A few others stopped, but none for more than a question, a moment. They streamed on down the terraces, the sunlit paths beside the quiet pools, down towards the boathouses beyond the great tree. After a while they were all gone.
The sun had grown hot. It must be near noon. Metoy was whiter than ever, but he sat up, saying he could see single, most of the time.
“We should get into the shade, Gana,” Esdan said. “Metoy, can you get up?”
He staggered and shambled, but walked without help, and they got to the shade of a garden wall. Gana went off to look for water. Kamsa was carrying Rekam in her arms, close against her breast, sheltered from the sun. She had not spoken for a long time. When they had settled down she said, half questioning, looking around dully, “We are all alone here.”
“There’ll be others stayed. In the compounds,” Metoy said. “They’ll turn up.”
Gana came back; she had no vessel to carry water in, but had soaked her scarf, and laid the cold wet cloth on Metoy’s head. He shuddered. “You can walk better, then we can go to the house-compound, cutfree,” she said. “Places we can live in, there.”
“House-compound is where I grew up, grandmother,” he said.
And presently, when he said he could walk, they made their halt and lame way down a road which Esdan vaguely remembered, the road to the crouchcage. It seemed a long road. They came to the high compound wall and the gate standing open.
Esdan turned to look back at the ruins of the great house for a moment. Gana stopped beside him.
“Rekam died,” she said under her breath.
He caught his breath. “When?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. She wants to hold him. She’s done with holding him, then she will let him go.” She looked in the open gateway at the rows of huts and longhouses, the dried-up garden patches, the dusty ground. “Lotsalot little babies are in there,” she said. “In that ground. Two of my own. Her sisters.” She went in, following Kamsa. Esdan stood a while longer in the gateway, and then he went in to do what there was for him to do: dig a grave for the child, and wait with the others for the Liberation.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE WORLD
Tazu was having a tantrum, because he was three. After the birthday of the world, tomorrow, he would be four and would not have tantrums.
He had left off screaming and kicking and was turning blue from holding his breath. He lay on the ground stiff as a corpse, but when Haghag stepped over him as if he wasn’t there, he tried to bite her foot.
“This is an animal or a baby,” Haghag said, “not a person.” She glanced may-I-speak-to-you and I glanced yes. “Which does God’s daughter think it is,” she asked, “an animal or a baby?”
“An animal. Babies suck, animals bite,” I said. All the servants of God laughed and tittered, except the new barbarian, Ruaway, who never smiled. Haghag said, “God’s daughter must be right. Maybe somebody ought to put the animal outside. An animal shouldn’t be in the holy house.”
“I’m not an aminal!” Tazu screamed, getting up, his fists clenched and his eyes as red as rubies. “I’m God’s son!”
“Maybe,” Haghad said, looking him over. “This doesn’t look so much like an animal now. Do you think this might be God’s son?” she asked the holy women and men, and they all nodded their bodies, except the wild one, who stared and said nothing.
“I am, I am God’s son!” Tazu shouted. “Not a baby! Arzi is the baby!” Then he burst into tears and ran to me, and I hugged him and began crying because he was crying. We cried till Haghag took us both on her lap and said it was time to stop crying, because God Herself was coming. So we stopped, and the bodyservants wiped the tears and snot from our faces and combed our hair, and Lady Clouds brought our gold hats, which we put on to see God Herself.
She came with her mother, who used to be God Herself a long time ago, and the new baby, Arzi, on a big pillow carried by the idiot. The idiot was a son of God too. There were seven of us: Omimo, who was fourteen and had gone to live with the army, then the idiot, who was twelve, and had a big round head and small eyes and liked to play with Tazu and the baby, then Goïz, and another Goïz, who were called that because they had died and were in the ash-house where they ate spirit food, then me and Tazu, who would get married and be God, and then Babam Arzi, Lord Seven. I was important because I was the only daughter of God. If Tazu died I could marry Arzi, but if I died everything would be bad and difficult, Haghag said. They would have to act as if Lady Clouds’ daughter Lady Sweetness was God’s daughter and marry her to Tazu, but the world would know the difference. So my mother greeted me first, and Tazu second. We knelt and clasped our hands and touched our foreheads to our thumbs. Then we stood up, and God asked me what I had learned that day.
