Days of the Python (Python Trilogy Book 1)

by David Jurk

  She continued to work her way down, stopping to recall the feel of it, angling, as she remembered it, towards the west, away from the intuitive path. She came to dead ends and searched for whatever way would continue to take her lower and westward. The strain was telling; she was tired and very thirsty and rested against boulders frequently. When she had worked her way to within ten meters of the water, she began looking for the profile that had caught her eye that day – an image in the limestone as it jutted against the sky, an image of a turtle, her aitu – her spiritual icon. Close enough to the water now that the wind occasionally brought a fine spray to her from the surf, her face and hair became coated with it, and she peered against the vague starlight, searching for her turtle.

  And at last, in what seemed to her deep into the night, she saw what she knew was the shape that guarded her discovery – a narrow crack in the limestone that led into a broad, sheltered cave running deep into the cliff. Exhausted but exhilarated, she scrambled to it, scraping her knees and elbows against the rough limestone and not caring. Feeling as though she had passed some great test, she pulled the pack from her shoulders and pushed it through the opening ahead of her, then turning sideways, slipped between the edges of the crevice, fought a moment of panic as the narrow defile seemed to trap her, then fell gratefully into freedom as the walls flared out into the cavern within.

  It was pitch black inside and she fumbled at the drawstrings on her pack, feeling for her flashlight. Finding it, she turned it on and hurriedly shone the beam about the smooth walls and ceiling, feeling again the delight and awe she’d felt as a girl. She held the light to the broad dome above and then to the sides of the almond-shaped room, noting the crevices that ran further back into the earth, promising mysteries yet to explore. And beneath her, the floor formed a gently sloping slab of pocketed limestone leading down to a pool of water perhaps three meters in diameter. The beam from her light played off the perfectly flat surface, reflecting back to her as if it were a cache of diamonds, and she knew very well it was worth diamonds to her, and more.

  She used the light to rummage through her pack and pulled out a candle lantern, slid the glass cylinder up and used a propane match to light it, searching for a flat spot to set it on. It cast a warm yellow light about the cave, occasionally flickering as a wisp of wind worked through the crevice opening.

  Feeling the ache in her legs, she rose and walked carefully down to the pool and looked closely. It was as clear as glass; the bottom easily visible in the meter-deep center. She put a hand in and lifted some of the cool water in her palm, smelled it, then bent her head and took a small sip. It was fresh, sweet and mildly mineral-tasting. Now the thirst rose in her like a wild thing and she bent her head to the pool and for several minutes greedily sipped, rested, then sipped again until she was finally satisfied. Then she crept to her pack, pulled out the water bottle and took it to the pool and filled it.

  Going back to her pack, she pulled the mangoes free, peeled and ate them, taking the peelings to the crevice and throwing them out into the windy night, feeling spray or perhaps rain, reveling in the feeling of slipping back into the sheltering safety of the lantern-lit cave.

  Along the west edge of the floor was a section of virtually flat rock, at least two meters long and nearly as broad. That’ll do just fine for a bed, she decided, and untied the foam pad laced to the bottom of her pack and unrolled it. She had a foil blanket, folded nearly as small as pack of playing cards, and shook it out; it looked like gold leaf in the yellow candle light from the lantern. She lay down, wondering what she was going to do for a bathroom, thankful not to be needing it just then. Reaching for the lantern, she blew it out, plunging herself into inky darkness. She lay there quietly, hearing the muted sound of the surf, feeling a wisp of air about her shoulders and face. After a few minutes, she could see a faint glow where the crevice opened to the starlight beyond, and with a sigh, she pulled the foil around her shoulders and slept.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SHE WOKE IN cool shadow, a wedge of bright light from the morning sun angling into the cave onto the surface of the pool. From her sleeping ledge along the wall she lay warm and drowsy, watching the play of light. Through the crevice she heard the muted sounds of gulls and the endless wash of surf.

