Heaven's Edge (26 page)

By the ironwood tree I stopped. If only the bulbul would fly out, up in the air, and give a signal. The sun seemed to burn in a way it had not done for ages. My whole body was drenched in sweat. I could see our lives in the days to come, the months and years I would measure with notches and crosses, with hand-harvests and orange blossom, full of butterflies and moths, parakeets and pigeons. The earth will be green, the sky blue. We will learn to live with small acts of self-protection, merciless deaths and the troubled acceptance of a price that will sometimes seem too high for true survival. Ours will be a need to forget as much as to remember. My father had returned home. I understood that now. In our ruptured world it was not where I had been, but a place I could only imagine. It was the same for me. I did not want to leave here. I would not cross the sea again.

Ahead, the razor-leaf bamboo by the dry river-bed creaked. I slipped the safety catch off the gun. It felt lighter than before. I moved ahead slowly, crouching, my eye trained on the yellow segments swaying in the warm wind, the stiletto leaves. The clump of bamboo was too thick for anyone to be in it, but beyond, in the dry river-bed, a platoon could be waiting and I would not know it. Death could be there and I would not know it. Let there be light and let our lives be free. Let us not lose more than can ever be gained. Skirting the bamboo, I dropped down through a line of wild coffee shrubs. The berries were hard but still impregnated the air with their pungent smell. I wanted her; nothing else ever. Then, there on the steep ground, I stumbled over a dozing soldier. Jolted out of his slumber,
he whined at me. I was too startled to do anything. He was close enough for me to see the furrows streaking his forehead, a small fuzzy dimple quivering under his lower lip. His face dissolved into Nirali's outside the Palm Beach Hotel. I couldn't bring the gun to bear. He grovelled before me. Suddenly he struck out and rolled away. Only then did I see the other soldiers in the hollow beyond. Their hands were red with the blood of the monkey they had butchered between them. They had stuck its head on a pole and set fire to its tail. They had come to take everything. The captain saw me and began to shout, raising his arms.

I gripped the gun hard. Forgive, forget, I once might have said, flee if we must – but I squeezed the trigger instead and worked the bolt again and again. Gunfire stuttered in my hands killing the captain first and then two more before I saw a figure fly in the air, jerking, twisting and turning like a ribbon. She leapt on the last man with her butterfly knife opening in one hand and a sun-stained machete in the other, swinging low and unremitting, between the hail of my bullets. She slew him as she fell.

Then the whole sky darkened as a legion of trident bats, disturbed from their brooding trees by the gunshots, took to the newly burnt air, drawing a broken eclipse over another fragile world for ever altered; riven.

My thanks to Alexandra Pringle. Also to Marian McCarthy, Chiki Sarkar, and all the others at Bloomsbury; Bill Hamilton and Sara Fisher at A M Heath; Frances Coady.

I would also like to thank the many people who have shared with me their expertise, their gardens or their houses as I wrote. I am grateful, in particular, to those who offered me the experiences of their pasts, near and far.

Finally, special thanks to Tanisa and Shanthi for music and inspiration, and Helen without whom this book, too, could not be.

Romesh Gunesekera grew up in Sri Lanka and lives in London. His first novel
Reef
was shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1994. He is also the author of
Monkfish Moon,
a collection of short stories and most recently,
The Sandglass
published in 1998.

By the Same Author

Reef

Monkfish Moon

The Sandglass

Heaven's Edge

The Prisoner of Paradise

First published in Great Britain 2002

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © 2002 by Romesh Gunesekera

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

A CIP catalogue record is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4088 3226 4

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