Decoding A Dream (Part 4)

Kaola captured a couple of good waves on his hybrid with Nasr and Imme. On his toes he was a clever surfer, his legs appeared like pencils, dissolved to bones and shapeless calves. On one attempt he was plunged deep in water hitting the rocks and cutting his knuckles. In the swells he observed the tall buildings on the coast and jumbo jets touch down right behind on the airstrip at Malé International Airport. The sun climbed high and the swells died. They decided to retire for the day. Kaola pissed to his hand in a primitive method to treat a coral cut.

Three sat down at a table at Breakwaters open-air café and ordered a submarine each for lunch.

Kaola demanded, “I need your help to paint the walls at my place.”

“Fine, when do you start?” Imme asked as Half-Turn reached them.

“Buddy, my friend Murad is getting married. A dinner is set for tomorrow evening…cooking has started already,” Half-Turn said, “We need to set the place. You keep going doing this kind of thing, don’t you?

“Sure,” agreed Kaola, “When is the wedding?”

“Set for nine tomorrow morning. There’s a lot of work to do. Fill the lawn with white sand and arrange the chairs. Come sharp at two.”

Kaola suspended work at his place and joined Half-Turn at Sandy Side, the venue for this wedding. A team of guys filled the soil, brought chairs from a rental and decorated the place with palm leaves and decors, colour bulbs and balloons. Jokey helped Kaola and soon this place began to look like a garden in the fall.

Around four that afternoon Kaola noticed the excited girl in a dark blue skirt and top sewing the last stitches of her wedding dress with a bunch of Murad’s sisters. Murad was not at home and in no way he was acquainted to Kaola or Jokey. Sadna was a tanned girl and a slim figure. Two up there fixing nails and decors on the wall negotiated over her good looks.

One moment, as she passed the corridor, Kaola hissed, “Ssh! Can I have some water?”

Jockey warned, “Don’t try any ideas.”

The girl returned with a glass of water covered with a plate.

“Are you Sadna?” Kaola asked.

She replied, “Yes, I am.”

“Congratulations on your wedding…”

“Thank you…”

“Make sure your first night is not the last.”

She was bit surprised. Kaola gave her a wink as she waited for him to return the glass.

“Stay on the top…” Kaola passed the glass. She giggled in a burst.

Jokey uttered shockingly, “Are you out of your mind? Have some manners…”

“Just a little tease, Jokey, she’s not the girl you think.”

At sundown he found an excuse to take a short break. He was climbing his mobike when Murad opened the gate with Sadna. “Hey! Can you give her a lift?”

“Sure,” said Kaola, “Where to?”

“To Cherry Spa,” replied Sadna.

She climbed the backseat with a big smile and he fired off. “Mind if I take a ride around the waves?”

“Go ahead,” said Sadna, “so, are you a friend of Murad?”

“No. I’m a friend of a friend…”

“You are a funny guy. Murad doesn’t know me too well.”

He sped down Fareedee Magu under the street lights. Malé looked like the streets of Havana and the worst place on earth to be. In a moment he reached east waters.

“Wow! This place is cool. Look at the beautiful sky. I want to get down to the breakwater wall.” It was an invitation nobody in the right mind could deny.

The sun had gone down and red clouds painted the sky. Behind the breakwater wall he grabbed her and kissed her. She gave all at ease. In a moment they were tangled on to each other. “Are you in a hurry?”

“I can’t miss this moment. I grew up watching the stars. It brings memories.” On the breakwater wall lovers settled their nights hanging on boulder stones like bats.

An hour later Murey came to stop right in front of Huvafen on his mobike looking for Kaola. A girl came out of the gate. “Hello!” he uttered in shock.

“Hi!” the girl replied and picked a ramble down the lane. Her hair unravelled.

Murey realised it was Murad’s bride. He decided not to enter and look for Kaola. This was a bad moment. He left quizzed.

Kaola did not go back to Sandy Side that night. He got engaged in fixing a drawer of a kitchen cabinet in his newly renovated floor. It was around ten o’clock. A group of girls came in.

