The Land of Foam

by Ivan Yefremov

  Pandion took fright. Cavius’ simple explanation of their position had not entered his head before. He had lost sight of the fact that the stones might have no value in the eyes of the merchants. The hand he stretched out towards the stones trembled in consternation and fear for the future. Seeing the alarm in Pandion’s face, Cavius spoke to him again. “I seem to have heard that transparent stones of great hardness were sometimes brought to Cyprus and Caria from the distant east and had a very high value. Perhaps the Sons of the Wind know that?…”

  The morning after his talk with Cavius, Pandion set out along a path that led to the foothills where the bananas grew. It was time for Kidogo to return, and his friends were awaiting him in impatience; they wanted his advice on how to obtain something valuable for the Sons of the Wind. Cavius’ doubts had shattered Pandion’s faith in the stones from the south and the young Hellene now knew no peace. Without realizing it Pandion set out towards the mountains in the hope of meeting the expedition of his Negro friend. Apart from everything else, he wanted to be alone to think out a new work of art that was beginning to take form in his mind. Pandion walked soundlessly along the hard trampled earth of the footpath. He was no longer lame and his former easy gait had returned to him. Local people, loaded with clusters of yellow fruits, whom he met on the way, grinned at him or waved bunches of leaves to him as a sign of friendship. The path turned to the left. Pandion walked on between solid green walls of succulent vegetation, filled with the golden glow of sunlight. In the hot glare of the sun a woman whom Pandion recognized as Nyora was moving gracefully along the path. From the hanging clusters of bananas she was selecting the greenest fruits and packing them in a high basket. Pandion stood back in the shadow of the huge banana leaves and the feelings of the artist put all other thoughts out of his mind. The young woman went from one bush to another, her figure bent gracefully over the basket, and again she stretched up on tiptoes, straining her entire body to reach the higher fruits. The golden sunlight sparkled on her smooth black skin, accentuated by the bright green background of leaves. Nyora gave a little jump, her body arched into a curve as she plunged her hands into the velvety foliage. Pandion was so engrossed that he caught against a dry twig, and a loud crackle broke the silence. In an instant the young woman turned round and stood stock-still. Nyora recognized Pandion, and the body that had been tensed like the string of a musical instrument immediately became calm as she smiled at the young Hellene. Pandion, however, noticed nothing. A cry of ecstasy broke from his lips and his wide-open golden eyes stared at Nyora without seeing her, his mouth opened in a faint smile. The astounded woman stepped back from him. The stranger suddenly turned and ran away shouting something in a language she could not understand.

  Pandion had suddenly made a great discovery, something he had been groping for unconsciously but persistently, something he had always been very near to in his unceasing mental search. He would never have found it if he had not made comparisons and had not sought new paths for his own art. That which has life in it can never be immobile. In a beautiful living body there is never dead immobility, there is only repose, the moment when a movement has been completed and is changing to another movement, its opposite. If he could seize that moment and reproduce it in the motionless material, the dead stone would live.

  This is what Pandion had seen in the motionless Nyora, when she stood still like a statue cast from black metal. The young Hellene went away alone to a tree in a small glade. If anybody had seen him there, he would have been sure that Pandion was mad: he was making jerky movements, bending and straightening his arm or his leg, and trying hard to follow the movements, twisting his neck and straining his eyes till they hurt. He did not return home until evening. He was excited and had a feverish gleam in his eye. To Cavius’ great astonishment, Pandion made him stand up in front of him, march about and halt at his command. At first the Etruscan was patient with his friend and his antics, but at last he could stand it no longer and sat down on the ground with an air of determination. Even then Pandion gave him no rest. He stared at him as he sat there, first from the right and then from the left, until Cavius, letting out a stream of profanity, said that Pandion had a touch of fever and threatened to tie him up and lay him down on the bed.

  “You can go to the crows!” shouted Pandion in a joyful voice. “I’m not afraid of you; I’ll twist you up like the horn of the white antelope.”

