Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Five

by Nōnen Títi

  A sound behind him, too loud for a creature, made him turn around.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just passing.” Rorag pointed up the hill, deeper into the forest.

  Kunag scanned the canopy. “I was hoping the eyecreatures would join me,” he told the boy whose face he knew only from that portrait he’d once made.

  Rorag, who was older now, turned his head up as if he knew what to look for. “People are creatures,” he answered.

  “Yeah, I guess.” It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  “When I get lonely or sad, I go to the stream,” Rorag said.

  “What’s at the stream?”

  “Water.” The boy who was always fighting with Leyon shrugged his shoulders. “Do you want to go?” he asked.

  “Why not?” There was nothing better to do. Kunag put the paper into his pocket and followed Rorag uphill, crawling under hanging plamals and stepping over rocks.

  The bush opened up into an area maybe the length of a row of latrines in diameter. Here the stream was free of overhead growth and shimmered in the light of Kunag – the moon – which was nearly full. The motion of the water on its way down to the village reflected against the dark wall of plamals on the other bank, casting a show of light in front of them.

  “Nobody ever comes here,” Rorag said.

  “So why do you?” But Kunag knew the answer.

  “To be alone.”

  “It’s beautiful here.” In his mind he sketched the scenery.

  Rorag walked to the edge of the water, kicked off his sandals and sat down to let his feet get wet. Kunag joined him, but kept his shoes on. He picked up a piece of rock and started drawing in the wet ground next to him. Something about this place was like DJar. Maybe because there were no bright colours; water reflected light the same way in the dark, no matter where you were.

  Rorag stood up, took off his shirt, and flung it on top of his sandals behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going in.”

  Once he had removed his pants, Rorag carefully stepped into the water. Circular ripples, made by his feet, were carried away in the downward waves of the stream. “It’s cold.”

  “Yes, it must be.”

  “It helps when you feel sad.”

  “I’m not sad.”

  Rorag waded until he was halfway across before turning to face upstream. Then he slowly lowered himself into the water. It engulfed first his legs, then higher, until the water reached the top of his chest. Three times his body shuddered, making a large wave pattern around him, before becoming still.

  Kunag watched breathlessly as Rorag stood back up and raised his hands up to the sky – the beauty of natural art reborn in a living statue – sparkling drops of silver hung off the hair that kept his body warm. One by one the drops fell down, leaving only the bushier parts glimmering – a fleeting memory of Jari on the Telemer beach, her skin shining with water in the Bijari light.

  Without thinking about it, Kunag threw off his own clothing and stepped into the water. The first gush of cold made him stop and shiver. Rorag lowered his arms and watched. Under his feet Kunag could feel every single pebble that made up the riverbed. The icy cold water around his legs made it impossible to think of anything. Without a word Rorag sat back down. Kunag had to catch his breath when the water touched his middle, but then the cold took over and his mind cleared until there was nothing more than the numbness of his body and the sound of water.

  Rorag stood back up and stuck out his hand. Kunag took it and, once standing, spread his arms out wide, like Rorag had before, feeling very much nothing. A night like this wasn’t dark; it was draped in a veil of very cold blue hanging just above them, like the red fog, but peaceful. That’s how he would draw it, with the statue at the centre.

  “It’s like being an animal, like having only instincts,” Rorag said. He took Kunag’s hand while wading to the edge and there spread out his cloak on the ground for them to sit on, leaving their clothes in the heap they were in. Before sitting down himself, Rorag pointed to a plamal that was speckled with dark buds. When Kunag said he didn’t know what they were, Rorag pulled a handful off, saying the plamal didn’t mind that. “Try some, they’re good.”

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know. I like the feeling they cause. Just take only a few and chew them.”

  “Ugh.” They were bitter.

  “You get used to it,” Rorag said.

