by Mamang Dai
Oh sweetness! Oh wild, wild beating! He raised himself and looked down at the whiteness of her skin, the sloping line of her belly, down to the dark mound where they were joined, and his body shuddered and surrendered. For a long time he lay unmoving, his head buried in her embrace. He was terrified by his feelings and wondered if it would be like this forever and he would never again be alone. He turned slightly to look at her again. She whispered something and clung to him. So they lay together, silent, for a long time.
In her father’s house Nenem looked into the small mirror tacked to the wooden post. Her face was clear. The eyes looked back at her, wide and lustrous. Her mouth was innocent and unadorned though she could still feel the salt and bruising and how the blood had swelled her lips giving them the quality of some living, tactile river animal that moved and slipped and flowered with tentacles of fire. Her body had changed. She was complete and she felt no fear. She felt alive, full of power, and full of the desire to give and to receive.
When the scandal broke, Sogong, the headman, did not speak to his daughter. Instead he threatened to burn down the house of the miglun and drive him away from the land. He recalled that the Duyang clans had originally given the migluns a written agreement for only a square mile of territory to settle in Pigo. Now they were trying to rule all the villages. He would throw them out. He consulted with a few friends and they tried to help him with this unprecedented misfortune. A daughter of the village and a miglun! It was unthinkable! Yet they could not stop a woman from loving a man, everyone knew that, and Nenem was a difficult one. She was capable of doing anything if baited or prevented from doing what she wanted. Her mother cursed the day Nenem was born and cursed Sogong for being a drunkard, and in the end everyone ended up cursing each other so much that the cause of the uproar was even forgotten a little.
One day Rakut’s father saw old Sogong rush into the office of the migom wearing his red coat and carrying his long walking stick. The big sahib was a kind, elderly man with years of experience in dealing with the many tribes of the country. He spoke the local tongue and immediately called out to Sogong.
‘Come, come in! Hey, Sogong, how are you? Let’s have some tea, shall we?’
Rakut’s father said that Sogong and the sahib sat together for a long time. He tried to hear what they were saying but the green curtain on the open door was short and flimsy and he was afraid that they might see him if he stood too close. All he could say was that when Sogong came out he looked very thoughtful. Perhaps the two men had discussed lives, loves, the way of the world—who knows? Both were aging men and fathers.
After that meeting Sogong did not say anything more about the whole business, though he began to avoid his own house, staying away for longer and longer periods in the homes of his many friends. Nobody liked to talk about the details and soon people went about their business and pretended to ignore the matter. Except the big sahib, who broached the subject with his junior one day.
‘Captain David,’ he said in his loud, clear voice. ‘There is some talk going around, ahmm… about you, that you have taken up with a tribal woman.’
When David did not answer, he said, ‘I am a man of peace. The people here are good people. I have nothing against love, or even love affairs, for heaven’s sake, but don’t you think your behaviour might jeopardize our mission?’
Still David didn’t say anything.
Finally the old man said, ‘You love her?’
‘Yes.’
There was a silence. Then the sahib said, ‘You’re going to make an honest woman of her?’
‘Yes, sir! I mean…But she won’t have me like that. She won’t come away with me if I leave this place, sir!’
‘What, oh, I see. Hmm…’ The senior man coughed and stared at the young man. His eyes softened. ‘Well, they’re strange here, these people. Yes, they won’t transplant easily, I dare say. Well, be careful.’
After David left, the sahib sat at his desk for a long time. He tapped with his pencil on the papers lying in front of him. It seemed strange to him that so many years had gone so quickly. He had been serving in these hills since 1932 and the year was already 1943. There was a war raging back home and its effects were far reaching. Perhaps time was really running out now, he thought ruefully. How many survey missions had he led, to map terra incognita, and here he was now, at the end of a long career, wondering about the strange ways of young hearts! Oh god! It was time to be sailing back to England and here was another officer sailing off in the opposite direction on some daft mission of love. He was fond of the boy, but it was daft. He knew that David’s posting orders were out and that the boy would have to leave soon, unless he could pull a hat trick.
Before a year was up word got around that the white sahibs would be leaving soon. All their friends and families across the rest of the country were already pulling out. The officer David would also be leaving before the big sahib. Yasam and Neyang were the first to talk about it to Nenem. They were surprised by her composure.
‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘He will be leaving soon. Don’t worry, I won’t disappear! How can I go with him?’
Both Yasam and Neyang breathed easier now. They could not imagine Nenem going away from the village. Many times they had discussed this and almost wept just thinking how they would never see each other again if David took her away. Yet they were all grown women now and knowing each other so well they were both aware that she was only taking refuge in a show of equanimity. But this was something that could not be discussed even among friends.
