I wipe the tears off Tawai’s cheeks. “We will go for a short walk with Maya—so you can see a little more of this place. But only a very short walk.”
Tawai cheers up at once, but Maya sucks in her plump cheeks, making her round face look almost long. “Not good, Uido,” she says.
“I know you will keep us safe,” I say to Maya. “That is why I agreed to my brother’s wish.”
“I try.” Maya’s tone sounds angry. “I can only help little. Better we go to my uncle’s home soon.”
We follow Maya out of the room and through the healing hut, walking and turning through many rooms until I feel dizzy. But my little brother delights in everything—the hard floors that tire my feet and make them wish for moist earth, the still air that makes me long for a sea breeze. Every time Maya stops to speak to people, Tawai pulls at her hand, wanting to know whatever she says, reaching for everything she touches.
I avoid looking at Maya, worried that maybe she is right about looking around for even a little while. But it is too late now to change my decision.
32
Outside, the touch of the breeze around my legs and arms feels wonderful. I wish I could take off the dress and let the wind stroke my entire body. The sky looks gray here, but still, it rests my eyes just to see the clouds blowing overhead.
I almost scream when something comes at us, rumbling like thunder. It looks like a box-shaped animal with two huge, bright eyes.
“What is that?” Tawai breaks away from us and runs toward it. I race after him, Maya at my heels. We pull him back just as the thing stops with a high-pitched squeal.
“We call it ‘car,’” Maya says. “Careful. Must not go near car.”
As the car continues past us, I see that it is a kind of land boat. A man is sitting inside it, and some sort of magic is making it move. It leaves behind a gray cloud with a bitter taste that makes my throat itch. But the car delights Tawai. “Everything is better on this island,” he says. “You have so many magical things!”
At Tawai’s words, Maya’s body stiffens. She leads us along a hard black path. Strangers point at us and whisper to each other as we go by.
Near a small, flat-roofed hut by the side of the path, we see a little child drinking something orange out of a see-through pitcher.
“I want to taste that, Maya, please,” Tawai says.
Maya nods, disappears inside the hut and returns holding a pitcher full of bubbling orange water.
Tawai takes a gulp and laughs. “It is cold, Uido! It tickles my throat. Here, have some.”
The bubbly orange water makes my tongue tingle, but I find it too sweet for my taste.
We walk past a man who is shouting at the top of his voice from behind a mound of bananas. Next to him, I see a child weeping. Unlike the other strangers, the boy has only a small piece of cloth around his hips. He is so skinny I can make out the shape of the bones in his chest and shoulders.
He wails as if he is hungry, but he cannot be—food is plentiful on this island, and there is a pile of fruit just beside him. I wait for him to take a banana, but he does not. Hearing the child’s pitiful whines, I lose my patience with the strangers’ ways. Tired of wondering what is wrong with the child, I take a fruit from the pile and hand it to him. Immediately, he runs away, clutching the banana to his chest as though it is precious. I stare after him, confused.
The shouting man leaps out from behind the fruit pile and blocks our path. He grabs my arm. I try to struggle free. He thrusts his face close to mine.
“Uido!” Tawai runs at the man. But the man tightens his grip and shakes me so hard that my head snaps back and forth on my neck.
Maya steps between me and the man, speaking to him rapidly and pushing him backward. The man lets go and I rub the back of my neck. Maya drops flat, shining circles into his palm. The man’s hand closes over them and he walks back to the mound of fruit without telling me he is sorry.
“What did you give the man?” I ask Maya. “Why did he let me go suddenly?”
“We call it money.” She holds a circle out to me. I roll it in my palm. It is shiny, as though it is made from metal. I bite it gently to see how hard it is.
“What will the man do with this money?” I see no use for such a tiny piece of metal.
Maya searches for the word. “Trade,” she says after a moment. “I give man money. Man gives us banana.”
“Why would anyone trade for food? Even the children of our tribe know better than to be greedy about food. It is everyone’s to share.”