  That was true. After a few minutes Kunag’s mouth felt numb and the bitterness became sweet. His body started feeling warm, though the hairs on his arms and legs were still up. The ground around the cloak was crawling with movement, like the fishing net had. In the stream he could also see little things swimming around; tiny round bodies with whip-like tails. The sound of the water as it hit each pebble was like a symphony. Rorag hummed some familiar melody. Music!

  Lying on his back, Kunag watched his namesake travel across their open roof. When it reached the end the heavens darkened, leaving specks of light, some bright, others only pinpricks in the dark veil that was the panorama of the Kun DJar sky. For a long time there was nothing but the sound of water and the sense of being warm and close. The course hair on Rorag’s chest, where a drop of moisture was captured underneath, tickled Kunag’s finger. The rush of his own skin quivering under Rorag’s hand as it moved slowly lower made him gasp.

  Rorag leaned on one elbow. “What are you sad about?”

  “My dad.” It was the right answer, but Kunag no longer felt the pain.

  “He died?”

  “Yes… The disease.”

  “He’s not gone, though. He’s inside you.”

  Kunag stroked the boy’s back. Dad was gone. He’d never be back.

  “But you need to want to find him,” Rorag said.

  Branag had said something like that once about a calculations problem: “The answer is inside you, son, but you’ll have to go look for it.”

  “How?” he asked Rorag.

  “When I find people, I just call up an image of them. I put it in a nice picture, like the stream here, and then I can see them move. I can talk to them and they talk back. It’s like stepping into another life for a while. It’s okay as long as you know when to close the image down.”

  “Who do you find?”

  “Different people: my grandpa, my mom, Jema.”

  Kunag sat upright, pushing Rorag as he went. For just a fraction the pain was back. “Why Jema?”

  Rorag pulled his clothes toward him and started putting his trousers on. “So she can listen to me.”

  Kunag found his own pants and stuck his leg inside. “I don’t think I could do that.”

  “You just close your eyes and see his picture like he was before. Just like you draw people.” Rorag put his sandals on next, but left his shirt on the ground.

  Kunag tried to see a good image of Dad, but the idea of the bonfire… “I don’t even remember him. I’ve just been so angry all this time. It didn’t want to think about it and now he’s gone. Now he’s just ashes mixed up with all those other bodies. Nothing special left.”

  “He’s inside you,” Rorag said.

  “Maybe.”

  “For sure.”

  Rorag had easy talking. He believed in a greater power, in a Land Beyond. “Why do you believe Bue is the creator and not AR?” Kunag asked, since AR was the ruler on Nini’s chart.

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t make a difference. Everybody believes something made them for a reason. That’s the creator; different name, same idea. The rest are people things, like how to behave or to be afraid if you don’t. That’s the punishment of believing: always being afraid.”

  “I get scared too,” Kunag said.

  Rorag spoke while making gentle circular movements over Kunag’s stomach. “Before I came on SJilai I only knew Bue. Everything we did was for Bue. People committed for Bue, said sorry to Bue, and thanked Bue for what they had, only so that later he’d care
for them in the Land Beyond. It didn’t matter if life on DJar was painful as long as after would be good. I knew, somehow, that couldn’t be right. So I started asking other people, non-Society people, and I went to the SJilai library and watched films. Now I know that Bue was created by people to conquer their fears instead of us being created by Bue.”

  “So why do you believe?”

  “Because I don’t want to think that nothing of me will go on if I die.”

  “Does your dad think that too?” Kunag asked.

  “Yes, but he also believes there’s a higher power to which he has to pay for having me. My dad isn’t dumb, you know. It’s just his way of being able to live with himself. I didn’t know that at first either. It scared me that he had to suffer all this pain for me every year. I used to think I should have died, then I thought he would be better off dead, and then I’d feel guilty for thinking that. I wanted to repent, but when I did, it was always for Bue. I wanted my dad to let me do it for just him, but he couldn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  “No no. My dad isn’t like yours. My dad speaks and everybody listens. I can’t discuss things with him because he cannot see that life is different for me. If he was a bad guy, like Leyon’s father, I could just hate him. It would be easy, but he isn’t, so I just feel sad for him.”

