The pleasure she felt flowed along all the paths her desire had dug open. The man, whom she thought of as Made Nothing, was quiet, and he skillfully held himself so that only his thighs touched the back of her thighs, his abdomen touching her rear, and in the quiet of the forest, with so little of his body touching hers, she could concentrate on the feel of his penis inside her and on the pleasure it gave her. He finished before she could, and she did not want to have the desire fill her again during the darkness of night, whispering inside her head all sorts of foolish things she could do. The second time there was less pleasure. He was less skillful, and he started to call out his own pleasure, as if he wanted even the waking nightskin to know But soon the old feeling came back, rose in her like the river during a storm, and she reached down to take hold of where they joined and to move her fingers until the pleasure filled her and broke her open.
Then it was done, and it seemed unimportant. She became very aware of Made Nothing’s body, his closeness to her. The woods around had become dark. There were words one might say, but she left without saying them.
When I returned to hut and hearth, Huggable’s daughter was standing near the waiting fire. She was staring down at the blackened log as if she were staring deeply into a blazing fire; she gripped her arms and shivered. She kept looking around her, but somehow she didn’t see I until the healer had stepped from the woods. Her hands fell away, her eyes opened wide, and she rushed to the healer like a child to a mother, but she stopped herself and respectfully looked down.
“I am here,” she said.
“So you are.”
“I have words to share.” She said the words with a kind of eagerness, as if she were trying something new. She was still a girl, and here she was acting like a woman.
“Where is Nightskin?”
“She is where she sleeps. She told me to come because I was the one who saw what was seen.”
“I have food to share while you share your words.”
Huggable’s daughter followed I to the cooking fire, but she did not want to sit down. She kept looking to the hut’s opening, now as dark as the surrounding woods, as if a true nightskin lurked in there. “Is it safe here?”
“It is safe. Neither one will stand up soon.” She handed the daughter some sweet stalk. “Eat, then share.”
Huggable’s daughter ate so quickly that I gave her own share to the child, who ate that with the same greediness. While the girl ate, I walked to the hut. She listened for their breathing.
She gave the daughter more food, then built up the fire. “Each one is asleep,” she said.
“I heard voices,” said the daughter.
“Voices?”
“One”—she gestured to the shelter—“spoke to the other, and the other spoke back.”
“What was said?”
The daughter looked to the ground as if she had done something wrong. “I heard words, but I did not understand the words. I was too scared to get close. Nightskin said the animal might be dangerous.”
“But you did not run away.”
Huggable’s daughter sat up proudly. “I have words to share.”
“Share them.”
“I went running too far in the woods.” She stopped, tilted her head, and looked up. I could almost see her choose her next words, lose patience before saying with a rush, “I found the body of the first animal.”
She didn’t understand the words. They were too unexpected. They couldn’t be true.
“Healer?”
“You found the body?”
“I was thirsty. There is this hole with water. I thought the water would be cold. I ran to it. The animal was floating there. All I could see was its back.”
“Her face was in the water?”
“Yes.”
“And she did not move?”
“No.”
I felt some unnameable loss. She saw the first animal, the first not-a-person‚ her pubic apron on, her teats smooth and dark, standing outside her rock, stepping back to let I come out. I am here she had said. What could I have done differently that the not-a-person would still be alive?
“Healer? Do you think she died because she killed my mother?”
“No.” She heard the anger in her voice. Why did everyone expect evil from each not-a-person?
“But my mother hunted her.”
I added more wood to the fire. Sparks flew into the air. The surrounding night became darker. “Your mother hunted the not-a-person?”
“She saw it when it left the clearing, and she left me behind so she could track it. She told me it would make Nightskin happy again. My mother and another woman tracked it. They lost the spoor, but a man told my mother and the other woman that he had seen the animal swimming in the river. They found the spoor again and tracked the animal to the swamp. My mother…” The daughter stopped and averted her eyes. The tone of voice changed, as if she had started to tell a new story. “My mother chased the animal into the swamp, and the other woman shot an arrow from behind the bush and hit the animal in the arm. The animal turned, and all it saw was my mother. That’s why the almost-a-man stayed by our hut and hearth. My mother was fearful the animal would come for her. My mother said that the animal stood in the swamp and just disappeared, like it had never been there. My mother was scared it would come back, and it did.”
“Were you there when the not-a-person came back?”
“I was playing. I was a stupid girl and I was playing. I heard my mother scream and came running back. And…” She stopped saying anything.
I could find no words. The girl gained control of her breathing and stared at the fire, saying nothing more. “It is too dark out,” said the healer. “I will share my fire, and tomorrow you can return to Nightskin’s hut and hearth.”
Huggable’s daughter turned her face to I. Her eyes reflected the colors of the fire. “But you should come with me. That’s what Nightskin said. You should come with me to see the animal’s body.”
“Nightskin said that?”
“Yes. An old woman had told her about the second animal. Nightskin said that you would need to see the first one to heal the second one. She was right, wasn’t she?”
“Why didn’t Nightskin come to share the news?”
“She said you would like the words best if I spoke them.”
