by Zoha Kazemi
It is dark now. Dalia turns off the engine and lights a small lamp. She avoids turning on the flashlight, not to use too much power and to make their boat less see-able from afar. She walks to Narivan and puts her hand on his sweaty forehead. She takes off the bloodstained cloth from around Narivan’s leg. The wound looks swollen and infected; the cut is not burnt completely, binding his skin together. He is not well and he has been delirious for some time now. Tirad can only pick up one word from his unclear Atlan language gibberish: Asin! Dalia washes the wound and splashes some water in his face and pours some drinking water in his mouth. But the water slides down from the corner of his mouth towards his ear. Dalia is worried.
“If we change course right now, we could get to Parsana Ship by tomorrow afternoon… We might be able to get him some help there. He won’t last another two or three nights,” Dalia tells Tirad who is shocked to have heard the name ‘Parsana’. He had never heard of such a ship! Dalia has noticed his surprise, but doesn’t seem to know which part of her words has shocked him. She keeps explaining to Tirad that Narivan might die from this fever and infection and they have to save him. She says Narivan had helped saving Tirad’s life and now they had to do the same and the only way they could get proper help is by going to the Parsana Ship where they have experienced healers. She also says that since Parsana is not a Saviour follower ship, they will be safe there.
“I have never heard of such a ship!” Tirad says. Dalia sighs relieved that Tirad doesn’t have any objections about going there; he just doesn’t know where it is.
“Parsana is three large ships that are anchored next to one another. I haven’t been there before and you probably haven’t heard of them since they are not Saviour followers. The people of the sea believe they have the best healers. Anytime they need proper medical treatment, they go there or send a boat to bring a healer from Parsana,” she explains. Tirad is brooding. He doesn’t know whether this nominal similarity between the Ship’s name and the name of Saviour’s mother is a mere coincidence or has a history that he is not aware of. But if this ship is by any chance related to the Lady Parsana, how come they are not Saviour followers? He wants to go there, both for treating Narivan and to find out more about this ship. Perhaps he can get some answers about the dead pregnant women. If they have professional healers on this ship, they must have heard about such mysterious deaths and have looked for its reasons and even a cure. They have to turn on the engine now and change course. But they are both too tired. It is best if they rest and set off again tomorrow morning.
Tirad unwraps his arm. The tattoo is gone and his arm has grown a thin, wrinkled skin in its place. It is still sore and swollen around the burn mark, but Dalia has taken a great care of his arm, otherwise he would have been lying next to Narivan, twisting in pain and fever. Dalia comes close and takes a careful look at his burnt arm. She says it has healed well and they don’t need to worry about it anymore. She sits in front of Tirad on her knees and moves her nail-less fingertips over the new skin of the burn mark. Tirad doesn’t feel any pain. Dalia slowly continues the motion of her fingers, touching Tirad gently, moving her hand up his arm and to the back of his ears that no hair hangs any more. She slides gently forward, putting her bare thighs between Tirad’s legs. Tirad wants to move back but Dalia takes his hand and pushes him to herself, softly pressing her lips on his. Tirad doesn’t know what to do. He had thought about this moment for the last six days or from the second he had laid eyes on her. He had tried to distract himself from the thought and the deed, not because he doesn’t want her, only to prove himself as an obedient virtuous disciple of the Saviour. But now, she is sliding against his body, with fine, soft movements that cannot be overthrown for any justifiable belief. He kisses her back passionately even though he should stop himself from falling into the deepest fault of all, and never finding his back to the Saviour again. Yet he yearns for it.
Dalia undresses him. Tirad lies on the deck, next to Narivan, although he avoids looking at his agonising face. He lets Dalia lead as she has leaded the boat and his downfall as a disciple. But Dalia stops her moist kisses and stands. Unties her leather band from her neck and lets her covering cloth slide down. She pulls Tirad up and takes him to the gunwale.
