Laluba (Part 2 of 2)

Laluba (Part 2 of 2)

Nukila Amal

They've run short of men in the subdistrict. How strange; there
are not enough men in this world, a world of theirs.

The night of departure of more men. It was already late, but
our village did not sleep. People packed for the trip. Women
helped with anxious faces, children running around, supplies were
put in piles like harvests of clove and copra. I stood at the
beach, watching.

Not far from me, a group of elders was talking about
dismembered bodies, bodies thrown into the sea, about little
children who taken away ... Your father took me away from the
crowd. We sat on the trunk of a fallen tree, looking up at the
sky studded with stars. Your father said many men were injured...

The injured, the wounded, the dying. Here we are all dying, my
child.

Forgive me, Child. Memories come in flashes and I want to sink
them all down to the bottom of the sea, to the deepest ocean,
until none is left to surface.

What time is it? The sea has turned silvery gray. Only two or
three stars are left, shades of orange and crimson on the
horizon, promising the sun. I always love the morning and
afternoon sky. Sun, rising or sinking, the sky would look just
the same, tinted with soft hues. Burnt orange. Rosy pink. Blue.
Pale purple.

Gray. We never know the beginning or the end of something.
Time left unresolved ... You will learn how enchanting mornings
can be, my child.

I dreamed of you nights ago, a drowned little fish, you didn't
swim up to the surface. You were blazing white, while the ocean
changed colors from blue to red to green, showing you crystal
clear in its depth.

Above you, there was a large fish about to eat a medium size
fish about to eat a small fish. The jaws of those fish were open
wide with sharp teeth. I remember telling your father about the
dream the next morning.

Your father said something about our trip to the fish market
the afternoon before, a million shapes and colors of fish must
have flooded my mind, seeping into my dreams. Sitting on the
porch while sipping coffee, your father told stories about the
beginning of life on the ocean bed, about animals whose ancestors
are simple sea creatures, about a fish that breastfeeds its baby,
blind fish, sea ghosts in an image of big-eyed octopus, chasms
and troughs in the deep sea...

I imagine the abyss below, silently keeping the eternal dreams
of those archaic fish longing to crawl on the land. Do you dream?
Do you dream of reefs and abyss, of your mother, of human beings?
Maybe your dreams are without images, like the dreams of those
small blind fish found in the still water of caves, in the deep
abyss of the ocean or -- ... they are here ... at daybreak.
They've come.

Ah, you are kicking inside. Almost striking, I could feel your
tiny fists clenched in my belly. What do you worry about? Sssh,
ssshhh... stay calm. It's just a bomb. Or hand grenade, maybe. Do
you know that they could make a soundproof bomb using a coconut
shell?

Without an ear-deafening loud explosion, just the sound of
crackle in the shell. Then follow the cries and groans from
exploded skulls... Let us stand up. The mob, they are already at
the edge of the village. Their shouts are so loud and rude. Don't
listen to them, don't take their words to heart. They're used to
shouting at each other in the deep forest or amid the roaring
sea. Can you hear the voices?

Such noise... battering the eardrums. Yet I could still hear
the sea waves splashing, the cry of a bird from a tree somewhere.
Or is it the cry of a human being, I'm no longer sure. There's
some strange smell stirring and clinging in the air, not the
familiar salty smell of the sea nor the smell of wet grass, but
more like the stench of a slaughterhouse.

Which way are you gazing? I can feel your vision transcending
my skin. See how the coarse sand and the sea glisten like
sparkling diamonds. Dew on the tip of grass refracts light. The
sun has turned into a big crimson ball, silent, distant, from
these clamorous happenings.

How life holds one tightly in its gentle arms when death looms
nearby. I imagine you seeing the world for the first time.

Will you be relieved to leave the darkness and arrive in this
bright colorful world? You will be like me now, seeing colors on
their sharpest nuances, amazed at the shocking beauty. Everything
radiates with life. See them with luminous eyes, be enchanted,
be thrilled. My child, will you feel joy to see the world?

Or are you gazing back, toward the lumbering crowd out there?
They run and scatter and collide like live crabs trapped in wood
crates, like fish struggling to get out of the net. Their eyes
are open wide, bloodshot red, like those of fish unsold for days.
Black swirls of smoke cramming the air (I heard they never leave
anything out, nor anyone).

Fire, flaming orange, flares up more than the sun... Flaming
hatred flares up more than compassion.

Not the good, not the bad, but the clashed ones.

Forgive them, Child. Those men just never know how it feels to
carry life inside their bodies like a pregnant woman. They carry
death on their arms and fingers instead. Deadly weapons, clinking
and clashing noisily. ... yet all they are only victims, clashed
against each other. Maybe they do know that, half-know or don't
know or don't want to know.

