Rain Born Read online

  Rain Born

  Zoha Kazemi

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Rain Born

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  About the Author

  Zoha Kazemi is a young Iranian writer and the first writer in Iran who has written professionally in speculative fiction, especially the genres of science fiction and fantasy. She explores fundamental concepts like love, immortality, death and religion in her soft sci-fi novels. She creates and depicts estranged and self-sufficient worlds with complex cultural, economical and political structures in her novels where she puts to test many challenging ideas and thoughts about the nature of mankind, its socially constructed beliefs and values and their effects.

  Rain Born is Kazemi’s eighth novel but her first book written in English. She has written and published in Persian before: seven novels, a flash fiction collection and a three-volume children’s novels.

  Dedication

  To my Mother and Father

  Copyright Information ©

  Zoha Kazemi (2020)

  The right of Zoha Kazemi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781528949750 (Paperback)

  ISBN 9781528972383 (ePub e-book)

  www.austinmacauley.com

  First Published (2020)

  Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

  25 Canada Square

  Canary Wharf

  London

  E14 5LQ

  Chapter 1

  The boatman, not fully awake, hears the laughter and shouting of children playing in the water at dawn, and the excited skirl of seagulls flying around the harbour to catch the silver fish shining on the surface of the sea. The boatman is used to hearing these sounds in his boat cabin and resists opening his eyes and stepping into another mundane morning. It is the beginning of the short, dry season, and the weary mothers longing to catch another hour of sleep send their boys to swim around the harbour. This year, the refugee children of the southern ships have joined the boys and girls of the Oxan Island. Every morning, they step out of their make-shift sheds of the floating Oxan harbour, swim around the Island wall in the filthy ooze of the water to get to the clearer area of the main harbour where they feel safer playing around the boats. They have disturbed boatman’s sleep who is tired of the long journey he had. He opens his eyes in the full darkness of his boat cabin. His passengers had spent the night on the island. They had arrived last evening before sun down, before the Oxan gates had closed. They did ask him to join them, but the boatman was not sure if he could fall asleep on land. He is used to the mild motion of the sea that gently puts him to sleep like a cradle. He didn’t give any explanations, just an excuse saying that someone should watch the boat overnight.

  The sudden screaming of the children forces the boatman to get up. He stands by his bed in the dark, listening to the sound of their continuous shouting. Something must have happened. This is not the sound of joyful playing. It is close to the boat and seems to be getting closer, as if the children are rushing towards the boat both from the wooden dock and in the sea. Their voices pass through the water and hull, reaching his ears. It has turned into murmurs. He also hears it from above. They must have surrounded the boat. He quickens his stride and leaps over the three, short steps of the cabin and opens the hatch. The early morning sun hits his eyes as the fresh air passes through his lungs. With one glance, he can see at least ten half-soaked children above the boat hook pin and twice that number floating in the water, behind the boat where his cabin is. The children levitating in the water are pointing at something. But the boatman turns his head towards the Oxan gate and stares at the three guards that walk hastily towards his boat with two boys guiding them.

  The boatman takes a few steps and reaches the bow. He bends down from the deck wall and looks at the object that is stuck between bow and the chains. It is the tumid body of a woman faced down on the surface. He horridly gets up on his knees, struggling to keep his balance, takes a breath and bends down again to take a closer look. The waves gently bang the body against hull. Her right hand is stuck in the chains. She has little clothes on and what remains of her short skirt is ripped and ragged. The naked body of the woman, even though lifeless and bloated like a dead fish, is not something that the boys should see. It would be better to scatter them from there. The woman’s torn skirt is made of the light colour cotton fabric that the fisher women or divers would wear, and it has a large, dark bloodstain on it beneath the waistline from where the skirt is torn. Her very short hair adds to the possibility that she is a diver. The boatman feels a tap on his shoulder and stands up on the guard’s command. The other two guards scatter the children.

  The guards start at once without saying a word or asking questions. One of them takes off his leather sandals and steps into the water in the gap between the boat and the body. The boatman also jumps in. The water is deep and he has to hold himself up on the surface by treading water. He holds the chain with one hand and with the other hand, he frees the woman’s arm from the chain. He turns her hand and sees the four-line tattoo of the sea people; it is crossed with a thick scratch. There are more cuts and scratch marks on her arms, and the newest is from being released from the boat chain. There is no blood coming out from the new wound. The boatman holds up the woman from her neck and her chest and the guard from her waistline and legs. They push the body up to pass the edge of the pier wall which is higher than the sea level. But the body is heavy, and its wet and livid naked skin is slippery. It slides back from their hands into the water. They have to be careful not to let the waves take it further back. The guard hurriedly pushes her leg to the pier and picks her up again from her waist. The boatman helps with holding her head. The two guards on the dock act faster this time, and they take her arms and pull up the body.

