Two Moons and a Sunshine
Years ago, there was a house on a field. A boy and his mother lived there with their oppressive patriarch; an elephantine character they called poverty.
A day came and the mother asked her son, 'Child, go graze the cows and quick before the moon shows his face here!'. The boy did so and with a tired heart grazed the cows out in the field by the house. As he did so he began to think. And he thought about freedom. A freedom that he never had but a freedom that was his to have. He thought about this freedom more and his feet began to itch. Suddenly, he found himself running, simply to relieve the itch in his feet. And as he ran more he felt himself closer to this freedom that he had thought about. He was getting closer with every step. He was almost at the edge of the field when he looked back to see the desolate house that poverty ruled over.
He ran away that day with out an intention of ever returning.
He reached a town where he saw a young woman, a tender beauty of sixteen, and he married her. Only because it seemed that she too wanted to run away. And that she did. They ran away together. First from the town and then the province and in to a boat away from the country. Only to stop in a land where they were not welcome which they chose to call home. There, they had a daughter.
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My mother and father are illegals. I am not because I was born here. Sometimes I look at them and wonder why they have chosen to live here. We are poor and we are black and we are not welcome here. I tell my mother this everyday and she says with a sigh, 'Mayra, at least we are breathing, and we are eating and living!'.
I do not understand her.
My father I see only at night. He drives a bus all day and comes home smiling and looks at my worried eyes and says ' Mayra, my dear, for us there is only survival'. He pauses here then says ' It is enough to be breathing, eating and living'. He takes a sip of mother's soup, the same one she makes for us everyday then he exclaims, 'at least we are free'. He and my mother exchange amorous looks and laugh manically. Then mother sighs and father smiles.
It is not enough. To be breathing, eating and living is not living. It is existing. In the books I read even the words seem to be more alive than we ever will be. I tell father this and he says, ' If I could read my child I will judge that for myself'. Again he says, 'at least we are free!'.
I go to school where I am the only one with wild wooly hair. Everyone touches it to see if it is real. Then they all walk away to leave me in miserable solitude. In the playground, I see my classmates running and laughing and talking to each other, with their friends. Of course, I have none. That, I tell myself, is freedom. To watch the world go by in the distance and to be hated because of black skin and wooly hair is not.
I remember one day I was thirsty and I asked my teacher for water. I must have said it so softly because she ignored me. I returned to my cold corner in the playground and drank my tears. To be alone, I knew, was not to be free.
I was still crying when I came home that day. Mother handed me a glass of water and sighed. I cried harder. She sighed even louder, 'Mayra, at least we are breathing, eating and living and that is enough'. I cried louder so her words would not touch me she must have noticed because she added, 'one day you will see'.
I was so angry I sulked all day, all night then for days, then weeks, then ten years passed and I was still sulking. I was angry at them for forcing me to live this way. To breathe and to eat and live was not worth the pain this place had inflicted on me.
'I want to go away', I said one night.
'Where', asked my father smiling in his usual way. My mother sighed with disappointment.
'I want more', I paused to see their faces in the candlelight by the wall. ' I want to go to a place where I will be loved.'
'You are loved here!', my father rebutted. Again, Mother sighs only louder and angrier.
'I want to love a man who loves words in a place where my wooly hair does not cause people to run away and where I am really free!', I saw my father’s smile change in to an inconsolable frown and my mother's sigh became a wail.
My father, defeated, finally said,' If that is your wish...'
He stood up abruptly, almost as if he was in a rush, then he began to run. He ran out of the door, out of the building and in to the street. My mother began to sigh with greater frequency. She collapsed in to a daze. She did not move for days.
We never saw father again. Mother never cried for him she just sighed with a heavier gust of wind leaving her lungs. Her wooly hair lost its black tint and soon it became speckled with gray. She became thinner and more withdrawn. Her soup become bland and her voice began to lose its tenderness. Then she would say, in between her endless sighing, 'At least we are breathing, eating and living' and with a confused look she would whisper, 'That is enough'.
I saw my mother wither away in the years that followed my father's absence. Soon her sighs became coughs that disintegrated in to wheezes. When the wheezes become bubbles of blood, I went to get help.
Dr. Mahmoud was not really a doctor. He sold vegetables at the back of his car to neighbourhood mothers who preferred to starve just to see their children eat well. He had a medical degree on his wall from the University of Morocco but he never practiced after he ran away.
