My father had dark eyes. The pupils were black in a frightening way. Looking into his eyes was like peeping into the dark entrance of an ancient cave. His voice was rough and whenever he was angry, which was often, it rasped on the ears like the grating of a heavy boot on a sandy floor. He was also an alcoholic.
What I called home were two round dwellings of pole and mortar. One was the kitchen, which held household goods and served as a bedroom for myself. The other held everything else we owned and was the bedroom for my parents. We had no domestic animals. The one cow and three goats we used to have had been sold to raise fees for the little education I had. What was left was a handful of thin fowls. Our life was an endless dance of hope to a tuneless song of despair.
One late night, when I was nearly eleven, I heard a noisy row going on in my parents' bedroom. My father had just come from a beer drink. That was the first time that my father beat up my mother. From that day onwards life at home became hell. I had the impression that my father had begun to hate me. Several times I caught him giving me a look so baleful that my blood ran cold. When I told my mother, she said all would be well.
About a year later there was a noisy row, which I can never forget. I got out of my hut and crept across to my parents'. Through a crack in the wooden door I peeped in with frightened eyes.
A bright fire was in the centre of the hut, throwing a yellow light on the sorry scene. My mother was sprawled on the unpolished earthen floor. Her flimsy dress was shredded from what must have been a thorough beating.
When I saw the gag in her mouth I knew why her cries had been muted. Her face was bruised and swollen, as were the exposed parts of her body. Some of her wounds looked like they had been caused by fire. She writhed in slow motion. My father bent forward and wrenched the old sock from my mother's mouth.
"Now , tell me again!" he demanded, his grip tight on a pair of leather thongs.
"Devi, you were a sick and dying man. There was no money with which to pay the witchdoctor for your treatment.
The man who gave me Manana is the man who gave you your life."
"Whaa..a..at!" my father emitted a questioning scream, his brow knitted into a thunderstorm of anger.
"I gave myself away to save you..," my mother said quietly.
The leather thongs came down hard across her face, tearing an ugly cut across the temple. She whimpered in renewed pain.
"I debated hard before I gave myself to the witchdoctor. In the end I found that I loved you too much to let you die. All along you had said I was barren that's why we couldn't have babies but with the witch doctor I conceived twins. One of them is Manana. The other one I hid under a boulder on the lake shore, knowing we would never be able to look after both."
My mother's face crumbled then and she cried like a child. In between sobs, she said," Everything I did, Devi, was
the best I could do under the circumstances but for all that you batter me constantly. You are as barren in your heart as you are in
fatherhood."
With a hoarse cry pregnant with venom, my father uttered an obscenity.
"You should have let me die!" he thundered, bringing down the leather thorns onto my mother's back with a painful whistling sound. She writhed. A blob of dark spittle escaped her mouth and trickled down one cheek. She uttered a feeble moan. Two
shivers crept up my belly; one of hunger and one of fear.
I saw my father stride towards the door and I ran away to hide in the grass at the back of the huts. From my hiding place I saw my father walk away into the moonlit night. I hid in the grass till dawn when I crept up to my parents' hut. The door had been fastened with wire on the outside. It took me a long time to undo the wire. When I opened the door my mother walked out gingerly. Her face was so swollen that she could hardly see.
For a long time we embraced in tears.
My mother then held my hand and we walked out into the grass, wetted by dew. She had a small bundle tucked under one arm. We descended into a valley and came to a sheltered cove on the edge of a nearby lake.
I stood by as my mother took a bath in the water. Afterwards she took out her best blouse and skirt and put them on. She then sat on a boulder near the water's edge.
From far off came the beat of a distant drum. My mother's eyes were now a dark mirror of sad and distant thoughts.
"It's a beautiful day mama." I said as I absent-mindedly gazed across the water.
"Yes, Manana, it's a beautiful day "she said and began to cry.
I walked over to her slowly. I had seen her so often come to the lakeside to cry, that I had learnt not to disturb her. That seemed to be her way of consuming her pain. I stood behind her and put my small hand round her neck. When she felt my finger drawing circles on her wet swollen cheeks she cried even more. That made me cry too, in sympathy.
"All will be well my little one," she said with a little smile.
"Yes, mama," I replied and we started walking slowly home, knowing that all would not be well.
We arrived home in the late afternoon and prepared a meal. My mother did not take
any food.
There was something thoughtful about her. She became very quiet which was unusual and I couldn't understand why she had put on her best attire. From far off we heard my father's voice , he was singing an old war song. It was his favourite song whenever he intended beating up my mother on arrival. Without any hurry my mother walked out of the kitchen where we had been sitting and went into the bedroom.
Soon after, my father's drunken voice sounded from the edge of the homestead.
He lurched into the courtyard.
My mother came out of the bedroom. Her clothes were wet. She strode out to meet my father. They met and while my father fumbled to mouth an obscenity at my mother she grabbed him round the waist.
"Paraffi..i..in!" my father yelled as the alcohol deserted him in the face of naked fear.
With arms tightly clamped round my father's waist, my mother
struck a match. The two burst into flames. My father struggled with all desperation but the grip around his waist would not yield. Soon, a crowd of villagers ran up to see what was going on. I could only stare in shocked horror.
Suddenly, the man I knew as my father broke loose and ran towards me. He knocked me down and pressed me to the ground. The flames from his burning form licked at me freely. The last thing I remember clearly is the crushing weight of that man on top of me and the sight of my mother tearing across the field with flames streaming from her blazing form.
*
* *
I have been at St. Ruth Orphanage for three years now. When I look in the mirror I see sad grey eyes. I can see in my own eyes the dark residue of my cruel past. The angry scar snaking across my face bears sorry witness to a life of early struggle. It is broad; starting from behind my left ear, crossing the left cheek and going down the neck. My left hand is badly scarred and the right hand has only one finger; the rest were burnt off.