But neither explanation dealt with the fact that they didn’t seem to speak or understand English.
I was thinking about this when the opening darkened and someone came in, a woman. She was black, not just brown but almost a true black, and tall, with coarse brown hair in a long braid that fell over one shoulder. She wore a colorless tunic that hung to her knees. I remembered that the men who had carried me wore the same thing. As she walked toward me, smiling, I saw she had sharp, pointed features, a long nose, a long face with a pointed chin. She was thin, but hard and muscular; I could see the shape of the muscles in her black arms and legs. She knelt down beside me. Her eyes were blue. “Do you speak English?” I asked.
She shook her head and smiled. Something fluttered on her shoulder beside the braid. It was a white butterfly. I pointed to it, and she nodded and smiled again.
Then I saw she held something in her hand. At first I thought it was a small cup. Then I saw it was made of leaves, folded and woven over one another to form a cup. She took another leaf, dipped it into the leaf cup, then held it to my mouth. It was a kind of warm gruel, like barley. I let her feed me, and when I finished eating, she held the leaf up as if offering it to me. I put it into my mouth and started chewing, and she smiled. She offered me the leaf cup too, and I ate that. She got up.
“Don’t go. Sit down here. Let’s get acquainted. I want to …” But she paid no attention to me. Giving a slight nod of her head to me, she crossed the floor to the opening and went out.
A few minutes later, the boy with golden hair came back, followed by a small yellow dog. He had a handful of wet leaves and he changed some of the ones on my cuts and scratches. Then he sat down on the floor a few feet away from me. The dog sat down next to him and fell asleep.
“You can’t speak English,” I said, just to be sure. He smiled at me and shrugged.
He stayed until late afternoon, when the glow coming through the opening between the wall mats turned red, then faded into gray. Then he left me. I was alone for several hours as it got dark.
Then he came back. He carried a bowl that looked as if it had been hollowed out from wood. He held it out to me, then reached toward his penis, holding the bowl up. I rolled over on my side and managed to piss into the bowl without spilling much. He picked up the bowl and left.
As soon as he was gone, a whole troop of them marched in, as though they had been waiting for me to finish. I recognized the black woman by her height and the way she moved. But there was not enough moonlight or starlight coming through the opening to make out the others. I counted eleven figures, one of them very small.
They filed in one by one, walking very erect, almost ceremoniously, as if in a formal procession. Each of them went to the wall and took one of the blankets that were hanging there. Two of them helped the little one wrap itself and lie down. Then each one did the same, lying down under the place where his or her blanket had hung, head near the wall, feet pointing toward the center of the tent, like the spokes of a wheel. Then they all murmured something; the sound whispered softly around me. It was the first word of their language I learned, and, as I was to know later, the most important.
“Nagdeo,” they said. “Nagdeo, nagdeo,” echoed softly until it died into the darkness and I heard only their breathing.
I sat up to try to get one more look at them, and as I squinted through the darkness I saw that I too had been placed as one of the twelve spokes of their wheel, with my feet pointing toward the center of the tent. I lay back and slept.
The pain in my leg woke me while it was still dark. I could see a few stars through an opening between the mats above my head. I watched the sky slowly fade. At the first graying of dawn they began to move.
The first was an old bald man, perhaps in his late fifties. His skin was brown and his legs spindly. But he looked vigorous and strong. I recognized him as one of the men who’d carried me out of the cave. He took off his blanket and hung it on one of the supports of the tent. By that time the black woman was up too.
“Nagdeo.”
“Nagdeo.”
The two of them stood facing each other. Then they reached their arms upward as if to pull something from the roof. Instead, they swung their arms outward to the side and stood that way for a few seconds. Then, slowly, in simultaneous motion, they brought their hands together prayer-fashion, in front of their chests.
As they stood that way, the bald man began to talk. I recognized his voice. It was the one that had chanted over me in the dark.
This time he did not chant. He seemed to be telling something, conversationally. But this was not a conversation. The black woman stood attentive, listening. His voice trailed on softly. As he spoke a black bird flew in between the mats on the sides of the tent. It flew straight to him and perched on his shoulder. After a while he stopped talking.
There was a slight pause before the black woman started. She spoke for only a few minutes, and he listened just as attentively and silently until she finished. Then they nodded at each other, dropped their hands to their sides, and walked out of the tent. I heard the soft splash of water outside. They were washing.
Gradually the others rose in the same way and went through the same ritual. There were a boy and girl in their teens who grinned at each other throughout the whole thing, and when they were finished kissed each other and held hands on the way out to wash up. The girl was the first I’d seen who looked distinctly Indian, with a broad face and thick coarse hair. But the boy looked almost Greek, like one of the old statues I’d seen in museums, except that his hair was kinky and red. The golden-haired boy went through the ritual with a child who couldn’t have been more than three, and who yawned and sucked its thumb the whole time. Then the child mumbled, and the boy listened as attentively as if he were hearing the most important thing that had ever been told him.
