Rain Born

by Zoha Kazemi

  Dalia doesn’t stand to answer the harbour guards but they stop her anyway, blocking her way through the booth door. She stops and tells them her name and the name of the boat that is leaving for Atlan. She knows Narivan has arranged their trip. The port officer looks at the ledger and nods his head. The guards move away and let her pass. The sun is going down. The docks torches are turned on lighting the wooden port to the end. Dalia looks around and sees the Atlan boat. Her mother and Narivan are standing in front of it, waiting for her. It looks like a big and advanced boat and should have more than twenty passengers. But Dalia is looking for a smaller boat. A boat with only one passenger: Tirad! She sees more boats boarding passengers and embarking bags, sacks and boxes. None of them is Tirad’s boat. She is too late. She can’t help him anymore. Or maybe she is too early and Tirad hasn’t come to the port yet. Dalia walks down the port looking around to make sure she hasn’t missed him. She hears Asin’s voice calling her name. She turns towards her and steps in the direction of the Atlan boat. Asin calls to her again saying they are late and that everyone is waiting for her to come aboard; the boat must leave before sunset. But Dalia is hesitant. She wants to buy more time until Tirad comes and she can warn him. She thinks about what she had heard. Maybe they were not true! Perhaps Tirad hadn’t taken the money and wouldn’t come to the harbour at all. But it couldn’t be. Mart and Yuma didn’t know anyone was listening and whatever incident they talked about was going to happen that night. Tirad should come any moment now. Asin walks towards Dalia and looks into her eyes. She puts her finger under her chin and turns her head high. She wants to know what has made her so anxious and hesitant.

  “I couldn’t find Master Tirad… I wanted to say goodbye… But… But something has come up…” she says with a trembling voice. Asin stares into her face. She seems to know something but is not sure whether she should say it or not. She weighs her thoughts in favour of the less painful reaction from Dalia. She seems uncertain of keeping the secret in her own favour or to reveal it for her daughter’s sake. Asin looks at her daughter from head to toe. Dalia is shaking, not just her voice, her whole body is trembling. Her heart is beating very fast. Asin puts her hand on Dalia’s shoulder; she pulls her in her arms and takes a deep breath. She knows she has to tell her.

  “I saw him…on that boat!” Asin says and points to a boat at the end of the docks. Dalia sees a small boat in the dim light of the port torches; the boatman is rowing, distancing the boat from the docks. He might turn on the engine anytime. Dalia pauses for a moment. It’s not easy to get to the boat. She might not get to it before the engine is turned on. Asin is staring at her, and so does Narivan. He tells Asin that they are leaving in a few minutes but she tells him to stay calm and wait a little longer. Dalia doesn’t know what to do. Should she leave her mother and the dream life of the village people who speak her mother’s language and play mythical music every night? Lose the chance of tasting the fantastic food her mother describes and drinking water from uniquely sweet water wells? Should she leave her mother’s warm embrace and give away a life with a family that would always love her? She doesn’t know. Maybe she should have never agreed to go. After all, she is a diver. She knows how to live on ships but does she even have the ability to learn how to farm, weave fabrics, play music and sing? She could go fishing with the village fishers. She knows both the Oxan and Atlan language and can translate for the traders of both regions. What her mother offers her is promising, giving her lots of opportunities and many new paths leading to happiness and prosperity, even if it would cost having to give up on her father. But Tirad! Tirad’s life is in danger. He had saved her life and her mother’s life a few days ago. If it wasn’t for Tirad, they would have never found their way back to their ancestral island. Dalia kisses her mother.

  As she rushes away from the Atlan boat, running towards the docks end she calls to her mother: “I will come back to you… I will find you…”

  “But how? You don’t know where our island is…” Asin shouts behind her desperately. Dalia hears another voice, before the sea breeze blocks her ears. It’s a man’s voice.

  “I know where the island is… I will bring her back to you,” Narivan says to Asin as he runs, trying to catch up with Dalia. They both jump into the sea at the end of the docks, swimming towards Tirad’s boat.

