‘You have to. I asked them not to do it but it’s the rules. I’ll be here with you, take my hand and try to relax. We’ll be there soon,’ he whispered.

He smelled like ice cream. They’d stopped at a small roadside cafe before the meeting. He said he didn’t want any, but he ate half of her vanilla anyway. She liked sharing ice cream with him.

She held his hand tightly as the car turned corners, sometimes slowing down, sometimes speeding up. There was traffic in Vavuniya, even late at night.

Her stomach jolted as the car braked suddenly. She hadn’t been this far north in three years. Ahilan led her out of the car and into a room, but she didn’t know what kind of building she was in. She could hear people around her but didn’t recognise any of the voices. He helped her sit.

‘Close your eyes, I’m going to take off the blindfold and your eyes will hurt for a moment. Open them slowly.’

She did as he instructed, trying not to breathe hard. The light was still sharp and a low sound escaped her throat.

‘I’m here,’ he said, taking her hand again.

She was in a small room full of young people, mostly men but a few women too. At the front of the room stood a man she recognised from leaflets. He was shorter and heavier in person, with a thick moustache. He looked like everyone else. He could have been the thosai kadai man near the Kollupitiya market. She expected him to offer her hot, spiced tea with her pancake.

The room quietened respectfully as he began to speak.

‘Vanakkam.’ He nodded his head but did not fold his hands together. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched, almost childlike.

‘Five years ago today, I walked into the courtyard of the Krishnan Temple at Ponnalai,’ he said softly, clearly. ‘I looked the Mayor of Jaffna in the face as he prayed. He was a traitor and I shot him dead.’

Dhara remembered it well. The room murmured its approval. Rajan said Duraiyappah had a family who mourned him, just like everyone else.

‘Less than a year later, I founded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. We have been persecuted covertly, through laws on language, education and jobs. And now we are being persecuted overtly—there is a permanent military base in Jaffna from which the army attacks our people.’

There is also a Dutch Fort in Jaffna, she remembered. She pushed the smell of beedi away.

‘There are those—the TULF and others—who would negotiate with the Sri Lankan government. They plead for devolution of power, for greater autonomy in the north and the east—for the scraps of independence that the government will throw to us like bones from the dinner table. Are we dogs, grateful for little while our master eats well?