‘It was the most beautiful thing that I ever owned,’ she explained between sobs. ‘Each family owns one in my village, to sing the laws, but it’s not the singing that I’ve lost, Beena, but the orange, the only bright thing in my life.’
At that first meeting I sensed this was a girl whose tears were too close to the surface. A brave soul but given to damp moments which made me want to look away. After a while, I called out, ‘O-or-ange?’
‘Yes, yes, the brightest thing — ’
‘B-blue,’ I whispered. On hearing this, she peered down at me. I could see only half of her face silhouetted against the dusk.
‘You know blue?’ she asked, incredulous.
How could I answer, I didn’t even know where the word came from.
Then I saw it before I heard it — the shadow that fell upon me and the hole and Beenabe up there, I’m sure — then there was Beenabe falling back into the hole, like we were going to play our first meeting all over again. Then the whirring, louder than mine. So loud it was, I thought all the locusts of the earth had conspired to sing together or that a giant locust had flown over us. For that was the shadow, wasn’t it?
There were no words to this giant’s song and the whirring rested on a single note. There was no attempt at melody.
‘There’s something up there,’ Beenabe whispered. ‘In the sky.’
I don’t remember how long we kept still but suddenly it was dark. This is what happens when there are no stars or moon. Darkness falls quickly, like a blow, and seems final. There will never be any light again.
Soon the whirring grew faint then it stopped and curiosity got the better of us. We had to look beyond the hole even if we could hardly see each other’s face. Quietly we helped each other clamber out. We knew that whatever it was, the shadow had landed.
The whole time Beenabe held my hand.
Lights, lights! The stars have returned! They’ve come down to earth!
From behind a mountain of skulls, we saw beams of light floating in the darkness but close to the ground. I wanted to rush into the open and welcome the return of the stars — they were lost, weren’t they? My brow began to itch and I heard my own locust gearing up for a song. I clamped my hand over it — hush!
What was it about to sing?
They shot down the stars they shot down the stars — but I couldn’t make sense of the song that I heard in my head nor of my thought that the stars have returned. We lost them, didn’t we? Then all thoughts were lost again as Beenabe’s hand gripped mine even tighter and kept me from rushing to the lights. We waited, our breaths held, as the beams came together.
After a while, we saw more clearly. There were two white bodies walking around, holding what looked like a circle of lights — white bodies with no faces! The skulls and bones were alive, the dead were walking! They were speaking in a foreign tongue, though Beenabe made out an old, old word. Blessed. It was the word for ‘good earth’, for rich loam where things can grow. It was an almost forgotten word in a time when everything had turned into uninhabitable dryness.
‘Blessed,’ one of them said again, then a tumble of strange words as the other cleared a section of the black earth and shone a light onto it. Afterwards, from his side he took out a glass thing the size of his finger then scooped bits of the earth. A whoop of joy followed. So like my father’s when he discovered a nest of locusts. Father? I had a father? Vaguely I remembered, but all went blank again as the more talkative one picked up a tiny skull and slid it into what looked like a box. It lit up and trembled. When it was opened, I saw that the skull had disappeared. In its place was white powder also scooped with a little glass finger and held aloft, along with the other glass of black earth.
They shone their lights on the black and the white glasses, then poured their contents into a bigger glass. In an instant, it became the brightest light of all.
Then the word again, uttered with much reverence. ‘Blessed!’
Then the laughter, and how joyful. In my head I heard another laughter from a man holding out a palmful of locusts to his only child.
‘Oh to find a gift — is it really one?
Oh to believe in the find —
Is it worth the belief?
Oh to hold worth in the hand!’
She stared at my brow long before its song had ended, then whispered, ‘Be scared of the living, not the dead.’
She sounded old.
The dead had disappeared by now, swallowed by a giant locust that flew away with winking lights. It took me an hour to tell her what I thought I saw and for her to understand.
‘Not locust or the dead, Beena,’ she sighed as she dug a little hole for the remnants of the white powder. It was too dark to see now but I had kept my hand close to hers the whole time. We had groped our way to the clearing left by the men in white suits and masks. Beenabe explained them to me as she searched for that powder. Between my fingers, it felt like the finest sand. Head, head, head, pounded within my own skull. I saw it, didn’t I, that tiny skull turned into powder in the box.
‘Once I saw this boy, you know, just bits of him left … perhaps wandered too far from home — is this your home, Beena?’
The word sounded familiar, like something that lives inside your chest wherever you go. For this was how it felt when she said the word like a tender hum. But how could I answer when I did not know what it meant?
‘Home. You don’t know it? And planes too? That was a plane, not a locust. Planes fly with winking lights and drop ochre rain on your home, so you lose your bright colours and your children lose their hair and their stomachs shrink.’
I thought she was going to cry again so I squeezed her hand that was now patting the earth over the buried powder. Then I heard her fumble with her wrap. ‘Here,’ she said, pressing what felt like the tiniest pebble onto my hand. ‘Barley. Chew it, it will make you feel better.’
This was another strange thing about my saviour. She felt better by making me feel better, but only on those early days.
