Laluba

Nukila Amal

To the sea, my child. It's dawn, now is the time. I can feel their coming near. The wind has drifted echoes of their voices.

Listen, the wind blows not in soft rustles, but hissing and slashing along the way. The windowpane rattles with a creaking sound, the door squeaks, sending a chill into the house. The candlelight stirs: for a moment it flares up, for a moment it flickers. Darkness pulling in.

All night I have sat here, warming myself with the candle, watching the edges of its flickering yellow blue light. Casting my shadow on the wall, it moved back and forth like a dancer -- yet I sat unmoving.

For hours I gazed at the wood planks, my eyes tracing its surface cracking rivulets of pale veins. But I did not talk to them. I did not talk to you. I did not talk to anyone. I just sat silently, waiting.

We will go out now, no need to walk in a hurry. I want to feel my feet standing on the wood slats, wet grass, dry leaves, earth, fallen rose-apple blossoms. Their thin threads feel so soft on my feet, many are hooked along the bamboo fence. I will pin a blossom in my hair.

Your father planted this rose-apple tree, now it's blooming for the first time, sprouting tiny pale fruits -- they surely would taste sweet and fresh. See the tree; it's covered with radiant pink, almost electric. When the night comes, people could see the tree from the edge of the village.

Our village. Houses and shacks in death rows, shivering wood and concrete. Dark. Shadows of kerosene lights from inside the houses, as dim as the dreams of souls no longer able to sleep. I am sure you are not sleeping, either. So quiet. Only sighs of the wind can be heard, cries of nocturnal insects and splashing waves.

In such silence, I hope to catch the sound of your heartbeat, or your soft snores. Do you hear the vigilantes, they're talking in low voices. We don't have to walk past them, we will walk along the side to the back of our house. I'm not in the mood to talk.

There's a beach-almond tree at the back of our house, near the seashore. See the boat turned upside-down by the tree? It's your father's. My back aches, lately I get tired easily. We will sit upon the boat and wait for the sunrise, morning and other things to come.

From here we could see the house, village, bay, beach, sky and all. Look at our home. A house on stilts, the rose-apple tree could be seen above the rooftop. It will take some time before it yields ripe fruit, I very much want to taste just one. I have dwelled in that house for over three years.

The village men helped your father build it. For free, except for two or three professional builders. Two pots of coffee and cigarettes in the afternoons would do, sometimes served with baked cassava or fried banana.

The men have built many things in this village: a school, houses, church, mosque, meeting hall, boats. I remember cooking steamed yellow rice to celebrate when the house was finally completed. Later that night there was a new kerosene lamp glowing in the newly built house. Your father and I were delighted to watch our shadows moving on the wall. We were not the only ones who danced: The table, chairs and cupboard danced, too.

The boat is moist. So is the tree trunk we lean on. Do you lean comfortably inside my womb? My child, my hope. How the situation has changed for you, from hope to fear. What's going on in your mind at the moment? Are they the same feelings as mine?

Or are you going through all this without memory, hope, burden, hindrance? I can no longer see the ground beneath my feet, blocked by your being inside me. But I don't mind taking you everywhere I go, even though you fill up my body -- I have swollen like a cow.

I remember a cow on the deck of a motor boat, a long time ago. She lay down helplessly with her hoofs tied, her eyes staring open wide toward the sky, struggling. The boat jolted repeatedly, not by the sea waves, but shaken by the wild kicks of the poor cow. I held your father's arm tightly, and he smiled a comforting smile.

Look, he said, pointing his finger to the side of the boat. Two gray dolphins were swimming along. The children on the boat shouted cheerfully, "Oi, laluba, laluba!" The hunched-back dolphins dived in and out of the water, with smiling faces, like your father's.

Your father. Teacher, earth guardian, husband, human being, man. And woman, too. At times, he could be better than me in mothering you. When my belly ached, he would sit beside me and comfort you with sweet whispers, singing, or telling stories for you. There were times when he was silent, tracing the outline of your being on my belly in amazement. We could feel your tiny hand, your clenched fist, your foot kicking (maybe you are a male, or a female?).

He would be silent at those times, looking at me and you, his eyes filled with darkness. I guess there were streams of feelings in him that words could never say. I remember his eyes filled with that certain darkness when he left one night.

He didn't say much. No promises. No sentimental goodbye like they do in the movies. I only remember looking at his wet feet in splashing waves, climbing up to the boat. Then the boat engine started to roar. Your father stood upright toward the west, facing the bay, where the sun disappeared. He didn't look back even once, until the rumbling sound could only be heard faintly as the boat disappeared behind the bay.

Your father. Late father, in a war that was never his wish.

Look at the sea, over there, where rows of mangrove and cliffs touch the sea -- that is the bay. Our place for celebration. Your father and I went there one morning, knowing that you are alive in my womb, a baby. That morning, the sky was clear after the rain at dawn, a rainbow arched low in the sky.

Your father rowed our little boat slowly. We brought hot coffee, canary nut bread, crushed sago, two mugs and a straw-mat. A few little birds flew past our heads, chirping.

There were colorful corals under the transparent blue water. And fish. Bright colored little fish were swimming among the corals. On the beach, we ate and talked and ate and talked until your father fell asleep by the mangroves. I lay down gazing upward at the sky, feeling myself and everything under the sky so sweet. I took the joy along with me, when the sun was right above our heads.

We rowed down the shore, heading for home. Water was splashing against the oar when I said to your father that I had a name for you.

Laluba.

"What if it's a male?" asked your father.

Laluba, I answered.

"If it's a female?"

Laluba. You will swim like the dolphins. Like the fishermen's children here. Their little bodies smell of salt. Burnished red hair with blond streaks, dark skin that is almost coppery like their fathers' who work bare-chested under the sun. In the morning, the children would run to the seashore, welcoming their fathers in loud cheers.

Fathers who brought them gifts of fish and other pretty creatures from the sea. Fathers, who left them later. Only a few came back ...

Originally published in Indonesian in Kalam cultural journal.