Sideshow by William Shawcross

 

When we consider Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia, Sideshow by William Shawcross is probably the main event, if not the last word. On completing the book, it’s hard to imagine that the author has left a single document on the subject untouched, a single actor in the saga un-researched. The level of detail here is forensic, to such an extent, perhaps, that the actors in the story never really develop character, because they are always too busy, apparently, acting out their explicit roles.

Perhaps, it’s easier at the start to say what Sideshow is not, so that its focus can become quite clear. Sideshow is not about the Vietnam War, though of course this almost continually figures, sometimes over the border, sometimes just this side of it. Sideshow is also not a description of the Khmer Rouge government, its attempted genocide or its atrocities, though of course it and its actions do figure large in the final chapters of the book, after it took power following the collapse of the American-backed regime, if this is not an oxymoron.

What Sideshow does describe is US policy towards Cambodia from the late 1960s, its effects on Cambodian society, its attempted manipulation of Cambodian politics and the rationale, if that be a relevant term, that underpinned the involvement. The utter confusion that is described is perhaps best illustrated by the sequence of the start of the book where the first B-52 raids on targets within Cambodia are described. Not only were these missions secret, but it seems that even the aircrew flying them did not know beforehand where they were going, and in the first instance the radio operator aboard acknowledged mission complete still ignorant of his position. In addition, all logs relating to the completion of the tasks were falsified in an attempt to hide from the rest of the world the location of the dropped bombs. Not bad for a start.

A theme in Sideshow is just how thoroughly random the process of making policy was in Washington at the end of the 1960s. You have powerful personalities using platforms to promote themselves and themselves only. You have influential actors more influenced by Hollywood‘s vision of reality than anything they experienced, either via reality or by informed briefing. Somehow the world was always wrong if it did not conform to how it should be. A quote endures relating to how democracy should prevail as a ubiquitous goal alongside how people should not be allowed to be so stupid as to elect socialists, as in Chile.

An instructive and memorable passage describes the Huston Plan, which sanctioned the wire-tapping, mail-meddling and general surveillance of anyone deemed of interest, which included anyone who wanted to question what turned out to be a fallacious orthodoxy. William Shawcross writes: “Nixon approved the plan… (whose) …discovery in 1973 helped enormously to build such Congressional outrage that the legislature was finally able to force the White House to end the massive bombing of Cambodia, which was just beginning to spread as Huston formulated his proposals in summer 1970. It was to become a crucial part of the impeachment proceedings. When, much later, Nixon was asked by David Frost to justify his actions he bluntly produced a new version of presidential infallibility – ‘Well, when the president does it, that makes it not illegal’.” Which just goes to show that other, more recent incumbents were not actually responsible for inventing the concept of infallibility.

And in another passage relating to a different set of events, William Shawcross quotes Senator William J Fulbright saying, “I don’t think it is legal or constitutional. But whether it is right or not, he has done it. He has the power to do it because under our system there is not an easy way to stop him”. Some things, it seems, do not change, no matter how pressing proves the need, nor how many decades have passed in the meantime.

A long way before the end of the book, an ending we now know to have unfolded, the descent into chaos for Cambodia seemed inevitable. It is a small nation and like a thorn in the foot of an elephant, it was toyed with, scraped, pulled out and discarded. The elephant moved on and the thorn was apparently left to its own devices, eventually to prick itself.

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.

The Towers Of Silence by Paul Scott

The Towers Of Silence, the third of Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet, is very much a novel about women. Set in India in the 1940s, the war impinges on almost every aspect of their lives, but they experience conflict largely second hand via the consequences for their male associates. Their lives are changed because those of their men folk have been affected. But it is the internal conflicts, as these women strive to maintain normality within the abnormal, that provide the book with its real substance, its real battleground.

And these are no mere domestic fronts. There are conflicts of interest, prejudices, especially in the realm of social class and ascribed worth, that shed real blood. Here are just a few of the women involved. Mildred Layton and her two daughters, the long-suffering Sarah and simpler Susan, have John, husband and father, detained as a prisoner of war in Europe. Susan’s new husband, the rather dull and inexperienced Teddy, has been killed in action on the Burma front. She bears his child, tentatively and premature.

