Cockcroach-On-A-String

I got stuck at the waterfront arriving from Tari Village by boat. People gathered here ushered me in a polite and insisting manner to the middle of the crowd. I thought some order was observed here. We heard news about an armed group of men climbed the island capital of Malé in the middle of the night. I still left on the boat at seven in the morning and reached here in forty-five minutes. Things were bit sketchy at this hour. Suddenly, a blast of gunfire shook me in the guts, “What the hell is that?” I cried.

“Did you hear that? Big guns!” the guy next to me actually pulled me down. “They’re shooting from the defense house.”

I asked, “Against whom?”

“Mercenaries,” he replied, “Watch it!”

“Where are the mercenaries?”

“Behind you…”

“Oh my goodness!” I cried, “We are trapped! We are held hostage here!”

“What?”

“Hostage…it’s a hostage situation! Mercenaries are taking cover behind using us as human shields! We must get out of here!”

“Stay calm!”

Civilians held hostage at gunpoint on this acre of land in the waterfront. Mercenaries behind us and the defense house before us, firing blindly into space. Guns I heard from the defense house were loud and blasting. We lay head down. I tucked my money into a baluster and drove my shoes to hide them. I wore my favourite Denim cut shorts or rather a pair of short pants. It was just trend and resort life.

Rat-tat-tat-tat rounds of automatic rifles fired from the rear aimed at the defense house. Dead bodies, shattered glass, battered bikes, ammunition shells and broken spell – blood on the street.

At nightfall, I witnessed people creep towards the grand mosque, get up and walk hurriedly towards the Sultan Park and then dart on a run without looking back. At that point we could hear no gunfire. We didn’t know that the mercenaries pulled from the rear. They retreated through a canal dug on Marine Drive to bed an electricity cable.

Indian troops arrived that night. Runway lights on Hululé Island lit for few seconds. I heard an aircraft buzzing in my ears but couldn’t see a thing. An aircraft touched down blindly in the dark without navigational lights. I saw more people creeping, walking and running for freedom. I nudged the guy, “Shall we?”

“Do you think we should try?”

We were oblivion to the fact that there were no mercenaries behind holding us at gunpoint. They were gone. They hijacked a freighter, MV Progress Light, and climbed with hostages. A couple of hostages were killed on the vessel fleeing towards Sri Lanka.

“It’s now or never,” we began to crawl to cross the road. Once behind the mosque wall, we got up and walked towards the other end without looking back. It was the scariest moment in my life knowing we were under the belisha beacons and in the open. They could notice the slightest movement. As soon as I reached the corner by the Sultan Park, I started to run as fast as my legs could hold. We hit the road.

In the morning I went back to the park. Indian troops were everywhere. I asked a trooper that I left my money in a baluster. He let me pass. I picked my money and returned home. November fear struck in me to lose my job. I gave up resort life.

Reyah vuren mirey barey!

Reyah vuren mirey barey!

Ironically, those gravediggers sang this chorus when they lowered the coffin. What were they saying? It weighs more sin tonight than the one buried last night.

After prayers, they threw the earth into the pit and buried the dead. It drizzled in the hour just before sunrise. Suiza Rashid drove home in her Suzuki Swift. She was thirty-four and married to a businessman. Her father, Esa Dawud, was the owner of four big shops and a cargo vessel that did shipping in The Golden Triangle – India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He was shot at dawn by a Tamil terrorist from the PLOTE organisation during the attempted coup on 3^rd November 1988. His son was studying in Egypt and couldn’t attend the funeral. The youngest daughter was schooling.

It was clear Suiza would take over her father’s business. She entered a messy office, disorganised and shipping routes unscheduled with bad crew planning. She was quite new to the arena and most of the staffs were Sri Lankan.

Despite this mess her father’s business in the name of Vavéou Holdings was running smoothly. Those retail shops maintained by locals brought good profit. In a month she arranged an office carpeted deep green next to the open lobby area with an oak wood counter. A communication room stood behind this counter with a tall glass panel to disclose a USB radio set, a facsimile machine, a telex and filing cabinets. Her husband, Salah Rashid, got involved in helping the agency. Mauvin, her brother studying in Egypt, disliked him. So the members of the family depended on Fernando Perez, a Sri Lankan, experienced in shipping and CEO here.

 

I started as a teacher at Layla School in 1989. A Singhalese tutor took me to Vavéou Holdings one rainy night looking for a Fernando. Tera Verghese, another Sri Lankan girl, spoke Singhalese with him and ushered us to Mr. Fernando’s office. Their ship, MV Barosa, arrived with hundred pallets of Foster’s beer – an order of his Australian client. Some beer cases ended up here. That was the reason we were there. It was the only time I saw Tera Verghese. I only said goodbye to her when we came out breathing Foster. She was at the counter.

