The City of Sealions

239 Pages·2005·0.7 MB·English

by  Eva Sallis

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T C
H E I T Y
o f S
E A L I O N S
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EVA SALLIS was born in Bendigo.
ShehasanMAinliterature and a PhD
in comparative literature from The
University of Adelaide. Eva won the
1997 The Australian/Vogel literary
award for her first novel, Hiam. She
lives near Port Adelaide.
ALSOBYEVASALLIS
Hiam (1998)
Sheherazade through the Looking Glass:
The Metamorphosis of the 1001 Nights (1999)
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T C
H E I T Y
o f S
E A L I O N S
E S
VA ALLIS
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First published in 2002
Copyright © Eva Sallis 2002
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher.The Australian
Copyright Act1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or
10% of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by
any educational institution for its educational purposes provided
that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has
given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)
under the Act.
This book has been assisted by the Government
of South Australia through Arts South Australia.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Sallis, E.K. (Eva K.).
The city of sealions.
ISBN 1 86508 617 7.
1. Australians — Yemen — Fiction. 2. Racially mixed
children — Fiction. 3. Mothers and daughters — Fiction.
I.Title.
A823.3
Set in 10.75/15 pt Scala by Asset Typesetting Pty Ltd
Printed in Australia by the McPherson’s Printing Group
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For Roger
Face to the salt spray and a wild sea
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C
ONTENTS
PROLOGUE 1
WATER 3
FOSTERMOTHERCOUNTRY 36
FOSTERMOTHERTONGUE 72
SWIMMINGINSANAA 91
THESTORM 168
ADRIFT 209
THEBOAT 219
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P
ROLOGUE
On the first night in Yemen, Lian dreamed of the beach.
A wind was up, blowing in from the Arctic seasummer
which shimmered on the horizon. Her feet stepped out
of the water, unmaking their splashes. The dream ran
backwards, the sea leaping up to suck the wet from her
legs, to grab her feet in cushioned calm. The puffed and
murky sand in the shallows swirled like genies back into
bottles, calming into smooth, clear ripples around her
soles. Yellow-eyed fish with a thin stripe of silver inside
their translucent bodies rushed panicked towards her
toes, converging into clusters. Waves picked themselves
up, tidied the mess and slurped like withdrawn tongues
back into the ocean. She wanted to swim but the sea was
belching up rotten ships and repairing them. The Norma
shot up stern first from the shipping channel, spilling
1