Wave
Sonali Deraniyagala
Language: English
Pages: 240
ISBN: 0345804317
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
One of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of the Year, a Christian Science Monitor Best Nonfiction Book, a Newsday Top 10 Books pick, a People magazine Top 10 pick, a Good Reads Best Book of the Year, and a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book
A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist
In 2004, at a beach resort on the coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala and her family—parents, husband, sons—were swept away by a tsunami. Only Sonali survived to tell their tale. This is her account of the nearly incomprehensible event and its aftermath.
Colorado ghost towns, I offer only a stilted sentence. How can I answer her questions when Vik is not here? When Vik is not here to savor my replies or frown in distrust. How can I bring myself to tell her what I would have told them both? If Vik were here, they would have stories of the gold rush and prospectors, of exploding rocks and of railroads, of blasting tunnels in the mountains to find silver ore. They were like siblings, Kristiana, her sister, and my boys. The familiarity, the ease,
smells of the start to our week. My face is wet with crying. Yet how welcome, this old rag that tells me it was true, our life. This is my worst day of life. These words are written in Vik’s handwriting on the sofa in the playroom. I’m taken aback. I’ve never seen this. Not before the wave or after. Why did he write it? Something I did? A playground fight that upset him and I ignored? Then I see some football scores he’s written on the arm of the sofa—Liverpool lost. For some moments I’m
efficient way to shop. My parents helped Steve and me negotiate life in Colombo. In their minds we were still children, needing to be looked after. And in these years I’ve not permitted myself to yearn for their care. I’d feel even more perilously alone if I did, I’ve thought. Yet here in our home, snug in these familiar surroundings, I can’t help but crave their comfort. Each night my father would stand on this balcony smoking his last cigar for the day. I want the smell of that smoke to reach
I go back a long way. There was an early story that Steve told me. It made me notice him as more than an always-drunk eighteen-year-old from East London who’d made it to Cambridge. He’d described to me an experience he had on his first visit to the Natural History Museum when he was six years old. It was a school trip. He walked into the Blue Whale Gallery not knowing what was awaiting him. Then he saw the life-size model of a blue whale. The intensity of feeling that arose in him made tears
with me on the bench, he didn’t bother me with any questions. I asked him what time it was. It was around noon. The vans and trucks stopped coming in through those gates after a while. The waiting room fell silent, it emptied out. I couldn’t take this quiet, it was better with the rushing and shouting and talking. At least something was happening then. I was jittery now, nothing going on, so I asked Mette if he could take me back to Yala. He agreed. I should go back in case they are waiting for