She left once more, then returned with a Nikon and asked them to move closer to each other. She said something in Tamil and took one picture before Anil was quite ready. One seemed to be enough. She was certainly confident.

‘Do you live here?’ Anil asked.

‘No. This is my brother’s house. I work in the refugee camps up north. I try to come down every other weekend, so my brother and his wife can get away. How old were you when you last saw my grandmother?’

‘I was eighteen. I’ve been away since then.’

‘You have parents here?’

‘They’re dead. And my brother left. Just my father’s friends are still here.’

‘Then you don’t have any connection, do you?’

‘Just Lalitha. In a way she was the one who brought me up.’ Anil wanted to say more, to say that Lalitha was the only person who taught her real things as a child.

‘She brought all of us up,’ the granddaughter said.

‘Your brother, what does he-’

‘He’s quite a famous pop singer!’

‘And you work in the camps…’

‘Four years now.’

When they turned back to her, they saw Lalitha had fallen asleep.

She entered Kynsey Road Hospital and in the main hall found herself surrounded by hammering and yelling. They were breaking up the concrete floors in order to put down new tiles. Students and faculty rushed past her. No one appeared to be concerned that these sounds might be terrifying or exhausting to patients brought in to have wounds dressed or receive stabilizing drugs. Even worse was the voice of the senior medical officer, Dr. Perera, yelling to doctors and assistants, calling them devils for not keeping the building clean. It was so continuous, this yelling, that it seemed to go unheard by most who worked there.