Peregrin

by A. Sparrow

  “What’s wrong?” said Ara.

  “It’s an Urep’o vehicle. Just like the one we exiled.”

  Ara struggled to rise up on her elbows. She gasped. “That’s … Canu’s car.” She groaned and lay back down.

  “What do you mean, ‘Canu’s’?”

  “He was driving it last I saw him,” said Ara, tears welling up. “I can’t believe he went and attacked a Venep’o war wagon.”

  “What’s not to believe?” muttered Seor.

  “Bring me closer,” said Ara. “I want to see.” The litter-bearers lifted her up and carried her to the edge of the road beside the red vehicle. They lowered her again and she stared, anguished at the pikes impaling the window glass, the blood smearing the seats.

  “Did they find him? Was his body inside?” said Ara.

  “I don’t know,” said Seor. “I’m seeing it for the first time with you.”

  “I’m feeling a bit dizzy,” said Ara. “Please. Lay me down.” The litter-bearers deposited her on the soft, plowed earth beside the red vehicle.

  Seor looked away from the wreckage. They had come to the edge of Sinta. A smaller road angled off to the left towards the heights. At this intersection, the militia had repaired a small barn, the only structure in Sinta left intact, probably because some Venep’o officer was using it to shelter from the rain.

  The militias had organized it into an aid station. A line of walking wounded waited outside while healers within tended to the more seriously hurt.

  Seor was startled to find herself staring at a pair of familiar faces. Vul and Pari looked back at her with wrinkled brows, perhaps puzzling over why this odd, frail woman was gawking at them. Vul’s eyes popped as if he had spotted a six-legged goat with wings. Pari dropped an armload of bandage cloth and started running.

  “Seor! Is it possible?”

  “I suppose it is,” said Seor as Pari flew into her arms, almost knocking her down.

  “Easy,” said Seor. “I’m a bit feeble these days.”

  “Feeble? There’s practically nothing left to you but bones. But how did you even get here? We destroyed that stone.”

  “There are others,” she said, as Vul came up and embraced her gently.

  “Oh, go on and just ignore me,” Ara spoke at their feet.

  Pari’s eyes widened and she looked at Vul. “Ara?” they said, simultaneously. “They dropped to her knees beside the litter. What happened to you?”

  “Cadre.”

  “This rescue, it was your doing, wasn’t it?” said Vul.

  “Not really,” said Ara. “I was just … a catalyst.”

  An older Urep’o man, stocky with stout legs spotted Ara’s litter and came bustling down with a bulging green bag slung over his shoulder. A young woman, who looked half Urep’o herself, followed him. The man seemed startled to hear Ara speak his own language back to him. He checked Ara’s wrapping, fished into his pack and removed a pair of metal-foil packets.

  “Who is this man?” said Pari, miffed. “What is he doing?”

  “He’s a healer,” said Ara.

  Pari snatched the packets away before Ara could reach them. The man’s young assistant snatched them back from Pari and handed them to Ara. “Don’t worry,” said the assistant, in Giep’o. “This is good medicine. One will prevent the festering and other will ease the pain. Please, make sure she takes them.”

  The Urep’o healer moved on down to the next litter.

  “Is this man your father?” Seor asked the girl.

  “Yes,” she said, after a reflective pause “He’s … one … of my fathers.” She took his arm and moved on down the line of casualties.

  Ara was already opening one of the foil packs. Pari looked on, wrinkling her nose, skeptical.

  “Water, please?” said Ara.

  ***

  Ara had no qualms about taking the Urep’o doctor’s medicine. She knew the stuff worked, unlike half of the traditional Giep’o pharmacopeia which seemed to cause more headaches than they cured.

  As she sipped the water Pari had cupped from a streamlet, a figure emerged from the barn shifting jauntily from side to side, hyperkinetic, almost dancing.

  Canu.

  Ara almost rolled off the litter into the dirt. She tried to rise, but the pain in her ribs kept her down like a tether. She tried calling to him, but her mouth could not make words.