  Cavius had never seen his friend in such a childishly jolly mood before. He was glad of it, for he had long been aware that Pandion was spiritually depressed. He muttered something about a boy who was making fun of his father and gave Pandion a light blow; Pandion immediately calmed down and announced that he was as hungry as a wolf. The two friends sat down to supper, and Pandion tried to explain his great discovery to his friend. Contrary to Pandion’s expectations, Cavius showed interest in the matter and asked Pandion many questions, trying to understand the nature of the difficulties that faced the sculptor in his efforts to depict real life.

  The two friends sat talking for a long time, until it was quite dark.

  Suddenly something stood in the way of the stars that shone through the open doorway, and Kidogo’s voice gave them a pleasant thrill. The Negro had returned unexpectedly and decided to pay an immediate visit to his friends. When they asked him about the results of the hunt, he gave them an indefinite answer, said he was tired and promised to show his trophies the next morning. Cavius and Pandion told him about the expedition in search of ebony and about Takel’s death. Kidogo was infuriated and in his frenzy showered curses upon his friends, said that their actions were an insult to his hospitality and even went to the extent of calling Cavius an “old hyena.” In the end the Negro grew calmer — his sorrow at the death of a comrade was greater than his wrath. Then the Etruscan and the Hellene told him that they were worried about finding something to pay the Sons of the Wind with and asked his advice. Kidogo showed the greatest indifference to their worries and went away without having answered their questions.

  The despondent friends blamed Kidogo’s strange behaviour on to his sorrow at the death of the Libyan, and both of them for a long time tossed sleeplessly on their beds, pondering over the situation.

  Late next morning Kidogo came to them with an expression of shrewd cunning on his kindly face. He was accompanied by all the Libyans and a crowd of young men of his tribe. Kidogo’s people winked at the puzzled strangers, whispered amongst themselves, laughed loudly and shouted snatches of incomprehensible phrases. They hinted at the sorcery that was supposed to be a feature of their people and said that Kidogo was possessed of the ability to turn ordinary sticks into ebony and ivory, and river-sand into gold. The strangers had to listen to all this nonsense on their way to Kidogo’s house. Kidogo led them to a small storeroom, a building that differed from the other simple houses in that it had a door which was closed from the outside by a huge stone. With the aid of several of his men Kidogo rolled the stone away, and the young people stood on either side of the wide-open door. Kidogo, bending down, entered the storeroom, beckoning to his friends to follow. Cavius, Pandion and the Libyans did not know what it was all about and stood for some time in the gloom until their eyes got accustomed to the half light coming through a narrow gap that encircled the wall under the eaves. Then they saw a number of thick black logs, a pile of elephant tusks and five big baskets filled to the top with medicinal nuts. Kidogo watched the faces of his comrades attentively as he spoke to them.

  “All that is yours. My people have gathered it all for you to make your journey pleasant and easy! The Sons of the Wind ought to take a couple of dozen passengers and not one for such a price…”

  “Your people are making us such a present,” exclaimed Cavius, “what for?”

  “Because you are good people, because you are brave men, because you have performed so many deeds of valour and because you are my friends and helped me return home,” chanted Kidogo, trying to appear imperturbable. “But wait a minute, that i
sn’t all!” The Negro stepped to one side, thrust his hand down between the baskets and picked up a bag of strong leather as big as a man’s head.

  “Take this,” said Kidogo, handing the bag to Cavius.

  The Etruscan held out his hands palm upwards and almost dropped the bag as his arms bent under the weight of it. The Negro roared with laughter and danced a few steps as a sign of pleasure. The loud laughter of the youths outside was like an echo.

  “What is it?” asked Cavius, clutching the heavy bag to his breast.

  “How can you, a wise old soldier, ask such a question?” said Kidogo in the merriest of tones. “As though you don’t know that there’s only one thing in the world that is as heavy as that.”

  “Gold!” exclaimed the Etruscan in his own language, but the Negro understood him.

  “Yes, gold,” he said.

  “Where did you get so much?” put in Pandion, pinching the tightly packed bag.

