The Dragonfly Sea

by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

  The men waited for the dour stranger’s reaction:

  Nothing.

  For now.

  The women returned to gossiping about some woman who, it seemed, had not only fornicated publicly and given birth to a bastard, but had also then threatened to commit suicide when asked to reorder her life, and persisted in her unchaste lifestyle; to compound everything, she had recently bewitched an apostate and co-opted him in her dilapidation. The eavesdropping man felt his sacrifice deeply: to endure lewd heretics, infidels, and syncretists for the sake of realizing a new order. He glowered when one of the underdressed women cackled an infidel song, flirting with the boat captain. He told himself that if he had not needed to hide he would not even be here.

  The fugitive strolled onto Pate Island, a thunderbolt that would strike an old, grand tree down from its roots. He took the island hospitality as his right. But within a year, he saw and fell in love with a Pate girl—shy, docile, alluring, dainty, and enamored of his stern graciousness. They got married. In time, he gathered youthful men around a football team he named Kabul, without telling the islanders that he had lived and fought there. He turned every sports practice into a religion lesson; he called his players mujahidin. He anointed the goal posts “paradise.” He stopped the game for prayer.

  Fazul’s honeyed voice was tinged with Egyptian accents, switched “p”s and “b”s, and replaced “th”s with “zh”s. Fazul wa Misri—Fazul the Egyptian—the island called him behind his back. Fazul prayed over everything. His convoluted knowledge of the sacred perplexed even the sheikhs. In conversations, he was always reasonable, even if he chided islanders for their heretic ways. He offered to destroy the tombs of dead saints. Idolatry. Most dismissed Fazul as they did all transitory madmen. Every so often, some ultra-fervent would-be prophet would sail into town to impose nasty gods upon this arcane, wise, and easygoing land. The hospitable land listened with one ear, and waited for Pate time to penetrate the zealot, who either succumbed or left.

  * * *

  —

  Fazul the Egyptian stayed three years. Then, one night, in the middle of the rainy season, he disappeared. But two and a half months later, on August 7, 1998, at 10:35 a.m., in Nairobi and 10:39 a.m. in Dar es Salaam, bombs exploded and incinerated more than two hundred lives. A then obscure extremist asked, “Why complain? It was only kaffirs who were killed.”

  * * *

  —

  After Fazul, a plague, an alien army, landed with force on Pate. Two hundred pairs of marching army boots churned the black sand. Armed strangers came to look for Fazul the Egyptian, who had gone. Even so, they yelped questions: “What do you know, who do you know?” “Where are they?” The howlers hurled themselves upon ancient doors, upending ancient lives, smashing things, smashing the hearts of a people they would never get to know. This was also how Pate discovered that the country that had appended itself to them had given them over to darkness. The fresh invaders accused and judged and roughed up even Almazi Mehdi for not answering their bizarre English questions fast enough. They tore his blue vest. He bled, from his punched-up mouth. Thickset, thin-minded, empty-souled creatures who seized market women’s baskets to search for weapons of mass destruction; who shoved fingers down the mouths of gasping fish in hopes of finding secreted codes, and screeched like demented ibis day and night, and cocked guns at unexpected sounds. On an island whose fabric was interwoven with eternity’s ghosts, uncanny sounds were legion. The marauders would later seize two consolation prizes: Fazul’s wife’s brother and her old father, both fishermen, who left in chains. They would be locked up in a distant Mombasa prison cell. A brutal inquisition would follow, for they did not understand what was required of them when they were informed that they were “terrorists.” Sentenced to serve two and a half years in prison. For the inquisitors were unable to endure a simple human truth: that Fazul, the man, had fallen in love with a Pate fisherman’s sister, a Pate fisherman’s daughter. These post-Fazul arrivals were not the first presumptive ghouls that had hoped to contain the island, nor would they be the last to leave, as others had, bereft. Maji yakija hupwa—When the tide has risen, it also falls.

  * * *

  —

  Anyway.

