The government printer'

 The Government Printer

In Aluthwattha, Digana, a man could spend twenty years learning a trade and still earn less than someone who could prove, on paper, that he had learnt it.

Sunil understood this better than most.

From a small room adjoining his elder sister’s kitchen, he supplied the qualifications that life had neglected to give people. Men who had never entered a hotel emerged from his room as experienced cooks. Others, whose acquaintance with electricity extended only to changing a light bulb, became electricians with several years of satisfactory service.

His customers seldom complained. Neither did the foreign employment agencies that sent them.

Among those agencies, Sunil was known as the Government Printer.

The title pleased him. He had never held a government appointment, but he felt that he performed a useful public service. There were people who had worked hard all their lives without receiving a single certificate. There were others who had certificates and could do very little. Sunil helped to correct what he regarded as an unfair distribution.

He charged several thousand rupees for each correction.

His sister, Kusuma, took a less generous view.

“One day they’ll take you away,” she told him whenever a stranger arrived asking for Sunil mahattaya.

“Who?”

“The police.”

“Then you must tell them I’ve gone out.”

She had heard this answer so often that she no longer bothered to reply.

Kusuma was sixty-three and had never married. For years, neighbours had discussed this as though she had failed to attend an important appointment. By now, most of them had found other matters to discuss. She lived in the house their parents had left, cooked for her younger brother, tended a narrow strip of vegetables behind the kitchen, and kept careful accounts of expenses that he preferred not to remember.

Sunil contributed to the household when business was good. Unfortunately, business was always either about to improve or recovering from a temporary difficulty.

That morning, he was waiting for a customer who owed him money.

The man had promised to arrive at nine. At half past ten, Sunil sent him a message. At eleven, he called. By noon, the customer’s telephone had become unavailable, a condition Sunil had noticed occurred frequently among people who owed him money.

He opened Facebook.

There were photographs of a wedding, a politician visiting a flooded road, and a video of a monk explaining why people were unhappy. Sunil passed over these without interest. Then he stopped at a post shared in a Kandy group.

Someone was looking for a woman named Janet.

He read the first few lines casually. A foreign family had lived in Digana during the construction of the Victoria Dam, between 1981 and 1984. Janet had worked in their home, helping to look after the children. Now, more than forty years later, a woman named Pauline wanted to find her.

There were old photographs.

Sunil enlarged one.

A young Sri Lankan woman stood beside a fair-skinned woman in a garden. She had a round face, dark eyes, and a smile that seemed to begin reluctantly before spreading across her whole face.

He held the telephone farther away, then brought it close again.

“Kusuma akka!”

From the kitchen came the scrape of a coconut against the grater.

“What?”

“Come here a moment.”

“I’m working.”

“So am I. Come and look at something.”

She appeared in the doorway with a little coconut clinging to the back of one hand.

Sunil turned the screen towards her.

“Who does this look like?”

Kusuma bent forward. Her eyesight had become troublesome, although she continued to blame the smallness of modern print.

“Make it bigger.”

He enlarged the photograph until the young woman’s face nearly filled the screen.

His sister looked at it for several seconds.

“She looks a little like me.”

“A little?”

“Who is she?”

“ Where is she? Is the question here”

Kusuma took the telephone. She read slowly, moving her lips over the English names inserted among the Sinhala sentences.

“Poor woman,” she said at last.

“Which one?”

“The foreign lady. Remembering someone after all these years.”

Sunil watched his sister’s face as she looked again at the photograph. The resemblance was extraordinary. Time had thickened her waist, silvered her hair, and left folds beside her mouth, but the eyes were the same. So was the shape of the face.

Even the smile was familiar.

“Where were you in 1981?” he asked.

She looked up.

“Here. Where else?”

“Think properly.”

“What is there to think about? I was looking after Amma.”

“Did you ever work in one of those houses where the foreigners stayed?”

“You know I didn’t.”

He took back the telephone.

The post said Janet might now be between sixty and sixty-five. She had worked in Digana. Kusuma was sixty-three and lived in Digana. The photograph supplied the third and most important qualification.

