by Zoha Kazemi
Asin is bored. She steps away from the Saviour stand and sits on a low stone bench in front of a dealer’s stall. The stall owner hasn’t arrived yet to send her off. She sees the long line of the Saviour stand from there. Lealy and Dalia are working very quickly. Lealy seems too busy now to worry about Tirad. Asin turns her head and looks around. She doesn’t feel like going for a walk. She doesn’t have any coins with her to shop and watching the fresh and dried fish or dived out objects from the drowned cities do not interest her. But she enjoys watching the hopeful, young women who are trying to get discount from the fishers and the children who gather around the divers’ counters looking at the wonderful deformed objects of the past. The Oxan market roof is not high, causing the air to be thickened by the saturated moist of the dry season and the exhale of so many sellers and buyers crowding the area. Asin takes a deep breath and looks at Dalia who tries to keep her head moist by pouring water onto her head from a small bottle. She knows this amount of water is not sufficient for her and she has to find more water very soon.
Finally, Master Tirad comes! He goes straight to Lealy and talks in her ears. He explains something to Dalia and seems to be in a hurry. Lealy stops him and asks him for something that he replies with his head, having understood the demand. He leaves. Asin wants to go to Dalia and see what Tirad has told her but she suddenly stops, surprised by what she hears, a special melody that she hasn’t heard for sixteen years: someone is playing the oud! The only instrument she had heard in the past years was the harmonica played by one of the divers when they were out on diving trips. But this tune, this melody… Asin can see from here with her eyes closed, the hands of a man squealing on the strings with a seagull feather plectrum, gently moving his fingers up and down the chords. There could only be one person plying like this: Narivan!
Asin turns towards the sound. The men and women in the square have stopped their sell and buy and they are all drawn to the beautiful sound of the oud, walking towards the man playing it on a small platform in the middle of the square and circling around him. Asin walks among them hearing the children excitedly say, “Traveller is here!” What a familiar term! A Traveller! Someone who has travelled around the world! What is he doing here in the middle of the Oxan market? And after sixteen years? Asin jumps over the counter of a man selling shark and flounder leather and makes her way to the platform to see the Traveller.
Narivan hasn’t changed much in these years. He stands there with his broad shoulders that, unlike the sea men, he covers with a wide turban. He does have some grey hair in his long braids and his stubble beard and a few wrinkles on his forehead. Asin feels so glad to see Narivan again at first but then drowns in a deep sorrow. She had thought all these years that Narivan and her brothers were dead, having given up on them in despair. Narivan finishes his song and lowers his instrument. People start throwing coin in a wooden box by the platform, cheering. He looks at the crowd, not seeming happy for the applause of the Oxan audience. He looks indifferent and weary. Until he finally sees Asin standing in the crowd. His eyes pause on her for a moment and then he hurriedly gets down from the platform. People want him to play more songs and tell them the tales from his travels. But Narivan steps toward Asin, ignoring them. The men and women curse him as they empty the wooden box, taking back their coins and quickly scattering in the market. Asin peeks at the Saviour stand before Narivan reaches her. She sees Tirad handing a large bottle of water to Dalia, standing in front of her saying goodbye as if he is going away forever. He quickly leaves the market. Narivan puts his hands on Asin’s shoulder. He starts talking in a language that probably no one else in the market except for Asin understands.