  There was no need. He came running when he spotted Seor. But when he noticed Ara, he plunged down onto his knees and skidded in the dirt, tossing clumps of loam onto her litter.

  “Oh my God. You’re back!” said Canu, leaning down to give her a hug that was a little bit too vigorous for her health. “Sorry. I just … are you okay?”

  “Nothing a little Urep’o medicine can’t cure,” said Ara. Her eyes flitted up to Seor. “I see you’re ever observant, as usual.”

  “What do you mean?” said Canu.

  “Notice someone familiar standing near you?” said Ara. “Someone famous?”

  “Famous?” Canu looked puzzled, as his gaze went to Seor’s legs and drifted upward.

  “Mercy of Cra!” he said. “Is that really you?”

  “Since when did you convert Sinkor?” said Seor.

  “If it was Cra who brought you both back to me, I’ll become a Polu.” Canu took Seor in his arms and squeezed.

  “Take care you don’t crush her,” said Vul, putting a hand on him.

  Tears poured down Canu’s face, but he was laughing.

  Ara picked up a stick and whacked Canu in the shins.

  “Ow! What’s that for?”

  “When I saw that car,” said Ara. “I thought for sure you had finally gone and got yourself killed.”

  “Me? Dead? Never!”

  Ara patted his foot. “You need to slow down, go easy through life, Canu. These times are too dangerous for those who rush. You’ve been lucky, but one of these days, your recklessness is going to catch up with you.”

  “Ah, I’ve been hearing that for years. I’m too slippery to die. Old death’s not quick enough to catch me.”

  “Promise me,” said Ara, her voice catching in her throat. “Promise me you’ll take better care.”

  A genuine puzzlement entered Canu’s brown eyes, deriving not from her words but her disposition. As he leaned in, Ara noticed for the first time the ring of gold surrounding his pupils. How could she have not noticed such a feature before? It was as if she were seeing this man completely anew. In return, Canu studied her eyes as if she held the secrets of the universe locked away behind them.

  Chapter 61: Chicken Bus

  The endless marshes flashed their inscrutable codes at the speeding bus. Tezhay sat in the very front, just behind the driver. The bus was packed with people heading from the Provinces to Belize City for Baron Bliss Day and its attendant festivals and regattas.

  Tezhay had tried to wash and mend his clothes as much as possible but the residual silt and blood on his tattered homespun made him look like some crazy jungle hermit. Even though the bus was full, no one shared his seat.

  No matter, he thought. More room for him and his belongings. He reached into his bulging sack and plucked a string of the drone mandolin that Lizbet and Ellie have gifted him after Tom’s burial.

  There was not much else in the sack this time, but some fruit he had purchased along the roadside near Rio Frio. He feared Marizelle and Gabrielle would be terribly disappointed that he was coming home without the usual gifts.

  As the bus rose out of the marshes into the low hills where Mennonites tended orchards, Tezhay leaned forward and tapped the driver’s shoulder.

  “My special stop is coming up, okay?” Tezhay handed him a ten dollar note. It probably wasn’t even necessary, but it was good insurance against a grumpy driver.

  “Where do you want to get out, my friend?” said the driver.

  “Where the fruit trees end and you can see down to the city and ocean.”

  “No problem, mon.”

 
Where lime trees met shanties, the bus veered off the road and the bus door accordioned open. Tezhay gathered his bag and stepped out into the torpid air.

  “Thank you,” said Tezhay. “Have good day.”

  His heart thumped with anticipation. Were they even still there? Marizelle had been planning to move back to Belize City, closer to her parents. Tezhay had intended to be back in time to help with the arrangements. Leaving the chicken bus before it reached the city had been a complete gamble.

  He turned down a rutted dirt lane past a little Coca Cola stand, dodging a little blue taxi that stormed by in a cloud of dust. Chickens pecked at rinds in a ditch. A dog trotted past, tossing its head back to look Tezhay in the eye.

