Rice-growing was a family affair. Husband and wife worked together, the children expected to follow in their footsteps. However, when Nisha had reached her teenage years, an increasing number of people were leaving the farms to work in factories – garments, ceramics, gems and jewellery. With Kiyoma gone, Nisha’s father encouraged her to find a job where she could be independent and not owe rent money to the rich landowners. The country was changing. Since the 1960s, the Sri Lankan government had imposed much control over trade, with heavy tariffs for imports, even banning some imports entirely. But in 1977, a new government came into power, which introduced trade expansion under new policies. Nisha’s father would sit with her in the garden and explain all this; he would bring her books and articles to read – he wanted her to understand, he wanted her to understand life, the economy and people, and how these were intertwined, so that she could make productive and logical decisions.
In 1995, when she was sixteen years old, Nisha left Galle for the alluvial gem fields in Elahera. Along the banks of the Kalu Ganga river the land was luscious and green, but the foliage had been stripped away, exposing the muddy, red earth. Men climbed down deep mine shafts in Rathnapura, hoisting gravel into baskets to the surface.
In a large reservoir next to the mine, workers washed the gravel in wicker baskets, swishing them in the water a few handfuls at a time. This was Nisha’s job, and it was hard work. She spent most of the day in the sun bent over the reservoir, or wading in the cloudy water, until she would see a crystal sparkle in the light amongst the dirt: blue, yellow and pink sapphires; rubies; topaz; chrysoberyls. Nisha loved finding the blue sapphires: they were her favourite. They reminded her of the colour of the early morning sea from her bedroom window, with the silver fish that twitched in the nets.
Mahesh worked in the mines. He noticed Nisha immediately. He thought her eyes were like yellow sapphires. This is what he said during a lunch break when they sat beneath the canopy of trees drinking hot tea, looking out at the arid land where the mine shafts were, where the workers cleaned the gravel chest-deep in brown water. She laughed at him and told him that his comment was cheesy, but that made him like her even more.
They became frequent lunch companions, and Mahesh told her about the journey down the shaft and along the dark tunnels of the earth, the unbearable heat, the humidity, and the fear he had of being buried alive. He was a small, gentle man with a smile that was bigger than his face. He would sweat in the mines and nearly hyperventilate, but he gritted his teeth and kept going. Nisha admired his strength, his character and determination. She told him this and he’d said that he would remember her words, that they would give him courage. Every morning, from then on, when she saw him descend into the mines, she prayed for him.
He would descend fifteen or so metres beneath Rathnapura, looking for topaz and sapphires. He would push a metal rod into the porous mine walls and listen to the sound it made, try to feel the vibrations of the earth along the rod. He could normally tell when he hit alluvial gravel or sapphire, but sometimes he would inspect the rod after pulling it out as harder gem material would scratch the metal. He was good at his job, fast and agile; he hoisted more sacks full of good, gem-filled gravel than any other worker there.
They were married in Galle some years later and bought a house in Rathnapura, which was bigger than the house she had lived in with her parents.
She loved him with all her heart. He was kind. He never raised his voice, like the neighbour who shouted at his wife day and night. He cleaned his own shoes and always put his dirty clothes in the laundry basket. He had a high-pitched laugh that made Nisha laugh. No matter how tired or wary or fed up he became, she could always see the child in his eyes. That was what she liked about him. It is possible to love someone without really liking them, but she liked Mahesh a lot.
Every night he’d have sore, swollen hands. After dinner Nisha would rub them with cream. ‘You don’t have to do that again,’ he would say, with his huge smile. ‘You are tired too. How about I rub your feet?’
But Nisha wouldn’t have it. ‘What, with those crusty things?’ She’d point to his hands and pull a face. ‘Besides, I can rub my own feet. Now lie back and think of the open sky.’ He liked the open sky. It was the opposite of the mines.
He didn’t like coffee, he drank sweet tea. Every Sunday they went down to the market to eat kottu with spicy curry sauce, a flat crispy fried bread made with godamba roti. Some evenings Mahesh would make a delicious green jackfruit curry with pandan leaves and coconut milk. He would climb the tree himself to get fresh coconuts. He was sexy when he chopped vegetables because his thick fringe would flop down over his eyes. Nisha would call him a shaggy dog. He would laugh and lick her face from chin to brow.