Mermaids’ Tears

Karim El Hayawan

In the Arabic folklore in Egypt El Naddaha – closely related to the lorelei, mermaid, or siren – haunts the Nile. Climate Scientists call the micro plastics that are destroying our rivers, waterways, seas and oceans, nurdles or ‘mermaids’ tears’.

The sun beats down on a surf of foam and plastic . Salman screams out across the water and snaps his fishing rod in two like a parched twig . He feels giddy, gasps for breath . He’s been in the heat too long . He is hungry, his family is hungry . How can he go home with nothing for them to eat again?

He stumbles along the shoreline where the village men used to cast their lines and launch their boats . He lies down in the shadow of the giant rock that children have claimed as their fortress for generations, where lovers young and old have carved their vows . It is growing dark when he becomes aware that someone is watching him .

A woman is perched on the other side of the granite slope . She has long, silky hair and wears a gown as transparent as the water used to be .

‘What you staring at? What are you doing?’ His voice is hoarse because of his dry throat .

‘Why fish here among this filth?’ Her tone is smooth, floats towards and all around him . Her face is as luminous as the moon growing bolder in the darkening sky . ‘The sea would turn to a tempest if it could bottle your rage .’

She starts to laugh .

Salman rears up . He points a fishing hook towards the sparks in her eyes that remind him of how it used to be, when fishermen sailed away each sunset, and returned with nets full of bass . How they used to talk of the sea’s bounty and told children cautionary tales – to respect the power of water .

The woman points to a gathering of bones among the algae and weed, and exhales .

A breeze, like wind in sails on a good day, catches Salman off guard . He is overcome at her calmness and falls to his knees, letting the fishing hook sink into the bleached sand . ‘It’s my daughter,’ he says . ‘She is sickly . She has been this way since birth . She cannot stomach any of the milk her mother provides . I fear she will soon die .’ His face is blistered, cracked . He is weeping as the water edges closer .

‘Stop your wailing . Look, beyond the littered shoreline, to where the water’s clear,’ says the woman .

The sun’s rays are weakening as it bleeds into the horizon . Even in his trance-like state Salman can see the woman’s hair glints with tiny plastic beads .

‘I can take you beyond the poison . You can’t save the widows and fatherless children, but I can help you save yourself . ’

Salman clenches his fists at her words . What does she know of his and the villagers’ daily struggles? How they have laboured to transport earth here to try and save farming and fishing in the delta . Today, hunger drives him . And now he sees the woman has a mullet’s tail of reddening scales . He must be hallucinating .

She continues, her voice a lullaby . ‘Floods, famine, drought, I’ve seen it before .’

‘What are you?’ He has heard warnings: El Naddaha – the siren of the Nile – hiding like a bad omen; she wants revenge, tempts men to their deaths .

He says the name out loud . ‘El Naddaha . ’

But the woman has slipped from the rock . She is floating in the water and somehow the debris parts around her . ‘Swim with me and I’ll take you to a place where there are no tears . You’ll eat like a king . Escape this human debris .’

The light of the moon dances on the waves, lights a pathway . He remembers the soothing water where the old agora used to stand . How the well quenched him, the villagers, and passing travelers .

‘Look,’ the siren whispers, ‘the planets are aligned .’

It seems the stars’ reflections are the lights of little fishing boats – and in the far away water there would be his father, uncle, brother, and grandfather waiting to help him .

‘You’re a good man . I can take you to a place where there are no tears . I have breath for both of us . Don’t spend your last days in a place of anger and grief .’

The wine dark water scares him less than the dried-up lakes and scorched land behind him . He longs to find where fish thrive, where herons wade, and gulls fly high . And El Naddaha – she’s drifting away . They both know nothing will stop nature taking its course .

Cities have drowned before . People will continue to pollute and scavenge . ‘It’s your only chance,’ she calls across the cigarette ends, syringes, plastic bags and bottles .

In the land of a thousand gods and a thousand promises, Salman prays for the dead and dying – and feels the pull of all the world’s tides . Surely, somewhere, there is a patch of clean, clear ocean . He can save the children .

He stands tall on the edge of the rock, and into a rainbow of chemicals, he dives .