This nest had been built in days, not hours; it had been built to last, or it had been built to impress. Who had built it? Who lived in it? It curved gently, like two hands cupped together. Did a woman and her infant reside here, safe from nighttime predators prowling the ground? Would the owner return tonight? Esoch didn’t want to find out.
He found a thick, sturdy tree twenty or so meters away, and after breaking off a section of a shrub and using it to brush away the debris, he sat down and waited. He became aware of the sweat coating his body, clogging his pores, of the dirt in his onesuit. The exhaustion was tremendous, but so was the need to keep moving. He had to make it to Dikobe’s ship. To sit here, to contemplate sleep, was…
He opened his eyes with a start, and he could not see a thing. There was this beeping in his head, and he did not know where he was. His back was against a tree, its roots pressing into his bottom, and his palms and fingers could make out the moist ground. Had he sleepwalked away from the face of the huts? Hadn’t N!ai noticed him leaving? Hadn’t anyone noticed? There was always someone up, like Debe talking with Old Gau or //khuga plucking at the five strings of her //gwashi to ease her constant sadness. But the beeper was getting more incessant, and he became Esoch again, and he knew something was getting closer. He fumbled for the torch hanging from a waisthook. He panned from right to left, the torchlight illuminating tree trunks, leaves and skeletons of new bushes, and the hint of water from the nearby river, and then, eyes. In the light they reflected back as deep red, which for the barest moment caused him to think that the eyes belonged to a //gangwasi‚ a spirit of the dead, his father, perhaps, here to take him, but the light shone on the rest of the animal, a sleek creature, dark as the night, its snout long and pointed. The animal was crouched, low to the ground, and Esoch knew it would pounce before he could reach for his pistol.
But instead the animal backed away a few steps, then ran off into the forest, the leaves whispering after its body.
The nest, some twenty meters away, now appeared a more attractive place to sleep. Torchlight showed it to be empty. The light also revealed something he hadn’t noticed before. Four spikes of wood had been driven into the tree trunk. Esoch planted his foot on the lowest spike. There was room enough for just one foot. He grasped the third spike with his hand and pulled himself up. For a moment his head spun. He wasn’t quite sure where to put his other foot or his other hand: the spikes were spread out awkwardly.
He finally made it to the top and sat down upon the closest branch. He flicked on the torch. The ground seemed farther away than it should. The dizziness returned; his head felt like it would float away from his body. All he wanted to do was sleep.
He scanned the nest with the light. It looked like a broad, thatched bowl. He could already see himself curled up inside it, fast asleep. He lowered his foot into it. The thatching whispered against his weight. A line of thatching moved. He shifted the light, caught the movement. It looked like a snake. Its colors, differing shades of brown, blended well with the thatching.
His vision wavered with exhaustion. He wondered how many shots it would take before he hit the creature. It seemed a whole lot simpler to grab it by the tail, flick it away, and let the force of the gesture carry the snake head and the fangs away from him. All he wanted was for the snake to be out of the nest. All he wanted to do was sleep. Before considering if this was the wisest move, Esoch already had grasped the snake’s tail. He did not bend his wrist the right way, or did not throw his arm out fast enough, because fangs caught hold of the onesuit fabric near his stomach. Everything happened so fast that he first dropped the torch, and then, disoriented, he reached up to grasp the middle of the snake to tug harder.
It wasn’t quite a snake. It had tiny legs, with sharpened ends that could dig in for purchase. The pain in his hand was immense. He stumbled back, hit the cusp of the nest, slid down. There was a pain, like something clasping shut, in his belly. His free hand, before his brain could consider the wisdom of the move, grabbed at the head biting into belly, laid fingers under jaw, and pressed thumb into brain. He squeezed until the jaws let loose. Then he swung his arm away, in an arc, letting the creature go, hearing it slide through the brush and strike softly against the ground.
He lay there in the nest, stunned, breathing heavily, the torchlight illuminating the thatching opposite him. He retrieved the light and examined his wounds. A line of blood creased his palm. There was blood and torn skin on his belly. He remembered watching his mother take a club to a black mamba, pounding against the ground until the snake moved only when the club struck the ground. He remembered his uncle blind for days after a cobra had spit venom in his eyes. He stared at the purpled swelling, the blood dripping two tiny rivers. How could he have been so stupid?
Esoch lay back against the rim of the nest. The shape of it cupped the curve of his back. He wondered how the creature had made its way up into the nest; then, if it was poisonous. If the snake’s venom was toxic, then he needed the creature itself for the antivenin. The creature was down there, and he was up here. He should be worried. He should be missing the med-kit. He should be telling himself that a venom evolved to kill animals on this planet might not poison him at all.
Instead, Esoch fell asleep wondering how long it would take him to die so that Dikobe could have the solitude she’d said she wanted.
The following is excerpted from a draft of Pauline Dikobe’s memoirs, a project she started and abandoned while The Way of God made its return trip to E-donya E-talta.
During the week that follows my decision, I am a divided soul. At work, among people, I am at a loss. I don’t know what to say in class, so I fall back on the perfunctory cliches of the discipline. In a series of meetings, I stare at walls rather than look at graphs and charts while several colleagues work to finish a paper on the cultural genetics of isolated utopian groups. In the streets I try to look straight ahead, like I’m deep in thought.