Sunil leaned back in his chair.

For years, he had been making people suitable for opportunities. Here, for once, was an opportunity that seemed to have been made suitable for someone already in his house.

“What are you smiling about?” Kusuma asked.

“Nothing.”

“You have that look.”

“What look?”

“The look you had when you told me the man from Kurunegala would repay your money with interest.”

“That was a different matter.”

“He still hasn’t paid the money.”

Sunil ignored this. He was rereading the appeal.

There was no mention of a reward. That disappointed him briefly. But people did not go searching across the world for an old servant merely to say hello. There would be gratitude. Perhaps a visit. Gifts, certainly. Foreigners were fond of helping elderly people, especially elderly people who had once looked after their children.

He glanced at the doorway. His sister was turning back towards the kitchen.

“Akka.”

“What now?”

“Sit down.”

“I have the dhal on the fire.”

“Lower it. I want to discuss something more important than a pot of dhal.”

She remained where she was.

Sunil placed the telephone on the table between them, with the photograph facing upwards.

“Suppose,” he said carefully, “that you had worked for this family.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Yes, I know. I said suppose.”

Kusuma looked at him, then at the young woman on the screen. Slowly, her expression changed.

“No,” she said.

“I haven’t told you anything yet.”

“You don’t have to.”

Outside, a motorcycle stopped at the gate. Someone called for Sunil mahattaya.

Neither of them moved.

For the first time that morning, Sunil had forgotten the customer who owed him money.

Kusuma went back to the kitchen without another word.

Sunil attended to the man at the gate, collected an advance for a certificate, and promised to have it ready by Friday. But throughout the conversation, his mind kept returning to the photograph.

Janet. The name suggested a Tamil woman who is a Christian, and to his eye, so did her appearance. Of course, a photograph could not tell him such things with certainty. Still, if the foreign lady expected Janet to speak Tamil, that would present no difficulty.

In their part of Aluthwattha, Sinhala, Tamil, and Muslim families lived close enough to borrow salt from one another and quarrel over the same drains. Sunil and his sisters had grown up speaking Tamil almost as readily as Sinhala. Their younger sister had married a Tamil man, and Tamil was the language most often spoken in her house. More than 90% of movies they watch are also south Indian films.

For once, Sunil felt, a family circumstance might prove financially useful.

At lunch he approached the matter cautiously.

“These people must be well off.”

Kusuma served him rice.

“You know nothing about them.”

“The husband was an engineer.”

“Engineers also have expenses.”

She set the dhal beside his plate.

Kusuma sat opposite him and began eating.

He waited until she had taken a few mouthfuls.

“Think of what it would mean to her,” he said. “Finding someone she has remembered for forty years.”

“Then let her find that person.”

“She might never find her.”

“That is no reason to give her somebody else.”

Sunil mixed dhal into his rice with unnecessary care.

“Who knows whether Janet is even alive?”

Kusuma stopped eating.

For a moment, he thought he had persuaded her. Then she pushed her plate away.

“And if she is?”

He had no satisfactory answer to that.

For the next two days, Kusuma refused to discuss the photograph. Sunil, however, had noticed that she no longer dismissed it with quite the same anger. Once, he found her examining the post on his telephone.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

“The children.”

He stood behind her. In one photograph, the young woman he hoped to turn into his sister was smiling beside a child.

“They would be grown up now,” Kusuma said.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps with children of their own.”

“Probably.”

She handed him the telephone.

“You must not ask her for money.”

Sunil kept his expression still.

“I never said I would.”

“You were thinking it.”

He could hardly deny that,he felt she could read him like a book.

“If she offers to help,” he said, “that is her decision.”

Kusuma looked towards the garden. Beyond the kitchen door, the tap was dripping into a cracked bucket. They had been meaning to replace it for months.

“I will only speak to her,” she said. “That is all.”

Sunil nodded at once.

“And if I tell you to stop, you stop.”

“Of course.”

She watched him for a few seconds longer.

“I don’t like this.”

He reached for his telephone before she could change her mind.