“Hello! Kaola! I’m Hishan,” the girl with short-cut hair wearing specs fluently introduced herself. She wore a white shirt top. “You can leave that to me.”

Kaola dropped the hammer and straightened, “I still have to paint the walls.”

“I can do that too,” she said.

“Please send me the bill,” said Kaola.

These were the southerners he was expecting as previously mentioned by Shym in the east wing and relatives to his wife. Kaola had no idea which atoll they belonged. He didn’t ask. He instantly liked the girl in the way she called him frankly by his nickname. She looked young and attractive, probably in her twenties.

Hishan was actually in mid-thirties and filled a post at Housing Development Corporation. She was an architect graduated from the University of Queensland in Australia. She even had a six year daughter. She was a single mother and Kaola had not a clue. He never asked about people’s private life.

It took a load of work off his shoulder.

 

Next morning Imme reached east waters and met Nasr who passed news, “Do you know? Murad has called off his wedding. He’s not marrying her.”

“Why was that?” asked Imme.

“Why would you think someone would dissolve a marriage on the eve of the wedding?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think.”

“Thalassemia…”

“No.”

“Financial problems…”

“No.”

“I don’t know…”

“Think…”

That moment Murey joined, “You heard about the wedding? What happened?”

“She cheated,” Nasr told them, “she slept with someone else last night. She took a sidekick.”

“Who was it?” asked Murey who knew.

“Someone among us…”

“I know.”

“Tell me, who?” cried Imme.

“Kaola,” replied Nasr, “She wasn’t at home. She did not go to the spa, her phone switched off and they looked for her. She turned up late.”

“I bumped to her at his gate last night,” Murey said, “Watch! Here he comes...”

Kaola reached them. “They called the wedding off,” delivered Murey, “She is disowned.”

“What went wrong?” asked Kaola.

“You know damn well what went wrong.”

Imme asked, “What about the paint job?”

Kaola lit a fag. “My new tenants are taking care of that.”

“A friend of a friend took her out on the night before the wedding,” pronounced Murey, “It seems you can’t show a face like that to say you know not a thing. What did you do to Sadna?”

“What are you trying to say?” grunted Kaola, “I took her to the spa…”

“You’re still in the dark. She talked. Kaola! She said she spent the night with you.”

“Shit!”

Half-Turn and Jokey showed up and hurriedly reached them. “Damn you! Kaola! Look how you treated my friend!” Half-Turn approached angrily, “You cheated. You crossed the line, you offended. Murad is angry with me. He’s furious…”

“Ama fui!” swore Kaola. “Tell him to go to hell.”

“That’s not the way you treat my friend.”

“Damn! Who’s he?”

“He’s my good friend.”

“You better remember your mother!” he quoted a phrase that could put anybody in heat.

“Don’t put my mother into this…”

“Let me remind you she’s a bitch. Your mother gave birth without a father,” Kaola began to laugh, “and it was you…”

“You think your father is a hero?” Often Half-Turn was a more serious guy despite his overwhelming hilarity. “Everyone likes a hero but there are no heroes as such. A colonel, you think. He was promoted colonel. If you hear this from me you are not going to believe it and you’ll never forget. You will remember him for the rest of your life,” he squat in front of Kaola, “Listen…

“I was a private at the depot waiting on the top brass on duty. Your father was then a lieutenant at NSS. When the news came in of some unknown armed troops climbed the island killing people on 3^rd November 1988, your father began to limp,” Half-Turn rose to his feet to demonstrate, “Oh my back! Oh my back!” he limped on the promenade and all laughed involuntarily to his show of sarcasm.

“It wasn’t my dad…”

“Yes, your dad. He cannot read and write still a lieutenant picked on trust among the old folks. Othadi limped on and on…a backache!

“Finally the Brigadier told him to go home and rest for having a back pain. He left before dawn…before the attack was launched at the depot killing the guard at the gate post. Such a fake…”

“Liar!” Kaola immediately left the group.