[stylist] Trials of an honorary Dragon (was A deafblind girl) chapter 9 rewritten.

[helene ryles]

Chapter 9: The son my mother wanted by Nadia Murat.
24/9/1994 - 29/10/1994


Beria’s pedal driven rickshaw landed in the playing field.  In the
same spot that it had landed the previous year.   Everything was the
same, except there weren’t any boys hanging around this year.
“Go to your classes.  You don’t need a bodyguard.  Your aunt is just
being very silly,” Beria ordered.
I faltered.  Wondering whether I should go home now.
I was making my way to the school gates when I saw an angry
grey-skinned  woman approach me.  I remembered the long curly black
hair and piercing yellow eyes from last year.  She was even wearing
the same top with the fur collar; and the same tight leather skirt.
She looked even taller tottering on the black leather boots that she
wore.  Mother simply marched up to me in a blazing fury.
When I tried to run I found myself rooted to the spot. I was just
standing there when her immaculate pink nails dug into my flesh.   She
grabbed my arm in a painfully tight grip, dragging me out of the
school gates.
 Fear coursed through my body when I found I could not move.  There
was nothing I could do to stop her, or attempt an escape. I wanted to
scream, but no sound would come out.    The spell that bound me meant
I couldn’t even call for help.
Mother dragged me behind some spiky bushes.  She roughly pulled off my
neon pink and black dress, and dressed me in a plain shirt and
trousers, that boys usually wore.
She next pulled out a pair of scissors and began to cut off most of my
hair.  I was filled with a sense of loss without my lovely long curly
hair.  It was as if she was cutting off part of my identity.
"Keep away from my sister Liza. She's a crazy dangerous woman.   She
only wants to fatten you up so her dragon can eat you.  All Darthrilan
police officers are like that," Mother told me, screaming into my
speech processor.
This was auditory torture for me.  Since I was unable to move, there
was no way I could turn down the volume.
"You are Nadir Murat.  You are a boy.  Let nobody see your body.   If
people discover you are a girl, they will hurt you.    Remember that.
It's a shame they won't do a sex change on anyone under eighteen."

                     ***     ***    ***

I can’t remember the name of the town my mother lived in.  She took me
to another school where the children spoke but didn't sign.  They were
all bigger then  me.  A pale-skinned woman looked rather dubiously at
my hearing devices and Aphakic glasses.  She took up some chalk and
wrote on the blackboard for me.
"Can you read?"
"Yes," I wrote back.
"Can you hear anything at all?"
"Yes, but only when it's very quiet."
"How much can you see?"
"I see most things as long as the lighting is ok. Not too bright but
not completely dark either," I explained.  The teacher showed me some
picture books and wanted to know if I could read the print in them.  I
nodded.
The teacher put me in the front row where I watched her speaking.
Afterwards she wrote everything down on the black board, especially
for me.
I found the other children hard to talk to because of all the noise.
None of them knew any sign language at all.  So I had a chat with the
teacher instead.  I remember how lonely I felt.  How I missed my deaf
friends from Druzil.
When mother came for me that afternoon, the teacher spoke to her.
Mother looked furious.  She exchanged heated words with the teacher,
who looked shocked by what mother was saying to her.
Mother grabbed me by the arm and yanked me out of the school.  We
crossed a road which was crowded with numerous rickshaws and bicycles.
 Then I was taken to a block of flats, where we climbed the ladder up
to the fourth floor.  I shook so badly that I was very slow at
climbing.
"You look enough of a freak as it is, without you waving your hands
about in that  absurd way.  Why oh why do I keep giving birth to so
many freaks?  It must be from  your fathers’ side of the family.
"Now you are not to use any more of that freakish signing.  We paid so
much money to cure you of your deafness.  The least you can do is stop
acting deaf so people like that teacher don’t ask nosy questions,
thinking you need extra help.  I'm not having that."
"I am deaf," I protested.
“No! We sacrifices so much to make you hear again! How dare you act so
ungratefully! How dare you contradict me! I want you to act like a
normal hearing boy! Not a cursing freak,” Mother stormed.
Mother held me down and beat me with a leather strap.
After she finished, I just lay there on the cold concrete floor.  My
body ached, my throat felt dry, and my stomach rumbled.  I had not
been given anything to eat or drink that night at all.   I dare not
move a muscle in case it evoked mother’s wrath.
By the following morning my discomfort was increased by my soiled
clothes and strong stench of urine.  I must have wet myself during the
night.

A few days later, mother enrolled me into a different elementary
school.   The teacher at this school looked me up and down with a
frown on her face.  She did not try to communicate with me on the
black board.
Not that It mattered too much to me at that stage since my hungry and
thirsty was all that I could think of.  My throat felt really dry from
lack of thirst and I could not stop thinking about food.
When the other children started pulling out their lunches I stared
pointedly at them in the way I’d seen my dog Bella do.  When that
didn‘t work I snatched a bottle of water, out of the hands of one
girl, and began to drink from it in long thirsty gulps, until it was
all gone.  The girl glared at me as she snatched her empty bottle
back.
The teacher spoke to mother at the end of the day.   What the teacher
told mother made her very angry.  I was beaten again as soon as I got
back home from school.


