by CK Collins
A choir sings. The shii reads a proclamation. Hilm Hivaa has come to cleanse the nation of its shame. Hilm Hivaa has come to wipe ignorance and greed from the minds of men. Hilm Hivaa has come to purify the world.
The farmer who paid the bribe is sentenced to lose his land. He will labour evermore for the people. The rest will be returned to Ashma.
A priest performs a blessing. He sprinkles salt. He pours water from a copper saadit. He shakes the callum. The men are lowered. Within the pits, the screams become faint. Queues form for shovels. The father is last to suffocate. His daughter delivers the final soil. The choir sings. Exquisite is the sunset.
28-29 November
* * *
Nova Coast, Masalay
The wire of the coop I slip through.
Alimi’s rule of stay inside at night is one rule. But Yabaren has his own rule and it is don’t stink up his house with my shit.
I wish the moon was not as bright tonight. From the beating Yabaren gave me of bothering the white woman, I am all of pain.
To the quarrish I get and stop for making sure I am alone on the beach. Alimi said, next time I disturb her customer I will get drowned in the sea. Gaarik said to me she is not joking and I said I know it.
Learning the how of shitting in the ocean was not easy, but now I do it even half-asleep.
The ocean is warmest at night.
At night Yabaren locks up the quarrish knives. He thinks that him doing that will keep me from doing violence. But in this place are weapons everywhere.
Mallets.
Stones.
Hooks.
Petrol jugs.
Bicycle chains.
And too my hands are weapons.
Sister Imurna said we are the masters of our souls, and good and evil is always a decision for us to make.
Alimi locks always her door, but that lock is easily broken.
A woman struggles less if you punch her in the face.
I walk backwards for covering over my footprints.
I stop.
The moon is bright.
My footprints are not the only. Small and not washed away by the sea and pointed again to the white woman. Ashma, the sound I hear is evil coming.
* * *
Today will be the slaughter of half the chickens.
The reason is that the wind has gone. Dead eight days are the sails of the boats. The people are staring at the sea with faces of worry. Some are cross with Alimi for saving food for the white woman who buys more than any person can eat.
Women and children have yesterday climbed on the sea rocks for prying off creatures of the name miskats. In boiling water they were put until their shells cracked, and I was made to scrape out their stink meat. The green juice of the miskats was very stinging to the cuts those shells made. Into a simmer of chilies and coconut is where the meat went and it was all day stewing. None was left for me, but that I did not mind because I am not that hungry yet.
Today comes another of the holidays I have never heard of. It is a day for getting favours from You, Ashma. There is a holiday stew and it has an ingredient of the name domid that is a fungus of chatyn trees. Alimi has tried to make it better to the people who are cross with her by sending me and Fori and Gaarik for the foraging of domid.
The chatyn grove is not a place I have ever been to. It is between the village and the white woman’s house, and I wished that I could instead be scraping miskats again. On the road Fori is saying many jokes about me seeing her again. I am happy when Gaarik points and says this is the place for going into the grove. The sound of the sea is less, and that is a blessing.
Chatyn trees are very ugly to me for the reason of their twisting shape and branches that are red and droop like they are drunk. Under the branches goes Gaarik with a blade for scraping the fungus. It stains your fingers a week, he says. Why don’t they make the igmaki do it is Fori’s question. Gaarik says that first I must be made to know how.
The foraging of domid is forbidden, says Fori, but it is done of every village. He tells me what will happen. Women will make holes in coconuts and drain the milk. Then into the holes they will push clumps of domid and then pour fish oil. The hole then they seal with a peg and boil the coconuts in iirik and other things. Inside of the coconut will swell until it cracks. The broth and meat of coconut are cooked more for a soup that everyone loves. The domid is removed and put onto a fire that makes a smoke of good feeling.
Telling about domid smoke gives Fori reason to joke about strong orange. They always are wanting to joke about strong orange. It is a thing, like killing, that they think would be more fun than fishing.
A vehicle.
Fori lifts up on a branch to look what it is, but already I know that it is MDF.
It has other times happened since I have been here, the MDF coming round to remind the village that they are in charge. Always I get into the coop before I am seen. Outside of Alimi’s store they always stop. She is smiles and happy to see them and gives chocolate and iirik so they won’t demand more precious things. Like all MDF, they are sloppy — weapons slung low or at their feet. From the coop it is always easy to see how I would kill them. First the gunner, from behind with a blade. Artery blood that shocks. Shove him onto the driver. Take the mounted. Slide the bolt, squeeze the trigger, I would have them in half a minute.
I am shoved by Gaarik and running. At the crest of the hill is the MDF but I am into the trees. I hear them stop and the boys called over and I do not stop running until I am through the grove and at the cliff. Out of breath I stand and look at the sea, and I am several seconds before I see it, Ashma, that far below me is the white woman swimming.
