“My love story lasted nine years; he was such an innocent boy, only nine years…”
There’s a moment when her voice breaks.
Though predictable, one is never fully prepared to face another’s pain. Especially not that kind of pain derived from profound suffering, where platitudes like “you’ll see, everything will be alright” feel utterly out of place, if not offensive. These are sorrows that bring us face-to-face not only with the other person but also with uncomfortable silences, forcing us, in a way, to re-evaluate silence as the only possible response and to appreciate body language as the sole form of expressed solidarity. So I get up, silently, embracing I. There’s nothing else I could say or do, and after years—finally—I’ve learned to accept it.
I. is a petite 63-year-old woman with neat, black hair combed back. I have to bend slightly to wrap her in an embrace. We cling to each other like climbing plants, I to her pain, she to my arms. I. gently pulls away before taking a colorful, checkered handkerchief from her purse to wipe her damp eyes beneath her glasses. “We got married in 1981. We had two little girls, one born that same year, the other in 1985. Then, on March 15, 1990, D., my husband, disappeared.”
D. was abducted and then disappeared at the age of 35 while on his way to Kandy Hospital to buy medicine. Most likely, he was suspected of being a member of the Marxist-Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), or People’s Liberation Front, during the 1987-90 insurgency, during which an estimated 30,000-60,000 young Sinhalese—suspected of affiliation with the JVP party—were killed or disappeared by government “death squads.” I ask I. if her husband had any political affiliation, but I. shakes her head vigorously. “My husband was a laborer,” she replies, “he went to work and then came home, nothing more.”
I. shows me their marriage certificate, a crumpled, tissue-thin sheet of paper that she carefully extracts from a beige folder. There’s also D.’s ID card and a photo of them together. I. is wearing a beautiful yellow sari and smiling slightly. Looking closely at the photo, I recognize her youthful features and the same impeccable hairstyle. D., next to her, wears a dark blue shirt and khaki pants. “Our families weren’t happy, you know,” I. recounts with a melancholic and vaguely mischievous smile on her face, “because when we got married, he didn’t have a job yet. We met in the village and fell in love. I married him seven days before giving birth to our first daughter. When he started working as a laborer, he gave me all the money he earned. He was a very helpful and kind partner.”
Since that March 1990, D. has been missing, and I. has received no news of her husband.
All she has managed to get—she tells me—is “compensation” of 50,000 rupees, the equivalent of 146.90 euros: the paltry price of a life.
The ceiling fans whir loudly on the second floor of Cafe Devon, so I ask one of the boys to turn them off. I. shows me other, more recent papers: appeals, letters she sent to every government office seeking justice and truth, including the Office of Missing Persons, established only in 2017. However, she has received nothing more in response since then—just an acknowledgment of receipt.
“After my husband disappeared, I was left with two little girls, one nine and the other five years old. To survive, I worked as a domestic helper; I even cut grass for livestock. At that time, it was very difficult for a single mother to live alone; many men tried to harass me. We received no support from our community because people were afraid we were party members. The community ostracized us; only my parents helped me.” I.’s eyes cloud with sadness as she recounts times marked by profound loneliness and the ever-present pain of her husband’s disappearance and her tireless search for him.
I.’s story is similar to that of S., whose father, J., was abducted at the age of 33, on the night of January 10, 1990. “My father was a tea plantation worker. Some of his friends were involved with the party, and because of that, we believe someone must have suspected he also had some affiliation with JVP.
I was five years old, and I remember that around midnight, a group of ten men in military uniforms broke into our house. They even tried to kill my mother, but when they heard me and my two older brothers crying, they left, taking my father with them. From that day on, we never saw him again.”
S. tells of her entire family mobilizing to search for J. “For the next ten days, my mother, my brothers, and I knocked on the door of every military camp near Kandy, without getting any answers. My grandfather, however, went to Urispaththuwa, near Teldeniya, the village where we lived. People were whispering that bodies were being burned there. When he arrived, he spotted about 30 bodies, while 5 were already burning. My grandfather told me that when my father was kidnapped, he was wearing his sarong, and he believes he identified him among one of those corpses, but we can’t be sure.”
S. also applied to the Office of Missing Persons in 2020. She shows me the letter she sent and the acknowledgment of receipt, which—again, in this case—is the only response she has received. S. also hands me her father’s laminated ID card, where J. appears in a black and white photo looking to the side, with a fashionable hairstyle of the time. “My mother faced so many difficulties. At that time, she didn’t have a job; she was a domestic worker. She spent all the money she had trying to find my father, but we got no justice, no evidence, no compensation. Furthermore, we were afraid of government repression; we were poor people and remained silent. When the money ran out, we had to sell our land.”
S. now continues her mother’s fight, who, old and ill—she tells me—no longer has the strength she once did. I ask S. if there’s anything else she’d like to add. “I wouldn’t wish what we’ve endured on anyone. Also, my mother is old, and I wish she would receive some kind of justice before she dies, nothing else.
“Some kind of justice.”
I weigh those bitter but not resigned words as we exchange our last goodbyes. Before we part, I make sure to explain that I can do nothing more than tell their story. I. caresses my face, like a caring mother, smiling at me. I watch her descend the stairs before being left alone on the second floor of the cafe with my interpreter. We remain silent for a while; my hands are clasped in my lap, and I observe the faded curtains and encrusted walls of that antiquated building.
I take a deep breath and begin to write.