There’s Mabel, Mildred’s rather off-beat step-mother-in-law who occupies Rose Cottage, the well appointed residence that really would be put to better use if it housed the rest of the family, allowing them to vacate the less-than-adequate, if not actually demeaning government issue where they currently reside.

And then there’s Barbie Batchelor, Mabel’s housemate of some years. She’s an ex-missionary, a teacher of young children, parlour maid class, of course, now put out to the pasture of retirement, pasture that just happens to be the laws of the favoured and evied Rose Cottage.

From the previous two books in the quartet, the two Manners characters, Daphne, who was abused in the 1942 Mayapore civil unrest, and her aunt, Lady Manners, still figure large in events. The fall-out for the now ex-policeman, Ronald Merrick, still troubles, pursues him, in fact. Daphne died in childbirth, so he believes the case died with her. No-one else seems to think so. Intriguingly the surviving child is also a girl.

But it is Barbie who emerges a the book’s focus. Her friend and colleague, Edwina Crane, opened the sequence of novels. She was also attached in the 1942 riots, and then later she committed suttee, her mind allegedly disturbed by what had happened. It was an act that Barbie could not and still can not understand, provoking her to question whether her life devoted to bringing Indian children to God might just have been mis-spent. Sarah Layton will still talk to her, but Mildred hates her. And so when… 

 But then this is all plot, and the reader wants this to unfold anew from the book, itself. Let it be said that the characters of The Towers Of Silence interact in remarkably complex ways. But what is actually said is only ever a small part of a much bigger story. It was Lawrence Durrell who described the English having a hard and horny outer shell, but soft at centre, exploring the world via sensitive antennae called humour and prejudice. And this description fits the way in which the colonial British in India have become a caricature of a society that no longer exists in the home country.

Change is inevitable, and when it comes it is likely that those left rootless by it will be laid out on a tower of silence, the place where Parsees leave their dead to be picked to bones by raptors, where all the fleshed-out airs and graces of class will fall away. Paul Scott’s novel is sensitive, but analytical enough to have a vicious streak. It is full of rumours and, of course, prejudice, especially in the way that its characters deal with anyone suspected of having lower social status than themselves. And if you are a colonial British in India, that’s just about everyone, despite the lack of obvious future that the way of life might claim.

The Day of The Scorpion by Paul Scott

Just as history can’t be undone, innocence, once lost, can’t be retrieved. If history would allow, I would dearly love to read Paul Scott’s The Day Of The Scorpion without having first read The Jewel In The Crown. Scorpion is very much a continuation of the Crown and I am not convinced that a reader coming cold to the book as a stand-alone work would cope with the multiple references to what came before.

Like the characters in Paul Scott’s novels, I can’t undo history and can only thus reflect on another time through this forensic tale of war-torn colonial India as someone who did the Crown first. The incidents that formed the backbone of The Jewel In The Crown are still to the fore. There are implications and consequences. But time and people have moved on. Not all have survived.

There is a child called Parvati who figures large in the tale but hardly ever appears. Ronald Merrick, however, the policeman from Mayapore who was only seen from afar and through others’ eyes in The Jewel In The Crown is now very much at the centre of things. His character, that of a self-made man, grammar school educated, middle, not upper class, provides the perfect contrast to the stiff upper lip fossilized Britishness of the military types.

Merrick is no less British, no less confident in his prejudices. In fact he is arguably more aggressive in his need to assert a removed superiority, but his need is personal and antagonistic, containing neither the patronising nor the paternalistic tendencies of those born to rule. Racially he assumes superiority, whereas professionally he must earn it, because, unlike the upper classes, he was not born to it.