---

Preparing a person turned out to be considerably more troublesome than preparing a certificate.

Paper remained where Sunil put it. Paper did not forget what it had said the previous morning, question his judgment, or declare that its conscience was troubling it.

Kusuma did all three.

He cleared a space on his worktable and placed a thin file before her.

“What is that?”

“Your papers.”

“I have my papers.”

“Janet’s papers.”

She did not touch the file.

“You said I only had to speak to her.”

“You do. But if she asks a question, you mustn’t sit there looking as if you’ve never heard of yourself, also don't forget many call me the government printer.”

He had assembled documents intended to support a life that had never been lived. There were also notes, a few photographs, and a list of the little facts available in the Facebook appeal: Digana, the engineers’ housing, the years 1981 to 1984, the children’s names.

Kusuma picked up one of the pages.

“This says I was born somewhere else.”

“It says Janet was.”

“I cannot remember being born even where I was born. How am I supposed to remember this place?”

“You don’t have to remember being born.”

“Then why put it here?”

Sunil took the page from her.

By the third afternoon, he had discovered that his sister possessed a scanty respect for details. She could tolerate, reluctantly, the large lie that she was Janet. It was the smaller lies that offended her.

When he suggested that she might have accompanied the family on an outing, she demanded to know where. When he proposed that she had been fond of one of the children, she asked why that child rather than the other.

“They may ask,” she said.

“I know they may ask.”

“Then what will I say?”

He rubbed his forehead.

He had imagined that resemblance would do most of the work. Now he began to appreciate that resemblance is only a minor part of the story.

One evening, he asked her to stand by the veranda while he took a photograph.

“Smile.”

She stared at him.

“Not like that.”

“This is my smile.”

“It looks as if somebody owes you money.”

“Somebody does.”

He lowered the telephone.

“Akka, please.”

At last she gave a brief, embarrassed smile. He caught it before it disappeared.

When he placed the new photograph beside the old one, even Kusuma fell silent.

There was enough resemblance to make the deception seem possible. That frightened her more than anything he had said.

---

Sunil composed the first message in English, a language in which he could certify almost any qualification but could not comfortably hold a conversation.

He typed, deleted, and typed again.

Kusuma sat beside him.

“Read it to me.”

He explained the meaning in Sinhala.

“You have written that I am delighted.”

“You should be delighted.”

“I am frightened.”

“We cannot write that.”

“Then don’t write anything about how I feel.”

He removed the sentence.

The message he finally sent was short. He said that he was writing from Aluthwattha, near Digana, on behalf of his elder sister. She had seen the photographs and believed she was the woman the family was seeking. He attached the picture taken on the veranda.

For several minutes, nothing happened.

Sunil placed the telephone face down, then picked it up again.

“Has she answered?” Kusuma asked.

“Not yet.”

“Perhaps she knows.”

“How could she know? She hasn’t even read it.”

“Perhaps someone has already found the real woman.”

He wished his sister would stop supplying possibilities.

By bedtime, there was still no reply.

Kusuma went to her room. Sunil remained at the table, checking the telephone between unfinished pieces of work. He tried to picture the foreign lady receiving the photograph. He hoped she would show it to her children. He hoped there would be tears.

A little after ten, the telephone sounded.

He opened the message.

For a moment, he read only the first line.

Oh my goodness. Is it really Janet?

Then came more: thanks, questions, an explanation that she was away from home when she had received his message. She would show the photograph to the children. Would Janet be willing to speak to her?

Sunil stood up so quickly that his chair scraped across the floor.

“Akka!”

Kusuma opened her door.

“What?”

“She has answered.”

His sister came towards him, tightening the loose end of her nightdress at the shoulder.

He read the message aloud, translating as he went.

At the words Is it really Janet?, Kusuma lowered her eyes.

“She sounds very happy,” she said.

“That is good.”

His sister did not reply.

He began typing an answer.

“Wait,” she said.

He looked up.

“Tell her I am tired tonight.”

“It isn’t tonight there.”

“Then tell her I am tired here.”

Before he could answer, another message arrived.

