The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You

by Dorothy Bryant

  But she shook her head. “No need to worry about fertile times now.”

  “Menopause? No, you’re still having periods.”

  “But I will not conceive.”

  She dismissed my questions, but I came to realize that she had attained some further, more advanced control over her body and asked her.

  “It is nothing,” she said. “Like holding your breath for a few seconds. Now I need never refuse you.”

  In the afternoons while I wrote, Augustine usually went back to the fields again. I cautioned her against too much heavy work, but then I felt foolish: she would work no more and no less than her dreams told her to. And nothing she did seemed to be work. Everything was a dance. Whether she walked or wove, fed people from the pots or dug in the ground, all her movements were such acts of grace that I often stopped whatever I was doing just to watch her. I was not the only one. There were always people around her, as if she gave out a glow in which kin would warm themselves.

  As the days went on, I began to understand why the daily language of Ata lacked tense. There were times for doing certain things: times for planting, for dreaming, for eating, for telling dreams. There were times, but no time.

  “Time doesn’t exist here,” I told Augustine.

  “There is only now,” she agreed.

  “It’s because nothing changes.”

  “Change comes, but very slow and very sudden,” she said.

  “You contradict yourself.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  During the harvest time of that year we celebrated a wedding, the first of few that I saw on Ata. I have said before that marriage as we know it did not exist. The children were usually born to the very young, out of promiscuous relations, in which few fathers could be surely identified. The adults were serially (and often bi-sexually) monogomous, and the very old, sexless, belonging to the whole population, like children again.

  Occasionally, however, a couple stayed together year after year, without pledges or promises, without compulsion. A relation of this sort was neither required nor even hoped for, but a couple who remained together for many, many years was felt to be a great asset to everyone. As it was explained to me, such a couple was thought to have combined into something greater than the sum of their two parts. They often (but not exclusively) dreamed together, and their dreams were considered to be very strong. In general such a couple came very gradually to be viewed with the delight that most societies reserve for small babies—as a precious gift. And sometimes a ceremony honoring their relationship was held: a wedding.

  Salvatore and Aya had been together, I was told, since adolescence, when they had two children. In their fifties they were still active sexually. In fact, during the long winter fast they woke together from time to time to make love unashamedly in the warmth of our ka, something I could never quite let myself do, though sometimes in the winter I wanted Augustine. They worked together at most things, yet never seemed to exclude anyone else because of the closeness of their relationship. Sbgai put it very well when he said, “Having four arms instead of two, they can include more people in their embrace.”

  The wedding was exactly what I might have expected. They started in separate hol-kas where each spent the night. At dawn they came out, were covered with flowers by a group of children, then started to walk the spiral path, hand in hand, inward. As they passed each ka, the people came out, then fell in behind them and followed them to the Life Tree where a brief dance was done. Then all went into the la-ka where the couple stood together near the fire pit while the entire population sang the marriage song.

  At the end of the singing, there was more dancing and celebrating, until dark. Then one by one, the people embraced the couple and went out until they were left alone to spend the night in the la-ka, a privilege never taken except by those who had just given birth.

  I was greatly moved by the ceremony, and as we walked back to our ka I held Augustine’s hand and said, “Perhaps one day you and I will have such a wedding.” She did not answer me, and I felt that I had been clumsy. “I don’t mean to imply that I could earn such an honor. Look, I’m just trying to tell you I love you; I know I’ll always love you. I’m stupid and clumsy about the way I do it, but that’s because I’m new at it—at loving. And I like saying it, however awkwardly. I like loving you. I can’t imagine living without you.”

  To my surprise there were tears in her eyes as she turned to look into my face.

  “What is it? What did I say wrong?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. Only do not hope for a wedding.”

  “Of course, if you don’t want …”

  But at that, the tears streamed so steadily down her face that I did not want to upset her by saying anymore.

  There were several christenings too that fall. This was a ritual performed when a person had dreamed his name.

  He told the dream in the la-ka that night, then was formally introduced to all the people. As he walked among them, they each pronounced his name and touched his forehead.

  I was amused when the girl in our ka went through the naming ceremony and was christened Herbert.

  “But where do the names come from? I mean, I know they come out of dreams, but … Herbert?”

  Sbgai smiled. “Or a name like mine,” he said, “a name like a sneeze.”

  “I think,” said Chil-sing, “that we hear the name of someone out there,” he pointed to the ocean, “someone who wants to reach us, someone who feels close.”

  “It is not that simple,” said Salvatore. “There are many reasons for names.” That was the closest thing to an argument I ever saw between adults on Ata. And it was ended when both Sbgai and Chil-sing quickly nodded.

  By the time winter came I had finished the main outlines of the history of Ata (essentially the story I recorded earlier). I left space on all the skins to add details, variations, even contradictions. Each year I intended to add refinements I would pick up during the spring ceremonies.

  During the winter I emerged from sleep every few days to do necessary repairs or get food, but otherwise I was as good a hibernator as any of the children. Whenever I awoke, I saw Augustine in her trance, sitting up, quite warm, with a slight smile on her face. I liked to look at her as I dozed off again.

