Colombo. 1974.

My pitaa was a great tailor. Even after those Chinese and muslim dudes set up shop word of mouth had already been buttered up, slavered thick and spread around. They were never a challenge to him. Sure they took the tourist trade, or young Casanovas with more monies than sense, but tradition is where it was at and my pitaa was everything traditional.

Pops was a great one for sharing trade secrets with me his one and only son. ‘Never go for the easy buck putaa…’ he’d always call me putaa, son, which was just as well, not that he reserved the name just for me. Anyone younger was always a putaa, or a sutaa if they were a chick. By the time a guy gets to be pop’s age everyone looks like a kid so the whole world was just full of sons and daughters. I could dig that. He said, ‘Never go for the easy buck putaa, but take the measure of the man, suss him out and choose the best for him.’

I’d be wrong to make out that dad always used metaphors from the trade, he didn’t, but in this instance it was the best analogy he could give. Tailor the clothes to the man, and the bill likewise. He taught me never to charge more bread than they can afford, but never less either. That was the way of it, men. My pitaa never set anything in stone, but moved with the times like a bespoke ninja.

I remember when flares became all the rage. Everyone wanted to look like Amitabh Bachan or somesuch. The film Amar, Akhbar and Anthony had just opened at the Roxy and they even gave it subtitles. The queues were around the block, whole families off to the cinema, making a day of it and taking rice packets and picnics too. It was a relief I guess. The election season was in full flow and everyone wanted escapism. Mr Bachan’s funky flares provided them.

‘The style now is for tight at the crotch and loose downstairs below putaa, you cut the cloth like so, against the weft… and make sure that what you lose in the thigh you make up in the shin.’ So he showed me how to tailor to the new fashions in the earthy damp classroom of our little shop, and the well-to-do brothers came in droves.

Funny how fashions cross continents even when people don’t. Now we fly the world as if it was just a hop, skip and a jump, but back then cats were more settled. I was never into the whole Bollywood thang myself, preferring the pull of disco and city lights, but the styles were pretty much the same. A cream flared suit with the big petal lapels and even bigger flares would have worked just as well in New Delhi or New York, it didn’t matter to Mona which style I wore.

I should have mentioned Mona sooner.

While my pitaa taught the ways of the cloth it was Mona who taught me the ways of the heart. She was my dream girl (though I was never so la la to tell her to her face) and she lived at the other end of the lane. I knew Mona all my life and if we got it together I knew we’d make it fly for sure, but our circles were different. She was a Saint Bridget’s girl while I… I just did what I could in Dehiwala Central College downtown. Nothing funky. My pitaa was none too concerned. He knew I would always inherit the needle and thread from him and had the basics of measures and book-keeping by the time I was old enough for school. Going for classes was just a formality because it kept me occupied as a kid, but now I was a man and studies like that weren’t the cool thing. But I was never too busy to dream about Mona.

On week days Mona had to wear the white school uniform, white blouse, pleated skirt and socks. But even a nun’s regimentation could not hide her beauty. Sometimes I watched her as she went for an after school feast in our favourite pasty shop. The city was studded with them, but the one near us on the Galle Road was the best. It’s where we all hung out. She and her schoolmates would be giggling over something or other and she laughed in that shiny-eyed way of hers. I could sit sipping an iced coffee or juice and just be in the same room.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a tale of unrequited love, she knew me since days, and was always sweet and kind, but how to get the girl and keep the girl was the mystery I had to solve. Although Mona looked like a foxy lady in school uniform, she was never cruel, just busy. Popular. What with friends and family and whatnot there was never time to catch a break with her.

Come Saturday and my pitaa would have me working in the shop, our busiest day, measuring up the clients for disco suits and fly shirts, and on Sunday Mona spent the day in church. That was my biggest dilemma. Mona was down with the holy funk and spent most of her free time in church. I even considered getting down with the choir myself, just to make her notice me, but then realised that my voice would bring tears to her eyes, so maybe not. Plus I’d have to convert and that was never an option, so the only thing that stopped Mona becoming the love of my life was that the gods never gave our stars time enough to cross.

Religion was never big with my olds, they never dragged me to the temple for festivals. My mataa went, but more to save face in the local community than out of real devotion. As for me and pops, we went whenever he said he needed help. I never quite understood what this meant, and kinda assumed that we were sorta Hindu for a very long time. Gods were just there; dudes did their penances but we never caught the groove of that funky hoodoo stuff. Only when I was eighteen did I understand that our god was a very different kind to the statues in the temple.

It was a Sunday and I was dreaming about Mona of course when I should have been studying geometry for my exams. She would be in church now. Probably being eyed by some altar boy. Egbert De Souza was a fine one for that. Real Casanova wannabe that one. I should know. I caught him eyeing Mona while stuffing his face with rich fruit cake in the pastry shop. It was only a matter of time before he made his move, and being the good Christian dude he was Mona would have no defences. He was precisely the kind of boy she could take home to mother, bland as boiled rice. His papa came to our shop to have business suits run up for him. Even in the sweltering heat of that early August it was always dark brown, because this was a man who worked in air-conned offices.

It was papa De Souza’s suit that gave me the epiphany. He always paid for triple stitching. Say what you might about his doughy son, the father knew what made a bangin suit, no?

‘It is time we gathered more thread putaa,’ that was how my pitaa said it. Not ‘buy’, not ‘purchase’, not ‘break into Cargill’s department store and steal it’, no, he said ‘gathered’ as if we were to go into the fields and pick a bale of cotton. ‘Wash your hands, and come to the temple with me.’

I did as I was told. Once a month we would traipse to the retailer and he always made me wait outside while he did the deal behind firmly closed doors. My pitaa always made a whole big deal about the thread, making me think he worshipped cotton reels more than any of the gods in the temple. He never let me in on the secrets and I had no reason to think this day was gonna be any different.

While I drew water from the little well behind the shop, shared with a number of shanty houses nearby, my pitaa shut up for the day. Yes it was only mid morning, but there was no way for us to work without thread, no? I washed my hands and feet and dressed as if I was heading to the temple when I knew we weren’t.

By the time I had dried off and dressed my pitaa was already at the front of the shop. He looked no different to how I had left him, not washed and polished like me, but carrying that old sport’s bag he had always had sat in his room. It was blue colour, with a knock-off logo on the side. I forget which, but I remember the handle was cracked from years of carrying. This was before backpacks became all the rage.

I took the bag from him, this was my sacred job when we went to pick a bale of cotton. It wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t just an empty shopping bag either.

The walk to the cotton dude wasn’t too far, just down the lane, across and up along the Galle Road and back up a lane parallelly to ours. More or less a ‘u’ shape, not so far, but it went right past Mona’s house and if the time was right…

I saw her there, on the corner, saying goodbye to Egbert. He was holding her prayer books and grinning like a loon. He had no business being there. He had no business going even to the same church as her, living up past Buller’s Road, there were at least two dozen churches between his pad and mine, but still there he was, god’s gift.

Mona waved at me, and smiled in a way that could melt my heart.

‘Wave back putaa, she’s a good girl,’ I was shocked that pops had to prompt me. I’d forgotten he was even there, so I did as I was told and waved, nearly tripping over in the process. Road maintenance had never been a thing in the city, and getting distracted like that could be fatal. I heard all the time of guys tripping on a loose slab or broken gutter and crashing into a city bus or somesuch. Ugly way to go men.

Egbert giggled, then whispered something to Mona, touching her arm, sharing his joke, but she failed to get the punchline. She just scowled at him and took her books back.

