by Wendy Orr
carting red soil and white,
mixing and pounding it into clay.
They round balls in the palms of their hands,
thumbs in the middle to pinch out a pot,
smoothing and fining the edges
with nimble fingers.
They roll tubes long as snakes
to coil upwards into jars
taller than my head,
taller even than the grown-up nephews.
The sister-in-law who rules it all
throwing a lump on the wheel,
spinning it round,
the pot growing tall between her hands –
and all of them singing,
coaxing the clay into a pot –
or plate or vase,
a drinking cup or sacred jug –
whatever the gods call up
through the potter’s hand and mind.
Or so it seemed
to small Leira,
watching potters’ fingers
form effortless magic
while my own stumbled
over a small lump –
my snakes bloated
my pots lopsided
no matter if I held my breath or sang,
my work always
slapped back into clay
to be remixed and used again,
never good enough for the kiln.
In this workshop
it doesn’t matter who you are,
only the worth of your pot.
Till I was ten
or perhaps eleven
and pinched out a bowl,
fine and even;
good enough, said the old ones
to be baked and saved.
Mama’s smile when she saw it
was knowing and wise
but the bowl was placed in a basket
and never used –
the best I’d done
was not good enough.
I sulked to Nunu
‘I wish I’d been born to a family like yours!’
And Nunu laughed
till she spluttered and choked,
‘A family like mine,
who sold me to your grandmother
to pay their debts!
It was that or go down
to purple slavery,
never admitted to town again –
I saved them from that, at least,
till my young brother grew lucky
and married into the clay.
But even in this workshop,
do you see them living in a house like yours?
They make the pots
but your family trades them –
it’s to the Swallow Clan the profit goes.
So never wish
for what you don’t know –
because if you do
the gods may hear.’
Of course, when I said that I wished I’d been born into a family like Nunu’s, I meant the family her brother had married into: craft-folk who are as free to travel the world as my captain father. Sometimes I look at the life my mother leads, ruling our home and slaves, second only to the Lady in leading our clan, and I want to break free as a fledgling trying its wings.
But I hadn’t known that people from other clans could become purple slaves. The ones who’ve been born into it are used to stinking like rotten shellfish and not being allowed into town, but it would have been terrible for Nunu. She was lucky that my grandmother bought her – though I only said that once.
‘May you never need luck like that,’ she’d answered, with a look that made me shiver.
I wonder if purple works girls have their own kind of Learning when they start their bleeding – and quickly make the sign against evil. The goddess is grumpy enough – I don’t want to make her any angrier by thinking about that disgusting clan on a sacred day.
The path widens and I link arms with Pellie.
The hills turn to fields; the slopes aren’t as steep and the grass is dotted with sheep as well as goats. The flocks are a restless, bleating mass; goatherds are shouting and dogs barking. Their panic bleeds into us; my heart beats faster and I think Pellie’s does too. By the time the town appears, I’m trembling so hard that I’m not sure if it’s me or the earth. For a moment I imagine the buildings tumbled, the bright rocks, red, black and brown, strewn like counters in a game…
The town is whole. From here we can see it laid out like a mosaic, the farms leading to the small houses and workshops, then the flat roofs and windowed top floors of the great buildings in the centre, the shadowed triangle space between our house and Pellie’s and the road leading down to the temple and the harbour.
I’m concentrating so hard I forget to sing, but now the chorus swells:
As the goddess wills,
so all will be well.
She gives us life,
we offer her ours
and all will be well.
I join in, and know it’s true.
As we reach the farms, people are outside their houses, looking nearly as lost as their sheep. Two houses have broken walls, and the farmers are so busy staring at them or moving furniture into an animal shed that they forget to salute us. Don’t they know we’re carrying the great mother’s flowers? We sing louder till they put down what they’re carrying and stand with their hands on their hearts.
The path becomes a road that splits into a web of narrow streets, covered with the dust and rock shaken from house walls. A path has been swept down the middle of the street from the Lady’s House to the temple, small piles of brick shards, pebbles and dust on either side.
This is not how our procession should be, but Pellie and I walk down it, arms still linked, trying not to step on the gravel.
I hope Nunu is watching from the window as we pass our house.
You’re not a child now! I remind myself, and don’t turn to check.
At the door of the temple, Pellie and I squeeze hands – we never need words for what’s in our hearts – and go to our mothers. Two by two, we step inside, Mama and me first, then Pellie and her mother, and the others after.
And two by two, we sigh with relief: there’s no hint of dust or disturbance here. Of course the goddess would never harm her own shrine! The smooth vestibule floor is soothing on our scratched feet; the stone benches are cool on our bottoms, even through our heavy skirts. We sit and study the paintings: the goddess’s daughter Kora, her wounded foot dripping its life blood onto a crocus; one of her maidens offering her a necklace of golden beads, and the youngest maiden, veiled in the fishnet shawl of the swallow dance.