There were three of us during the prewar days. Judith, Lila, and I. I have lunch with Judith because we share lunch once a week. She wants to know what’s wrong. She wants to know what drove me to her flat last week. I lie. I tell her I’m tired of solitude and celibacy. I have tea twice that week with Lila. She wants to hear about people at the Institute, what their latest research is like, if they’re sleeping with anyone. After she left the Institute, Lila didn’t talk to me for years, and for years I felt like she’d betrayed me. She should have trusted me to do good work at the Institute without violating any of the ethical guidelines. Now, staring at a cup of chamomile tea, hoping it will ease the grinding in my stomach, I tell Lila all the gossip, even though I can’t tell her the juiciest piece of news around. I tell myself I’ve done nothing wrong, but I feel like I’ve betrayed her.
But once I’m alone in my flat, I come alive. I make lists of questions about subsistence, social structure, leadership, kinship. On my desk I have an image of the first two generations of the Ju/wasi. African, Arab, Hindu adults, wearing breechclouts or chi!kans‚ and among them, small, golden-skinned children, naked, eager to run. I keep looking up at them as I map out a schedule for the two hundred days, and I tell the Judith who lives within me that she’s wrong, that this can be made to work.
On the day of the Christian sabbath, ibn Haj arrives unannounced at my door. I veil myself before letting him in, and we drink our coffee gingerly, both well mannered enough to know how to drink without wetting our veils or revealing our lips. It’s awkward. No other person has ever sat before in my flat with a veil on, but I don’t want his smile; I want the courtesy that exists in a public space. I don’t want his easy charm to take me in.
He handles inconsequential pleasantries with great skill. He knows where my parents live and asks how they are; he must know about my errant husband and son, because he asks no questions that could lead there. He never hints about being more informal, about how uncomfortable we both must be wearing these veils. I wonder if his honor is that of an honorable man, or that o
f a skilled manipulator who knows that honor has its place in winning the hearts of others.
He finally gets to the heart of the matter. “The General who oversees special projects has considered everything with great care.” He speaks the words so carefully that I am sure he will tell me the project has been canceled. I am relieved. “He considers such research to be vitally important, but he is not convinced that the strategic outcome would be as momentous as we had concluded. He wants the mission to go ahead, but he doesn’t want to fund it as extensively as we had hoped. He wants to insure that whatever efforts we make do not detract from the goals of the war effort.”
“He’s not interested in negotiation,” I say. I want this general’s attitude explained. I know ibn Haj will tell me nothing that would make his superior look less than sensitive, less than intelligent.
“He is interested in negotiating from a position of strength.”
“He wants the slazans to surrender.”
Ibn Haj says nothing for a moment. He’s uncomfortable. He can’t save this moment with a smile. “The General”—he uses the title like a name—“prefers a settlement that works to our advantage, that is true. But he does want data at hand if slazan and human decide to build a table and dine together.”
And to make sure we know our table manners for such dining, the General has done the following. He has requisitioned a warship that does not have an outstanding war record. He has approved limited but substantial funding to convert a diplomatic shuttle into an anthropological hut equipped with all the necessary devices. He has allocated moneys to design and land four scientific probes on the planet’s surface in lieu of sending four military scientists and converting the armory into a rather expensive laboratory. He has agreed to send one civilian ethnographer and provide her a private cabin as long as the pair of crew members removed from the ship are those with the lowest recorded scores for social adaptability, and as long as the qualified anthropologist has never participated in any publication, symposium, or public activity that aimed to demoralize the war effort. The General granted ibn Haj the courtesy to make a counter-proposal, but it did no good. The General didn’t believe there was anything an anthropologist could find out that would make a difference one way or another in the way the war was fought.
Ibn Haj waits a long while before he asks if I still want to go. He lets the anger simmer. He lets the thoughts percolate. He waits until I too despise the General, until I too want to convince the General of how wrong he is.
We plan the research during the next week. Fawiza arranges for several colleagues to cover my classes; she was vague about why I wouldn’t be in. I leave messages for three of my colleagues; they’ll have to work on the data without me. I contact Judith’s and Lila’s computers at times I know they’ll be in class or in conference, and I tell them I won’t be able to meet for lunch or tea.
The planning sessions are held in my flat in the University quarter. The building is full of scholars, who live their days in classrooms, offices, and cafés, whose children and spouses have school and work to attend, leaving the building virtually empty. Ibn Haj does not want to be seen much around the Institute or Fawiza’s flat; he does not want me to be seen near any government building; he does not want easy rumors to start. At first the secrecy disturbs me. Closed doors hide sin, my mother used to say. Then the secrecy thrills me. Closed drapes prevent a neighbor’s gossip. It all depends on the metaphor you choose.
I expect us to discuss context on the first day. Who are these foragers? Where did they come from? What challenges are posed to foragers living in a woodland environment? But ibn Haj is a practical man. We have only one week for planning. I will have over 150 days to refine these plans. He spreads a clear screen out on my kitchen table, the only table in the flat, and hooks it up. Soon we are looking at computer-generated maps of the regions where the slazans burned their fires. Ibn Haj wants to know where I want to land the shuttle.
