Light in the Darkness

by CJ Brightley

  “It won’t be my last,” I said, but I said it in the mountain tongue. Why should I use their words? Let them learn ours.

  They left then.

  “See how fierce I was?” I said, but it came out a quavery whisper. Sumi gave a creaky-hinge assent and rubbed her beak against the damp hair at the base of my neck.

  I was fierce, but now I feel like weeping. All possible futures are misery and darkness now. I feel like weeping, but no tears come.

  September 21 (Kaya to her mother)

  Dear Mother,

  I worry about what the State Security Service people may say to you about me. You mustn’t believe what they tell you; they are liars whose single goal is to end all resistance in the mountains by whatever means. They will not bring your letters to me any longer, or mine to you, so I am trying something new. I’m fastening this to Sumi’s leg and telling her to fly home. Will she do it? Crows are smart. You said once that she visits you sometimes. I hope she will. If she does, give her something tasty to eat and then write me a quick note and send her back.

  If she will be a messenger, then we can communicate much faster and more securely than we did before.

  My heart twists like wrung-out washing when I think of you, anxious and alone, and maybe badgered by the State Security Service. Please put on a smiling face for them, sigh and shake your head about me and say (which is probably true) that you don’t know how I became the bad daughter that I am. Say nothing political. But when you speak to friends in town, and to neighbors and to my uncle and cousins, tell them the Lady is with us. Tell them the Ruby Lake is uprising too—but not to worry about me. There’s no need to fear for me. I’ll explain more once I know I can rely on Sumi to carry the messages.

  The State Security Service men showed me a confession with Rami’s signature on it. I hope it was a forgery, designed to manipulate me, but if it’s real, and if they decide to make an example of him, if—

  I don’t want to even say it.

  If they take his life, then please make sure to bring incense and salt to his grandparents. Please see that they have everything they need. Tell them if I ever find a way to come to them, I’ll serve them like a granddaughter.

  Your loving daughter,

  Kayamanira

  September 21 (Kaya’s mother to Kaya)

  My dear girl,

  There is more than a crow’s usual intelligence in your Sumi! I gave her some bits of salt fish.

  We can see the clouds from the Ruby Lake. We know what it means. Days, weeks—we don’t know when its fires will spill out, but we know it will not be long. I have gone to Mr. Gana’s local office, to appeal for your transfer to somewhere safer, but he is in Palem and his staff are not sympathetic.

  I am so worried for you. You are not sounding like yourself. If anything should happen to you, I don’t know how I will survive it. Of course I will do as you ask with regard to Ramiritam’s grandparents. I’ll light incense here as well. May the Lady save him. And you.

  Sumi is a strong bird; I am tying a little net bag to her other foot, with three bites of papaya in it for you, and sending her on her way with two kisses on her glossy head, one for her and one for you.

  I do not need to say be brave. You are very brave.

  Always with love,

  Your mother

  September 22 (Kaya to her mother)

  Dear Mother,

  Sumi is the Lady’s bird through and through! The papaya was delicious. It took the taste of sulfur from my mouth for a few moments—that alone was a blessing.

  I realize I must sound strange now, but my existence now is strange! If I tell you I see things, people, even the Lady—especially the Lady—I don’t know what you will think. If I try to consider it with my rational mind, I don’t know what I myself think.

  The Lady’s at the corner of my consciousness all the time, coming out of the billows of steam, slipping back into them. I felt dizzy this morning, when I first sat up, so I lay back down again, and I felt her put her hand on my brow—just like you used to do, whenever I had a fever, but your hand was always so cool, and hers was very hot.

  “I’ll work a miracle for you,” she said. I heard the words in my mind. “It will be wonderful!” I felt her confidence—it became my confidence. Her joy was my joy.

  So you see, you don’t need to worry. I’m promised a miracle.

  Love,

  Your daughter Kayamanira

  September 24 (Kaya’s journal)

  The Lady was here again just now. She came to me as I brooded on the news of new violence that mother sent.

