She glanced quickly this way and that but there was no male near—not even some ancient Leopard Man able to do no more than lie in the sun—not even some man child who might remember he heard what She Who Names The Women had said. There was no one at all within hearing. She dropped her hands and climbed upward to her bath.
The pans were each a little higher than the next, perhaps by the length of a forearm. Each brimmed and let a film of water seep perpetually over the smooth surround into the next. Sometimes the film was thicker than usual, as if the earth had changes of mood; but always the pans were full. This fulness was a source of pleasure to Palm, who felt it as a rich thing, a foison, a generosity of water. She was grateful to the water, without personifying it. The bath invited her. She put her hands to her waist and loosed the grass skirt so that it fell round her feet. She thrust her hands under her hair to the nape of her neck. But when she laid the rows of clattering shells on the rock, she did not climb immediately and step down into the soothing heat. She knelt, pushed back her long hair and peered into a cooler pan. She let the sunlight fall on her face, held her breath and stared at the face that swam up from the darkness.
“I am beautiful.”
A tress fell and ripples made the face shake. She swept the hair back and stared down again. The dark eyes were huge, black patches, the face oval and neat. She put up a hand and felt its softness—felt too, though she could not see them, the beginnings of wrinkles by the mouth, the wrinkles of the neck where the shells had hidden them.
“I am still beautiful. That—cannot be it.”
From the forest and Place of Women came the chatter and laughter of the girls. The children were silent, sleeping in the shade. She Who Names The Women stood up briskly. She climbed three pans higher and tried the top one with a toe. She stepped in, biting her lower lip. She sank into the hot water and sweat burst out of her skin. She squatted, willing herself to wait until her skin accepted the pain and became accustomed to it. At last she relaxed, lay back and rested her head on the stone that had been put there for the purpose. Her hair spread; and slowly her body rose, pale brown and green in the clear water. She floated, all but her head that rested on the stone. Her graceful body was laid out at the surface like a diagram of womanhood. She shut her eyes. There was a gap with no time in it.
From the shelter the woman hooted like an owl. Palm opened her eyes and thoughts formed immediately. Soon I shall have a baby to examine. A girl, I should think, from the way she was carrying. I hope—I hope whichever it is, we can keep it. I do not like——
The unease was back, wide, deep, ungraspable as water. She sat up, smearing back her hair. She twisted and stared up through the vapour to where the white head and dark shoulders of the mountain loomed under its own smoke. Sometimes, she thought, the mountain looks up at the sky as if we weren’t here; and sometimes the mountain stares down—as if we weren’t here!
She shook herself so that the water splashed.
“A mountain is a mountain! Palm, you think like a man!”
So briskly she ducked her head, tossed it so that the hot water streamed from her face and hair. She began to massage her face with her fingers, busied herself with her own body, but all the time her thoughts busied themselves in her mind. Nothing is wrong. You can be happy or sad, you can be nothing in particular when you are thinking of what is to be done. But you cannot be uneasy at what is.
All the same, we are menaced.
She stood up, stepped down into cooler water, ducked, then got out and sat down to let the sun dry her. She bowed her head and began to run her fingers through her hair again and again. Feelings are feelings; but each hair must lie smoothly by the next. Presently attend to the dressing of it, the greasing of the face, the shaping of nails with an appropriate stone.
“Palm! Palm!”
It was the child from the lookout, swaying and leaping down between the pans, her hands up for balance, grass skirt flying.
“Palm! Oh Palm!”
Now she has learnt to call me that, thought Palm, she will use it every other word! She laughed at the child and blew her a kiss.
“Palm! Palm! Palm! I’m not a forest, you know!”
“I’ve seen them!”
“They’re not coming back, surely? Not so soon?”
“Oh no! You were right, Palm. Palm—they’re going farther. Ever so far! I wouldn’t have been able to see them, but—” she giggled. “They’re climbing a tree!”
Palm laughed back.
“All of them? For nuts? Or for a dare?”
“I could only see one—very high up.”
“Bird’s eggs.”
“I thought you’d better know, Palm.”
