[Read] Hot Desk Extract: Thirangie Jayatilake - Crossroads of Love

As part of The Wheeler Centre’s Hot Desk Fellowship program, Thirangie Jayatilake continued to work on her novel Crossroads of Love.

This piece of literary fiction examines Sri Lanka’s treatment of ethnic minorities through the lens of two women raised like sisters.

When Amnah’s parents pass away, she is raised alongside Rupa. When the Easter Sunday Bombings happen, the chaos outside engulfs the country in a film of uncertainty, pain and conflict. It filters through into their household. Rupa Jayasinghe is Sinhala-Buddhist, and Amnah Rahman is Muslim. And while that matters little to them, the world outside doesn’t see Amnah in the same way. 

^{Photo by Tomáš Malík}

Amnah took off her shoes and walked into the bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror. Confusion crept up from inside Amnah and reached out towards the mirror. Its hands pulled and pushed the skin on her face, distorting it, caressing it, covering it. Amnah stared and stared back at it. She looked at the dark of her eyes and the even darker pupil. She let Confusion brush against her eyebrows and settle lightly on her lips. It traced the bridge of her nose and she wondered about it. She had her mother’s nose. She also had her father’s jaw, her mother’s eyebrows and her father’s eyes. She had her own mouth though. A father mother mixed somewhere in the pool of her genes mouth. She had her mother’s nose. A Muslim nose.

She looked harder at herself. What did a Muslim face look like? What did her mother’s face look like? The face that had given her half of her face. Where was it written attack here   terrorist   criminal ? And for what? Why did she have to turn away from getting groceries as if she was trying to buy explosives? What was it about being Muslim that made everyone jump on all of them? Who gave them the right?

She looked at her face and tugged her hijab away from her head. If this was all it took, then the women in black abayas would have it so much worse. No one had to tell them. They just knew. Everyday life garnered looks. Now when they were all accused of being ISIS, wearing a hijab was like walking around with a neon sign.

The government had issued a notice that prohibited anyone from covering their faces. The news mentioned helmets, masks and niqabs. They never specified the hijab. It looks like they didn’t have to.

Amnah shivered. She wanted to break something. Hit the mirror, throw away her phone, smash the water jug, kick the chair so hard it would break. Something. Anything. She stared at her face. The black pupils looking back at her weren’t hers. They glared at her. They looked strange, so out of this world. And they held her, they wouldn’t let her move, they wouldn’t let her turn away.

            ‘Hey, are you okay?’ Rupa knocked on Amnah’s door.

            Amnah sighed. She looked at tear streaks that had carved itself across her face. She pushed her hands against the marble top of her sink and took a couple of breaths.

            ‘Amnah?’ Rupa knocked on the door again.

            Amnah blew her nose, washed her face, dried it and opened the door to let Rupa in. She stood by the door and watched Rupa. Rupa looked back at her, unsure, and then moved to sit on Amnah’s bed. Amnah watched her, sighed and then sat down next to her.

            ‘How are you feeling?’ Rupa asked. She knew it wasn’t the best thing to say but she didn’t know how to start this conversation.

            ‘Not great, I mean what did you expect me to say?’ Amnah asked back.

            ‘Amnah… I didn’t think something that like could have happened’

            ‘Why would you?’

            Rupa sighed. She looked at the ceiling and then at the door.

            ‘It’ll die down Amnah, its absolutely shitty, but they’re… they’re just projecting onto others’.

            Amnah looked at Rupa. She sniffled.

            ‘It’s not going to die down’

            ‘Of course it will’

            Amnah shifted away. She clutched the bedsheets and pressed her knuckles into the bed. She wanted to throw something again. Rupa reached out to pat Amnah’s arm but Amnah jerked it away.

            ‘I understand it was shocking, it was shocking for me too…’

            Amnah could feel Anger swirling inside her.

            ‘It’s different for you’ Amnah’s voice was low. She looked at the door.

            Amnah could feel the Chasm opening inside of her. She took in a deep breath, just like she had been taught as a child, to close the chasm. She could feel it churning between her lungs and intestines.

            Rupa could see Amnah’s eyes searching the room. She could see Amnah’s cheeks becoming flushed. She looked away for a second and then looked back at her. A storm was coming.

            ‘I won’t always be there to protect you’ Rupa said.

            ‘What about everyone else?’ Amnah asked, her jaw tightening.

            ‘Why are you mad at me?’ Rupa glared back at Amnah.

            ‘You’re only under threat when there are bombs going off!’

            ‘Everyone is under threat when bombs are going off’

            ‘I’M UNDER THREAT WITHOUT IT!’ Amnah’s voice erupted into the room, flushing the space with a heavy drift.

            Amnah’s eyes glistened. The Chasm was wreaking havoc inside of her. She felt her intestines make space for it. She felt her lungs deflating for it. It had pointy tentacles that threatened to stab its way out of her.

            ‘After all these years…’ her voice dropped. ‘You still don’t understand,’ Amnah said.

             ‘Amnah… I’m..’ Rupa said.

            ‘YOU STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND!’ Amnah yelled into the room.

            Rupa flinched. She had never seen Amnah like this.

            ‘You know what, I’m going to give you space’ she walked out.

            Amnah walked behind her and slammed the door. She locked the door and sat down on her bed. Her body was covered in trembles. Then the tears came. Angry tears ran down her face, it zigzagged over to her mother’s Muslim nose, and then across to her cheeks, before falling off the edges of her father’s Muslim jawline. She wrapped herself in the thin outer layer bedsheet and cried.

            It was easy for Rupa, to simply say things that made sense to her. It was easy for Rupa, to not think about the necessity of choosing to cover your head. It was easy for Rupa to tell herself she understood when she didn’t.

            Despite growing up next to each other, Amnah was still a Rahman and Rupa was still a Jayasinghe. Amnah had never expected her host family to understand being Muslim in the way that she did. But she did expect them to understand… to understand more than this. Amnah almost slapped her cheek. Anusha and Saman had always tried their best to be respectful. They had always consulted Amnah’s biological grandparents. Anusha had even learned parts of the Quran and stood at the back of the mosque while Amnah prayed inside.

            Amnah did not want to be ungrateful. She was grateful. This was home. But what is home, when the people you love the most still don’t understand you the best? What is home when the person who should be like you the most still could not understand something that was so so fundamental to you? What was home then?