I told her what words I had learned to read and write.
“Very good,” God said. “And what have you to ask, daughter?”
“I have nothing to ask, I thank you, Lady Mother,” I said. Then I remembered I did have a question, but it was too late.
“And you, Tazu? What have you learned this day?”
“I tried to bite Haghag.”
“Did you learn that was a good thing to do, or a bad thing?”
“Bad,” Tazu said, but he smiled, and so did God, and Haghag laughed.
“And what have you to ask, son?”
“Can I have a new bath maid because Kig washes my head too hard?”
“If you have a new bath maid where will Kig go?”
“Away.”
“This is her house. What if you asked Kig to wash your head more gently?”
Tazu looked unhappy, but God said, “Ask her, son.” Tazu mumbled something to Kig, who dropped on her knees and thumbed her forehead. But she grinned the whole time. Her fearlessness made me envious. I whispered to Haghag, “If I forgot a question to ask can I ask if I can ask it?”
“Maybe,” said Haghag, and thumbed her forehead to God for permission to speak, and when God nodded, Haghag said, “The daughter of God asks if she may ask a question.”
“Better to do a thing at the time for doing it,” God said, “but you may ask, daughter.”
I rushed into the question, forgetting to thank her. “I wanted to know why I can’t marry Tazu and Omimo both, because they’re both my brothers.”
Everybody looked at God, and seeing her smile a little, they all laughed, some of them loudly. My ears burned and my heart thumped.
“Do you want to marry all your brothers, child?”
“No, only Tazu and Omimo.”
“Is Tazu not enough?”
Again they all laughed, especially the men. I saw Ruaway staring at us as if she thought we were all crazy.
“Yes, Lady Mother, but Omimo is older and bigger.”
Now the laughter was even louder, but I had stopped caring, since God was not displeased. She looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Understand, my daughter. Our eldest son will be a soldier. That’s his road. He’ll serve God, fighting barbarians and rebels. The day he was born, a tidal wave destroyed the towns of the outer coast. So his name is Babam Omimo, Lord Drowning. Disaster serves God, but is not God.”
I knew that was the end of the answer, and thumbed my forehead. I kept thinking about it after God left. It explained many things. All the same, even if he had been born with a bad omen, Omimo was handsome, and nearly a man, and Tazu was a baby that had tantrums. I was glad it would be a long time till we were married.
I remember that birthday because of the question I asked. I remember another birthday because of Ruaway. It must have been a year or two later. I ran into the water room to piss and saw her hunched up next to the water tank, almost hidden.
“What are you doing there?” I said, loud and hard, because I was startled. Ruaway shrank and said nothing. I saw her clothes were torn and there was blood dried in her hair.
“You tore your clothes,” I said.
When she didn’t answer, I lost patience and shouted, “Answer me! Why don’t
you talk?”
“Have mercy,” Ruaway whispered so low I had to guess what she said.
“You talk all wrong when you do talk. What’s wrong with you? Are they animals where you come from? You talk like an animal, brr-grr, grr-gra! Are you an idiot?”
When Ruaway said nothing, I pushed her with my foot. She looked up then and I saw not fear but killing in her eyes. That made me like her better. I hated people who were afraid of me. “Talk!” I said. “Nobody can hurt you. God the Father put his penis in you when he was conquering your country, so you’re a holy woman. Lady Clouds told me. So what are you hiding for?”
Ruaway showed her teeth and said, “Can hurt me.” She showed me places on her head where there was dried blood and fresh blood. Her arms were darkened with bruises.
“Who hurt you?”
“Holy women,” she said with a snarl.
“Kig? Omery? Lady Sweetness?”
