by Zoha Kazemi
Nothing was more awesome or beautiful than watching the drowned cities. The world below the waves was more exciting and attractive than the one above. There was repose, darkness and silence beneath the surface; a labyrinth of stones, bricks, glasses, plastics and objects made by the hands of pre-rain human, things that were great mysteries to them. The moss covered and rotten objects must have had colourful shiny surfaces before. The huge buildings that were now ruins covered with corals – where the large and small fish dwell – were once the living homes of men and women. The divers were not allowed to enter the buildings. No one knew what dangers awaited them in the closed rooms and corridors of the destroyed buildings that had been under water for hundreds of years. They would usually mine the surface material from top of the buildings. But Asin would go lower to the ground level of the past cities where the pre-rain people would walk. It was not allowed but she loved going there and finding unusual but useful things. Even though the divers of Oxan and Atlan had been mining the cities for three hundred years and they had dived out anything useable, there were still things to discover. For example, an automobile that its engine was dived out but its gadgets were still untouched. Diving out a car or an engine needed large diving groups and a pulling device, usually an engine and strong cables to pull them out. But Asin would go for smaller items, like a car mirror she had once found. It was in a good condition with a curved white back and a shiny surface. She had brought it out for Dalia but at the end, she was forced to give it to the diving team. Such intact items especially a mirror had many good buyers.
Three years after her second pregnancy, Asin became pregnant again, although she hadn’t planned for it. Dalia had already passed her puberty and after three months of her periods, she was allowed to go diving. Asin wanted to go with her but had decided to stay and take no more risks until the baby was born. She had stayed on the ship for eight months, taking care of herself and the baby and only attending to light chores. She was careful not to stand up for too long, bend down or lift heavy things. Dalia was mostly away on long diving trips to the drowned cities and Asin had felt very lonely. The days and nights seemed too long and boring. She had no one to talk to since no one spoke her language. She felt homesick and melancholic.
Her third baby was stillborn and had no ears. The women of the Avij ship remembered that this was Asin’s third stillborn and crippled child, although her first daughter was healthy and grown up. The women remembered having had thrown the baby without nails into the sea. Asin preferred to protect Dalia by distracting them. It was better for Dalia that the women had forgotten about her disability. The women blamed the death of the third baby on Asin’s diving. Dalia was translating to Asin what the women were saying. They wouldn’t accept that Asin had been on the ship for her entire pregnancy, they were sure not to have seen her on the ship for a long time. Asin had become depressed and weak after her last birth giving. She was also very tired of the women’s rebukes. She didn’t want to see anyone. She had moved out to a small boat that was tied to the ship.
Asin’s stillborn babies were talked about by the women of the ship for some time, until the giant fish’s attacks on fishing and diving boats started. The fishers and divers would die or disappear – sometimes in groups – in the attacks. The fish would bang themselves to the ship walls, scaring the residents who had no right to fight back and kill them. There was no more talk of Asin’s misfortunes and she had thought that they had forgotten all about her. But after a while, the residents got used to the attacks, deaths and disappearances. When the third pregnant woman was lost in the middle of the night, the women had dug out their memories and thought all the calamities they were suffering was related to Asin’s mishaps; since she had brought with her disobedience of the Saviour Rules resulting in the anger of the sea. Asin had become the symbol of modern ship women, both for her achievements as a diver and her stillborn babies.
The good followers of the Saviour had requested the banishment of women divers. Ardaz, the Avij chief, had forbid the women to go out of the ship during the rainy season. He was awaiting the Saviour Ship’s order, allowing them to fight and kill the giant fish. The news had spread that some southern ships were completely destroyed by the attacks and their residents had fled to Oxan, camping there on a floating Make-shift harbour. Although the attacks were serious, Asin wouldn’t leave her boat and step on the ship and since the fish wouldn’t harm her, she was put in a suspicious position. She had pretended to be deaf and mute as before, and wouldn’t care to listen to any sayings. But the sayings wouldn’t let go of her. Dalia was reaching her fifteenth birthday that Asin got pregnant again. The divers and fishers of Avij were granted three new boats from the Saviour Island in compensation for their losses and patience and obedience of the Saviour Rules – not killing the giant fish. The boats were equipped with new advanced fishing tools and all the young men and women of the ship wanted to work on them even though the profit was partly given to their ship and mostly to the Saviour Island. Dalia’s father was not a fisherman but he had joined one of the new fishing boats and left without hearing the news of Asin’s pregnancy.
Asin awaited her husband’s return the whole rain season, but none of the boats had returned. Some said that the fishers had fled to Atlan, some said the boats had drowned and some believed the boats were devoured by the giant fish. The fishers’ fate had become ambiguous like the memories of the sea residents. Over thirty people from the Avij ship had disappeared with the boats, but they only blamed one person: the one woman who had brought them bad fortune by giving birth to devious stillborn babies. And she was pregnant again probably to give birth to another crippled monster and attract more catastrophes to the ship. This time, Asin’s husband was not there to protect her. The residents of the ship were scared and would do anything to ensure their safety, but only to the extent of Saviours Rules. They were not allowed to kill Asin according to the Saviour Rules, but they could exile her to the sea. No one knew who had come up with such a dreadful thought: abandoning an eight months pregnant woman in the sea. But one of them had remembered that many years ago they had found Asin half-dead on a dugout in the waves. And this was enough to gain everyone’s approval for her punishment.