She is on her back and making slow strokes toward the edge of the open sea. I am wishing that she would not go so far from the shore. Come she stops and spins in the water. I hear her laugh at the fun of it. She does another spin. Ashma, the tide is changing and she does not know it. The tide is against her, pushing her. Wind rustles the chatyn trees. The wind raises waves. Leaves are torn loose and they swirl around me. The white woman sees that the tide and waves are dragging her to sea.
I am knocked by a gust and made to hold a tree. Leaves swirl over the water. Against the punch and drag of waves, she struggles. She is strong. A wave takes her feet, it tries to pull her under. But she is stronger than the wind and she is stronger than the sea. I watch her break free. I watch her make the shore.
She finds her towel. She tilts her head to one side and then the other — for getting the water from her ears. The wind dies. On her face is I think a smile at the funny ways of the sea and weather. Red chatyn leaves drift down. Over her shoulder the white woman slings her towel and climbs the cliff stairs to her house.
Where she did her happy spins, the sea has not forgot. I watch its anger. It grabs and twists and becomes white with its twisting. It is churning now, the sea, and down it sucks the twigs and leaves. It twists and twists and twists until finally it gulps its own violence down.
And all again is quiet in the air and on the water.
Evening
West Anartha Autonomous District, Masalay
Ikidris is not going away until they’ve talked. Rika joins him on the floor.
“Oh, you’re drawing a butterfly.”
Ikidris doesn’t answer.
“It’s pretty.”
“All done.” And the boy lays the drawing gently in his hands.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because we found her.”
“What are you going to do, Ikidris?”
“You’re silly,” giggles the boy, “I’m too small. I’m going to be a different me.”
“You should leave her alone.”
“Bye-bye.”
Rika closes his hands but too late. The butterfly has flown.
30 November
* * *
Nova Coast, Masalay
Angry has come the wind and rain.
Onto the beach the sea. Everyone has raced to save their boats. Even Alimi is wet and dirty helping.
It is dark like night this day.
The roof has part lifted from Yabaren’s house. The sea is close to this coop. In my hanging bed I am reached by rain.
* * *
I’ve run out of just about everything, but no way am I going out in this mess.
For the best because I can barely look at Alimi and the rest of them. What they did to the kid, I don’t know because I don’t see him anymore.
She gave me another phone message from Pashi yesterday, before it started storming. Saying we’re still on for the 2nd. The sucky thing right now is that I’m so disgusted with Alimi that I don’t feel like I want to stay anymore. Not the best negotiating position with the Murais.
I’m down to ginger jam and half a bag of nuts. And I’m stir-crazy. The baby too, I can feel lots of movement all of a sudden. The wind is loud as a freight train, and the rain sounds like hammers.
I take another look through the cabinets to make sure I haven’t missed anything. There’s three cartons of digestibles — what they call crackers — that I’ve been avoiding. Not appetizing for some reason, but whatever. I open a carton and what’s left of the jam and curl up on the couch with Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Disiri’s shawl is another thing I’ve been avoiding, but I’m cold. I pull it over my shoulders. The digestibles are good, actually. The screen door is slamming against the frame like it’s got something to say.
* * *
The sound is louder than the wind. Hands against my ears I press, but the sound is entering of me another way.
I am out of my hanging bed. I am crouching. All is soaked of the rain and angry sea.
Onto the beach I step. By water and wind I am knocked. This call is so loud to me, Ashma, I cannot close myself to it. The quarrish has open broken. I find what I need. Of evil I am afraid but of dying I feel not fear.
* * *
The damn door — bang, bang, bang. I can’t sleep with this. If only I had a magic hotline to Alimi, I should make her come fix it. And bring me marmalade.
I’m drenched in two seconds. Trying to hold the flashlight with one hand and fix the door with the other. I should have just put up with the noise — the hinges are half ripped out. I try to finish the job, just pull the whole door off and all I get is hit in the face. I curse and get back inside.
That was productive.
I change clothes and boil water for tea, huddled inside Disiri’s shawl. There’s a leak too, plop plop. And a sound that I don’t like. Not the kettle. The kettle isn’t boiling yet. There’s something outside. I flick off the bedroom light.
I go to the kitchen to get a knife and lock the back door. I don’t make it.
* * *
To Alimi I will not give a reason of this. And pleading I will not do. Because I know what comes to them that plead.
That I chose my fate is what Alimi will say when they are binding me for the sea. And that will be of truth.
In my time of drowning, of Your love I will think and go.
The road is mud, and hard against me pushes the wind. I am many times of stumbling. Into a ditch I fall and the iron bar is lost. Left to me now is only the axe.
Through the twisted gate I go. Over the road of broken branches I go. To the house that I know is hers.
