Dada 171

No ‘I told him, ‘No’. He slowly drew his hand along the wall so as his fingers left traces along the block as if he might trace the light that might reside there like mine had once sketched across all the islands of this archipelago they call the greater Sunda. ‘Do you really love these earthly things so much’ he asked. I did not answer him. All of sudden he exploded in a way much stronger than the detective for he was a quieter and more contained man.It made the paroxysm all the greater. His face puffed up and the eyes grew bright in their dark sockets. ‘No, No, No I refuse to believe it. Do you not see there is a life that comes after us and is there before us for those who prepare. The sloughing away of the human body is nothing but preparation for the spirit to come‘. ‘Of course I had’, I told him. ‘Everyone has that wish at times but that was just the same as wanting to be rich or to swim very fast or to catch the best looking dancer at a dance’ Maybe the way he looked then, sad, contrite, even upset, I felt sorry a bit for him. What was about to break inside me also became suddenly quiet. The insults I was about to hurl, the wasted holy prayers I kept from shouting, to burn rather than to disappear, all this I kept within me, all the ecstasy and joy and rage I felt bursting inside, I kept quiet. I made no sound as if all of his pieties could be worth than more than one afternoon on the beach. I would not have cared who came to the room then, even the executioner himself, I would have taken him. He held to his own life but to me it was death. If my hands were empty now and my fate assured, his hopes and wishes had not done me down. I had seized life. I had seized upon what was around and was not intended but what had happened anyway. I had acted one way and it had not been otherwise. And what did it mean? Maybe since Dada’s funeral and the extinguishing of his own holy flame I had been waiting for this, waiting for the moment to rise before me like a pirate within a storm, his ship beyond any harbour wall. ‘Let’s talk about the Dada ‘I said when my father returned to the room from his sojourn upstairs with the Kalimantan. My mother started to get up from her chair to go to the walk through to the kitchen. She always did that. I lay my hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Not this time ma’ I said.