by John Bodey
“And what of you, Ngala. We haven’t given you a chance to talk. What has life given you?”
“There is nothing much to say about the life that fate has dealt me. But as family, you have a right to know. I have kept my Lowlands name as respect for the family who saved my life. I have been promised to a woman of a northern tribe to keep the peace between our two tribes. She has power and possessions and the best of the land in her tribal grounds. I think all she needs is a hunter to supply her with fresh meat.”
“Then you will be moving further away from us?”
“Yes, Mother. The land is far to the north and more mountainous than the country we live in. It has bigger trees and plenty of streams. The animals are harder to hunt. Though their lands run into the sea, they do not use it for food: too many of their people have been taken by the large crocodiles that live in the waters of the tidal creeks. They are so far from your lands that they have no access to the big red plains kangaroos that are your totem—their skins are much sought after.”
“Then you won’t be coming this way again?”
“Perhaps ... yet maybe not.”
“Don’t talk in riddles, Ngala. As you know, we are a simple lot. Will you explain?”
“Ahhh, my beautiful Imagen, mother of my children, you haven’t changed. This time last year, I came and sat amongst the trees and watched you sitting there, sad and lonely. My heart told me to come to you and comfort you, but my head was stronger. I sat looking and longing and in my frustration and anger, I left. You were not only taking hold of my heart, you were in my head as well.” He paused ... “Had I known then that you had given birth to these two beautiful children, I would have come and lived the rest of my life with you loving you and my children every moment, with every breath. But you never once brought the babies, and without that knowledge, I committed myself to my fate.
“This year, I came to fill my head with your image, enough to last my lifetime. But your tears were the undoing of me. I sat in the shadows and watched and when my eyes beheld your beauty, your womanhood ... I will never regret, ever, this time that I have been able to spend with my Lowland family. Now more than anything, my children bind me to you.”
“Why don’t you just join us? Forsake your coming marriage,” Gullia suggested.
“Ah, Gullia, if only I could. But it would mean the death of me, and the death of your own tribe. You don’t know how savage my tribe can be, especially when they are wronged.
“Now that they know the secret of how your tribe has been able to defeat my tribe in the past, it will never happen again. They would simply ambush your tribe out on the plains in the darkness of night and destroy you to the last man, woman and child. No, my friend, I would not be the cause of your deaths, nor my children’s.”
“What secret, is this that you speak of son? I am not aware we have a secret that enables us to push your people back into the Tall Trees. We did it simply so that we could have water.”
“Then you have no choice?”
“No. Even now, while we sit here and talk there is one who sits in the shadows and watches.—Don’t even bother straining your eyes, Gullia, you would never see him. The one consolation is that I am the only one of my tribe that speaks your tongue; they do not understand our conversation. But believe me, Mother, and Imagen, the existence of my children will be reported long before I return.”
“When you leave. It will be for the last time?”
“I hope not. You see, I am here to hunt the Big Red. His skin is highly prized by our people, and even more so in the lands I will go to. It will make my wife extremely happy that she has a means to gather even more wealth. I feel sure that if I can bring to my wedding enough big hides, she will not want to stop the supply.”
“Very clever,” Mother said. “That is better than nothing; at least the children will see their father sometimes and get to know him.”
“And I too, Ngala,” Imagen said. “For a dreadful moment I thought that you would be lost to us forever.”
The tribe moved on; with reluctance the family followed in their footsteps, leaving a heavy-hearted warrior behind in the shadows sadly waving farewell, until they disappeared amongst the tufted grass and river bank scrub.
It was a further two years before Ngala could leave his husbandly obligations and come again to the lowlands to hunt. His delight in being reunited with his nomadic family knew no bounds, and to his surprise and joy he found himself a father again to a cheerful infant. At four years of age, the twins had begun to know this man who showed them an abundance of love. They stayed by his side and delighted him with their antics.
The following year, Ngala arrived early at Oobagooma and set up camp, but the tribe was late in arriving, so he journeyed through the foothills and out on to the plains until he found them lazing their way towards the river. He intended to join his family to spend extra time with his growing children. But there was no joy for Ngala. The people told him his extended family had stayed behind in the hills far to the south. His woman had had a bad time with her pregnancy and childbirth. They would not be coming. The tribe would tell her that the warrior from the tall trees had come to look for his Lowland family.
There was nothing that Ngala could do. He was worried about Imagen. He hunted the Big Red with a vengeance and doubled his quota of hides, cured meat and sinews. When at last he had almost more than he could carry, he shouldered his goods and slowly made his way back to his mountains and his wife. She would be more than happy with his efforts. And all the while, his heart and soul yearned to be where his mind was, in the southward land of hills and sacred waterholes with the twins, his bubbling son, and Imagen and the new baby that gave so much trouble. This one, if it was a boy, he would name Budha.
His wife of the forests was more than surprised by his early arrival home. She just had time enough to remove her lover of longstanding before Ngala presented himself and his huge pile of skins.
