Jean frowns, squinting in the direction of the thicket. “One wife should be all I need. I hope to make enough so I can head north. I hear there's better work at the gold mines."
"No reason to stay here beyond your fate.” Mama B nods. “It consumes you or kicks you out. It's the way of the forest."
* * * *
Jean is not Zuna
His kisses taste like cacao, cigarettes and stale beer. His hands, callused from months of cutting timber in a logging camp, are rough to the touch. When he isn't drunk he's aloof, displaying the type of behavior Kat has come to expect of temporary husbands. Although he's not quiet like Zuna, his body gives off heat while he sleeps, and Kat finds that comforting until their fourth morning together.
At first Kat believes she is awake because she feels the wind tickling her face. It tastes salty. She must be asleep because the forest is gone and before her moves a strange, gigantic river that has no sides and crashes like a flat waterfall. The water swallows her footprints. It goes on as far as she can see and although the sight of it causes her heart to skip, she can't look away.
When the dream releases her, Jean is still asleep and Mama B's special rice tin rests beside her, in the curl of her neck and chin.
Shrieking, Kat startles to her feet, nearly knocking the tin to the soft dirt. The tiny hairs on her arms stand alert. Even her heart thumping furiously in her throat can't erase the chill. Her feet stumble on an empty beer bottle as she backs away from the metal box, certain of its meaning.
Mama B is dead.
Kat doesn't know what to fear more, a box with no feet finding its way into her bed or no Mama B. Pressing her fists into her mouth, her breath comes in short gasps, jagged and uneven.
Jean raises himself onto one elbow. “What? What?"
"Did anyone come into the hut during the night?"
Jean doesn't answer, instead lifts the tin up to examine it. Blinking sleepily, he flicks something from his arm, and starts to open the lid. Kat scrambles to him, but he twists away, deflecting her advance. She lunges again. Jean is stronger, his hands pushing her away.
Peering inside, he says, “It's just rice."
"No. Spirits are in the rice. Ghost grains."
Abruptly he freezes. When he drops the tin, rice scatters at their feet.
"Witch-girl! Why would you bring that into my bed?” With choppy motions Jean grabs himself, as if someone were clawing at his shirt. His voice grows shrill, laced with fear. “A spirit will strangle me."
"No, no,” she insists, although she is uncertain. “The spirits are in the rice. They can't escape."
"How do you know?"
"I,” she stutters, unable to reply. Suddenly he slaps her.
The sensation of his open palm against her cheek is the same sore shock of a bee sting, throwing her off-balance. She pitches to the ground, landing flat on her back. Peering up at him, Kat realizes it is a new view of Jean, an unwelcome angle that she had experienced once before. With the unspeakable him. Back when home was home, before she was branded as soiled.
Stunned, she slowly raises herself up and stands. She can almost see the anger steaming out of Jean: his lips have paled as though painted with flour; his fingers continue to rhythmically open and shut. He's losing heat, and he is waiting.
She holds her breath, keeping her feet leeched to the ground. The thick air paints her silver cosmetic case, a gift from Zuna, with shiny pearls of moisture. In the distance the grunting alarm of chattering monkeys bites into the morning hum.
"Clean it now.” Jean's voice is tight, as if tethered by a rope.
"Yes, yes.” She nods obediently.
Kat shudders, her legs reduced to trembling branches. She plucks a grain from off the floor, savoring the ting it makes when it returns to the tin. She fumbles with another grain, so many spirits needing to be collected, begging to be mourned.
She whispers to the rice, “Is that you, Zuna?"
When the grains are all gathered, Jean takes the rice tin from her, grabs his shovel and storms out of the shack with elephant steps. A grazing okapi startles at his movements, and disappears into the bush.
Although she can't hear or see them, she believes that the spirits in the rice grains are protesting. Who are they, these men-in-rice? Kat can't remember all the miners or temporary wives; there are too many names to recall.
If the dead don't have recognizable faces, the dead can't speak.
Her muscles ache from listening for a voice to tell her what to do. She is crying now, finally, allowing the tears that she has held on to for so long to empty on to her face. A blur of wetness and salt, for Zuna, for Mama B, and mostly for herself.
