Dada Two 15

Chapter Two

It was annoying to have to explain everything to Mo and Shabela’s wife. They told me the little woman in blue was leaving. She wanted to see me before she went away.

‘I wouldn’t speak of your Dada before when they kept putting him in jail but now he’s dead, it’s different’ she said.

‘God rest his soul. It’s different. He’s done his penance in time for the world to know what it’s like to be a sea Dayak in this fugitive territory’ .

I didn’t say anything. I imagined Srino’s missing bird flying over the water, too high or too low with its scaly wings his oiled carapace cheating disease or death until the sun would rise higher and consume him.

The woman reminded me of a little bird that continues to sing its way through life. Her mouth rose and fell like a beak as the stories cascaded out of her in little hurried starts. The explosion was over as sudden as it had begun. She looked exhausted as if she was already beyond her time. Her face sagged.

‘Remember,’ she said, ‘it’s what is on the inside that counts’

I watched her crawl away across the foreshore like a crab.