But you have to know, Child. Because believing is never
enough, you could be deceived. In the end, helpless. Like me,
you, them, Halmahera, Moluccas, all.

An empty shell lies on the sand, as small as my thumb,
deserted. I will hold it up before my belly so you can observe it
closely. It once housed a little hermit crab. Such a beautiful
home, delicate whorls spiraling to the pointed apex. Its soft
orange color has faded from the washes of the salty water,
bleached, now dull white, opaque. The inhabitant must have
deserted it a long time ago.

Why did he leave? Maybe he felt too confined, the home no
longer a protection, has lost its meaning as a dwelling. Why
stay? He decided to leave, maybe back to the sea. He crawled upon
the sand, seaward... downward, finding another home in the ocean
depths. Yes, why stay, my child? They would not allow us to stay
here. This beautiful village, like any other place, was never
built to last forever. Let us leave.

To the sea. Only the sea liberates. All wanderings and
meanderings of rivers end here. No origins nor traces nor colors.
All are alike. Blue sea. Open wide. Calm. Here droplets of water
mingle and drift and break into waves, toward the seashore,
upward to the sky. Blue sky.

...what was that? Something just flew over me and plunged into
the water, not far from my arm. Let me find it...

Ah, an arrow. Missed the target. Maybe the same thing is
piercing my shoulder. It doesn't really hurt, feels just like a
peck from cockatoo. We will pull it out... there's blood on the
arrow's tip. Sharp red. Mine. Luckily the arrow didn't hit my
abdomen, you could get hurt in there.

Child, turn around and take a look at him. The archer, he
stands up straight among blades of grass. He couldn't bring
himself to take his bow up for another shoot, the bow is hanging
down limply from his grip.

Maybe because I am smiling at him. He looks tired and
handsome, with the tartan shirt most teens wear nowadays. A mere
few years of living have qualified him to feel the right and
obligation to finish us off, that youthful Izrail.

I'll throw this arrow away. Do not cry, sweet child. You've
grown now, almost eight months, be brave. Let's move on. The arms
of the sea are welcoming us, embracing up to my knees. I promise
this will not hurt. Me, you, the young archer, all of us will die
anyway. It's only the matter of the way.

One never knows the face of death appearing before one. I just
don't want their evil hands to rip my stomach open and seize you
away from me, you, my beloved sanctity, never to be stained. You
cannot die that way, it would be too painful for you. I will save
you.

Beloved, pretty little fish in the sea of my womb, Laluba.
With you, I am complete. I am everything I ever wanted to be:
child, pupil, worker, wife, mother, woman, witness. Early doom,
my baby, is your mind teeming with questions?

Why are your breasts drenched in water, Mother, why do the
rose-apple blossoms in your hair drifts away in the waves, why
the shell loosens from your clutch, why do you destroy me?

Will you believe my answer, a reason of all reasons. Will you
have faith in me?

Because I love you. For eons of my living soul, never have I
desired to kill this body, to last this once and too beautiful a
life. Please allow me to save you, even though I must die.

Is this enough, Child? Because of my love for you, larger than
my love for life.

... What I have witnessed along the way, I will witness in the
depth.

To You, to whom all prayers and questions are addressed, from
wretched souls on the verge of death on unkind nights, thousands
of broken murmurs and whispers floating skyward. Will another
prayer have meaning? Or will this one be another absurd attempt.
I'm tired of praying, those prayers were not even for me, but for
all the wretched ones.

And for the ones who have faith in You but fail to keep the
same faith for other human beings. This is my last prayer, a
prayer for all the unborn children...

So silent. Warm. Sunshine seeps down here, crystal blue water.
Bluer shades, sapphire blue, greyish. Turning dark gray,
greenish, pure green. A school of little fish comes whirling
about, they don't look perplexed. I see silhouettes, behind
them... silhouettes, rising and floating.

Men... Their faces pale, white, blue, purple. They are looking
at us, not blinking, not speaking, only their hair and fingers
and shirts are swirling...

Ah, I could see your father. He is coming toward us, flying
among the men. See his hair, streaming like a horse's mane, his
tattered shirt swaying like anemones. He gazes at you with a
beaming face and a smile as white as clouds -- he is smiling at
you, who are still curling shyly in your dark sac.

Take his hand, Child, his open palm is soft and white, holding
up a rose-apple for us. A ripe one. Take the fruit, it tastes
sweet and pink and fresh, mouth watering, taste it, swallow it
deep, deeply...

Originally published in Indonesian in Kalam cultural journal.