No one’s told us what happens in the Learning. Even this morning I didn’t know we were going to pick crocus until Nunu put out my ceremonial shift and flounced skirt. The shift is red, finely woven with a pattern of stars and dark bands on the front edges and sleeves. It’s longer than my girlhood tunics, going nearly to my ankles. The sides and front are open so I can walk free, though when my skirt is wrapped around me, nothing can be seen that shouldn’t.
Nunu dropped the shift over my head, helped me lace it up to cover my breasts, then pulled it smooth and even to wrap the skirt around my waist, tying the long sash with a bow at the back.
The shift is much finer than anything I could weave. The skirt took long enough – last winter I felt as if I never left the loom, Mama was so worried about my finishing it before I started my bleeding. When she put it in a chest without saying a word, I thought she’d noticed where I’d pulled too hard and a line had puckered. I wonder what happens to girls who don’t ever weave their skirts straight, or make their baskets tight, or find crocus flowers in the mountains? What if they never finish their Learning?
But Mama smiled this morning when I came out in my finery, and Nunu wiped her eyes when she thought I wasn’t looking. Mama gave me new gold hoops for my ears and Dada gave me an anklet set with blue lapis lazuli and bright rock crystals that shine in the sun.
I look down quickly, glad to see it�
�s still there, not pulled off by a prickly branch when the earthmother shook. The bracelets on my puffy left wrist aren’t as loose as they were this morning, but at least I didn’t lose them.
Two maids place basins of water on the floor, and we wash our faces, hands and feet free of dust. Mama smooths my short fuzz of hair.
‘Come, Leira,’ says the young priestess, appearing in the doorway so suddenly I jump. She’s three years older than me; her name is Kora now that she’s the Lady’s assistant as well as her daughter, though I remember when she was Gellia and lived next door.
My heart is thumping as I pick up my basket. It thumps harder when I follow her up the staircase, between the painted scenes of Crocus Mountain. I’m climbing steadily closer to the earthmother’s mysteries, and I don’t know if I’m ready.
At first all I can see is the Lady on her tall ceremonial chair, her eyes dark with kohl and her necklaces of golden dragonflies glowing. Then I realise that every wall is painted with the story of the crocus. Behind the Lady, the goddess is seated on her painted throne, a monkey offering her a crocus and a winged griffin standing guard behind. But the strangest of all is realising that the girl pouring crocuses into a pannier is little Alia, while on the other side of the window, Pellie, red curls and all, balances a full basket on her shoulder. And on the next wall, talking to Kora who used to be Gellia, is a gatherer with a shaved head and a turned-up nose: me.
It’s as if the great mother has been with us on the mountain all day, watching and painting instead of belching and shaking.
I don’t belch, but I do tremble.
‘Oh!’ is all I say, before Kora shakes her head and I close my mouth again. No wonder the mothers were arguing, because Rastia, Tullie and Chella were picking today too, and they haven’t been painted. Every one of them has longer hair and a straighter nose than me and would look better on the wall – because even Pellie could never pretend that my nose is straight. If I were a clay statue, the potter would be sent back to reshape it.
Now that ridiculous nose is there for every maiden and woman to see, until after I’m dead and gone.
Better than not being there at all!
I’m especially glad I’m there instead of Rastia, because her nose may be perfect but her spirit is mean. The only thing she’s said to me since her first stay in the Lady’s House was, ‘You’ll understand if you ever start bleeding…it’s too bad you won’t do your Learning with Pellie and me.’
Suddenly I don’t care about my snub nose, because I’m the one who’s on the wall with Pellie.
Mama’s eyes flick
and she almost smiles,
as the Lady watches me
blush red as my shift.
But I remember to salute –
hand on heart, eyes down –
‘Praise the mother of all,
mistress of animals,
goddess of saffron,’
I say, and the Lady nods.
Her warmth glows like sunshine at noon
and when Kora holds out a pannier
I pour in the flowers from my small basket –
a tiny offering in the great.
Kora points to a chair and a stool
so Mama and I sit
while Pellie’s mother
and Pellie come in.
I see my friend staring,
hear the same, ‘Oh!’,
and she too turns red
as a sunburned fisher –
and adds her flowers to mine.
I watch the other girls as they take in the paintings – Rastia bites her lip, but Chella smiles in surprise at recognising us. I don’t know if I’d have smiled if it had been her instead of me.
The Lady begins to sing the story of the crocus, which is also the story of the earthmother’s daughter, who dies when the swallows leave and is reborn when they fly back in spring. It’s very long – but finally we are chanting, ‘Kora, Kora, your maidens call you!’ and following Kora who used to be Gellia down the stairs.
I can’t help a little sideways glance at my portrait as we leave.
But I’m also starting to think about dinner, because it’s a long time since breakfast. Maybe I could sneak a couple of figs or honey cakes from the kitchen as soon as I get home. I’ll ask Nunu to draw me a bath too, because I’m tired as well as hungry and I can’t wait to tell her about the painting.
But Kora leads us to the back of the temple and pours the precious flowers out onto a table. The room floods with scent.
‘Your mamas will do one first,’ she says, and we watch, our empty baskets at our feet, as each mother picks up a crocus.