  Kunag held Rorag in his arms, feeling close without having to say anything; to just be sad for Rorag, for Branag, for himself.

  A crashing sound from the bush startled both of them. Kunag jumped up as the man they had just been talking about hauled Rorag to his feet. At first Rorag was too surprised to react and let his father slap him.

  “You’ll repent for this,” Frimon shouted. “And you!”

  Stepping back at the man’s sudden move towards him, Kunag stumbled and fell.

  “How dare you take advantage of children? You’ll pay for this too!”

  “We were only talking,” Rorag said.

  “Talk when you do penance.”

  “No, we only talked and we were swimming. I won’t repent for that.”

  Rorag’s refusal made Frimon more upset. He became louder and kept repeating himself: “You’ll repent. Tonight. You wait and see. How could you ever do this to me? You’ve soiled yourself. You’re cursed!”

  “Never!” Rorag responded, now also shouting. “I don’t feel guilty, and I will not repent to your Bue ever again. You’ll have to kill me first.”

  Frimon tried to drag Rorag along, but Rorag was as tall as his father. With one jerk of his arm he freed himself and pushed his father back. “I can walk!” He picked up his shirt and left.

  Kunag sat there for a long time, still hearing Frimon’s voice, shivering with the cold, and sore from the hard ground. The light of Kun was already beginning to show when he finally pulled on his shirt and started back. He needed to find Nini, to tell her what Frimon would do to Rorag. Maybe she could help. Someone had to. Even this had gone wrong. It wasn’t Rorag who was cursed, it was Kunag.

  A MOST DISAGREEABLE DAY

  6/4/5/8/1

  Wilam sent Kristag into Nini’s home to quietly wake her up since nobody had responded to his calls. “Tell her the baby is coming.”

  Kristag, who had been half asleep on the walk down, became alert as the important job was bestowed upon him. Wilam waited. Styna had told him to go do something with Kristag as he’d only be in the way. Wilam wasn’t sure if she’d meant Kristag or himself.

  Nini came outside, holding Kristag’s hand and told Wilam, as Flori and Leni had, not to worry.

  He would try not to, as long as she knew what she was doing. He watched her leave. Now what? Laytji had promised to take Kristag for the day, but it was too early to wake anyone. Kun was not even visible yet, just a streak of light in the distance. It would probably be another hour before people started getting up.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked the boy.

  Kristag knew where: the orange and yellow field. He loved running there, pretending that nobody could find him, which was true most of the time thanks to the height of the vegetation. Wilam would close his eyes and Kristag would hide, but he could never resist answering “I’m not here” when Wilam called for him.

  “We’ll walk the water-edge path,” Wilam said, hoping that would take long enough for people to get up, since he didn’t really want to take Kristag near to where the fog sat. They’d been told to just go about their business and to stay away from it, but it gave Wilam a sense of doom.

  While Kristag enjoyed the early morning walk in the soft light of the plamals – he ran ahead, stood still, collected pebbles, threw them into the water, waded in to get his pants wet, fell and got up again – Wilam was struggling to shake that aimless feeling he remembered from when Pina was ill. He felt scared… It could be the fog.

  Just where the stream disappeared underground Kristag decided to start running again, but instead of up the path to the homes he crossed the top of the cave and went west. Wilam sped up. The natural wild growth area had many plamals a child might eat. As soon as he reached the rise he saw the men in front of them: farmers, four kor or more, carrying diggers and other tools into the natural area in which digging was not allowed.

  “Kristag, come back,” Wilam called in a quiet voice. Better if they didn’t see him.

  But Kristag didn’t hear him either and started shouting. Wilam tried to catch up, but before he reached his son Kristag had caught the attention of the men, who dropped the large reed sack they were carrying and turned around.

