‘Where is Vasanthi?’ the old lady asked. Vasanthi, their servant girl, usually tended to her mother-in-law’s needs but she had returned to her village for the Buddhist festival of Vesak. Every second day, Vasanthi and Ayah would bathe the old woman. Both of them were needed to lift and move her.

‘Amma, it’s late, Vasanthi has gone home. She’ll be back in two days. There are other helpers out in the hall. They’re here for the party; I’ll get one of them.’ She was irritated now; she couldn’t leave the party for long.

‘No, no. I’ll wait for Vasanthi,’ Devaki insisted.

‘Amma, you can’t wait for Vasanthi. You can’t sleep in this,’ Nala said, pointing to the brown stain that was spreading down her nightdress.

‘No, no one else. No one else can see me. I’ll wait.’ Devaki turned her head away but not before Nala saw the tears.

She shook her head. Her mother-in-law was more stubborn than her husband. For a moment she contemplated calling Rajan. Devaki would listen to him, but she wouldn’t want her son to see her like this.

‘Ayah, help me quickly,’ Nala started unpinning her sari. She slipped off her new sandals, wincing as she pulled the strap over her blistered heel. With Nala half-undressed, they dragged the old lady to the bathroom and seated her on a chair in the middle of the tiled floor. Ayah had already prepared large buckets of water, and together they stripped Devaki. Nala took a washcloth and rubbed her mother-in-law’s body quickly but gently, wiping the faeces from her privates and the folds of her thick legs. She stepped back, keeping a hand on Devaki to steady her, while Ayah poured water over her. Together, they rubbed her with soap and one more bucket of water.

Nala dried her mother-in-law’s thin hair and was tenderly plaiting its greyed remains when Rajan entered the bedroom. He was confused by what he saw—his mother on her rocking chair, Ayah changing the bed sheets, and his wife standing over them both, regally, in her brassiere, underskirt and Ceylon sapphires.

•

Fear sapped his hopes for his children, and was replaced with a growing, and exhausting anxiety. At Priya and Dhara’s primary school, children no longer studied in English. They had been segregated by ethnicity and taught in their swabasha: their own native tongue—either Sinhalese or Tamil. Sinhalese was now the language of the civil service, the courts and the country. If the Tamils didn’t learn Sinhalese in school, then eventually they wouldn’t be able to speak it, and wouldn’t be able to work—or live—as equals in Ceylon.