Saturday, the Twelfth of October

by Norma Fox Mazer

  “Oh boy,” Zan said. She sat down at the foot of the tree, leaning her head against the trunk, waving limply to the children. They scampered down from the tree and she followed them, stopping when they stopped, moving when they did, feeling ridiculously, humbly grateful to them. Yes, she would have to be patient, stay close to Burrum till she knew her way about, or till Burrum went back to “her” meadow. It could happen any time, any time at all.

  Chapter 14

  A day passed. Another day. Then another. And yet another. A week. Time obsessed Zan. What time was it when she woke in the morning? What time when she ate? When she lay down to sleep? If only she knew the time! She saw the sun rise, she saw it set, saw it blazing at its zenith. But without a clock or a watch she felt as if something were missing from her life, from her very self. Often she seemed to hear ticking and would turn quickly as if expecting to see a clock sitting on a rock, or perhaps perched in a tree. “You’re crazy,” she told herself, and thought of all the timepieces in her life. The old-fashioned wind-up clock on her mother’s bureau. Her father’s square-faced wristwatch with the shiny, elasticized band. The little watch in a round, gold case on a gold chain that Cici kept in her jewelry box and said she would give Zan on her eighteenth birthday. The red-bordered electric kitchen clock on the wall above the stove. The big blank-faced school clocks that loudly marked the monotonous minutes, exploding every fifty minutes into an ear-numbing shriek. She thought of clocks, and then of radios and of television and of all the things she knew; the way she had been brought up, with buildings and machinery, with math and science, with movies and books and cars and washing machines and men landing on the moon. And what did these cave people know? Nothing! Nothing at all. Thinking of it, she wanted to laugh; then she wanted to cry.

  One night it rained and in the morning, while following Burrum down the mountain, she slipped on the mudslicked trail and fell, striking her mouth against a stone. It was a little injury—her lip puffed up and there was blood on her tongue. But suddenly, the self-possession she had worked so hard to maintain was completely undone. For the first time she cried. Once started, she couldn’t seem to stop. Rapidly a crowd gathered—Sonte was there, Burrum’s little brother Lashum, the pregnant woman who lived in Burrum’s cave, a tall girl, a boy with a mutilated face. All of them pressed around her, rubbing her arms and her back and her head, patting and soothing her, crying as she cried. “H’chau . . . h’chau, Meezzan . . .” Zan had noticed that they were always touching one another, patting, rubbing, stroking. Now they did it to her, too, as if she were one of them. The same. She wasn’t. She never would be! She wiped her face, but still they hovered near her, watching her mournfully till, at last, she forced a smile. “Okay. I’m okay now.” They smiled, too, laughed, and patted her some more.

  She ought, by then, to have been used to their attention. People were always watching her, laughing at her. Everything she did was of the greatest interest, the highest amusement to them. She had never thought of herself as a comedian, but she had only to go into the water with her clothes on, for instance, and there were roars of laughter. They giggled when she made clumsy attempts to say a word in their language, chuckled when she turned away from a worm or an ant offered her as food. Everyone, even the old, one-eyed woman, laughed as easily as a child. Deep, easy, rich laughter that seemed to well up out of bellies, or from the soles of feet. Infectious laughter, and Zan always ended up laughing with them. At herself, most of the time.

  Only Diwera was different. Several times Zan had seen the woman watching her, not smiling, not laughing and chatting like everyone else, not soft easy, pleasant. Diwera was apart from the others, she was never part of the groups that went everywhere together—to wash, to fish, to bathe, to dig up roots and gather eggs and fruit. When Diwera came among people, Zan saw that they stood back a little, their voices dropped, their faces smoothed out respectfully. Diwera was Somebody. She had some kind of power. Zan couldn’t forget that the woman had seen her behind that glass dome, had spit on her, had brought her back into the world—this world. Diwera filled her with an uneasy respect and fear.

