Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe

by Cynthia Joyce Clay

  The well house had three sources of water. The first was a spring in the largest room of the well house. The spring watered the gardens and fed a large swimming pool in the main room. The Spring Room, as it was called, had couches and tables in abundance. It was the town lounge, said to be the most beautiful room in all Oasis. Behind the Spring Room and down a couple of steps, was The Pure Chamber, a room that held a deep well of sweet-tasting water, used for drinking, bathing and cleaning. There were tubs, bathtubs, shower stalls, and sinks in this room. There was also a huge cupboard of community glasses and pitchers. Beneath the Pure Chamber was a huge round cellar. This was the Artesian Kiva. At the far end of the Kiva, opposite to the adobe stairs was the artesian well. This room was used for religious ceremonies. The mineral water was used as the basis of most medicines. There were a few sunken tubs, where those who were ailing could sit in the healing waters. The dirtied water was piped to an underground cavern located beyond the gardens. Bacteria began the cleaning process, and then the water seeped beneath the portion of the garden that was always exposed to the sun's constant rays. The deep reaching roots of the plants drank up this water and nutrients the water contained. What was left of the water filtered through the ground into the Spring Room. Since the Spring Room water was used to water the screened plants, the water journeyed through the soil again before being tested for use in the Pure Chamber. The well house also had four rooms of gardening equipment. One of these rooms had changing booths and closets of white clothing. Everyone wore trousers, long-sleeved shirts, white shoes, white gloves, and white wide-brimmed hats when working in the garden. All of this was required garb, and only the person watering was allowed an exception. The waterer could forgo the hat and shoes. There was a small trench, about a foot wide and six inches deep, between the well house wall and the innermost garden.

  The first thing I had to do was to fill this with water, creating a small moat. The Spring Room pool was connected to the moat by a dam set in the building wall. The dam opened and closed like a window in the wall. While the moat filled, I sat with my bare feet in it and yawned. Watering had to be done early in the morning, otherwise the vegetation would be cooked by the sun steamed water. The moat filled, I walked along the narrow path to the pole in the garden, which had the switch for the sprinkling system. I sneezed at the sweet perfumes of the garden, braced myself, and flicked the switch. I was immediately drenched. This was why most people hated to water. I shivered for a moment. And this was only the first of three switches that released the water from the over-head reeds. After I had turned on all of the switches, I went over to the wall to get the hose coiled under a berry vine. I turned on the hose's faucet, blinking as water ran into my eyes. I then emerged from the sprinkling roofed section of the garden into the dawn-lit open portion. Although underground waters fed these plants, they still needed to be hosed. So I hosed, a fairly time-consuming task.

  A group of women came up the garden path. Most of them were about eighteen, nineteen years old. They were led by a woman in her fifties and three old crones. I set down the hose, and went to turn off the sprinkling system so they could enter the building without getting wet. The older woman was tall, and looked like she was made of wires. Unlike the girls who wore their hair braided in a coil like a crown round their heads, her hair flowed freely about her shoulders in thick wavy clumps. Although her face bore only a few lines, her hair was completely gray. She moved slowly and sedately in her voluminous chemise-like garment, as though she were balancing her head on her shoulders and any rushed movement might cause her head to roll right off her neck. Her hands she held aloft like little fluttering ornaments.

  "Today is the first day of these girls' rite of passage into womanhood," she said, as the girls followed the old ladies down into the Kiva. "Please, no men or children are to enter the well house until the water has dried from the paths." Her voice was quite arresting because it was high and sweet, belying her age with its youthful timber.

  I nodded, and turned the water system back on. No wonder the man who was supposed to help me had not shown up. With only one person watering, the women would have twice as long for their rite. I began to fill the perforated buckets set in the outer garden ground. I had filled four of them when I realized two small faces were peering at me from the other side of the vegetation.

  "Good morning!" I called.

  The two boys giggled. I had used the wrong dialect. "Will you let us in?" they called.

  "No," I said.

