by surprise. Without warning, three other people approached. I expected to be told to wait until the police arrived. I was, after all, a witness. But they led me immediately out into the street and told me very clearly to go. I now presume that they knew nothing about my tape.

So I left, quickly. I came straight back to the hotel and immediately set about transcribing the tapes of my conversations with Peter. When I turned on the television for the evening news, there was a report of an “incident” in Mount Gardenia hospital. It said that a man had entered the hospital and shot dead two patients in a room on an upper floor. Two patients… The incident, said the report, was thought to be related to crime, specifically drug dealing.

A later report in the same bulletin was what prompted me to seek immediate assistance and guidance. It claimed that our partner agency in Colombo, and my personal contacts, no less, were being investigated. They stand accused, said the report, of channelling funds to the rebels in the north.

Thursday

I am currently in the Stanley Gardens Hotel in room 176. I have a tape recording lasting more than ninety minutes of the drug dealer’s ranting, not a word of which I can understand, and I was a witness to his death. I saw the murderers. And I think they saw me. And according to the news, Peter was also shot dead by the same men, an assertion I know to be false. I believe my main contacts are in custody. I await directions from head office, which I hope to receive via the same route that I send these notes. Please advise.