Sunil read it once. Then again.

The foreign lady had remembered something. There was a small incident from those years, she wrote, which her children still spoke about. She wondered whether Janet remembered it too.

Sunil turned the screen towards his sister.

Kusuma read the few words she understood, then looked at him.

“What does she want to know?”

For the first time since seeing the photograph, he wished the Facebook post had contained a little more information.

“Do you remember what the three of us used to do after dinner every evening?” Pauline asked.

Sunil read the message aloud in Sinhala.

Kusuma stared at him.

“What did they do?”

“How would I know?”

“You are the one who made me Janet.”

He looked back at the screen. Until now, he had been dealing with names, dates, and places—things that could be written down and learnt. This was something else: an ordinary evening remembered by three people, two of whom were still available to compare recollections.

“Perhaps they played cards,” he said.

“Then you tell her that.”

There was a brief silence.

Sunil typed that his sister’s memory was no longer as good as it had been and asked Pauline to remind her.

The reply came almost immediately.

Our legs! Have you forgotten the coconut oil?

Kusuma drew her chair closer.

“What about coconut oil?”

More messages appeared. Pauline could not remember how the custom had begun. After dinner, she and her husband would sit with their feet resting on low stools while Janet rubbed coconut oil into their legs, below the knees. It had become part of their evening, something they talked and laughed through before going to bed.

Then one evening, someone had pointed out that Janet had been on her feet all day too.

It hardly seemed fair that she should do all the massaging.

After that, Janet took her turn sitting down. One of them rubbed oil into her lower legs, usually Pauli’s husband. Pauline remembered the three of them laughing over whose turn it was, and her husband complaining that Janet expected much better service than she provided.

Kusuma listened without speaking.

Sunil waited until the last message arrived, then gave a small, relieved laugh.

“There. Now we know.”

His sister looked at him.

“They rubbed her legs?”

“Yes. Below the knees.”

“The husband?”

“Usually.”

Kusuma sat back. She had expected questions about work: washing clothes, cooking, looking after children. She had been prepared to imagine a kitchen. This small kindness was harder to borrow.

“They must have been fond of her,” she said.

“That is what I’ve been telling you.”

She shook her head.

“You’ve been telling me they have money.”

Sunil turned towards his telephone.

“What shall I say?”

Kusuma watched his fingers hovering over the screen.

For a moment, she wanted to tell him to put it down. Somewhere there was a woman who had sat with these people after dinner, her tired feet on a stool, laughing as the man rubbed coconut oil into her legs. Kusuma had never thought about that woman so clearly before.

“Just say I remember the oil,” she said at last.

Sunil began typing.

“Don’t add anything else.”

He sent the reply.

Pauline answered with a heart, followed by another message.

I wish we could have one of those evenings again.

Kusuma read Sunil’s face as he translated it. He was smiling.

She got up and carried her chair back to the kitchen.

Pauline had already been discussing a visit to Sri Lanka with her son, Kingsley. There were places she wanted to see again, and others she had missed during the years when life had revolved around the dam, the children, and the house in Digana.

Now she wanted to bring the journey forward.

We’ve waited forty years already, she wrote. I don’t want to wait another six months.

Sunil read the message twice before calling his sister.

“They are coming.”

“Who?”

“Pauline and her son.”

Kusuma put down the knife with which she was cutting beans.

“Here?”

“To Sri Lanka first. Then here.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

For several days she had been speaking to a woman safely contained inside a telephone. Now that woman was buying an airline ticket.

“You said we would only talk.”

“We have only talked.”

“And now?”

Sunil looked at the half-cut beans.

“Now we must tidy the house.”

---

In the weeks before the visit, he became unexpectedly attentive to household repairs.

The dripping tap was replaced. The gate received a coat of paint. A broken chair disappeared into the shed, and a new plastic one took its place. Kusuma watched these improvements with increasing suspicion.

“If you had told me a foreign woman was needed to fix that tap,” she said, “I would have found one years ago.”

Sunil was too busy to argue.