  “Poor Kaya, how can the words and actions of those little wisps of bone and flesh disturb you so?” she asked me.

  “You’re forgetting that I’m one of those wisps,” I said. How she forgets! That her touch can burn, that her breath is noxious. And yet in her eyes, such love. “We wisps know best how to hurt one another.”

  “Shall I punish them for it? Spill heartfire blood down on them where they sleep?”

  “No! You mustn’t do that!” I said, but she pressed me:

  “No? I have to shine forth somewhere, sometime. I must dance. Waiting makes the desire all the sharper. Almost irresistible.”

  “Well … someplace with no people, then,” I said.

  “That hill where I left my streamers drifting,” she said, rising and lifting her left hand, like a dancer.

  “The fissure to the north, in the foothills,” I murmured. “There were people there, last time, hikers.”

  “Annnnnd … the cup of my treasures,” she continued, swinging her right hand down, then up, and lowering her left to meet it, forming a cup. I knew she must mean Jarakasan Lake, where it’s said she once shed ruby tears.

  “That’s near the field headquarters of Adze Forest Products.” Adze Forest Products—the American company with a timber concession for half the eastern mountain district. “There are people there, lots of people!” I said.

  She showed me her empty palms—I’m sorry—but with a smile on her lips. And spun round again and disappeared.

  Is this real? Has she really told me where the next eruptions will come? Can I act on this knowledge?

  September 25 (Kaya to her mother)

  Dear Mother,

  Please, find Grandmother Jemenli and ask her if there is anyone in the resistance who can make their way to the hillside in Taneh District where the new fissure opened up. If someone can get there today or tomorrow, they should raise a flag there, and take a photo and send it to the papers in Palem. They should do the same by Jarakasan Lake, but be careful, because the State Security Service will be thick there, protecting Adze Forest Products’ field headquarters.

  The Lady means to dance in these places, and soon. Our flags will tell the prime minister and parliament that the Lady’s strength is our strength.

  But warn people, too, especially by Jarakasan Lake. Not that anyone at Adze’s field headquarters is likely to listen to the warning, but we have to try.

  I imagine my words must be hard to believe. How can I know? You must think I’ve lost my mind. Sometimes I fear it myself. But what have we to lose? Even if the Lady doesn’t bestir herself in these next few days, to raise our flag is an act of defiance. And eruptions and exhalations will come, are coming, and we should claim them. Her power is our power.

  There was something more I wanted to write here, but my thoughts have dissolved in the steam, and I haven’t got the cool head to precipitate them back out again, so I will just close, as always, with love, and send Sumi on her way.

  Kaya

  September 28 (Kaya’s journal)

  More sulfur dioxide from the Taneh fissure, Mother said, but the area has been off limits since the last release, so no casualties. Not so lucky with Jarakasan Lake. Someone did get a warning to Adze’s field headquarters, but the bosses told everyone that if they failed to show up for work, they’d be out of a job. Seventeen were overcome when a huge bubble of carbon dioxide rose from the depths of
the lake and settled in the gorge there, asphyxiating anything that breathes. Mother said the newspapers and radio stations are buzzing with the rumor that it was a massacre by our people, an attack with poisonous gas! Insane. And now fear of violence—or the government?—is keeping reporters away, so no one’s learning the truth. The story of our warning has made the papers, though, along with a grainy photo of our flag by the lake, and these are being taken as proof of the vicious plot.

  Where are the volcanologists? They must know the truth. Why aren’t they speaking up?

  The rest of Mother’s note mentions more arrests, an exchange of fire at the Kemiyamin crossroads … I can’t take it in now. Dry heaves this morning; all I want is to lie down with my cup within reach, so I can take some sips of water now and then. It’s for the best that I can’t eat much, as the helicopter won’t be able to come until the wind changes again.