  She rose and went to the crevice, keeping herself hidden in shadow, blinking away the sunlight, and looked out over the world. The ocean, fifteen meters beyond her, surged gently against the rocky buttress on which she stood; brilliantly, impossibly blue in the bright morning sun. Modest swells and a light sea breeze combined with an ebbing tide had reduced the surf to little more than a frothy protest as it sheeted up and over the limestone. She glanced right, then up, searching for the path she’d taken the night before in such desperation. Now, in the light of day it all seemed quite simple; from this vantage neither difficult nor steep. Much ado about nothing, she told herself.

  The entrance itself was neatly tucked into a recess, one of a thousand reticulations in the long profile of this cliff. She wanted to see westward; this required her to walk toward the ocean to the head of a sharp promontory, step onto a crumbling shelf, and stick her head out around it. Her hands pressed against the smooth limestone, her toes spread on the wet stone; leaning outward, she looked beyond. Before her, an otherworldly expanse of limestone arches and ocean pools, unimaginably wild. Grottos, like the palaces of some ocean goddess, were carved out by eons of waves and wind, and elsewhere beaches of stone shelved gently into the surf. It begged exploration and her first thought as she took note of the many pools and hollows was that it was a perfect place to find shellfish.

  She swung herself around the promontory, careful of the slippery wet limestone, and began working her way along and between a jumble of boulders, spits of volcanic sand, and shallow pools, and soon came upon a narrow fissure in the limestone, revealing an ocean inlet beneath her. She straddled it, hiked her sarong around her thighs and peed into the Pacific.

  Back at the cave, she pulled out a bit of the dried fish in her pack and sat comfortably against the wall of the cave and ate her breakfast. She began taking an inventory of her remaining stores, and – now that she was here – formulating plans. She needed a strategy for acquiring food that brought to her the bounty of both sea and land, and she needed to do this in a way that kept her from being seen. Improving the comfort of the cave was important – as well as finding a way to cook within it. And of course, she need to provide for her toilet.

  How good it felt to face and solve these simple needs of living! How clean and true to have left behind the convolutions of society, to focus on nothing more basic than the need for water and food and physical comfort. Worries about money, Mana and all her plans, trying to please her husband, her worries for the boy – all of this was gone now, replaced by the most basic of human needs; find something to eat and drink, find shelter, find a way not to soil where you sleep. She was dependent on no one, nor responsible for anyone but herself. Was it selfish to find in that simplicity this feeling of pure joy?

  For the next fortnight, she set about the work of establishing her new life, staying outside through sun and rain, ever watchful, and usually not returning until the light began its disintegration into the sea. She found, not far from the cave entrance, a deep narrow pocket in the limestone with a pumice sand bottom that she made into her toilet, stashing coconut pulu to use as a desiccating agent, and banana leaves softened to just the right consistency for wiping. It was crude, yes, but it worked, and she stashed coconut shells filled with coarse black sand to wash her hands. She would try making taro soap, she thought, once she found the time.

  Exploring the wild shoreline west of the cave, she discovered excellent pools for collecting shellfish, and found a deep, spring-fed basin that made for a fine, if cold, bath. It was almost completely hidden from sight by a series of overlapping limestone arches. On hot afternoons it became her habit to strip naked and swim for an hour in the ocean, then climb the few meters to t
his private bath and rinse the salt water from her body and hair. These moments, laying in the sun afterwards, light and warmth permeating every element of her being, conscious only of her breathing, brought her a depth of inner peace beyond anything she’d ever known. It was as if she were not only the last Niuean on the island, but the last human on earth.

  She found, as she explored the rear of her cave, a narrow opening little more than a meter wide which, through a network of volcanic cracks let smoke escape. Next to this, she established her kitchen, collecting and bringing in a cache of driftwood for her small fires. After she’d used up all her matches, she turned to the steel-and-flint she’d packed with her, using dried pulu as tinder, and later, sawdust she ground from small pieces of the driftwood. Once she became practiced, it was hardly more effort than striking a match.