“You can tread the water, right?” she asks, and Tirad nods. He knows how to swim as well until his heart allows him and he can still breathe. She helps him step into the water, leading again with her fluid movement. She continues kissing him in the water, this time mixed with the salty taste of the sea. Tirad hears a sound like a boat splitting the waves and moving forward or a school of fish that have come to the surface only to dive back in again with a splash. Or perhaps he is mistaking. There is no other sound but the both of them panting fast and the moist breeze whirling in his ears. Maybe it’s the bubbles bursting on the surface that have been made by the movement of their hands and legs in the water. He can’t hear anything anymore. He can’t sense anything even the salty taste of the sea. His senses have been reduced to only one sense: touch! He can feel the whole world by the touch of his sunburnt skin. This epiphany, this new cognition of himself and the world has taken him unawares, rushing blood to his waist and thighs. Dalia takes her under the water, as she gently presses him to her body and moves softly. Tirad doesn’t know how his heart is taking so much excitement and pleasure without making him breathless. Or maybe the hole in his heart has been filled with the magic of Dalia’s nail-less fingers and her amazing eyes that are not framed with lashes. They move simultaneously, twisting around each other until he finally feels the release that makes him sigh deeply and move up to the surface with gentle strokes of the water. As he comes up, he gets his senses back. He is hearing something. Dalia kisses him one more time and swims apart lying supine on the water. She looks more beautiful than ever. But she gets back to him horridly. She has heard it too!
Tirad wants to stay on the surface a little longer, to embrace Dalia and take in her scent, now that his senses have woken again. He likes to watch the moon light reflect from her hair less scalp and try to see the distinct line between Dalia’s body and the sea. Even though he has felt her soft skin, muscles and thighs and has entered her body, he still can’t distinguish the border line of her figure and the water. But Dalia is frightened. She climbs the boat and helps Tirad come up. Tirad can’t stand up straight. He leans against the gunwale, hardly standing on his legs. A boat is coming towards them with their spotlight fixed on them. The stranger boat is rowing towards them with their engine off. Tirad can’t see how many passengers are on the approaching boat or see the boat clearly; the sharp light of the spotlight has blinded him, keeping the boat in a shadow. Dalia goes to the wheel to start the engine and sail away from there. But another sound stops her. The spotlight turns away from them shining on the surface of the water. A school of white dolphins – each of them at least twice the size of a man – circle around the stranger boat. The dolphins squeal and bang themselves against the boat. The boat has no other way than to turn away. As the stranger boat sails in the opposite direction, the dolphins dive into the water and swim away. Tirad can still hear their stretched squealing sound that will always remind him of his first lovemaking.
Chapter 26
Tirad is not hopeful that the Parsana healers can save Narivan. They have come to the boat, two women and a man. One of the women is young, perhaps the same age as Dalia. The other woman has grey hair and a wrinkled forehead, and the many specks and spots on her hand show the long years she must have spent on the sea. The man also looks young and carries a heavy bag with him. The old woman takes off the moist cloth that Dalia has put over Narivan’s face to avoid the sun. She then unwraps the bandage around Narivan’s leg and shakes her head gesturing sorry. But she doesn’t want to give up on him yet, she addresses Tirad telling him that Narivan needs to stay on the ship for at least a few days.
“This wound needs tending. I will do whatever I can, but it may cost you a lot,” she says and looks at Tirad for his
reaction. Tirad says they will pay whatever coins needed. The old woman orders her younger assistants to take the man up to the ship. Tirad wonders how they are going to carry Narivan up the metal ladder, but he hopes these professional healers would be prepared for such a situation. The young man climbs the ladder. Tirad knows they have to wait. The old woman uses this chance to ask what has happened to Narivan. Tirad doesn’t know what Dalia had told them when she had gone up to the ship and called the healers, he turns his face to Dalia for the answer, hoping that he doesn’t have to say something that would contradict Dalia’s words. Dalia gets his gesture and starts explaining.
“As I already told you on the deck…we were going to Oxan from Avij Ship to buy oxygen masks with these coins…but my father…” she says and points to Narivan. She tries to avoid Tirad’s questioning stare. She seems unsure of the reason she had given but it is too late to change her lie.