“She was right.”
It was soothing to stare at the fire’s bright coals, the color of blood bright against the hot darkness. A few flames walked back and forth across the larger log, but these would lie down soon if she did not add more wood. I wanted to know what kind of woman would send a girl out alone in the woods.
The ground was hard, nothing like the reserve sand that accepted the body. He wanted to sleep, but a dull restlessness, a kind of frustrated current of energy, traveled his entire body. He wanted to get up, but the dull pain in his head sharpened when he lifted his skull from the ground. Through the opening in the roof, he could see a small part of the night sky. The stars were clear, tiny bright embers, as bright as they had been in the reserve. Why had he left?
Could he blame it on !gaa’s heat, which never let up? At midday the sun was so hot that the sand burned the feet. It was best to seek shade, to dig a hole, urinate in it, and then cover yourself with sand to keep the sweat inside your body. You gathered in the morning or before sunset, and often you carried a branch with leaves to offer the slightest of shades. Everyone had grown tired of eating roots that were bitter, others that were tasteless, but meat animals carried little meat on their bones, their ribs sticking out as a person’s ribs stuck out.
People argued, and while everyone who lived in the face of the huts might come together at a dance, while everyone might feel good about living together, the heat remained, and the arguments started again. One night N!ai’s father wondered out loud if his wife was seeing another man. He then said he had seen her go off in the bush, and he had seen Debe’s footprints follow hers. Others said he was wrong. Others said he shouldn’t s
ay such things about his wife. Others said he shouldn’t say untrue things about Debe. But still he accused Debe of screwing his wife. He yelled at his wife. He yelled at Debe. “I’m going to get my arrows!” he shouted, but men had already grabbed hold and pulled him away. In urgent voices they told him that he didn’t really want to kill Debe; they reminded him of the time old //koshe had shot arrows at a rival and hit someone else by mistake. He wouldn’t want to kill someone who had done nothing wrong. Debe was angry, too, fuming and shouting, and several other men had taken him, pulling him away to cool his heart.
≠oma had watched in quiet, dreadful awe because he hadn’t known his wife’s father was capable of such anger. And as his daughter’s husband, who was to be respectful, it was not his place to pull one man from the other.
The next morning no one in the face of the huts spoke more than necessary. There was a terrible quiet. N!ai’s parents had been making gifts in preparation to visit their son and his wife’s parents far away in N≠ama‚ where perhaps there would be more water and better food. So now, after last night’s fight, they gathered together what they owned, preparing to leave today rather than later, probably to stay at N≠ama until Debe and his family had forgotten the argument, until it had become a joke, a way of chiding N!ai’s father the next time his anger burned like the sun.
But N!ai’s mother still suffered from her husband’s insults. She saw that ≠oma was gone, and she went to look for him. She found him burying his thumb piano.
“Daughter,” she said to N!ai before they left the face of the huts, “why did your husband bury his thumb piano? Won’t he want to play it when we rest?”
N!ai looked to ≠oma‚ and he saw how she wore the same look of betrayal that her mother had worn when her husband had accused her of screwing Debe.
N!ai’s mother said, “Why did he promise you the piano so you could give it to your brother? Why does he hoard his piano like a lion hoards his kill?”
He wanted to shout at her, but he respectfully avoided her look. He looked to N!ai instead. “Wife, I made this thumb piano for your brother.” He held up the one he had made from wood and sinew. “This one is ugly and plays poorly, but it is not old and battered like the one I play. This one would make a better gift.”
“Your husband,” said her mother, “does not know what a good gift is.”
All talk in the face of the huts stopped. A woman called out from her hearth, “Cousin, you shouldn’t talk that way about your daughter’s husband.”
She turned on the speaker and said, “How should I talk about someone who is so lazy and stingy? How should I talk about someone who would rather play music than hunt meat for his wife? How should I talk about a man who brings back !xwa root when my husband brings back gemsbok? You tell me, cousin, how that thumb piano he plays every night looks more battered and old than that one he made from the poorest of roots.”
“It is battered, old woman,” he cried out. He ran to it, dug it up, muttering to himself, the anger building because he did hoard the thumb piano, the anger building because of all the things he couldn’t say to his wife’s mother, all the jokes he couldn’t share because he hunted with his wife’s father and his wife’s brother. He walked back to the face of the huts, the thumb piano in his arms. He stood by the large stones where men sat while making arrows. “See how battered this is,” he shouted, and he heaved the thumb piano down, and it made a terrible sound. He regretted the sound the moment it was played, but still he picked the piano up and threw it down again. And he stood there crying, “See how battered it is, you old, greedy woman? See?”
There was talk and talk and talk. They were telling her she shouldn’t have spoken like that to her daughter’s husband—why would he want to stay and hunt for a woman who spoke that way?—but even more were talking to him, asking him how he could have done that, how could he be so stingy, did he think anyone could own something forever, didn’t he see how hard his heart had become because he had owned the thumb piano for too long?