David left early one morning when a pale sky highlighted the clear line of the hills. Nenem had come to him when it was still dark. His vehicle had not returned yet from the fuel depot and they were alone in the house. She saw his face, silent and still. He was also waiting, uncertain, and his large hands were folded at his side, the knuckles pressed into the chair as though they were bearing all his weight. Love seemed such a difficult goal for them. She sensed his confusion and hid her eyes when he gazed back at her with pleading and devotion.
‘Nenem! Nenem…’ His words fell out like a cry, as if he was afraid that he might weaken, and she quickly rose and placed her hands on his face to stop him from speaking. He clasped her to him. She whispered incomprehensible words. He wept. She clutched him harder. She spoke slowly then, willing him to understand. She wanted to see him triumph and she wished him courage, she said. She wanted him to know that as long as she loved him, no harm would come to him, and that her love would follow him across the summit of the hills like a ribbon of light.
Then she had no more words to offer. The house was empty and silent, but for the men waiting just outside the door, scraping their feet, waiting to escort him to the ferry.
He left in a panic, a young officer clutching his canvas bag in the front seat and looking nowhere as the old jeep started and drove away.
Only when Nenem saw the small mushroom cloud of dust passing by the circular market did she realize she was heartbroken. She threw up her hands to her face and wept. ‘Oh! he is gone! We will never see each other again! What will I do? What will I do!’
It is not clear if David and Nenem had really planned anything together for the future. Or what he said to her father before he left. By all accounts David had always been friendly with the old man, and had visited him many times when he needed to find out something about the place or the outlying villages, communicating with broken words and precise gestures.
The whole country was changing as it struggled to take over the reins of government from the British. New officers were arriving and as the big migom too would be leaving soon, all the headmen of the villages were busy with the constant arrivals and departures. In this period of change Nenem returned to her old life and quietly took over the household chores. Her mother shared her sorrow in silence. Her father’s clumsy attempts at good humour touched her. He was drinking hard these days and the look in his eyes was old and tired. She wanted to say so many things but kindness shrank
her soul and she tried to be inconspicuous instead. She pretended she was untouchable because she had overcome her fear of pain and hurt. She celebrated when her friend Neyang got married and one day gave birth to a baby boy. Yasam was also betrothed, and so life moved on. The war in the east had ended and Hoxo’s and Rakut’s fathers had also returned, full of stories of adventure and about how they had worked with the migluns to stop the Japanese armies from climbing over the hills and invading their villages. Men and women stretched their limbs by the fire and gossiped about their hopes and fears.
At night the sky above the village was full of stars, and every night Nenem said to herself, ‘No one dies of love. I loved him, and now I am enough on my own.’
the scent of orange blossom
She stood with her hands steeped in blood. The legs of the pig stuck straight up and its entrails had spilled out of its belly onto the glistening mat of green leaves. A big fire leaped and crackled. The smell of roasting and burning wafted up from every house and mingled above her head in a dense fragrance of charcoal and wood ash. Everyone was talking at the top of their voices.
‘Hai, here, here! Sit for a while. Have a drink!’
All the visitors were pressed upon to taste the rice beer in return for the gifts of more rice beer and strips of meat that they arrived with. It was the festival of solung. She delicately eased out the liver of the dead animal. It was still warm and slippery with dark blood, and she could feel the weight of it on her wrists as she heaved it into a shallow tin dish. Her husband, Kao, worked beside her silently, knowing exactly where to plunge the knife to extract exact portions of meat that would be distributed to all their friends. Now and then he lunged at the dogs. ‘Shoo!’ He hissed, and laughed, and Nenem knew he was happy by the way he worked: concentrated, deft, peaceful.
‘That’s a good-looking pig you’ve got there,’ said Jebu, a young man for whom a chair had been brought out.
‘Yah, he’s okay,’ Kao replied.
Jebu smiled at Nenem. ‘Hah! Hah! Does he ever say anything more than three words?’
She smiled briefly. Making her husband laugh and talk was like trying to lift an enormous stone. Everyone joked about it.
‘Hai! Look who’s here!’
More people were arriving. Nenem rushed into the kitchen to give instructions. ‘You can start serving,’ she said, pointing to the wrapped packages of egg and crushed ginger. ‘Tonight, tonight I will see everyone well fed and happy,’ she thought. She ran out again and hitched up her ga-le tighter. The sweat glowed on her face. She felt the evening breeze touch her bare shoulders. She smiled happily when she caught Kao’s glance. They were partners now. Step by step he had led her here— even she could not have explained how—to be his wife, and the mistress of this house that he had constructed with skill and determination over a period of six years. Perhaps it was the magic in a stone, a river, or a song. One could not be sure which.
She only knew that the beginning had been very different, and that though it now belonged to a distant past, the memory of it would trail her for ever like the scent of orange blossom.