  “Instead of hunting we went to the plateau where gold is found. For eight days we dug the sand there and washed it in water…” The Negro paused for a moment and then added: “The Sons of the Wind won’t take you to your homes. When you reach your own seas, your roads will be different, and everybody will have to make his own way home. Divide the gold and hide it carefully so that the Sons of the Wind won’t see it.”

  ‘“Who else went on that ‘hunt’ with you?” asked Cavius.

  “All these people,” said Kidogo, pointing to the young men crowding round the door.

  Deeply touched and filled with joy, the friends hurried to thank the Negroes. The latter, confused by this display of gratitude, shifted from one foot to the other and one by one drifted away to their houses.

  The friends left the storeroom and pushed the stone back in front of the door. Kidogo had suddenly become silent, his gaiety had gone. Pandion drew his black friend towards him, but Kidogo immediately slipped out of his embrace, placed his hand on the Hellene’s shoulder and stared deep into his golden eyes.

  “How can I leave you!” exclaimed Pandion.

  The Negro’s fingers dug into his shoulder.

  “The God of Lightning be my witness,” said Kidogo in a dull voice, “I would give all the gold on the plateau, I would give everything I have, down to the last spear, if you would remain here with me for ever…” There was an expression of pain on the Negro’s face and he covered his eyes with his hands. “But I do not even ask that of you.” Kidogo’s voice trembled and broke off. “I learned the meaning of home when I was in captivity… I realize that you cannot stay… and I, as you see, am doing everything to help you go…” The Negro suddenly released his hold of Pandion and ran away to his own house.

  The young Hellene stared after his friend and tears made a haze before his eyes. The Etruscan heaved a heavy sigh behind Pandion’s back.

  “The time will come when you and I must part,” he said softly and sorrowfully.

  “Our homes are not very far apart and ships sail between them very often,” said Pandion, turning round to him. “But Kidogo… he will remain here on the outer edge of Oicumene.”

  The Etruscan did not say another word.

  Now that Pandion was sure of the future he gave himself up wholeheartedly to his art. He was in a hurry; the magnificence of friendship, cemented in the struggle for freedom, was a tremendous inspiration that compelled him to hurry. He could already see the details of his cameo.

  The three men must stand embracing each other against the background of the sea towards which they had struggled, the sea that promised them return to their homes.

  On the larger flat side of the stone Pandion had decided to depict the three friends, Kidogo, Cavius and himself, in the sparkling, transparent light of the expanses of the sea which the bluish-green stone represented as nothing else could.

  The young sculptor made a few sketches on thin pieces of ivory such as the women of the tribe used to grind and mix some sort of ointment. The discovery that he had made necessitated his having a living figure constantly before his eyes. This, however, presented no difficulty since the Etruscan was with him the whole time, and Kidogo, feeling that the ships would soon be coming, left his own work to spend as much time as possible with his friends.

  Pandion often asked the Etruscan and the Negro to stand in front of him with their arms round each other’s shoulders, which they, laughing at him, always did.

  The friends often sat talking together for a long time, confiding to each other their most secret thoughts, their worries and their plans, and deep down in each of them the realization that they must part dug into his heart like a thorn.

  While Pandion talked he did not waste time but worked persistently on his hard stone. At times the sculptor would sit in silence; his glance would become sharp and penetrating — he was trying to catch some detail in the features of his friends that was important to him.

  The three embracing figures began to stand out in ever greater relief, all the time becoming more lifelike. The central figure was that of the huge Negro, Kidogo; to the right, turned slightly towards the blank space on the stone stood Pandion, and on the left Cavius, both with spears in their hands. Cavius and Kidogo thought that their images were very lifelike, but insisted that Pandion had drawn his own portrait poorly. The sculptor laughed and said that that was not important.