I watched a huge man get up. He must have been nearly seven feet tall and built thickly. His head was a mass of bushy black hair and his eyes were almost covered by bushy eyebrows. He made his little speech in a gutteral voice to a bony creature whose sex I couldn’t make out. He or she was so old as to be almost hairless, and so skinny that no body contours showed.
Another one, even older, mumbled to a woman with a white kitten perched on her shoulder. She was about the same age as the man with the black bird, the one who had chanted at me. He came back into the tent as she spoke. And, when she had finished, he took her hand and they left the tent together with the cat and the bird eyeing each other from the shoulders on which they rode.
Then a naked boy of about seven (at first I thought it was a girl because of the long hair, until he came close enough for me to see his sex) went through the whole thing with me, chattering as he stood with his hands clasped in front of me. When he was through he looked at me and waited. I shrugged and said, “I don’t speak your language.” He stood for a few seconds waiting. Then he dropped his hands, gave me a little nod, and walked away. I saw the bushy-haired man pat him on the head and smile.
Within a few minutes they were all gone. As soon as all were out, the golden-haired boy came back in to take care of my toilet needs. And then the black woman came in with a cup of water and a grass tray of fruit. This time she wore a black and orange butterfly.
Then they left me for the rest of the day. The seven year old boy came back several times and just stood there looking at me, then ran off. Once when he saw that I’d eaten all the food, he ran away and came back with the oldest one, who brought another tray of food. I suppose the seven year old had been assigned to keep an eye on me and let them know if I needed anything.
After a couple of weeks of this, I’d have climbed the walls, if I hadn’t been sure that I’d bring the whole tent down on me. I’d never been so completely bored. I’d never spent so much time alone. I started dragging myself around the tent. I dragged myself to the opening and looked out, but I couldn’t see anything but a low stone wall. Besides, I was naked except for the blanket, and that kept m
e from going far. I kept the blanket off most of the time because it was a little rough on my healing skin. It too, of course, was woven from grassy fibers.
The people in the tent seemed to take turns caring for me. Except for the early morning ritual, they didn’t talk much but they seemed to understand my needs. After I crawled to the doorway, the black woman brought me one of the tunics they wore. It was woven from a softer grass fiber. Actually it was a long strip with a hole in the center, which fit over the head. Then the tunic was wrapped around the body, front over back, and tied around the waist with a braided cord. I put that on, and in the morning, after they had all left the tent, I dragged myself to the doorway and sat there in the sun.
I could see the sky, some other dome-tents, and a series of low stone walls, about three feet high, with trees and ivy growing among them. People like the ones in my tent passed by on their way somewhere, occasionally hopping over the stone walls but more often walking along the paths between them and the tents. As these people passed they nodded to me and sometimes uttered the greeting, “Nagdeo,” but mostly they were silent.
At sunset there was a great stream of people passing before me. I decided that the whole village must pass by at that time, all going somewhere, probably to eat. There were always fruit and leaves lying around among shells and water pots perched on the low stone walls, but I never saw any adults eating. I assumed (correctly) that they must eat somewhere else and that the fruit was left there for children or anyone else who couldn’t wait until sundown for a meal.
I counted them several times as they passed by, and knew there must be fewer than one hundred and fifty including babies carried in arms. They all dressed alike and all walked alike: silent, erect and somehow tensed, as if listening to something. They reminded me of the look I’d seen on the faces of people who carry transistor radios around and listen to them all day long—that faraway, attentive look. The younger ones ran or skipped, but even they seemed occasionally to be skipping in time to music only they could hear.
Most of the people were of a racial blend I could not quite identify. They were of medium height and build and all, of course, sun-tan or brown. Their features formed a medium composite: eyes neither narrow nor round, noses neither flat nor pointed, lips neither full nor thin. Their hair varied from the lightest and finest to the darkest or coarsest.
But a large minority of them had startling combinations of physical traits, like the black woman with the nordic features and blue eyes, or the golden-haired boy with oriental eyes, like signs of recent interbreeding, or mutations, or throw-backs. I saw no sign that these extreme types were in any way noticed or thought of as different by the others.
Yet at first I completely missed these dramatic differences and thought of the people as looking all alike. I was used to superficial conventions of clothing, grooming and manner. I had become so blinded to people’s real faces and bodies that, when I watched these people walk by, I was often unsure even of their sex.
Since all wore their hair long and all wore the same shapeless, kneelength tunic, only beards and body contour were definite signs. Up to the age of sexual maturity the children were naked and long-hared and unless I made a special point of looking for a little penis, they were sexless to me, or all rather like little girls because of their long hair. The old people looked alike in their own way, as, without special clothes and make-up, old men and women do tend to look sexlessly alike, the women growing some facial hair, the men’s features softening, bodies getting skinny and shapeless.
But even in the middle age range I was occasionally confused beause of the total lack of sexual roles. The men waited on me as often as the women did, and on each other. The tent was cleaned out every few days, the fern branches shaken out, the floor tamped and brushed, but everyone helped with the work. I saw no difference of function, except the women obviously nursed the infants; but the men carried and cared for the small ones as much as the women did.
