A Wall of Fire Rising

“Remember what you are,” Lili said, “a great rebel leader. Remember, it is the revolution.”

“Do we want him to be all of that?” Guy asked.

“A wall of fire is rising and in the ashes, I see the bones of my people. Not only those people whose dark hollow faces I see daily in the fields, but all those souls who have gone ahead to haunt my dreams. At night I relive once more the last caresses from the hand of a loving father, a valiant love, a beloved friend.”

When things were really bad for the family, they boiled clean sugarcane pulp to make what Lili called her special sweet water tea. It was supposed to suppress gas and kill the vermin in the stomach that made poor children hungry. That and a pinch of salt under the tongue could usually quench hunger until Guy found a day’s work or Lili could manage to buy spices on credit and then peddle for them for a profit at the marketplace.

Near the sugar mill was a large television screen in an iron grill cage that the government had installed so that the shantytown dwellers could watch the state-sponsored news at eight o’clock every night. After the news, a gendarme would come and turn off the television set, taking home the key. On most nights, the people stayed at the site long after this gendarme had gone and told stories to one another beneath the big blank screen. They made bonfires with dried sticks, corn husks, and paper, cursing the authorities under their breath.

For the last few weeks, she had been feeling as though Guy was lost to her each time he reached this point, twelve feet away from the balloon. As Guy pushed his hand through the barbed wire, she could tell from the look on his face that he was thinking of sitting inside the square basket while the smooth rainbow surface of the balloon itself floated above his head.

“I got a few hours’ work for tomorrow at the sugar mill,” Guy said, “That’s what happened today.”

[…]

It was almost six months since the last time Guy had gotten work there. The jobs at the sugar mill were few and far between. The people who had them never left, or when they did they would pass the job on to another family member who was already waiting in line.

“Pretend that this is the time of miracles and we believed in them. I watched the owner for a long time, and I think I can fly that balloon. The first time I saw him do it, it looked like a miracle, but the more I saw it, the more ordinary it became.”

[…]

“You’re right, Lili, you’re right. But look what he gave us instead. He gave us reasons to want to fly. He gave us the air, the birds, our son.”

Lili shut the door behind her, making her way out to the yard. The empty gasoline containers rested easily on her head as she walked a few miles to the public water fountains. It was harder to keep them steady when the containers were full. The water splashed all over her blouse and rippled down her back.

“There is so much sadness in the faces of my people. I have called on our gods. I call on our young. I call on our old. I call on our mighty and the weak. I call on everyone and anyone so that we shall all let out one piercing cry that we may either live freely or we should die. ”

“Listen to this, Lili. I want to tell you a secret. Sometimes, I just want to take that big balloon and ride it up in the air. I’d like to sail off somewhere and keep floating until I got to a really nice place with a nice plot of land where I could be something new. I’d build my own house, keep my own garden. Just be something new.”

“You know the question I asked you before,” he said, “how a man is remembered after he’s gone? I know the answer now. I know because I remember my father, who was a very poor struggling man all his life. I remember him as a man that I would never want to be.”

On her way back, the sun had already melted a few gray clouds. She found the boy standing alone in the yard with a terrified expression on his face, the old withered mushrooms uprooted at his feet. He ran up to meet her, nearly knocking her off balance.

[…]

“It’s Papa,” he finally said, raising a stiff finger in the air. The boy covered his face, as his mother looked up at the sky. A rainbow-colored balloon was floating aimlessly above their heads.

“He’s further away than he seems,” said Young Assad. “I still don’t understand. How did he get up there? You need a whole crew to fly these things.”

“I don’t know,” the foreman said. “One of my workers just came in saying there was a man flying above the factory.”

“But how the hell did he start it?” Young Assad was perplexed.

“He just did it,” the foreman said.

The boy continued reciting his lines, his voice rising to a man’s grieving roar. He kept his eyes closed, his fists balled at his side, as he continued with his newest lines.