Palm put back her hair with one hand and patted the girl’s cheek with the other.
“You did quite right—” She made herself remember—“Minnow. After all, that’s what you’re there for, isn’t it? Now, help me with my skirt!”
“I wonder if it was Furious Lion? I couldn’t tell of course, at that distance. What fun he must be having!”
She Who Names The Women was fastening her shells.
“It’s pleasant to think of them enjoying themselves. I only hope they haven’t forgotten what they went out for! Well. I’ll come up with you and have a look. Lead the way.”
Again the woman in labour hooted like an owl. Not too long now, thought Palm. I hope——
Minnow stood by the boiling spring, one hand shading her eyes. Her breathing had not changed.
“There. See the big tree, Palm, with the one bare branch at the top? Well, just where it comes out of the leaves—can’t you see him?”
“No, I can’t,” said Palm. “But if they’ve gone as far as that, they’ll be bound for a long trip. You need not watch any more. Just come up here at sunset and spot their camp fire.”
Minnow turned and looked shyly at her.
“What would happen if they—well. If they found out?”
“They won’t.”
Palm looked down at the Lodge of the Leopard Men. It was open to the sky and so open to examination from the high point by the boiling water. The rows of leopard skulls gleamed in the sun. She smiled and the smile turned into a long peal of laughter. Minnow began to laugh too. They were sisters, and of the same age while the laugh lasted.
Palm fell silent first.
“We shall do nothing, of course, until the child is born. And even then, only if the child is—is named.”
Minnow went solemn.
“I understand.”
Palm smiled, loving her solemnity. She leant forward and kissed her lightly on the lips so that the girl flushed and swayed back and caught her breath. Then Palm turned and began her way down, her breathing easy at the descent, her body swaying gracefully, hands out on either side. The walls of the Lodge of the Leopard Men rose up and hid the gleaming skulls. This time, she thought, I shall be careful! I shall drink hardly anything at all! But at that, as if her thoughts had pulled the thing out of the air, the image of a coconut shell full of dark liquid hung before her, vivid in every detail. She could even smell the stuff, so that she flushed and caught her breath as Minnow had done. It is in me, she thought, I am not like the others. I was born with it; and no Namer Of Women could look into me and see this, this——
The ancient Leopard Man no longer lay sprawled against the rocks. The children slept. Palm stood in the open space where the children had been, graceful and gracious; and smiling sweetly.
II
At the top of the naked bough that thrust up from the big tree, there was a nest of sticks. Bits of food hung in the sticks—skin, fur. A handful of red feathers fluttered at the edge. The Leopard Man who was shinning up the naked bough was hardly more covered than the bough itself except that he wore a narrow strip of hide round his waist and a close bag of it between his legs. The other Leopard Men stood round the tree in groups, looking upward over the crown of leaves and laughing. Each time Forest Fire slipped back down the bough at immediate ris
k to his neck, they shouted with a laughter that was total. They held on to each other, went wet-eyed and weak-knee’d. But when he tried again, this time more slowly and carefully and seemed to ooze up with a snakelike movement they fell silent and motionless, looking up. They stood elegantly, their spears with their fire-hardened points cradled in the crook of an arm. Some of the Leopard Men were not much more than boys, but most were slim young men of light brown, or seemed to be. There was little to tell their age. The elders among them could only be recognized by the streaks of grey in their hair. If they carried more weapons, more ornaments, more miscellaneous objects than Forest Fire oozing up his bough, nevertheless, they were substantially as naked as he—keen-faced men, unlined but scarred, with dark eyes and eyebrows and hair and dusty, naked feet. Their beards were no more than dark smudges on lip and chin.
Forest Fire was just under the nest. He took both hands from the bough, gripping it with his thighs and shins and insteps, and leaned backwards in the air, reaching out for the red feathers. The Leopard Men changed position in one lissom movement, miming attention and excitement.
“Ah——!”
