It was lonely standing there. Rafeel wanted tears and he got them. This time he cried for himself.
He moved on from the family graves. He reared the headstones as he walked around. Village names prevailed. He could not find Rozeena ' s name anywhere. He found the grave of Hussani Powely, the loyal servant of his grandfather. It had been so many years ago that he had almost forgotten Hussani ' s face, his calloused working hands, and his dark crackled lips. The length of his body as he raised the trowel into the air, bringing it into earth with force and hope. Hope that land would be fertile. He died but land never turned fertile.
Closing his eyes, Rafeel pictured his grandfather climbing the cliff. It was a very cold day. He grunted with the effort of pulling himself from hand hold to hand hold, his breath steamy. As he climbed, Rafeel waited for him to lose his grip, for him to lose his footing, for him to fall. But nothing could stop his grandfather, neither gravity nor fear. Up and up he went, vigorous in his youth, irrepressible, fearing nothing, needing no-one but himself. Halting at the lip of the rock wall, fifty feet above the stream, he looked up at the sky and gave a victory yell that rang out along the valley and sent the rooks up cawing from the trees. But now he was lying in the grave and death was giving a victory yell at his grave.
It was almost midnight when he reached the surroundings of his village. He remembered the loud barking of the dogs when he used to return home late, from the fight with wild beasts. Hung with ugly truths, he stood there, but this time he was returning after a long and tiring fight against human beasts, who have never been overcome! At that disappointing moment, he imagined the old face of his mother and ran like a child towards his home, the last refuge of every falling man.
The End
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