  On the day she injured her lip, Zan made a calendar, scratching into a sturdy branch a mark for each day that had passed. Six scratches, then a slash across all six, and a week was marked. Six more scratches, another slash, and a second week had gone. She rubbed her thumb across the slashes, thinking of the days behind her. The days ahead of her. She had done things she had never believed she would. Slept with all of them, eaten raw eggs, used the woods for a toilet, scrambled into trees for food, or to get out of the way of animals. She had done all this!

  She thought of these things at night lying on the common bed, and she thought of other things as well: how everything in a civilized world was done behind closed doors, quietly, circumspectly. Here everything was done openly, participated in, shared. Was there anything personal, anything private here?

  Early one morning while Zan was squatting by a tree to urinate, she heard a soft rustling and saw a large green and black snake almost directly beneath her. Carefully, holding up her jeans, she rose and took a delicate step away, then another, and another, every moment expecting that narrow head to leap forward, the teeth to strike hotly into her leg. But almost before she could fully comprehend her fear, Burrum, who had been squatting companionably nearby, came running, swinging a thick branch. She brought it down across the back of the snake’s head and held it prisoner. The snake’s mouth opened wide, and the thick body whipped up around the branch. Her face screwed up with loathing, Burrum held the snake fast, crying out in a high-pitched voice. Moments later, several people came running, Sonte among them, all armed with stones. They rushed up and in a swirl of sweaty fear and flying arms pounded the snake till it was a bloody mash.

  Shaken, Zan considered the violence with which the snake had been killed. Of course she was glad they had done it—but still, it was strange! In the beginning, she had been terrified of these people. Then she had begun to think them as harmless, even childlike. They laughed so much! Now she had seen something else. She turned these thoughts around in her head, but sometimes there was too much thinking, too much pondering over who these people were, where she was, why, what it meant.

  In the meantime, Zan added marks to her calendar. Every day she and Burrum went to the river. There were always dozens of people there. Down to the smallest child, they swam with grace and confidence, spending hours in the water. The younger children were always chewing on something. Zan had seen a baby with nothing to eat poke its fingers into his father’s mouth, extract a crumpled wad of vegetable matter, and pop it into his own. As for Zan, she ate what she could.

  Eggs and fruit were the mainstay of her diet. The roots and tubers Burrum foraged were sinister-looking, sometimes wormy and covered with dirt. The mushrooms Zan mistrusted heartily, and the slugs, bugs, and insects were impossible for her even to consider as food. But in trees, in fields, under stones, and in marshes, Burrum, with Zan eagerly helping, searched out the nests of birds and egg-laying snakes. Zan couldn’t stomach the round white snakes’ eggs, but developed a true taste for birds’ eggs. Some were mild, almost sweet, some strong to the point of being gamy; and one tiny, deep blue egg from a funnel-like nest in a dead tree left a peppery aftertaste. Sometimes, while holding an egg in her hand, not hungry, simply warming it, turning it round and round, Zan was startled by a surge of unexpected pleasure.

  She used her knife to tap off the top of the eggs, or to punch a small hole from which she sucked the contents. Whenever she brought out the knife, Burrum and Sonte, or whoever else was around, eyed it avidly. Sometimes, to amaze them, she flipped it into the air so that it plunged straight back into the ground. Or simply opening and closing the knife blade seemed to have an equally startling effect on everybody. Not only her knife fascinated them, but her button, the safety pin, and the locker key. She had only to take out these things to draw an immediate audience. Except for the knife, they were all useless to her
, yet with every day that passed, they meant more. They meant home.

  Often, when she felt herself sinking, she took out the key or the button. They opened her to memories—playing with the buttons in her mother’s straw button box, the key hanging on a nail in her parents’ bedroom, and the times long ago when she and Ivan had piled into bed with her parents on Sunday mornings. These were things she hadn’t thought of in years.

  Sometimes Burrum tried to touch the key or the button, but Zan pushed her hand away. Not to be selfish, but because she felt that if she once let them out of her possession, they would be lost. Burrum would give them to Sonte, and Sonte would give them to someone else, and that would be that! She would never see them again. She had noticed how these people gave away things, their necklaces and bracelets, food they foraged, or wood they’d gathered for their own fire. So whenever Burrum reached out her hand, Zan said, “Mine!” shaking her head and frowning. And she would put away the key or the safety pin, explaining further, “They’re from home. Listen, if you were away from your home, you’d do the same thing.”