She is afraid that if the dead can't speak, it's just plain rice.
And she is alone.
* * * *
The Way of the Rice
While the air keeps its morning cool, Kat sets out to Mama B's hut. On the way she passes a naked corpse left to decay on a bed of wet leaves. She covers its face with dirt, knowing without a proper burial its spirit will be refused entrance at the Place of the Ancestors. Instead of being reborn, it will spend eternity confused and bitter, wandering in the jungle.
At Mama B's hut, her thongs lie abandoned, as if she has vanished in her tracks.
Faint wisps of smoke curl out from the smoldering cooking fire, with an empty pan resting on top, smelling of starch and burnt food. A purple scarf wraps around a bundle by the shoes. Inside is Mama B's stash of coltan, cigarettes, and a loaf of bread. Kat knows it is a gift meant for her, and perhaps a means for leaving the forest.
Where would she go?
So she waits all day for a sign, thinking about her eerie water dream. She thinks of Mama B, a woman of her word, and of her wisdom.
"The grain is the embodiment of the Rice Mother, the goddess of life. Only the Rice Mother can be the keeper of the spirits.” Mama B had said. “Spirits are lured by heat. You cook the rice until the spirit can't resist the warmth. Only a salty bath can release the spirit to be reborn."
Don't want dead left in the rain forest.
By late afternoon, Kat performs the daily ritual she learned from Mama B. She cooks rice and places a small mound on a banana leaf at the entrance of the hut to feed the spirits of the forest, and hopefully keep them at bay. After sipping a mixture of rice powder, salt and water, she moistens her temples and attaches luminous white kernels to absorb the healthy life force of uncooked rice.
Mama B's wisdom of the way of the rice seems of little help.
"What is, is what is,” Kat's father used to say, and she's surprised she recalls him now. Most of the time she prefers to forget her family. Otherwise she becomes lost in the memories: eight older siblings coaxing her from a river bath, sweet yam scent beneath her nails after harvest digging, or the gravel voice of her father urging her to “work hard, stay honest, and make yourself proud” on the day he disowned her.
Kat misses Mama B's special rice tin. It was supposed to give the unlucky a chance to one day rest peacefully with their ancestors. It was the only hope that they would ever leave the forest and rejoin their families.
Like Kat.
* * * *
Darkness, Just Beyond the Village Bar
Men huddle in groups around the village bar. It's an oversized box with wooden walls, a roof and flat surfaces instead of the sticks and leaves used for living quarters. The air smells ripe, laced with the sharpness of tobacco. Just outside the fringes of the building Kat crouches in the shadow of darkness behind a bush. Parts of the conversations carry past her; she hears the words of the Man Talk, without fully understanding their meaning.
"If the embargo keeps up, the camp will have to shut down."
"If I had another job, I wouldn't come here. It's this or starve."
"Same doing up North at the reserve. Game wardens burned it to the ground."
She sees Jean next to a burning torch, posing in an orange shirt. One hand clutches a pick, the other wraps around a quiet, te
mporary wife, known for opening her legs more frequently than her mouth. If he catches Kat spying, perhaps he will cut off her nose, or something worse. He will know that she wants the tin, and stealing can be punished by a man's anger, so she remains hidden, watching for a while longer.
Something abruptly moves behind her. The wind scrapes the land, drawing a faint whistle from the foliage, provoking the walls of the wooden bar to squeak. Two aardvarks abandon their ant holes to scamper in jagged lines across the unpaved road; as the night song of crickets cease, a consistent low humming, almost morose in tone, replaces their chatter.
She focuses on the shadows. “Who's there?"
The leaves part, fluttering as if they are inhabited by an unseen spirit force. In a flash she is up on her feet, scrambling towards the village bar. She runs a few steps before falling, striking her cheek on a sharp box that is half-buried in the dirt.
When Kat tries to rise, something kicks her down. She tries to stand up again, but a foot against her neck holds her down, pinning her to the ground.