  An old man sang in Garifuna as he rattled up on a bicycle held together with scraps of duct tape. He interrupted his song, but not his progress, to toss out a greeting:

  “Tezhay! Buiti binafi! Ida biangi?”

  “I am fine, Mr. Rutherford. How is your health?”

  “Madihariba nau. Nau!” said the old man, beaming. He kept on rolling and launched back into his song.

  Where the lane widened onto a commons before the old church, a gaggle of kids chased a half-inflated soccer ball across a dusty, pitted pitch with stick frames as goals. Another group took turns dancing through doubled jump ropes. An excited murmur boiled up under the shade of a mango tree in the corner of the pitch. A cluster of children exploded towards him.

  Tezhay stopped in the road to face them. And there she was, little Gabrielle, leading the charge, her long braids whipping about, slapping against her bright teeth, her eyes and mouth open with astonishment.

  “Papa!” she squealed.

  Tezhay scooped up his little girl and kissed her and swung her onto his hip with one arm. She squeezed his neck hard enough to choke him.

  “Papa … where did you go this time, so long?”

  “Far away, child. Too far, I go.”

  “Every day mama says you’ll come back today. How come you never come back?”

  “But I did. I am here, no? Today, mama is right.”

  The children swarmed around him, patting the sack holding the mandolin, each claiming finger holds on Tezhay’s shirt as they paraded past the church, turning onto the tree lined street of fenced gardens and corrugated roofs that was home to Tezhay’s family.

  He nodded to people he barely knew, surprised at all the faces lighting up at his presence, from the young men in the wood shop all covered with sawdust, to the old crone spreading peppers to dry on an old bed sheet. He spent so little time here, yet everyone knew him and seemed excited to see him return.

  Though, not as much as the handsome woman on her front stoop weaving baskets for tourists, surrounded by sheaths of reed and vine and long grasses. She tossed aside the spiky, unfinished basket in her hands and shot up from the stool.

  “Tezhay?” Her voice trembled. Her eyes glistened.

  “Yes, it is me,” he said. “Who else would it be?”

  She came running, careening into him, enveloping him in her arms. Mandolin chords, surprisingly assonant, rang out from the collision.

  “Careful, careful!” He lowered the sack to the ground and the little family huddled together in a medley of hugs and kisses, laughs and remonstrations.

  To Tezhay, home was never any fixed location, but a place that moved with the people who mattered most in one’s life. No matter how wide and unpredictable his travels, his heart stayed constant. He would never be a peregrin at home.

  Epilogue

  Note hanging from a pine tree on the Acton/Concord line:

  “Dear Lizbet,

  I sure hope you get this note. And I hope it’s you that gets this note first and not some soldier. Miles sez this ink won’t run but I jamed it in this plastic bag we found just to make sure. I hope you find it all right. Sorry we left without you guys. I hope everyones doing okay. So if you get here and you want to reach me just call and well come get you.

  I wanted to wait rite here for you all, but Miles sez who knows when this thing will open again. He says it will. Just he doesn’t know wen. So we’re gonna try to hop a train to Boston tonight. Miles has a credit card, so we can just find us a hotel.

  Tomorrow we’re gonna try to get to Connetticut (But first we gotta figure out how to get there.) Miles says I can stay at his place for the time being. His cell number (phone) is: 203-888-2743 in case you want to call wen you get here (and I hope you do!). If you call from Bostin, make sure you dial 1 first. Ask Frank to help. He’ll show ya how.

  He’s gonna charge it up as soon as he can. Just call and I’ll come get you and you don’t have to walk nowere. Or else, Miles says the train tracks up there behind this tree go to Bostin, so just go up and follow the tracks and you’ll find a station. Left goes out to the boonies sez Miles. Go right to head towards the city. Just so you know I think it was really nice of you to mary me. I never said so. Miles says we gotta go so bye.

  Love,

  Misty

  *****

  THE END