Dada 66

For now, it`s still a little as if Dada hadn’t died. After the funeral, however, it will be over and done with, a matter officially closed. I got the bus at two o`clock. It was very hot.

I felt a little strange because I had to go up to Jalima’s place yesterday to borrow a black tie. I also asked for a piece of red cloth to tuck in my sleeve. She lost her uncle a few months ago.

I ate at in silence at the market restaurant as I always do. Everyone felt very sorry for me, and Jalima said:

“You only have one Dada.” When I got up to leave, they walked me to the door.

Dada’s resting place is a country institute with a set of individual “homes” built around it`s perimeter All  of the dwellings are daubed in white or yellow or green like the different kampongs around our city districts.

‘Community is very important here as with all our customs’. The director told me.

Ha ha poor old Dada had gone back ‘home’; a  poor old man as conduit  between the sea Dayaks and conceived on a couch but never between the silk sheets of the ‘french’ house.

‘ Who would have my provenance ‘, he used to ask?

A bastard son passed  over to one of the Chinese tenants who posed as step dad and got Dada on the blue funnel boats. He stayed there more than twenty  years out of sight until the seamen’s strike.

‘The sea absolves everyone’ he said. 

After I had collected my various pieces of clothing and been fed, I ran to catch the bus. Rushing around, running like that, plus the bumpy ride, the smell of petrol, the sun`s glare reflecting off the road, all that must have been left behind me in my running was why I felt so drowsy. I slept for nearly the whole journey. When I woke up, I was leaning against a market woman who smiled at me and asked if I had come a long way. I said “Yes” so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore.