‘We’ve known each other a long time, Amma. We didn’t mean to fall in love. Shiranthi’s parents will be just as upset as you. She’s telling them this weekend too. We’ve thought this through and we know it’s the right thing,’ he said.

‘What about the children? They will be mixed, what religion will they be? Will her parents allow them to come to temple?’

He was ready for this question. ‘Our children will be both Hindu and Buddhist; and they will have both languages and cultures. They will come from two races and be doubly lucky. Amma, I’m sorry to hurt you and Appa. That was never my intention. I want you to think about it. If you don’t want me to marry her I will give her up. But I won’t marry anyone else.’ He kissed his mother gently on the cheek and left her.

•

Dhara locked the door quietly and closed the shutters, blocking out the morning light. She switched on the lamp by the table, took off her clothes and examined the naked animal in front of her. It looked familiar; she had seen one just like it, years before on the cold cement floor of Ayah’s kitchen.

It had bruises that it wore like lace around its neck and body. Some of its skin had been peeled back, revealing the taut dermis layer underneath. She put her hand on its flank. It was toned but still soft; rigor had not set in yet. She felt the corrugation of its rib cage and counted the bones: there were twenty-four, the same as a person. That surprised her. She probed underneath the last rib—from there she could reach in and remove the animal’s heart. She had done it once before. She scored a line into the arid skin with her fingernail, marking the entry point below the breastplate nature had crafted. It was not impenetrable. The Sun God had not forged it.

She lifted each of the four limbs and then let them drop inertly to the ground. She palpated the purple and blue thigh. Its posterior and anterior dorsal hip muscles were bruised but not torn. She had helped Ayah carve this meat before, she with a scalpel, Ayah with a kitchen knife. This was the tastiest part of the animal; around the hip. It was strong too. Strong enough to support bodyweight; to carry offspring; to kick hard and run fast.

That day in Ayah’s kitchen, the animal had seeped scarlet blood onto the sky-blue surgical sheets. But without a living, pumping heart, the blood had wandered, not rushed, out. The body in front of her did not bleed either. It had been drained.