They had tied Asin’s and Dalia’s hands and forced them into a boat. Asin knew that the boatman didn’t dare to go too far away from the ships. The rain season had come to an end but the attacks were still probable. If the boatman threw them into the sea near the ships, they could be saved by other boats. The boatman was given orders to throw them in a distance between the ships and an island. Asin knew that they had to get as close as possible to a land. Dalia had talked to the boatman and begged him to have mercy on them. The boatman had felt sorry for them, but he couldn’t disobey the chief. All he had done was to untie their hands for the three-day journey. Dalia was thankful, as she had to constantly moist her head.
Asin had felt the first labour pains on the third night, as the lights of the boat had turned off. It was at least four weeks early and a bad sign. She had a deep desire to give birth in the water but Dalia and the boatman had stopped her from jumping off into the sea. She was in pain the whole night and her screams broke the dark silence of the night, suppressing the sounds of the waves. But she had attracted a school of large fish to the boat. The boatman, scared of this unusual attention, wouldn’t turn on the lights. The fish’s shadows were hardly visible, as they turned around the boat in a shallow depth of the water. But as their bodies touched the boat, it caused horrendous shakes. The boatman so scared of Asin’s screams and the large fish that had surrounded them, had hid himself in a corner, shivering like a child. Dalia had to tie her mother’s hands again to stop her from drowning herself. She had tried to calm her down in any way she knew. As the sun came up, Dalia had finally taken in her nail-less hands the baby that had come out her mother’s womb.
The fish had gone away as soon as Asin’s last painful scream had ended. The boatman had passed out from fear. The newborn
’s legs were conjoined. He had no fingers and wouldn’t cry: another stillborn baby. Asin had washed her baby in the sea and wrapped it in a bundle. The whole time she was twisting from pain to push the baby out, only one scene had come to her mind: a scene from a funeral from her homeland. It was farfetched and vague, a memory from her childhood. She was standing hand in hand with her mother on top of a hole in the ground. Some men were throwing dust over a dead body in the hole. The scene came and went in pieces. She could hear her toddler self asking about the burial and her mother’s answer that was trying to be as simple as possible, an answer that was hard for Asin to recall, especially with her altered memory as the result of living on the sea for so long. The only thing that she was sure of was that she had to bury her baby in a ground.
When the boatman woke up, he didn’t know where they were. They were lost. It had taken him an hour to locate their boat using a compass. They were nearly three hours away from the Saviour Island. He had thrown out Dalia and her mother into the waves. Asin had told her daughter not to worry and just follow her. She wouldn’t listen to Dalia. She had only one thing in her mind. She had to say goodbye to her baby in the way that the island people would do, otherwise the misshaped babies would keep coming back into her life, tormenting her. She had taken the baby’s bundle in her teeth and started swimming towards the land.
Chapter 9
Tirad is holding an oil lamp in one hand and a torch in another. He shakes the torch to charge its batteries, as he moves down the corridor to the staircase. He is not allowed to use an oil lamp in the library since the flames might cause fire. And to save up the torch batteries, he wouldn’t turn it on outside the library. It had happened many times before that his torch had run out of battery in the library and he had to sit there in the dark and recharge it. He passes the teaching cabins. At the end of the corridor, there are four single bed cabins for the maids of the ship. But Lealy is the only one of them that lives there. The rest of the maids, although they don’t like sharing rooms, prefer to live in lower levels of the ship. They don’t want their cabins to be on the main floor where everyone would pass by them. But Lealy must have gotten used to the constant noises of people walking by her room and the tremor that they cause by stepping on the old, wooden floor. She has too many chores during the day and is often so tired that as she lies down, she immediately falls to sleep. The other three rooms that no one would want to stay in, one by her cabin and two in the opposite side are reserved for the special guests of the Saviour Ship like the chiefs of Oxan and the ship chiefs. But now, because of Tirad’s ruling, two fugitives that no one knows who they really are have resided in one of them. Mart had teased him after dinner for having taken in the criminal fugitives but Tirad hadn’t said anything. Mart was right to an extent. Giving sanctuary to these women who were not even Saviour followers in the Saviour Ship was not a wise thing to do, even if there was no specific rule about it. The mother would no doubt be killed by the island women if she spent the night outside. The girl had tried her best to cooperate and had given up the whereabouts of the baby’s grave. Even though both Lealy and Tirad believed their stories wouldn’t add up, something didn’t make sense. If Tirad wasn’t in charge of the case about the death of pregnant women, he would have sent them to Oxan that afternoon. But what the girl had said about her mother’s stillborn babies and wanting to give birth in the sea, had alarmed Tirad. She had said the babies were all misshaped and having seen the deformed body of the baby that was dug out by the Saviour guards had proved her word. Dalia also had no hair or nails; maybe she was fortunate that her deformity was not fatal. He could ask them more questions. Somehow, he believes they could help him with the case, at least give him some insights. They are in a locked cabin for now and they couldn’t harm anyone.