“My father slipped on the boat deck and this iron rod injured his leg…” She stops again to point at the rod which still has bloodstains on it. The healer looks at the rod and tries the sharpness of the rod’s point. Dalia’s lie is obviously not bought by her.
“How deep was the cut that you had to burn it?” she asks. Dalia says it was bleeding a lot and her father had told her to burn it to stop the bleeding. The woman again shakes her head in sorry.
“You should never burn skin-deep wounds! How much of the rod had entered his flesh? Was it stuck?” she asks. Dalia says she doesn’t know but the wound was deep.
“Are you brother and sister?” she asks Tirad who is shocked by the question. He didn’t think they had to explain their relationship. Having paused like that has made it worst. Even if he says now that they are blood related, the old woman wouldn’t believe him. Dalia comes to save him again.
“Husband and wife!” she says to Tirad’s surprise. He doesn’t know how to react and can’t do anything but to confirm her. The old woman seems to have accepted the term ‘husband and wife’. But Tirad cannot. Marriage is forbidden for the Saviour Disciples, for him it means undermining all the Saviour Rules and wiping off all his past life, and even though he is drifting away from his disciple life, he is still scared and hesitant in every step of the way. Yet he needs to accept it, he has no other way. The past is not an option anymore. He can’t go back, neither to the Saviour Ship nor to his previous life. The only path he has lies ahead in the vague future. All he has now is Dalia and he knows he wants a life with her, not only because he has unwillingly destroyed his past life, he is now choosing to live with Dalia especially after the dream night they had together. If being ‘husband and wife’ means living with Dalia for the rest of his life, so be it. But he needs to talk to Dalia about it. Even though there is no way to reclaim his past life, he still has to go back to revenge the deaths of Hurmaz, Lealy and the innocent refugees. Dalia needs to choose whether she would stay as his wife through all that or not.
Two young men carry a stretcher down the ladder. Both ends of the stretcher are chained to a cable wheel on the deck and two men are waiting on the deck looking down. Narivan’s unconscious body is put on the dirty and stained blanket of the stretcher and strapped to it with three leather bands. The stretcher is pulled up from the deck. The two men climb the steps slowly as the stretcher is pulled, making sure it doesn’t spin or turn upside down. The old woman invites Dalia and Tirad to the ship. Tirad insists on staying on the boat but the woman wouldn’t have it. She says they should come and rest. Tirad is worried about the coins and the boat’s filled supply cabin and doesn’t want to leave it unwatched. But it makes no difference anyway. Even if they stay on the boat, they can’t protect themselves against any intruders, especially if their numbers should be more than them. Dalia whispers in Tirad’s ear telling him not to worry. She says the people of the sea have mercy on their own people; otherwise, chaos would break out everywhere. Tirad takes his bag and follows the women up the ladder.
The Parsana Ship is large, not as big as the Oxan naval but at least four times as the stranded Saviour Ship. Three identical ships with steel bodies and high masts with no sailcloth have been anchored side by side three hundred years ago. The main ship that has a small platform for a pier is the eastern ship. Tirad tries to estimates the number of Parsana residents to be around six hundred people, if each ship has two hundred people living on it. This means six hundred people live in the Oxan and the Saviour region but they are outside of their belief system. How come he had never heard of this ship with so many residents? There must be some indications of this ship in the maps and hidden documents that are kept in the forbidden library, but he doubts not being a Saviour follower is the sole reason of redacting this ship from all the official documents. Narivan is being taken to the cabins. Tirad and Dalia follow the healers, making way through the women and children of the ship who have come to watch the newcomers, whispering to each other. Tirad also sees more people coming over to the eastern ship from the floating wooden bridge that hangs between the central and the eastern ship decks. He doesn’t know how these wooden bridges supported by cables can survive the storms of the rain season. Perhaps they only use them in the dry season and remove it with the first rainfall. The children walk cautiously on the floating bridge, being careful not to shake it too much.
“What happened to your arm?” asks the old woman pointing at Tirad’s burn mark.
“Have you slipped on the boat too?” she asks in a mocking tone that Tirad finds offensive. She obviously hasn’t believed a word Dalia had said. But Tirad needs to keep up with it. He says when Dalia was burning her father’s leg, his arm accidentally caught fire. The woman smirks.