  * * *

  —

  To this day, on the island, rumors still circulate to explain abrupt human absences. Here is one: A quick-growing eight-and-three-quarters-year-old girl as thin and long as a praying mantis was hunting for crabs in low-tide shallows. Lost in her searching, she did not see the stern-faced stranger in a white kanzu watching her. She turned. Unused to obscure danger, she misread the presence, and assumed the hospitality that was of her bloodline.

  She bowed her head. “Shikamoo.”

  He replied, “Marahaba.”

  She saw eyes made of magnetic, solid emptiness. She turned back to her crabs, reached for and almost netted a medium-sized orange one that snapped at her with its pincers.

  “Crabs?” asked the stranger.

  Ayaana whispered, “A big one.”

  He said, “Sweet illusions.” The stranger reached down to shake her hand, which he twisted and turned so she was staring at her palm. His voice was soft, soft. “There she is. God’s little martyr,” he murmured. “Chosen. So warm, so beautiful. A good, warm, clever girl, dear to God. Little martyr.”

  Ayaana’s chin dropped. Tears filled her eyes; she was sad about unknown things. She could not move. Then a stream of wind scattered cool seawater on her face. She stretched out her arms, suddenly alert. When she looked again, the man had gone.

  But from then on, he somehow knew how to find her when she was alone, and he spoke to her with a tender smile. “God’s little martyr,” he greeted her, “I’m sorry for you.”

  She asked, “Why?”

  “You are a gem in a nest of apostates, adulterers, and infidels.” She listened, lethargic, unsure what to do next. “But your life is assured.” The hazy questions droned into her night rest, dismantling her sleep. “Chosen child.” Words bounced inside her skull like incomplete songs, repeating in a loop; she thought of the heavy-voiced man, his tenderness, and the softness that had not once entered his eyes.

  He found her again the next evening. “You know you are going to do right.” No answer. “Little martyr, scent of paradise, soldier of eternity.” No answer. “You are good, you are right. You are brave.” No answer. “You’ll purify filth. Your mother, forgiven, freed. How happy she’ll be. Free because of her daughter’s courage, and the apostate will change his ways, or the way will change him.” The shadow of a smile appeared on his face. “You want that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Ayaana nodded.

  His voice hovered and fell, slithering all over her. She was paralyzed. She could only hear him. He said, “I’ll help you.”

  She stared, eyes on the dark prayer bump on his pale forehead. He said, “You feel alone. I know.” Her body shook. “No one looks for you when you hide. Unwanted. Unsought. Poor little one.” Large tears reached her mouth. “Poor child.”

  The tears dropped on Ayaana’s dress.

  “There, there. You will triumph, little beautiful one. You’ll be victorious over those who hate you. You’ll be in paradise, a martyr before them. They will honor you. They will praise you.”

  Ayaana sighed.

  The man’s eyes glowed. Tears filled his eyes. “Poor, good child.” He leaned over to wipe her tears with a white handkerchief, adding, “But you’re chosen, warm flower of paradise.”

  Warmth crawled under Ayaana’s skin, and insinuated itself into pauses between her thoughts. Cold words lingered. Words became incantations, leaching out her will, syllable by syllable. Mesmerizing chants, some of which she was soon mouthing back to the low-voiced man, speaking them to him as if she were falling sleep. She would not remember how she returned home, or when. Although she was young, and on her island this was not exp
ected of her, Ayaana soon took one of her mother’s buibuis to shroud her body. She took to praying most of the day, head pressed into the earth, the rocks, and the floor—starting over if she was afraid she had been facing a degree off east. She dashed away from Muhidin and ceased speaking to her mother, without understanding why, feeling as if her life were flowing out and her heart was always exhausted.

  On their next encounter, the man oozed sadness. “The loneliness of the Almighty, the loneliness of the Holy One,” he repeated.

  Ayaana said, “Muhidin…he knows Almighty.”

  The man fixed his eyes on her and said gently, “I am your teacher. You do not speak until I say you can.” His smile broadened as he spoke. He sighed. “The Almighty needs a brave soldier to deliver His gift of wrath.” A broken guffaw.

  “What’s ‘wrath’?”