He came in and felt her breathing and shook his head. 'Sigh for me', he asked and my mother shook her head in return.
'She cannot do that anymore', I said quietly so she could not hear my fear.
He felt her chest, poked and prodded around her body and shaking his head all through the examination. When he was done he ran his fingers through his brown curls and said with pity in his green eyes, 'Your mother may die soon'.
I handed him the last of my earnings as a waitress down the road. 'Thank you for your help, doctor', I stared at him waiting to see if he would take his words back.
But all he said was,' I am truly sorry, Mayra'. And with that he left.
I looked at mother and I told her of her fate,' Mother, you are going to die'. I began to cry hysterically on her weak chest. She looked at me with the same eyes she did all those years ago when father sat beside us at the kitchen table, 'Mayra, my dear, at least you are breathing, eating and living'.
I continued crying when she kissed my forehead and said, 'and you will be free when I leave you...'. Her words faded to a whisper and I pretended not to hear.
That night I left for work with a sense of resignation. For the first time in my life I was numb. This lack of feeling scared me. I wanted it to go away. The pain, I thought, would comfort me.
The restaurant where I worked was a small cramped room with leaking walls and the never ending stench of the daily special. The manager was an old illegal who spent so much his life fighting that he spoke with a husky and choleric brogue. He was Irish and he did not like being oppressed.
There were days when his anger became him, usually on days when a regular would exclaim the latest misfortune of a neighbourhood mother like the murder of the Mansour boy or the rape of Sladjana girl or even more recently the battering of the Esi children on their way back from school. 'The locals did all this', someone would say, 'just to chase us away?'.
Here, the angry Irish patron of our four walls would bang a table, kick a chair, or break a cup and with his face burning with crimson discontent he would yell,' One day, we'll kill them all!'.
I enjoyed the loudness of the restaurant, the familiarity of the regulars, and our common struggle to breathe, eat and live. But I still wanted more. Ever since father left, I was forced to make peace with what I had, for mother's sake.
That night a new visitor came to the restaurant. You could tell by his straw yellow hair and cold blue eyes that he was one of the locals. He sat at one of my tables and I cringed. I was afraid of the locals because of what they had done to me and the countless grieving mothers in the district. I looked at my Irish boss for help but he nodded in approval. He wanted to see what the local wanted.
'What can I get for you', my voice quivered, 'Sir...'. My fear must have been obvious because just then he looks up and says,’ A black coffee with brown sugar'.
I do not understand and I look at him for further instruction. He begins to laugh a short and passionate laugh that could match my boss's bitter rants in volume. The laugh became staccato then ended in whispered wheezes. Then he smiled, I remembered father just then.
I am angry now, 'What do you want, Sir...'.
'Just get me something that will quench my thirst and silence my stomach', he says forlorn.
I place an order for black tea and the Chinese chef's daily special. And I watched him from a far. He was reading a book and as he read he smiled and frowned and whispered to himself. It was as if he was having a conversation with a story within the book's pages. He seemed content for a man of his age. There were strips of gray in his straw yellow hair and his eyes looked tired as though they had blinked for long enough. If he could love my wild wooly hair and my black skin, I thought, then I could love him back. He seemed like what wanted, a man who loved words.
I handed him his order then he held my hand tight. 'Wait', he said with a smile,' Sit with me'. I was not afraid now because I wanted to know about the story he was reading and the words that he let come free as he read them.
He looked at my hair for a long time. 'Can I touch it', he asked. I agreed. He caressed my knotted curls on my rebellious mane then he took my arm and kissed it. The boss saw all this and banged a table. The restaurant stood still and I was startled by my audacity.
I walked to the kitchens and began to cry. The Chinese chef handed me a bowl of soup and sent me home.
I walked home thinking of the stranger. His straw yellow hair, his cold eyes then his warm hands and his soft voice. I wanted to see him again.
I walked slowly tonight, quiet and still steps because I imagined that he would come for me. Slower and still became my breathing. The stranger man was mine, I felt. I saw us running away from the district to a place where other locals would not run away from my hair. A place where I would feel loved and I would love with equal measure until my wild wooly hair became lame and lost its colour then began to disappear slowly because it had lived its life and I mine. I was smiling at this vision of freedom when a hand pressed on my back.
'Hello', said the stranger. I smiled at him hoping my tenderness will cause him to stay.