She nodded her body at each name.
“They’re shit,” I said. “I’ll tell God Herself.”
“No tell,” Ruaway whispered. “Poison.”
I thought about it and understood. The girls hurt her because she was a stranger, powerless. But if she got them in trouble they would cripple or kill her. Most of the barbarian holy women in our house were lame, or blind, or had had root-poison put in their food so that their skin was scabbed with purplish sores.
“Why don’t you talk right, Ruaway?”
She said nothing.
“You still don’t know how to talk?”
She looked up at me and suddenly said a whole long speech I did not understand. “How I talk,” she said at the end, still looking at me, right in the eyes. That was nice; I liked it. Mostly I saw only eyelids. Ruaway’s eyes were clear and beautiful, though her face was dirty and blood-smeared.
“But it doesn’t mean anything,” I said.
“Not here.”
“Where does it mean anything?”
Ruaway said some more gra-gra and then said, “My people.”
“Your people are Teghs. They fight God and get beaten.”
“Maybe,” Ruaway said, sounding like Haghag. Her eyes looked into mine again, without killing in them but without fear. Nobody looked at me, except Haghag and Tazu and of course God. Everybody else put their forehead on their thumbs so I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. I wanted to keep Ruaway with me, but if I favored her, Kig and the others would torment and hurt her. I remembered that when Lord Festival began sleeping with Lady Pin, the men who had insulted Lady Pin became oily and sugary with her and the bodymaids stopped stealing her earrings. I said, “Sleep with me tonight,” to Ruaway.
She looked stupid.
“But wash first,” I said.
She still looked stupid.
“I don’t have a penis!” I said, impatient with her. “If we sleep together Kig will be afraid to touch you.”
After a while Ruaway reached out and took my hand and put her forehead against the back of it. It was like thumbing the forehead only it took two people to do it. I liked that. Ruaway’s hand was warm, and I could feel the feather of her eyelashes on my hand.
“Tonight,” I said. “You understand?” I had understood that Ruaway didn’t always understand. Ruaway nodded her body, and I ran off.
I knew nobody could stop me from doing anything, being God’s only daughter, but there was nothing I could do except what I was supposed to do, because everybody in the house of God knew everything I did. If sleeping with Ruaway was a thing I wasn’t supposed to do, I couldn’t do it. Haghag would tell me. I went to her and asked her.
Haghag scowled. “Why do you want that woman in your bed? She’s a dirty barbarian. She has lice. She can’t even talk.”
Haghag was saying yes. She was jealous. I came and stroked her hand and said, “When I’m God I’ll give you a room full of gold and jewels and dragon crests.”
“You are my gold and jewels, little holy daughter,” Haghag said.
Haghag was only a common person, but all the holy men and women in God’s house, relatives of God or people touched by God, had to do what Haghag said. The nurse of God’s children was always a common person, chosen by God Herself. Haghag had been chosen to be Omimo’s nurse when her own children were grown up, so when I first remember her she was quite old. She was always the same, with strong hands and a soft voice, saying, “Maybe.” She liked to laugh and eat. We were in her heart, and she was in mine. I thought I was her favorite, but when I told her so she said, “After Didi.” Didi is what the idiot called himself. I asked her why he was deepest in her heart and she said, “Because he’s foolish. And you because you’re wise,” she said, laughing at me because I was jealous of Lord Idiot.
So now I said, “You fill my heart,” and she, knowing it, said hmph.
I think I was eight that year. Ruaway had been thirteen when God the Father put his penis into her after killing her father and mother in the war with her people. That made her sacred, so she had to come live in God’s house. If she had conceived, the priests would have strangled her after she had the baby, and the baby would have been nursed by a common woman for two years and then brought back to God’s house and trained to be a holy woman, a servant of God. Most of the bodyservants were God’s bastards. Such people were holy, but had no title. Lords and ladies were God’s relations, descendants of the ancestors of God. God’s children were called lord and lady too, except the two who were betrothed. We were just called Tazu and Ze until we became God. My name is what the divine mother is called, the name of the sacred plant that feeds the people of God. Tazu means “great root,” because when he was being born our father drinking smoke in the childbirth rituals saw a big tree blown over by a storm, and its roots held thousands of jewels in their fingers.
