Aban's Accension

Chapter 27: The Clash

Chapter 27: THE CLASH

by Shireen Jeejeebhoy

Shouting rouses her out of her cake-induced stupor. She listens as she keeps her eyes shut, her head on the kitchen table inside the circle of her crossed arms, where she'd collapsed after putting the cake plate in the sink. She feels grungy and sticky. The voices are coming from the backyard, and she is aware enough now to realize only one is shouting.

She pushes herself up with her arms and her head sways as she contemplates the open window. She’d long since stopped closing it during the day. It doesn’t seem to make a difference; night and day the air is close. She staggers up and leans over the table to look out the window. El and some strange man are yelling at each other. No, El’s body is loose, calm; it’s the man who’s yelling and  throwing his arms around violently. He’s spitting his words out, the spit masking the vowels and consonants, and Aban can’t understand him. She turns and makes her step-by-step descent down to El’s back door to watch through the safety of its window. The man swings a fist at El’s jaw as she arrives at the window. El ducks easily and the man staggers forward as El catches him with his right arm. Aban cracks open the back door and pokes her head round it, almost touching the closed screen door.

“You sonofabitch,” the man yells as he pushes himself off of El to stand back up. “You and your stupid cakes. All those women you lead and their stupid cakes. We don’t want your help. You hear me – we don’t need it!” And he thrusts both hands towards El’s chest. But El steps back, and again the man staggers forward, hands and arms flailing towards the ground.

At that moment, Aban recognizes the man. He’s the one she and El had helped into his house during the storm. What’s his problem? He wanted to stay out in that storm? He didn’t want to be helped? Weird.

Does she like being helped? Does she like admitting she’s in trouble, to El or to herself?

Aban shakes the thoughts away.

“Stop moving, you mangiacake. Fight like a man!” The man steadies himself on his feet and glares at El, easing one foot to the left, crossing his right carefully over it and shifting his weight to the left, as he again moves his left foot slowly to the side. Like an angry, separated waltz, the two circle, El relaxed and upright, the man crouched down, his arms ready with his hands clamped in fists. Their profiles come into Aban’s view. She can’t believe how calm El looks, and how ugly the man is. Why’d they help him anyway? And how come he’s in their backyard? The thoughts of did she want help creep in again. She dents the screen with her head and deliberately focuses on the men as they dance silently over the fuzzy-green yard. As they dance down the yard she notices two of the boards in the fence that separates their yard from the one next door, the one where they’d rescued the man in that storm, have come loose. One is askew and attached in only one corner; the other is lying on the ground. When’d that happen? A grunt moves Aban’s attention back to the men.

Red patches appear on the man’s face; the red spreads across his cheeks and down his five-o’clock-shadow neck; his tanned muscular arms turn fiery from his anger. Nastiness covers his face. He halts his movements, looks over at the fence. El follows his gaze. Cunning enters the man's face, and he walks over to the fence to pick up the board on the ground. He grips it with both hands and advances on El, who has turned to face him. El looks unafraid and -- Aban realises -- also sad and full of pity for the man who is so angry.

El has looked at her that way too.

The man’s harsh voice interrupts her contemplation, “You think you’re so smart, eh? Well, let’s see who’s smart now,” the man growls at El as he swings the board at El’s head. El ducks and stands back up.