A month later, this Singhalese teacher told me Tera Verghese was dead while on vacation. Sri Lankan Police found her body in the outskirts of Dumbula after six days. In her Kandy home, they discovered air-tickets to Canada. She had purchased them. Papers indicated she was seeking citizenship abroad. Her partner, Jagath Jayasurye, was in the Maldives about two weeks ago. He disappeared without a clue and the gold – fourteen gold biscuits were stolen from Vavéou Holdings.

 

November 3rd coup and the mercenaries were widely discussed in public places and on television. The failed coup was planned by a group of Maldivians. And hence a small nation faced issues of mistrust, detention, civilians in police custody, new reforms and women in armed forces. I got my own troubles too. I was married at the time and my wife expected a baby in few months. Our terms were on the brink.

And it did…

She’s got the devil in her heart…

But her eyes they tantalize…

I was broke, listening to The Beatles, sipping black coffee. I sat without a shirt in my Denim cutoffs. Those days we listened to music on a chrome-plated hi-fi system with noisy buttons. It was sometimes cursing to know how much time we wasted to listen to forty-five minutes of guitar solo by Ritchie Blackmore and repeat listening continuously rewinding several times – those flimsy audio cassette tapes. In this digital world people would go mad about them.

My wife pressed a button and the tape ejected noisily. I nudged a knee between her legs, slid it back to slot and pressed PLAY…she’s an angel sent to me…she hit the EJECT button again.

I was furious. I slapped her. She started wobbly and in the end she left me. It was all very silly.

 

It was in May, I taught that afternoon class I’d never forget, at Layla School. Rani sat in the front row. She got started of flinches in her body – nervousness. I noticed her clenching the legs, her hands inside thighs. I touched her shoulder. Her eyes closed and lay her head on the table. She was having a headache.

A moment later, she was jerky again, doing the cringe. “Are you alright, Rani?” Her eyes dozy and took her dress too high. “Don’t mess with your dress.” For a while she did that cower, her hands deep in the crotch. She couldn’t bring them out.

I carried on with the lesson pretty disturbed to see her dwindling with her frock totally unravel.

Suddenly, she cried aloud, “Aye!” A tone I could tell among girls in rejection to touch. I saw her hands groping deep inside her legs. Her uniform tucked on the waist. I tried to separate her hands from the body. The whole class was in shock. I sent the girl to the toilet. She urinated leaving wet marks on the floor on her way out of the classroom.

Later I learnt from Rani, some invisible hands touched her inner thighs and groped her pussy. She had a feeling of fingers entering her vagina. She was shaken. I took her home because she lived close to my place.

Fathimath Raniya was a thin girl with beautiful eyes, greyish green. She got dainty yellow skin, her hair deep brown. Her hair reflected golden bronze when she stepped into the sun. She belonged to Noljivarumfaru, a big island with a community of five hundred people. She was a great-granddaughter of Firasha Faruk, so-called Dondiyé. She was pretty and I picked her for a lead role in the inter-school drama competition we planned to shoot for national television.

 

Following night, it was Friday, 19^th May 1989. I sat alone at home, in my Denim cutoffs, after a shower I took in my tiny little toilet. I got a plan to visit my wife now staying with her father who rented a lodge. They belonged to an island in Suvadiva and her father was a construction worker.

I heard taps. The flimsy girl stood outside my door. She wore her school uniform, a white frock and red tie, white shoes. She was fifteen years old. I noticed her eyes were bleak. She was pale. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I, I…” and she couldn’t talk.

I brought her in. I gave her food and water. She lay in bed. I was holding her in my arms. It was getting late. She said few things. She lied to her caretakers that she was going to school to attend a forum. She came out in her uniform to fake a move.

An hour later, she left her shoes, clothes, those white garments and strangely some blood marks in the bedspread. She walked out into the lawn literally naked. I was unable to locate her in the dark. I tried few times looking into the alley. She was gone.

I stayed awake waiting for the girl to return. My plans changed I wasn’t going out. She had to come back to pick her clothes.

I stepped out to the road at midnight looking for a sign. It was a beautiful night and a deep blue sky of its own light hang above. The moon rising high and the clouds scattered like butterflies. The road left empty and the trees in silhouette. Moonlight fell on the walls in a night of solitude. There weren’t plenty of stars but the light shown on me.

Halfway down the road a black cat crossed my path and I did not cross its trail. I should not. In myth it was a sign of bad omen – only if you crossed its path. I back tracked to my gate.

In the quiet night I sat working with the door open. When expecting someone your mind concentrated on it even if you were engaged doing something else. My room was a tiny cubicle. The door opened to a narrow alleyway. I wouldn’t be able to see the immediate wall face outside unless I pulled my head out.

Just before twilight, I thought I heard someone. I stayed calmly for the girl to show up first and come in at will. A moment later I heard clinks, silent clinks and more clinks, jingles…tinkles. It continued for ten long minutes.

