Mothership

by Bill Campbell

  We made love as the light faded from the cavern, and when we emerged from the wall of ice, the statues were whole again, and the goddess of love had my face; but the face of Paris was still blank.

  4

  Das Ewig-weibliche

  Zieht uns hinan!

  Faust

  It was a beautiful Festival. By night, thousands upon thousands of paper lanterns lit the way for the million and a half tourists who poured into the city for the first week of February. The deaths of two foreign women were soon forgotten. Dr. Mayuzumi’s bizarre suicide aroused much sympathy when his Ainu origins were revealed; it was only natural that a man in his position would be unable to cope with his own roots.

  The death of Grandmaster Ishii was mourned by some; but others agreed that it was only fitting for an artist to die after creating his masterpiece. He was found in the cavern, nude, gazing at the statues of the three goddesses; he had replaced the image of Paris with himself. It was agreed that he had sacrificed his life to achieve some fleeting epiphany comprehensible only to other artists, or, perhaps, other Ainu.

  I can’t say I understood it at all. I had stood at the brink of some great and timeless truth, but in the end it eluded me.

  It was a beautiful Festival, but to me it no longer seemed to have meaning. I was there in a plastic city of right-angled boulevards, a city that had robbed the land of its soul; a city that stood over the bones of the Ainu, that mocked the dead with its games of beauty and impermanence. Like Rapid City with its concrete dinosaurs … like Deadwood with its mechanical cowboys and Indians battling for 25¢ and all eternity … like Mount Rushmore, forever mocking the beauty of our Black Hills by its beatification of our conquerors.

  You can’t understand about being oppressed unless you’re born with it. It is something you have to carry around all the time, like soiled underwear that’s been soldered to your skin.

  I know now that I’m not one of you. You own my body, but my soul belongs to the mountains, to the air, to the streams, the trees, the snow.

  I think I will go back to Pine Ridge one day. Perhaps my grandfather will teach me, before he dies, the language of the bears.

  I think I will even see my father. Perhaps I can be the angel of his redemption, as I think I was for Aki Ishii.

  Perhaps I will even forgive him.

  Waking the God of the Mountain

  Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

  My grandmother said that there was this woman who came to us through the portal of the gods.

  “She was wearing a skirt that glowed like the sun, and when she walked, the sound of many tiny bells followed her. I know these things to be true because your great-grandfather heard it from his father who was there when she chose the one named Siring.

  Back then, we went where we pleased, and no one told us where we should make our home. We did not owe allegiance to anyone, except to Batungbayanin, who is the god of the mountain.”

  With her stories, Grandmother painted a picture of life in the jungle. Here was the red of the short-lived rafflesia against the brown and green of lianas. There, the bright yellow of canna lilies, Batoko plums, pitcher plants, huge dragonflies, wild orchids, and plantain. For me, she brought to life, the harsh cry of the shrikes and the call of the tits.

  “You can still walk the jungle,” Grandmother said. “But it’s not the same.”

  I was born after our family moved to the tenements. My memories are of hard grey concrete and the rusty red of metal bars. Here, where the water comes in starts and stops, where we never know when the next blackout will be, and where our view of the mountain is obscured by cables and fences. My friends and I talk about trekking up the mountain, but the machine men are law on the mountain now, and we don’t dare to go against them.

  All we can do is look up and wonder and dream.

  One of my favorite stories tells of a god who falls in love with a maiden. Their child is born with wondrous strength and rescues his village from certain disaster.

  “Tell it again,” I always say.

  And grandmother huffs, but she starts all over again because she loves this story just as much as I do.

  “One day, Laum Lay,” she says. “One day the god will send us another warrior. It’s quite possible that the warrior of the gods already walks among us. Perhaps he is simply biding his time and waiting for the right time to appear.”

  Sometimes, I wonder if there is indeed a warrior of the gods and if so what does this warrior look like. Will this warrior take us away from this half-life in the tenements? Will this warrior restore us to the paradise that was before the coming of the machine men?

  The sisters who have been sent to teach us the ways of the lowlanders smile when we ask these questions.

  “But don’t you see,” they say. “This is what the great corporation has done for you. By the strength of its arm, the corporation has rescued you from poverty and desolation. If you do well, a bright future waits for you.”

  The corporation is our champion. The corporation is our benefactor. The corporation offers us a bright future.

  For all that they speak the words with utter conviction, I cannot find it in my heart to embrace this litany.

  “But why?” I ask. “Why would they do all these when we never asked for it?”

  “It is not for you to question these gifts,” the sisters reply. “Gifts must be received with thanksgiving. To question is a sign of an ungrateful spirit.”

  They pause and lead us into prayer. In my heart, I offer up words that diverge from their formulaic speak.

  O woman who came through the portal of the gods, who walked with us until the day you were taken from us. Is this the dream you saw for us when you taught us to read and to write and to speak the words of the lowlanders?

  There are other worries that have come to plague us. Beings from the jungle have come to sit at the council fire with our elders. They tell us that we must throw in our lot with them and rise up against the men machine.