I made the mistake of thinking that there were many more babies and children than there actually were. Each time I saw a man or woman carrying a baby or holding the hand of a child, I connected the child with the adult. But gradually I began to recognize the little ones. There were not very many, and it was hard to tell who their parents were. They seemed to be passed from one to another. I learned finally who the mothers were, as the babies were passed back to the same women to be nursed. But I hardly noticed the babies anyway. They were inconspicuous because they were quiet. During the whole time I was there I never heard a baby cry, except for the first, aggrieved cry of birth.
Many of the people were accompanied by pet animals or birds. The black woman had a different colored butterfly riding on her shoulder every day and the bald man was seldom without the black bird perched as if sprouting from his shoulder. The white cat seemed to stare suspiciously at me over the shoulder of the woman who was always with him. The golden-haired boy had his yellow dog, which was always curling up to sleep. The bushy-haired giant was incongruously following by a bleating lamb. And one five or six year old girl made me a bit nervous every time she walked past with her six foot green snake circling her shoulders.
I don’t mean to give the impression that I was observing the people and learning about them at this stage. What I learned came to me in spite of myself, for I had nothing but the slightest curiosity about them.
I was far too absorbed in my own problems. All day I lay around watching my wounds heal, waiting for my bruises and my pains to fade, wiggling my leg tentatively as the grass stocking softened and disintegrated. If I sat alert in the opening of the tent, it was only because I expected at any time to see the local police come down the path to drive me back to town. I knew I had to get well and strong so as to get away, but I could not imagine where to go.
I devised plan after plan.
I would call my agent for some money and would take off for Mexico.
I would go back to face the mess, call my lawyer and maybe get off with probation or at most a couple of years in prison.
I would deny the whole thing, say I’d gone on a trip and Connie had been killed by a burglar. I would just call someone as soon as I got off the reservation and be surprised and grieved. I would call Connie’s number first of all. That was a clever touch. It might work.
It never occurred to me to think of staying there for any length of time. That’s why I made no attempt to learn the language and had little interest in the customs or the people. I had, I thought, enough to think about.
One night I had a strange dream. I was in a doctor’s office having my leg examined. The doctor was dressed in surgical clothes, mask and all. He took the grass cast off my leg, examined the leg, and then led me to an enormous and complicated piece of machinery. It loomed over me, threateningly. He told me to put my leg under it. I was afraid. Then he said that if I wanted my leg to heal more quickly I should submit it to the machine. Otherwise it would heal, of course, but very slowly. He seemed not to care one way or the other, but simply stood waiting for me to decide. Finally I put my leg straight out, under the huge mechanism. The doctor pulled a switch. The machine lit up—and then out of it came the chanting sound I’d heard in the cave. The sound continued for some minutes. Then it stopped and the doctor switched off the machine. “Stand up and walk,” he said. And I did.
The morning after that dream, it happened that the bald man who’d done the chanting chose to go through the ritual with me. I waited until he was through talking. Then as he let his arms fall to his sides, I pointed to my leg.
“How about it, old witch doctor?” I said. “Can you have me dancing by noon?”.
I caught a look in his eye that showed me he understood my tone if not my words. He turned away.
“Wait a minute. I’m serious.” He turned back. “I really am,” I said. I pointed to my leg again. “Anything that will get me on my feet sooner.”
He left and came back a few minutes later with a stick. He made motions as if to use it as a
crutch. I nodded and took the stick. “But is that the best you can do?” I guess my disappointment was evident.
He looked at me doubtfully for a moment, then (somewhat reluctantly, I thought) went outside and got the other people of our tent. They went down on their knees in a circle around me. The old man chanted for a minute, then reached forward and touched my leg. That was all. It was all over. Everyone got up, and two of the men—the big bushy-haired one and the boy I’d started to call goldy-locks—helped me to my feet. The bald man handed me the stick again and gave me an abrupt nod.
All day, while they were gone, I practiced hobbling around on the stick. That night they repeated the little chanting circle. I slept very deeply afterward and the next morning was able to pull myself up on the stick without any help. That day I hobbled around the paths outside the tent. By the time the circle gathered that night again, I was very eager. This time I closed my eyes and clasped my hands the way the others in the circle did, and concentrated on the chant.
When I woke up the next morning, I could stand without the stick.
And I went into complete panic. For now I had to do something. So long as I was hurt and sick, it was plausible that I should remain here without attempting to communicate with the nearest town. But as soon as I was on my feet there was no reason not to—unless I had reason to hide.
My disappearance must have been noted soon after Connie’s death. Sooner or later the wreckage of my car would be found. Sooner or later someone would come here from the nearest town and would notice me, or the authorities would routinely search the place. They often raided such communes first of all, expecting to find fugitives there. I was surprised no one had come yet. Maybe tomorrow someone would. Or the next day.
I had to move before they did. And I could not.
I understand now the state that I was in then. It was a part of all that I had made of myself. It was a part of my success.
And I was a success, in every way that I could wish. I was that rare man: a man who had gotten everything he wanted.
The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You Page 2