Dada 8

He wanted to go swimming. His wife and Iskra didn’t want to come along. The three of us went down to the beach and Mo jumped straight into the water.

Shabela and I waited a bit. He spoke slowly and I noticed he had the habit of ending everything he said with “and with the blessing of God”, even when he was actually adding nothing that changed the meaning of what he`d already said. Mo remarked about his wife.

 “She`s terrific and with the blessing  of God”.

It was a joke but Shabela didn’t see it. Then I stopped paying attention to this little life mannerism because I was thinking about how wonderful it was to be out in the sun, how the clouds were building and even if it wouldn’t be long before the rain came down in the purple laden blankets , it didn’t matter, even the rocks were  warm under my feet. 

Despite my eagerness to get into the water, I resisted for a while longer but Shabela finally said “Ready?” I dived in. Shabela walked slowly into the water and only started swimming when it was too deep to keep walking. He was doing the breast stroke, and rather badly, so I left him on his own and went to join Mo.

The water was warm and I was happy to be swimming. Mo and I swam far out, moving in harmony with each other and glad to be away from my Dada’s death.Once we were out in the open, we floated on our backs, as I gazed up at the sky; the sun dried away the last of the water that trickled down my face into my mouth. 

We saw that Shabela had gone back onto the rocks to stretch out beneath the sun and clouds. Even from a distance, he looked enormous. Mo wanted us to swim together. I got behind him so I could hold him around the waist and he swam forward using his arms while I helped him by kicking my legs. The gentle sound of the splashing water in the yellow morning light stayed with us for some time until I got tired and the bitter taste in my mouth returned. Then I left Mo where he was and swam back at normal pace, taking deep breaths. I stretched out on my stomach on the beach near Shabela and rested my head on the sand.

I told him “It felt good” and he agreed.