  (From the September 28 transcript of the post-sentence interview with Prisoner 118, State Security Service files on the insurgency)

  Lt. Sana: Not bitter? Nothing you want to say about Kayamanira, in light of the sentence? She roped you into this and didn’t speak a word on your behalf.

  118: [no response]

  Lt. Sana: She practically ordered your execution.

  118: [laughs]

  Lt. Sana: It’s amusing to you?

  118: That you take orders from your own detainees?

  Lt. Sana: She could have stopped it.

  118: Nobody could have. I knew from the time I was four years old that this day would come.

  Lt. Den: What about Kayamanira?

  118: What about her?

  Lt. Den: You’re happy to have her follow in your footsteps?

  118: [no response]

  Lt. Den: This is your chance to save or sink her.

  118: [no response]

  Lt. Sana: You’re a cold-hearted bastard, aren’t you.

  118: She belongs to the Lady. What I want or feel doesn’t matter. But—

  Lt. Sana: Same type of nonsense she was spouting. Two monkeys drunk on the same palm wine.

  Lt. Den: But what?

  118: Nothing. It doesn’t matter.

  Lt. Sana: Answer the question!

  118: [inaudible]

  Lt. Sana: Speak up!

  118: I hope she lives. I hope she lives to dance on your graves.

  (From the W— State Security Service’s files on the insurgency: email records)

  From: Tema Baii

  Subject: Execution?!

  Date: September 30

  To: Hetan Baii

  We just got a press release from the Ministry of Law and Justice saying that Ramiratam Kelkaniye was executed this morning. The sentence was only handed down Friday! It’s got to be because of the Jarakasan Lake disaster. I swear the government’s encouraging the story of a gas attack, even though it makes the State Security Service look incompetent. The rumor’s definitely solidified public opinion against the separatists, and judging from the overseas press, it’s put the Americans on the government’s side, which I suppose is worth appearing like bumblers. I wonder if there’s any truth to it. Maybe the separatists took advantage of a natural event to cause more trouble?

  It’s making me very worried about Kaya. The State Security Service can’t have been happy with that speech of hers two weeks ago—not the unedited version, anyway—and everything that’s happened since seems to justify their fears. I wish I could understand her better. She was always so sweet in school. But now? I’m not sure what to think. Still, whatever misguided ideas she has—even if she really does favor an autonomous mountain state—I don’t want her to end up in front of a firing squad.

  If I could cover the Jarakasan Lake story, I could help dispel the rumors and humanize the separatists a bit, but Kar said no way. He said he’s not letting me anywhere near the mountains. So it looks like I’m stuck with the fishing negotiations, which are completely stalled—I’ll be home late again tonight.

  _______________________________________

  Tema Baii

  Correspondent, Prosperity Television

  October 1 (Kaya to Ramiratam, unsent)

  Dear Rami,

  I know from my mother’s note that you are gone. I know it, but I can’t accept it. They’ll be lighting incense and sprinkling salt on the fires at home.

  I can’t do those things. I can’t! I can’t wish your spirit well, I want you to be well, body and spirit both, I want you to be beside me—you, not some wish-fulfillment vision-dream—telling me you love me. I want to take you by the hand and tell you that I love you.

  Do you hear me? If I shout it from the edge of the platform? Do you hear me, wherever you are?

  There were six blank pages at the back of Trees of Insular Southeast Asia. I ripped them out and tore them into strips, and on each strip I wrote your name. I took them to the edge of the platform and let them loose, a flock of paper birds. I thought they’d wheel and sink, down to the Ruby Lake, and I even thought for a moment maybe I might join them, and maybe my spirit would catch up with yours, but no: the people in the mountains deserve better than a silly broken-heart immolation. I have promised to be fierce, and I will be.

  The bits of paper with your name on them—they didn’t fall into the Ruby Lake. An updraft caught them and carried them up into the steam clouds. The wind’s from the south now. I wonder how far it will take them.

  Ramiratam, Ramiratam, Ramiratam. May your name be everywhere.