“You are early coming home this year! Did you and your girl lover quarrel?”
“No, Goodji.”
“Didn’t she produce more babies to show off your virility?”
“You are being offensive, Goodji.”
“And why shouldn’t I be? You have been my husband for more than four summers. Warriors from your tribe boast of your virility, that a sixteen-year-old boy can produce twins from a fourteen-year-old girl. You must have been hot with lust and she like a dingo bitch on heat when you made that union.”
“You are disgusting, Goodji.”
“Why haven’t I conceived? Why am I still childless? If you are so virile, why am I not with child?”
Ngala shrugged. “Maybe because there is no joy in our unions. Perhaps, if your secret lover didn’t visit so often when my back is turned, you might have a chance to be blessed.” He paused. “I don’t know why you even bothered to take me as your husband, you don’t even try to treat me as one. There is no love between us, you are too much in love with yourself, to give any thought to others.”
“Since you are being so outspoken about our marriage, I think you should remember the reasons for this union. Let me remind you: I put up with you in the hope you would give me a child. I want a child.”
“Then you are doomed to disappointment. After twenty summers of trying, your womb has died. Your vicious tongue drives away friendship.”
“I have many friends, I am well liked, there is nothing wrong with me. It is just the timing of our union.” She held out her arms. “Come, my husband, let me show you how it should be done. Let us stop this childish bickering. Forget what I have said. Take me to our bed...”
“No, Goodji. Never again.”
“You fool ... You would spurn me? Do you think this act will give you your freedom? So that you can run to that girl of the plains? Forget it. You cannot end this marriage, only I can do that, and that will never happen.”
“Then I will still be your husband in all things, other than sex.”
“And the skins?�
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“I’ll take enough for my needs, and some to trade with. What is left is yours.”
“You intend to go again next year?”
“Do you want your share of the skins? Your choice is simple.”
“Ah, we have a stand-off. If I stop you going to that Lowlander, I lose out on the skins. But I have nothing to lose in your going to her. You can go ... she means nothing to me.”
“Doesn’t she? I would have thought she was your greatest threat?”
“If I thought she was a threat, do you think that she and your children would still be alive?”
“How long do you think you would live, Goodji, once I found you had contrived their death?”
“Don’t tempt me, Ngala ... Don’t ever tempt fate.”
“Then keep your idle threats to yourself. For I warn you now ... I fear no man in your lands, as I fear no man in mine.”
Ngala’s life became a humdrum existence. When the boredom became oppressive, he explored the further reaches of the forests and the lands to the north and then the east. He felt sorry for the unseen followers that dogged his footsteps, and delighted in their frustration when he toyed with their skills. Many times he watched their passing and when in desperation they turned for home, he would show himself and the game would begin again.
The people of his new tribe began to treat him, grudgingly, with respect. His comings and goings led to groans of frustration from those pledged by need or debt to the woman Goodji. On one expedition, Ngala pushed so hard that the man in his wake was left: far behind. Feeling sorry for the older man, Ngala had waited and joined him offering a freshly killed water python and two fat bronze-wing pigeons. He told the man to sit and wait, and he would call on his way back, so the man would be seen as having done his duty.
With the coming of the first cool, dry winds from the south, Ngala prepared to leave. He wasn’t surprised by the sudden appearance of his wife.
“You go early, Ngala. Is it that you want to hunt for more skins? Or have you saved your seed for the Lowland woman and intend a longer stay in her arms?”
“Neither. I go to the lands east of the Lowland people. The Big Red becomes more wary and timid of humans, I go to find somewhere else to hunt.” Ngala added, “Goodji ... save the people their trouble and frustration, and some of the wealth you have been throwing around. If it was my wish to walk alone, I could lose your agents long before I left this forest.”
“You know of them?”
“Know of them? It is a joke amongst your own people. The only person who doesn’t realise this is you. Do you think you are loved for your endeavours this past year to keep track of me? They need whatever it is you provide for them or else they are tied to you for some sad reason. But love you? I think not.”
“What I do is my affair. I use my wealth as I see fit. I don’t trust you. How am I to know that what you tell me is what you will do?”
“What is that you fear? That I might leave you? That a source of wealth might dry up?”
“I see you pack every time you move. Just as you have done again now. How am I to know whether the next time you pack will be the last time that I see you? That you will finally break your marriage vows and leave me for the woman who walks the Lowlands with your children? Why should you not do it? What have you to keep you here? She is younger, and able to provide you with the family that I could never give you. Is it your intention to leave me? To return to your Lowland woman? Do you think that I will let you go?”
“Goodji ... You are sick in the head from worrying over my Lowland woman. Why would I leave you and risk her life and my children’s?”
“Then why do you pack everything each time you go?”
“It is the custom of the Lowlanders. It has become my way, for it is as I have been taught. I broke my leg fleeing from them in the year of my man-making, and spent the next four years, the growing years of my adulthood, in their care, knowing only their ways. By taking everything with me, I have all I need to work, live and hunt. If it seems to you that I take all my possessions, it is because I have so few. Unlike you, possessions don’t mean much to me. Nor do they mean much to the Lowlanders. Their needs are simple.”