‘Are you Ok?’ She asked me as soon as we were in earshot.

‘Funky.’ I replied.

This time she did laugh, but not at me. ‘Are you going to the temple?’ She must have noticed my Sunday best.

‘Yeah,’ I lied, not wanting Egbert to know my pitaa worked so hard for a living he had to shop on the Sabbath. ‘Quiet day. Listen, if you’re free later maybe we could go for a cool drink.’ I can’t believe I dared ask in front of Eggy, maybe having pops with me had given me courage. Egbert was a dork, but he was a respectful dork, being rude in front of my pops would have gone down bad in Mona’s book.

‘Sure thing,’ she said, and smiled of course. ‘We could all meet up there. Ayah, it’s a hot day, no?’

‘Of course, that’s a great idea.’ Egbert was quick off the mark. He didn’t need to insult me to show his glee, instead he touched my arm, lightly putting me my place. The son of a tailor.

‘That’s cool,’ Mona glanced at pops, ‘What time will you be finished uncle?’

‘Well past lunch I’m afraid sutaa…’

‘That’s fine sir, we can keep a seat until he comes down,’ Egbert added.

Mona agreed happily. ‘Ok, see you as soon also. Listen guys it’s hot out here, I need to bathe.’

And so Mona waved us off. I stood looking as she opened the high gate to her house. She lived in one of those old colonial buildings built on the edge of the Galle Road, the sort with the veranda and porch type thing. Her mother was standing at the door, having left Mona with good old Eggy. Mona waved again and disappeared beautifully into the house.

‘Well see you later old fellow, don’t worry we’ll keep you a seat. Bye uncle.’ Egbert strode off like a Sunday cricketer off to the crease, leaving pops and me to watch him go.

‘Don’t worry putaa, I’ll get you home as soon as.’ Pops words were hollow. I knew these deals were never easy as all that.

We made out way out into the cacophony of the Galle Road and I caught the flash of Egbert’s whites as he disappeared into the back of a three-wheeler. He’d be home and rested before we had even reached the thread merchant.

‘Hey pops, can’t we buy thread from another shop? There are different different shops just here, no?’ I was thinking of the shops on the Galle Road. With so many tailors around cotton was easy to come by. Even on a Sunday the road was a riot of madness, with every kind of shop only a few steps away. It made no sense to be this fussy.

‘No putaa, it is the thread that makes the suit, and only one kind will do. That is why I brought you today, to understand what makes our garments so fully worth. Don’t worry, Mona is a good girl, she won’t be swayed by flash and cash. Have faith.’

So we picked our way past several shops, all of which could have sold thread and sent us quickly on our way. Some even waved at pops and me. Everyone knew each other, but while he was perfectly happy to use any of those dudes to buy everything else my pitaa was insistent that none of them were good enough for his bloody clothes.

I seethed inside as we passed the temple. It must have been a poya day, a full moon or something, the gates were open and old ladies were gathering inside for a service. Mataa would probably join them too, they looked like her cronies. Some had laid flowers at the feet of the gods inside. Through the gate I could see Rama, standing strong and blue in the centre, a yellow garland around his neck, likewise Sita and Lakshmana, Hanuman at their feet, all perfectly devout.

We walked into the scent of jasmine and incense, a choking smoky flowery combination that made me cough. The main street was busy for a Sunday, with people out early to beat the curfew. Somewhere further down an election vehicle was shrieking out slogans in another language while traffic belched along beside us. It was a relief to leave the street for the little lane that ran down the side of the temple.

This was where pops got the thread. No one else did as far as I knew. In fact no one else even used that lane except as a sometimes shortcut between two main roads. There was nothing there, just fetid piles of rubbish at either end. Along one side ran the crenulated wall of temple, unbroken by door or window; an old whitewashed wall topped with those lotus flower shapes that temples have. The other side was the back of the fish market. Another wall, but nothing so fancy, merely old and uncared for. Someone had stuck a few election posters at the corner with the main street, but that was all the decoration there was. The lane marked the no man’s land between fish guts and god. I could smell the market strongly now, even through the wall, overcoming the incense and jasmine with ease.

My pitaa and me walked together to the door in the fish market wall. It was the only feature on that side, so tired and worn that from the main street few would have noticed it was even there, it blended well into the stone façade. There was nothing special about it, but it was solid, not cracked, not fragile with age. The stones around it were unadorned. It looked like it wanted to be a wall more than it wanted to be a door.

I knew this routine. Pops took his key and unlocked the door. I always guessed the guard in the fish market (I assumed such a person must exist, although I was never sure what a fish market would be guarded from. Cats perhaps.) had given his a spare. It always went the same way. I stood outside for ages. Pops would go in, be gone a long while and return with the bag full and breathless from thorough haggling. Sometimes he even had to wipe tears from his eyes, the stench of fish must have been so strong inside.

I was secretly cursing my wasted journey when he said something I didn’t expect.

‘Putaa, you are a man now. Come inside with me, we’ll take the thread together and you’ll see how.’ He unlocked the door and held it open.

I hesitated a moment, feeling a chill rush of air on my face, but more because of the emptiness beyond the door. I had never looked so clearly inside before, assuming it was simply the back of the market, some storage room maybe, but now, with daylight illuminating it, I could see it was just a room, stone walls, graffitied and messy, and only a few paces wide. With all the redolence of the city around me it seem quite normal.

I stepped inside.

My pitaa lit a match as the door swung closed behind me and suddenly the stench of fish and heat and fumes evaporated, overwhelmed by the smell of nothing. I could feel the distant rumble of traffic, but little more of the outside world.

The room was as I thought, just a windowless space, with cold sandstone walls ceiling and floor, smothered in graffiti of various kinds in multiple languages. Some were drawn in charcoal, some in ink, but many were carved right into the stone to leave a permanent mark. I could see western words amongst the swirly Sinhala and Tamil, mostly obscene, but here and there names, Pym and Jenkins, Walcott and Lake; peoples who had signed their names in the dark.

The flickering light became a steady glow as pops knelt and lit a candle on the floor, then the flame blazed straight and tall. With the door shut no breeze disturbed the air, letting the flame stretch to its full height.

‘Is the power down?’ I asked. ‘I could have brought a torch.’

‘No no putaa, this is better, there is no electricity here, we can light the way through this stygian night as we go.’ He handed me a candle and I lit it. With the extra light I could see the flagstoned floor, a dark trail betrayed where countless others had walked. Along the worn path little drops of candle wax said that they too were hunters in the dark. The drips converged from where other candles must have been lit.

What I thought was just a wall opposite the door wasn’t. Now in the two points of light I could see shadows cross an doorway, open, but doorless, with a narrow gap to the left barely wide enough for one. That would be the way into the back of the market I guessed.

‘You know the front door might have been a lot less hassle pops.’

My putaa crossed the room and lit another candle in a small alcove by the corridor. The remnants of more wax left a congealed reminder than this had been done many many times before.

‘There is no other front door to where this leads,’ he said. ‘Come, let me show you… and mind your feet, the floor is uneven, age has weathered it so.’

He led me to the corridor. I followed, then stopped. It wasn’t a corridor at all, but the top of a stairwell with utter darkness beyond. For a moment it seemed to stretch down into the earth with no end in sight.

‘I’ll go first putaa… don’t worry, there’s nothing eldritch or malign here, it’s quite safe just very very old. Nothing to worry about at all.’

‘And the thread dude is down there?’

‘Yes. Definitely. Come, I’ll show you.’