  "Ah, come on."

  "No."

  "Look, we'll give you this." One of the boys held up a

  soggy and bruised piece of fruit in his muddy little hand. "No thanks." I smiled at the bucket I was filling. "Hey, you little brats, get out of there!" It was the man

  who was supposed to help me water. The two boys fled in terror.

  "Soft wind," I said, this time using the correct salutation.

  The man stared at me balefully. I had only met with him once before, but he gave me the creeps.

  "They in there?" he jabbed his index finger towards the well

  house.

  I was glad I had the hose in my hands. "The women? Yes."

  "I was told not to water today."

  "They asked me not to let any children or men by." "I bet they did."

  I remained silent. He continued to stare at me balefully. "Women's rites. They make me sick," he said.

  "Men have theirs."

  "Not like this."

  "Yes--"

  "Not till we're old, real old. We don't learn to combat the desert until we are old."

  “Combat”; that word was alien to my Blue Dawn ears. Forest life does not "combat", it compliments. It balances.

  "You wish to combat the desert?"

  He clenched his hands into fists, "Yes!"

  "Do women combat the desert?"

  "No, they…they just walk into it."

  "And the old men?"

  "They can't walk, they just hobble."

  "Old men and girls, do you see a--"

  "You are trying to trick me. That is what old men and women always, always do! Anyone who has been out there! They laugh at me! You laugh at me! Well, I am going to listen to their rite! I am going to find out!"

  He clambered through the garden towards the well house and me.

  I raised the nozzle of the hose and put my thumb over the spout. The resulting forceful stream got him in the chest. He was furious and charged towards the door again. Frightened, I aimed the water at his face and called for help. He stopped advancing and ran away from the water, but again he lumbered towards the door. I blasted him in the face again, and screamed for help.

  Two men appeared and grabbed him. The women, I saw, had rushed to the doorway of the well house.

  "What is going on here?" demanded the older woman, her hands fluttering up to rest on the doorjamb. "Did he try to get in?"

  The man began to scream obscenities.

  "You two men," said the woman, "I leave him to you. He has tried to rob these girls of their womanhood. You men must decide what to do with him because you would have lost these girls as wives had he succeeded in invading their woman's rite."

  The man gave one last attempt at a struggle. I gave him another blast of water. This subdued him, and the two men led him away.

  Watching him go the woman said, "Sun blighted man, his mind has always shifted without reason, like the sands." She shook her head sadly, a minute movement which caused her gray hair to billow out.

  "What will happen to him?" I asked.

  "The Shaman will probably make medicine for him out of the moss that grows beside the Artesian well."

  "That will cure him?"

  "Yes, but if it doesn't, he will be exiled." With this, she and the group of girls disappeared into the well house.

  I finished the watering, and changed back into my own clothing. Before leaving the gardens, I sat on a beach in the middle garden in order to let the two suns dry my hair. The pi
ckers arrived and began their work. One young man, whose age I guessed to be about twenty-one years old (I still tended to think in years), brought me the basket of food that was my watering pay.

  "Here is your basket," he said, "the men have decided you will be paid five meals instead of three for keeping the crazy man from destroying the girls' womanhood. One of the girls, Essillem, is my fiancée. I wouldn't have been able to marry her if you hadn't protected the mystery. I would like you to keep the basket also. I made the basket, and am free to give it to you instead of giving it to the town."

  What was proper etiquette, I wondered. I decided a Blue Dawn Response would serve. "So honored even the leaves rustle with thanks."

  "A Priestess! So, the Forests wish for our marriage. Now our parents will stop trying to prevent our wedding!" Seeing my confusion, the young man explained, "Our parents do not want us to marry, so they delayed Essillem's passage into womanhood for a pregnancy. Here in Oasis we believe the Forests send the Holy Ones to shade Imenkapur from the sand winds of destruction. Our parents' hot tempers will be buffeted by this news."

  "What reason do they give for not wanting you to marry?"