“Then they are a poor people?”
“No. They are not rich in the way you would know. They live happily together, but life is hard. I don’t think you could understand what it would be like to die of hunger.”
“And you do?”
“Yes. The time I broke my leg will live forever in my head. It was almost death, a death I would wish on no one. No, Goodji, they are far from rich, in the way you measure wealth.”
“Then what is it that drags you to them?”
“It is the people themselves, something I could never explain to you. It is something that has to be experienced. I wish that I could tell you, but I can’t.”
“Go, Ngala, but always remember that I have my eyes and ears everywhere.”
“I go, woman, and when the time comes, I will return, have no fear of that.”
He moved quickly and he moved far. First east for a day, then south-west in as straight a line as he could follow. For most of the first day, he tacked and back-tracked over and over, until he was certain there was no one on his trail. He slept little, moving at a steady, fast pace; resting when he grew tired. Ten days later he was out on the open rolling foothills. The wind blew in his face, he felt the cold, and breathed the scents of the desert; he was home once more.
Three days later, wafting tendrils of burning desert wood from afar, caught at his nostrils; he paused, sniffed the air and looked into the blurring distance. Tonight he would locate where the tribe slept, he would place himself in their path and await them. He had no need for stealth; he would stand his spear upright in the path, a sign of peace.
By mid-morning he was reunited with the tribe. He handed out treasures, everyday artefacts of his own and his wife’s tribe, to the elders of his childhood tribe. The finest slivers of leather, crystal quartz spear tips, and razor-sharp blue granite axe heads. When all was done, he went to find his family.
They had kept back, away from the first whispered calls of excitement that heralded his coming. Imagen gathered the children around her and told them quietly to wait their turn, that their father would welcome them according to custom. Finally Ngala broke away from the main group of the people. Imagen gasped and waved in delight. The twins stood at either side of her, eagerly waiting their turn to greet their father.
Nwunta and Gullia stood together. Beside them stood a gangling boy of six, a perfect replica of the man who stood to the other side of Nwunta. Gullia appeared ageless, still the wiry young man who had made his life with the family. He cradled a small child on his hip, and twin girls hid behind him.
A robust five-year-old burst from the group, unable to hold his excitement; Ngala reached down, and swung him high up above his head as his family surged about him.
Tears of joy streamed down his face, laughter rang from his mouth. He hugged his twins and acknowledged his wife as she pulled his head down and peered into his eyes, then warmly kissed his lips and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Shortly, Ngala stood to his full height and looked about, “And my Mother? Has she grown so old and frail in the past two seasons that she has taken the walk of the aged? Where is she?”
“Oh Ngala, I’m sorry. In all this excitement I had forgotten Mother. She sits with the babies over there, beneath that tree.”
“Then my joy is boundless ... Babies? We have more twins? The people said you had trouble delivering, but they didn’t say we had twins.”
“Oh, Ngala ... I’ll let Mother surprise you. Go to her, my husband.”
He walked in haste towards the figure sitting in the shade of a desert crackling gum.
“I see you, my Mother.”
“As I see you, my son. How good it is for these poor old eyes to see the strength of her son once more.”
Mother’s hair was streaked with grey. No longer
did it hang shoulder-length, black and shiny.
“How is it every time we meet, your arms are full of babies? Who is the father of these?”
“You bring a smile to an old woman, and happiness to her heart, you are the son I should have had. Get yourself down here beside me so that I may introduce you to these children, who have yet to know their father.”
“Mother, they have all the years ahead to get to know me, and for me to get to know them. It is you that I am more concerned with, you have aged since last I saw you. We have so few years left.”
“Yuggamush, Ngala, let’s not think too far ahead. We are here now ... let us just live the days as they come to us, and enjoy each for what it gives. What need is there to look too far into the future? You would only worry if you knew of it.”
“As usual you are right, Mother. But before the moment passes, remember this: when we are apart, you are as much in my thoughts, as my wife and children.”
“Thank you, my son. You give me comfort in my old age.”
“Now, who is this little monster with shiny eyes that searches the world for the voice it hears? Sweet bountiful heavens ... there are not two, but three! Now I begin to understand.”
“Understand what my husband?” Imagen had come to stand beside him.
“A great deal ... answers to the questions that kept me awake for many, many nights. Imagen, you can’t go on having babies. This last lot must have nearly killed you.”
“This last lot, as you put it, very nearly did,” Mother told him. “But it also overcame the problem of ever having children again. The fact is, son that she can’t have any more, even if she wanted to. I barely saved her life.”
“Then I have more than my own life to thank you for. And there is no way to repay you.”
“Yes there is, my son. Season by season I grow weaker. I am slowing down, soon I will have to stop, and one day I will have to take the walk of the aged.”