  He tapped her wrist, seized her upper arm. “The victory.” And the stranger laughed. Though his voice was still soft, the sound was the most alien noise Ayaana had ever heard. Drifting, drifting. The man bent his head to whisper again, and his face loomed larger than her vision, and something in his eyes made her think of drowning—until he made a mistake. He said, “You’ll renounce the kaffir, the apostate, Muhidin. You are God’s slave destined for paradise…”

  A jolt inside Ayaana’s heart electrified her body and forced light into her mind. Something like power flew out of her eyes. Hands pushing outward, she yelled, “No! No!” She took off, feet soaring, reaching for dark safety. “He’s my father. No! My father,” she repeated. Yet still she heard the whispery laughter, its sibilance, the essence of hissing: “Sacred secret.” A susurration that slithered even when, later, exhausted, she slept.

  * * *

  —

  Muhidin had watched Ayaana fade. He had worried over the now nervy, sullen, dull, and monosyllabic child. He noted her dark, baggy-eyed apathy. She had been tumbling into frantic prayer, diligent about the timing, but would emerge with her shoulders stooped, as if she had been scolded. Muhidin had wanted to approach Munira. But three months later, Ayaana had shoved open his door, thrown off her buibui, jumped into the Bombay cupboard, and slammed the door shut. After more than forty minutes of stillness, Muhidin peeked in and saw her curled into a tight, sleeping ball. He closed the door, frowning. It was two in the afternoon. At about four-thirty, she opened the cupboard door. In a meek voice she said, “Please, may I have my math homework?”

  During the next Adhan, Ayaana stiffened, eyes darting. She blocked her ears. “You must not listen,” she informed Muhidin.

  * * *

  —

  Munira came to Muhidin two evenings later. She paced the room, chewing on her fingers. “Something’s wrong, old man.”

  Muhidin flinched. He disliked the phrase “old man.” Munira seized his arm. “When she thinks I’m asleep, she’s in my bed. She clings tight.”

  Muhidin grunted.

  “Is she talking to you? She’s not talking to me. Is she talking to you?”

  Muhidin deflated. “No.” Munira started to cry. Muhidin thawed. “Ahhhh, I’ll find out. Don’t cry.”

  Munira nodded.

  Muhidin nodded back.

  * * *

  —

  The Adhan started the following afternoon—“Allahu Akbar”—and Ayaana was already heading for the Bombay cupboard. “Ayaana!” Muhidin howled, with eye-popping anger. “Come here.”

  She clung to the cupboard door. “No!” It was a savage croak.

  Muhidin strode toward her, intending to drag her out.

  She lashed out. “You can’t t-touch me. I’m d-dirty but ch-chosen, and I’ll be p-purged, and so will the adulterer and th-the apostorate. B-but first he must seize me so I can spread his fire.” She covered her face. “I-learn-holy-c-c-courage-by-submission-to-the-high-will.” Ayaana started to wail. “But I caaaaan’t. I hided from the man, and if I pray, Almighty can find me, isentitit? So I caaaan’t.”

  Muhidin’s mouth dropped so low that his jaw creaked.

  His first “What?” was a squeak. He sucked in air in order to speak. “What?” An explosion, followed by an expletive he had not used since his early sea days. “What?” he tried again. “In God’s name, what?”

  “Almighty,” Ayaana said, hiccupping.

  “What?”

  She whispered, “He’s looking for me.”

  “What?”

  She hung her head. Shame was the heat on her face, her sweat, and her stammer. Muhidin placed a rough hand under her chin. He lifted her face. She saw that nothing in his eyes accused her. They never had. She had promised she would split her secrets in half—one set for her, the other for him. Muhidin stroked tears from her face with his fingers. “You’re hiding,” he concluded, mostly for himself.

  She nodded.

  “Someone’s looking for you?”

  She nodded with vigor, then stuck out her lower lip. Quiet.

  Muhidin let go her chin and rubbed his hands. “Abeerah?” he said; more tears were sliding down Ayaana’s jaw to soak her long orange-flowered dress.

  She looked. Hope was the sight of Muhidin puffing up and looking blacker, fiercer, and even more pockmarked. Muhidin’s eyes bulged, his arms curved wide, his hands were two clenched fists. She dared. “Almighty won’t catch me never.”