                    ***     ***    ***

The next day mother introduced me to a small timid man in a long white
shirt and matching loose trousers.  He was grey-skinned, and had a
wooden leg.
"Nadir, this is your father, Maram Murat.  He is a travelling sales
man," Mother informed me.  I felt awkward.  I could not remember
anything about this man at all.
"You are meant to say, ‘Hello Papa’," Mother told me, slapping me
across the face.
"Hello Papa," I replied obediently.
"Don't Madrella.  The child won't remember me, obviously."
"Nonsense Maram, Corporal Punishment is good for children.  Otherwise
they get spoilt rotten.  Why don't you show him your leg?”
My father pulled off his wooden leg and showed it to me.
"Just look what a great sacrifice your father made for you.  He had to
amputate his own leg and sell it to a dragon, so you could hear.
Even after that he still fell heavily into dept.   You must stop
switching off your hearing.  It's very ungrateful after all the
sacrifices that have been made for you..."
"I don't mind if he doesn't want to use it all the time," my father
contradicted.
"Well I do.  You have no idea how to bring up children correctly.
They need a firm hand."
"It was my leg, so I can say if I don't mind him turning his ears off.
  I wish I could turn my ears off too.  Especially when you shout at
me like this," Father retorted sullenly.


                 ***  *** ***

I lay curled up on the floor, when my father came to see me.  He
handed me a bag of samosas to eat.   I wolfed them down hungrily.
"When did your mother last feed you?" My father asked me in great concern.
"She hasn't yet." I told him.
"Goodness me!  That's no good.  A growing child needs regular feeding.
 I'll have to speak to her about that."
"I don't like it here.  Can you take me back to Aunt Liza," I begged.
"Didn't Liza kidnap you?"
"No, she rescued me.  I want to go home now..."
"Well I don't know what to make of all this.  Your mother is a little
hard to live with you know.  I've been away travelling for the last
few years, but your mother's ex husband phoned me up about you.  He
told me you were back with your mother.  He asked me to keep an eye on
things.  It seems his sister works as a police officer and she had to
deal with some complaints.  She would have wanted to fetch you, but
her supervisor won't have it.  I don't like this situation any more
then you do..."
"Take me back to Aunt Liza then," I demanded.
"All right then,  lets go right now while your mother is out," my
father suggested.
Father took my hand in his and we headed for the front door.
However, we found to our utter dismay, that the front door was quite
impossible to get to.  My father tried to throw himself at the door.
He bounced back again without even touching it.
"I’m sorry Nadir,” he told me, rubbing his sore limbs,  “It looks like
your mother has put some sort of charm on the door to keep us both
shut in."

                    ***  ***  ***

“Why can’t you give my poor child a break,” my father intervened,
after one of mother’s numerous beatings.
“I’ll break his neck if he carries on behaving like this.  Do you
realise how many different schools he‘s been to now, and he still
keeps acting deaf,” mother stormed.
“Well he does seem to have problems with his sight and hearing.
Surely you must have noticed? Remember what the audiologist told me…”
my father timidly replied.
“Curse the audiologist! The great science demon cured him of his
deafness and blindness altogether.  He’s just putting on an act.  I’m
going to beat it out of him though, one way or another.”
“That’s intolerable,  and you are keeping us prisoner here too.”
“Yes of course I am.  I don‘t trust you Maram.  I f I let you out,
You will just squeal to the police and I‘m not having that, so you can
both stay here with me…”
  My parents spent a lot of time arguing after that.   I grew to
associate my cochlear implant with the sound of quarrelling voices and
slamming doors.  I heard several yowls of pain from father, whenever
mother got particularly violent with him.  In fact she used as much
corporal punishment with him, as she did with me.
During their domestic disputes I would hid in my room or under the
table.  I would turn my hearing devices off, as often as I could get
away with.  I’d even taken to removing the batteries so they wouldn't
know that it wasn't actually on.  This worked well until mother
figured out what I was up to.  She forced me to listen to a series of
unpleasantly loud noises.
My parents’ last argument was the worse.   I could remember it vividly.
“Could you please remove that charm you put on the front door.  I’ve
got to leave you again soon.  There is a wedding in North Nazdonia…”
“You and your cursing weddings.   How dare you leave me with this brat
of yours?”
“Nadir can come along too.  In fact I really want to take Nadir with
me.  It will do him a world of good…”
“No,  Nadir stays right here until he starts to behave normally…”
“That won’t happen Madrella.  You are likely to kill him first,”
“We‘ll see about that.  I don’t trust either of you. Since you are
refusing to sleep with me, you must be getting it off with another
woman, behind my back...”
“No, of course I’m not…” my father replied in injured tones.
“Well I am! The triplets aren’t really yours and neither was Maya.
Only that miserable little Duman is yours..."
My father got up and left. I heard the living room door slam, then
their was an almighty crash, followed by the sound of splintering
wood.  It seems father had blasted the front door open.
So he could work magic after all.  Even after apologetically telling
me that he could not.   He must have managed to break through the
charm that mother had put on the front door in order to get out.
I felt very hurt that father had not taken me with him when he went.
What would become of me now?