'I am Mayra', I said before he asked, ' What is your story about', I was pointing to the book in his hands. He lifted it closer to my view. It was a copy of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. He shrugged his shoulders, 'I don't know'.
My eyes let him know that I did not understand, 'I enjoy it because I do not understand it', he replied.
We walked to end of the street. He looked at me and said,' Mayra, come with me'.
I said, 'Yes, I will come with you if you will take me to a place where my wooly hair will not cause people to run away'.
He nodded as if to say he understood. He took my hand and I went with him that night to this place where I would be loved.
I did not remember Mother.
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We were in a car now driving so fast the night sky seemed a blur. My hair danced in those winds of freedom. I was so happy to be with him.
I wanted to know where we were going.
'We are going to a place with no name', he says calmly, 'I am the king there'. My heart danced; I was with a king. 'Many people respect me there, I am a rich man and I have many people working for me', I held his hand tight.
I remembered then that I did not know his name, 'What do they call you, your highness?'.
'Pimp', he smiled, ' and you, my dear, will rule over my harem as my whore'
He began to laugh and then I did too because I could not believe a word he had said. No pimp would travel all the way to the district to find a girl like me. My wooly hair, I thought, would scare his clients away. He was joking again, I felt, like he was about not understanding the book he was reading because the look in his eyes seemed to say differently.
We reached the Pimp's dominion. It was on old building in a town with no name. There were women everywhere sickly looking, tired and sad. They looked as though they had died over and over again. They were not living as mother would have said. We walked up endless numbered stairs to a room that he called my own. He pushed me in and I hit the ground with a startling realization of my fate.
The room was in constant darkness even when the sun would shine. Sometimes the sunshine would run in to the room through slits in the wood covering the windows. The light would dance in circles and rest at my feet. I would remember how when I was so very young and the sunshine would enter through the shutter windows that mother would close to cool the flat. She would sigh at the sight of the strips of light. She would hand me a jar and smile,' Look Mayra the light is running to you'. I would rush to the dancing rays and ask why they were coming to me then she would sigh,' because they are running away from the moon!'. I sealed the sunshine in the jars and kept them in our bedroom so the moon would never find them there. But the sunshine always disappeared because the moon would come for them anyway and I was left with empty jars to continue the sisyphean task another day. When I asked my mother why the sunshine always seemed to run away she would say in between sighs, 'because they are free to'.
Salty. The first time tasted of salt and with each thrust I needed a glass of water. I felt as though the thirst would kill me. But I stayed silent as I remembered the only other time I felt this way. I was a child but old enough to understand my own independence. Father took us to the sea. He was running up and down the shore with a smile across his face. Mother watched and sighed as I took a step closer to the sea.
'Be careful, Mayra!', she would sigh louder. Father would run to her and with a peck on her cheek relieve her worry.
I remember walking in to the cold sea, jumping and kicking waves in my way. I walked a little further and I hit a crevice and I slid in to cold cold waters. I remember sinking because I was trying to escape. I called for Mother then Father but I just drank more salt and I slid further in to the sea. I was engulfed by the water and I was began making my peace as I drank in more water. The thought of dying never occurred to me then. But it was a fate I was willing to accept.
I felt a hand feel for me in the liquid. It was Mother sighing as she rescued me. 'There you are', she exclaimed relieved at my survival. She embraced me as my father ran towards us laughing at the episode that just took place. 'Mayra, these waters brought us here and these waters will take you away from us', he pecked my mother on the cheek, 'But not today'.
I watched the sea from my mother's lap that day and I could feel its strength even then. I could not run away from it. It was a strange kind of helplessness because I consented to it. I did not even try to run away from it. My mother's sighing made me forget.
I drank the salt in my sweat and tears. I drank the salt in the countless strangers I found in my bed who would pull my hair and make me cry. In a drunken daze one or the other would say, 'I love you'. But I knew it was not true. The stranger with the straw hair had disappeared from my life just as he had came. And I was a dead woman.
And then my belly began to swell and he came to me again. 'Mayra, kill the bastard', he said.
I did not understand why a child would have to die because his father had forced me to drink his salt. And because, I, his mother was raped in order to birth him.
'No', he hit me,' I will not kill this child I want it to breathe, eat and live like I used to!'. My voice was shattered with the next slap. He held me tight. He, too, tasted of salt and smelled of burned carcases and hopelessness.