The Laytons are such an upper class colonial family. Daddy is a prisoner of war in Europe. Mildred is at home in India – if home it can be – silently stewing at the indignity of not being able to live in the larger house her status deserves. She has taken to the bottle. Susan, the younger daughter, is about to be married to a suitably stationed officer and, despite war, civil unrest, threats of political change in Britain and now fragile colonialism, expects a fairytale family future plucked straight from the pages of some glossy magazine. Sarah, her sister, is more down to earth, is perhaps both more phlegmatic and sceptical, certainly more conscious of her responsibilities and role and the fragility of life.

Both sisters remember a childhood experience when a gardener made a ring of fire and dropped a live scorpion into its midst. Thus surrounded by threat, it did for itself, or at least that’s how it looked. How would people react if conflagration surrounded them? They would have to get on with their lives, of course. But for some, the process might prove tougher than for others. And what if you are a local ruler, a Nawab, for instance, a British puppet popping around a little kingdom claiming it’s a law unto itself? What to do if your chief minister has been imprisoned by your masters without trial, along with all others who share his opposition to the people who keep you in power? Where then should your loyalties lie?

Though The Day Of The Scorpion is primarily a novel about women, it’s the military side of the book that provides everyone involved with the ring of challenges they must face. With politicians in jail and Mr Ghandi’s advocacy of non-violence, how does anyone relate to those Indians who have joined the Indian National Army to fight alongside the Japanese? If your mindset has been tutored on notions of paternalism and the white man’s burden, how is possible that such people can exist? How can they reject what you have offered? But exist they do and their ammunition is live. And it’s not only the British who cannot cope with such concepts.

The Day Of The Scorpion has many more themes than these. It is an episodic novel of quite remarkable complexity. The characters are beautifully drawn, rounded individuals, each presented with personal, social and political dilemmas. Not least among them is Hari Kumar, still imprisoned, whose loyalty is repeatedly tested, and whose resolve to protect remains unbreakable. Paul Scott’s novel recreates a complete world, a complete history via the experiences of individuals who, given the chance, are more than willing to explain their positions and dilemmas at length. But it is the detail of their stories that describes the pressures that now surround them. You cannot skip a word.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

When a book has won the Booker Prize and the film that it spawned has taken Oscars, the casual reviewer might be tempted to conclude that everything has already been said on its subject. Having just revisited the film after several years of absence, I decided to re-read the book. I don’t remember how many times I have read it now: let’s call it several. I have seen the film at least six times. First let it be said that the film, The English Patient, claims only to be based on Michael Ondaatje’s book. It is a film from the book, not of the book. The distinction is crucial because, despite the film’s admirable attempt to recreate the complexity of part of the novel, the book always went much further. 

In the book we have characters who have been scarred by war, by a war that none of them particularly wanted to fight. I suppose there are occasional wars where some of the participants want to be active. But here Caravaggio just wanted to stay a thief and thus keep his thumbs. And who would take over thieving if he is drafted to fight? Perhaps Hana’s father really did intend to see out the conflict and restart his previous life. Perhaps the English Patient, himself, did really want to be English. I doubt it.

Or perhaps the idea, that of nationality, given war, was mere irrelevance. It was sides that people counted. He certainly had much to hide, but from whom? What does it matter what side you claim to be on when it is only ever the innocent who fall victim? This last point is crucial to the feelings of Kip, the character who only just makes it into the film. For in the book this Sikh sapper, this bomb disposal specialist, who risks his own life to protect others, is a complex anti-colonial thinker. He has a sense of justice that transcends victory, especially when that victory is won at tremendous cost in the lives of those who did not fight. This aspect the film makers largely ignored. His character became a suspiciously like an aspect of the noble savage that remains gratefully unthreatening to colonialism. In the book his standpoint is far more radical than this.

And as far as Almasy is concerned, if that really was his name, he eventually worked for those people who would accept him at face value, without a racism that was suspected. On the other hand, he was Hungarian, and in that war the nation was sympathetic to fascism. So did he merely support his own country’s line? Whom would you believe? Whose motives are honest? Almasy’s love for the wife of a British war-monger was undoubtedly sincere, but at the same time obsessive. Might it have burned out if given the freedom to flame?

