Read Online Passages: Welcome Home to Canada by Michael Ignatieff - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Ignatieff
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the floor of the Jeep to escape the thorny branches which banged and rattled against the sides. When we were in the clear, we rose quickly to our feet, and there it was. The Lodge. A long wooden building, it boasted an extensive deck with pillars at regular intervals supporting the low-slung roof. Doors led off the deck into the bedrooms. The building was raised eight feet off the ground, for in the rainy season the Wirawillalake lapped at the base of the Lodge, with flamingos, painted storks, peacocks, buffalo, and deer, even an occasional elephant, along its distant banks. In the dry season all this animal life receded to the centre, around a water hole.
What adventures we children had at the Lodge. If the tank was full, there was fishing and bathing. The tank had man-eating crocodiles in it, though, so we always stayed in the shallows, one of us keeping an eye out for the deceptive logs. In the dry season we would play cricket or badminton on the parched floor of the tank, and make treks to the water hole to see the wildlife. We would go into the jungle, my brother leading the way with his air rifle, and thrill with terror when we came upon fresh elephant dung.
While the Lodge is, in my mind, associated with all that was best about my childhood and adolescence, it is also linked indelibly with the beginning of the end.
The Lodge was in the deep south of Sri Lanka, and my father was from the minority Tamil community. For a Tamil, the Sri Lankan south has the same implications as the American south for an African-American. Friends of my father had advised against his building the Lodge. Yet my father loved thesouth. This was his country, and he would go wherever he wanted in it.
In 1977, for the first time in my life, ethnic conflict broke out between the Sinhalese and Tamils. For people who, like us, lived in the capital, Colombo, this conflict could seem removed, as it was confined mainly to the south and other regions of the country. And so it might have seemed for us too, if it weren’t for the Lodge: my brother was there, on vacation. For a few days we did not know if he was alive or dead. All I remember of that time was the way the world seemed to slow down. My mother told us to keep busy, to pray. But I remember lying on my bed, conscious of the hours dragging on. Finally the telephone call came to say that he was safe. The mob had indeed come to the Lodge demanding him, but the staff had spirited him away into the jungle. If the mob had found him, they would have butchered him with the sharp scythes they brought with them or, worse, put a tire around his neck, poured kerosene over him and set him on fire. He was only fourteen years old.
The mob burnt the Lodge, right down to its foundation. Somebody else might have backed off, given up, but when my father saw the charred, broken remains of the this thing he had loved, a determination was sealed in him. My mother pleaded against it, but hewent back and rebuilt the Lodge. In an act of solidarity a Sinhalese friend, a building contractor, provided all the materials and labour for free. Yet in the end the new Lodge was a diminished version of what had been. For one thing, my father felt compelled to build it out of bricks and cement, for obvious reasons. In the years that followed, the signboard directing travellers to the Lodge was frequently pulled down, vandalized, defecated on. After the scare with my brother, my parents rarely took us with them, and when we did go, we stayed close to the Lodge. In our treks into the jungle we had always been aware of the dangers—the poisonous snakes, the wild buffalo, the wild boar—but they had not kept us from exploring. However, none of these was as terrifying as the savagery of men.
In 1981, rioting broke out again, and the Lodge was destroyed. My father learned the news on the afternoon of his birthday. It was too late to cancel the party. That evening, as our garden filled with guests, resembled a funeral. Among the
What adventures we children had at the Lodge. If the tank was full, there was fishing and bathing. The tank had man-eating crocodiles in it, though, so we always stayed in the shallows, one of us keeping an eye out for the deceptive logs. In the dry season we would play cricket or badminton on the parched floor of the tank, and make treks to the water hole to see the wildlife. We would go into the jungle, my brother leading the way with his air rifle, and thrill with terror when we came upon fresh elephant dung.
While the Lodge is, in my mind, associated with all that was best about my childhood and adolescence, it is also linked indelibly with the beginning of the end.
The Lodge was in the deep south of Sri Lanka, and my father was from the minority Tamil community. For a Tamil, the Sri Lankan south has the same implications as the American south for an African-American. Friends of my father had advised against his building the Lodge. Yet my father loved thesouth. This was his country, and he would go wherever he wanted in it.
In 1977, for the first time in my life, ethnic conflict broke out between the Sinhalese and Tamils. For people who, like us, lived in the capital, Colombo, this conflict could seem removed, as it was confined mainly to the south and other regions of the country. And so it might have seemed for us too, if it weren’t for the Lodge: my brother was there, on vacation. For a few days we did not know if he was alive or dead. All I remember of that time was the way the world seemed to slow down. My mother told us to keep busy, to pray. But I remember lying on my bed, conscious of the hours dragging on. Finally the telephone call came to say that he was safe. The mob had indeed come to the Lodge demanding him, but the staff had spirited him away into the jungle. If the mob had found him, they would have butchered him with the sharp scythes they brought with them or, worse, put a tire around his neck, poured kerosene over him and set him on fire. He was only fourteen years old.
The mob burnt the Lodge, right down to its foundation. Somebody else might have backed off, given up, but when my father saw the charred, broken remains of the this thing he had loved, a determination was sealed in him. My mother pleaded against it, but hewent back and rebuilt the Lodge. In an act of solidarity a Sinhalese friend, a building contractor, provided all the materials and labour for free. Yet in the end the new Lodge was a diminished version of what had been. For one thing, my father felt compelled to build it out of bricks and cement, for obvious reasons. In the years that followed, the signboard directing travellers to the Lodge was frequently pulled down, vandalized, defecated on. After the scare with my brother, my parents rarely took us with them, and when we did go, we stayed close to the Lodge. In our treks into the jungle we had always been aware of the dangers—the poisonous snakes, the wild buffalo, the wild boar—but they had not kept us from exploring. However, none of these was as terrifying as the savagery of men.
In 1981, rioting broke out again, and the Lodge was destroyed. My father learned the news on the afternoon of his birthday. It was too late to cancel the party. That evening, as our garden filled with guests, resembled a funeral. Among the
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