He stepped casually into the abyss, the only point of light being the candle he held before him. If my pitaa had shown any hint of fear or nervousness I would had turned and fled back to the world outside with all its stench and lunacy, but he was so casual, so confident, I followed obediently, putting my trust in my dad like a little kid.

The stairwell was as narrow as it seemed, with each step worn so smooth with countless feet that it formed a rounded edge below us. A few steps in and pops stopped and lit another candle. I realised they were already in place, big church candles waiting for him to light them. Every so often an alcove broke the line of the heavily graffitied wall on either side. These were each a foot deep and wide at chest height, little shelves that looked like they once held something more than just candles.

‘Let me tell you now honestly,’ said pops unprompted, ‘even before your mahapitaa -your great great grandfather- there were once statues here, all the way down they went, little gods in the walls, but they are ancient aeons past. Ayah they must have been grand!’

‘Did rogues steal them?’

‘Maybe, maybe… but more likely they were taken for safekeeping by the faithful. Those were dangerous times, when people stole willy nilly. You can’t leave things out all over the shop, no? There was a madness in the world and the Europeans came and took advantage of it. Gods know what abhorrent sacrifices would have been made otherwise. It was good they came, it sent the cult that worshipped here off into the dark places never to be seen again.’

‘Worship? Is this a temple? Should I remove my slippers?’

He turned abruptly and stared at me. ‘Never walk here barefoot putaa. We do not pray here, we’ve only come for thread.’

With his warning taken to heart we descended further into the earth, lighting candles every few steps to leave a trail of illumination behind us. With the growing light I realised the wall on either side was stained dark, a smear betraying where many fingers had touched it, perhaps centuries of hands holding the wall for balance and leaving behind the tell-tale grease of people. If this place was forgotten now it was not always so. The further we went the less graffiti marked the walls, as if whoever did it was just giving up. No more casual abuse in native languages, but shapes and symbols that I could not understand cut into the stone, telling of something I was unable to question.

As if in reply to this uncertain thought the next alcove was not empty. The candle rested on a raised base of a dark green stone totally unlike the surrounding walls; the broken footing of some ancient statue. This one had not been stolen like the others, but was so smashed that the only feature remaining was a broad pedestal and broken chunks. Through ageless layers of candle wax I could just make out something in the stone, a leg perhaps, folded around the base, but too long, too abnormal, twisted around in joints no leg should ever have, hiding the foot from view.

We moved on. Less and less graffiti and again a shattered statue of that same dark green stone. This time what looked like a hand, or a claw, might have been the only shape. On another it was perhaps a membranous wing. I could not be certain, with the poor light and damage I could only guess what these idols once were.

A few steps more and we entered another featureless stone chamber. I should have paid more attention to the shape, the details and geometry, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with a deep sick feeling. I stumbled and almost fell to my knees, but my pitaa caught me, almost as if he expected me to stumble just there.

‘You can feel it now, no? I had the same just here. No one goes beyond this room except the most devoted.’

I was speechless. What I was feeling wasn’t nausea or dizziness, it was a deeper sickness than either, something I could not put into words.

‘That is her grief in you. It lives in the air and rock around us,’ my pitaa said. ‘This is why no one comes further than this. In ancient times there was not even a door to block the way up there, but still, no one can walk willingly into this place. It is protected by something much stronger than lock and key.’

‘Grief?’ I could feel it now, that sense of sick loss inside, as if my best friend, my puppy and my mataa had just passed away and I was left all alone, stunned. I should have asked who ‘she’ was, but my breath felt as if it was being sucked right out of me. I had no words to voice the pain I felt.

I was barely aware that my pitaa was tying something around my wrist. My heart was beating so loudly in my chest, she had gone, I had lost her, and them, and everything that ever mattered and… and… and then the feeling passed, almost as quickly as it had started.

‘Take a moment putaa, it will go now.’

I did, feeling my breath return to me, my senses restored, and with it more light as candles were lit around the chamber. There on my wrist pitaa had tied cords, the same thread he used in the shop, but like a kalava, the string bracelet Brahmins tied around the wrist on prayer days. The threads were thicker than normal, woven into intricate strands. Something about the light made it impossible to name the colour there. In the shop the thread seemed vaguely beige, but when stitched into a suit it always took on the tint of the material. All these years I had thought this quite normal, just a trait of thin thread, but now as the hues shifted and blurred on my wrist, I was beginning to have doubts.

‘Come putaa, it’s not so very far now. Those threads will take the pain away. That is the secret of our suits, not so much the cut or the style, but the thread on your wrist. Stitched into a jacket and trouser it will give you a tiny high for the rest of your life.’ He was right, I felt quite elated now, as if the grief was just a long gone memory. ‘Have you ever felt the back of the icebox?’ He asked.

‘Huh?’ The question seemed completely wacky in that place.

‘It’s hot, no? While inside everything is icy, the back is hot because the heat is drawn out of it. That’s how our thread works and why we cannot buy any old cotton like the others. Like an icebox this extracts one and leaves another, in this case not heat but joy. It takes the tiniest iota of happiness from its surroundings and gives it to the wearer. If it is worn on the skin then a fellow feels the love. That is why our thread is so important to us putaa. No one sells it. No one even knows about it, but our customers come back again and again because they feel so very good in our suits.’ He smiled, as if relieved to share. ‘The thread is like a magnet that attracts good feelings into it.’

‘I can feel the vibe now.’ I smiled, but even then I wondered, if it took good feelings then what did it leave behind?

‘Come, I’ll show you and answer any questions you have putaa. This is why I brought you. You are a man now and it is time you understood everything.’

He led me through another doorway in the opposite wall, this one with a lintel so vast and so ancient that no human hand could have lifted it. As I bent my head to follow him I noticed English graffiti carved into the stone, H. A. Wilcox, and a date that looked like 19-something, but I could not make out what, as if the artist had surrendered before he could carve the balance. That marked the last of the European words I saw there.

Together we walked through tight spaces, too big for corridors, but too small to be called rooms. At the entrance to each a stone step meant the floor was dangerously uneven. All of the rooms had more than one exit, creating a vast underground network, a labyrinth baffling to the eye. I was soon lost within them, with no sense of direction at all. Only my pitaa kept me on the straight and narrow.

‘There are many turns and passages here putaa, but the thing to remember is always light the candles on the left coming in, and extinguish them on the right going out. It’s very easy really. Never be tempted to explore. I was told that ancient people who wandered off into the black arcades of this place almost never returned. The few who did, left their sanity behind in the dark. So long as you never stray everything will be good for you.’ He lit another candle, again in an alcove smothered in centuries of wax. There were no more broken idols now, not even remnants. Whatever had once stood here to be worshipped had been spirited away complete, leaving no trace.

‘My mahapitaa told me all about the way through this place, but to be honest just follow the candles. The route is well marked now. You can’t go wrong really.’

He was right of course. Once the way had been marked with wax it was plain to see. Sometimes the rooms took a turn here or there, or we skirted around fallen masonry, but it was easy to track the route. Generations of candle lighters had marked the path clearly.

‘How old is this place pops?’

‘Incalculably older than the city above us I can tell you. When the Dutch and Portuguese came here it was measureless aeons old even then. The British never knew much about it, although some mad Arab spoke of places much like this. Further north there are what they call ancient cities, but this is vigintillions of years older still.’