Maya looks at the ground and says, “Our island has much food. But we do not all have food. There is much money. But not everyone has money.”
I think of the yellow hill of bananas Ragavan brought for our tribe—people he does not even know. Yet here, on his own island, there are hungry people. And even Maya did not help the hungry child or seem to think it was wrong to hoard fruit. I cannot understand how any tribe can allow their children to go without food.
Ahead of us, I see a woman thinner than even the boy. Her back is hunched but her skin is as black as mine, her hair as tightly curled, her lips thick as Natalang’s. I wonder if she belongs to one of our sister tribes from Lah-ame’s stories, or even perhaps to the part of our tribe that Lah-ame left behind on this island.
I smile at her, but she does not speak to me. Instead, she pulls at the arm of a man walking past us. The cloth over her body is muddy. Her palms are outstretched and she wails. I sense she is begging for something.
The man shouts at her in his language and raises his hand over his head as though to beat her. The woman cowers like a frightened animal, then turns, whining to Maya. Maya reaches into her bag and gives her a shining circle of money.
Tawai runs ahead but I reach out to touch the woman’s sunken cheek. Her skin feels as dry as a withered petal. Worse, I hardly sense her spirit at all. It seems weaker than even Tawai’s was when he was ill, almost as though it has already left her body.
“Let me help you,” I say softly. “Please, tell me what you need.” But the woman backs away from me and limps off to the side of the path.
Maya lays her arm across my shoulders. “We cannot help this woman, Uido.”
“But she looks like me. Is she from our tribe? Lah-ame said he left behind hundreds of others.”
“She is from tribe like yours,” Maya says softly. “But after they try to live here, they become small and weak. Most tribes who come out of jungle lose their way.”
“Why?” I ask, although I sense the answer. I feel a loneliness here on this island. A loneliness that is darker and colder than anything I have felt, even when I journeyed alone through the swamp. It seems to come from the way the strangers live. Their huts feel like empty boxes; yet they fill the air outside to bursting with harsh noises. They have learned to capture water and light; yet they push away the spirits that live within water and light and all other things.
“Uido,” Maya says, “in jungle, your people’s lives are part of something bigger. Here, their lives break into small pieces.”
“Why did they not return to their jungles?”
“Men like Ragavan cut trees. Kill animals. Then my people build houses where jungle was. Not many islands like yours still left.”
“So where do my people live now?”
“Your tribe is gone,” she says.
“Gone where? Another island?”
Maya shakes her head. “All En-ge are dead.”
“Dead?” My body feels suddenly heavy. I sink down to sit on the hot path, unable to move forward. I never knew those others in my tribe, but still, they were my people.
“You see now?” Maya sounds desperate. “Some of other tribes are still alive, just smaller than before. But even they lose much when they try to live just like us.”
33
Maya pats my back but her touch does little to comfort me. I ache for the warmth of Danna’s hand.
Upset at myself for avoiding until now the full meaning of Lah-a
me’s warning story, I walk toward Tawai. He has stopped not far from us, in front of a woman who has glittering necklaces and bracelets spread out before her.
“Look how long this necklace is, Uido.” He snatches one up. “It would hang down to Mimi’s navel.”
I pry it from his fingers, saying, “It is time to go back now.”
Tawai pouts until Maya tells him we will go to her uncle’s home in a car. At once, Tawai cheers up. We follow Maya back to a place outside the healing hut where several rows of cars stand. Tawai shouts and stamps his feet. “We are going in a land boat!”
Maya walks up to a blue car and opens a door like in a room. She sits on a chair inside. Tawai jumps up beside her. I climb in and squeeze close to Tawai.
The land boat growls and we jerk forward. Tawai squeaks with excitement as the ground outside the window moves faster and faster. We race away from the village of tall box-shaped huts and past a treeless patch of land covered with tall grass.