She patted the earth again, then pushed her last grain of barley into it, whispering, ‘Blessed indeed.’ She thought I didn’t hear, but I did. My brow did.
‘Blessed are they whose bones don’t sleep
They are guarding the living
Blessed are they whose homes don’t sleep
They are guarding the dead’
It had been a freezing night. I woke up under her wrap, snugly cuddled. She would hold me thus many times in her sleep to keep warm, but she would never touch my face. I shifted, my back rubbing against her. How soft, especially the two mounds that pressed against my neck. I felt my own chest. How hard, rough and flat. I rubbed my ankles against her and found her knees. How small I was compared to my new friend who, last night, had promised to take me home. Her own home.
Beenabe was sixteen. I was nineteen in a nine-year old body.
‘You fidget,’ she muttered and soon was scrambling to her feet. The cave of bones under which we had slept the night before tumbled down, trying to bury me again.
‘Let’s get started, Beena. Soon it will be too hot to walk.’
Slowly I got up, my body still creaking with all these new movements. I was learning how to crawl out of burial, to get used to this resurrection.
Then I heard her cry of astonishment.
‘You’re not dressed!’
Finally in the morning light, I was exposed. How was I to know that my clothes had been burnt into my skin? Or worse, that I was not like her?
‘You’re not one colour!’
For the first time, I looked at all of me too, and yes, she was right. My body was patches of black, white and grey, partly burnt and partly pale in the parts that were nibbled by the locust before it slept in me. But how could I explain what I did not remember?
‘Not one colour.’ She shook her head in disbelief and instinctively rubbed her brown arms, perhaps assuring herself that she was smooth and evenly hued. She could not let the matter rest.
My head reeled with her questions. I could not understand any of them so how could I answer? I pointed to my hole a few metres away. All answers were buried there, so I heard in some far corner of my skull.
‘No, I won’t leave you back in there.’ Her voice had softened. So did her face, as she noticed my distress. I wanted to turn my back on the huge sun now coming full circle and seeing what Beenabe saw: I am impure.
‘It’s just that this can’t be — I mean, you can’t be seen like this. And I can’t — ’ she squatted down and studied her toes.
Meanwhile the sun rose and rose. I blinked at it. I thought I’d go blind with too much light. I blinked at her. I thought I saw her shimmer, like the rest of the ground now quickly heating up.
The shimmering figure stood up and undid her wrap. She cut it in two with her teeth. ‘Here, Beena,’ she said, handing me one of the pieces. ‘Get dressed and let’s get started.’
Can the tongue forget its thirst? And the stomach its hunger? No, Beenabe would tell me much later. But one could trick them to hide for a while, especially when there are more pressing occupations.
We waded through the skulls and bones, me lagging far behind. Impatiently she called out, ‘Hurry up, hurry up,’ but my legs were just learning how to carry me again. And the sun was drying my throat while my stomach reminded me of its existence. But I did not know how to say these in my head or how to call them out to the dot of brown way ahead of me. She had said we were to keep walking to the edge of this place, and that she’d know how to get us home from there. She had said we should think of only one thing, getting out of here. But my head was trying to find the words for thirst and hunger, and my feet were intent on not hurting the skulls and bones, especially the very few little ones. They were curled beside the big ones or the big ones were wrapped around the little ones. I nudged them with my toes and they moved as one. Maybe they had grown into each other. A big skull and a little skull in a mesh of bones.
Soon I was not even aware that I had lost Beenabe. I had stumbled upon a strangely beautiful creature. Set apart from the rest of the skeletons and mostly shaded by a boulder was a big skull with its full trunk wrapped gracefully around three little skulls of equal sizes and curved almost into a full circle. The creature, for it looked like only one creature, was mostly in shadow, looking safe, except the big skull. Facing the glare, it was so white and bright. I had to touch it.
My hand burned. I stared at the gaping mouth. It was pleading for me to move it out of the sun. It wanted to be safe like the little skulls so calm and contained in its circle of bones. I began to push the big skull into the shadow, but it snapped off its trunk and rolled away. The whole creature toppled down, dislodging all the little skulls out of their home.
I panicked. I heard me frantically whirring as I tried to catch all of the skulls and my brow itched, sending shivers to the rest of my face. I thought the whirring had grown wings and was struggling to fly out of me.
The big skull could not roll too far away. Something stopped it, no, not a bone but a smooth-looking mound not quite the colour of anything else around.
The whirring in my brow stopped too.
I picked up the little skulls, trying to make sense of each against the big one. I nudged the small mound that stopped it from rolling too far. It was smooth to the touch. I could not resist digging up all of it. I don’t why, but when I had dug it out, I heard the right word in my head. Hunger. And the locust burrowed deeper into my brow.
It was curved. It was broken. It was cool to the touch.
I found myself looking at half a bowl. Bowl. The word rang inside my own skull and instinctively I touched my brow. All quiet up there. It had decided to stay small and snug and hidden.
I brought back my find into the shadow. But I could not put back the creature together again. All the little skulls would not fit into the circle of bones, as if that safe place had grown too small. And it was impossible to restore the big skull to its trunk.