We hunted through more rooms, more narrow doors in and out, more empty alcoves and more lit candles, all just waiting for the flame. I stumbled mostly, banging my head a couple of times when I misjudged the angle of stone, thinking it obtuse when it was in fact acute. Some rooms had a square in the middle where once an idol would have been lovingly tended. Although long gone I was careful to step around them, fearful to tread where a god had once stood.

And then, quite abruptly, the world opened up before us. The ceiling was no longer just a few inches above my head but vanished into darkness, the walls too, so far back I could not see them, only black with barely a few steps visible.

‘Just wait here putaa, take your time to accustom your eyes to it, I’ll light candles and let you see better.’

So pops strode confidently into the dark and I sat down on the step across the door. I guessed like the old cities they were used to stop floods and rats and suchlike passing from room to room.

As I sat waiting, one candle at a time the space before me began to be revealed, and soon my breath was taken away at the sight.

‘Don’t be afraid putaa, she is eternally dead.’

I was baffled for a moment, then saw what I feared was a snake, stretched a just few feet away from my toes. The pointed end of the tail was opalescent in the gathering light. I flinched and almost cried out, but soon realised it was a still and dead thing, and not a snake at all. As more light dilated the black space, so too did the outline of the thing in the room. Yes, it started at my feet, but instead of the slender length of a cobra or python, this grew quickly from the tip, wider and wider until it was easily my standing height. It was so still that I think I must have assumed it was a statue, or maybe some other ancient architectural feature smoothly shaped from a stone I could not identify; but it soon twisted in a way no snake ever could, even a dead one, and then the length turned again, over and over, becoming increasingly monstrous in proportions.

More light, and with it the first of the suckers. It was as wide as my hand, so perfectly shaped that there was no mistaking it for what it was, fringed in a slightly darker shade. Then another sucker emerged from the gloom, hanging flaccid from the carcass, and more, increasing in size as the length of the thing grew ever more apparent and ever more insane. Very soon what I had mistaken for a snake was taller than me, and I began to comprehend that this was in fact a vast tentacle of something I hope was as dead as it appeared to be.

Just when I feared it would reveal the whole creature that could own such a monstrous limb the shape was abruptly broken. No, not a break, there were still thin tendrils holding it together at the back, but a hole had been gouged, dug and burrowed into the flesh before tentacle began again, whole, thick and complete, with suckers as wide as my leg before it suddenly ended with the sheer face of the wall.

I had not realised I was standing aghast until pops came and stood beside me.

‘Is this dead?’ I asked stupidly, fearful that its stillness hid a throbbing life below the skin.

‘Oh yes, quite quite dead. It will not harm you putaa, fear not, I would never have brought you to see otherwise.’

‘But there’s no smell.’ I was reminded of the stench above us, the redolence of the fish market and city, but here, despite what lay before my eyes, there was nothing in the air, as if it had been sucked dry not just of all good feelings, but everything, leaving the atmosphere thin and dusty. Not even a wisp of a breeze disturbed it now. ‘Is it an animal? Why doesn’t it stink?’

‘Because she died vast epochs of time before men came here, age and death have petrified what was left. When I was brought here as a child even the air was as now, just empty. She has been dead for long aeons and will lie here for eternity if we leave it so. It is just a thing now that lays forgotten beneath the city. No one will come here putaa, and I think you and I are now the very last to know she is even here.’

‘But,’ my mind was still playing catch-up with my eyes, ‘What is it?’ I took a step towards it, expecting my pitaa to dramatically hold me back. When he did nothing I just stood and looked appalled. Now I could see where it met the wall. It did not end there, it couldn’t, but seemed to pass into the wall itself, through what appeared to be a collapsed doorway. The lintel above was clearly broken in two and the weight of stone had fallen in around it, but it seemed unnatural. All the rooms we had passed through had been shaped from stone so huge that often there were no joints to be see, yet where this tentacle met the wall there were hundreds of smaller stones like a dry wall, some no more than the size of my fist, completely blocking the gap.

My pitaa knew what I was seeing. ‘Ah yes, in years gone by people blocked up the hole there, fearing that they would go insane with curiosity to see the rest of her. Only a few warnings were passed down from then. One is never to look beyond the stones putaa, that is the most important thing. Whatever lays down there, whatever cyclopean city this is just a glimpse of, we must never see. Do not even dream of it. Let it be hidden from the world. I was told that those who once tried never returned from those dark archaic vistas and let that be a warning to us all.’

‘But the rest of the creature…’

‘Is dead and gone. As has the cult that once worshipped here too.’ ‘Worshipped? This… thing… this animal…’

‘Just stop putaa. Don’t get so hot and bothered. All this is for us, it is where our thread comes from only, nothing more. You are not part of some cult or madness. Maybe many centuries ago our ancestors were. I believe they may have been priests and prayed to her, but that was so long ago that it is all but forgotten. History does not even mention it. We have not come here to pray, we have come here to work. Let me show you.’

My pitaa then opened the bag at his feet and fished out an empty wooden spindle and a pair of yellow rubber gloves. I watched him slip the gloves on.

‘There’s another pair in there. You can’t afford to touch her. She’ll take all your joy away and leave you a wreck. Take my word for it putaa.’

He walked the length of the tentacle to the hole torn in her side, his rubber slippers slapping on the stones as he walked. The enormity of the thing suddenly reminded me of the reclining Buddhas in other parts of the country. We studied pictures of them in school, with the statues dwarfing the people around it.

My pitaa was no acolyte though. He stepped carefully to the hole, plunged his hand in and drew out a fine thread. I watched him tie it around the empty spindle and then start winding.

‘Unless you want to miss your date putaa you better hurry up and help me, no?’

‘Yes yes, of course.’ I did as I was told automatically, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, pink ones for me, and joining him at the hole.

I peered inside. That close to the tentacle and it looked lighter, a tight mass of webs, not flesh but threads, cotton like and fine. While the outer skin was as thin as silk, the inside was finely fragile.

‘Right putaa, take a thread and spool it onto the reel, but do not touch it with your skin. You should have rolled your sleeves down too. That’s my fault.’

I nervously reached into the hole, plucking a thread between finger and thumb and pulled gently at first. It came away easily, like old sticky tape that had lost its stick, I could imagine a silky dust left behind, but nothing more. I tied the thread onto the spindle, stepped back, and then began winding.

Together my pitaa and I pulled the thread onto the reels, leaving me time to consider everything before me. He was acting like this was all quite normal and yet it seemed anything but.

‘Why did you call it a ‘she’ pitaa?’

‘Ah… I wondered when you would ask… wait, let me get the knife.’ He fished in his pocket for his penknife, opened the blade and cut the thread. When I was small he always sharpened that blade on a Sunday afternoon, carefully using a whetstone to hone it down. Sometimes I would look at it but knew better than to test the blade. Now it cut through the thread as easily as… well as a knife through silk. He then folded the blade up, returned the knife to his pocket and the filled reel to the bag, taking another spindle to repeat the process.

‘Before there were people on this island there were monsters putaa.’ He said this so much like fact that I could not question the wonder of the thing. ‘The Ramayana is the history of those times, when the old ones lived here and their daemoniac desires were the heart of everything. Every child, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian or whatnot knows the tale, isn’t it? Rama came and killed all the monsters, brought back light, and people took this land.’

‘This is Ravana?’ I asked, drawing a conclusion like a kid.

‘No, no, not the king. Rama made mincemeat of him, no? I was told that this old one is Mrs Ravana.’

‘The demon king’s wife?’

‘I don’t think demon is right putaa. When people win wars they can call their victims anything for lies. These are just very ancient creatures. What I was told is what we have always been told: Ravana was the king, and as any king he had wives. Even before he took Sita, if that was indeed what he did, he had a wife.