Mama pulls the petals back to where the three red threads become one, pinches the pistil out from the yellow stamens around it, and places it in a dish on the centre of the table. The petals are dropped into my empty basket.
Pellie’s mother sniffs with annoyance. I’d been concentrating too hard to realise that it was a race, but of course it is. And of course Mama would win.
‘Speed is good,’ says Rastia’s mother, ‘but an offering to the goddess requires perfection.’
Mama points to a second, plainer dish. ‘Exactly. Any damaged ones can be used for trade, but only the perfect will go to the goddess.’
She’s won again, because she was perfect as well as fast, and by agreeing she’s turned the reproof into praise.
I will never be as smart as my mother.
‘Goddess guide your fingers, Learners,’ says Kora, and I reach for my first flower. It’s fiddlier than it looks, and takes long moments.
I catch Pellie’s eye. I wonder if being on the painting means that we should be good at this, and if it’s a bad omen that I’m not.
The pile of flowers looks much bigger on the table than it had in Kora’s pannier. It doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller.
The mothers are eagle-eyed, watching each other’s daughters to see that we don’t miss a stigma or waste a grain of the precious saffron. Pellie sneezes, blowing petals across the table. Rastia laughs and Pellie looks as if she might burst into tears.
‘Breath of the goddess,’ says Kora, and Rastia tries to change her laugh into a sneeze too.
But now a yellow stamen is in the pot of perfect red threads.
‘Who did this?’ Rastia’s mother hisses. ‘Are we Egyptians, to cheat the goddess?’
My mother’s eyes narrow. Everyone knows that Dada’s grandfather was Egyptian.
Kora snatches the yellow thread and drops it into the nearest basket. ‘No harm is done when quickly mended.’
It’s the only thing that’s quick. By the time Chella lays the last three stamens in the pot, our fingers are stained red, our stomachs are rumbling and we look as tired as servants.
But we still need to follow Kora and the pot into another undecorated room, hot as a midsummer day, with a fresh crack in the wall that we pretend not to notice. Kora spreads the threads on a fine mesh over a brazier, sings a quick prayer, and leads us out again.
‘Farewell, Learners,’ she says.
We’re free.
Mama takes my hand as we cross to our home. ‘My almost-woman child,’ she says, and kisses my forehead.
Nunu greets us at the front door, guarding us from the uproar in the kitchen. She’s nearly in tears as she tells Mama that the maid Tiny was carrying a tray of honey cakes up the stairs when the house started shaking. She was thrown to the bottom, bruising her leg and bumping her head on the hard stone steps; the tray broke and the honey cakes were smashed. She kept falling over every time she stood up and Nunu finally sent her to bed. Worse, Cook Maid dropped the bucket of snails and by the time they’d got Tiny settled the snails had disappeared into corners – they’ve only just got half of them back again.
‘And upstairs—’ Nunu adds, as if she might as well get all the bad news over with at once.
‘Not the shrine?’ Mama interrupts.
‘No, not that,’ Nunu says, and Mama breathes a sigh of relief. ‘But the swallo
w vase that belonged to your grandmother fell off the windowsill and smashed in the street. I cut my foot when I went out to see.’ She lifts her skirt to show the cut foot, but Mama is already rushing up the stairs to check the rooms herself.
The shrine room looks bright and clean, the red stone floor shining as if no dust dared to make its way in here – no, it’s damp under my feet; it’s just been washed. Only the swallow vase is gone from its window niche, disappeared as surely as the swallows I saw fleeing this morning. There are a few small cracks in the frieze around the top of the walls – a warrior has lost his spear and one of the ships has a gap in its sail. It looks unlucky and I hope the painter can fix it soon. But the shrine table in the corner is clean, waiting for offerings, and the boys on the walls are still walking towards it, carrying their fish.
Which reminds me. ‘Nunu, we’ve been to the temple and I’m—’
‘Leira!’ Mama snaps, quickly making the sign against the evil eye. Nunu is making it too, as if she knows what I was going to say. They both look shocked, and now I am too. How could I be so stupid? Pointing my fingers, hoping it’s not too late, wondering what ill luck I could have brought against myself.
But how did Nunu know?
The painter! She’s visited so often since my bleeding, coming upstairs to chat to Mama while we were weaving. All the while she was observing me, storing me in a secret place so she could put me on the wall. My parents must have shown her the earrings and anklets before they gave them to me.
‘The jewellery is the Saffron Maiden’s, first made for your grandmother’s grandmother,’ says Mama. ‘I’ve kept it safe for you since my mother died.’
I don’t remember my grandmother’s face or anything she said, but I remember knowing that I was special to her.
‘But who has that Saffron Maiden been since then?’
‘The goddess and her attendants exist without us,’ says Mama. ‘They don’t age or die with the faces borrowed for their paintings.’
I’m still thinking about this when Dada comes in. He puts his hands on either side of my face, studying it. ‘My almost-woman child,’ he says, just as Mama did, and kisses my forehead.
The sea smell is strong on him, which is strange because the ships are stored in the shipsheds for the winter, their sails and rigging being mended and spliced.