For five years Nenem pined in secret. She walked in the sunlight and saw the budding life hidden in the cold winter stems and shrubs. One morning the peach trees opened in pale pink blossoms, and eleven ducklings hatched with yellow breasts and bills, identical to their mother’s. They tottered and crept under her wing. The drake looked fierce and stared around hissing and breathing hard though he kept ducking his head to the mother duck as if in perplexed obeisance. Then the mother rose and left the straggling chicks and nipped hard at him. He darted away, while she calmly waddled into the garden shaking her feathers, shaking off the long wait of gestation, dipped her head into the tin trough and began to splash and clean herself. Then she swept into the undergrowth in great excitement and the chicks ran up to her as fast as they could.
The green of living! The young shoots of plants, the sun and dew. The living mud, the stirring of worms. Nenem smiled to see the duck’s great hunger and rejoiced in her performance and release.
It was during this time, maybe three or four years after David had left, that she received a tattered envelope marked with blue lines and covered with colourful postage. Rakut’s father had brought it to her and though he tried to look very casual Nenem knew he was dying of curiosity. He said, ‘Here, it must have been held up somewhere. I brought it as soon as I saw it. I’ve also signed for it in the delivery register.’
She was touched by his concern. He continued, ‘By the way, I hear a new band of musicians is going to play something in the town hall tonight. You should come and see it.’
‘Okay.’ Nenem gave in because he had brought the letter, and because the fellow was like her own brother, after all. He had never made any comment to her or to anyone else about the times when he had seen her visiting David’s house. And now here he was, back from the wars and tinkling his cycle bell as though he had never been away, and still silent about both her recklessness and her misfortune.
When she opened the envelope she saw the photograph. There was nothing else, but there was no need of anything else. The years fell away and she saw herself again, so innocent and happy! She stared and stared at the picture.
She saw David. Yes, there he was, tilting towards her with that expression on his face, but she was trying to see more—the house in the background, the reflection of a windowpane, the tip of the hibiscus bush, and the colour of the sky. At the back David had written his name and put a thumbprint over it. She smiled, remembering everything about him. He was so funny! She remembered the colour of his eyes, like the sky seen in the river, and the weight of his hand on hers, driving that old jeep and grinning happily at her while the whole world was moving and changing. Everything came back in a rush until she couldn’t see anymore because her eyes were full of tears.
That evening Nenem took great pains to appear fresh and beautiful. She scrubbed her face until it glowed. She pinned back her hair with a new clip and searched for clothes that would brighten her appearance. In a last-minute decision she put on her green beads and carried her small coin purse.
The small town hall was packed; in just a couple of years Pigo had become twice its old size. She regretted that she had not sought out Rakut’s father to escort her, but then, maybe he had just invited her because he felt sorry for her, thinking that she would not come. She was about to turn away when a quiet voice greeted her. It was a man she had never seen before. ‘Oh…’ she said, hesitating. Just then Rakut’s father dashed up smiling and greeted them both. ‘This is Kao,’ he said, almost pushing Nenem against the young man who, however, did not smile. Instead he stood silently and looked around as if he was embarrassed by the introduction. Then a loud voice announced that the cultural show was about to begin and everyone should sit down immediately and those people standing at the back should either leave or remain silent! Rakut’s father was one of the members of the organizing committee and he rushed away, but not before telling them excitedly that this show was ‘all about preserving our roots’, because already the past was being cast away by many young people.
Kao screwed up his face at the noise and harsh lights. The announcer shouted, the tall microphone before him screeched and the sound box crackled and hissed through the two loudspeakers on either side of the stage that Nenem was seeing for the first time. She had never heard such sounds before. The stage was decorated with tall stems of freshly cut bamboo, and on the backdrop was a cloth banner with big, bold letters in the miglun language that Nenem could barely decipher: W-E-L-C-O-M-E
Two women came out and stood quietly on stage. Nenem stared at them. They were dressed in short black skirts and covered in beads. She realized they were women from distant villages across the river. How times had changed! People were moving freely across the region and new settlers from the outlying villages were pouring into the town. Now the women swayed slightly and held their hands behind their backs as if they were uncertain where or how to
begin. There were no instruments and no extra accompaniments. They did not look at one another but they started together on cue as if someone was signalling to them. Their song began softly, and as Nenem strained to make out the words, it became a rising sound, a soft moaning wind sweeping across the land. One voice rose, the other sighed and the notes fell like waves. It was a vaguely familiar sound, it reminded her of something deep and distant even though it was in a tongue she could not understand, for the women singing were from a faraway place. But the song was so clear, so pure and melodious that to anyone who heard it the thought was sure to cross their minds that this was of no known language and that it was never spoken but always sung, like this.
The two women were communicating like songbirds. It must be a lament, Nenem thought, and imagined a bird flying high in the sky bringing news of death while the wind caught the soft feathers slowly spiralling earthwards. The song rose, echoed, and wept without any visible change of expression on the faces of the singers except once, when in the long exchange of notes she saw the smile growing in their eyes as they took the notes higher and higher like dancing leaves that soared skywards until they disappeared. The audience was left breathless. It was an impossible music. Nenem felt her throat choked with tears. What were they singing about?
