Franklyn - Episode 6
Officer
We had a family meet after Father was buried. This wasn't like the kind held before his burial which we– my brother and me– weren't allowed to sit in. We'd eavesdropped instead as Uncle Jack planned the burial arrangements alongside other distant relatives and friends whom I'd never seen.
This time around we were in the meeting. We were even allowed to speak
. ‘It was your father who died. You have the right to speak. Who do you suspect killed him!’
The police officer was dressed in a creasy police uniform. He looked fierce and terrifying. His eyes were so large it seemed he could read our thoughts.
‘Make sure the perpetrators of this crime are apprehended as soon as possible, Officer.’ That was Uncle Jack speaking big English. His eyes were still red from shedding so much tears. He looked so much like father, save he was more boyish, beardless and had a less darker and tougher skin.
‘Please Officer do your best!’ That was Mother. The voice in her throat had finished. She was barely audible, like a radio with dead batteries.
She was surrounded by comforters, women who had emerged out of nowhere and were forever present so that it now seemed they lived in our house. They all wore sad faces and cried so much that I wondered whose husband had actually died, who was actually bereaved
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. Mother or them?
The Officer, still with a stern face, snorted and heaved. ‘Forensics will soon begin. We've sealed the room. We are positive we can have clues.’
He looked very confident. He was absolutely sure of what he was saying even though he sounded like actors in Hollywood films.
I turned to look at Benny. He looked bewildered. He was biting his lower lip. I turned to look at Father, he still lived, in the family photo on the wall. He was staring at me, as though he had a lot to tell me but couldn't because he was trapped inside the photograph.
Come! I heard him say, softly, like we had been friends during his lifetime.
‘Don't worry, Madam. We're working on everything.’ The Officer was so confident. It was evident in his arched brows and furrowed head. He stood up and shook Uncle Jack and left. The sound of his boot sounded like the footfall in the market.
The day father died came unexpected. It was the day mother slept in our room. The day he slept off in the parlour after bringing mother back from the hospital. I still dread that day. It was a shocker. It presented death in its true gruesome state. It was way beyond our league.
Who might have killed him? It wasn't me, wasn't Benny. I was so sure. As for Mother, maybe. She stood up at night a few times, moaning from orthopedic pain as she leaned up. But could she have killed him? I really doubt it. Mother yelped the following morning as she found him dead on the couch. Her kitchen knife was in his belly.
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