But Siva wasn’t from Colombo 7. He was from Jaffna, where the earth wasn’t soft and black like it was in the south. In the north, it was unrelentingly hard, and people had to work harder to grow less. He knew about hunger, the kind that stops you from sleeping at night.

He knew about fear, the kind that drives you to want something else for your family. He had come to Australia hungry for security and success. He had left his home because he had to, and despite the passing decades in Australia, he could not and would not forget. He felt for his people in Sri Lanka, even more so during the last five months than at any time over the last twenty-six years of war.

The argument between him and Priya was ongoing, the ebb and flow of which depended on the latest news report that he had watched or the latest mood that Priya was in.

‘What does it matter?’ she asked, not for the first time. ‘What does it matter if it was two thousand or forty thousand or seventy thousand dead in the final months?’

‘How can you even ask that question, what’s wrong with you?’ He was incredulous, also not for the first time.

‘It doesn’t matter because it’s over now. The war is over,’ she replied. Her eyes were weary but her tone was hard.

‘Of course it matters.’ He shook his head. ‘It matters because they are people, they are our people.’

‘No, our people are here, in Sydney, in London, and Dhara in Colombo. Our people are our children and our grandchildren. It doesn’t matter which report is accurate, who’s right, who knows—who cares now? You’re not helping them, so I don’t know why you do it,’ she continued. ‘What do you achieve by watching that internet footage? Those mobile phone clips are gruesome. Yes, the army is disgusting, but your fascination with it is perverse.’

Siva looked down, hurt.

‘You and your brother, you’re all the same,’ she shouted, angrily.

‘It matters,’ he said quietly, sadly. ‘It matters if it was two thousand or forty thousand or seventy thousand because they’re people, our people, and they were slaughtered on a beach like animals.’

Colombo, 2009

The streets of Colombo were filled with a jubilation not seen since independence. There were fireworks and parades, parties in houses and hotels. President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa were hailed as heroes by their people and by leaders all over the world. Sri Lanka had won its war on terror. Gotabhaya, the Defence Secretary, was preparing to teach governments and armies of other nations how to defeat terrorism. It would be a lucrative lecture circuit.