‘Before the war began she was banished. Perhaps he was mad at her, perhaps it was just to give Sita some room. I cannot say, such speculation is in vain for dead things, no? What I do know is she was sent down here, away from the fighting up north, and when the war was lost and all the monsters were killed, she remained here, imprisoned until she died forgotten and alone. Even the poets barely mention her, leaving her almost lost to history. This is Mandodaari, Ravana’s first queen. The queen of stars. The monster’s wife.’

Suddenly the grief that consumed me before the threads were tied at my wrist came back in an echo, shaped in a way that made sense. Such utter sadness. Mandodaari. The queen who was banished, Ravana’s true love that he dropped for a fancy foreign chick.

My reel was full.

‘Here putaa,’ pops handed me the knife. I opened it carefully, cut the thread and passed it back to him.

‘Why do we do this to her then? It seems…’ I was not sure what it seemed. Horrible. Perverse. Vile.

‘I think blasphemous is the word you’re looking for. Maybe it is, but you get used to it, just as we all do, father to son and so on. Think of it this way, she is just a dead animal and we use animals for skin and food and all kind of things, no? This is no different. It is making use of what we have only.’

I followed his example, dropped the full spindle into the bag, and took an empty one to repeat the process, but this time when I reached in I was careless. I forgot his warning and my naked forearm brushed the silky edge of the opening.

My world exploded into a black ocean of loss and I fell, I fell so hard, dropping the spindle with a clatter, arms over my head. All the pain and grief and abandonment came back, or rather all my joy was sucked out and only pain and grief and abandonment remained. A few threads on the wrist did nothing in such overwhelming rejection. This was the agony of loving someone so much it felt like your heart would burst, and then they turned you out, cast you away and told you ‘never’. You will never be loved by me. You are not good enough, not true, not kind, you are nothing and deserve nothing. Everything you thought was yours is not, you will never… never…

I felt my pitaa’s arms around me. He held me like I was a little kid again, weeping after a fall. In his embrace I felt the black grief drip from me like water after a monsoon storm.

‘You must never never touch the skin putaa, what did I tell you?’ Something else was wrapped around me too, something other than my father’s arms. In the steady candlelight I could see the iridescence of the creature’s skin on mine. I can’t say whether pops cut it there and then from the vast carcass, or had a sheet in the bag ready for the event. Either way he had wrapped the skin around me and it felt like silk on my arms, moreover it felt joyous. Blissful. Drawing happiness back into me like a sponge.

My pitaa must have seen the mad grin on my face. He stepped back, taking the skin with him. ‘In a man emotions are a fine balance, take one away and the others come tumbling also, all out of proportion. All this material does is drawn in the joy, but it takes it from somewhere too. It will take it from you if you let it.’

‘No no,’ I pleaded, the happy was going, ‘don’t. That’s lovely just let me hold it more…’

‘Nahi putaa, don’t shout for lies, this is too much of a good thing and all that. Her touch can take all the joy from you if you let it, but wrap yourself in her, let her hold you, and the excess is yours. You must learn to be careful here. I worked for many years before I developed a balance, maybe an immunity to the air even, but this is your first time putaa. You will learn, but don’t go rushing headlong into it. You have a date also, and we have dallied here long enough.’ He dropped the cloth on the flagstone floor. ‘No more playing silly buggers, we need the thread; you need to work.’ He handed the empty spindle back to me and I took it, being extra careful this time to never touch the her, Mandodaari’s dead skin.

When we returned to the surface I half feared it was night. Walking behind my pitaa as we snuffed out each candle the smoky darkness returned fooling me into thinking we had been in that subterranean gloom for hours, but when we at last reached the graffiti room and that wooden door I could see chinks of sunlight, and feel the heat of day.

The city was precisely as I’d left it. The only change was me and what I now held in my head. The market still reeked of fish, the temple of incense and the Galle Road of burning fumes from every crazy vehicle around. We took a moment to re- accustom our eyes to day, and then made our way back to the shop in silence, not because either of us was angry, but there were simply no words. Yes I had questions, of my pitaa and my mataa too, for she surely knew everything as well, but at that point none would form in my head clearly enough to articulate.

In the musty shop my pitaa carefully unpacked the bag, placing the thread in the drawer under his worktable, then began to spool one onto the Singer sewing machine. It was the machine he always used and it seemed like a sacred relic now as it wove the fibres of a long dead god into suits and trousers.

‘Have you forgotten your appointment with a lady from the other end of the lane?’

For a moment I was confused, then I remembered Mona. My Mona, sitting in a coffee shop all by herself waiting for me. I had no time to wash and make myself fly again, so I brushed my hands through my hair.

‘Don’t worry, you look grand putaa, you go. I have work to do, isn’t it?’ ‘Thanks pops, you’re safe.’
He smiled and waggled his head in reply, that gesture which is neither here

nor there but says a shy acceptance of a compliment.
I almost ran to the shop, but halted having to cross the main street in mid

morning traffic. The Galle Road stretches all the way down south and is never quiet. Standing on the side of it I waited for what seemed an age before a break in the traffic finally appeared and then I darted across, only to halt the moment I reached the shop.

There inside were the usual range of customers, and Mona sitting so beautifully, with greasy Egbert holding her hand. I could have turned and fled then, but Mona looked my way. She smiled, releasing Eggy’s grip, and waved.

I waved back and strode up the three steps to the door to walk inside. The icy AC of the coffee shop hit me like the cold in Mandodaari’s tomb. That was the first time I had understood what it was. A tomb. There was no way something that vast could have entered through the little maze of doors and corridors that we used. She was not meant to leave it that way but was trapped there. All we were doing was robbing a tomb and the thought shook me.

‘Hey there, are you ok? You look perturbed.’ Mona was standing now, right in front of me.

‘Yeah I’m funky.’

‘They just got some fish cutlets in, still warm.’ She glanced at the savouries counter, piled with hot patties, rolls and cutlets -golden bread crumbed balls of fish- my favourite, more so now because Mona remembered.

I ordered a couple, and an orange cool drink too then went to pay.

The sad faced cashier totted the amount up and wrote it carefully onto a chit, giving me plenty of time to reach into my pockets and find nothing. In my haste to arrive I had forgotten to bring any cash at all.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve got this son,’ Egbert said, holding my arm and handing a large note over the counter. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I’m sure I was older than him.

‘No, I…’ I tried to protest, but didn’t want to tell him I was broke.

Egbert took back his change, leaving me in debt. ‘No don’t worry I’ll get this, you’re the son of a tailor.’ The way he called me that sounded like it should have been answered with a punch in the face in reply, but my embarrassment stopped me. He touched my arm, saying, ‘You get the next one next time you get down if you want.’

‘Thanks. I will.’

He led me back to the table and we spent an uncomfortable time together. Egbert talked of cricket, his school beating everybody, and the elections, how his father was in with some big shot minister or other. Every so often Mona asked me my opinion, only I had none. Sport was never my thing, my school never played and I wasn’t even sure I knew anyone who could vote. She left me speechless and with my thoughts still in the stone room looking at Mandodaari’s arm. Or maybe it was her leg. Perhaps it was neither, a feeler maybe, it could have been the tiniest tip of a finger for all I knew.

‘I hear the new Amitabh Bachchan film is releasing Wednesday.’ Mona tried to steer the conversation down another alley about which I knew nothing.

‘I thought the other one is still playing.’ Egbert said, obviously knowledgably. ‘I think they’ll put both, maybe a double.’ She said.