  How they came to the mountain is a thing that puzzles us. They tell us that they came through the gate of the gods, and the jungle has been given to them as their refuge.

  “We know you are children of the mountain god, so we will not harm you,” they said. “But if you join hands with those we count as our enemies, we will show you no mercy.”

  Their hair is wild like the leaves of the trees, they carry machetes in wooden scabbard and their chests are marked with the lightning symbol of the gods. They say these marks are talismans that allow them to pass through the gate.

  “Dissidents,” the officers who walk with the men-machines call them. “Be warned. The corporation will not go easy on any who work hand in hand with them.”

  Their words carry no meaning for us, for we have seen how these jungle beings can ignite a flame without using a match or a torch. They appear at the tenements like shadows popping up out of nowhere, and they vanish just as the shadows do when the sun comes up over the rim of the mountain.

  Not long after, a company of soldiers are sent to where the men-machines are hard at work on the mountain. They are dressed in fatigue and they come up in trucks bearing the sign of an eagle with folded wings. They carry rifles with long black barrels and stomp about in their black leather boots.

  We fear the guns, but we are more afraid of they who passed through the gates of the gods and obtained power over the jungle.

  We imagine that a day of confrontation will come when the jungle beings will spill out of the jungle, their skin ablaze with holy light. We envision fire coming out of their mouths, we think of shining blades shooting from their hands.

  These beings from the jungle, were they indeed god-sent warriors? Would they drive away the men machine and restore us to the place where we belonged? Or were they false warriors who would entice us to stand at the frontlines—who would use us as fodder for the guns while they wrought their own secret agenda?

  There are men going up and down the mountain now. They go in and out of t
he places we used to call our own, they smile, they shake their heads, and they wave their arms about while making a big ruckus.

  The diggers are constantly at work and we see them boring holes in places where they have cut down the trees. They pore over maps and charts, and put up iron fences to keep us out. We are not to go where they are, but we can watch them from a distance. What are they looking for, we wonder. Could it be that they are seeking for the heart of the mountain god?

  Our elders tell the men that the mountain is ours by right of heritage.

  “We have always been here,” Uncle Oban says. “It is our tribal right. There are laws about this.”

  “What papers do you have to support your claim?” the men say.

  They show him documents with signatures.

  “Here are the seals,” they say.

  And we cannot doubt the golden stamps or the bright red of those ribbons.

  “This is an agreement between your government and us. Didn’t you accept these tenements? Were you not pleased with the school we gave to your children? If we find what we are looking for, you will all be wealthier than you can imagine.”

  “But we don’t care about wealth,” Grandmother says. “We simply wish to return to life as it was back then. Tell them that the god owns this mountain and it is not for mortals to interfere.”

  Uncle Oban sighs.

  “If only it were that easy.”

  “We can fight,” Apu-oy says.

  Apu-oy is my eldest cousin. Apu-oy says the black shirts have promised to help us.

  “We must decide,” he says. “If we go to their side the favor of the gods will be with us.”

  “Fighting is not our way,” Grandmother says. “If we join your friends, can they promise us a better future than the one we hold in our hands?”

  “What future?” Apu-oy says. “If you can show me a vision of a better tomorrow, if you can tell me of a better way ….”

  “Wait,” grandmother says. “We must wait and we must pray and we must have faith.”

  “Faith,” Apu-oy spits it out like a bad word. “Faith is what put us in these tenements. Faith is what makes us easy prey for the lowlander. The only thing I put faith in is the strength of my two hands and the barrel of a gun.”

  “Be careful where you speak those words,” Uncle Oban says. “You are my brother’s eldest son and I do not wish to see you taken away by those who claim to work in the name of the law.”

  “You know the law better than I do,” Apu-oy says. “And you know what injustices are served in the name of that law.”

  “I know,” Uncle Oban says. “But if I fight with gun and hand, what do you think will happen to those who are left behind?”

  There are no solutions in these discussions, but I understand Apu-oy’s anger. I understand his grief. When I close my eyes at night, I sometimes think that I can hear the voice of the land crying out to me. I dream of machines running up and down the spine of my back, I feel their blades ripping into my skin, and in my dreams I shake myself free of the walls of the tenements, I shake off the oppressing grey of corrugated ceiling and burst out into the open where I can see the blue of the sky and smell the trees.

  “The woman who came through the god portal taught us the love of the great god Batungbayanin,” my grandmother says.

  “He, the great god who keeps this mountain, watches over us and because he loved us, he sent us the woman. It was Siring who first saw her and Siring who took her hand. It was Siring who taught her to speak with the tongue of humans, and Siring who won her heart.”

  “But wasn’t Great Uncle Siring possessed by the spirits?”

  “That came later,” Grandmother says. “After they took away the woman and silenced the voice of the mountain god.”

  Apu-oy has been talking to the young men. Some of them listen to him, but Uncle Oban is quick to remind them of patience and justice. He tells them that he has written a letter to someone in Central.

  “A representative will come,” Uncle Oban says. “Let us wait a little longer.”

  “We will wait,” they say. “If the black-shirted men are from the gods, they will understand.”

