by Joy Dettman
‘We will do well enough,’ I say to her and to my dogs, who also wish to lie on my bedding. I believe I say these words to convince myself, but I can not convince even the dogs.
‘We will do well enough,’ I tell them. ‘Now please take your great sandy feet from my bed.’
With tails down they follow me and my battery light to the narrow cave of the ancients’ gallery where there is a good shelf which may hold my books. I place Granny’s doctoring book beside the old stone axe. I have brought the ancients’ Bible here and also the Book of Moni, and many others which I have read and loved.
‘Rebecca? Would that not be a fine name for baby?’ I ask my dogs. ‘Or Scarlet?’ They shake their heads. Names are important. I must find her a name soon, but it must be the right name, and until I find it, we do well enough, nameless together.
My fingers trace the shape of the kangaroo, of the rabbit, who now guard my books. I have not before seen them in such bright light and I think they were not painted by the same hand, or in the same time. The kangaroo has little reality and has become one with the rock wall, but the lines of the rabbit are strong. It looks at me with a cheeky round eye and I think Aaron or Emma Morgan had made this likeness. Certainly they had been here; many of the handprints are small. I place my own hand over one, and I smile. Yes, Aaron has been here, and Granny too. She had lived in this fine cave after her escape from the city. She was strong and she had survived. And I am strong, and I too will survive.
It takes long to boil my kettle, and longer to cook my pumpkin. There is little wood to be had and the windblown bark burns fast. How will I keep my fire burning with no metal doors to close on it? How will I sleep tonight with no doors to close on me?
I must not think of this. It brings a prickling fear to my neck. I will think of the cow. When baby wakes we will walk down and drive the cow to the upper woods, then tomorrow I will find a good place for the tapestry and make for myself a wall. I have brought the great hooks which held it on Granny’s wall. They are somewhere, as is Lenny’s adhesive gun – somewhere amid this muddle of goods.
Evening is creeping up the mountain and the sky fading to its soft purples when we return to the cave with a bucket near full of milk. The path is steep and my load heavy. I am pleased to place it down and to sit a while, to look at the sky and the house of yesterday. How well it looks from up here. I remember then the painting I have long promised to make from this place. So I will make a beginning. My painting boards are here. Somewhere. My case of paints and brushes are . . . somewhere.
I find what I need, and I believe it comforts me, this painting. For a time I forget my fear of this great space as my brush makes imitation of the colours of this land, my hands at peace, my mind gone awandering.
It wanders to Jonjan, as it is apt to do in this place. I think of his likeness on the V cube; I have brought many of them here. Tomorrow I will search for the one which holds his likeness so I might one day show baby the man who mixed his seed with mine to give her life. A stranger, he came into my world when to awaken each morning was to awaken to a void. He gave to me the desire to take back my life, and he gave to me my baby.
I am not the one of the misty mind, which I was on the day he came. I am changed, and tomorrow I will be changed again, for last night I slept beneath yesterday’s roof, in yesterday’s bed; tonight I will sleep on the sands of today.
Who will I be tomorrow?
Two days pass. I sleep little in the deep blackness of night, and when I sleep, I wake with thumping heart and know not where I am. And I use my battery light too much for there are strange creakings and rustlings and ghostly wind sounds, and my lightbeam finds strange eyes that stare at me, and I do not know if they are beast or ghost. Better I do not use my battery light if it finds such things! I hear no city copter, but know soon the men will come to look for the other copter and those who flew in it.
On the third morning, when I return from the upper woods with my bucket of milk, I find my sowman waiting below my cave. He has brought me the gift of a freshly skinned rabbit, and Lord, I am pleased to see him. And I tell him this.
He stands at a distance from me and places the rabbit down then gives me his crossing sign, as if he thinks to leave. And I do not want him to leave. I go to him and praise his rabbit. He has exchanged the saucepan head covering for a rabbit skin and he looks fine in his fur cap and Pa’s cloak. I tell him this, though I do not know if he understands my many words. ‘Come,’ I say to him, and I reach to take up my bucket. He takes it for me and follows me to the cave mouth.