I laid the skulls side by side, and then I began to dig again with my half a bowl. It felt like the most natural thing to do. I was looking for something, I didn’t know what, but I could not find it. Once again I touched my brow instinctively but I could not feel it. My locust had burrowed too deeply. Small and snug and hidden.
Bowl. Hunger. Bowl. Hunger.
The words rang in my head, then found my mouth for the first time.
‘B-bowl … h-hunger …’ I spoke them to the skulls.
Silently they stared, as if waiting.
On my hand, the earth on the bowl seemed right, even if it was the wrong colour. Slowly I raised it to my mouth and began to feed.
Someone was calling me, or was it really me?
‘Beeee-naaaaaaa! Beeee-naaaaaaa!’
Urgent then desolate. I had heard such a cry before but not quite like this. And not quite here? Here all the colours were wrong. What was the right colour then?
The cry drew closer and I kept feeding. It was the most natural thing to do. My mouth remembered to chew slowly, to swallow slowly. ‘So as not to choke, child, so as not to choke.’ Who was whispering in my head? Then all went quiet. Earth rolled around in my mouth. Strange, this was not dry like what my tongue remembered and something was missing.
‘Beena, couldn’t you hear me, I’ve been looking — what — ?’ She stared at me, at the bowl, at my mouth, then at the lined up skulls. Her face grew hard, eyes almost bulging. The sun burned, making a halo around her.
The blow was quick. The bowl flew out of my hands and I felt my cheek sting.
‘You don’t eat your kind.’
It was the most sorrowful voice that I would hear in my whole life.
It took us three more days to get out of there. The first day was for censure. The second was for walking around in circles. The third, for repair.
How could I explain to her I was not feeding on bones? And that the earth was not part of the dead? And that alive they would have partaken of my meal? Like once upon a time. How could I tell the old story? Like my face, memory was in patches and words were slow to come.
On the second day we walked with renewed purpose. After Beenabe named the place Grave.
‘Not home, Beena. This is no longer your home. Home is over there,’ she said, waving beyond her, then realising that beyond was nothing but more skulls and bones. Defiantly she addressed them, ‘We’ll get out of here,’ and in an afterthought turned to me. ‘You don’t feed on a grave, Beena.’
I saw her swallow on the word ‘feed’, her throat hollowing, before walking ahead again. At first she did not own up to hunger or thirst, but she could not deny her exhaustion. She kept slipping to her knees.
‘Bowl. Hunger,’ I called out to her and for a while she stayed where she had fallen, as if my words had sat heavily on her shoulders. Then wearily, she got up and moved on.
Strange, but we kept walking away from and returning to the creature that witnessed my feeding. The line of four skulls and the headless trunk kept pulling us back.
‘You disturbed them, Beena, so they won’t let us go.’
On the early morning of the third day, I woke up to Beenabe squatting before the skulls, not taking her eyes off them. She seemed to have sat there through the night.
‘You disturbed their rest,’ she said again but gently.
What did she know about the creature? I was the one who found it. And did I not try to put it back together again?
That morning I tried again. In the half-light they were only balls and sticks. The big ball on the top, the little ones inside the circle, but again the big ball rolled away and the third of the little balls would not fit.
‘Break it then,’ Beenabe murmured
to herself, and once again I saw skulls and bones. She took the left out skull from me, forcing it back into the circle, snapping part of the ribs. Then she chipped the neck, so the head could rest on it though precariously.
Her face wore a look of pain, as if she were the one that broke. I stared. On the corner of her mouth, I saw bits of earth.
We finally left the last blessed stretch. But only after she had rubbed it all over my exposed parts. The earth cooled my face and I felt grateful. I had not known the burning sun for ten years.
‘We’re about to cross to the other side, so this must be done,’ she said, rubbing more earth on me. I wanted to say, you had earth on your face too, close to your mouth. But I sensed that she’d hate to be found out.
My brow whirred with pleasure as each handful of earth touched my skin and settled there, for it did cling to me. The whirring continued, growing melodic. The sound surprised me. It had been so quiet up there for days.
After a while Beenabe surveyed her handiwork, turned my face this way and that, and said, ‘You look better.’
I half understood. She wanted to cover my pale patches. She wanted to make me one colour.
Maybe I did feel better after her approval. After she had made me feel bad for the last three days. After all my transgressions, my inadequacies. Earlier she had studied my face and said, ‘You are not beautiful.’ Maybe she had thought I would not understand. But how could I miss her little shudder as she brought her face close to mine and touched it?
I sensed the same shudder when we finally reached the edge. I saw the skulls and bones resting beside each other in a long, long line. She cautioned me about the half-buried, twisted thing that also stretched in a long, long line. It had cut her, she said. It was dangerous. Then the shudder. Then she decided to make me look better.
I was not to forget this: I am not beautiful.
She was gentle with my face. She was careful not to disturb that mark on my brow. It whirred whenever her fingers got too close. It fascinated her, but she would never call it by its name. The word made her shudder too. Back home she had heard of locusts long ago and the hunger in their wake.
Locust Girl: A Lovesong Page 3