She inhales deeply, fighting the panic that rises in her throat and tastes like dirt. Hoarsely, she whispers her request into the ground, which is the same as saying nothing at all, “Please don't."
She lifts her eyes and is relieved to see Mama's special rice tin sticking out of the dirt before her. The man whose foot holds her down is laughing.
Suddenly, the pressure against her head releases and she is lifted to her feet by her armpits. Jean stands over Kat, his fists latched against his hips, in disgust. He is surrounded by miners. Some hold beer bottles while others dangle cigarettes or clutch torches.
A slow chill creeps around Kat's toes. She wiggles them.
"Why were you watching us?” Jean points with his chin towards the tin resting on the ground. “How did you get that? I thought I buried your ghosts."
Kat rubs her hands together until they start to warm.
"Give them to me."
She picks up the rice tin from the dirt. She brushes the dirt off and nearly hands the tin to Jean.
"This time I'll burn it.” Jean's voice is impatient. “Then you won't summon your ghosts against us."
Backing away, Kat opens her mouth, as if to speak. She wants to say, “No. The grains belonged to Mama B.” However, she can't quite say aloud those defiant thoughts, not yet. But she's not ready to give up the tin.
The moon's face is bright and surrounded by circles of gray and purple. It reminds her of a tired eye beset by bags and rings. Mama B's eyes.
Jean strides towards Kat with his hands outstretched. She turns her shoulders to shield the tin, protecting it in a cradle between her breasts.
Impulsively, she opens the rice tin and pops a grain into her mouth. The rice is sharp against her tongue. She forces herself to swallow. For a moment she hesitates, expecting the forest to close ranks around her, but it doesn't. She eats another and a third. She is gagging on hard, dry, grains, nearly vomiting. With her hand poised inches from her mouth, she steals a quick glance at Jean, and something about him makes her stop.
His face is full of astonishment. It's the way his head angles slightly, chin tilted downward, with his eyebrows arching like mountains, that catch Kat off-guard. It's the first time a man has ever looked at her that way. Besides the fear, he wears a look of awe, and even a little respect.
Restless spirits fill her belly, kicking around inside of her, urging her forward. Maybe it's the voices of the swallowed dead, telling her what she needs to do. Maybe it's Mama B. Or maybe it's an inner voice that never spoke until now.
The voices tell her to keep eating and swallowing, and she does until she no longer minds the taste of the grains: the flavor of mud, bones, rice, and ghosts. Her first taste of respect.
She feels as if she has been struck by lightning. Her cheeks are warm and the heat is spreading from her face down her neck. The air smells of cooking, a little like fresh bread.
For the first time Kat sees glimmering faces on the surface of the rice. Blue ghost forms that flit like glowing butterflies.
Don't want the dead left in the rain forest. Don't leave us in the rain forest.
Another grain, and another. The men watch.
Pausing again from her task, she glances at the pale moon glowing against the sky. The blue doesn't scare her, not now, anyway.
She looks down. Someone has placed a half-empty beer bottle and a stick of dried meat before her, as an offering. Another man steps forward to toss a few crusts of bread.
"The ghosts belong to me,” Kat says boldly, to the men standing before her, to the forest, and to all things that listen. “What else are you looking to buy?"
She's not full yet, and plenty of rice to go.
* * * *
[Back to Table of Contents]
The Meat and the Mushrooms
Spencer Keralis
The witch and her brother sit at the table by the window playing cards. In silhouette, from outside the window looking in they appear perfectly normal—just a young man and woman playing together, sitting across from each other, heads bent over their hands. But inside, they're not playing the same game at all. Two hands of what appears to be solitaire, but then again does not, are arranged on the table and the witch and her brother are not looking at each other. The black wings of her hair frame her face. Her rings glitter in the candlelight. He fusses with his cufflinks, staring intently at the little fan of cards pinched between his fingers.
The witch's name is Clothilde, after her great great grandmother. Her brother's name is Bertrand, which is not a name that has appeared in their family before. The family voiced their disapproval of introducing a new name, but by then it was too late.
