“It was last year… The beginning of the rain season. Three fishing boats came to Avij and wanted us to give them experienced fishers. We sent off three teams, each around fifteen men and women. We didn’t have many fishers so we sent off divers instead. None of the boats came back… My father went with them…” she says, pausing again. Tirad looks at her with keen eyes, wanting to know more.

“I really don’t know about these things… But if they needed my help, I would go diving with them. The last two years my mother wasn’t well, and I would stay with her more. I was never too curious about the fishing boats. I was more worried about my mother at the time,” she says annoyed and exhausted. Tirad thanks her and kisses her good night. He knows talking is difficult for her as swimming is for Tirad. Dalia sleeps with the lullaby of the raindrops drumming on the cabin roof. He lies down beside her. He still doesn’t know what to do? Should they really go to Avij and live an ordinary ship life? Hurmaz wanted this for him, and that’s why he had given him the Parsana handwritten pages and her exile sentence and wanted him to meet Armina. The Saviour and Parsana had chosen a simple life on the ship, they were married and had children on the Parsana Ship and had passed away in there. Maybe he should give in to his newly found narrative about the Saviour’s life. There is nothing behind him, his past never existed the way he imagined it. The pure and simple life of the Saviour Ship was only a deep sleep that he has woken from, it was all just illusions that he can no longer believe in. He still can have a future and a life to look forward to on the Avij ship with Dalia.

Chapter 29

The roof of the paper warehouse is dripping. Mart wipes a drop from his forehead and moans. The rainfall has created a buzzing sound in the warehouse. Moaning does not suffice, Mart starts cursing at the workers who couldn’t stop the leak. But the raining sound is too loud and the workers can’t hear his swearing, they are continuing their work without saying anything. Two workers tear up the books and throw them into the shallow, water pool and three of them stir the paper slush. Two more are spreading the slurry on a net mould and the moulds are piled up by the warehouse wall, a few steps away. Mart has not come there to monitor the workers. He has come to make sure the last part of books was transferred to the warehouse. He needs to make sure nothing is left of the books and the workers have turned them all into slurry pulps. He watches with great joy as the books are ripped apart, torn into small pieces, mixed with the soap made from fish fat and turn into a dull slush. He shouts at the workers telling them to work faster and not to put to waist the wage they are being paid by the Saviour Ships. Mart hears Akhgar’s voice and turns to him.