It was an ordinary day on the beautiful island of Jinan. The birds chirping above the treetops heralded another wonderful day like all the days on the island where the sky and the sea blended in a unique, glinting blue, and the palm tree branches embraced each other to shade the enchanting white sandy beach.
There, Ali, the forty-five-year-old fisherman, was born and lived; there he slept, woke, ate, and mended his torn fishing nets before sunset each day. There, he sat cross-legged in front of his wooden cottage, with its black, convex roof, contemplating the clear turquoise waves swaying smoothly over the coastal sands.
He had just returned from the village market after selling the fish he had caught at dawn. His hands were still clutching tightly to a few dirhams as he stood in front of the door of his hut, his feet unable to carry him inside. The sound of his wife’s sobbing was deafening to his ears, while the intermittent crying of his infant tore at his distressed heart.
That was his nine-month-old baby, Baraka. His child, whom he had been blessed with fifteen years after the birth of his firstborn son, Ahmed. For fifteen whole years, the miserable fisherman had been burying nearly every year with his own hands, all of his infants who had passed away in the first months of their birth.
Their small graves filled the background of his little cottage, testifying to the grief that had enveloped him and his wife for more than a decade.
“Dad, is that you?” asked a young voice from behind. “I believed you were still at the market?”
That was Ahmed, his cherished, unique son. The young boy sat beside his father, holding his arm with his young, strong hand. “What did the doctor say yesterday? How much time did he give us to gather the money for the operation?”
“Ten days,” replied Ali briefly.
“Ten days should be enough to search for the golden coins, shouldn’t they?” mumbled the young boy, touching his father’s arm gently. “What do you think, Dad?”
“Think of what?” demanded the man furiously. “Of the golden coins interred in the dark among the wreckage of a ship. Is this your solution? No one has ever returned from there. Do you want to meet the same fate? Tell me, Ahmed.”
He added, digging his fingers strongly into the depth of warm soil, “Son, I told you to get that crazy idea out of your head. Look at this soil.”
He added as he grabbed a handful of soil, “Here are your siblings’ remains. I buried each one of them with my bare hands. Do you want me to dig your grave, Ahmed? Do you want me to lose the only thing that lights up my darkness? For what? For a stupid myth from the legends of our ancestors?”
“But, Dad,” interrupted the young boy. “It’s not a foolish tale. I was there. I’ve told you. Last time, I got very close to the place and saw several shipwrecks among underwater rocks. I believe a ship full of ore has sunk to the ocean depths. Why can’t we go there, explore, and see what fate prepares?”
“You don’t hear. You don’t want to hear or understand anything!” replied Ali as his voice grew sharp. “This damned myth has killed dozens of young men on the island. Do you want me to remind you? Weren’t we looking for our neighbour’s body that washed up last week? Didn’t you swear to me that day that you would avoid that place? Are you walking to your death, Ahmed?”
“But I’m going there,” responded the young boy with a quiet, firm voice. “I can no longer bear my mother’s weeping every night while everyone else is asleep. Dad, didn’t you hear her? She doesn’t calm down for a second. She was moving around the corners of the cottage throughout the night, holding my brother Baraka in her arms to soothe his cries of pain.”
He added, suddenly rising and turning his tear-filled face away from his father’s anxious gaze, “I can no longer bear to see my mother’s face grow thinner each day from sorrow. I can’t stand helplessly watching my brother die. I cannot be like you, father. Your cold behaviour kills me.”
“You’re not going there! Do you hear what I said?” shouted Ali as he grabbed his son’s shoulders and shook them violently. “What do you think you would do if you challenged me, huh? Do you think you’ll become the head of this family, boy? Look at my eyes, Ahmed! What do you think I am, son? Do you think I feel nothing around me? Do you think my insides are not torn apart with grief? Don’t you know that I follow your mother every night and sit watching her as she moves in the darkness between your brothers’ graves, talking to them and lullabying them as if they were alive?”
Suddenly, his voice softened as he patted his son’s cheek, whispering, “You’re our unique son, Ahmed. You are the one who brings us hope, my boy. Your mother is already heartbroken. Do you want to break her heart further?”
“But Dad,” insisted the young boy, pointing towards the wide ocean, “this is what gives my brother Baraka hope. It is his only lifeline. If we don’t go there, Baraka will pass away. How can we afford the operation if we don’t look for the money? Will it rain gold?”
He was silent for a moment, listening to his mother’s groans as she sang desperately to his little sibling. “If my brother dies, my mother will die afterwards. I feel it deeply. I can’t stand by and do nothing. I’m sorry, Dad.”
“There has to be a better way than this, Ahmed. We will find it. We will find it, my boy,” replied Ali, trying to sound confident while stroking his son’s hair with his trembling fingers, when suddenly a piercing scream shattered the quietness, resounding through the hut as if the world had collapsed around them.
Instantly, the two men rushed inside.