  "They say we are too young."

  I cocked my head to the side. Most places that followed Forest rule had the custom of people marrying no younger than thirty pregnancies. The reason was to ensure that children would be reared by adults, not adolescents. "Perhaps they fear you will have a family right away."

  "A family right away? Essillem and I do not want to have children for seven pregnancies at least. We are working to reclaim more of the desert so the town's borders can be extended. We do not believe anyone should have more children here until that is accomplished. The town simply can not maintain too many more people without expansion."

  "You have said this to your parents?"

  "Why no, actually. We assumed they knew it from the work we do."

  I smiled, seeing that the fellow realized what he needed to do. He ran off, still in his white gardening clothes. I lugged the basket of just picked vegetables back to the single room I rented. I sat down on my bed and looked into the mirror above my tiled sink. In a few days, these girls who were going through the womanhood rite would be going out into the desert. The children and men were terrified of the desert, and yet the women and old men were not. What was going on?

  Once, on one of my first days here, I had seen a solitary old man returning from the desert and climb through one of the small town wall doors. Several other old doddering fellows awaited him and poked and cackled at him good-naturedly. The few white hairs the old guy had were wind blown, and he had the light pink of a slight burn on his very long nose.

  "Did you find the place?" a particularly stooped figure of wrinkles asked.

  "I sure did," replied the old guy from the desert.

  "Your son-in-law is having a fit," said another of the old geezers, who had hair growing out of his ears.

  All the old men gasped and gasped in an effort to laugh heartily. A scrawny old gent with huge ears said, "He's terrified that new baby boy of his is going to roast to a crisp in the heat of the sun." Then the big-eared old man laughed so hard that he had a huge fit of coughing. The coughing ended with a loud rumble of sinuses, and then he spat a vast, wet, yellow wad into the sand.

  "We'll distract him somehow when it's time for you to take the baby out to the desert to name it."

  The old geezers all nodded, wiped the laughter from their eyes, and hobbled towards the well house. I thought this conversation very strange because from what I had heard, there was good reason to be afraid of the desert. The desert was said to be totally barren. Nothing at all was able to live there. The sun shone so intensely hot it would sizzle your skin. The lightest breeze would lace you with ripping sand. The sand would burn through your shoes, and its brightness would blind your eyes. Tumbleweeds would pursue you, and if they caught you, would cover your body in bloody punctures with their poisoned nettles.

  I picked up the basket of food, carried it through the doorway, and down the hall to the kitchen the family I rented my room from let me share. I was going to find out for myself about this desert. As soon as I ate, I would go out there. About an hour later, I was threading my way through the narrow streets. Each house was surrounded by its sweet smelling garden, and on each roof grew green, gold, and red reeds. The people were a vital element in this desert ecosystem. Without the maintenance of the town wall and without the care for the town gardens and well house, this oasis would be covered in sand. I climbed up one of the staircases set in the town wall. At the apex of the stairs I stopped. The desert was spread out before me, ageless in its huge expanse. I carefully stepped down the stairs built into the outer side of the wall. The last step was onto the desert sand.

  I walked far out. It was hot. The town looked the size of the eye in a needle. Now I doubted the intelligence of this venture; I listened for sand-bearing winds. Oddly, a cool breeze came. Encouraged I strolled not allowing frightening thoughts to disturb me. The sun's brilliance was less sharp. The sand felt soft. I took off my clumpy boots and socks. The sand was cool on my toes. The breeze wrapped and unwrapped the soft golden sand neatly around my ankles as I stepped. My prints formed a collage of my wandering path. Tumbleweeds scattered from the dunes, tinkling faintly like music boxes as they turned by me. The sun hung low, ripe, and full.