‘Oh Jesus! That would take all day, who has time to waste like that?’

‘I do.’ I said, noticing how Mona flinched when he used Jesus’s name in vain.

‘I’ll check the times then maybe we can…’

‘Oh wow, I’d love that!’ Mona blessed me with a smile. ‘I’ll have to ask mummy, but she’ll be good if it’s day time any you’re coming.’

‘Are you sure your father can let you out of the shop?’ Egbert leaned forward and touched my arm, showing genuine concern.

‘Yes, of course. He wants me to have fun, no?’

‘Not much work I guess. Must be hard with all the competition. Still, it’s good to be a fellow of leisure, eh?’ Egbert laughed and patted my arm, making him look like my very best buddy ever.

Of course that night I dreamed of Mona because I always did, but she was not what the dream was about. Yes it was Mona, but she was standing before a vista of some dank cyclopean city, towers and shapes stood behind her and with the them writhing of some gibbous thing that seethed through the buildings as it made its way heaven knows where.

I was shocked awake by the call of the thambili seller, bellowing about the morning batch of drinking coconut. He passed as always. My pitaa never bought from him, and called him all sorts when he tried push the point.

I lay there a moment gathering my thoughts. In the heat of the morning the ceiling fan slowly crept around and I tried hard to think of nice things: Mona’s smile; that way her skirt swayed when she walked; the smell of her hair; the silky touch of her skin, so like the threads on my wrist, which even then I fingered absently watching the flickering shadows of morning.

Wednesday came as if the world were quite normal. The political gangs got up early too, banging on doors and shouting about what they were selling as loudly as any roadside hawker. Schools were closed in anticipation of trouble, there was always trouble when people had to tick boxes and say who they wanted to take the money from their pockets… but I’m getting too political, that was never my thing and never will be.

The shop was quiet that day. Eventually I sat on a stool while my pitta cut cloth for another suit.

‘That boy Egbert will come down later to collect this putaa, his father has paid already.’

‘Where will you be pops? It would be better if…’

‘There’s something at the temple I need to be seen at. You must be careful now you know our secret. These days people will use any excuse to make you seem… what would you say? Odd, strange?’

‘Like a wack job, men. Totally off my trolley.’

‘Yes, well people will pounce, claim we are part of some ancient cult and worshipping devils.’

‘Aren’t we?’

His scissors sliced the thread in one clean stroke. ‘We go to the temple like good people. We pray at festivals, give penance, and every morning you mataa prays in front of the shop and hangs lucky limes above the door for all to see. What they see is much more important to us than anyone else because it means nothing. Religion is useful amongst the herd, but is all show putaa, to let everyone see us as they expect. Only you know the secret is in the thread.

‘No, we do not pray to the dead gods putaa, we do not wait for their return like people once did. We are much more practical than our ancestors.’

‘Aren’t we just taking her apart?’ I was conscious of the fact that outside the underground city my pitaa would never say her name, Mandodaari was in our thoughts, but never on our lips, the name that could not be said. ‘Piece by piece we are taking her apart. One day she will be all gone.’

He sighed as he stretched more cloth and zipped the open scissors along the length to cut it in one swift action. ‘Your ancestors stopped worshipping about two hundred years ago, maybe more. It was when the British came. They took over and the cult, if it was that, fragmented for whatever reason. I don’t think the foreigners had any sense of it, but anyone who really saw the old ones as saviours gave up and fled, taking their idols with them. That was when one of our family started using the thread, probably in desperation when there was no cotton to hand. That hole you saw is the product of hundreds of years. Even if we took it our entire life, the damage would not be much more than it is. If ever your children’s children’s children needed more, then let them knock the wall down and see the rest of her. That’s not our concern. Right now all we need to be sure of is this thread guarantees our survival in hard times like these. It guarantees the De Souza’s of this world come back to us.

‘One day that Egbert boy will pay you for the privilege of the thread, he will act the big gun, but in the end something in the deepest part of his mind will tell him that your suits make him feel dandy, and that will being him back. You have total control of him putaa.’ He glanced at the wall clock at the back of the shop. ‘Ayah, is that the time? I must concentrate now. Go get yourself ready for the big movie putaa, can’t leave your girl waiting, no?’ Pops laughed, making everything seem normal.

The double bill at the Roxy was on at midday and ran until the curfew started at dusk. Egbert was right about it taking the whole day, but I had the time to spare. A man of leisure as he said.

At ten o’clock pops shut up shop and left for the temple. There were no customers that day, what with politics and all there was no need for a good suit, but there had been the rush a month before as politicos wanted to dress the part for their big night.

Ten thirty came, then eleven and I began to get worried. No sign of Egbert. Pops still at the temple. When I opened the door I could hear drums from the shrine. I peered down the lane, but there was no sign of car nor person.

At eleven thirty I was due to meet Mona, take her the short bus ride to the Roxy and make an afternoon of it. By eleven thirty-four I was in a panic. Now I would be late, and Mona would think me a real goofball.

It was nearly twelve o’clock when I finally gave up. I left daddy De Souza’s suit hanging where he could see it inside, locked the door and then sprinted to Mona’s house.

Her mother was in the garden, sweeping as ever.

‘I’m so sorry aunty, is Mona ready?’

‘Oh, it’s you is it? Jesus was never so late, take a page out of his book son.

Mona left time ago. That nice Egbert came and collected her right on time. She said you were to get down to the cinema with them when you finish.’

I must have seemed rude, but I rushed off without even a thank you, grabbing the first suitable bus I saw growling down the Galle Road and hanging on for sheer life as it stalked through the traffic.

Of course I was late, just as Egbert knew I would be. The last of the crowds were milling in and the girl at the ticket booth had already hung the ‘sold out’ sign. When I tried to argue, persuade her that it really was a matter of life and death, she laughed and said the show had sold out on Sunday already.

On my way back to the shop I must have tempted fate a hundred times, blindly crossing traffic, being dodged by taxis and three-wheelers and rowdy dudes in pickup trucks. The heat of the election was on, violence was in the air, and yet, miraculously, it all avoided me. No one picked a fight, or even tried to run me down and I managed to pass the temple crowds and even Mona’s house without incident.

The shop was still locked up. Daddy De Souza’s suit was hanging in full view of the door, the trouser cuffs broad and bold just like he wanted. The look of them finally clarified a thought, an idea that had been shaping itself with my each and every suicidal step.

I went to my pitaa’s room at the back of the shop. On hot days, on quiet days, he used it to take a nap. His sport’s bag was beneath the rough framed bed as always. I unzipped it and checked for the keys. They were in a side pocket.

I didn’t fancy passing the temple again in case pops saw me, but it was a small risk to take. The crowds were thick as always, and he was not looking out for me, either way I didn’t see him.

The alley was unchanged. It never changed, always standing empty like a road between two places should be. As pops said the best security wasn’t bars and

locks, but simply the lack of desire to go this way, yet here I was driven by an entirely different desire now. This place would always stand undisturbed when people had other passions on their mind.

The door unlocked easily and I stepped into the sudden dark, forgetting for a moment that I needed light. I scrambled in the bag for a matchbook, not wanting to go through the whole rigmarole of opening the door again and using daylight. The sound of my scuffles echoed off the stone walls, with nothing else in between. I’d half feared that without my pitaa this place would be alive. It wasn’t.

It took a couple of goes, but I lit a match, found the ensconced candles and illuminated the room. As pops had done I lit another candle from the bag and then made my way across the floor to the stairs, dripping wax just as he did.

