His child, his boy, his only son was gone. Gone, dead, body, he could not bear the ghastly finality of the words. He looked carefully through hazy eyes. This is not death, just innocent sleep. See that, his stomach heaved... Any moment now he will come awake and call his mother. He never called to me, always his mother, for everything, mother. And she would shield him.
If he had lived to a better age, he would have seen another aspect of me. I would have treated him as a grown man, a man of responsibility and position. He would have got everything of worth from me, his father. He would have scorned his fawning mother or at the very least, hidden his open preference for her.
But all that was over, he would never grow, he was gone, never to return oh no, it was too much… he caught his head in his hands as though to wring out his own thoughts. ‘No! No! I cannot bear it,’ the words flooded over unbidden. ‘I cannot bear it, I cannot bear this loss. My son, give me back my son.’
He looked around in search for an answer. People, so many people, so many, couldn’t any one of them be of help? Get my son back, nobody, no one, no no, ‘uhhh,…’ he groaned.
Nobody spoke and nobody should speak, they knew this man, powerful and violent. Who knew when he would turn on them like a mad animal? They feared him, his rages and ill-will, even those who benefited from him, hated him.
His uncle, a kind man of great understanding stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. The gesture meant, Yes, you grieve but do it quietly, not like a weak woman. Women wail, they are weak, that is their wont. Men cannot weep like that. There, now stop the tears and get about the business of arranging. There, there, and he began to say ‘We have to take the bo…’
‘NO!!' the father reacted sharply, 'No! Not body, he is not a body, he is a boy, he is my son, my son, he is my son…,’ the uncle looked nonplussed. Someone would have to take charge of the situation. Who could do this? Where was that brother, weakling fellow always hiding when it is time to come to the front? ‘Call him! Call him here, now!’ he shouted suddenly.
And he appeared, he had been right beside all along. Ashen-faced, he spoke, ‘Please let him be, leave him alone, why do you always interfere?’ the uncle stepped back. Do I interfere? We have to be back before sundown, doesn’t the fool know that? 'Take charge then, leave me out of it!'
His silent wrath seemed to awaken everyone, specially those who were in tears at the mere sight of grief, ‘Come on, it isn’t good to keep things like this. We have to go a long way away and come back.’ No explicit references, the father seemed to relax and the rituals began.
Later, he lay on his bed, tears streaming out of his eyes. His wife had turned on him after he returned from the cremation ground, 'You killed the one thing that mattered. The only thing…’ and she had stormed away. He was tired, he could not retort.
There would be others to take care of his needs if she chose to while away her life and die. He could throw her out, after all, what was she? She had not borne him a boy, of what use she? What did she think, that he had no feelings for his son? Should I fawn and kiss the boy like her? I cared for him more than life itself but until a child turns old enough to tell right from wrong, one must wield a firm hand. She would just weep uselessly as though her tears were capable of correcting all wrong.
What did she know of him? His troubles, the pang he felt when her obvious inability to bear a child was spoken of. What of the silent smirks? He wielded power, he was an important man and she, she had failed him. What of him, his expectations? She had failed to meet his requirements. What of that? Why had he married her? To look at her face?
And she had blamed him! How could she? Had he wrought the illness? Was it in his hands? Was anything in his hands? Did she not understood that he stood powerless when the God of Death appeared?
Oh, but he was a man all right! And she, she needed to know her place. A woman’s place is under the man, beneath! And there you see the evil that is the woman, weak at all times, incapable in body, unwilling in spirit but when the man is weak she will show her wrath, her strength. As though, ghoul-like, her power comes only when the man is weakened. Ghouls give power to the woman... Should she not lift him out of this welter? Is it not her place to give strength to fight? To continue with life? Oddly, the energizing effect of anger failed him now.
At other times, when rage caught up with him, he would hunt for her and ferret her out from one of the many rooms to teach her. But what was she, a useless impotent, ‘Can she bring the boy back? Back from the dead?’ there he had said it, dead. Dead. His son was dead, gone forever, never to return. His brain stopped racing. He sighed heavily. No tears flowed now.
He felt no feeling, only stark emptiness.
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