06
Dec
08
Who move my Flower ? (4)
They had talked about producing kikois impregnated with pesticides in the same way as mosquito nets. They might even have got money from Aid programmes to do it. But that was another project that hadn’t yet been realised, and he for one would only sit outside at night if he was wearing long trousers, socks and full length sleeves, armoured against the squadrons of mosquitoes that whined after his blood.
Mr Amir was spreading the fingers of both his hands on the desk and smiling at him. ‘Your obligation is not to us. Now, please allow us to celebrate what you have done for us. Can we depend on you Mr Arfan?’
He looked through the shutters beyond Mr Amir and recalled his own words when the inevitable redundancies had come at home, thirteen years before. ‘It’s harsh, but it’s economic reality,’ he’d said to the men. ‘I’m so sorry, the market has collapsed. There’s nothing more Knights can do.’
They’d surely seen it coming anyway in the dwindling use of the Mill building – three floors closed up, until finally just the first floor looms remained. Plastic sheeting was stapled at the windows, keeping in the meagre heat and gas fumes seeped out by the Super Ser. At the end, George Kaye , bolshy and squint-shouldered, had shut himself in there to make a point, to complete his last length of tweed. He was so engrained in tradition, he couldn’t grasp the opportunity for change, to take the redundancy money and run with it.
‘It’s the facts of life, George,’ Kiki had said. ‘You have to build a different future. Not one that revolves around this monument beckoning you to it every morning.’
29
Nov
08
Who move my Flower ? (3)
Not prepared to lose the agenda wholly to Mr Amir, he grappled on: ‘I have some more ideas for business development you see.’
‘You have given us many ideas. So very many ideas.’
‘Thank you. I’d like to see if we can tap into the Mombasa market – there are plenty of tourists there with money to spare.’
‘Mr Arfan. Pease join us for sodas and sambusas. We are so happy to invite you – myself and Mr Juneid. When will you come for a celebration?’
Kiki saw that he was not being offered an option – he was being offered a leaving party. From his preparation for this posting he knew that he was only there to train people, to build capacity, that he should make himself dispensable. And yet and yet and yet. Everyone in the workshop still deferred every small decision to him. They had adapted his name to something familiar to them – ‘Arfan’ – and invited him to meet their families. They laid out before him plates of breads, fish, meats, even biryani or pilau as a mark of occasion. Strangers called out his name in the street.
Cloth was not only rolling off the looms, it was for sale in the little tourist shops in the Stone Town, with labels attached in dollars. A quality product from organic cotton, hand-dyed. He’d even seen tourists on the beach with it draped and wound over their bikinis.
He was proud himself to wrap a ‘Kinyonga’ kikoi around his waist each morning when he got up to stretch on the step of his house and go to the stall for bread and bananas. In the way of local fishermen he wore nothing underneath. It reminded him of wearing the kilt. But the slim length of the kikoi from waist to ankle made him feel sinuous, even, dare he admit to it, sexy.
21
Nov
08
Who move my Flower ? (2)
Vespas smoked by, the riders wearing builders’ helmets to comply faint-heartedly with the law. Dust rose.
The sensations slid away from him as he imagined his feet cooling on the plane, the food delivered in plastic trays and sanitised to western tastes, without the rich addition of coconut milk or ants in the flour. It was usually hard to visualise from the embracing heat here, but a sudden picture came of Bandung – one of those dense still days when the tops of trees are bitten off by cloud, and the sheep, stone walls, and sky reflect only shades of white. He imagined rain sheeting onto dark roads; headlights and spray; faceless transport. No one noticing him.
He couldn’t even identify where home was now. Not his flat in Dago, rented out – why would he live in the ferocious wind-bite of that city again anyway? Then it came, as if he had been keeping it from himself. It would have to be his parents’ house in Perth, at least to start with. He pictured them tucking a hand under each of his elbows on the railway platform, and hoiking him away for interrogation as his feet scrabbled and pawed to hold their ground. ‘Did it go wrong there too?’ they would ask. And who would contradict them, tell them how he had started something here which might just flourish?
No-one at home could know what it meant to witness Mohammed’s face when the first cloth had rolled towards him onto the beam. As the smile had sprung his features into life, the rest of the men in the workshop crept forward, congregating around his loom, looking between his face and the cloth, edging into laughter almost as if they had witnessed a miracle. Mohammed continued to build the cloth, bouncing back the reed to consolidate the fabric, finding his rhythm. Soon all the looms were going and the workshop had filled with the regular soft thud of the shafts rising and falling, the reeds bashing and shuttles shimmying to and fro. Light would band in between gaps in the latticed walls of the hut. With it came the sounds of children playing under the shelter of palms outside. The workshop had come to feel like Kiki’s own place.
15
Nov
08
Old Shoe (Part 2)
“sk.. srek…” sudden the security friend by interesting direct of clothing bag alpina my father which has ripped, almost had not ready to again burden in her hung shoulder to be his left because string right side his have been breaking even every night sewed by my mother.
Sudden we are surprised by a voice from spandrel ” tiiit…tiit…tiiit…” a car rides up the school, treatment of the security almost differ from the treatment to luxuriant cars us in front of his is greeted to smiles its beloved, respect “atlet pencak silat” before strarting contest, education but remain to be attentive, almost like a “abdi dalem keraton jogjakarta”, nippyly he runs opens door of car marcedes benz which is just parked by a who from the uniform I have a notion that he is a person driver, I imagine soon will go out a necktie men to apply gallant coat with its shoe generating the sun reflection of light effect to each and everyone is standing near by it, and a case containing securities worth million rupiah.
Door of open marcedes, nervously I wait for as of shadow figure which I create in my cerebellum which still too lugu or possible pretend to know, even my style have been like a gambler’s horse race in last trajectory, acurate 100 metre before line finish beside tightly get of bet coupon which I has bought by using all my remaining old fellow heritages.
Then, just abrupt of this world as an article is television at RT is writing down ` In a minute azan maghrib for DKI jakarta and its surroundings`, world will desist my breath am tantalum some times, while my heart am boisterous fast for want of oxygen.
cc: to be continue…
