Best Australian Yarn: Hero by Harold Legaspi

Hero She stopped dreaming after they left their country from the war. She treads nervously upon darkness and light, night and day. Nobody knows how many were killed. She remembers it all. The house fires. The shootings. The carcasses. The blood sky. She waits patiently for better days. But her home had been torn and is no longer. She can never go back there, never return to her blood’s river. Memories are dusted, and her breath undoes the air. Her family had lived in the valley since she was two. Her mama was a medicine woman with family dispersed throughout the Middle East. Her papa looked after the farm and sold excess produce in the local souq. They had had six children, all girls, who shared a single room in the back of their simple house. She feeds the livestock in the mornings wearing boots that leave imprints in the mud. The farm is littered with chickens, goats, cattle and fields of corn facing the misty mountains. The people in her village bleed into each other. They gossip over tea and make kubbah for lunch, serving it with biryani, beans and grilled nuts. The sun peaks in the afternoon and she lays on the floormat dozing off, resting her hair on a cushion. She sleeps till it is time to prepare dinner, and she is awoken by her eldest sister. Her father had left them in charge of the farm during his visit to their relatives up north. She stops along the gravel road and talks to him with her thick accent. The road leads into the souq, where she had spent the afternoon selling eggs and meat. He has known her since the tea ceremony when his grandmother introduced him to her family. He had visited numerous homes, but turned his seat to face the squinty-eyed girl he would marry.At the gravel road, they spoke about music, relatives and village life. He kept raising her on a pedestal, eager to make plans. She pinched herself twice to find out if he was really present, as if expecting to wake up from a dream. Together they giggled and became the cause of each other’s ways. During Mashaya, when he met with her father, he imagined her wearing colourful wedding dresses, standing beside him beneath the silken sky. He had told her and her father that he loved her, and she had said yes to their engagement. She butchered ribs and foreshanks, preparing for a banquet with the family. She fashioned a Wednesday for the ritual, and invited the people which had made her life so bright. She dresses carefully for the forthcoming encounter with him. She anticipates exaltation. She performs in the kitchen like a prisoner set free. Her body is inscribed with feeling, wholly transparent of the excitation from the union. She wants him to be her, as if they were united, enveloped in the same sack of skin. It would cost her nothing, apart from the promise of her word. She will dress as the bride and he will love her to create life. They will be enchanted lovers, with everything dressed in costume and the world exploding in colour. She is seized by his poetry, the dolls he gifts her during visits, the legless toys he brings along during dates. He has told her she brings him balance, that he suffers less with her abiding presence. He remarks, that finally, he can live courageously! Finally, he can be set free. The jeers and jolts from disgruntled family ruse their patience. Yet, the sentiment overall is of bewilderment and seizure. They spoke the words, I love you, in serious calmness. It appeared as an age-old memory at first, something they had dreamt about in their childhood. They had expressed this to each other without laughing. The words clumped together and transformed in meaning over time. There was no pointy end, except in the utterance. It had no equivalent, nor substitutes. It meant simply to be with infinite gestures. They became both present and intimate in each other’s lives, with mere distance between them. They studied each other closely at each utterance. And on occasion, they’d sing together in tune to the latest rhythms. I love you became the limit of their language. Just as Amen affirmed a force to finally rest. She felt energised as he was conceived. She had felt him first, and knew he’d be a boy. She coiled herself in a warm blanket and gave in to sleep beside her husband. Nine months later, her eyes fixed upon her own son out of her womb. It is a home-birth aided by her sisters. The baby’s eyes opened aching brown; scintillating as he cried, which echoed throughout the hallway. He is tender and raw, drowning on air. His hands are clammy, icy and his legs kick against his mother’s heart. She hears him breathe finally, aching for promise. Every few hours she rests his head on her nipple for milk. And they sit there for a while, curled up together like a yarn of wool. She could taste the saltwater smell of her baby. It feels like time had stopped. She says she doesn’t want to leave this place. Then, her husband reached out to let go of her hand. He wipes his mouth, after licking the wound of his chest. If anything can save them, it’s nothing they can do for themselves. Most of the people had left their village. Homes had been raided by militia-men using American weapons handed over to them by the government. These men would shoot upon sight. They joined in to get a salary, a rifle, a uniform—a real sense of belonging. These men would pillage for loot. They would target the villagers and trash houses, smashing furniture, slaying the livestock. The valley is frantic with blasts and gunfire. Militia-men pounded on her door but luckily she had escaped with her husband and son.They trekked for ten days during this war, their feet blistered and sore. Her husband cleared a path for them to vacate, and she followed him, sweating and out-of-breath. She carried her son who she wrapped in a sling on her back. They narrowly escaped the village through the trodden path, with dead cattle and injured dogs lying on the dirt. Her husband searched the mountains for food; anything that could feed his wife and son. They camped under the stars during nights, collecting twigs and dead branches to build a fire. The mountain forest is eerie with life. The forest clothed the mountain ranges, with river-bank scrubs sparse and dense. Oak trees reached for the scorching sun, forming thickets with brambles and creepers so dense they were impenetrable except to the wild pigs roaming about. Wild groves of walnuts provided them with food. They went fishing in a river to catch freshwater carp, using only their bare hands. Her husband filleted the carp before gutting it with his knife, then grilled it in an open fire to dish out Masgouf. Upon the starry nights, they remained speechless. Her son had not yet been named but wailed like a wolf hungry for the moon. She covered him with blankets and fed him milk from her bosom. He was mouse-like, with little almond eyes, round cheeks and ruby lips. His eyes followed his mother’s face, and he remained blinking with his glass eyes. The terror of the war left her with nervous habits. Her eyes squint at the sun and she soulfully exhales as she grabs her son to resume the day. Her body creaks like a rusty door. She knows not to swerve away from the mountain path that would lead them to the city. She remembers her father who wanted to give her everything: a life full of promise, abound with acts of kindness. She carries her son down the path daydreaming of kin and spirits. Her husband walks ahead, clearing the way for them. All at once they enter the new terrain, with the intent of leaving abroad for good. She is empty as she rattles her brain to think things through. Beyond the city walls, murmurs of families massacred sprint with the wind. The wind speaks of tremours of the heart, children separated from their families, women raped by the militia-men. She refuses to speak her name, threatened by the hostile intentions of strangers. Her husband tries to lift the mood. He dances in silence while carrying his son in the room they booked in to stay. She eyes the pair swaying to-and-fro while picking the skin of her lip. That night they readied themselves to flee. Come daytime, they’ll reach across to the other side of the city and seek asylum.