At last Clothilde wins her game and looks up at her brother. His hand hovers over a card—the Ace of Orchids lying atop the Chimera, which is wild. She can tell by the placement of the Hyacinth and Morel suits that he's been cheating. There are more Truffles on the table than there should be at this point in the game and he hasn't played the Manticore yet. She thinks it's silly that he cheats, but she doesn't think less of him for it. She loves her brother.
"I don't think she's going to last much longer, Bertrand.” the witch says. Her brother's brow furrows and he bites his lip, tiny sharp teeth breaking the skin just a little. His pointed pink tongue flicks out, pulling the dots of blood inside.
The witch and her brother raise mushrooms in long wooden boxes of manure deep in their basement. They have morels and shiitakes; oysters blue and golden, straw, wood ear, lobster, enoki, button, porcini, cremini, portobello, chanterelle, pom pom blanc, cinnamon cap, clam shell, nameko, hedgehog, black trumpet, matsutake, and red reishi for the kitchen.
In the long boxes of shit in the basement they also raise aminita, fly agaric, brain mushroom, false morel, death cap, destroying angel—stark white and utterly deadly, tricholomas, entolomas, gyropilus, laughing mushrooms, poison pie, russula, omphalotus, milk cap, liberty cap, inky cap, psilocybin, coprinus, ergot, earthballs, sulfur tuft, and philiotina for other purposes.
The heat and moisture must be regulated very carefully for some of these varieties are particularly delicate. Many of them require specific types of manure, elk or elephant, for example. The witch and her brother have it shipped to them from zoos all over the country. The neighbors used to complain about the smell but now there are no neighbors.
The witch and her brother keep pets. Clothilde has six cats: Linda, Alek, Erin, Heidi, Angela, and Naomi. Bertrand has a little dog: Nathaniel, and a raven: Shirley. One summer Shirley escaped from the house but came back after a week or so. Later she laid two eggs, which hatched. The fledglings were named Clive and Edgar. When they learned to fly, they left and were never heard from again. Shirley accused Erin and Naomi of eating them but the cats just ignored her.
Nathaniel sits in the sun and stares at dust motes. The cats slink around him, waiting for a moment when they can pounce on his tail and sink their teeth into it. His yelps fill them with a
deep satisfaction.
The witch and her brother used to play a game involving poison. They took turns, for years, poisoning each other. The only rules were 1) the poisons had to be slow, and 2) the antidote had to be unlikely but readily available. But on May sixteenth Bertrand was so excited about a new poison he'd found that he played out of turn. Rather, he was excited about the antidote. Anyway, he played out of turn. This wasn't exactly cheating, but it was rude.
He mixed two drops from the salivary gland of a rare toad found only under the roots of a baobab tree into the powdered shell of a beetle that exists only in the coal pits of northern Wales. This sapphire blue fluid mixed invisibly into Clothilde's milk. She drank it greedily after consuming two marzipan cookies with her afternoon tea.
"You cheating prick, it's not your turn,” she gurgled as black foam began to issue from her nostrils. Struggling to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head, she rose off the floor and chased him through the house with a lobster fork. His little dog ran after them, yapping frantically until the cats pinned him down and threatened to pop his eye with their claws. The witch finally cornered her brother against the grandfather clock and threatened him with the lobster fork until he tossed two baby aspirin onto the carpet below her feet.
"What's this?"
"It's the antidote, Clothilde, you bitch. Now take the fork out of my nose."
"Baby aspirin?"
"It's not the aspirin; it's the naphthalenesulfonic acid—in Yellow Dye #6—what makes them orange. Now put me down, you're hurting me."
She levitated the aspirins into her mouth, but didn't take the fork out of her brother's nose until the foam subsided and her eyes stayed in their proper places in their sockets.
After that, they never played the poison game again. And the witch didn't speak to Bertrand until he cooked her a special dinner. The witch hid in the attic with the bats and mice. She could hear her brother below her in the second bedroom, then tromping down to the kitchen, whistling to himself. So they're having meat for dinner, which they normally don't—they usually only have meat once or twice a year. Eventually the scents of hot oils, sweet mushrooms, and braising meat drew her down from the attic to the table.
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