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.