  Before the next rainfall, Apu-oy is gone.

  Sometimes, we hear the sounds of gunfire coming from high up in the mountain. Grandmother weeps and croons out prayers to the spirits of our forefathers, she pleads for the safe return of her first grandson.

  Each day that we receive no word is a good day.

  Be careful. There are many enemies and few friends.

  The message comes to Uncle Oban by way of a friend who heard it from the lips of a friend who heard it in turn from someone who heard talk among the men who are at work on the mountain.

  “Ridiculous,” grandmother says. “How can the government people call you a friend of rebels? Are you not the one who keeps the young men from running away to where Apu-oy has gone to?”

  “It is because Apu-oy has gone that they suspect me,” Uncle Oban says.

  “There are only vultures everywhere,” grandmother cries out. “They see what they wish to see and refuse to believe truth.”

  “Well, it’s just one more thing to worry about,” Uncle Oban says. “I hope this will not provide them with more reasons to push us off this mountain.”

  Apu-oy has been gone for two months when the man in the suit comes to visit. He doesn’t look comfortable in his suit, neither does he look happy. His round face is bathed in sweat and he takes off his glasses again and again to wipe the fog from them.

  “They want us to move,” Uncle Oban says. “They have prepared special housing for us with amenities. The children will be given scholarships, and the boys who have gone to join the rebels will be pardoned.”

  “I cannot move again,” grandmother says. “I am too old, Oban. I was born after the daughter of the gods was taken from us. I have never heard the mountain god speak, but I believe. I still believe he will awake and restore to us what was taken.”

  “It is all a story,” Uncle Oban says. “He says the woman was a school teacher who had lost her way. She was not a daughter of the gods, neither was she sent as a messenger.”

  “A lie,” grandmother says. “Do not let them deceive you, Oban. You know our history just as well as I do.”

  “I have heard it told,” Uncle Oban says. “But they have shown me photographs and letters, and they say she went to live in a faraway country where she had another mate and other children whom she loved until she passed away.”

  “Lies!” grandmother shouts.

  Uncle Oban’s face is filled with sorrow, and he wipes the tears that drip down to his chin even while he tries to keep his voice steady.

  “I wish it were all lies,” he says. “I wish it with all of my heart.”

  All of the elders of our clan have gathered in our apartment. The women sing and chant while the men chew betelnut and smoke tobacco. They tell each other stories, they look at the pictures Uncle Oban brought home with him. They argue over the letters.

  “Lies or truth. Who is to say?”

  “We can go back to the jungle,” the women say.

  “And the young ones. Do you think they will go so easily?”

  “Why not? The jungle has always been our home.”

  “Our home? Since when? Do you even remember what it was like?”

  “We can’t go back to the jungle,” Uncle Oban says. “The jungle no longer belongs to us.”

  “It was never a belonging,” grandmother retorts. “Do not speak with the tongue of the men machine. Nothing has ever belonged to us. It is we who belong to this mountain and to the jungles that grow around it.”

  I listen to them talk, and after the elders leave, I listen yet again as grandmother weeps and wails and speaks her prayers to the god who has kept silent through all these years.

  Ten days later, we are standing in front of our building with all our belongings packed into cardboard boxes. A man wearing a hardhat stands beside Uncle Oban. Behind him,
the men machine stand in long ordered rows. There is a look on the man’s face. It is a hard look, it is a strange look. It is the look of someone who has triumphed.

  If I look at him hard enough, I can see him thinking that word with capital letters. I think of grandmother’s story and the stories I have heard. I think of Apu-oy who no longer believes and of the young ones who even now are hearing the same lies that have been fed to Uncle Oban. I think of the god who sleeps in the mountain and of the woman who came through the portal he made. I think of how we belong to this mountain and how the god cannot possibly remain silent if he knows we are being torn away from his side. I think of how faith may be a little thing and how it is enough to wake a mountain to life. I think this and I stare at the man who stares back at us, and I feel the world falling away.

  “Hush child. Hush.”

  Grandmother’s hand is hard on my arm when I stamp my feet and mutter chants under my breath.

  “Laum Lay,” Uncle Oban’s voice is sharp with distress.

  I raise my voice and chant harder.

  “Laum,” grandmother pleads.

  But I can’t be stopped. I won’t be stopped.

  I chant and I stamp. I stare at the man who looks at me with impatience in his eyes, and I chant and stamp even louder, harder, stronger.

  For a while, my voice is the only one. Then, I hear Grandmother’s voice. It is shaky at first, but it grows firmer. Soon, Uncle Oban joins in too. One by one the others join in. I hear my childhood friends, the voices of my uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, and before long, everyone is dropping their parcels as the air fills up with our chanting and our stamping.

  Behind us, there is a rumble, and up above the sky swings as if on a balance. We chant and stamp as the look on the hardhat man’s face no longer spells triumph.

  We sing and stamp as the ground under us trembles and sways. The tenements groan, the paths dug into the mountainside shiver and shimmer in the hot light of noon; the mountain stretches, it shudders, it yawns.