“I never believed in my heart that you were dead!” he says. Asin takes his hands away from her shoulder but Narivan takes her hand in the air and kisses her fingers. Asin feels lost in time and place. She doesn’t know whether the things she had experienced, the life she had on the ship, all the hardship and misery, the stillborn babies and what she thought was her new life was even real or all had just happened in a nightmare. She has so many things to tell him. Narivan holds his instruments in his arms as if he is carefully holding a baby. He takes Asin to a narrow alley behind the square. Asin takes the oud from him, smelling its carved bowl, a scent so close to her childhood memories. She plays the strings with her fingertips slowly touching the chords and moving her around the smooth surface of the bowl, fondling and caressing it. The oud screeches softly like a lover reaching her climax. Asin smiles, satisfied. Narivan takes back the oud, gently kissing Asin’s head. He starts asking questions to where has Asin been all these years? How had she survived the ship wreck? Asin puts her palm over Narivan’s lips inviting him to stop the questioning for he has to answer her first! Why hadn’t they come to find her? And what had become of all the others? Her brothers and the rest of the group? Narivan kisses her palm and takes her into his arms, lowering the oud and holding it down not to separate them. He doesn’t want to let go and she doesn’t want to either. But the world will not stop in that moment and she needs her answers. Narivan starts speaking, using the phrase ‘do you remember?’ at the beginning of most of the things he says. Asin doesn’t like the phrase as if her memory has been undermined because she has been living among the sea people. Maybe she doesn’t like to remind the memories that come alive every time Narivan uses the phrase, the memories she had tried so hard to bury in his thoughts all these years.
Narivan explains that when their ship was wrecked in the storm, an Atlan diving boat had saved them, all except for Asin and her younger brother who were never found. They had searched for them for a while but hadn’t found them. The survived group had carried on their way to unknown places, playing oud in the ships and islands to earn their sleeping cabins and food and save up money. They had returned to their island after nine years only to set off again, but this time to nearby ships and as far as Oxan and Atlan. Narivan declares that he is worn out by travelling and that he no longer has the ability or the passion to go on dangerous adventures. He has seen it all and believes it’s all the same, the sea, the ships and the roofed islands. He has seen advanced ships in faraway regions but all people lived nearly the same. The only place they were never able to enter was the Saviour Island. Even farming and animal husbandry ships had allowed them to stay on their ships for a while. He says he has been diving with the divers of the ships and believes the divers can’t find anything useful in the drowned cities anymore. All they mine and dive out is soil, bricks and stones. They can’t even find wood or steel, nonetheless the pre-rain objects. He then gives the oud to Asin and tells her things have changed. There are no more restricting rules in their island. Atlan has sent many workers and the island workers are not pressured like before. He tells her that he has opened a small oud shop on the island, where he can build and sell oud and other instruments. He shows off the oud again saying that this is one of the instruments made in his shop with the help of Asin’s older brother. They also have teaching classes in the rain seasons. He has come to Oxan to find and buy good quality chords. Asin listens to him while he excitedly talks with joy in his eyes.
Now it’s her turn to tell him what had happened to her. She skips the part about the stillborn babies, but tells him about Dalia and her dead husband and that they have to get back to Avij. She hopes that Narivan would give her an alternative, saving her and Dalia from having to go back to their ship and Narivan tells her the exact thing she wants to hear. He says he has come there with Asin’s brother and his own sister and they are headed back to Atlan that afternoon and then they will go from Atlan to their island, and of course, Asin and her daughter must go with them. They must go home! She is so happy to see her brother again. She has to go and fetch Dalia. Asin feels so light in her back as if a great burden has finally lifted from her shoulders. Could it really be? That all her suffering, pains and stillborn babies have ended? Narivan’s babies born on their island will not be malformed or stillborn. They shall be born healthy
and lively, playing about the green farms and climb the trees of the village. But then she shivers, feeling a cold breeze down her spine. What if Narivan is married? Does she even have a future with him? She can never know until she asks him, even though his answer might despair her. Yet her home island, whether with Narivan or without him, will be her home where she can settle, make oud again and play music. She knows once she goes back she will never ever leave her home. Dalia will be with her too and how excellent it will be for her! She will be happy among her own people. She can fall in love again and get married and be sure that her children will be healthy and strong. She will teach her to play the oud… It might be difficult without nails…but she shall try… There is no point over thinking the matter. She needs to know whether she can have the happiest life she has always desired, to know whether Narivan will take her to his bed, finally as his wife. Asin goes ahead and asks him if he is married. But Narivan stops her sentence and kisses her lips.