“Away from the population. I can hike back and forth.”
Ascherman disagrees. He wants me to land near the lake, where the population is densest. “I would assume the tensions over resources would be greatest. We would see how conflicts start and how they are resolved.”
I start to argue, but Fawiza raises a hand for silence. She is looking closely at the maps, calling up actual images, calling up topographical pictograms of the area, then going back to the map itself. She says, “I see no clearings for Pauline to land close to the shore, and the beach is out of the question. As access to water and fish, it’s prime real estate, and we won’t want to disturb it.”
Ibn Haj suggests a compromise. I land about thirty klicks from the coast. The population is sparser there, but not as scattered as on the fringes.
“You can’t land a shuttle right in the middle of where they live,” I say. “These are a population of sapients. They will see this giant thing come from the sky and land in their territory. Out will step a kind of creature they’ve never seen before. They will have to adjust their entire worldview to accommodate the shuttle’s presence. What we see will have more to do with a change in worldview than in how they normally live their lives.”
“Again, won’t that work to our advantage?” asks Ascherman. “If they are under stress, won’t we see more of conflict and, hence, won’t we get a better look at how they resolve those conflicts?”
I want to say vicious things. I look at my hands and force my voice to sound even, to sound flat. “This is not the kind of anthropology you asked me to do.”
“Pauline’s right,” says ibn Haj. He then goes on at length about why I am right. I expect Ascherman to shake his head, but instead he listens to ibn Haj as if the man were a font of wisdom. I don’t listen as carefully. I know the purpose of such praise; the word but will soon follow all the kind words. But, ibn Haj explains, sounding appropriately mournful, there is the shuttle craft itself. The hull will be covered with a multitude of sensors. The lockers will be filled with the kind of devices an ethnographer dreams about. The shuttle’s small intelligence will be led through some very expensive simulations that will give it the ethnographic experience it needs to organize and classify all the incoming data that the devices and hull sensors will collect.
I repeat myself. I argue against it. I feel my face heat up. Ibn Haj listens attentively and apologizes profusely. The General wants substantial hard data, collected by diverse instrumentation, to supplement and substantiate whatever data I collect. “You are right, of course,” he says, “but we have to live with other people’s decisions. You, however, should decide where the best place to land the shuttle will be.”
So I choose an empty clearing with a tiny stream that runs through it, one that appears to overlook the hills leading down to the lake. Everyone thinks it’s a splendid location. It’s a hollow victory.
That night I turn off the phone because I know Judith will call. She leaves a message on my computer: Is everything okay?
* * * * *
The next day we discuss contact.
An ethnographer goes into the field with permission. You go with the permission of the government who claims sovereignty over the area, and you conduct work with permission of those among whom you live, those whose secrets you will scatter to the academic winds.
“Permission,” ibn Haj says, “is not the issue. You will be new. First they have to get used to something new sitting in one of their clearings. Then they have to get used to a new resident.”
The whole morning is spent on habituation. Animals being observed by an ethologist have to learn the habit of accepting the new observer as an innocuous part of the environment. They then continue with their routine lives. But these slazans will have their own curiosities. They will want to know what I am. “The worldview thing you were talking about,” says ibn Haj.
“Perhaps,” Fawiza suggests, “she should step out naked.”
I expect both men to leer.
Ibn Haj says, “If they have any standards of modes
ty, such a display may be an unnecessary offense.”
“Well,” I say, “why don’t we bring along a male ethnographer, and we can show the slazans everything they might like to know.” My smile is forced, my face is warm, flushed.
Ascherman looks away. Fawiza concentrates on her flatscreen. Ibn Haj smiles. “The General is devout, and very conservative. He wouldn’t approve.”
Alone that night, I try to imagine ibn Haj standing before the General. I try to imagine how his air of authority—even when he defers to me, he does so with an air of easy command—transmutes into some other quality when he speaks with his superior. Does he change his tone when trying to convince? Does he smile and avert his eyes more often? Does he wear his veil? And when the General, in very polite language, tells ibn Haj he is wrong, does my general return to his quarters and seethe with anger?
The next day is endless and awful.
On my computer are five messages from Judith. She called every hour on the hour. No one has seen you. Please call. I want to know that you are fine. There’s one message from Lila: I heard a great tidbit about Fawiza Muneef’s new love—a military man. Let’s drink some tea and have some laughs.
Ibn Haj brings coffee and pastry for the morning and specially prepared saffron chicken for lunch. He pours us coffee while he talks to me. “I’ve arranged the workshop couch, and we’ve requisitioned the necessary tapes so you can learn pan-slazan. When do you think you’ll want to make verbal contact with the natives?”
“I suppose when someone is close enough that I don’t have to shout.”
Fawiza asks, “What will you do if no one in this population speaks pan-slazan?”
At this point it becomes obvious how little ibn Haj truly knows, how much of his working knowledge came out of sitting through several workshops on human evolution and ethnography. He says, “Won’t they speak pan-slazan? Their language is hardwired into the brain, isn’t it?”
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