And did Katharine know of her husband’s contribution to war? If not, who was betrayed? In the film it is unclear that it took Almasy three years to return to the Cave of the Swimmers, and also spent much of the intervening time doing significantly more than merely handing over maps. Such is life in war. In film, it’s the gloss that counts. In The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje’s book, we are never clear about motives. These change whilst apparently remaining both consistent and sincere, despite remaining unknown, often unstated. There is continued life after the conflict ends, albeit utterly transformed, still dangerous, and then there is death which, for some seems the preferable option. There are principles, and these are largely underpinned by pragmatism. Above all there are actions and reactions. Ask any fuse. It might just blow you away from what you are. Light the blue touch-paper and stand back, well back.

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.

Vietnam – A History by Stanley Karnow

At around 270,000 words, Stanley Karnow’s Vietnam – A History is something of a monster, as is its subject. Even those who did not live through the era when reports of the conflict dominated most international news, the title itself is still probably recognised as something iconic, something that sums up the third quarter of the twentieth century. The word iconic would be inaccurate, however. Icons are small images that suggest something bigger.

Vietnam, as a subject, as a reality, was always a big issue. It was fought over for thirty years, toppled US Presidents, claimed untold thousands of lives and effectively involved the whole world. This was superpower conflict by proxy. Stanley Karnow’s book is replete with detail, analysis, fact, some fiction and much posturing. It benefits from being written largely from experience. The author was a respected journalist who covered the war at its height and his encounters with political elites, combatants and victims bring the story of death and destruction to life, if that phrase is not in bad taste. This was no minor skirmish, confined to a far corner of the North American world view. World War Two devastated Europe and significant other parts of the world. And yet a greater tonnage of explosives was dropped in the Vietnam War than in all the Second World War’s theatres of conflict combined. It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on that.

In addition, chemical weapons, defoliants and napalm were sprayed around with apparent abandon before the United States, defeated, left for their territorially unaffected, unattacked home. There are those who thought the war was counter-productive. There were those who still think that the war was fought by a USA that had one hand tied behind its back. An all-out onslaught would have brought decisive victory. But, given the above, what would that victory have looked like? Just how close did the world come to a second nuclear war? Stanley Karnow reminds us how truth becomes a casualty.

He describes how US officials, civilian and military alike dared not communicate negative messages or attitudes about the war. To do so was seen as defeatism and there were no promotions for defeatists, no opportunities for pessimists, their positions being interpreted as merely unpatriotic. In contrast, positive reports were rewarded, even if they bore little resemblance to reality. And the author’s portrait of Walt Rostow, a prominent member of LBJ’s team, casts him squarely in the role of anti-communist hawk, a guise in which we should view him when today we approach his still respected work on economic change and development.

But what is perhaps most troubling was the ease with which those in power used the mechanisms of their state to hound dissenters, to tap their phones, block their careers. And, it has to be remembered, this culture did lead – though perhaps indirectly – to the near impeachment and actual removal from office of an elected US President. Stanley Karnow’s book captures the conflict ideologically, historically and politically. Alongside Gabriel Kolko’s book on the same subject, it ought to be required reading for anyone left in the world who thinks that war can solve conflict.

Lord Of The Flies by William Golding

A review of a book as iconic as Lord Of The Flies should surely only offer comment, not mere description. It is over fifty years since its publication in 1954 and, it should be remembered, the story is set in wartime. So, while the marooned boys apparently descend into a mould of pre-civilised behaviour, their adult compatriots are engaged in it full time in the world outside. Jack may paint his face and display an identifying insignia, but so, probably, does his father at that time, a display he might call a uniform, and the insignia a flag or regimental banner.

It is perhaps coincidence that William Golding casts a casualty of the nearby war, dead, but re-animated by natural elements, the wind in his parachute, as the intruding beast that terrorises the stranded boys. Where this imagery falls down, of course, is at the end, when a suitably British naval officer rescues the lads. We assume they will promptly be returned to their besieged wartime homeland, no doubt to live happily ever after.

Of course, there is the question of who saves the adults, whose war is the merely the same as the boys’ limited creation on their island. But this element of the book perhaps reads less convincingly fifty years on from its publication, when the general reader would have needed no reminder of how horrid an experience the recent war had been.