  Dalia can imagine her mother’s face, soaked in tears.

  Chapter 21

  Tirad counts the first five hundred coins and hands them to the boatman. He is a tall, broad man with muscular arms. He takes the paddle and with a few strong strokes, takes the boat away from the Oxan harbour, looking at Tirad the whole time or maybe staring at the sack of coins that he hangs around his neck. Tirad wants to put down the heavy sack he had taken from Mart’s room and hide it somewhere in the boat and he is waiting for the boatman to go to the rudder. He can’t keep it around his neck all the time or put it in the only cabin of the boat. He could have bought this boat with the money he has given to the boatman for taking him to the Saviour Island, but he doesn’t know how to sail and navigate the boat and needs this stout man to take him there. He just hopes to get there on time before anything bad happens. He has left everything to save Hurmaz’s life: the mission that could get him into the Circle, Lealy who may not survive Mart’s cruelty without him to protect her and Dalia. He would have been separated from Dalia very soon and even if she would come back with him to the Saviour Ship, he isn’t sure he could keep her there. She wasn’t made for the Saviour Ship. She shared the same quality of the white bubbles that float on the waves, belonging to the floating ships not stranded ones. The Saviour Ship would seem like a cage to her, making her feel captive. It was hard saying goodbye to her and to know that he will never see her again. They had only known each other for a few days and Tirad is sure that if this acquaintance lasted a bit longer, he would fall for her. Maybe he already had but didn’t want to confess to it. Saying goodbye to her in the Oxan market had made him feel heartbroken and how can a heart be broken if not in love?

  Tirad is waiting for the boatman to turn on the engine and speed up, but the boatman had told him that since their trip is off the books, he can’t start the engine before distancing themselves from the Island. Tirad doesn’t understand what he meant. A trip off the book? The port officer had introduced this boatman to him, what seems to be off the books is the money Tirad had gave him. If Tirad takes a complaint to the Saviour Ship announcing how much money the boatman had taken, he would certainly put the boatman’s life in danger. The boatman goes to the steering wheel but still doesn’t turn on the engine, he just stares ahead looking at the grey sea. Tirad sighs. He puts down the coins and his leather bag between his feet and sits on the bench next to the gunwale looking at Oxan. He takes up his hand and measures the size of Oxan with his fingers, like when he wants to draw from something and wants to get the proportions right. Oxan is three hands wide from where he is and its height is nearly two finger joints in its highest point. It slopes down to the sea like a wide cone. It also has a tail now! The refugee harbour on the east stretches on the horizon like a thick line. He measures the tail as well; it’s two finger joints. He could draw Oxan on a paper, having its proportions measured.

  The refugee harbour seems small from here but when he was standing on it that morning it seemed like going on forever. He didn’t like standing on the floating surface that kept sliding under his feet and had felt uncomfortable among the women and children that surrounded him. Most of all, he had felt impotent and weak. Whatever happens, he promises himself to help solve the matter peacefully, although he hadn’t stayed for tonight’s meeting. The Oxan chiefs can’t evacuate the refugee harbour fast enough; they would need many boats and an exact schedule. He should have stayed and helped. The main harbour is too busy all the time and there are not any free boats lying around. They have to spend money for the evacuation and Oxan wouldn’t do that unless the Saviour Ship pays for it. Tirad thinks about the procedure that needs to be followe
d for the evacuation as if he wants to save them in his memory for later, after he makes sure Hurmaz is not in danger. He will come back to see it through. Now that he has seen the situation close hands, he can estimate the number of the refugees, the boats needed and the cost for the evacuation. They also need to buy food, water and fuel for the safe trip to the ships. It can be done. Mart would probably hand in the peace treaty to the Oxan chiefs tonight, and they will try to warn the refugees and give them some time. Some of the refugees may go back to their ships after the warning and they will have to plan the evacuation for the rest.

