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His Father’s Eyes
By
Hajira Amla
The Indian Ocean pushed and pulled at the shoreline
incessantly, sending sprays of fine, cold mist over A’isha’s
face. The overcast sky shed a pallid grey glow over the
violent waves, the white tops of their crests dancing like a
group of white horses galloping over the veld. She hated it
all, wished for the sun to dry up the entire ocean,
imagining him walking back to her over the dried-up seaweed
and sandy dunes. She closed her eyes tight as, unbidden, the
thought of his flesh, ripped to shreds and eaten, nibbled
and stripped from his bones rose in her mind. A heap of
bones in the unfathomable depths of the sea – that was all
that was left of her marriage.
The baby moved inside her, kicking restlessly, as if
reproving her for standing too still and thinking thoughts
that were too morose. She moved her hand unthinkingly over
her worrisome cargo, wondering why she punished herself by
coming out to this point every day at dawn, reliving the
horror of the day the knock came at the door.
It was sometime past four in the morning when she heard it.
Yusuf had been out fishing all night with the Patel
brothers. Her mother-in-law would let him in, she thought
comfortably, snuggling deeper into the blankets. Instead,
she heard a wailing noise erupt from the hallway. Struggling
to pull on her gown, A’isha shuffled blindly through the
room, stubbing her toe at the foot of the bed in her haste
to find the door in the darkness.
Turning the corner of the corridor into the main hallway,
the sight of her mother-in-law curled up in a ball on the
polished wooden floorboards greeted her. Her long black
hair, streaked with white, snaked down her back, having come
loose from its bun. Helpless, a young white police officer
stood there, looking as though he wanted to curl up into a
ball too.
Concerned, A’isha rushed over to the older woman. “What
happened, Ma?”
“My son! Ya Allah, my son!” her mother-in-law cried
pitifully, holding her head up to the ceiling.
“Why
O Allah, why have you taken my only son?”
In an instant it seemed that all the colour had drained from
A’isha’s vision. Her knees felt unsafe, as though at any
moment they might decide to melt. Incredulously, she turned
towards the policeman.
“Where… where is my husband?” she asked tremulously.
It was the way his young, pasty face fell that told her all
she needed to know. His eyes widened, as though his mind had
not encountered that standing here was a wife who would be
just as devastated as the mother.
…
Gasping for breath in the cold morning air, A’isha ran as
hard as she could, her bare feet tearing open on the hard
asphalt as she ran down the hill towards the lighthouse.
Wild-eyed, she ran across the hard gravel that covered the
railway lines, paying no attention to the pain or the drops
of blood her feet smeared over the dusty soil that covered
the small plateau next to the lighthouse.
The sun was rising slowly, but the rainclouds soon swallowed
the red ball greedily, leaving only a dim pinkish-grey light
on the surface of the heaving water. The storm which had
been raging out to sea had finally reached the shore, and
the strong coastal wind buffeted her clothes mercilessly,
whipping her with tiny pinpricks of rain.
On the other side of the river mouth she could see the
rescue boats coming back in from the sea. She crossed the
bridge over the river, fixated on the spotlights from the
motorboats, swinging wide beams of artificial light through
the dimness into the wild waters in a last, desperate
attempt to find a sign of life, a sign of a body.
She tore across to them, heart pounding, screaming, “Yusuf!”
desperately, willing him to be in the boat, safe and sound.
“I am sorry, Lady. We are calling off the search. A big
storm is coming in,” said the portly, balding Afrikaner in
charge of the rescue operation.
“No! No! No!”
A’isha struggled like a woman possessed, forcing herself
past their burly arms and launching her body, screaming,
into the waves.
The water was numbingly cold and she struggled against the
waves crashing over her, reaching up to her neck now. She
had to keep moving forward, away from the hands grasping for
her, away from the voices calling her. She called to him
instead, screamed, implored, raged. A grey wave rushed over
her, engulfing her, leaving foam-covered water where her
head had been.
Still she struggled forward, as though she knew precisely
where he was and would not let a mere ocean get in between
them. She came up for air, and another wave struck at her,
taking the wind from her lungs, the current sweeping her
viciously along towards the rocks. A’isha’s body became
inert, unable to struggle against her foe any longer, and
the ocean raised her up and spat her out contemptuously at
the rocks, where she sagged, her thin white gown, now
soaking up dark red pools of blood, clinging to her pale
blue skin. Continue
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