Soon we enter a jungle. I hear the kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk of a woodpecker tattooing holes in an old trunk. The trees reaching up on either side of us make me feel safer than I have in a long while.
But as we continue on, I worry that our jungle is no longer as safe as it once was. Surely once everyone knows about Tawai’s recovery, they will be more curious than ever to explore the strangers’ world for themselves. Even if they accept me as oko-jumu, it will be hard for me to stop them because I left to come to the strangers’ island myself. And after we leave our island, people like Ragavan could cut down our jungles so we would have nowhere to return.
Yet even now, looking at the brightness in Tawai’s eyes as he gazes outside the car, the guilt I feel about bringing him to the strangers’ world fades. Whatever happens to our tribe and our faith in the old ways, at least Tawai will be with us. Perhaps my choice was wrong—but I could not have chosen otherwise.
34
All day, as the car moves across the strangers’ island, Tawai chatters with Maya, asking about the car and the other magical things the strangers use. Even though Maya often tells him she does not know enough words in our language to explain, he keeps asking questions. But I remain quiet, wondering if by saving my brother’s life, I have started on a path that will lead my people to their end.
At dusk we reach the top of a small hill. The land boat stops moving. Tawai yawns but is still excited enough to leap out when Maya opens the door. I step out of the car.
Here, as on our island, the breeze carries the taste of salt and the whisper of the sea. My body relaxes as the scent of leaf-rich soil rises up from the jungle encircling the foot of the hill. Already I feel close to home.
“Come,” Maya says. Spread out across the hill are several huts. They are thatched with sloping roofs like ours. We follow Maya into the nearest one. A gecko lizard hanging on the door clicks its tongue, as though it is glad to see us.
Inside, I see a man bent over a shiny vessel, stirring something over a low fire. He straightens up as we enter. Immediately I recognize him as Lah-ame’s friend.
“This hut smells of cooked fish,” Tawai says.
For a moment I feel sorry for the man and I wonder if he prepares his own food and eats all alone most nights. But there is a strength about the way he stands that reminds me of Lah-ame. The man’s face is like a weatherbeaten rock into which the wind has carved deep lines. His hair hangs in gray strips down to his shoulders.
Maya gives him a quick hug and they exchange a few words in their tongue. Then he speaks to us in En-ge.
“Welcome, Uido. Welcome, Tawai,” he says softly. “I am Uncle Paleva.”
He motions to a table larger than the ones in the healing hut. Tawai sits on a chair, looking quite comfortable even though it wobbles.
“My friend Lah-ame is well?” he asks.
“Very well.” I want to say more, tell him of the affection in Lah-ame’s voice when he spoke to me about Uncle Paleva, about the vision in which I saw him on the cliff, but I sense there is no need.
My short answer seems to satisfy Uncle Paleva. “Our spirits feel strongly bound to one another’s,” he says. “We often visit one another in dreams.” He puts steaming bowls of food in front of us. “Eat well,” he says.
I take a bite out of a chunk of fish floating in the soup. Although the fish is not one we eat on our island, my tongue enjoys the taste.
After we finish our meal, Tawai rubs his belly. “That was good. Thank you,” he says, his eyelids beginning to droop. He stretches himself out on the mud floor and falls asleep almost at once.
“This is room where we eat,” Maya says. “Not sleep.”
“It does not matter,” Uncle Paleva says. “Let him sleep here tonight. They leave early tomorrow.”
Uncle Paleva turns to me. “Uido, I am glad you are here. There is a story in me waiting to be told.” Although he has been away from our island for so long, he speaks our language easily. It is wonderful to listen to his voice.
“I like stories,” I say. “It is too bad Tawai sleeps. He likes them too.”
“You can remember my story and tell it again,” Uncle Paleva says. “I give it to you.” No one except for Lah-ame has ever gifted me a story before. Yet this gift from a stranger I find easy to accept. My spirit feels as though we are from the same tribe and have known each other for many seasons.