  The figures of the friends, despite their diminutive size, were extremely lifelike and there was real virtuosity in every line of them. There was strong, impetuous movement in their bodies, but at the same time there was elegant restraint in them. In Kidogo’s arms, thrown around the shoulders of the Etruscan and the Hellene, Pandion had managed to express a movement of protection and fraternal tenderness. Cavius and Pandion stood with heads inclined warily, almost menacingly, with the tense vigilance of mighty warriors ready at any moment to repel the attack of any foe. The group as a whole gave this impression of might and confidence, and Pandion made every effort to express in his carving all the best that was in those who had become his dearest friends on the long road from slavery to his native land. The sculptor realized that at last he had succeeded in creating a work of art. Kidogo and Cavius stopped making fun of Pandion. For hours they sat with bated breath watching the movements of the magic chisel, their new attitude towards Pandion being the expression of a vague sort of adoration. Their young friend, bold, merry and even childish, — at times amusing in his admiration of women, had proved himself a great artist! This was a fact that both pleased and astonished Kidogo and Cavius.

  Pandion put all his love for his friends into that burst of creative enthusiasm. His original idea — that of carving Thessa on the stone — did not have any further appeal. Thessa, Iruma and Nyora, women from different peoples, were sisters in their beauty; in all of them he felt the same power of attraction… Whether they were sisters in all other respects Pandion did not know. Could Thessa form as firm a friendship for Nyora as he had for Kidogo? In Pandion’s friendship with Cavius and Kidogo, in their comradeship with the other fugitive slaves — but few of whom were left together now — there was a fraternity of identical thoughts and efforts, cemented more firmly than stone by loyalty and courage. They were real brothers although one of them had been born here under the strange trees of Africa of a mother as black as himself; the second had lain in his cradle in a hut that trembled in the bitter storms of the northern lands at a time when the third was already a warrior fighting against the fierce horsemen of the distant steppes on the shores of a dark sea… Their hearts, tested hundreds of times in adversity, were joined by strong sinews and… of how little importance now were differences of country, faces, bodies and religion!

  The days passed quickly. Pandion suddenly realized that three months and a half had passed, and that the time appointed for the arrival of the Sons of the Wind had also passed. Pandion experienced mixed feelings of anxiety and relief — anxiety because the Sons of the Wind might never come at all, and relief because the inevitable parting with Kidogo was being
postponed. In his wearying anxiety Pandion often left his work — it was, incidentally, almost completed. The Hellene again began making frequent trips to the sea, always hurrying back so as not to be long away from his friends.

  One day Pandion was making ready to go for his usual bathe in the sea. He got up and called his friends, but they refused; they were engaged in a heated argument on the best way to prepare leaves for ‘chewing. In the distance they suddenly heard the sounds of numerous voices, shouts and screams of ecstasy, such as Kidogo’s excitable people gave vent to on every occasion of importance. Kidogo jumped up, his face turned ash-grey, the pallor even spreading to his mighty chest. Staggering slightly, Kidogo ran to his own house, shouting over his shoulder to his astonished friends:

  “That must be the Sons of the Wind!”

  The blood rushed to the heads of the Etruscan and the Hellene, and they, too, set off at a run along a short path to the sea known to Pandion. On the crest of a hill Pandion and Cavius stood still.

  “The Sons of the Wind!”

  The dark purple shadow of the huge mountain lay on the shore and stretched far out to sea, dulling the sparkle of the waves and giving the water the gloomy tones of the forest thickets. Black ships, in shape like those of the Hellenes, with curved swanlike breasts and high prows, were already drawn up on the greying sands. There were five of them. With their unstepped masts they looked like black ducks asleep on the beach.

  Bearded warriors in rough grey cloaks walked up and down in front of the ships, the bronze of their shields flashing; in their hands they carried broad battle-axes on long handles. The chiefs, the merchants and all those who were not on guard duty must have gone to Kidogo’s village. The Etruscan and the Hellene turned back.

  Kidogo awaited them impatiently at their house.

  “The Sons of the Wind are with the chiefs,” the Negro informed them. “I’ve asked my uncle to talk to the big chief, and he himself will talk to them about you. It will be safer that way. The Sons of the Wind will not dare to quarrel with him and will bring you safely home.” And in the Negro’s wan smile there was no joy.