  He is concerned for the refugees but more worried about Hurmaz. He will get back in a week, after he makes sure that things are safe and sound on the Saviour Ship. If Mart and the Circle have anything to do with the danger that threatens Hurmaz’s life, he will prove it and stop them. The refugee mission could be handed to him directly if he can overthrow Mart showing his involvement in the plan to kill Hurmaz. It would be better for him. He can take care of the traitors and proceed to the evacuation without being constantly concerned about the hidden agendas of Mart and the rest of the disciples. Tirad sighs and stares at Oxan. He wants to sketch it, now that he has calculated its proportions but it’s getting dark and there is not enough light on the boat. The boatman wouldn’t turn on the lights not until he starts the engine. He doesn’t know how much further they have to go until the boatman properly starts riding. Perhaps they need to get far to the point where Oxan wouldn’t be visible anymore. The Oxan lights are starting to blink as the dusk falls. He had seen this view with Dalia. It seems like years ago but it was only last night! So many things had happened in the last day. He is so tired of the sleepless night, all these worries and thoughts. He wants to make sure the boatman starts the engine to lie down and go to sleep. He can’t take it any longer. He gets up from the bench to ask the boatman why he is neither rowing nor turning on the engine. A sudden sound like something banging on the hull stops him where he stands.

  It’s Dalia pulling herself up from the gunwale with her nail-less hands and leaping over the boat edge onto the deck. Tirad surprisingly stares at her soaked body. He doesn’t realise the boatman is standing behind him. He turns back when he hears the falling sound. The boatman is on the deck floor and his head is bleeding. There’s an iron rod lying beside him that seems to have fallen out of his hand before he had fallen. A man is standing over the boatman’s body; he has long braids and stubble and his wet clothes cover his shoulders. Water is dripping from his fingernails, the skirt of his clothes and the bloodstained stone he holds in his hand. He throws the stone on the deck by the passed-out boatman. Tirad turns to Dalia again who is bending over the boatman and checking his pulse. She gets up, finds a rope and asks the man to help him tie the boatman up. They tie his hands and his legs and lean him sitting against the gunwale. Tirad is frustrated. He faces Dalia with his back to the boatman and shouts.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks. Dalia finds a bucket and fills it with seawater. She splashes water into the boatman’s face. She doesn’t answer Tirad even though he is staring at her and the man with him demanding an explanation.

  “We’ve come to your rescue! Can’t you see?” Narivan says with a smile, picking up the iron rod and showing it to Tirad.

  “You were lucky that we were here just on time! He was going to hit you with this and throw you into the water!” he continues, as he waves the rod before Tirad’s face. Tirad doesn’t know this man, although he looks familiar. Who is he and what is his relation to Dalia? he wonders. The man is older than him and he doesn’t look and act like the sea people, speaking with a strange accent. His strangeness reminds him of Dalia’s mother when she was being beaten by the Saviour Island women. But he seems more confident, something that Asin lacked or couldn’t show. He seems to know what he’s doing but Tirad doesn’t like his mocking tone and thinking that he has saved his life! Tirad’s life was not in danger. The boatman might have seen Dalia climbing the boat and wanted to stop the intruder. He says these to Narivan, but he only grins in his reply leaving Dalia to explain the situation to Tirad. Narivan goes to the rudder.

  “There are things you need to know, Master Tirad! I told you before that your life was in danger, and I am sure of it now. This boatman wanted to kill you and take all the one thousand coins you have,” Dalia explains and starts telling Tirad about the dialogue she had heard between Mart and Yuma. She speaks in fragmented sentences talking about an incident that was going to take place in Oxan and the bad news that was going to arrive tomorrow morning from the Saviour Ship. She also talks about her mother and Asin’s island and how she had left her mother alone to come and save Tirad… But he stops her and asks her to take a deep breath and answer his questions one by one so he can put together her scattered words.

  “Who is this man?” Tirad asks pointing to Narivan who is picking up the paddles.