He had imagined that money might arrive quietly, perhaps as a gift sent from abroad. Instead, the whole enterprise was arriving in a car, with luggage and a grown son who might remember things his mother had forgotten.

Kingsley had been a small boy when the family left Digana. In the photograph Pauline sent, he was a broad-shouldered man with grey in his beard. Sunil studied his face with the uneasy feeling that children ought not to be allowed to become adults while retaining memories useful to other people.

Kusuma worried about something simpler.

“What do I call her?”

“Pauline.”

“I cannot call a woman who comes all this way just Pauline .”

“That is her name.”

For the rest of the week, Sunil occasionally heard his sister trying it softly while she worked.

“Pauline.”

Then, after a pause:

“Pauline nona.”

---

They came straight from the airport.

Sunil had expected time to prepare after their arrival in the country, but Pauline said she could not bear to pass Digana without seeing Janet.

The hired car stopped outside the freshly painted gate in the late afternoon. Before the driver had opened the boot, Pauline was out.

She was older than Kusuma had imagined, with fine white hair and a face that seemed to brighten as she approached the veranda.

“Janet!”

Kusuma had rehearsed a greeting. It vanished.

Pauline took both her hands, looked at her, and then embraced her.

For a few seconds, Kusuma stood stiffly. Then she raised one hand and rested it on the woman’s back.

“You haven’t changed,” Pauline said, drawing away to look at her again.

Sunil, standing behind them, privately considered this the most useful thing anyone had said all afternoon.

Kingsley came through the gate carrying a bag.

“I have,” he said.

Pauline laughed and turned Kusuma towards him.

“Look at the size of him.”

Kusuma looked up at the man who, according to her new life, she had once carried.

“Yes,” she said. “Very big now.”

Kingsley smiled, bent slightly, and hugged her too.

Sunil stepped forward to introduce himself.Neither of the visitors seemed particularly interested in him.

Inside, Pauline sat close to Kusuma and held her hand while the tea was poured. She looked around the room, asked after her health, and wanted to know whether she had been living there all these years.

Sunil supplied answers whenever the conversation became difficult. He explained that his sister spoke Tamil and Sinhala more comfortably than English. Pauline accepted this readily.

“My Tamil never got much further than asking for tea,” she said.

Kusuma smiled.

She had been afraid of being examined. Instead, she is being made the guest of honour.

---

The invitation came before they finished the tea.

“You must come with us,” Pauline said.

Sunil translated.

Kusuma shook her head at once.

“Where?”

“They are travelling around the country.”

“For how long?”

“About ten days.”

“I cannot leave the house for ten days.”

Sunil began explaining that she had responsibilities, but Pauline was already asking Kingsley whether they could arrange another room at the hotels.

“Of course,” he said.

Kusuma looked from one to the other.

“I have never stayed in a hotel.”

When Sunil translated this, Pauline squeezed her hand.

“Then it’s about time.”

---

On the first morning, Kusuma came out carrying a cloth bag containing two dresses, a towel, a packet of biscuits, and enough precautions for a much longer journey.

Pauline persuaded her to leave the towel.

Sunil stood by the gate while the driver placed her bag in the boot. He had intended to accompany them, at least for part of the journey, but no one had invited him. There were four seats for passengers, yet somehow the empty one did not appear to belong to him.

“Call me every evening,” he told Kusuma in Sinhala.

She nodded.

“And don’t answer anything you don’t understand.”

She gave him a look that made him step back from the window.

As the car pulled away, Pauline turned towards her and smiled.

“Just us again.”

Kusuma looked out at the road.

---

She had travelled before, but mostly to weddings, funerals, temples, and relatives’ houses. There had always been a reason to arrive and work to do once she got there.

This journey required nothing of her.

Near Dambulla, the driver stopped because she mentioned that she had never been inside the cave temple. At Sigiriya, Kingsley bought her a hat and told her she could turn back whenever she wished. She climbed farther than any of them expected, then sat in the shade and watched the people passing.

At a hotel that evening, a young man took her bag.

“I can carry it,” she told him.

He smiled and carried it anyway.