Torn off is a door. Footprints are in the mud. I am through the broken door — such dark stink — a vawdra watches her.
A vawdra is not of this place, it is of the mountain Karsk. It is of snout and claw and cracking bones. It is of caves and solitary stalking.
The woman in her language is pleading.
In raised snout, the vawdra sniffs. Nostrils wet, fur of black wire. Dripping jaw for the baby in her. She twitches. It is of snarl and coiled thrust. She curses, curls — it lunges and I am swinging axe. The vawdra flips, axe snaps, wet fur smashes. Onto me heavy is the vawdra. The woman is kicking and the vawdra is fury for the belly of her. I grab fur and bloody neck. I grab snout.
She is away, Ashma, she is up. The snapped axe is a club. The vawdra is clawing biting fury at her. She hits. She hits. It dies. She hits.
* * *
The boy.
I get him into a chair. I bandage the gash on his arm and dab the cuts on his face. He’s worried about my arms, which are scraped-up. I tell him not to worry. I soak towels and scrub the mud and blood from his skin. When I’m out of towels, I grab a dress and wet it and wash until he’s clean.
We’re done. I sit on the floor. I press my hand to my breast. “Istayim ki Callie.”
He looks afraid. I smile. Gentle I lift his chin. His voice is almost too soft to hear. “Mid istayim . . . ki Ephraim.”
I kiss his cheek. “Ayin milai, Ephraim.”
Part Three
The Snare Of The Fowler
In the island nation of Masalay, the ambitious traveller will find a place of astounding generosity and abundance. At very little cost it is possible to acquire a taste of pure heaven, and for no additional charge a full serving of hell.
Charles Smithson, Seventy-Nine Days
2 February
* * *
Liashe, Masalay
The smell of mariden is on the breeze as Tchori prepares to wait. Liashe has strict ordinance requiring mariden owners to sweep the fruit that drops January to March. But the canopy is so wide and intertwined that it’s impossible to trace ownership of branches and their fruit, so each new year arrives redolent of rotting citrus, and the walks are stained dark green until April’s rains. Like anyone who’s lived any length of time in Liashe, Tchori has a love-hate relationship with the smell and the stain. Tilting lately toward hate, and she wishes Brother Carodai were on time.
She lifts the cover flap on her folder — yet another look at the data to confirm she’s not imagining things. Rehearsing how to present the idea. Outlandish. But she’s long since lost perspective on what is logical. And they’re running out of alternatives.
Feuding monkeys screech in the tree nearest Brother’s flat — notoriously aggressive in this area of Liashe, especially come mariden season. Not unheard of for the beasts to snatch objects straight from your hands, and Tchori has image of her hard work being turned to simian litter. A pair of Middlers, marginally more civilised, pass with a football, and she shuts the folder for privacy. They’d not have the least clue what the numbers mean, but she’s become entirely paranoid the last months. Suspecting Hilm Hivaa spies behind every lamppost. Of course there’s nothing in their activities that would interest Sidaarik except as a source of amusement.
Yet they persist in their precautions. Discussions of a sensitive nature occur in Brother’s flat, which can be secured more easily than his office. Every Tuesday and Friday brings a 5:00 p.m. check-in with Sule. Numbingly redundant. Search of hospitals and midwiferies, obstetricians, and the like for a foreign-born woman with pregnancy of the right stage. Or a Masalayan woman with foreign-born husband — more difficult to ascertain but Sule has kept eye for that as well. First this city then that. Across the south first, then North Masalay. Hunting and pecking. Needle and haystack.
Unreasonable hopes placed last week on a call with Viv. Believing she might bring a new method or insight. But she and Brother only jabbed at one another, going round and round about the Riyain Valley Scroll — can’t the lab move up their timeline, no they can’t — and debating documents that Tchori has never heard of. Discussing the possibility of recruiting more help but deciding, as they always decide, that there’s no one with the right combination of skill and “open-mindedness.” And it’s not a lack of manpower, it’s a lack of ideas isn’t it?
Meanwhile, Tchori has provided what precisely? Her one contribution, tending the flowers, has come to naught. She continues to make regular inspection, but they’ve gone weeks with no change. Come December’s end, the reverse bloom (if one can call it that) was complete with all eighteen, and now each remains drooped and desiccated, the once
vibrant red gone a tawny brown. Even her antagonists on the flower message boards have lost interest in her, the original threads have long since receded into obscurity.
She consults her watch. It would be possible for her to await Brother inside, but she prefers heat and mariden to another minute in that dank crypt. Sule came in December to make the flat more secure. But making it liveable — well is that not a woman’s job? She held firm through the new year but then could take it no longer. Arrived a Sunday with mop and cleaning supplies. She resents it still, but at least there’s room now to move and sit, light to see by, and less obvious risk of dying by mould.