“There was nothing for me after you… Just the oud and the hope to see you again!” Narivan says. Asin smiles, even though it is not easy for her to believe it. How did he do it? All these years without a woman, waiting to accidentally find her? She can’t forgive herself for letting go of Narivan and the hope of getting back home. She had so easily given in to an ordinary life on the sea persuading herself that she had no other choice. Maybe Narivan had been too busy travelling that he never had the chance to fall in love again or perhaps he had devoted himself to adventure so that he wouldn’t fall for any other woman after Asin. Whatever the reasons, they now have all the time in the world to talk about everything. She will find out in time and she will have enough time to feel guilty, embarrassed and sorry. She will have a lifetime to question herself and justify what she had done. She has to find Dalia now and to go see her brother. It’s finally time to go home!
Chapter 19
Asin was born on one of the eastern islands of the pre-rain Turkey. The island had not emerged from the new water world; it had never drowned in the first place. The ancestral village of Asin’s grandparents was located on the heights of Masis Mountain in Ararat, North West of Iran. The villagers were people who had fled the crowded, noisy and contaminated cities to live a pure and natural life on the mountains. They had moved there a few decades before the rain. Asin was told many tales about the contaminated cities filled with sickness, chemical and sonic pollution and polluted irrespirable air. Although it was hardly imaginable and understandable for her, she knew that this seclusion had been the root of her existence. If her ancestors hadn’t run off to the mountains, they would not have lived to give birth to her grandparents and so forth. They had retreated in the mountains, isolated from the turmoil of economy, politics, technology and society.
Earthquakes did not bring much damage to their small village, which had light wooden cottages, and they never saw droughts, famine and the collapse of countries and cities. No one drove in and out of the village. The access road to the village had disappeared over time, and there were only less than fifty women, men and children, left in the isolated village. In the early years, some of the youth of the village did not survive the primitive life and returned to the cities. But the born generation, far from the city, had no visions of or memories from the cities, never even thought of returning. But their curiosity about other worlds, besides the world in which they grew up, added a new word to their vocabulary: the Traveller! All the little children in the village wanted to become Travellers. When they grew up, they would go to villages, cities and other countries, and get acquainted with the way of life of other people. But when it was time to go, nobody dared to do that. They would set back and postpone it to the next days.
When the rain began, people of the village built shelters for themselves, their livestock and their farmed gardens, from the wood of the forest trees surrounding the village. The water rose. They had no ships. There was no boat and the third-generation inhabitants of the village had never seen the sea in their lives and had no idea what a boat was. The sea had risen above the foothills, making the horizon of the village tighter and smaller. The inhabitants of the village were afraid. Could the water drown the village in itself? The villagers were scared and feverish from the cold and humid weather. The Feverish children wandered to the new borders of the village with umbrellas and they encountered the strangest phenomenon of their lives: the sea! Every day, the corpses of humans and trees that were rooted out hatched the border between the foothills and the water. The inhabitants of the village were too sick and feverish to be able to collect the bodies from the water or throw them back into the sea.
The progressive sea continued its game, it would go on and take back the bodies it had spitted out, drowning new parts of the mountain and more trees and the next day as the raining continued it would spread out more human and animal corpses and rooted out trees. The forest village had turned into an island at the end of the rain, surrounded by the new sea. Its rocky, sloping coastline was covered with the dead bodies of the people and animals. At that time, the surviving villagers didn’t know how much the mountain had been merciful to them, not bestowing them to the new sea. But they needed more mercy than that granted to them by the mountain and the sea. The mercy that was in the hands of the Great Fog as the sun had started to shine, evaporating the water. Taking shelter in the underground chambers and caches of the village houses helped the survival of four young men and three women from the Great Fog. Children and the elderly did not survive. Also the livestock, besides the chicken and geese that hatched after the fog providing them with new chicks. The first few days after the Great Fog was spent on digging mass graves to bury the dead villagers, salting and drying the beef and sheep that had suffocated in the fog and burial of the corpses washed up to the shore. And then, to make clove boats to find help! They knew they had to leave their village to find other survivors and lands. They had all helped in building the boat and preparing for the journey. No one said a word to others. None of them had left while their world was still made up of soil and sands and now they wanted to go out to the sea! They had no idea where they should go and what to look for. It was decided that two of the men should go and the rest stay behind. But none of the men accepted to leave, they would quarrel and fight over it the whole time. As time passed, they had formed three couples, and the man who was the odd one out became the first final candidate to go on the boat. The other three men would not give up their home, land and wives to go out searching for the unknown, even though their boat was ready. They knew leaving their small island and sailing on the impudent sea that had taken over their mountain, was a certain suicide. They didn’t know when the rain would start falling again. They kept pointing at the gathering clouds and postpone their trip to a time when the sky was clearer with less chance of storms. Until the next rain season had started and they had to wait for the dry season and the birth of their babies. The new-born babies forced them to stay in the village, in more isolation and in a forgotten land. The village had to be rebuilt and prepared for the future.