“It doesn’t matter…most Saviour Disciples that take refuge in here have accidently burnt their arms on the way!” she replies. Tirad is confused. How did she know he was a disciple? Perhaps she just threw something at him to see his reaction.
“Don’t worry!” she says, trying to calm down Tirad.
“We give shelter to all! Especially the Saviour Disciples that flee their Ship!” she continues and takes faster steps. Tirad looks down as he walks. He doesn’t want the woman to see the shame in his face. He enters the Parsana’s cabin building that resembles the Saviour Ship. The ground floor has a long corridor with cabins on both sides and a staircase at the end that leads to higher and lower levels. The only difference is the number of stories and the lengths of the corridor, both more than that of the Saviour Ship. Narivan’s stretcher is taken into a cabin on the ground floor and put on a table. There are many shelves on the cabin wall, each filled with boxes, tins and glasses, similar to Lealy’s cabin but bigger and messier. The old woman washes Narivan’s wound with distilled water and cleans it. She takes a close look at the wound. And then, finds a cloth and places it between Narivan’s teeth. Narivan wakes up for a few seconds and looks around in fear. The old woman holds a bottle under his nose and he goes back to a deep sleep. He no longer feels the pain or shivers from the infectious fever.
“I need to open the wound and clean the infection…but if the infection has entered his blood, he won’t survive,” the old woman explains to Tirad who doesn’t know what to answer.
“What if we cut off his leg? Could we save his life then?” Dalia asks but the woman grins, pointing at the wound.
“It’s right beneath his hip. If we cut off his leg, he would never be able to walk, not even with a cane. If it was me, I would rather die than become crippled like that,” she replies. But Dalia wouldn’t have it. She argues with the old woman saying she has no right to decide whether it is best for him to live or die and keeping Narivan alive is what matters to her, whatever the cost.
“The wound is right under his hip! The hipbone is probably infected. Let me clean the wound first and see… If he lives through it, we will cut off his leg,” she answers. Dalia sighs and Tirad sees the tears that roll down her cheeks. Tirad doesn’t understand Dalia’s emotional longing to this man, even though he owes his life to Narivan and has grown fo
nd of him. But Dalia seems too sad for a man he had known only for a week. Dalia had told him Narivan was her mother’s first husband having looked for Asin for sixteen years. And just as he had finally found Asin, he had given her up to help Dalia. Maybe she feels responsible. Tirad wanted to know more about Narivan and Asin but whenever he was lucid enough to talk, they had to ask him about the directions and the routes, not having enough time for such a conversation. He had given some details about his Paradise Island and his oud, but that was it, nothing much about Asin. The old healer woman sends off Dalia and Tirad with a young girl, telling the girl to come back and help her when the guests are settled. The girl leads them to a cabin at the end of the corridor.
“This is the guest cabin. You can find whatever you need here… There’s the bed with clean blankets, the bucket of water and the bucket for toilet…” she explains and points to everything she names. Tirad and Dalia look at the things she points at. The girl goes out saying she will bring them food. Dalia goes to the bucket of water and wets her scalp and her body. Tirad also washes himself and lies on the bed next to Dalia, waiting. Tirad feels uneasy and anxious and wants to talk but Dalia has closed her eyes and takes deep, slow breaths. She has fallen asleep! Tirad sits and looks at her long legs and her breast that become flat when she lies in a supine position. She still doesn’t look beautiful in Tirad’s eye but ever more desirable. He had owned her body last night, all the shiny and slippery surfaces of her skin, yet he still feels like a stranger, curious to discover and conquer her body and mind. He takes out a paper and a charcoal and starts sketching her. She has finally taken shape in his mind. The silhouette of her figure can only be sketched with thick, faded lines. He draws more lines, outlining her pale full lips, her bony nose and her eyes…such moist eyes that have larger iris than anyone he has seen and seems to be as deep as the most profound sorrows and solitudes ever possible. Tirad knows he is not yet capable of drawing her eyes; he is not even close enough to understand them.