  “An old friend of my mother… A family friend…” she says, regretting what she had just said. Tirad is confused since Dalia had told him they had no family or friends. She tells him she didn’t know herself until that day and that she wanted to tell him about it and hadn’t found him. But Tirad is furious, not believing her anymore. She has lied to him more than he can trust her. Dalia takes his hand and sits him down on the deck, trying to calm his nerves.

  “Believe me… I just found out about it today. But we don’t have time for this now. We should go back to Oxan and stop whatever is going to happen,” she says softly. Tirad looks at her face. It is dark now and there are still no lights on the boat. Narivan walks from one side of the boat to the next, inspecting the boat and looking into the supply cabin.

  “There is no fuel here! It can only take us to the nearest ship,” Narivan says aloud. He looks again everywhere and takes out the food supply. There are only a few dried fish and two bottles of water. He shows them to Tirad.

  “You can’t survive with these for more than a day on the boat! Where were you headed?” he asks Tirad who replies murmuring. He was in so much hurry to get to the Saviour Island that he hadn’t checked the boat supply. Even if he had, he wouldn’t know the fuel was too little for the trip. Narivan stands by the edge of the boat holding the paddles in his hands.

  “Should we get back to Oxan?” he asks. Tirad doesn’t know. If what Dalia says is true and Mart has a careful, laid out plan, how could he stop him? The boatman must be a part of Mart’s plan as Dalia had said. There are no fuel and food on the boat, he wanted to attack him and he didn’t turn on the engine, all these prove his fault. How come Dalia always finds out these things? If it wasn’t for what Dalia had told him before – Hurmaz’s life being in danger – Tirad would’ve never paid this boatman to take him back. Perhaps he should have never listened to her. This could be a new plan, a trap to take him back to Oxan and condemn him of taking the Saviour coins that were in Mart’s possession. Dalia wants her to decide now. Narivan is also waiting for his command even though he is slowly turning the boat towards Oxan.

  The boatman is awake and he is trying to untie his hands and legs. Narivan tightens the ties and Tirad goes to him and starts interrogating him. He asks who has ordered him to kill Tirad? Why isn’t there enough food and fuel on the boat? What is going to happen in Oxan? But the boatman ignores him. Tirad repeats his questions staring into his face, eye to eye.

  “I know who is behind all this but I want you to say it loud,” Tirad says.

  “What if I don’t?” the boatman replies smirking. Tirad kicks him in the face.

  “Or I’ll throw you out into the sea!” he says and kicks the boatman again. The boatman spits out blood and then laughs.

  “A poor third disciple stealing a boat and the Saviour coins! Running away to who knows where… I’m all yours. You can throw me out right now!” the boatman says with a snicker. Tirad kicks him in his planks. He kicks again and again as if he can’t stop himself. Narivan takes him off the boatman who is still trying to untie his hands. This time Nariva
n slaps him in the face. Dalia whispers something in Narivan’s ears. Tirad is raged. He doesn’t know whether the boatman’s words were in compliance to what Dalia has said or just a mere threatening. He can’t ignore the boatman. He is right. If Tirad throws him out now, he will be condemned as the boatman said. But he continues questioning him to hear Mart’s name from his mouth and the boatman avoids saying anything. Dalia goes to Tirad.

  “If he gets to Oxan and claim that you stole his boat…” Dalia tries to ask her question but Narivan stops her.

  “What if he doesn’t get to Oxan? Then who could prove anything? Huh?” Narivan asks. But Tirad doesn’t seem to have understood them. All he had done was to try and go back in time to save Hurmaz. He hasn’t done anything wrong! Of course, he needed money and a boat to get there…all in good faith and to stop a disaster. The Saviour coins are to be used in such emergencies relating to the matters of the Ship. He doesn’t know why he should be so scared? He can explain everything when he gets to Hurmaz and he will no doubt support him, punishing Mart for what he had done. But if Dalia was right to this point, could she be right about Hurmaz’s assassination? If so, he will have no one to support and believe in his good will.