You took her to the buffet and had chocolate biscuit pudding and smoked Gold Leafs while an ageing diva sang ‘Tarzan Boy’ to a Yamaha keyboard. ‘It’s no fun when someone else does it for you.’ When the bet came in, she let you place another, and then another. The universe is all mathematics and probabilities.’ ‘If you can’t think in numbers, this place will eat you up, sweetheart. She half smiled and half frowned, but let you commandeer her bet. You shrugged and placed her chips on the banker. Which means, follow that strategy a hundred times and you will lose, even when you win.’ And this house only pays out seven-to-one, minus commission. ‘And the chances of you winning that again are nine per cent. You noticed she was alone and that no one was hitting on her, both unusual for women in casinos in Colombo.

‘I just won twenty thousand rupees,’ she said. A trimmed beard, an ironed shirt and a bit of deodorant will elevate you above a herd of sweaty Lankan hetero males. Women usually like the look of you, not knowing that you prefer cock to cooch. She looked at you and rolled her eyes, which you found strange. ‘Don’t bet on ties, sister,’ you said to the strange girl with frizzy hair and black make-up. You had outplayed the house at blackjack, whacked the crab at the buffet and washed it down with some free gin. Even in Lankan rupees, six figures are better than five. You had sold the photos to Jonny at the Associated Press and cashed a welcome six-figure cheque. You were back from a torrid tour of the Vanni, unhinged by the slaughter, breaking bread with shady people, seeing the bad wherever you looked, and wearing your notorious red bandanna. She was twenty, just out of school, and losing pathetically at baccarat. You met Jaki five years ago in the Casino at Hotel Leo. One minute you are retching, the next you are reeling, the next you are remembering. Perhaps like amputees feeling absent limbs, you still hold the illusion of your decaying corpse. At other times, it comes with nausea and headaches. Sometimes, it arrives with sweat and itches and rashes.

The seven moons of maali almeida