My dogs like the scent of rabbit, and I believe they recognise Pa’s cloak. They show their teeth to the sowman as they pass him, but it is only a token snarl.
He is a humble one, and will not enter my cave, nor take the food I offer in trade for his fat rabbit. Soon he leaves.
It is on the seventh day that he returns and brings to me a gift of flowers. And Lord, I have never seen such splendour.
‘Flowers,’ I say. ‘Such beautiful flowers.’
‘Vaaa wa,’ he says.
‘Beautiful flowers. Where did you find such beauty?’
He nods, points to the east, then his hands and his eyes speak to me of much beauty he has seen, and they tell me so clearly that the rain fell, and the sun was round in the sky and the flowers came from the earth, and opened. He steps nearer, one finger pointing to baby, who is in her sling at my breast.
‘My baby,’ I say and I offer him milk, fresh from the bucket. He looks at it but shakes his head. I offer water and eggs. These things he accepts, and he drinks and eats, with much enjoyment and much crunching of egg shells while I place baby on a blanket and I sit beside her in the sun. ‘Will you sit with us?’ I say.
He does not sit easily on the earth, but he folds one knee and sits upon one foot, but at a distance, then together we watch the small legs kick and the tiny hands wave.
‘Baba. Boooowa vaaaa wa,’ he says.
His hard-found words bring tears to my eyes, but I nod, nod, then repeat his words so he will know I understand him. Baby is indeed a beautiful flower newly opened to the sun and she grows in beauty every day.
He stands then, makes the crossing sign on head, stomach and breast, and I repeat his actions and say to him, ‘Do you have a home with water? You are welcome always to come for water and eggs.’
He spreads his arms wide, his head turning from east to west as he makes a circle with his hands then points to my pool.
‘Everywhere is water?’ I say.
‘Aaahwa wa,’ he replies, then leaves me.
Only then do my dogs bark. They chastise him because he did not bring them a rabbit. I believe they only love with their bellies.
So the days pass slowly and the city men do not come, and I do not know why they do not come. And two weeks pass – I have counted the days on Granny’s calendar board, have marked each day with a charcoal cross. And today is Wednesday and today I will finish my painting.
From this hill the house appears so small, and though I am pleased with the eerie sky, it is not enough to fill the board. So I will paint my mother.
The face must remain without feature. I know only the yellow hair, and the hands that were as mine. I make a feature of them, and the hair; I do not know her garment, so I give to her the golden one from Granny’s wardrobe and I paint the shoulders bare, and when it is done it is good. This is my mother, for from out of the painting her hand reaches out to hold me.
In this place of little labour I am remembering many things from my infancy. Certainly I remember Nate of the city gardens, who had given me the apricot. Perhaps in time I will know the all, and the everything; however, each day it grows more difficult for me to define the narrow line where the edge of memory and my imagination meet.
My brush has placed my mother’s figure in profile; she leans at the entrance to the spring cave, so her image is trapped with the house behind her. And Lord, I am pleased with her hair, though I think, as my brush works th
e final strands, that I have made it as that of Jonjan.
In the light of early evening we walk down to collect the hens’ eggs. I can not stop my feet from entering the house but find the ceiling of the upper hall has fallen. So cold, so damp it is, as if my house understands that its great work is now done and it can return to the dust. I am pleased to return to the warmth of my cave.
The evening walk has been good for us. For the first night since my coming to this place I sleep soundly, baby at my side, my dogs guarding the entrance of my fine house, but I think my dogs have slept too soundly, for when morning comes with its light I find my painting of Honey is gone. I had set it to dry close to my fireplace. And it is gone, and I loved it well.