I guess that I should have feared losing myself in that labyrinth, but that fear only crossed my mind well after the event. As it happened I took the stairs easily, lighting my way as I went, leaving the trail behind to follow back. When I came to the plinth of the broken statue I examined it briefly again, and understood that the limb I had seen was in fact an antediluvian retelling of a scabrous tentacle, shaped long ago by god knows who.

The rest of the stairs came easily after that, and then the rooms, always following the same pattern, lighting the left, never straying from the path well worn. It never once crossed my mind that I could get lost down there, take a wrong turn and never be seen again, or worse see something that should never be seen again. In the event nothing untoward happened. I made all the correct turns as if guided by some ancient hand. I even avoided bumping my head, knowing when the strangely angled lintels were coming, and using them as confirmation of the true path.

When the final chamber stood before me I plunged into it unhesitatingly, turning to my left to find the first of the candles. These were on the floor, not set into the wall, and I had to grope to find them in the back at first, lighting one in the mass of hardened wax then edging around to light more.

Something in me made me avoid staring at the thing in the room. It wasn’t fear, but rather anticipation, wanting to savour the moment when it came. As I passed back around I caught glimpses of the vast iridescent beauty of her, but I put them out of mind, wanting to give as much illumination as possible for when the time came to behold what she was.

Before I did I paused a while, taking a breath to calm my haste and chill. I didn’t want to rush the moment.

Then I finally looked up. She was there, unmoved, huge and beautiful in the candle glow, stretching from the wall across the room in a curved wave. From where I stood, behind the limb, I could see the smooth sensual shape of her, like a temple dancer’s leg caught in the light. Just for an instant I hesitated and thought I might just stay there, never leave her, just stand and stare at this magnificent old one.

Then the moment passed. Time was not on my side. Indian movies are long for sure, but even now the first of the double would be half gone and curfew was firmly enforced. I could not stand there being overwhelmed.

So I dropped the bag and searched for the length of skin that my pitta had wrapped around me on my first visit. I found it just where it had been left, unmoved of course. Part of me must have wondered if Mandodaari were really dead, perhaps hoping some twitch of life would return after endless aeons, but of course it never would.

I almost made the mistake of taking the skin without gloves, but realised at the last moment and quickly dug them out of the bag. I pulled them on with a snap, then took up the sheet of skin, holding it to the light. It hung beautiful and iridescent, a gentle shift of vague colours. As I expected, it was only half as large as I needed, but it was a good starting point.

I folded the skin and placed it reverently into the bag, then took out the large scissors that pops kept there, the kind he used in the shop.

While I envied the shape and lustre of the tentacles I knew what I needed had to be similar to the sheet, so I returned to the back of her, found an area of the right size and plunged the blade in without analysing my actions. The steel pierced the skin readily, and I sliced the first horizontal. She cut just like silk, unresisting, willing to be torn in two, yet if I tried to tear her with my hands I would never succeed. Turning the scissors I went down, then across, cutting a rectangle more of less a twin of the sheet I had placed in the bag.

When it was done I dropped the scissors with a horrible clatter and used my fingers to ply the skin back. It came away with a slight crackle and the thready strands broke off, leaving a web of fibres behind. I lay it on the flagstone floor and quickly scraped off any loose threads, making the underside as smooth as I could, not that the loose threads would chaff.

Work complete I folded the sheet of skin and placed it with the first in the bag, snapped off the gloves, and dropped the scissors in too.

I had to go. I know I did. But looking at the second wound I had inflicted in her side I felt guilt for the first time. This creature deserved adoration, not to be used as free stock for tailors. She was the rightful queen of this island, the queen of stars, the bride of daemons, only taken down by gods, worthy of gods herself.

I raised my hands in silent veneration. She was a dead thing and did not need my words to break her dreaming, but I promised, when I returned I would worship her as she deserved to be worshipped. With Mona at my side, and our many children to carry the prayers for generations to come, we would give her the praise she deserved.

My return to the surface was even simpler than my descent. This time I was not searching for the right candles and fearing misdirection. The way was already lit and all I had to do was follow the light to the end, snuffing out the candles as I went.

On reaching the last step in the staircase I could hear the noise outside, some kerfuffle that could even penetrate the ancient silence of Mandodaari’s tomb. I killing the last candle and prepared for the worst when I opened the door.

As before the light hit me hard, and the stench of city and market, perhaps worse as it was later than before, smells had fermented in the boiling air. As for the noise, it was a riot of shouting from the other side of the temple wall. No one was in the alley, but the noise was loud enough to have nevertheless leapt the wall and assaulted my ears behind closed doors.

I turned and strode back up to the Galle road, seeing people rushing past at the end. Clearly something was happening, drawing in the curious and the bored. Good. It would distract them enough to ignore me and my bag.

Passing the temple proved the hardest thing of all, far more difficult than searching out an old one in the dark. My way was blocked with crowds pushing and shoving to get a better view. Most had no place in the temple, they had not come to pray, they had come to gawp, so they did not enter the temple compound but stood jostling disrespectfully on the pavement.

I pushed my way through, ignoring the abuse from people I had to shove out of the way. I feared I would have to take a step into the road, risking life and limb in the vein of traffic. Thankfully a police van was parked there, giving me a little protection to edge around.

On passing I glance through the temple gates, seeing a sea of dark heads crowded inside. That was the source of the screaming. There, as ever, was the blue skinned Rama, and Lakshmana dutifully at his side. It was only once I had passed the throng and made my way beyond Mona’s house that I realised what I had missed. Sita. Rama’s bride. Ravana’s prize for whom he had banished his own queen. Where Sita had stood was a broken torso, as if someone had taken a hammer and smashed the woman down. If my Mandodaari had been living she would have smiled.

On approaching the shop I feared my pitaa or mataa would be home already and I would be hindered, but the shop was locked and Mr De Souza’s suit still hung wafting a little in the breeze when I opened the door.

I instinctively clicked on the lights and fan, stirring up the dusky air in the closed shop. Now I had to be fast. The first of the double at the Roxy would be ending, but knowing Mona as I did I knew she would stay for the second, despite having seen the film before. Egbert would hate it, good for him, claiming he was a busy guy, but he was out to impress the chicks and despite his protests was bound to endure the trial.

That only left this son of a tailor to do his job. Living in a shop for eighteen years, seeing the daily measuring, cutting and fitting, could teach a dude a thing or two. There is no magic to tailoring, just precision and good materials.

I opened the bag, donned the rubber gloves, and took out the two sheets of skin. They spread like silk over the workbench, and cut much the same. The nameless iridescence moved subtly in the harsh electric light of the shop. There was a beauty here, just a tiny echo of what she once was, but enough to shock everyone into silence.

I used the template for Mr De Souza’s trousers. It wasn’t some deep vengeful irony, just convenience, it was still out on the bench. Of course I had to adjust it a little. Daddy De Souza was prosperous and had a waistline to match, but his height was similar to me. I guessed at the difference, marking out the shape in chalk just like pops always did. It was easy enough, just four pieces, left and right leg, waistband and fly. I forsook any additions. No pockets, no belt loops, no cuffs. This had to be as basic as possible, and quick.

Once cut I returned the remnants to the bag, then stored it beneath pop’s bed. He would notice of course, but by then I would have slayed the villain and saved the girl, I could explain to my pitaa with Mona on my arm.