He told them he was not wanted here, that he was too stingy, too hard-hearted, and he left, he walked away, but they were grabbing him, the woman whose husband was named ≠oma was calling him husband, those whose sons were named ≠oma were calling him son, those whose brothers were named ≠oma were calling him brother, and they were pulling him back, warning him about the lions that would eat him up if he left, reminding him about his wife, whom he had to hunt for so her body would glisten with fat once the rains came, who would one day give birth to children, who would need the meat he would hunt.
So he left with his wife’s family, and he listened to N!ai’s mother speak in harsh whispers to her husband, who glanced up at ≠oma with an almost apologetic look before he told his wife to hush. They stopped that night. N!ai’s mother placed a large stick into the ground to represent where her hut would be, and N!ai placed a stick where theirs would be. Fires were built. N!ai offered him roots and gwa berries, but she did not speak to him, as her mother had not spoken to her. N!ai went to sleep beside her mother, and her mother did not send N!ai back to her husband. So he lay there and stared at the stars and imagined other possibilities until he was sure everyone was asleep. Then he rose and left. He would play music for the foreigners, and he would live like a male lion who did not have to share. He expected a lion to take him that night, but none did.
Two days later it rained just long enough to clean him of his sweat. The next day the land was touched with tiny specks of green. Later that day he stopped himself and looked off in the direction of N≠ama. He imagined what N!ai would say to him. What her mother would say to her sisters and her friends. He imagined all the stories they would tell. How they would never let him forget.
But still he stood there and stared while it began to rain, while the sand sucked up the water with a hiss, while roots drank in what water they could; and he imagined how quickly N≠ama would be surrounded by green, how tonight they might dance all night long, so what did he expect at Chum!kwe that would be so good, why hadn’t he turned and gone back?
There was no going back now. Not unless he believed the warrior. A starship. Hidden on the moon. Just waiting. Ghazwan and Hanan were dead, Pauline was missing—why was it he who was being given the chance to escape? Perhaps he could get this slazan to talk with the local slazans; perhaps they would help him find Pauline. But would the warrior take two humans back?
The slazan warrior slept. Esoch said “I am here” several times, but the warrior did not respond. How would he mention Pauline? If nothing else, he wanted to ask the warrior how long they had been here. Was this the first night or the second?
He wanted to know if tomorrow was the day, or if it was the day after that when the shuttle would rise from the clearing and up into the skies, where it would detonate, disappear into blue nothingness, the remaining debris scratching invisible lines beneath the midday sun.
He wanted to know if the slazan warrior was truthful. Could people who lived a life around solitude afford to lie? Did honor mean something more than words? Or would the slazan take him captive the moment the shuttle had docked with the slazan starship? The slazan could return home with the prize of recent human technology and a human prisoner to spare. Or would the slazan murder him and remove all risk of betrayal?
Perhaps he should betray the slazan first. Then he would have the slazan starship. And then what?
Esoch had to keep telling himself that Hanan was dead.
And next to Esoch was a shadow. His breathing had grown worse, raspy and short. Before night had stolen most of the colors away, Esoch had noticed how different the warrior’s skin looked, how dark it had become. The warrior’s body had begun to stink of shit. It was hard to connect this man in his imagination with the one who had fired the weapons that had ended Hanan’s life.
Esoch wanted to hate him.
The Sixteenth Day
In the morning the healer came and cleaned each of their bodies. Esoch watched her, and she kept her head
turned so he could not see her face. The hands moved with tremendous efficiency. He wanted to apologize. He wanted her to know how ashamed he felt. He didn’t know why he should feel this way. His leg was broken, and there were no bedpans. But each spread of wet cloth between his buttocks, around his testicles, came away with shit and dignity. He wanted to say something, but what few words in his repertoire would have any meaning to her?
She played music after that, stopping once to say something to another slazan. The other one’s voice was higher-pitched, like a child’s. Was the healer also a mother? Then the music resumed, mostly jangle, but he started to hear some patterns. The warrior’s eyes were closed. If he had wakened this morning, he didn’t show it. But as the music played, his head shifted back and forth as if he were negating something.
The healer walked in and stood for a moment at their feet. She left then. He heard two sets of footsteps head away from the hut. The other one spoke, and the voice was distant.
He was alone now. What was he supposed to do?
The sky above was perfectly blue.
He listened to the warrior’s ragged breath. He wanted to ask: Why did you come into orbit? Why did you attack? But the warrior’s eyes were closed. He breathed. He would stop breathing. His death would make everything easier.
The body floated as if it had been hung there. I, who stood at the edge of the spring, had to watch closely to see the body at all. What it wore had become the color of the water. I could make out the lines of the back, where the legs hung from the body, where the black hair of the head drooped away at the other end. The bag it had worn on its back was gone.
I had walked here with Huggable’s daughter, all the while hoping that the first animal—the not-a-person who had worn the ugly kaross—had been lying in the spring, her head on land, her mouth and nose open to the air. I had known Hugger since his mother had first come to the river and had set up hut and hearth with a knee-high girl and an infant boy. Why did I now feel a greater loss than when she had seen Hugger lying upon the blackened ground, something black and hard burned into his chest?
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