  Even though the salty seawater has slowed her decay, the dead woman has a rancid smell that makes the boatman sick in his empty stomach. It is not like the smell of hunted fish or the seawater. It has a bitter-sour smell like stale blood and rotten meat. The boatman helps the guard to climb out of the water. He holds his hand to the edge of the pier and looks more closely at the wom
an’s face. She seems young, maybe beautiful; it’s hard to say with her eyes closed, her nose swollen and her lips turned grey. He can’t imagine how she might have looked like before drowning. He can hardly hear the guards talking since his ears are filled with the salty moist breeze. But he gets the gist of their talk. The body is to be taken to Oxan and burned. They need more help to carry back this swollen and slippery body.

  The boatman swims towards the outer ladder of his boat. He turns his head towards the harbour and sees the newly arrived guards. From their dismissing head movements, he can guess that none of them can identify the body. It isn’t his business anymore; he has cooperated enough and it is in the hands of the Oxan authorities now to investigate this death and decide what to do. He should return to his boat and get ready to step on the island. But something catches his attention. He floats on the water and stares at the woman. He swims towards the harbour again to take a closer look. Something dangles out between the woman’s legs, like a short, colourless, torn rope. He doesn’t recognise the umbilical cord and mistakes it for her guts. A moist breeze from the harbour fills his lungs with the putrid smell of the lifeless woman. He holds the chains with his hands and leans on them and throws up in the water.

  Chapter 2

  As Tirad feels the rapid movement of something cold and sluggish by his right foot, he stops his sentence and scowls, takes his eyes off his students that are staring at him and looks down. He lifts his right foot and steps back. A small water snake is sliding on the wooden teaching cabin between his feet. The children are silently staring at the snake and the dance-like movement of Tirad’s feet. He tries to avoid touching the snake’s skin with his ankle and loses his balance. Just before he falls down on his back, he slams his left foot against the floor and stands. His left foot has pummelled the snake. The sluggish feeling of the snake’s torn skin and the sound of its crushed cartilage starts a shiver from Tirad’s heel that moves upwards through his leg bones and spine, making him step back again with disgust and put his bloodstained foot on the floor. He looks at his undesired prey that lays motionless one-step away from him and pulls his head up to see the frightened look in the eyes of the five boys and girls that are sitting in front of him. He tries to keep his voice down and to sound calm, and stares at the anxious and guilty faces of the children. He knows it must have been one of them who had brought the snake in to the class. He takes a deep breath and tells them, “Class is dismissed… everyone out!” But he stands in the doorway blocking the way out. The boys squeeze themselves and pass through the distance between Tirad’s body and the open door. He strokes his full beard and watches the children that avoid his glance. The girls, unlike the boys, take careful and slow steps, controlling their haste to show that they have no rush getting out of the class and to declare their innocence in the matter. Tirad takes the last girl by her naked arm and stops her from leaving.

  The girl looks at him with tears in her frightened eyes. Tirad wants to ask her, “Who did this? And why they have brought a snake into the class?” But the girl bursts into tears. It’s no use; even if she speaks, she is too scared to answer properly. Tirad lets go of her arm and allows her to leave the cabin without answering his question. He just orders her to call Lealy and tell her to bring some water and clean up the mess. The girl wipes the tears off her face with the back of her hand, nods and rushes out, running in the corridors of the stranded ship. Tirad sits down on the wooden floor and stares at the twelve-inch snake. He can see from a step away, the whiteness of the snake’s bone, visible through the crack of the silver skin and its torn, pink meat. He has to get up and gather the students’ books and papers from the floor. But he wants to sit still until Lealy arrives with a bucket of water. He wants to wash his heels first and dry them and then step on the rusty cabin floor. He doesn’t feel sorry for the snake, nor is he mad at the children. He blames himself for not having been strong enough to stand up to the children and stop them from teasing him.

  The girl calls his name with a soft and low voice. She is standing behind the cabin wall and has put her head through the doorframe. Her cheeks are blushing, probably from running in the ship corridors, and there are no signs of her previous tears.

  “I looked everywhere, Master Tirad! I couldn’t find Lealy,” she says.

  “Did you look in the kitchen? On the deck?” asks Tirad furiously. The girl nods to say she has. Tirad raises his voice and shouts at the girl telling her to go and fetch a bucket of water. But the girl looks at him as before, not moving, stepping in and out from the doorway. Tirad is exhausted and puzzled by her disobedience.

  “Why don’t you move? I told you to get some water… I have to clean up this mess!” he shouts again.

