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Aliyah
Remembered
Aliyah woke with a start. Umi’s face looked like something from
an abstract nightmare. The cracked lips, darting blood shot eyes,
grimy hair, colourless filthy skin and hollow cheeks did not belong to
the kind and comforting face that Aliyah knew. Over the thunderous
rumble of the engine, Aliyah could still make out Marlah’s
whimpering and wailing as she clutched Umi’s skirt to her chest,
wringing and unwringing it in her hands. There was no food. For
two days all they had eaten was a hand full of beans each from a can.
Marlah was ill and frail and hope of ever reaching the golden land
was fading fast. Umi held Marlah over the side rail and as she
wretched up the little that was in her stomach, she shrieked as the
waves reached up towards her, threatening to submerge them all.
The open sea and endless horizon was boundless. Aliyah
wondered if she would ever see anything other than water and sky.
Wondered what was happening at home. Questioned why they had
got on this boat. Aliyah thought that her sister would die on this
boat. Falling in and out of consciousness, Aliyah dreamt of the land
of Australia and how, when they arrived, she would be able to play
outside, to draw and learn to write, to sing, to play with her sister,
and live with her family in a place where they would never be afraid.
Aliyah prayed they would make it.
They were always afraid. Afraid that the boat would sink, afraid
that there would be no food or water and they would starve, afraid
of thieves and capture, and afraid that Marlah would not be strong
enough. They drifted, they plunged, they jolted and rolled, and
when finally they saw a Navy ship, Aliyah was sure that Marlah
would be taken care of, and that they would be protected from the
many shadows that haunted them. But instead they were yelled at by
men in uniforms who looked very similar to the soldiers.
A chair, a table, a bed. Four white walls, and one door. She was
the boy’s ball, caught in an endless cycle moving from memory to
memory. Unable to control, unable to decide, caught and then
thrown. This was Aliyah’s world now, confined in this building, so
different from how she had imagined it. It was not one of freedom
and happiness, but instead a world of control, rules and regulations,
much like the one she had so desperately fled. A world of walls the
colour of stormy seas. A world of separation and loss. And a world
where even her strong and solid bricks are not enough to suppress
the memories, and so, Aliyah remembered.
‘
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