Suddenly, a bunch of white orchids hit the wall and scattered in front of my door. I jumped up from the chair onto the bed and braced my back against the wall. My body shook violently. I felt the air press around me. It took a moment to calm down. Someone just threw the flowers at my door.

This was the moment…I was so scared to take a look outside the door. I closed the door and locked it. This was the moment…I should have looked outside.

I counted those flowers in the morning when it gave full light. There were eighteen white orchids of the kind Seven Blooms.

 

Rani came in the morning in casual clothes and I asked, “Where did you go?”

She began to cry, “I know what happened to me last night. You will be angry. But it’s not me. There was something else inside me. Can you understand? I saw myself in gold and silver wearing kadiki and a band on my left biceps. I was invisible. Nobody saw me…

“I did something wrong. I sinned. I want you to forgive me.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Rani,” I tried to comfort her, “But what you’re saying…Rani, nobody can become invisible…”

“I did, I can,” she said.

I stared into her eyes in disbelief. Words could have no meaning. She explained this strange feeling that occurred in the classroom, Thursday afternoon. She told me of those invisible hands roaming her body. She got this stranger inside her on the previous night when she discovered golden chains and silver on her body.

“There is a woman. I met her somewhere. She is looking for me. She was asking again and I took refuge here last night,” she told me.

“Nonsense,” I uttered, “there was nobody…”

“She is protected. I don’t know her name. I saw her face and she saw me.”

Hair was rising again, “Rani, but you didn’t see anything…”

“I saw her. I can see…”

I was baffled, “How?”

She whispered, “I can see her when I become invisible.”

“How can someone become invisible?”

“When I remove my clothes...”

She removed every piece of cloth on her body. She tried and it hardly worked. A flimsy girl stood bare in yellow skin and breasts in soft swell with a flush of pointed nipples.

“I can’t see those chains on my body!”

I shrugged, “Of course not. You’re not wearing anything!”

“I’ve got to see them…”

“When did you come to see these chains?”

“I saw them last night and the night before.”

“Put on your clothes!”

“I know there’s a stranger inside me…”

“How do you know?” she shocked me again.

“I feel a different person. I want to do different things. My mind splits and my soul keeps pairing. I see things on the other side of the wall.”

“You’re not going anywhere, Rani. Be with me tonight.”

“I can feel it enter. I feel rubs and fumbling. It enters through my vagina…”

“Alright, put on clothes!”

“Look!” she burst in giggles pointing a finger at my hose fallen out of the Denim. “I like your pants.” I realised how awkward I was seated in bed with my balls drooping out.

 

I kept matters down because what went on the previous night was not a good affair. I wasn’t so worried about her ludicrous story getting invisible. A young girl could run home without a dress but her house stood on the other side of the main street. Saturday afternoon we got Bandiya Dance practice. We planned to shoot a good part of the drama on another island not too far. A dance instructor was called. She was one of those professional dancers from Thoddu Island. All students were in the schoolyard including Rani and in plainclothes. It was close to sunset.

I was keeping an eye on Rani. In fact she should be with me at nightfall. Half an hour later she was gone. Even though nobody cared that she was missing I was concerned. Something told me I must find her instantly. I sent a boy with my room keys to check my place only two blocks around the corner. I comfortably wore these cutoffs because my place was so close. I sent another to her home and asked some girls to check the classrooms and toilets. I sent a couple of girls to check the houses on the lane. She could be there to buy a drink. And she wasn’t anywhere around.

It was ten past seven. Husen came on his bike and told us after learning we were worried about her, “I saw her up on Haveeri Higun…”

The narrow lanes of Malé lit dimly by four feet tube lights in every hundred feet. He was biking on his way to school when he caught sight of a girl coming up. Sometimes he could see and sometimes strangely not. It turned out to be Rani when he reached up. Husen cried, “Hey Rani! Where do you think you are going?”

And she replied, “I’m going for a walk.”

He watched her go in blue skirt and white top with a white orchid on her hair. Under the light posts he observed this unusual occurrence; she disappears and reappears every time she passed a street light. “I can see her under the light, I mean, after she passes the light, no…yes, in the dark…”

“What happens in the light?” I asked.

It was hard to explain, “I, I don’t know…I can’t see her…”

He couldn’t have noticed this really happening. He gave not much thought because she already passed few light posts. He couldn’t tell precisely. He pulled on his bike heading the opposite direction to school. Later he told me in a clear mind that he happened to notice it because she was pretty close when he lost her and again few yards when she passed by under the light post.

My instincts told me it was no place for her to be up on Haveeri Higun quarter mile out at this time. I called the boys and girls and we got out on the move. I was on foot. Some followed on foot and some on bikes. I failed to organise to meet at school afterwards. Most of them took the advantage and dispersed.

We searched Haveeri Higun up and down, cross lanes, parallel roads and coastal shops on Marine Drive. An hour later, Azher rushed on his bike and reported, “She’s standing inside the gate of Vavéou Holdings. She couldn’t speak. She wouldn’t come.”

We found her stan