  The girl hesitates, moves right into the doorframe to ask her question more comfortably. Tirad glances at her from head to toe. His eyes move from her long and messy hair to the dirty and ragged toil that wraps her from under her arms up to her knees. He looks up again and stares at her half-opened, toothless mouth. The girl takes a breath and goes ahead asking Tirad if he has killed the snake? Tirad is confused; of course, the snake is dead. But he doesn’t answer the girl, waiting for her to ask her main question.

  “What will happen now?” she asks with dubiety.

  “What do you think? Ha?” he replies.

  The girl seems frightened and less sure and mutters, “Anger of the sea… Disaster?”

  Tirad wants to laugh at the way she talks; she obviously doesn’t truly understand the meaning of her words. Does she know how to spell the word ‘disaster’? He doesn’t know how to react, but controls his laughter. Should he say that there is not going to be any disaster? If he does, he will undermine the Saviour Rules and his own teachings. Should he say that he didn’t kill the snake on purpose? There are no rules for unintentional killing of the animals in the Saviour Rules. Or should he say that he has killed the snake and now they are all awaiting a great punishment. And then, the news of the upcoming rage of the sea would go around. The children would wet their beds at night and look anxiously around to find the first signs of the great disaster. He could tell her that he will cleanse himself from the undesired fault of killing the snake in tomorrow’s Spawn-Scorching ceremony. The fire will purify people from all faults and wrong doings, whether they were done intentionally or not. He has always answered the children the same way explaining the Spawn-Scorching ceremony as the source of all purity, although the ceremony itself has always been a place for challenging questions. But he is too exhausted to explain and argue with the girl.

  “It’s not dead…it is still alive. Go and find Lealy,” he says in a soft voice, promising her that Lealy can easily cure the snake. But he is anxious, not only he has killed the snake, he has lied about it too. The girl must have noticed his desperation and she seems more eager to get her answer.

  “Why is it not moving then?” she asks. Tirad furiously stands up and leaps over towards the door. The girl is still looking at him intently to get her answer. As Tirad approaches her, she runs away quickly. Tirad watches her leave and stands there in the doorway. He sees Lealy above the staircase hatch at the end of the corridor talking to someone who is on the stairs below the floor. Tirad calls her and watches her stepping towards him with her strong and plump legs. Her long, brown hair covers her large breasts and with each step, they swing slowly from her bust to her naked, stout arms. Tirad bends his head and tries not to look at Lealy walking slowly towards him. Right at that moment, the little girl takes him by surprise as she calls him from behind and hands him a bucket of water and a napkin. He takes the bucket and sends her off to the deck, not allowing her to stay and ask more questions. Leaning on the doorframe, he raises his foot and cleans off the bloodstain from his heels with the napkin.

  Healy enters the cabin behind Tirad, and upon seeing the crushed snake, takes the bucket from him, sits and leans over the little, dead body. She soaks the napkin and throws the snake in the bucket and nags as she scoops the floor.


  “How long do you think you can keep this up? You have to stand up to them! Yell at them…beat them…whatever it takes!” she says with a lowered voice.

  “They’re only kids…it’s just childish playing…nothing comes out of yelling…you know that!” he mutters and bends down to gather the books and papers that are lying all over the class floor. He refuses to glance at Lealy’s pout lips and her bony cheeks that look even more desirable when she murmurs. But Lealy notices his sneaky peeks and stops the cleaning. She straightens her back and sits up in the middle of the cabin and stares at him. Tirad denies the attention and continues picking up the pens and papers. Finally, he gives up.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” he asks.

  “Why do you always act like that?” Lealy answers harshly.

  “Act like that? To whom? The students?” he asks again, but Lealy only gives him a look as he stands above her with pens and papers in his hands. Tirad knows whom Lealy refers to. It’s not the children. She is upset because of the way he has been treating her.

  Tirad starts explaining to Lealy in a defending tone that his new group of students are fewer in number but are lame in learning and only fool around. Lealy sighs and leans again to dry the wet floor. Tirad, trying to avoid the conversation about their relationship, squats by the door and looks at the narrow sunbeam that shines through the cabin window.

  “They keep asking questions. Sometimes, I really don’t know how to answer them. They undermine everything they are taught,” he continues, but Lealy doesn’t seem to care. She picks the bucket and the napkins and gets up from the floor. Tirad turns towards her.

  “What should I tell them?” he asks.

  “About what?” she replies, as if she hasn’t heard a word he said. Tirad repeats the question that the girl had asked him about the snake’s killing. Lealy shakes her head.

  “How should I know? You’re the third-tier disciple of the Saviour! Not me!” she says and steps towards the doorway. Suddenly, she turns around as if she has remembered something.