But . . . but in its place there is a basket, woven rough of green canes, and it is as the trading basket of the harmless one who now sleeps in the woods. And in the basket there are five strange golden fruit, and surely they are apricots. I take one up, bite into it, remembering the taste of nectar. These fruit are not apricots. The skin is strong and the flavour bad, but from within there comes a sweetness. I lift away the outer skin and break the fruit into many small, perfect pouches. They are sweet and have seeds, which I spit into my palm. I squeeze a little juice onto baby’s lips but I do not think the silly thing enjoys it as well as my milk. Her tiny face contorts in such a funny way, I laugh and forget my disappointment over the loss of my painting. I can make another.
But why had my sowman come in the night, and where did he find this basket? Mine is here, still on the shelf. And how had he passed my dogs? And why had he taken my painting? And these fruit? Where had he found such fruit?
I plant my new seeds close by my new door, with the pumpkin and the honeydew, and in truth I begin to think my painting a small price to pay for such fine treasure.
(Excerpt from the New World Bible)
In time there were secret meetings in the recreation halls amongst the followers of Moni. And she sat unveiled amongst the labourers and they saw not her disfigurement but the beauty of her words.
And her words were as balm to those who came to hear her. And they illuminated the darkness of their lives. For Moni spoke of beauty and of places unseen. And many tales she told were long, but they were remembered.
And one of the tales was of the labourer who also knew the Master’s whip. And this was the favourite of the labourers and was asked for before each meeting. And Moni named it the Longfellow.
Thus it came to pass that many labourers also learned to speak the Longfellow. And they became as the Book of Moni, and they spoke the words in the mills and in the preserving stations where the rhyming of the old world’s words swiftly implanted into the fertile minds of the labourers. And the telling of it was thus:
Beside the process line he lay, his tools still in his hands.
His breast was bare, his shaven hair long buried in the sand.
And then in the mist of shadowed sleep he saw her promised land.
He saw the freeborn female amongst her children stand.
They clasped her neck, they kissed her cheek, they held her by the hand.
A tear fell from the labourer’s eye and fell into the sand.
The forest with its many tongues shouted of liberty,
the distant mountains cried aloud with voice so wild and free.
And in his sleep the labourer smiled at freedom’s tempestuous glee.
He did not feel the Master’s whip, nor the red hot brand that day,
for death had come to the land of sleep. Now his lifeless body lay.
His soul had flown to Moni’s land. And his scarred flesh thrown away.
THE LETTER
Spring is the time of rebirth, Granny used to say, and Lord, how she would have celebrated this spring; the dandelion is blooming, the bees a buzz-buzzing and other insects fly. Such colourful things they are, almost as flowers with their petal wings. And the air – it smells of the sugar honey feast Pa had sometimes found. I think I could eat this air and nothing more, and I would grow well on it.
How I love this warmth, as does my golden one, and truly she is golden for the sun has touched her skin and left its gold dust behind and it has brushed her head and turned her little hair to gold. We are sitting in the sunshine, looking down at the house and I am thinking of eggs, and thinking perhaps I will soon learn to kill a poor hen with my dart gun so I might make Pa’s broth. Each time I go to the hen yard I look at the hens and think of rich broth.
And he comes.
He comes from within my cave. And he is clad in my hooded brown cloak, and I know not how he stole my cloak or who he is . . . or how he came into my cave because I have been about it all morning.
I run for my light-gun while the dogs snarl at him and force him back to the rock wall. And I do not command them to heel.
‘We are not trading and we are not giving anything away.’ I speak Pa’s greeting, my gun pointing at his heart, and his basket – which he now offers. When I do not move to take it, he places it on the earth. It is as the other basket, a rough woven thing and filled with the golden fruit of the juice pouches. Today there are also flat breads or . . . or a form of crispbites.
‘We are not trading. Return my cloak and take your basket.’
‘Honour her,’ he says.
