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By Root 308 0

calm, only she appeared proud of her performance, and when they were let down, it was to Emily that a small award was given. There was much fanfare, and she was hoisted back up onto the shoulders of one of the men in the troupe. Those from the Cat’s Table who were there, including Mr. Daniels and Mr. Gunesekera and the three of us, applauded loudly. Sunil, standing almost casually on the shoulders of another man, approached her and closed a silver bracelet onto her wrist. She winced as the clasp cut into her skin, and there was an awkward moment when her knees almost buckled. I saw a slow line of blood on her arm. Sunil held her steady with one hand, and put the palm of his other hand against her forehead to calm her. They were lowered down and Sunil rubbed some unguent over the cut on her wrist, and Emily bravely held her arm up for us all to see the bracelet, or whatever it was, there on her forearm. This entertainment by the Jankla Troupe took place late in the afternoon, and when it was over, most of the passengers went back to their cabins to rest or prepare for dinner.

It was evening, some hours later. Cassius and I were in the same lifeboat we had been in two nights earlier, when we had learned that Emily was supposed to meet someone here. We sat there in the darkness and heard a hesitant conversation between Emily and a man who had joined her. Then at one point he said his name was Lucius Perera. The undercover Perera, the C.I.D. Perera, was talking to and revealing his identity for some reason to my cousin!

“I did not think that you were you,” Emily said.

I was running through all the voices I had listened to or overheard during the trip. I was certain I had not heard the man’s voice before. The talk sounded casual until Emily asked about the prisoner’s condition. Perera responded by impatiently mocking her concern. He kept on, asking if she even knew about the crimes the prisoner had committed.

And we heard Emily leave.

Mr. Perera remained behind, right beneath us, pacing up and down. This was a senior officer in the Colombo police force, and we were practically on top of him, so near we could hear his match strike and flare up before it lit his cigarette.

Then Emily came back. “I am sorry,” she said. Just that. And they started to talk again.

When I first heard Emily speak, she sounded tired, drowsy, in spite of her curiosity about Niemeyer’s situation. And when Perera had become impatient she walked away. She did not wish to continue the conversation. I often witnessed this in her—there was a definite barrier not to be crossed with Emily. She was adventurous, polite, but could also close down and turn away from you in an instant. Yet now for some reason she had come back to re-start her conversation with Perera. Was it out of courtesy? Her friendliness felt false to me. I remembered Sunil’s earlier remark about the man she was supposed to meet. “He will be eager for you.” And then, as if Perera responded to my thoughts, he must have made some advance, or touched her, because she said, “No. No.” She made a small cry.

“This is the bracelet you won today, is it?” he murmured. “Let me see your hand….” His voice was stern, as if searching for information only he was aware of. “Give me your hand.”

It felt as if we were listening to a radio in the darkness. “This is …” we heard him say. There was a scuffling. Something was happening. No one was saying anything now. I heard a gasp breathed into the wood of our lifeboat, and someone fell. A female voice was whispering.

Cassius and I did not move. I don’t know how long we were like that. It was a long time. Until the whispering stopped and it was quiet. We climbed out from the lifeboat. A body was lying there, I could see the man’s hands clutching his neck as if at a slash of blood. It must have been Mr. Perera. We began walking towards him, but as we did the body shuddered. We froze, then ran into the darkness.

I got to my cabin and sat on the top bunk looking at the door, not knowing what to do. Cassius and I had not spoken, not said a word. We had just run.