Forest Fire grabbed the red feathers and thrust them into his belt. The Leopard Men opened their mouths to cheer—but instead, a scream came searing down the sky with talons and huge beak and a whirl of wings and feathers. Instantly there was a flurry of brown limbs and feathers at the top of the bough under the nest, there were feathers flying and blood. Then there was silence. Forest Fire, his face contorted, was twisting strongly with both hands. The bright blood slithered over him. He was a place of red snakes. He shouted aloud, and hurled the dead thing down into the crown of the tree. The Leopard Men laughed and slapped their thighs and hurried to the tree bole. Forest Fire slid down, clambered and shouted. Twigs, leaves and lichen came down before him. He swung, then dropped the last ten feet and was enveloped by his peers. The youths and elders stood round in a circle beaming with pleasure. The young men embraced and kissed him, careless of the blood or sharing it. There was laughter and chatter. Forest Fire broke away and chattered most of all.
“A scarlet feather for Furious Lion!”
“For me? Dear friend!”
“A scarlet feather for Rutting Rhino!”
“Best of men!”
“A scarlet feather for Stooping Eagle!”
“Sweetheart!”
Forest Fire was jerked under his blood, with effort and excitement. As they patted and kissed him, or thumped him on the back, he fell silent, feeling at his belt, then looking at his empty hands. His cheeks uncreased round his mouth which stayed open. He stared down to where his weapons and ornaments lay on the bare earth under the tree. He gritted his teeth. He snatched up his spear and hurled it at the bole.
“No scarlet feather for Forest Fire!”
He burst into tears.
At once, the other young men closed round him, singing and talking soothingly. Forest Fire sniffed and gulped. Furious Lion put an arm round his neck and kissed him and pressed the red feather into his hand.
“Look, Forest Fire, here is a scarlet feather for you!”
“No, no! I don’t want it!”
“And here is another red feather for you——”
‘‘And another–
“I wanted you to have them. When I saw them, I said there are feathers for Furious Lion, and Rutting Rhino and Stooping Eagle——”
“Forest Fire hangs the scarlet berries round his throat——”
“Forest Fire hangs the scarlet berries round his ankles——”
“Scarlet feathers for Forest Fire!”
“I couldn’t. Not now. Oh, do you really think so?”
“Bend your head down a little——”
“You’re sure? You’re not doing it just because I was so silly and weepy?”
“All three of them, straight up in front, I think. There!”
Forest Fire shook, and laughed through his tears. He bent down, put red berries round his neck, fastened, on anklets of red berries. Stooping Eagle took the instrument with three strings from where it hung over his shoulder and began to strum.
“Forest Fire burned up a tree from the root to the top!
Forest Fire plucked red feathers from the sun!”
Forest Fire leapt into the air. He began to run, leap, swoop, fly round the bare earth beneath the big tree. His arms were out and made wing movements.
“Look at me! I can fly!”
“And I can fly!”
“And I!”
Forest Fire stood, bouncing up and down, arms out.
“Look at me! I’m a beautiful bird!”
“He’s a beautiful bird!”
“I’m a beautiful bird! See me! Hear me! Love me! I’m a beautiful bird!”
He swooped and flew to the Elder of Elders.
“Beautiful Bird?”
The Elder of Elders looked round with a stern face. He lifted his spear. There was much stately lifting of spears. There was silence. The Elder of Elders looked down. Forest Fire knelt. The Elder of Elders lowered his spear till it lay on Forest Fire’s shoulder.
“Beautiful Bird.”
Beautiful Bird stood up beaming, he shed a happy tear, he laughed. Stooping Eagle put an arm round his shoulder and kissed him.
In the silence there was a faint chattering. The Leopard Men swung as one, staring into the tall grass of the plain. The chattering came close, the grass moved, the chimps were coming back to the shade of their tree. The young ones broke into view and screamed. The mothers with young huddled back into the grass. The young chimps jumped up and down and showed their teeth. The Leopard Men stood sideways, leaning back on a foot. They stared in profile, chins up. The Boss Chimp rose, head and shoulders out of the grass. He bared his teeth and snarled. The Leopard Men laughed and jeered and made throwing motions with their spears. The Boss Chimp jumped up and down, snarling and beating the earth with his paws. The youths imitated him, laughing. Only the elders stood still, spears gracefully cradled, lips bent in a tolerant smile. The Boss Chimp stopped jumping up and down. He stood up on his hind feet, slowly and clumsily. He turned clumsily. Slowly and clumsily he laboured away, upright through the long grass. Only when it rose to his shoulders did he drop on all fours and lollop after his charges, out of sight.
