He turns his head resolutely away from the fast-disappearing island and toward the other, colder one ahead of him. She knows she has sufficient charms to distract him from his island memories. His wife takes refuge under his arm, her breast knowingly close to his fingertips. He tells himself that he will no longer dream of palm trees and sunshine. On his last visit to the frigid metropolis, he had felt an odd creature, neither fish nor fowl, smirked at by elegant ladies, his skin chaffed, fingers stiff and unable to determine between fish and salad fork. The Englishman contemplates the meaning of this word, 'home,' remembers decades of waving palms, soft sarongs against his thighs, the quick fingers and lithe embraces of burnt brown bodies. Such a nice little place.'Īnd she, only recently having left Manchester for the colony and now returning in triumph, a husband successfully hunted and captured, says, 'But so hot! And the mosquitoes! It will be such a comfort to be home again.' On board one such vessel, the captain's log includes the tusks and legs of elephant herds rubies, emeralds, topaz fragrant mountains of cinnamon, cardamom, mustard seeds forests of ebony, teak, and sandalwood screeching peacocks caged and pacing leopards ten-foot-long monitor lizards whipping their razor tails barrels of fermented coconut toddy the jewel-encrusted thrones of Kandyan kings the weapons of Chola warriors priceless texts in Pali and Sanskrit, Sinhala and Tamil.Īt the foam-drenched stern, a blue-eyed, walnut-burnt sahib searches for the vanishing island and says to his pale young wife, 'A shame, really.

Alwis, the local coconut picker, drags Mala to safety as the mob lights bodies and vehicles on fire.It is 1948 and the last British ships slip away from the island of Ceylon, laboring and groaning under the weight of purloined treasure. Trapped inside the car, Mala witnesses as Anuradha is violently murdered while trying to protect the Tamil boy from the crowd. They quickly encounter a mob in the streets, and Anuradha leaves the car to protect a Tamil schoolboy from “the glint of knives, broken bottles, machetes” (86). Anuradha offers to fetch a doctor, but Mala fears what may happen to him alone on the streets, so they venture out in their car toward the hospital. Mala feels intense labor pains during the third night of a 24-hour curfew on the town. Sylvia Sunethra lies to the mob to protect the Tamil Shivalingam family upstairs, managing to thwart the violence for three full days while the Shivalingam family flees. Their budding romantic interest halts when violent mobs attack Tamil residences one night. Yasodhara and Shiva remain oblivious to the encroaching violence and notice one another’s attractiveness. Rumors of impending disaster and violence intensify.

Island of 1000 mirrors