But it had come to their hamlet too—the bhishanaya, the trouble. Yes, it had reached them. There were rumours. The young men in the village, were they too involved in all those happenings? The country was on fire. Everything was on fire. All was burning, burning. Yes, the fires were burning. Fires that burnt down the huts. These and hundreds of other villages burning. The self burning. The unconscious, the visual impressions, burning. The fire of lust and hate, the fire of delusion. The Buddha’s Fire Sermon that the villagers heard in the temple—the monk repeated it on the last poya day when they went to hear him, to find some relief for their suffering minds.

‘Burning,’ he said, ‘with birth, ageing and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.’

And what do we do? Alice thought to herself. Become dispassionate, detached? To reach that liberation must I first go out among the dead and their ruined houses? I cannot forget the sound of the vehicles on the road …

They had stopped at the entrance to the village. The darkness had moved like an open door to admit them. And they had entered. The villagers heard the sounds of their boots. The knocking at the doors, The commands.

‘Open up.’

There was nothing else to do.

Screams. Dying away. Growing fainter. Fainter. She had to go. But not at once. Wait for sometime. Till they heard the sound of the vehicles moving off. Then she would go out, in search of Sena, for Seela’s sake. She thought of herself. An ordinary woman. Very ordinary. Even the name Alice did not matter to anyone. She knew that she had to do it. Even if there were a vestige of life left she would confront those last moments. And she would have to do it alone.

Seela too had been strong during those last moments. ‘Mother, our generation, my generation, we know the consequences. We are not afraid.’

Now Alice was walking along pathways. They had to lead to the deathspot. Through the grove of trees—wild guava, hard-shelled green belly fruit and straggling palms. A cluster of thambili nestled among some of the thicker fronds, a very pale orange. Her throat felt parched, as if death were already clutching at it. Dry tongued, her belly cavernous and hollow. Out of the trees, out of the grove, she emerged like a sleepwalker into a space where the grass had been trampled and crushed.

Now it was over. The sound of gunshot still echoed in her ears. Yama had visited every house in the village where there were males. They had all been taken away. She had to summon all her strength for this mission. The vision of Yama, the god of death, filled her mind.