  Ahead of me a mirage was forming. I had never seen one before. I wasn't close enough to make out what the mirage was. I hurried toward it, forgetful of how distant the town now was. The closer I drew to the mirage the more I felt incredulous of what I thought I was seeing. The mirage, completely detailed and shimmering like life in the melon air, was a human being---a young man. He was short, a bit shorter than I, with ringlets upon ringlets upon ringlets of very black hair. His eyes were huge, and set widely apart. The eyes, fringed with magnificently long black lashes, were so deeply brown they were almost black. The mouth, well shaped and well placed, was twisted in a teasing grin. He wore a pair of cutoffs and carried a guitar case. His chest was well muscled with just the right amount of sexy, black, curly hair.

  In my astonishment at finding so realistic a mirage, I placed my hand on the mirage's hand. It was just a mirage. I was drawing my hand away when I realized the image of the hand was moving with mine. Was I feeling a set of fingers? To my amazement, the mirage's hand drew out into the air, followed by its arm. The foot lifted to take a step. The whole mirage seemed to shift, and I realized the man had stepped out of the mirage.

  I stood with mouth agape as the young man set his guitar case in the sand with an operatic flourish. Then he proceeded to strut back and forth while bellowing in loud bass an aria. He turned and delivered, complete with operatic gestures, the final heartrending portion of the aria. He sang all of the words in the Opera Dialect backwards. My amazement suspended for a moment, I applauded his grand bow. Then I stared at him again. His legs were too short for his body, just enough to be funny without being ugly, and he was quite skinny. He stood with his head cocked to the side, his face serious, his eyes flashing with laughter, and every now and again his mouth twitched in its effort to suppress a grin.

  "Hi, my name is," he pointed at himself and mouthed the syllables carefully, "Artoin." He nodded seriously at me.

  I said to him, "I'm taking a walk, would you like to walk with me?"

  Artoin nodded, "There are some things I could show you."

  I gave him one of my warmest man-catching smiles. What was there to see besides sand? I laughed to myself.

  As we walked, Artoin told me that he was learning acupressure, and how to tell a person's personality and health from their face.

  "Everything in the face says something. The color of the eyes," he looked into my eyes very studiously, "their shape, the set of their face." He gently tapped the outer corner of my right eye. "Everything tells something. The nose, the lips..." His eyes slid down my nose to my lips.

  I found myself gazing at his lips.


  "The shape of the lips, their fullness, all of it, all of it tells."

  I was flirting with a mirage! Ahead of us, I thought I saw

  something tall against the horizon. "It's a tree!"

  Artoin smiled, "Yes, you wouldn't expect one here in the middle of the desert, would you?"

  "Is it a mirage?"

  "It's as real as I am."

  The tree was a very full, very lush weeping willow. Fitted like a sandal at the foot of the willow was a pool. I knelt and dipped my hands into the water. The water rippled in concentric circles, forming a mar in the otherwise perfect reflection of Artoin and myself. I looked at the willow, the pool, and Artoin. So, this was the secret of the desert.

  "The pool always reflects perfectly whatever overlooks it," said Artoin. I looked at the lovely reflected image of the tree's light-green leaves. "How can the tree exist here in the middle of the desert?"

  "The pool evaporates during day and the willow absorbs the moisture. At dusk, the pool is completely empty. Then the willow begins to weep, and the water falls back into the pool. At dawn, the pool is completely refilled so the pool is never stale, the willow never dry."

  We sat in the shade of the lonely willow and ate some of its delicious bark. I had some berries in my pocket, and we ate those, too. The pool held our image clearly, except when we disturbed its tranquil surface to get a drink. Somehow, I didn't expect Artoin to have a reflection. But, I giggled to myself; he's a mirage, not a vampire.

  Dusk came, and the pool was a dark empty basin. We moved away from the tree so we wouldn't get wet. The night sky opened above us.

  "What are you looking for in the sky?"

  I had been looking intently up at the infinity above me for an edge of the Milky Way. That would be the closest I could ever hope to see of Earth. "My home," I answered.

  "You are looking for an illusion. Why do that when you have a reality within your reach?" I turned over and went to sleep with Artoin's arm around my waist. Saemunsil rustled in my dreams.