She imagined Dhara like that; her dark curls weeping down her naked body like the long roots of the banyan tree. Her eyes open, unmoving.

‘I’m so scared for you. I am scared all the time,’ Priya whispered.

‘I know, Acca, me too,’ her sister replied.

•

Siva couldn’t stop watching the news. Reports were pouring out of the north after the end of the war. The media was finally questioning the true extent of the loss of life, although it would be too little, too late, again.

The Sri Lankan government promised an independent and robust inquiry into its conduct. Norway and Canada might push the UN to call for a real investigation, perhaps even Obama, he seemed brave. But China would block them—its foothold in the region would become a stranglehold. And magnificent hotels would be built on mass graves.

President Rajapaksa continued to look the world in the eye and say that the army had not used heavy weapons; the army had not targeted civilians. The UN satellite imagery showed that it did; that the army had set up mortar batteries that were calibrated and recalibrated and recalibrated again for the No Fire Zone it had shepherded the civilians into.

When asked why he would not listen to international community requests for a ceasefire, the President flashed his blade-like smile. He said that he would deal with the conflict in his own way; that ‘ours is a home-grown process’.

When asked repeatedly by the US Ambassador to allow the Red Cross into the No Fire Zone, to provide food and medication to hundreds of thousands of trapped refugees, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president’s brother replied, ‘We are beyond that now.’

When asked if the Tigers could surrender, Basil Rajapaksa, the president’s other brother replied, ‘We are taking the necessary steps, and the President has accepted the conditions.’ The Tigers marched out; weapon-less under the mantle of white flags Rajapaksa told them to carry. They were executed anyway.

The President said there were only five to ten thousand civilians in the final No Fire Zone, a small spit of land. His own drones and UN satellites showed there were more than a hundred and twenty-five thousand people. If most of those people did not emerge from the No Fire Zone after they had been ‘liberated’ from the Tigers, then where were they?

For Priya and Nala, the suffering was a narrative that was heard on the news and summarised at annual fundraisers. The small network of migrants who came in the seventies and eighties had grown. There were eventually enough of ‘Nala’s people’ in Sydney to have the ladies’ luncheons, the Colombo General dinners and the Hindu College reunions she longed for.