When the chimps had gone the Leopard Men relaxed, singing and laughing. The Elder of Elders examined the sun-shadow he stood on which was not much longer than his foot. He stretched and yawned a huge yawn. The other men began to yawn too and move towards the bole of the big tree. They talked all at once but paid little heed to what anyone else said.
It was not speech that Palm or Minnow would have bothered to understand. They would have recognized, being women, that it was not useful speech. It was no more than an expression of an emotional state, so that in that sense, each Leopard Man was talking or singing to himself. Mime of the body, song of the throat, it was a communication at once total and imprecise as the minds that lay behind it. It conveyed contempt of the chimps, pleasure in the thought of sleep and love—love as unselfconscious as the sleep. One laid down his three-stringed bow, one his hand drum. They put off weapons so that there was a scattered jumble before the splayed roots. They snuggled, old and young together into the natural rest places between the roots so that the trunk seemed to grow a frill of brown skin and sliding muscles. The dappled shade shifted over them. The singing became a crooning, murmuring sound as they hugged and cuddled and made love. There was much stroking and intimate sharing till heat and satisfaction sunk them towards sleep.
But not all slept. There was a young man who had not crept into the mass of skin and togetherness. Nor, if it comes to that, had he avoided it. There were rest places on the other side of the tree but he had not gone to them. He sat instead, at the edge of the sleepers, where their feet reached. His knees were up to his chin and he glanced sideways, every now and then, without speaking. All the time, his hand caressed his ankle. There was a thick callous of skin on t
he bone, and a long bruise on the side of his foot under it. Sometimes he stroked the bruise, sometimes he picked at the callous; and his eyes looked from one face to another as the hunters made love or sank openmouthed and snoring, towards sleep. Once, the young man put his smudgy beard and moustache down on his knees and shut his eyes; but he soon lifted them again and stole glances sideways at the others.
Beautiful Bird was snuggled against a youth who lay in the crook of his arm. Beautiful Bird opened sleepy eyes, saw the young man with the callous and grinned. Sleepily he put out his tongue. He filled his chest with air and sang, but softly.
“Charging Elephant Fell On His Face In Front Of An Antelope!”
The sleepy mass heaved, chuckled, giggled; but softly, as at a joke well-worn. The boy by Beautiful Bird grinned at the young man with the callous then snuggled closer to his lover. Beautiful Bird, his eyes shut, but the grin still on his face, put out his tongue.
Charging Elephant looked away and took his hand from his calloused ankle. He said nothing. He stared down over his knees at all the gear scattered on the bare earth. He inspected the drum and the three-string bow glumly, looked at the white bone flute laid before his feet. He reached down, took it up and placed it to his lips. He pursed his lips to blow, glanced sideways at the Elder of Elders, then slowly put the flute down again. Behind him, a voice whispered and he could not see which hunter it was.
“Charging Elephant Fell On His Face In Front Of An Antelope——”
Charging Elephant began to talk, urgently.
“There was a stone—the branch is bent, the root twisted but not broken—See!”
He leapt to his feet and immediately lurched sideways as his ankle gave. He came down sickeningly on the calloused bone, gritted his teeth, and began to walk up and down before the other Leopard Men, clumsily. The youth who lay in the Elder of Elder’s bosom unbroke his voice for a moment and squeaked in delight——
“Chimp!”
The Elder of Elders jerked up, struck the youth a fierce smack on his backside so that the boy yelled at the top of his voice for the pain. But there was noise from the young men too—snorts and gurgles, there were heaving chests and shaking shoulders. There was another fierce smack and wail from the other side of the group; slowly the noise and movement died away to be interrupted every now and then by a fresh snort or gurgle—and once, by an outright guffaw.
The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels Page 7