  She talked to Burrum all the time, the way Burrum talked to her. If not, she would have gone crazy keeping all her thoughts inside herself. It wasn’t that they understood each other, it was just the relief of talking, letting off steam, hearing her own voice speaking a normal, sensible language. And then, sometimes, Zan even felt that in a funny sort of way they did understand each other. That there was a kind of unspoken sense or sympathy seeping from one to the other. And yet, if that were true, why hadn’t Burrum picked up what Zan wanted more than anything—to go back to the meadow, to find the boulder again?

  Every day she followed Burrum into the forest, to swamps, fields, across streams, up hills, and along the river, always hoping they would chance upon “her” meadow. Then at night, throwing herself down on the bed, her body twitching with weariness, she would feel a growing fear centered somewhere behind her ribs, a fear that she was losing her identity, that she was changing so much she would no longer be Zan Ford. Zan Ford? Why not face it! She wasn’t Zan Ford. She was Meezzan, dummy, stranger who couldn’t understand anyone, or make anyone understand her. Yes, she had picked up a handful of words and phrases—she recognized the morning greeting, she knew some names, she recognized the chant that was used before eating anything alive. But for the most part, the language was a mystery to her. She lived as if deaf, often impatient, more often frustrated. She wanted Burrum to lead her through the forest, back to the meadow where they had met. A simple wish, a simple request, but impossible to make. She didn’t know the words for it, or how to put them together.

  One day when they were in a group in the forest, Zan wandered off alone, pretending to look for eggs, but hoping that by some miracle she would suddenly come upon her meadow. Being alone in the forest still awed and frightened her, but how long could she go on this way? She had to break away, she had to do something! Underfoot, leaves and rotting vegetation were thick, a deep carpet in which small pale flowers and violently hued fungi grew profusely. There were insects everywhere; she brushed them off automatically. In a little while, she knew she’d gotten herself lost again. Fear rushed, sour, into her stomach. She flung up her arms and tried to retrace her steps, berating herself without mercy. Was it so hard for her to accept that she could no more find her way alone in the forest than Burrum, set down in the streets of Zan’s city, could have found her way? Stupid! You are supposed to be smarter than theml Use your head, dummy! Burrum’s voice calling to her cut through her self-abuse. She called back and waited meekly for the girl to appear.

  Zan had wished for a miracle. Now she saw that it wasn’t going to happen, and that day she began to work at learning the language, repeating words, phrases, trying to make her tongue fit around the clicks and thumps and throaty frog sounds. She listened in a new way to the voices, the talk, the calls, not letting her mind drift off, but working out what was being said. Sometimes it seemed so hard, impossible, even futile, that she became convinced she would never be able to make sense of their gabble, never be able to make Burrum understand that she must get back to the meadow.

  On one of those days when she felt low and miserable, she sat on the river bank while Burrum swam and dived among her friends. If only, Zan thought, she could enjoy the water the way they did. Swimming with her clothes on was awful. She always felt as if she were going to sink, then afterward in her dripping heavy clothing, she would shiver and feel horrid until she dried out. Now the water, fresh and sparkling, beckoned her. Why was she, alone, out of it? It was so dumb, really. Who cared if her body was covered or uncovered? No one, not one single person, except herself. Within moments she had pulled off her clothes and jumped into the river. The shock of the cold water on her bare skin was exquisite. She swam out the water curling over her arms. Her body felt weightless. The river stretched endlessly and the far shore was a blur of green. Her sadness lifted like morning mist off the river.

  Later, when Zan came out of the water, Burrum combed Zan’s hair with her fingers, then brushed it with a little evergreen whisk. Insects whined in the grass, birds called. Burrum’s hand on Zan’s head was warm, the sun was another warm hand on her head, and even the ache of hunger in her belly was, in its way, pleasant.