A few years after the Great Fog, the swings were tied to the trees that had survived the rain and storms, and the children who were born into the new world, played along the houses and trees and the sound of their laughter and joy filled the village. The new residents used the clove boat for fishing but they never dared to get far from their land. Until one day, a boat with four passengers arrived at their shores. The children had stood on the beach stones waving to the newcomers and the remaining five adults of the island had rushed to see the Atlan fishers who had found them. The island had no docks at the time and they had to tie their boat to the stones, to secure it. They had set foot on the land amazed by what they were viewing, a small lush island with tall trees that surrounded the few houses, seemed like a forgotten scene of the pre-rain times. They had developed large roofed gardens where the chicken and geese would roam about and the well gave them access to pure drinking water. The young girls brought up water from the well
s, children fed the birds and the young boys played an instrument that the fishers had never heard before, not even before the Great Fog. They were living an ideal natural life in the village, so close the dreamlike life of the pre-rain times.
Villagers had welcomed the fishers and gave them food and shelter. The fishers told fantastic and sometimes contradictory stories about the long years of drought, rain, the Great Fog and the new life that was shaping on the Atlan Island. In return, they would enjoy the fresh chicken meat, mushrooms and potatoes from the island farms. They had named the place ‘Paradise’ and would not leave it. The villagers never forced them to leave since they could fish for them and marry their young girls. A few years later, another fishing boat had arrived. They also never left the Paradise Island. The third group came the following year, this time they were not fishers; they were a search party looking for the previous boats that had never returned. They were happy to see their fishers safe and sound and since two boats had disappeared in the way to the Paradise Island, the route was considered as mysteriously dangerous and no one would pass that way. Although they knew their families and friends in Atlan would be worried if they didn’t return, they couldn’t bring themselves to leave the Paradise. What did it matter if they were thought of as being dead or alive? The Paradise Island was where life had its real meaning. What more could they want?
After many years, the new generation of the village was born from fishers and farmers. The children learnt to swim and fish as well as farming and playing the oud. The fishers had built a dock and an entrance system on the Paradise Island similar to that of Atlan and Oxan, taking taxes from outsiders that came to their land. Many traders came there to buy expensive goods like potatoes, carrots, chicken and eggs, paying them lots of coins for the luxurious food they would produce. But the villagers didn’t know how to spend the coins. They didn’t have many costs and lived by what they had. Until Atlan chiefs laid out new ways in front of them. They taught them how to use their fund for the progress of the Paradise Island, to produce more farming crop and gain more money. They had ordered two cows, three sheep, cottonseeds and vegetable and tree seedlings from the northern agricultural ships. The dairy, cotton, pepper and spice exports were added to the attractions of the Paradise Island, and the island management had fallen into the hands of Atlan. The former inhabitants of the village became the day-to-day workers of Atlan who received food and supplies for their daily work. Anytime, they would complain from the heavy work, Atlan would immediately replace them by a poor fisher or a diver who was more than happy to work on the land. None of the main villagers had left the island. They would work all day and sit by a large fire listening to the news of the outside world told by the traders and Atlan officers. They had heard about Oxan, the Saviour Island and the war with the pre-rain religionists, but they were all just interesting and fantastic tales that meant nothing to them. They would just listen and yawn since they were too tired to take them all in and to believe they were more than myths. Sometimes they would tell their own tale of their peaceful village and how their village had been taken away from them by fishers who invaded them, turning them into slaves.