"A long time ago, when I was young,” Uncle Paleva begins in a singsong voice, “I lived across the seas in a place called Burma. There, I fell in love with a beautiful girl. Her eyes were large and brown, and I never thought she would look well upon me because my people, the Karens, did not have much.
“But she loved me and we were married. Then one day, the leaders of Burma started fighting with the Karens. So my wife and I sailed away, never to return.
“We landed on this island. Here we made our home. We had three children together, all sons, and they were good boys, with big brown eyes like hers.”
Uncle Paleva’s voice falls to a whisper. “But one day my wife fell very ill. We took her to the healing hut where you and your brother stayed. But our oko-jumu could not save her life.
“We all mourned the passing of her spirit into the Otherworld. But by then our sons were grown and had moved away. I tried to live alone in our hut, but I could not. I did not weep often, because my sadness was too deep for that—but I also forgot how to laugh.
“One night I walked to the beach and pushed my boat into the waves. I floated into the sea, lay down quietly in my boat and waited for it to turn over and throw me into the ocean. But somehow, it never happened.”
Maya interrupts. “Your boat was too good, Uncle.”
“Yes.” Uncle Paleva’s voice rises like a gentle tide. “Somehow my boat carried me safely onto a stretch of beach. I lay there, like a piece of driftwood, until Lah-ame found me—hurt and bleeding. He looked terrifying. I thought the bones around his neck were from a person he had eaten. And despite my wish to die, I did not want to end up as his meal.”
I laugh.
Uncle Paleva joins in my laughter. “Yes, I was foolish. Instead of eating me, he healed the wounds of my body and spirit. Your tribe took me in, and from them I learned how to laugh again. I hunted and fished with your men and ate the food your women cooked. I sang my wife’s favorite songs, hoping my voice would carry to wherever she was. On your island, I felt I was part of something larger. I understood that to the spirit, crossing over from life into death is only the beginning of a new adventure, a start and not an end.
“I wanted to stay with your people, but Lah-ame told me that I should return here and teach my people to respect yours. He feared that others of my world would tempt the ra-gumul boys and girls of your tribe away from your island by showing them our magic. And he wanted me to find and help the En-ge who had chosen not to follow him.
“I agreed to go, but coming back here was not easy. How could I convince my people that although I had traveled to your island, they should not disturb you?”
He nods and continues. “To keep my promise to Lah-ame, I had to learn many new things. I had to gain the respect of everyone on my island and become a leader that people listened to. I left the Karen village and went to a place called college, where there were wise people who taught me a great deal.
“Then I built this village we are in, where I welcome tribes whose homes have been destroyed. Here, I also invite people like me. We try to learn from and also protect tribes like yours.”
“Protect them from what?” I ask.
“We try to help tribes save their jungle homes—or find new ones if their homes are already gone. We work to protect the animals and plants of these islands too.”
“But why do people of your world want anything from us?” I say. “Maya tried to tell me that Ragavan wants our wood, but I still do not understand. You have so much here.”
“There are some men who are just greedy, Uido,” Uncle Paleva replies. “Always, always they want more and what they have is never enough. There are also a few people who believe our way of life is better than yours. They think you would be happier living in our world.”
“Did these people stop you from helping the En-ge whom Lah-ame left behind?”
“I almost gave up my work when I realized your people were all gone,” Uncle Paleva says. “But I was able to help save other tribes just like yours, Uido.”
“How?”
“When an oko-jumu dies without passing on his wisdom, or when people lose faith in their oko-jumu, a tribe is weakened. This happened with the En-ge. But when an oko-jumu was able to lead a tribe forward by finding the right balance between the ancient knowledge and the new, the peoples’ spirits remained strong. And then I could help them find ways to live in our world without losing faith in theirs.”
“That gives me hope, Uncle Paleva. If other tribes are able to survive in your world, all is not yet lost for us,” I say.
Island's End Page 11