  When spring came I began to see that my original idea of the work must be expanded. And it must have order. There was no sense in simply setting down any tale that was brought to me. I had to find categories for them.

  I made rough divisions of dream stories. At the top were the historical chronicles, which seemed, generally, to be the most stable and permanent. Then there were what I called Great Dreams, the stories which were repeated on important days, like the ceremony of lights. Then there were Sabbath Dreams, which were more important than ordinary dreams but were not yet accompanied by much music or ceremony. Then there were the fairy tales, as I called them, amusing dreams or stories often told to the children, and sometimes told as allegories to teach some lesson on how to be a strong dreamer. Then there were the winter tales, those prepared conglomerates of each person’s store of the year’s dreams, then the weekday dreams, often made up of things from winter tales.

  The daily dreams that each person told every morning never got to me unless they were repeated. Often they were not, though they were always acted upon, and I began to feel very uneasy about missing the vast category of what might be called pragmatic dreams—like where to plant the potatoes this year, or go to the hol-ka to get rid of impatience with the bleating of Sbgai’s newest lamb.

  The only trouble with my categories was that they kept overlapping or breaking down into new divisions. But I tried not to let that bother me. I felt I must simply get on with the work, trying to complete the Chronicles, Great Dreams and Sabbath Dreams, at least, during my lifetime. If I could do more than that, fine. If not, perhaps someone else would carry through the work I had mapped out.

  Some of the children had begun to be curious. I stopped working in the f
ields and spent time teaching the children to read and write. I soon had quite a large team of young scribes who, however, lost interest after an hour or two each day. I tried to enlist the help of the old, who did little work in the fields and knew the stories better than anyone. But while they would help if asked, they never volunteered and showed no interest in learning to understand the writing. The young adults and middle-aged politely refused to have anything to do with the work, and I assumed that they felt someone had to do the field work. I agreed with them. After all, we could not all stop work to do this.

  Augustine worked in the fields in the morning and met me for our usual noon interlude. But in the afternoon she disappeared completely. I discovered she spent most of the afternoon in a hol-ka.

  “Is something troubling you?” I asked her. “Do you feel ill?”

  She shook her head and smiled so that I would not be concerned. She did not speak much, but then she never had.

  I went on with my work, and the seasons passed. The seasons passed and the work grew. The more I did, the more I saw to do.

  After the next winter fast, Augustine moved out of our ka. At first I was upset, but she explained, with tears in her eyes, that she had dreamed many times that she must leave the ka, was stuck in that dream and could dream no further. She feared disobeying it any longer. “But our time at the river will continue,” she said.

  I got used to this arrangement more easily than I expected. After all, at night we slept. I missed seeing her first thing in the morning, but I looked forward to every noon. And in our grove, nothing changed. It only got better.

  Augustine’s move had no effect at all, that I could see, on our daughter, who behaved as if every adult were her parent and every child her brother or sister. She was extraordinarily bright. She could already read the skins and often stood watching me write.

  I noticed that Augustine did not stay long in the ka she had moved to. Her dreams seemed to dictate that she stay only a few weeks and then move on. “Eventually you will work your way back to us,” I said. She no longer went to the hol-kas at all, and I never saw her enter one again. In the afternoons she sat, in various places, seemingly at random, as still as if she were in her winter trance. Yet she still managed to get more work done than anyone else, and was always available if someone wanted her.

  The scope of my work grew, as did the number of categories: history, customs, ceremonies, allegories, fairy tales, songs, health practices, agricultural methods, bodily disciplines, etc., etc. I could see no end to the work, and I was happy. I could hardly wait to get to Augustine at noon to tell her about a new part of it I had projected for someone, sometime in the future, to do.

  In addition to directing more and more of the planting, Augustine was beginning to do healing. Instead of going to a hol-ka when feeling out of sorts, or after an accident, people went to Augustine, who touched them briefly, almost apologetically, as if she were embarrassed. I saw one child whose foot had been cut by a bone tool. A few minutes after Augustine touched her, the wound was closed and there was hardly a mark to show where it had been.

  But after that time Augustine refused to do any healing. It was quite definitely donagdeo, she insisted.

  “Why?”

  “Each must heal himself.”

  “But when I came here you all healed me.”

  “That was different.”

  But she more than startled me at the next ceremony of lights. When Augustine reached the Life Tree and stood looking at the children dancing round it, the branches of the tree suddenly burst into flame. It was not my delusion; everyone saw it. The tree blazed for a moment; then the flames sputtered out. Augustine looked as surprised as the rest of us. But we all turned to look at her, all feeling that somehow she had caused it. She hung her head and looked embarrassed again, and, of course, everyone but me turned aside and pretended nothing had happened.

  “Did you do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “I don’t know. Please let us not speak of it. It is unimportant. It is nothing.”

  “Nothing! I think it’s pretty impressive.”

  “No, no. Whatever it is, it means nothing, nothing at all, like a trick. It is more fun for the children to be lifted up to light the tree anyway.”

