Chapter 1: Waves that wept
hmmm you want hear a story, thambi!?
This Akka will tell you about one, one of sorrow, of anger, of death, of changes, of life, of happiness...
It was the year of 2007, I believe.
That is how this story began.
A very small fishing boat, the kind that should never have left the shallow waters near the shore, was being thrown about in the middle of the dark sea. The waves rose like black walls and fell without mercy. Rain came in hard sheets, stinging the skin, filling the mouth with salt. The sky and the water had become one single, moving darkness. There was no horizon, no direction, only the constant lifting and dropping of the wooden hull and the sound of water trying to climb inside.
Under a torn blue tarpaulin that flapped and snapped in the wind, five people sat pressed tightly together. Their hands were locked, fingers white from holding on too hard, as if letting go would mean the sea would take them one by one. The boat rocked so violently that every few seconds someone would slide and then be pulled back by another’s grip.
The woman sat in the centre. Her name was Yazhini. She was thirty-two, though the sea and the fear had already begun to age her face. Her wet hair stuck to her cheeks and neck. The thin cotton saree she wore once a faded green with small yellow flowers, was now torn at the shoulder and heavy with water, clinging to her body like a second, colder skin. Around her chest she had tied a dirty white towel into a tight sling. Inside it, pressed against her heartbeat, was the one-year-old baby, Nila. The child made no sound. Only the rise and fall of the small body against Yazhini’s chest showed that she was still breathing.
Yazhini kept speaking, her voice low and steady even though her lips were trembling.
“It will be all right… this shower will pass. We will reach land soon. I will pray. Amman thayi will not leave us here.”
She kept repeating the words, more for the others than for herself. Her eyes stayed open against the rain, refusing to let the tears fall. If she cried now, the children would break.
Beside her, fourteen-year-old Kabilan sat with his knees pulled up, jaw tight, eyes burning. His thin shirt was soaked through and stuck to his ribs. Water ran down his face, but it was not only rain.
“We should never have left,” he said, voice cracking with anger. “We should have stayed and faced them. At least we would have died standing.”
Velupillai, the father, thirty-six years old and looking older that night, sat with his back against the side of the boat. His lanky frame shook with every wave. The moustache that usually made him look like a quiet man now dripped water onto his chest. He spoke without looking at anyone.
“If only I had more strength… more guts… none of this would have been necessary. I should have protected you. I should have found another way.”
Little Kayal, only eight, had buried her face in her mother’s side. Her small hands clutched the wet saree so hard that her knuckles were white. She was crying without sound at first, then the sobs came, shaking her whole body.
Yazhini reached out with one arm, still holding the baby with the other, and pulled both children closer.
“Dei Kabila, podum niruthu. Ni chinna payan nee, unaku onnum theriyathu. Mama onnum aagathu. Ellam sariyayirum. Paya payapadhadinlnga.”
(Dei Kabila, enough. You are still a child. Mama does not need this. Everything will be all right. Don’t be afraid.)
Her voice stayed calm, almost soft, even as the boat lifted high on a wave and slammed down again. For a short while the sea seemed to ease. The rain thinned. The violent rocking slowed to a heavy sway. Yazhini closed her eyes for half a second, whispering another prayer.
That was when it happened.
From the open side of the boat, something hard and sudden struck her on the side of the head. There was a dull, wet sound. Her body jerked. Warm blood mixed with the cold rain and ran down past her ear, across her cheek, into the corner of her mouth. She tasted iron.
Everything after that became haze.
Kabilan shouted her name. Velupillai lunged forward, almost falling into the water. Kayal’s crying turned into high, terrified screams. The baby against Yazhini’s chest began to wail for the first time that night. Hands grabbed at her, pressed against the wound, tried to stop the blood that kept coming. Voices overlapped, panicked, broken, calling her name again and again.
She felt herself slipping sideways. The tarpaulin above them flapped harder, as if the wind wanted to tear it away completely. Someone was pressing a cloth to her head. Someone else was holding the baby so she would not fall. The boat continued to rise and fall, indifferent.
Time became strange.
Later, how much later no one could say, the tarpaulin was gone. Perhaps the wind had finally taken it. The rain had stopped. Above them the sky had opened into a deep, clear black, and a full moon hung large and white, throwing silver light across the water.
The sea had quieted. The waves were still there, but they no longer tried to break the boat. In the distance, the dark line of land appeared. And on that land, alone against the night, a villa stood shining with soft yellow lights. It looked almost unreal, too still, too bright, after everything they had just survived.
On the shore, a little apart from the villa, a figure stood. The red tip of a cigar glowed once, then faded, then glowed again.
The boat drifted closer, carried by the last of the tide.
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