Amnesty by Aravind Adiga

Author:Aravind Adiga
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2020-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

1:40 p.m.

Decision!

Throwing its mouth wide open, the road demanded: And make that decision now.

Because he was at the place where William Street, splitting into curving branches that rejoin at the crest of the hill, allows a concrete tunnel to yawn open, revealing an orange spine of lights leading into darkness, and thus presenting the spectacle of day and night at once, while the Coca-Cola sign, overhead, rules over both realms.

Danny held his throat to soothe it.

On the very next date they had gone on, Sonja knew everything about the Sri Lankan situation, and the Tamil refugee problem, and had even sent a letter to her MP asking for a new policy toward asylum-seekers from that beautiful and troubled island. Danny kept quiet as she explained the peculiar and complex situation in Sri Lanka, beginning each sentence with “As you well know, the treatment of the minorities…”

Eventually, she let him speak.

“Look,” he said, “I reckon we don’t need more people to come into Australia.”

Grinning, and aware he was becoming ugly, he recited the facts of life to her confused face.

“As you well know, there is no fresh water in Australia. As you well know, the builders, they’re the ones who want more immigration. They’re bringing in brown and black people and putting them in slums near the airport and the train stations. To be slaves for white people.”

“My God!” She gaped. “Danny is a conservative.”

Although she concluded that Danny “could do with a bit of empathy on the immigration issue,” Sonja had said nothing else. This was just, she must have assumed, in his nature: his deviated septum, his refractory sinuses, his cussedness. Perhaps she liked him all the more for that.

He had told her nothing about the bump on his left forearm. One thing would lead to another, and she would find out in the end that her man was just an illegal. The shame.

Breaking free of the overwhelming Coca-Cola sign, Danny’s eyes moved to the right.

He could feel Sonja at once—her fingers in his hair, playing with his highlights, pulling it all toward the back of his neck. Those strong fingers now tugged on his hair from the direction of St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was just a short walk to the right of the big sign, saying, Come. Come. Let’s have a coffee together.

Didn’t she love coffee? Three fifty a cup, and she drank three a day. (The way Australians spend money!)

On the other hand, Sonja didn’t like to be troubled at work. That was a fact. Their fights usually began with a reference to her work, it was a fact. “A patient pissed on me in the shower today,” she had said last week. Danny had asked: “Isn’t that a nurse’s job?” “What the hell does that mean?” she had demanded. “And if you think you’re so smart, why don’t you become a male nurse? Or do something other than clean houses?”

But if Danny took a left from the Coca-Cola sign, and walked past the drunks, tourists, and pimps, he would find the Clinic, and in it…

Life is but a dream.

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