  “You thought of it alight, and it lit up.”

  “Anyone can do that; it is nothing.”

  I saw my work broadening again to include feats like this one. Of course, the others had done things like this too, though not so dramatic: the taming of animals, the hypnotic disappearance of the island. I hadn’t thought much about those things, but I realized now that if I were sensitive to them, I would probably notice more. I promised myself that in the spring I would set a group of children to observing and recording such phenomena.

  I almost lost my helpers when I did this. They considered the work so boring that few would spend more than a few minutes on it. They were far more interested in recording dream material. So I set aside such work for a later time, when, as Chil-sing assured me, some dream would send a willing worker to me.

  I had never been so happy in my life. As we were storing the seventh harvest since my arrival, I put my arms around Augustine and said, “If anyone had ever told me that happiness was monogamy, primitive living conditions, and absorption in a work too vast to be completed, I would have laughed.” I did laugh, but with joy, for Augustine had come back to our ka to spend the winter. I felt sure she was back for good.

  Five

  My hibernation was fretful and restless. I still did not dream, but I had a sense of dreams taking place behind some kind of veil. Each time I woke, I saw Augustine in her trance. I don’t think she slept at all during that whole winter. She became very thin, and I could hardly get her to take any food at all. I spent a great deal of time awake trying to feed her, and, when I slept, I tossed and strained to see things I could not quite make out.

  But spring came early and gloriously, the first day with dazzling brilliance and a great burst of grass and blossoms. I wakened Augustine from her trance and helped her up, taking her hand and leading her outside.

  People were coming by on their way to the la-ka. They all stopped for a smile from Augustine, and were especially happy after passing her. I don’t think I had ever seen such a joyous spring on Ata. Everything glowed. Even the sun seemed new, brighter than I had ever seen it.

  After the others had passed, we followed, and soon we were all in the la-ka, sitting on the still slightly damp steps with the sun streaming over us as the mats torn from the roof blazed in the fire below.

  The oldest one knelt before the fire supported by the children as we all quieted down.

  “Has any kin been chosen?” Silence.

  “Has any kin been chosen?” I waited for the third repetition of the phrase, eager to celebrate the beginning of what would be such an exciting year. I squeezed Augustine’s hand.

  “Has any kin been chosen?”

  Augustine released my hand and stood up. I grabbed her hand and tried to pull her down. A great moan swept over the la-ka. Augustine said nothing. She simply stood there looking into the fire. “No,” I said. “What is this?” My words were drowned out by the moaning, which broke into sobs. People began to sway uncontrollably. Augustine moved. I tried to grab her, but Salvatore stopped me. Tears ran down his face as he shook his head at me. Augustine walked down the steps to the fire and stood in front of it.

  The moaning gradually died down, and the people fell into silence. All went forward onto their knees. Augustine stood very still saying nothing. The silence deepened. There was finally no sound at all, not a rustle of wind, not a crackle from the fire, not the sound of a bird, not even the buzz of a fly. No one breathed. It was so still that I swear I could hear the rays of sunlight pouring over Augustine. Then that sound stopped. For an instant all was as still as if the universe had stopped.

  In that instant Augustine walked into the fire.


  I screamed, leaped and fell down the steps, and would have thrown myself in after her, but Chil-sing grabbed me. He was stronger than I now and easily held me.

  “Please, you will be hurt.”

  I went on screaming, I guess. I don’t remember much except that people were holding me, people who were weeping. I cursed them, I called them savages, I screamed, and sometimes I just panted. I wanted to die. I learned later that three of the old ones died when Augustine walked into the fire.

  I awoke in a hol-ka where I lay trying not to think, hoping it had all been a nightmare. I smelled herb broth, felt around, found a shell full of it. I thought of spilling it on the ground and dying there in the hol-ka. But I didn’t. I grabbed it and drank it down, coughing and groaning my anger. My rage would keep me alive. I crawled out of the hol-ka and walked back to the la-ka in the dark.

  Everyone was still there, of course, and Salvatore was seated on mats near the fire, talking.

  “Savages!” I cried as I staggered in. “Despite everything you’re still savages. Human sacrifices. Is there anything more inhuman? Your animals don’t even do that. You killed her, as surely as if you’d pushed her in. The best of you, and you killed her. Under this veneer of dreams and gentleness, you’re keeping cruelty and savagery, ready to leap out on your best.”

  No one bothered to look at me. They all sat like crumpled rag dolls, with their heads hanging, tears falling. They ignored me as one ignores the extravagant but sincere mourner. I looked all around, and I could see nothing but grief. I had never seen these people give way to such misery. It was real, as real as mine, and I could say nothing more against them. I sat down, hung my head like the rest, and cried.

  Salvatore went on talking. He was speaking words of a ritual I had never heard before. It was not like the funeral rituals I had witnessed. They were brief, almost casual, and actually joyful, since to these people death meant only release into their dreams. This was more like a funeral, a funeral for a person who’d gone to hell.