  “Kristag, come here,” Wilam called when he recognized Tigor.

  Tigor leaned on his digger. “Well, just the person we didn’t invite,” he sneered. “What happened? Lost your cattle?”

  “I was only taking a walk,” Wilam answered, wondering why he explained himself. His eyes travelled to the sack at Tigor’s feet, which was filled with DJar plants. They were pretty, in a way, if only for their colour. Wilam missed having them around.

  “Got a problem, messenger boy?”

  Kristag wrapped his arms around Wilam’s leg.

  “Those are not allowed here,” Wilam answered.

  “The farmers agreed to lift the restrictions after the voting was done, which is today,” another man said. He was one of the other election candidates, as were two others standing here. It was well possible that between the four of them they had all the farmers’ votes.

  “I’m a farmer and I don’t agree.”

  Tigor jeered. “You’re no crop farmer. Go back to your cattle woman.”

  “Can’t you at least wait until the votes are counted?”

  “Did you think your Veleder friend would win?” Tigor asked, before turning to his companions. “You see why I told you to leave Wilam out of this.”

  Wilam wanted nothing more than to be left out of this. He lifted Kristag to take him back down, but his path was blocked. Tigor held his digger in front of Wilam’s face. “Don’t you start trouble down there or you may just find yourself on the dirt heap.”

  Wilam didn’t want to give in, but he had to get Kristag away. “I won’t.”

  “Why they shout?” Kristag asked when Wilam slowed down once back on the plamal path to the village.

  “Because they’re stupid,” Wilam answered, but then he worried. Kristag could turn around to those men tomorrow and tell them his dad had called them stupid.

  Why was Tigor doing this so early in the morning? If he was right and the farmers had won the elections, they would be able to do this legally soon enough anyway. But there had been only a small group of farmers there. What if they were bluffing? What if they knew they had no majority? Was Tigor taking revenge before he was officially beaten?

  “We go Nini?” Kristag asked.

  “No.” Hopefully Nini was with Styna by now. If Tigor was right and the farmers had won, Wilam would be ousted if he told Benjamar. He’d set the whole farmer community against himself. Tigor wasn’t kidding with his threat; Styna and Kristag
would be in danger too. On the other hand, they were breaking the rules. If Wilam kept silent, he’d be guilty too. Of course, the native plamals were much better equipped to survive. Maybe the seedlings just wouldn’t make it and nothing would be lost. They had to be the ones Tigor had stolen from the scientists. Where had they kept them? Maybe Wilam could make sure they wouldn’t survive.

  He glanced back to see if he was being followed, but all he could see was the red fog beyond the North Hills. Suppose Jema and Yako had been right the last time and it somehow knew what Tigor was doing? What if it had come to stop him? People would die. The feeling of doom suddenly became much more prevalent.

  Kristag burst straight into the central Hearth. Marya, who was alone, told Wilam that if he wanted Benjamar, he’d just gone to the washroom, but Wilam didn’t want to be an informer. He explained about Laytji’s promise.

  “She’s still on her mat. What about some food first?”

  Wilam wasn’t hungry, but Kristag had no problem with staying and helping make breakfast, so Wilam left alone.

  Next door, against Benjamar’s shelter, sat the election vessels. What if he could find out if Tigor and his friends actually had a majority? Benjamar would not tell him; that wouldn’t be honest, but what if he could get a quick look? Just an estimate. He wouldn’t touch the contents.

  He scanned both directions; nobody was on the path yet. It wasn’t really wrong. If Tigor was bluffing the DJar crops planted today would destroy the natural habitat illegally, like weeds, which is what they were to Kun DJar plants. And people like Tigor were pests. If Wilam let them, he’d be a pest as well. Maybe all farmers were. The fog would come after them. But if he told Benjamar and Tigor was not bluffing…? Or he would have to stand up against Tigor himself; against Tigor and the other three candidates. He couldn’t do that alone. He’d have to know first how many farmers agreed with this.