Her own injuries had taken months to heal well enough for her to leave Ceylon: one month in the hospital to protect her from infection and another three months sequestered in her home. She could have ventured out of the house earlier, but she didn’t want to. Her body was a patchwork of skin grafts: pieces borrowed from her thighs and buttocks to replace pieces that would not regrow.

She knew she was very lucky—lucky the burns were not as extensive as they could have been; lucky Ayah had put wet blankets in the boot of their car that night; lucky her husband was a respected doctor who could access the surgery she needed. When Nala looked at the memorial plaques at Holsworthy she knew she was lucky to have survived at all. Every country had its lists.

In that place, surrounded by limbs rendered and ripped, skin flayed and scorched, all that was inside was revealed. From the shadow of her jaw to her right hand to her sixth rib at the back, her skin was warped. It had never fully regained its original pigment or texture. The new layers had thickened, hiding her pulsing jugular, but they were coarse and imperfect. She was able to pin her sari shawl around her shoulders and hide most of it. She wore sari blouses that came down past her elbows, as though the three-quarter blouse was perpetually in fashion, regardless of the season, the occasion, or the time of day.

At Holsworthy, she stopped pulling her sari shawl tightly around her neck. She let it drop over her left shoulder as it was supposed to, modestly hiding her chest but naturally showing her neckline. It was liberating: scars didn’t matter here—they were almost a badge of honour. They gave her entry into that closed world of complex medication protocols, physical therapy schedules, psych testing, and counselling. At first she stopped caring about her scars as she tended to the scars of others; eventually she stopped noticing her scars at all.

She offered to do what she did best. She joined the kitchen at morning teatime and forced her butter cake recipe on the head chef after swearing him to secrecy. She supervised the baking and helped with the serving on the rehabilitation wards. Once a week, the soldiers of the Australian Army were greeted by an ageing but beautiful lady in a sari who chattered endlessly, while smiling and serving them the best butter cake in the world.

•

‘Which box are we?’ Nala whispered to Rajan as he studied the form. The census taker was watching both of them as they argued in Tamil.

‘Sssh,’ he hissed, concentrating. ‘Why don’t you ever stop talking?’ Forms and officials made her nervous, and nerves made her more talkative than usual.