Two fast steps back I make, and three more, back from the cave mouth and into full sunshine, for the words he spoke have created a chill in my head. They are the words of my memory archives. Who is he? What does he want from me?
‘Go,’ I reply, my gun signalling. ‘I do not wish to make my weapon spit fire, but I will. Go.’
I can not see his face for he keeps the hood of the cloak close about his nose and mouth. Only his eyes are visible. They stare at baby for a long moment, then he turns and walks back into my cave. I watch him disappear into the dark of it, and I think into the small cave of the gallery.
This is my cave. I stand long watching that place while my heart beats fast. For much time I do not feel safe to follow him. But if he thinks to live in my cave then he will not. With baby tied into my breast sling, my battery light in one hand, my gun in the other, I approach that narrow cave, my dogs before me. Like me, they are certain the trader hides in the place of the ancients’ paintings.
But he is not there. I walk deeper, lighting Granny’s gallery to its narrow end then returning. And the trader – or ghost – has been at my books! He has scattered them.
I direct my lightbeam up to the cave roof. There is no room nor place for him to hide, and no opening for him to leave this sealed cave, as there was none when I had come here with Granny.
Nothing has changed, she had said to me. You must do the changing, girl, when I am gone. For this reason I stole you.
Certainly I have changed. I am mother and I hold a city gun, which I now must place down while setting my books again on the shelf beneath the rabbit and the kangaroo.
The kangaroo was a native of this land, girl. It only bred when it knew the season was right for raising its young. And it kept them close, carried them in a pocket. The rabbit was brought here as sport for the hunters. A survivor, girl, it bred by the million and ended up making a sport of the hunters. The two together make a fine coat of arms. But we need the two, girl. One without the other has no balance.
Perhaps they do look a little like the old king’s coat of arms, my row of books beneath, a near oval shield between them. How Granny had liked to talk of rabbits – rabbits and ghosts. Perhaps my visitor was a ghost and now he has disappeared – with my fine warm cloak. I think I will not feel safe to sleep here tonight, for what will he wish to trade for his basket of fruit when next he appears?
My battery light still searching, I walk backwards from the small cave to shine my light into other corners, and its light is weakening. How will I see into dark corners when the small batteries are all gone? I allow its light to play over my bedding, then up over the tapestry – and I see my brown cloak still hangs from the tapestry’s hook.
He did not take it! He only borrowed it so I might see him, and I wish I had not seen him.
Lord. I do not like this happening. There is a chilling cold in my bones and crawling fear in my head. I walk fast into the sun so it might melt the ice of my blood and still my trembling.
It is later when I look at the basket. The fruit are as the others, which I had believed to be a gift from my sowman. The crispbites smell is new, but tempting. I break one, feed it to my dogs who like it well, be it baked by ghost or man. The things are large as my palm; they would be filling. I hold one to my nose, but I will not bite it.
Then I see there is more in this basket. It is beneath the crispbites and of a rough-textured paper, the like of which I have never seen. And there are words, many words written heavily in black upon it.
Honoria, it begins. I think the ghost has tried to write the words he spoke to me, until I read further.
I know the one our night watchers speak of is the one who saved my life and my leg on the mountain, for they say she has hair of fire and two great dogs, and a child.
My heart begins a race with my eyes. Too fast. Then one hand to my heart to slow its pounding I read on, but more slowly.
These people have much fear of outsider and city disease, yet they carried me into their valley and during the time of my confinement healed my leg with their herbs. If I walked well enough, I would come to you, but the walk is long and hard.
You spoke to me of mother, of Honi. Now I say to you, Honi was known here. Rowan, the one who will bring these words to you, was contracted to her. He believes you to be Honoria, lost to him and the valley twelve years ago.
The elders speak of you at the meetings as the infant who would not be silent. They speak of a searcher who came in the time before the sealing off of the entrance to the second valley, and of Honoria, an infant of three years, who ran to look upon the flying machine. They speak of the loss of Honi, who followed you into the open.