'Kill it or I will kill you, Mayra‘, he paused to bellow out a bitter laughter, ' Can you see you do not live anymore so stop dreaming!'
I was sent out in to the streets alone to rid myself of the tumour in my insides before dawn. That night I remembered Mother and her constant sighing how she would sigh softly when father was around so that he would not discover her anguish. I remembered her worry for me in her incessant sighing. I knew then how much I was loved by the two illegals. And how they came to this strange land so I could breathe easy, eat better and live like they never had. And with them I was free.
I stopped at a bench by the park wondering how I would kill my child because I did not know how to run away.
'What is wrong, girl?', I did not see the old man come. I looked at him puzzled. 'You seem afraid, you have a lofty look on you. You are upset!', he coughed.
'I am a slave', dejected I said,' I used to know love in a place where I was revered because of my wild wooly hair and I fell in love with the freedom of the words that I had read'.
“What happened', he coughs again.
'I ran away', silence,' because I thought that I met a man who would save me. He lied to me and now I am here.'
'Who are you?', asked the man untouched by my sorrow.
I did not understand his question so I looked up to see if he could explain.
'Who are you?', and his tone became tender just as my mother's had been before my father went away.
'I am a whore and I will be a murderer before the end of the night', I said this with all the inhumanity I had latent in my being since the first time I was raped. It was an anger that one cannot escape; it is a deep shame and a incurable disbelief in the Almighty.
'Is that so', he seemed to be smiling in the darkness,’ You seem different in person.'. Then, he coughs again.
'Are you a criminal?', I ask because I know he is like the many men who invaded my bed in the darkness to pull my hair and make me cry only to laugh with each salty tear that I shed.
'No', he says, 'I am thief'.
“I have no money', I sneer at him.
“That I can see', then he added,' besides I do not steal from women like you'.
'Why?'.
Silence.
“Because you have nothing', a pause, 'nothing that I could take away at least'.
'Then who do you steal from?'
He coughs then clears his throat. He takes out a box of snuff and takes it in a whiff.
'I would offer you some but seeing as you are with child…’, he coughed some more.
I sat silence to watch what he would do or say next.
He pinched his nose then he said, ' I saw a man die once in a city far from here'. A cough, a sniff and pinch of the nose.' He was running, running so fast he could not see ' . He gave me a piercing look. 'He ran as if he knew where he was going'. He sighed,' But he could not see where he was going and a bus threw him to the other end of the street and he did not survive'. He took out his snuff again, 'he was an illegal you see so they did not want to save him, they left him there until the garbage truck took him away that night and the fire brigade washed his blood from the street'. 'I walked by the man that afternoon’, he laughed, ‘all the other locals were afraid and I saw this in his hand', he pulled out an old book from his breast pocket.' It was this bloody book!', he laughs again at this macabre humour. His laughter becomes a wheeze then he said,' I cleaned it up to find this written on the inside'.
I took the book and examined the fading inscription. The script was laboured but thoughtful like a child's with a letter that pointed in the direction of the wind and others the direction of the sun. It said in this savage script, 'My dear, Mayra'.
'And that is not all', said the old man his breathing more laboured,' I found this within'.
He hands me a train ticket also fading and bloodied like the book.
'What is it?', I ask my lips quivering.
'It is a ticket to Marsielle, to the sea!', he shouts drunken with a nostalgia known only to him and his god.
'What is there in Marsielle?', I ask.
He laughs, 'What is there Marseille!', he mocks me with a few more coughs. 'They say the sea there can make you disagree with yourself!'. He is laughing now,' And the wild waves will take where you wish'. A few more coughs and wheezes,' You go to Marseille to run away then to find your darkest desires but you will always return to where you belong'
'Why would you chose to return?'
'Because Marseille was never yours to have, to take. You go to Marseille not to stay but to go away again', and with this begins a deadly silence.
I break the silence, 'What would take you to Marseille?'
'I do not know', a sneeze, 'it is different for every person'.
'What if someone tells you to go there', I sound desperate, 'What then?'. I try my luck, ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’
He is not happy now, 'Hush, girl!', he begins to laugh, 'You ask too many questions!, Do I believe in coincidence? No!'
‘Why?’
‘Because there is only truth…’, a sneeze, 'Listen, if you want to know about Marseille go there for yourself!', he handed me the ticket.