In her room, she opened the wardrobe, inspected the bathroom, and stood for some time looking at the bed. There were more pillows than she could see any use for.

She telephoned Sunil.

“How is it?” he asked.

“The bathroom is bigger than your room.”

“Did she say anything about money?”

Kusuma sat on the edge of the bed.

“No.”

“Any difficult questions?”

“No.”

“What have you been talking about?”

“The places we went.”

He seemed disappointed.

After ending the call, she tried the bedside lamp, switched it off, then switched it on again. She could reach it without getting out of bed.

---

Breakfast the next morning troubled her more than the climb at Sigiriya.

She had never seen so much food arranged for people who had only just woken up. There were hoppers, bread, fruit, eggs, curries, and dishes whose purpose she could not identify.

Pauline brought her a plate.

“Take whatever you like.”

“How much?”

“As much as you want.”

Kusuma chose cautiously. Later, when a waiter approached to clear her plate, she began gathering the cups to help him.

Kingsley gently took one from her hand.

“You’re on holiday.”

She laughed, embarrassed, and let him put it down.

By the fourth day, she no longer rose when someone came to clear the table.

They travelled south through the hill country, stopping for views that Kusuma had seen only on calendars. She discovered that she liked watching the landscape through a car window when she was not worrying about missing a bus connection. She liked clean sheets, hot water, and being asked whether she wanted tea before she had thought of making it.

Most of all, she liked Pauline ’s company.

The woman talked readily and listened with the same interest. Through Kingsley’s patient help and their shared fragments of language, they managed surprisingly well.

One evening, after dinner, they sat outside their hotel overlooking a dark stretch of garden. Kusuma’s legs ached from walking.

Pauline noticed her rubbing a knee.

“Wait here,” she said.

She returned with a small bottle.

Kusuma recognised the smell as soon as Pauline opened it.

Coconut oil.

Kingsley pulled a low stool towards her.

“Well,” he said, smiling at his mother, “we know how this works.”

Kusuma did not move.

Pauline knelt beside the stool and held out her hand.

“Your turn, Janet.”

For a moment, Kusuma looked towards the garden. Then she slowly placed her feet on the stool.

Pauline warmed a little oil between her palms and began rubbing it into her legs below the knees.

Kusuma sat very still.

Upstairs, in her handbag, her telephone began to ring.

The smell of coconut oil brought back her mother.

For years, whenever the arthritis grew painful, Kusuma had sat beside her mother’s chair and rubbed her swollen legs. Some evenings, her mother had scarcely spoken. She would close her eyes and let out a long breath when Kusuma found the sore places.

Now, watching Pauline ’s hands move uncertainly over her shins, Kusuma remembered how much relief those evenings had brought.

After a little while, she touched Pauline ’s shoulder.

“Now you.”

Pauline looked up.

Kusuma pointed to the chair, then to Pauline ’s legs.

“Oh, no. You don’t have to.”

But Kusuma was already rising.

They changed places. She poured a little oil into her palm and began gently, working below the knees with the steady pressure she had learnt beside her mother.

Pauline leaned back.

“Oh, that’s lovely.”

Kusuma smiled without looking up. Her hands had found familiar work.

From the next chair, Kingsley watched his mother close her eyes.

“You’ve improved by leaps and bounds, Janet,” Pauline said. “I don’t remember you being this good.”

Kusuma’s hands paused.

Then she continued, more gently.

---

Later that night, there was a knock at her door.

Pauline stood outside in a loose dressing gown.

“Would you come and sit with me for a little while?”

Kusuma followed her down the corridor.

Pauline ’s room had a balcony overlooking the garden. A lamp stood beside the bed, and on a small table was a glass of wine, half full. Pauline offered her some, but Kusuma shook her head.

“Tea? Water?”

“Water, please.”

Pauline handed her a bottle and settled into a chair. For a while, she spoke about their journey and how pleased she was that Kusuma had come with them.

Then she fell quiet.

Kusuma sat with the unopened bottle in her lap.

Pauline turned the stem of her wineglass between her fingers.