  Muhidin enunciated his words. “We start again, Abeerah. Tell me slow-slow. Why is the Almighty looking for you?”

  “He told me not to say.”

  “Who?” Muhidin grunted.

  She was unraveling. Her voice haunted, she struggled to say, “Almighty, he sended the man to find me.”

  “The man,” Muhidin echoed, sounding stupid even to himself.

  Ayaana inhaled. “The man saaays…” Then a rush, “Almighty wants mujahidat.” Ayaana twisted her fingers. “But, me, I was thinking Almighty better tell me Hisself, isentitit?” Fire-eyed, she looked at Muhidin, outrage in her voice. “The man, he said I leave you. So, me, I said, ‘No!’ ” She paused. No reaction from Muhidin. She continued, “Then I runned.”

  Muhidin’s teeth had started chattering. A chill spread throughout his body. He was mute. Ayaana moved closer to him, taking small steps, one foot after the other. When she stopped in front of him, she leaned forward to cup his face: “Tell Almighty killing peoples, it is bad manners.”

  Muhidin choked out, “I will.” Then, in a tender tone, he asked, “The man? Which man, Abeerah?”

  “You know.” She gestured with her hands. “Fazul wa Misri.”

  Muhidin leapt up.

  “Babu,” Ayaana started. She tilted her head, “Almighty is wrath with me, isentitit?”

  Muhidin, who had been rummaging among his shelves and cupboards, emerged with a cudgel. “Never you, Abeerah. His wrath is strictly reserved for Fazul.” Muhidin retrieved the bakora with its concealed dagger and lined it up next to the cudgel. He muttered, “Degenerates. Are humans now spare parts?” He struck the cudgel with his fist as he spoke. “You stay here. Go to my room. Sleep,” he said. “Open the door for me alone. Wait till I return.”

  She moved toward him and then stopped. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it.

  “What?” asked Muhidin.

  Ayaana asked, her voice shaking, “Almighty is your friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fazul?”

  “No!” he snarled.

  Ayaana nodded, then exhaled and, finally, smiled a real smile.

  * * *

  On a late-May night in 1998, one of Pate’s tailors, returning home with his Singer sewing machine perched on his shoulder, imagined he glimpsed seven of the island’s seamen hurrying in a determined direction in silence. Though this was an odd occurrence, he did not give it another thought. But two mornings later, it was observed that Fazul the Egyptian had disappeared without saying goodbye to anybody—not his
cherished wife, not even the football team he had started. Questioned months later, his Pate wife said that he had left to meet someone one evening but had not returned home.

  * * *

  Muhidin was wrestling with doubt. His right knuckle was sore, and there was broken skin on his hand and face. He was grumpy because of a debate with Munira that he had lost before it started that morning. Muhidin grunted intermittently as he paced the room, while Ayaana, wearing a bright red dress, copied out the seven-times table. Muhidin had carried Ayaana back to Munira’s house early that morning. After she was settled in her bed, he had returned to the main room and slumped over a table, facing Munira, to explain. “Sorry I missed it. Would have acted faster,” he began.

  On Munira’s carefully neutral face, a mask slipped, so that he glimpsed a feral otherness, a naked, arcane, female force that threatened to roar. The veil returned. Munira heard Muhidin in silence, her head held artificially high. She plucked the end of her kimonolike robe. Her lips moved, the only sign of emotion. But her self-containment disintegrated again. A short guttural sound escaped her as Muhidin repeated to her Ayaana’s words. Tension mounted in his shoulders. His throat itched. His voice was miserable.

  Gaunt-faced, she had hiccupped, “Has God the Almighty become a butcher to make of the world a slaughterhouse now?” She then clasped both Muhidin’s hands with hers, sorrow pooling inside her eyes. Muhidin could not look away. “Thank you. Again,” she had coughed. Then she wiped her face with a little square white cloth. Afterward, she took his bruised fist in her one hand while reaching for a jug of rose water with the other. She poured scented water over broken skin, a blend of rose and clove oil, and then spread a black cumin-seed salve. “Your swollen eyes.” she said.

  “I hurt him first,” Muhidin murmured.