  In a little while Burrum stood up and whistled for Sonte. The three of them went off to find fruit berries, and eggs. Zan pointed to the nest, to an egg, to a hawk circling in the sky, listened carefully, repeated what Burrum said, till she had got it right. Later that same day, Burrum handed her a fruit and, hardly thinking, Zan said, “Habuiti feuoi, Burrum.” My thanks to you, Burrum. Hearing herself, she broke into a huge grin.

  “Ahhaa, Meezzan,” Burrum cried. She and Sonte hugged Zan and made her repeat the phrase over and over, each time their faces breaking into smiles as proud as those of parents whose infant has said its first words.

  Chapter 15

  On the horizon, a pale new moon rose slowly. Up and down the mountain, fires flickered in the darkness. Zan sat cross-legged near the fire, Burrum on one side of her, Burrum’s grandmother nodding on the other side. “Auuhmaa,” Zan whispered under her breath, reminding herself of Burrum’s name for the old woman. She had finally put names to all the faces in Burrum’s family. Besides Burrum’s grandmother and parents, Zan had identified her little brother, Lishum, plus two aunts, three uncles (one so young Zan had first thought him to be an older brother), a baby, and a small girl named Ai’ma. However, she still had to work at things, pausing to remind herself that the pregnant girl who walked around with her hands clasped under her belly was Burrum’s aunt, Ainu. Or that Burrum’s mother, with the missing teeth and the tips of two fingers on her left hand also missing, was called Farwe.

  Trying to pick up the gist of the conversation, Zan bent forward. Ainu, who had a big horsy laugh, was saying something about Burrum and Sonte. The other aunt, Mai’bu (it sounded like My Boo to Zan), who was plump and usually quiet, threw in a few words. Zan caught Sonte’s name, plus the word “Sussuru.”

  Then there was a burst of laughter and Burrum dropped her head on Zan’s shoulder, giggling and trying to hide her face. The talk swung to the Bihaw berries that Burrum’s father, Raaniu, had found earlier in the day. Zan remembered picking them once. They were hard and very green, but surprisingly sweet. She caught the word “run.” Or was it “walk”? She could rarely keep the two straight: walk was tsi; run was walk-walk, tsi-tsi. Usually, by the time she had figured out whether it was either walk or run, she’d forgotten if she’d heard one tsi or two tsi’s. Now, always a couple of beats behind, she realized that a bear had also been picking from the Bihaw bushes and had made Raaniu run.

  Standing up, Raaniu made paws near his chin, hanging his head so that his neck thickened and growling ferociously. Lishum squealed and ran into his mother’s lap, making everyone laugh again. He grabbed his mother’s breast and sucked noisily. Two or three times a day he would do this. Lishum was a little older than Buddy, but full of the same m
ischievous sparkle. Often Zan would squat down, trying to talk to him, rub his curls, or draw pictures in the dirt for him.

  “Meezzan, you come over here by me.” Zan looked up to see who was speaking to her. It was Farwe, and Zan had half risen to her feet in response before she realized that, for the first time, she had grasped a complete sentence without having to work it out slowly in her mind. At once she doubted her ears.

  Farwe smiled, showing the gaps in her mouth. Delicately, she picked a bit of matter from between her front teeth. This done, she called again, “Meezzan, you come over here by me, daughter.” Once again, the words fell clearly on Zan’s ears.

  “Farwe,” she cried. “Farwe—!” She wanted to tell the woman what she felt, the excitement, the joy that made her heart rise and fall behind her ribs like a balloon. She had understood.

  She sat down next to Farwe who gave her arm several little affectionate pinches. “Farwe—” Zan said. “Ah, Farwe—” She struggled among the ragbag of words and phrases she had painfully accumulated. The woman looked at her, smiling, waiting. Next to Farwe, Keyria, Ainu’s man, also leaned toward her, his large, soft eyes fixed on Zan as if she were about to say something important. “Farwe . . . Farwe . . . Farwe, here I am,” she said at last, triumphantly. There were howls of delight. It was the first real sentence she had spoken in their language.