Dada 90

I nodded at the floor. The man stopped. I was grateful. I was proud and stubborn and this is why I had to be beaten. I wanted to go back to the city. My home was from the sea pirates who had originally built the trading post; full of communists and anarchists although they didn’t know those names then. They were put down. Of course they were. They had to be.  

 “I’m too mixed”  Dada would  say before he came here .He said all seamen were the same by skin or creed and none of them knew different who sailed upon the water. My Ma, his daughter kept quiet at first but later she grew as strident as my Da. After she attended University she was worse. She shared my father’s dream.

 ‘He could have us caused this family a lot of trouble’ she said.

‘Did you ever love him’ I asked her once. I knew the secret.

She said, ‘ you should ask your Nana that.’ She was about to say something else but stopped. Her mother was long dead so there wasn’t much point. Things went cool with me afterwards. My first taste of the rattan cane saw to that.

 I held my hat out in front of me. I tried to walk quickly in my own shade. It flapped as I hurried. I  looked across at the doctor. He walked with great dignity, every gesture measured and purposeful.  The clouds gathered although the heat was still intense.  A few beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead, but he didn’t wipe them away.  It seemed as if the procession was moving more quickly now. All around me the landscape was still glaring. Suddenly it flooded in shadow. For a second the brightness was unbearable and then came the first welcome drops.