  October 2 (Kaya’s journal)

  Along with her note about the hordes of State Security Service troops now inhabiting town, Mother has entrusted Sumi with two letters from Em. Here’s an irony: in the first letter, Em says my words on behalf of her village have saved it. She calls it a miracle. Reading that, for a moment I feel happy. Not all my actions bring death and misery: here’s some good I’ve done. But I can’t stop the thought from coming: Is this the miracle you promised, mother of all fire? What about the people who sing your songs and honor you, here? What help for them?

  And then the second letter. Em has heard about the violence, the deaths. She asks about Rami. I can hardly bear to read her questions, let alone think how to answer them, but I must try. I must find something to say that isn’t too discouraging. Her home is safe, but her family is in pieces. I have to try to offer her hope, somehow.

  October 2 (Kaya to Em)

  My dear Em,

  I was so happy to get your letter of September 24 and to read that Mermaid’s Hands has been spared. That’s the power of a multitude of eyes turning to look your way: everyone, from the smallest child to the largest government, behaves better when it knows it’s being watched and judged.

  I think I understand a little of how you must feel, wishing that your mother and Jiminy might be with you too. Joy isn’t the same when you can’t share it with the ones you love best—my bones ache day and night from the truth of that. You ask, why can’t your father pull Jiminy home? Perhaps this will give you some consolation: your own actions may well be the line and hook that reel him in. Maybe by thinking of your loyalty, your father will find the heart to forgive your brother. And maybe by thinking of your loyalty, your brother will recall who it is who deserves his deep allegiance.

  As for your mother, I cannot think of her without feeling pangs for my own mother, who I’m sure I’ve caused as much suffering as Jiminy has caused yours. Your mother’s ways may not be Mermaid’s Hands ways, but I can tell from your letters that she loves all of you very much—you children, of course, but your father too. I wish I could tell you that she will come home, but the future is like a rainbow we see on the far side of a deep gorge: the path to it twists and turns, and when we arrive on that far side, what we find is very different from the glimmering bow we first saw. Your mother’s love, though, that’s certain.

  I also have before me your letter from September 26. I see you’ve heard news from my country, about the violence and my friend Rami. You are right to disbelieve what you read ab
out Rami! His confession was not genuine. They forced it out of him—or forged it outright—and then on the strength of that false confession, they executed him. Earthquakes and poisonous gases are nothing to the evils people visit on one another.

  As for those earthquakes and poisonous gases, don’t worry about them for my sake. Was Mr. Ovey afraid of the sea? Are you? Maybe just a little, when the storm is all around you (maybe I am a little afraid, just a little, sometimes, too), but you know the Seafather’s with you. And the Lady’s with me. I didn’t feel it before, but I do now.

  I am afraid this will be my last letter for some time. The government will no longer let me receive or send mail—it’s only thanks to Sumi’s willingness to act as a messenger that I have your letters today—and I fear my mother’s mail may be subject to tampering. In truth, I’m a little surprised the State Security Service let your letters through to her, but perhaps I’ve begun to overestimate their power, or maybe they saw no harm in her receiving them, believing she has no way to send them on.

  They must continue to believe that. So, though it pains me to say it, I must ask that you don’t respond to this. I am so sorry. One day, if I ever leave here when I leave here, when times are better in my country, I will write you again. I will invite you for a visit! Till then, please know how much your letters have meant to me. I wish you a bright future, filled with possibilities.

  Always your friend, Kaya

  October 2 (Kaya to her mother)

  Dear Mother,

  I’m enclosing a note for Em; you’ll understand my thoughts when you read it. You mustn’t try posting it; there has to be another way to get it out of the country.

  Maybe Piyu at the research station No, don’t try Piyu; he was friendly in peaceful times, but as a lowlander he’s too much of a risk. But talk to Kalasia—do you remember her? Her father works for Nawalam’s family. She’s on the cleaning crew at the research station. She might be able to slip a letter in with the others destined for overseas.