|
tol under her chin, the fat man opened his fleshy lips in a broad grin. A gold tooth glinted in the sun. Then he leaned forward, grabbed the woman's face and kissed her on the mouth. Still grinning, he moved his grip to her arm and pulled her forwards. The woman was slim, not heavy. He pushed her into the fire.
The woman's dress caught fire first, even before she fell on the tires. She screamed, and Isaiah turned his face to Elizabeth's breast. The boys' shouting began again, but the screams rose above it. Isaiah felt them in his bones, as he buried his head into his sisters heaving chest.
Isaiah's eyes were closed tight when he felt his sister torn from his grasp. He saw nothing. Later his memories were of his father's fingers tightening on his shoulder, digging into the flesh. It hurt. It was as if the screams of his sister clawed at him, trying to clamber back into his arms. Then the screams stopped. Still he could not open his eyes, even as he felt the first heavy drops of rain on his cheeks.
Close by, the fat man cursed. Isaiah smelt his damp sweat and the smoke from his cigarette. He felt his feet move. When he opened his eyes, he was inside the shop. Ibrahim sat on the floor beside him., sobbing softly. Isaiah, his eyes fixed on the ground, recognized him by his sandals. Onto the concrete floor, beside Ibrahim's feet, something was dripping, forming a dark stain. When he looked up, it was into the eyes of the Coca Cola man, wide and terrified. The old man was screaming, "No! No! No!" Somebody hit him with a stick or a gun and he stopped.
"....though I walk through the Valley of Death, yet shall I fear no evil." Papa's voice reached him faintly from the shadows. The words came quickly, urgently. He was kneeling and his arms were stretched out on the table. The fat man raised his arm, something flashed in the dim light and a Isaiah heard a dull thud. Papa gasped. "Thou makest me down to lie...." At the second thud, Isaiah retched.
There was a spider's web in the corner of the room. It glistened in the moist air and every few seconds, as he looked over the fat man's shoulder, Isaiah saw a rain drop trickle down the web and fall to the ground. One, two, three, four, five, six drops was all the time it took. He must have felt pain. Seven drops, eight. He remembered nothing more.
In the burnt out truck, Joseph recited soothing verses to his son, stroking the boy's head in his lap. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth." It was at these times that Joseph most missed his hands. He longed to feel the curls of Joseph's hair, to hold strands of it between fingers and thumb. Sometimes, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine it. He would concentrate so hard on this effort that to Ibrahim, if he happened to pass the truck, it would appear as if his friend were in a trance. "Blessed are the peacemakers."
"Papa."
"Yes, Isaiah."
"If God loves us, why did he let that man chop off our hands?"
Joseph sighed.
"Do you think it's the same reason he let Jesus have those nails put in his hands?"
"No, my son. Not the same reason." He put his stumps on the steering wheel and stared at the space where once the windshield had been, as if trying to see the road ahead. "Perhaps it does help us understand better what Jesus suffered. Perhaps it helps us in our faith. Perhaps it is a blessing."
The boy stirred in his lap. The whites of his large round eyes sparkled in the light from the street lamp. He had been crying. "It doesn't feel like a blessing, Papa."
From beyond the apartments, the sound of crickets rose and fell.
"What about Elizabeth, Papa?"
"Elizabeth was a blessing."
|
|