  For cooking gear, she walked back into Mutalau one night and rummaged through the abandoned houses until she found two good steel pots, one of them large enough to boil shellfish. She giggled aloud as she managed the climb back down to the cave with a dancer’s flourish, holding the pots with one hand and steadying herself with the other. As she lightly jumped onto the ledge leading to the cave entrance, excited to think of cooking in her little kitchen, it came to her with sudden clarity that she was home.

  She spent the evening in a warm glow, the cave smelling faintly of boiling seawater and cooking crab, steam rising from the pot and captured by zephyrs swirling in through the opening, whisked into the recesses of the cave to find its way outward through some unseen vent. As sleepiness came, she laid down on her pad, feeling a contentment that now seemed wedded to her, an inviolate part of the new woman she’d become. Thinking of all she would do the next day, she fell quickly into a peaceful sleep.

  In the deep of the night, a dream came to her, so clear and lucid that she felt she had awakened, the dream playing out before her in the darkness.

  She was standing balanced near the edge of a precipitous cliff, overlooking a dark, wild sea far below. Fearing the drop before her, she tried desperately to move away from the edge, but her legs were leaden and unresponsive. Suddenly she saw a lone figure in the distance, walking toward her – not from inland, but approaching along the very edge of the cliff. She knew at once it was Mana, and a desperate longing rose in her breast as she waited to be saved. But as the figure came within a few meters of her, she was startled to see that it was not the Mana she knew at all, but a much younger woman. Mana, yes, but a beautiful young woman with dark lustrous hair, not the ancient, greyed grandmother that was all she’d ever known. Her body was lithe, supple; the flaccid skin and flesh of old age replaced by smooth coppery skin, fertile breasts and fine strong limbs. For a moment she was frightened by what she saw, but as she looked into Mana’s eyes and saw the familiar warmth and compassion, she began to weep, the old sorrow welling up in her.

  “Mana,” she cried, “help me!”

  Then the arms were around her, strong and sure, and in Mana’s embrace she was again the lost child she’d always been, finding the only solace she’d ever known, the only acceptance. For an interminable time, she surrendered herself to the warm embrace, so familiar yet so strange – the frail, bony old body replaced by this one as strong and enveloping as a Banyan tree.

  “I am so sorry, Mana,” she whispered.

  A soft hand gently raised her chin. The eyes she looked into were the same as always, exactly the same.

  “Little love, there is nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I failed you!”

  “No, Aulani, you failed no one. My eyes were blind. I saw the signs and misread them.”

  “Oh, Mana,” she sighed, “I’ve missed you.” She buried her face again in the warmth of her neck.

  In the dream, time passed. Forever came and went in the perfect shelter of Mana’s arms. When she next looked down, she realized they were floating out over the sea, and though it raged beneath them, she felt safe and secure.

  She heard Mana’s voice in her ear. “Now though, dear child, there is something you must do.”

  With those words, a circle of light appeared on the surface of the water far below. Within it, she could make out a small boat rocking in the turbulent water. As she strained to see it, they suddenly descended toward it and abruptly, no more than a few meters above the water, floated still in the air.

  Perhaps five meters long, the boat was made of wood, a deep mahogany, it’s form sharp and angular. It floated on the water as lightly as a leaf. She recognized it as a Samoan fishing canoe, having a central hull flanked by two outriggers, built in the old way of spliced planks. Two paddles of traditional design lay across the two simple seats. She longed to reach out and touch it.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “It’s so beautiful!”

  “A boat of the people,” answered Mana. “A boat that belongs to you now.”

  “To me? This is my boat?”

  “Yes, yours alone. It waits for you in Alofi.”

  “But Mana,” she replied, “I can’t go to Alofi; they’ll catch me there.”

  She heard the dismissive soft laugh she remembered so well, and Mana’s voice, quietly reassuring.

  “No child, no one can catch you.”