Stitching was simple. Pop’s Singer was already loaded and set, all I had to do was join the pieces just as I had seen, straight and smooth, Mandodaari’s thread reunited with her skin, creating a garment wholly her, save for the zip, my one compromise. Had I material I would have made the complete suit, but jackets are much harder and I was short on time.

I only needed those trousers.

When I was done I held them up to see my work, not to admire it out of some vanity, but to check that pops would be proud. Normally the final pressing would have highlighted the seams and cut, but looking at the garment now it was perfect, uncrumpled and ready to wear.

I feared pulling them on, afraid of the grief and pain and loss her skin would drag with her up my legs and into my heart, so I kept my gloves on as I removed my slacks and gingerly slipped one leg then the other into my new pair of trousers. Sensing nothing untoward I pulled them on, feeling only the warmth of her skin on my shins, the smoothness of her touch on my thighs, but nothing loathsome. By the time I zipped the fly I was smiling. They fitted perfectly. My guesswork measurements, or maybe just the stretch of the fabric, meant they held tight at the waist, and tapered out to a perfect wide flare at the shin, beautifully made with no mixed emotions.

I stood in front of the long mirror in the shop. My trousers looked sublime, the iridescence in the harsh light was gentle, like shot silk, only noticeable when I stared hard enough, but something about them made it impossible not to stare. My pops had been perfectly happy to add a tiny ounce of thread to every suit, giving the wearer a little buzz, just enough to make him a return to the shop. He never thought big enough. These trousers were alive with the aeons dead celephopod queen, dreaming dreams that I could take into the city and share.

I should have worn shoes. My guess work and daddy De Souza’s girth had been perfect, but of course he wore his suits with fitted shoes and heels, making him a couple of inches taller. I only had rubber slippers, so the trousers looked long in the leg, not enough to trip me, but enough to hide my feet. No matter, where they touched the ground they could take in any joy they found.

I pulled off the gloves, shut up shop, popping the keys in my shirt pocket. I still wore the simple striped shirt I had worn all day, sleeves rolled, but no one seemed to notice when I walked down the lane.

Mona’s mother was the first person I saw. She was sweeping the veranda as she seemed to do her entire life.

‘Hello aunty,’ I called, ‘Is Mona down from the movies yet?’

She looked up, ‘Oh I thought… I…’ she looked at me. Even from that distance I could see her expression drop from bright cordiality to sadness in a glance. Along my legs a feeling like a smile held me tight. It might have been my own thrill, but maybe not. ‘Ayah,’ moaned Mona’s mother, then dropped the broom and disappeared into the house. I walked on. The Galle road called me with a shouting screaming cacophony. The temple was still rife with anger at whatever had occurred, police stood by with weapons held tight, ready for the fight. A bus roared past as busses must, and dozens of three-wheelers and taxis.

And then the weeping began. Most people were not even looking at me, being so wrapped up in their own concerns, so they had no sense of what was causing their grief. It was just a creeping depression, passing from person to person, making shoulders slump and adding just and drop of misery to anyone near. No one stared, no one touched me, and I had no time to talk. I knew where I was heading and needed a break in the traffic to cross that interminable road.

My moment came suddenly when a bus driver stopped right in front of me. He wasn’t looking my way at all, but held his head in his hands as he wept like a baby. Behind him the road exploded into screaming horns, shouting and the odd thud as vehicles collided, a normal thing on that road and not enough to be noticeably different. Only there was another car, a Morris Minor, the only car people were allowed to import without tax. The driver was wiping tears from his eyes as if he were hearing the saddest love song.

I took my chance and strode across the road, carefully edging around the stilled traffic, looking out for la la drivers as always. With every step I could feel the joy overwhelm me. I’m sure I was grinning like a loon, but I was the only one. I could have laughed out loud, my heart was so happy, the sun was blazing and my Mona would love me forever!

Outside the coffee shop a beggar rocked her baby in her arms and sang a tragic rhyme. A tragedy with real tears. Perhaps later I would give her some change. Poor thing.

I took the steps up to the shop casually, entering the icy store with a little skip.

‘Hey there!’ I smiled at the girl behind the counter. In all my days of coming here she had never said a word to me, never acknowledged that I was a regular, just took my order. Now she blinked and stared in her usual glumness. She had no joy to steal. I guess there’s only so much misery anyone can have.

I ordered my usual, paid the sad cashier, and found a seat by the window. It was an hour or so before curfew. No one was stopping to sit and take their time, preferring to be in a rush to get home. The army was out near the polling stations, trouble was brewing in the city and the last thing anyone could do was sit and stare.

Except for me. From my corner of that shop I could wait watching the world go by in all its misery. I saw smoke rising far off across the city as something burned, and the traffic on the Galle road angrily grinding in both directions. Inside the shop voices were hushed, like at a funeral. The glum counter girl was holding a bread knife as if she would slit her own wrists at any moment.

Then I saw Mona. Just as I knew I must. She was arm in arm with Egbert, but on seeing me immediately released him and waved. He frowned, but they came into the shop anyway.

‘Where on earth were you?’ Mona exclaimed the moment she was in earshot, ‘We waited but you never…’ I could see the grief beginning to take her and she deserved better than that.

I stood. ‘I was held up in the shop. Sorry,’ I untied the kalava threads from my wrist, I had no need for them now I had her skin on my skin. ‘Here, I brought this for you.’

Mona looked at the bracelet. Had she been in her right mind she would have refused such heathen things, but her unnameable sadness made her speechless long enough for me to take her delicate hand in mine and tie the threads around her wrist.

It was enough to turn her frown from convex to concave.

She smiled at me. ‘Oh thank you, it’s so pretty!’

All this time Egbert had been trying to negotiate service from the profoundly depressed shop girl. He had been talking far too long, but in between her sullen gestures he managed to get two cool drinks and a couple of patties. Now he waited while the sad cashier search for change.

I pulled out a chair for Mona, sitting her with her back to the window, and arranged myself so that she could not accidently touch my trousers.

‘I can’t believe you waited all this time, you’re so sweet!’

‘I wasn’t here so long. I just had to see you. There’s curfew tonight, no? ‘There’s always curfew. But you’ll be safe in the shop.’

I agreed with her, but really didn’t care. Finally she was talking to me,

treating me as an equal. My heart welled with love for her and I know the skin I wore had nothing to do with it.

Egbert finally arrived, dropping the drinks on the table with a clatter.

‘You missed a grand film,’ he said, sitting glumly.

‘Hey bro, weren’t you meant to collect your father’s suit?’

‘Oh that? Silly me I forgot all about it,’ and then he leaned forward, just as always, dominating the conversation. He would have touched my arm, but sitting like that only my knee was close enough, so he casually tapped it with just the tips of his fingers.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, and his face fell. I watched it drop from fake grin into absolute soul destroying melancholy, a black funk so deep there would be no return, and with an echo of elation that thrilled me to the bone.

‘Don’t blaspheme Egbert,’ Mona said, but never looked away from me again.

‘I…’ Egbert stammered, the words refusing to take shape on his tongue, ‘I… I’m so sorry.’ He looked right into the eyes of this son of a tailor, engaging in eye contact like he never did.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, and tried to understand Mandodari’s effect on man. She had gifted me all I wanted, and I would be hers forever more. Eggy’s life was going nowhere and he knew it now.

‘I’m so happy!’ Mona smiled, holding my hand. Over her shoulder I could see Egbert as he left the shop, walked down the steps, crossed the pavement, and stepped blindly into the riot of traffic grinding the Galle road.

Before she heard the city breaking him I replied, ‘Yes Mona, I am too.’