Ralph’s character poses something of a dilemma. He clearly believes he was born to lead. When he finds his authority both undermined and then by-passed, it appears he cannot cope with the demotion, his continued assumption of status blinding him to the obvious. At the time this surely would have been interpreted as a reference to the British class system.

Fifty years on, the allusion is less than obvious. If anything, Piggy presents the modern reader with the most problems. He is the epitome of the know-all, the swot, the annoying brat that always has something to say. But he is also the idealist and realist in one. He has few skills, perhaps fewer physical contributions to make to the group’s survival. But he has a technological vision. He is an inventor of ideas, ideas that others, under direction, may realise. Hence he is also the visionary, the philosopher who not only knows what should be done, but also why it should be done. Significantly, his spectacles provide the only technology the community needs since, unbelievably for the period, none of them seems ever to have been a boy scout and so they cannot make fire. But it is eventually Piggy, for all his analytical and intellectual skills, who seems a total prisoner of stereotypical assumptions. He seems to assume that “British” is a synonym for “civilised” and that all black people are automatically savage. 

The reader is left in some doubt as to whether these opinions are sincerely held, satirical, representative of the society from which the boy hails or merely hyperbole promoted by the panic of their situation. To some extent, they have to be accepted and dealt with rather like an opera-goer must accept Wagner’s anti-Semitism as historical fact, rather than essential opinion. Lord Of The Flies has weathered its half century remarkably well, but there are flaws which now seem more obvious than they would have been in the years that followed the book’s publication. The power of the book’s observation, however, remains. It is already iconic, its permanence assured.

View this book on amazon Lord of the Flies: Educational Edition

Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally

Towards Asmara by Thomas Keneally was eventually disappointing. As a process, the experience was strewn with beauty, vivid images and arresting phrases. The author, for instance, described desert vegetation ready to burst into life at the first “rumour” of moisture. The writing style has a quirky inventiveness that regularly surprises.

Where Towards Asmara eventually breaks down, however, is its inability to take the reader past the credibility hurdle that spans observer and participant. Not that one particularly wants to participate! War, famine, being shot at, placed under house arrest or being tortured are all experiences to avoid on most working days and Towards Asmara is packed with them. The journalistic skill with which the book’s events are described is enormous. We are introduced to enough history for context, enough current events to situate and enough political interests to begin an understanding. 

So if the style is good and the context is engaging, where is the problem? The answer is in the book’s characters. Darcy is an Australian, a bit mixed up after his ethnically Chinese wife ran off with an Aborigine jailbird back home. Now she won’t even deal with him. There’s Amna, an Eritrean guerrilla who has suffered every imaginable torture at the hands of the Dergue. There’s Julia, a British lady of some class who is researching women’s issues for the Anti-Slavery Society. There’s Masihi, a film maker, and Christine from France who finds a role working with him. And here is the problem. 

Towards Asmara claims the status of an African novel, but we never experience any aspect of the plot from within an African or local psyche. The place, its people and the events that unfold there are seen from without, via an external interpreter’s filter. The immediacy of war, ambush, famine, conflict becomes lost in the second nature of the characters’ experience. Also, the complications of the personal lives of these observers neither complement nor contrast with the exigencies of fighting for a cause. 

Eventually, everything seems unlikely, not least the very involvement of those involved with the events that unfold. At one point, there was a suggestion that Darcy’s ethnic minority wife back home in Australia might be offering an intellectual parallel with the Eritrean struggle. She, an apparent outsider, was allying herself and choosing to travel with an indigenous oppressed race, just like her estranged husband was doing with the Eritreans of Ethiopia. But that idea fizzled out, thankfully, because it could never have been sustained. Towards Asmara is a thoroughly enjoyable read. 

At times the style and language are a complete joy. But, when it avoids polemic, it approaches caricature. The reader, like its foreign observer participants, is left out of the understanding and experience the book promised to deliver. 

View this book on amazon Towards Asmara

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.