  And with those words the dream ended, as though a reel of film had finished, and she found herself awake, the glow of dawn through the cave entrance imprinting a wedge of light onto the rock floor. So vivid was the dream, every moment of it clear to her, that for some time she had no ability to do anything other than relive it. Finally, still feeling the rapture of Mana’s arms about her, still clearly longing for the canoe, she rose reluctantly from the warm sleeping bag.

  Images from the dream came to her throughout the day; it seemed to her there must be something of great meaning in the dream, a message that lay just beyond her awareness. And far from fading as the day wore on, the image of the canoe and the longing that she felt for it grew until it became more a memory than a dream and she began to think of it as a real thing, a true thing. She had lived with Mana long enough to know that reality was a matter of perception, ever shifting, ever expanding. That the canoe might be no more than a psychological symbol created by her mind she carefully considered and rejected. What she had experienced had not been a mere dream, but a vision, a communication – she was certain of it, and that meant the canoe was real and had some significance for her. But what that might be, she had no idea.

  That night, with the same strange clarity, a different dream. Again, this same canoe, though now she found herself seated within it, a paddle in her hands. In the first few moments, she was aware of nothing more than the canoe itself; the way it felt, the way she felt a part of it, melded with it. She marveled at the living quality of the wood, as if the canoe were alive, sentient.

  Then she became aware that she and the canoe were on the sea, being driven violently forward by the same raging tempest she had stood watching from the cliff the night before. The waves around her were black, fearsome, and they and the wind drove the canoe forward at frightening speed. She feared for her life, feared that the canoe would capsize or be torn to pieces. She was aware of endless ocean before her; she felt certain that death lay ahead and wanted to turn the canoe, to paddle back to where she felt instinctively that safety lay.

  But again, as on the cliff, her limbs seemed not to be attached to her body; they were leaden, dead things that refused to move. Try as she might, she could not lift the paddle. In the dream, she was carried along by the storm, further and further until she knew that all hope of returning was gone.

  Then, with utter abruptness, the night was past, and the storm had ended. The sun, hardly above the horizon, burned her and she put a hand up to shade her eyes, surprised to find her arm now moving easily. But the paddle was gone, the canoe motionless on the sullen sea, and she was startled to see they floated in the glowing red light of the strange new star.

  A terrible thirst came to her and grew worse with every passing moment and though she
searched frantically for water in the canoe, there was nothing. A feeling of utter surrender overcame her, tore her heart, raised itself within her into a lament of sorrow and regret and loss. All that she was, all that she’d done, all that she’d hoped to be had come to nothing. All sense of life fled from her and she laid down in the canoe and closed her eyes. And some time later a great light shone on her and she was lifted and knowing she was dead, called out to Mana.

  With that, the dream ended, and she was again in her cave. She was very thirsty and crawled quickly to the pool and lay for long minutes drinking, struggling not with the fear and sense of hopelessness of her death in the dream, but at the wonder of the light that had come for her.

  That day she moved sluggishly, feeling as though she were possessed. Rest eluded her, and that night the dream came again, and the next night and the next. It was always the same – the black, tempestuous sea, her arms frozen into stillness, the sudden sullen sea and her great thirst. Then the ruby light and the terrible feeling of loss followed by her acceptance of death. And the light coming for her. Over and over, exactly the same.

  After a week, exhausted by her troubled sleep and wondering if she were beginning to go mad, the third dream came.

  She is a small girl again, perhaps ten, walking along a familiar path that leads to Mana’s fale in the forest. Her heart is full, and she skips playfully over exposed roots and the bones of volcanic rock protruding out of the earth. She reaches the fale, looks around at the outside kitchen area for Mana – it’s time for the evening meal but no smells come to her, no sounds of bubbling water or pots being stirred. She pushes through the door soundlessly and Mana is there inside, sitting at her small table, expecting her, smiling at her. It is the new Mana, the one with the young body, but it doesn’t matter. It is still Mana.