Chapter Eight – Faithless
Navy blue, grey, black and pitch black, the sky was a hazy display. Nizhoni looked up, her feline gaze was acute, scouring the starry plains for movement. Caution and threat had become her chief principles; since entering this country without laws, since her man had left her side, since others had crossed her boundaries. She relaxed into a gaze; crossed her slender thighs, rested an elbow on the backrest of the damp bench. Silhouetted limbs swayed and rustled whilst hers remained prone. No longer at one with the energies that surrounded her, Nizhoni released a painful sigh. Somewhere a rusty swing screamed, furrowing her proud brow. An empty bottle rattled as it rolled to nowhere in the distance.
‘Rubbish’.
The mothers native language stormed through her head, unspoken for so long, yet this noun spilled forth as she wearily examined the ground.
Once Nizhoni would have made proud exclamations in English, as her husband smiled approvingly and the children giggled and coaxed. The words felt abrupt then as they did now. Once she had admired their utterance by lips of silver screen greats, as speed and pronunciation delivered verbs, adverbs with taste and grace. A brief smile flickered; how she had swooned at the passionate gestures – ‘my darling’, ‘don’t go!’, ‘I love you’, ‘who is she!?’ It had been so fun, from a distance. Words replaced actions in this country. At the time this exchange had seemed curious, dramatic, comical even; now it was just abrupt. How many times had this language built up her hopes and urged her patience, only for her to wonder what she was waiting for. So Nizhoni resigned to breathing disappointment. Her chest swelled with determination and fell with loss.
The need for direction and care were pinnacle, to allow her and her children security and comfort.
(cont…)
It had been a year since Peter had died. A plaque fitted to a stone wall beneath a cherry blossom in the local crematorium set the scene for remembrance. Yet he had once been all of Nizhoni. She could not think beyond his side until late. Only now had the reality of her families current state returned to her awareness.
The process of grieving was so different in her homeland. Between space, symbols and kinsfolk you were sidled into a quieter family role, as they maintained a steady tred. Through the consistent practices children were reassured and continued the behaviours expected of them in turn, with open permission to expel distress and rage over low energies whenever needed. Here, in the absence of familiarity, the process was clumsy. All were granted sparing gestures of sympathy and within just a few days were expected to return to normal.
Nizhoni had not realised the bureaucracy involved in death. The month which followed had been peppered with appointments, all of which required her presence and few appeared to realise the extreme blow she had been dealt. The most difficult had taken place in the town centre where congested buses, pressured school times, disorientated human traffic zigzagged crowded streets, left Nizhoni lost and overwhelmed. A signature was all that was needed but so many words to gather first, pamphlets and cold gestures; her heart ached. Upon her return to the school gates on those days she had longed for Meli and Etienne’s dancing eyes and swinging limbs, only to behold their obvious struggle with uniformed expectations. Everywhere was bustle, though a few parents had reached out to her family who knew them before.
Nizhoni’s response was always gentle. She bent toward Eti, pulling his coat together whilst fastening his zip. Meli hugged her mother all the while and withstood the wait for her attention but Nizhoni knew the sacrifice to be made through independence only too well. Her youngest was strong-willed and defiant but she would never withstand the conditions of this leading role. She hugged her to her side, Eti’s hand in the other, and crooned her babes as they stepped through the steel gate posts and strode along the slated fence of the concrete yard.
This evening Nizhoni sat in the cold winter and reflected such events. Though she was not conscious of it, her mind was desperately trying to register what had taken place, where the necessary resources lay, whether their position was safe, what was plan B?
A loud explosion distracted her perplexed and tired thoughts, as gold and silver hurtled upward in the night sky. Again, a pop, crimson and gold streamed out in a bright flower. Sparkling trinkets softly sprayed and descended onto a stage of silhouettes.
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