Tirad checks the lock of the fugitives’ cabin. Lealy must have hidden the key after locking them in. But her cabin door is half open. It is not the first time that she has fallen asleep before closing her door and turning off the oil lamp. She must have been very tired. Whenever Tirad passes by her cabin and sees her passed out like this, he would take care of her, turn off her lamp and shut the door. But there is no light coming out of her room tonight. Perhaps the lamp has run out of oil. He could just close the door and continue on his way. But he stands in the doorway, turns on his torch and shines it through the door opening. He can see Lealy’s body now, asleep on her bed with his back towards him. She doesn’t have a blanket covering her body. But she never sleeps naked. Hurmaz had ordered her to keep her clothes on during the night since her help was needed at all times even overnight: children could get sick or injured or an accident might happen… Tirad lowers the torch so that the light slowly touches Lealy’s shoulder. She rolls on her plump bottom to a supine position as if someone has actually tapped her on her shoulder. Her ample breasts spread over her bust. Tirad moves the torch on top of her breasts to see the tip of her nipples that knobs out from her thin loincloth. Her mouth is half opened. He wants to go in and lie beside her, to put his head on Lealy’s plump and muscular arms; to embrace her and kiss her pout lips, chapped by the scorching sun of the dry season; to roll his fingertips around her open mouth, moving it from her upper pink lip to the lower, licking and kissing them over and over again. He knows she wouldn’t mind.
Before he was promoted to a third-tier disciple, he would sometimes go to Lealy’s cabin. He would just lie down beside her and when Lealy fell asleep, he would slowly get out of her bed and go back to his cabin. It was something he did since his childhood. Lealy’s arms were like the arms of a mother or a sister that he never had and would take away all the pains that Tirad felt in his body and soul. The first time he had taken refuge in Lealy’s arms, he was nearly eight years old. The war between the followers of the Saviour and the pre-rain religionist had extended to the Saviour Ship. Outside of the Ship and on the harbour, the Saviour soldiers, disciples and the Island residents were fighting the soldiers of the enemy. They were the remaining soldiers out of the two hundred warriors that had been defeated on their way to the Saviour Island. Hurmaz’s soldiers had destroyed most of their forces but somehow four of their boats had survived and attacked the island, eager to bring down the Saviour Ship. The loud noises of the soldiers screaming, running, fighting and falling had spread through the corridors and cabins. The ship trembled and quivered the little Tirad with fright. He was too young to understand what death was. His only experience in the matter was seeing dead fish and birds.
Someone had opened the boys’ cabin and had ordered them to go to the higher levels of the ship. Tirad was running through the corridors, his breath had shortened and was passing out, but someone had called him. Lealy had opened the girls’ cabin and let him in. The girls were sitting tight close to each other with their heads hiding in their skirts. The smell of fear and urine had filled the cabin. Lealy had sat Tirad beside her and embraced him in her arms, as if to create a barrier for him with her body and save him from the sounds of the men fighting and dying. Tirad had calmed down under the softness of Lealy’s breast and from that night on, he had become addicted to the smell of her body that he associated with safety and peace. The Saviour Disciples were not allowed to sleep with women and that was the reason he always went on with Lealy to the extent of a sisterly embrace!
Healy had put an end to all that, taking away from Tirad the only comfort he had, right on the night when he had finally become a third-tier disciple. He only wanted to take shelter in her arms and share his happiness with her, to have her calm down his excitement and put him to sleep. But Lealy wanted more. She had told him that she was in love with him. She had begged him to make love to her for just that one time… “No one would know,” she had said… “Just this once, nothing will happen! Everyone is having sex in the ship. We could always escape together…” she had gone on, beseeching him and holding him tight in his arms as he was trying to distance himself from her. Tirad hadn’t said anything. Of course, he wanted it, not just for once;
he wanted to do with her what he would often dream about, anytime he saw her and thought about her. He desired her but couldn’t bring himself to sleep with her. Especially on the night that he had sworn as a third-tier disciple for his humble and virtuous services to the Saviour. He had rushed out of the cabin, escaping the temptation and desire and had heard Lealy cry behind him. It was the first time he had heard her cry. He wanted to go back and comfort her. Hurmaz had said that if they were to give in to a temptation even for once, they would be lost forever. Tirad hadn’t endured enough pain in the ship to throw it all out instantly. He preferred to feel guilty for breaking Lealy’s heart than feel ashamed for having disobeyed the Saviour. He had spent the rest of the night silently crying as he sketched Lealy’s naked body, a picture that he had burnt early next day.