Dada 146

The prosecutor’s words and the thought that all would testify against me ran like the beat of a drum through my insides. I suppose when you look at it though what else could they have done. Shabela knew they were watching him for drugs. Iskra they had down for pimping and distributing. Even Jalima, they could tap into anything with her for association or waltzing the tax. I was glad the woman had been declined. Sometimes a defence is worse than a prosecution. This guy was tricky. And Mo, poor Mo, they would have him for the most heinous act on this island, a sodomite, an infidel. They would throw him to the wolves if he spent a day in prison or his buttocks were lovingly exposed to await the singing lash in the manner of which they like to administer here. None of them were to blame for their ‘confession’s’. It was what they did here, turn everyone against each other. The pirates in their brutality were the only ones with honour; little wonder the Rajahs had to kill them all to establish power. Before I went to live at Dada’s, my father was working in the up country on an estate where they process the palm oil. He brought a young man to the house one day, a Kalimantan whose eyes alone could tell you of the distress he had suffered. I could hear him sobbing in the spare room like Old Srino wept in his kitchen before the birds started to sing. My father had been missing for some time since we had eaten our dinner. My mother turned her face away when I asked where Da was. ‘ I’m sure he’ll be somewhere’ she said. ‘I expect the Indonesian has been misbehaving again’. ‘Your father has been very kind to those who come to work on that estate’ she said. I laughed.