“There’s something I wanted to say before we go home.”

Kusuma watched her face.

“I should have said it years ago.”

Pauline looked towards the balcony.

“That afternoon,” she said. “When I came back and found you with him. In our bedroom.”

Kusuma did not move.

Pauline ’s English had been easy enough to follow when they were discussing meals, roads, and the weather. Now Kusuma hoped she had misunderstood.

“My husband,” Pauline added quietly.

The bottle crackled beneath Kusuma’s fingers.

For a few moments, she could hear only the faint hum of the air conditioner.

Pauline looked at her.

“You needn’t explain. Not now.”

Kusuma lowered her eyes. She had no explanation to give.

“I was so angry with you,” Pauline said. “For a long time, I thought only of you when I remembered it. As though you were the only person in that room who had any responsibility.”

She took a small sip of wine.

“I was unfair.”

Kusuma’s throat tightened.

Pauline leaned forward.

“I’ve forgiven you, Janet. I wanted you to hear that from me.”

Kusuma looked up at the name.

The woman opposite her seemed relieved, as though she had finally put down something she had carried throughout the journey.

Kusuma could have told her then. She could have said her own name, explained the photograph, called Sunil and made him answer for the rest.

Instead, she sat holding the bottle.

Pauline reached across and touched her hand.

“These days with you have meant a great deal to me.”

Kusuma tried to speak, but Pauline continued.

“And there’s something else. Kingsley and I have talked about it.”

She hesitated, smiling a little.

“If you’d like to, I want to arrange for you to come to England. There will be things we have to find out, of course. Papers and all that. But we would get proper help.”

Kusuma stared at her.

“To England?”

“To live with me. I have plenty of room.”

Pauline glanced around the hotel room, as though she could already see the arrangement in her own house.

“You wouldn’t have to work. I’d like the company. And you’d be looked after.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as you want. For the rest of your life, if you’re happy there.”

Outside, someone laughed in the garden below.

Kusuma thought of the little house in Aluthwattha, of the kitchen wall that darkened every rainy season, of Sunil calling from his room while she was cooking. She thought of the hotel bed waiting for her along the corridor, and of tomorrow’s breakfast being prepared by people she would never have to ask.

Pauline mistook her silence for hesitation.

“You don’t have to decide tonight.”

Kusuma put the unopened water bottle on the table. She placed it carefully, using both hands.

“Pauline nona.”

“Pauline ,” the woman reminded her gently.

“There is something I must tell you.”

Pauline waited.

Kusuma had rehearsed so many things with her brother. None of them helped her now.

“My name is Kusuma.”

Pauline ’s expression did not change.

“Not Janet,” Kusuma added. “I am not your Janet.”

She kept her eyes on the bottle as she explained. Her brother had seen the photographs. He had noticed the resemblance. They lived near Digana; they spoke Tamil. He had thought there might be money in it.

“And you agreed?” Pauline asked.

Kusuma nodded.

“At first, I said no. Then I agreed.”

She told Pauline about the papers and the photograph on the veranda. Once she began, the words came more easily. She stumbled over the English, repeated herself, and used her hands when she could not find a word.

Pauline listened without interrupting.

“I never worked in your house,” Kusuma said. “I never looked after your children.”

Her voice grew quieter.

“And I was never with your husband.”

Pauline lowered her eyes to the wineglass.

“I’m sorry,” Kusuma said.

For a while, neither spoke. From the corridor came the muffled sound of a door closing.

“Your mother?” Pauline asked at last.

Kusuma looked up.

“You told me you looked after her.”

“That is true.”

“And the arthritis?”

“True. I rubbed her legs. For many years.”

Pauline nodded slowly.

Kusuma rose.

“I will go home tomorrow. My brother will come for me.”

“Sit down.”

She remained standing until Pauline reached out and touched her hand. Then she lowered herself into the chair.

“You should have told me,” Pauline said.

“I know.”

Pauline looked at her for a long moment.

Then she took Kusuma’s hand in both of hers.

“To me, you are Janet,” she said. “And that’s enough for me.”