'It leaves tomorrow at dawn', I say.
'I know, I have known for five years!', he smiled in the darkness just as Father had done before he left us. 'Just go, I am sure your wooly hair would enjoy the escape'. He let out a exaggerated laugh and he said,' For now just look at the sky and count the stars that you can see'.
'Why would I do that?'
' Because you are like me, a dead man and this’, he points at the sky above, ‘will be the last sky you see'. 'It enough to name and count all those stars so that you have something to live for', he pauses, 'It is enough and soon you will understand'.
He took out the dated stolen book with the foreboding dedication to someone with a name like mine. It was a copy of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.
'Have you read that book?', I say startled at fate's coincidence.
'Yes, but I did not understand it', He flips through the pages and begins a stream of Roman numerals whilst looking at the stars. He could sense my confusion and he says, ' I have just counted twelve thousand!, Look!'. He flips through the volumes of Proust's masterpiece which are defaced by roman numerals in crude black ink. 'I started counting after I found this book. I have a feeling I will be finished soon'.
I helped the old man count the stars and that night we counted and counted but we barely could reach thirteen thousand.
He got up abruptly, 'I must go now, my child'. He coughs heavily,' But you must remember despite what this life has given you there was a time where you could just breathe, eat and live with out any difficulty. At least you were once free. And you can count the stars to remind you of meaning but that cannot take the place of true freedom!', he kissed my forehead, 'Do not forget you have a train to catch!'.
And with that he bid me farewell.
It was almost dawn when I made my way to the train station to use the ticket to Marseille. I would care for my child in the salty air of Marseille. I would love it as my parents loved me in the sordid shadow of their identity.
I heard a familiar voice call my name, 'Mayra!'. I kept walking because I would not miss the train.
'You wooly-haired whore where do you think you are going!', the straw-yellow-haired stranger called to me. I kept walking, dawn was coming and the train to Marseille was leaving soon.
'Stop!', I did not.
It was then that I heard a tremor in the sky and the birds began to stir. Then a fire burned my spine and pained my chest. I felt cold and I knew then that my child had just died. I fell to the ground still breathing. He turned me over to see him as I breathed my last.
The Pimp who I thought was my salvation had murdered me. He let out a burning wail.
'This is what you wanted!', he said this with a smile.
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There is a certain sweetness in death that the living cannot understand. This sweetness is not defined by a good end or a bad one, a wanted or an unwanted death. It is the just the end and with it comes an odd understanding of the beginning.
You see, years ago, there was a house on a field. A boy and his mother lived there with their oppressive patriarch; an elephantine character they called poverty.
A day came and the mother asked her son, 'Child, go graze the cows and quick before the moon shows his face here!'. The boy did so and with a tired heart grazed the cows out in the field by the house. As he did so he began to think. And he thought about freedom. A freedom that he never had but a freedom that was his to have. He thought about this freedom more and his feet began to itch. Suddenly, he found himself running, simply to relieve the itch in his feet. And as ran more he felt himself closer to this freedom that he had thought about. He was getting closer with every step. He was almost at the edge of the field when he looked back to see the desolate house that poverty ruled over.
He ran away that day with out an intention of ever returning.
He reached a town where he saw a young woman, a tender beauty of sixteen, and he married her. Only because it seemed that she too wanted to run away. And that she did. They ran away together. First from the town and then the province and in to a boat away from the country. Only to stop in a land where they were not welcome which they chose to call home. There, they had a daughter.
Years past and their daughter became a woman who understood the need to run away. She told them one night as they drank a fiery bowl of pepper soup. The boy, now a man and her father, was afraid. Afraid that she too would run away never to return just as he had done to his mother. And so he ran to find the one thing that would make her return: nostalgia. But he never returned to the wife that he loved so dearly who sighed only because she could no longer run as they had done in their youth. And he never returned to the daughter who despised the sacrifices he had made. His absence killed his wife who only chose to run away so she could be with him. The daughter they birthed also ran away but in the wrong direction and when she realised the error in her navigation it had already killed her.
She lay there, arrived at last to the freedom was never her’s but was her’s to have.
She looked at the sky above to count away her final moments of breathing, eating and living but there was only the moon and a single star in the sky watching her in the narrow infinity called the sky.
It was enough.
THE END.
M. Shabaya, September 2010
