Victory
You trudged through the cold, reddening marsh towards the mangroves you and the other kids had been assigned to ‘clear’. Your hands trembled as you held your rifle up, the sound of the last shell piercing through your mind and scattering any thoughts of courage. The ugly cacophony of shouting and gunfire was dampened by a warning growl from the grey skies above, a rumbling reminder of the monsoon rains that had been following your fight. The trees stared at you gravely as you neared, moving past hands that would never warm again, eyes that were open, but blind to the tragedy building itself on this little patch of land in Mullaitivu.
Stepping into the mangroves, you noticed the sudden absence of noise. Even the killing on the marsh seemed distant, like a bad memory. You had been quite far behind the other soldiers, Yasith often joking that his grey-haired aththamma could charge onto the battlefield faster than you. But instead of well-seasoned soldiers, you were met with the sight of small bodies, like your own, littered across the shallow waters. Clad in the green stripes of the Tamil Tigers, if you unfocused your eyes enough, they looked like bright patches of grass. Watered by blood.
Victory, your colonel would declare.
You waded past their still bodies, searching blankly in their faces for a sign of the hate you had been taught to identify. Instead, in their death, you saw nothing but confusion.
You staggered forwards as you tripped on a root. You regained balance, and looked down. It was not a knotty, brown root that caught your ankle, but a smooth, brown hand that had its firm grasp on you. You panicked as you tried to figure out which of the two bodies near you had their limbs out to grab you, when, in one rapid movement, the one on your left raised itself from the graveyard and tore the rifle from your hands, flinging it across the water. He was shorter than you, with big, owlish eyes that looked like your malli’s. They took a moment to observe the carnage that lay around you, and you stared, transfixed, at his face.
With a pained howl, he lunged towards you, arms grabbing at your shirt as you tried to push him off you. He clung on, and so you sent your knee flying into the soft flesh of him tummy. He doubled over, this boy who looked like your brother, and you saw him eyeing that rifle of yours that he had thrown. You couldn’t let him get it. You couldn’t do that your family.
As he took his first step, you pounced and pushed him into the water. You clutched his small neck as he scratched and tore at your arms, his limbs flailing. But you didn’t let go.
You pushed that head of his, shaped like your brother’s, underwater, and held it there through his thrashing. Bubbles streamed to the surface as his writhing slowed.
Those eyes. You could barely see them anymore through the blur of your own tears.
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Victory, your captain would declare.
‘Out!’ Kusal announced it with a smile, as your friend trudged off the pitch, bested by an 11-year-old. He was always really handy with a cricket ball, your malli. Thatha had high hopes for him, believing that his son’s talent could shine through the nepotism that pervaded the sport in Sri Lanka. You smiled at him, proud of your lanky little brother.
Amma didn’t usually let you go hang out with your friends during the school week, especially since your O-Levels were, very slowly, you think, approaching. But the holidays had just started, and she set you free to laze about doing whatever you wanted for these first few days. You finally got to finish building that treehouse in the kaju gaha near your house with your grandpa, the boughs of the peanut tree forming the perfect cradle. It was from this throne that you surveyed the game, and from where you were now descending, next up to bat.
You were preparing yourself to face your brother’s wrath with the old, dirty leather ball, when you heard your mother calling your name. You reddened as you turned to where she was coming from. ‘Come, we need to talk! You can play cricket later.’ You put down the communal bat with a huff, mumbling an apology to your friends, and walked off as if you had gotten out for a golden duck. Kusal followed like an adoring shadow.
Amma ushered you and your brother inside to your living room, where your uncle was sitting down. Your bappa was dressed in his army fatigues, worry etched into his face after years of an unrelenting civil war. You and your brother set yourselves down on the rattan chairs after a greeting, both curious as to what brought him here.
‘Recruitment, Nangi, we need more soldiers,’ he explained to your mother. She looked at her own brother warily. ‘He hasn’t even done his O-Levels. It would be so disruptive.’ Kusal shifted around in his seat, his eyes wide as he looked at each person in the small room.
‘He can educate himself anytime. The war is happening right now. Joining would mean an income. I know you need it,’ he said, with a glance about the room. ‘And if anything… were to happen, the Ministry of Defence guarantees compensation.’
She was horrified, but, in the end, you made the decision yourself. Amma and Thatha didn’t know you heard their murmurs at night, the questions, the resignation. Plus, maybe now you could buy Kusal his own bat.
You let him sink to the shallow bottom of the mangroves, blood running down your forearms. His head resting against the roots, those eyes peered at you from the other side of the reddening water. You felt them going through you, probing in your mind, finding your Malli in it. You let out a heaving sob, the only one standing amongst the mass of green stripes.
Maybe there was a world where Mullaitivu was not shredded by shells, where your people all lived in peace. Maybe you could have come on a trip to visit this area, and you met this boy. You could have played cricket together. You imagine Kusal’s sunny brown face as he cheers after tearing through this boy’s stumps.
‘Out!’ He would yell happily.
They would call it a victory.
