Our house shared a common front garden and driveway with the residence of our landlady's mother, whom we called Aunty Daisy. Our living rooms faced each other, and although lace curtains provided some privacy, we could see their business, they ours. Although they had never encountered a gay couple before, Aunty Daisy and her family accepted our relationship with the live-and-let-live generosity and good humor that I love most about Sri Lanka. I fell into an almost housewifely habit of dropping by for a quick chat with Aunty Daisy. She had introduced me to her vegetable man, her fruit seller, her fish vendor, and instructed them to give me good prices. After the impersonality of Canadian supermarkets, I was charmed by the small talk of these vendors. But another part of me was wary of their questions, especially on the topic of why I wasn't married yet. Of course, they all knew I lived with a white man.

One evening we were reading in bed when we heard a peremptory banging on the front gate. I put down my book and stepped out onto our balcony. Aunty Daisy, her daughter Charmaine and their servants were going toward the gate. They spoke to whomever was on the other side, and Aunty Daisy returned quickly. She called to me that security forces were doing a street search for Tamil Tigers.

Andrew was standing by me. We looked at each other and, without a word, hurried to our bedroom. I grabbed Andrew's pillows and some clothes he had laid on a chair. Andrew collected his water glass and book. We went to the second bedroom. I threw his clothes over a chair, put the pillows on the bed, and drew back the top sheet. Andrew put his glass and book on a bedside table. "Defagging," it's called—a process that is almost an instinct for gay men.

There was a rap at our door. We took our passports and went downstairs.

The army and police perform these searches periodically, usually at night. Friends who work for human-rights organizations told me that Tamils often ended up getting questioned and detained at the police station. Selvadurai is a Tamil name.

I opened the front door to find a policeman accompanied by three soldiers carrying machine guns. We presented our passports and the policeman asked us to step outside. He barely glanced at Andrew's passport. With mine, he did a peculiar thing. He asked me to hold up my passport and he began lighting matches to read it, throwing the burned stubs at my feet—an oddly intimidating act.

"You are Tamil?"

"Yes. Although my mother is Sinhalese."

With a curt wave of his hand, he dismissed this last fact. He wanted to search the house. I had no choice. The policeman and soldiers went straight for our bedroom and searched it with extreme thoroughness. They made me open every cupboard, lift up every pile of clothes, pull out every drawer. Each time I opened a cupboard the soldiers stepped back defensively, as if they expected a Tamil Tiger to be revealed, ready to detonate himself or herself or fire at them. I recognized the great danger of their jobs, and felt an odd compassion. This feeling grew when I took them to my study and they spied my laptop. They stared at it with wonder, lowering their guns. They asked me to turn it on and leaned close to see what was happening on the screen. Their faces were filled with amazement and I became aware that they were young boys, impoverished boys. After their wondrous inspection of the laptop, I became legitimate. I was not a terrorist. They left without bothering to search downstairs.

Later that night, as I lay in bed, anger took hold of me. The policeman had dismissed the fact that my mother was Sinhalese. I glanced over at Andrew, who was asleep. If the importance of my Sinhalese identity was irrelevant, how unthinkable this must be, my gay identity. But I knew I wasn't really raging at this man with his small salary and dangerous job. What I was raging against was a notion that had been coming to me for a while. In this country that I still considered my home, I could never be at home. Andrew and I were never again completely at ease in our own house.

Soon it was time for us to leave Sri Lanka. Chandini came for her last day of work. I had bought her a sari and put a bonus in an envelope. I sat in my study listening to her going about her work. My heart was sick: I had got so used to her.

Finally, we stood at the gate. "Ah, Babba." She touched my arm. "May the gods bless you."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I touched her arm, too.

She walked away. Halfway up the street, she paused and wiped her cheeks with the pallu of her sari.

I came out of my reverie. I was still standing at the glass doors of my Toronto study, looking out at the snow. A home in Sri Lanka after 18 years in exile: I should have been euphoric. But this new home had come too late. As I looked around my study, I could hear the familiar creakings of my house, the thump-thump of the dryer, the furnace starting up. My cat had come in and I scooped her up in my arms, and buried my nose in her fur. What a pleasure it was to feel at ease in my own home; to feel at home.

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