When God saw things in the shrine or in sleep, with the eyes in the back of their head, they told the dream priests. The priests would ponder these sights and say whether the oracle foretold what would happen or told what should be done or not done. But never had the priests seen the same things God saw, together with God, until the birthday of the world that made me fourteen years old and Tazu eleven.
Now, in these years, when the sun stands still over Mount Kanaghadwa people still call it the birthday of the world and count themselves a year older, but they no longer know and do all the rituals and ceremonies, the dances and songs, the blessings; and there is no feasting in the streets, now.
All my life used to be rituals, ceremonies, dances, songs, blessings, lessons, feasts, and rules. I knew and I know now on which day of God’s year the first perfect ear of ze is to be brought by an angel from the ancient field up by Wadana where God set the first seed of the ze. I knew and know whose hand is to thresh it, and whose hand is to grind the grain, and whose lips are to taste the meal, at what hour, in what room of the house of God, with what priests officiating. There were a thousand rules, but they only seem complicated when I write them here. We knew them and followed them and only thought about them when we were learning them or when they were broken.
I had slept all these years with Ruaway in my bed. She was warm and comfortable. When she began to sleep with me I stopped having bad sights at night as I used to do, seeing huge white clouds whirling in the dark, and toothed mouths of animals, and strange faces that came and changed themselves. When Kig and the other ill-natured holy people saw Ruaway stay in my bedroom with me every night, they dared not lay a finger or a breath on her. Nobody was allowed to touch me except my family and Haghag and the bodyservants, unless I told them to. And after I was ten, the punishment for touching me was death. All the rules had their uses.
The feast after the birthday of the world used to go on for four days and nights. All the storehouses were open and people could take what they needed. The servants of God served out food and beer in the streets and squares of the city of God and every town and village of God’s country, and common people and holy people ate together. The lords and ladies and God’s sons went down i
nto the streets to join the feast; only God and I did not. God came out on the balcony of the house to hear the histories and see the dances, and I came with them. Singing and dancing priests entertained everyone in the Glittering Square, and drumming priests, and story priests, and history priests. Priests were common people, but what they did was holy.
But before the feast, there were many days of rituals, and on the day itself, as the sun stopped above the right shoulder of Kanaghadwa, God Himself danced the Dance that Turns, to bring the year back round.
He wore a gold belt and the gold sun mask, and danced in front of our house on the Glittering Square, which is paved with stones full of mica that flash and sparkle in the sunlight. We children were on the long south balcony to see God dance.
Just as the dance was ending a cloud came across the sun as it stood still over the right shoulder of the mountain, one cloud in the clear blue summer sky. Everybody looked up as the light dimmed. The glittering died out of the stones. All the people in the city made a sound, “Oh,” drawing breath. God Himself did not look up, but his step faltered.
He made the last turns of the dance and went into the ash house, where all the Goïz are in the walls, with the bowls where their food is burned in front of each of them, full of ashes.
There the dream priests were waiting for him, and God Herself had lighted the herbs to make the smoke to drink. The oracle of the birthday was the most important one of the year. Everybody waited in the squares and streets and on the balconies for the priests to come out and tell what God Himself had seen over his shoulder and interpret it to guide us in the new year. After that the feasting would begin.
Usually it took till evening or night for the smoke to bring the seeing and for God to tell it to the priests and for them to interpret it and tell us. People were settling down to wait indoors or in shady places, for when the cloud had passed it became very hot. Tazu and Arzi and the idiot and I stayed out on the long balcony with Haghag and some of the lords and ladies, and Omimo, who had come back from the army for the birthday.
The Birthday of the World and Other Stories Page 23