We are all trapped in our different camps. We have to devise our own weapons for protection if we do not carry AK-47s or T-56s or grenades. The silent men are trapped in their hoods. Their thoughts, too, are bitter if they have lost kith or kin. Or they might do it out of simple greed. I feel pity for those young soldiers who had reminded me of the students I teach. They wear the sacred thread on their wrists for protection. Their faces are often bland, smooth. They, who should have expectations of life, can only have expectations of death. Their hands clasp the guns strongly. That weapon is, after all, their life. We all have to deceive ourselves over and over again for what we do. Or don’t do. I could do nothing to stop the killings of those officers or the soldiers or the informer when they got off that helicopter. Am I then guilty too? I was safe, the guerrillas would not have harmed me. No, I cannot say that I had nothing to do with those deaths. They were taken unawares with no chance of defending themselves. True, they shot back, but at whom? At an unseen enemy. My prior knowledge of what was to take place did not stop me from being silent. I witnessed the panorama of death. Where did I belong? My life had become like one of those ancient epic plays, but I was only the observer. I was no hero. Will the rest of my life be like this because I want to protect my innocence? Am I not already besmirched and defiled by being the witness to violence and death?

I waited in the camp until I got a seat in the helicopter that would take me back to Kallady. The chopper, I observed when I got in, was navigated by a foreign pilot. He turned his face away from me. I saw another mercenary too, tall, strong, armed to the teeth. I recognized the countries they belonged to but I kept silent. This was no time for familiarity, for asking questions. In time our own people will also carry arms to other countries to fight for other causes. We accept this fact of history. Identity does not count for a mercenary. He chooses to put it aside, even lose it when he fights for a cause that has no meaning for him.

In the helicopter I was tense all the time. I was flanked by soldiers on either side. A childish thought came to my mind. What if I were secretly pushed out so there would be no trace of me? After all I had been through, was this a game I played with myself to release the fears and pressures that had built up within me?