The man had seen this so many times in so many villages. He had taken his own son from his own wife, given him a gun, trained him to use it and sent him on a mission which no one survived. His wife had wept and begged and beat her chest as this woman was doing now. He kicked her away.

Niri put his hand out to stop the man. He bent down to his mother. She held him close. She crushed him to her chest with her eyes closed, as if that alone would make all this go away. He could feel the wild beating of her heart. The man reached for him. Niri shook his head, saying—one more moment, please give me one more moment. She clung to him, and finally let go.

Dhara didn’t know how to kill that monster. She recited the rest of the prayer.

Mrtyor maa, amritam gamaya.

From the fear of death, lead me to the knowledge of immortality.

Dhara didn’t fear death.

•

They sat together, hidden in the forest floor. She held him like a child, even though he had done things that even a grown man shouldn’t be asked to do. She pushed her fingers through his matted hair, scattering lice. His body was covered in the bas-relief of battles past. He carried almost as many scars as her now. He was only nineteen. She let him cry. She kissed the top of his head and rested her cheek there.

‘I can’t keep doing this, Acca,’ he said. ‘They held their children so tightly, these mothers—they wouldn’t let go and we cut right through them and the children in their arms. We killed them all.’

He relived the story. The Tigers moved at dawn. Their commander told them the villagers had refused to pay their protection taxes for three months. He said that the army was training the villagers. They were arming themselves.

It was a Muslim village. They were the descendants of Arab traders, no less, but no more. Like the rest of their kind, they had chosen sides. They fought for the government.

The Tigers fought for themselves.

The commander reminded them: they are not our people; they have no place in Eelam. Years ago they expelled eighty thousand Muslims from the Jaffna Peninsula, chasing them from their homes. The villagers fled to Puttalam in the west with the clothes they wore and the children they carried.

We are not of the same blood, the commander said.