GAIA

by Morton Chalfy

  It happened in my fourteenth autumn. I was a happy girl with many friends and we were all on the verge of womanhood. My body had budded and filled and I was pretty and knew it. How could I not? The boys my age grew flushed and frantic in my presence and the young men of marriageable age and status came frequently to my family door to gaze and speculate.

  I had no clear favorite yet and I was looking forward with excitement to the dances of the autumn moon and thought I might be married by winter.

  My mother was sure of it and spent much of her time preparing my wedding dress and the jewelry of bead and stone and feathers to go with it.

  I spent my time giggling with my friends and comparing the young men and to some extent deciding who best went with whom.

  In between we gathered fruits and berries and nuts as they ripened.

  On one afternoon in the berry patch I startled a young she bear and her cub that were also gathering berries. We were both surprised and fearful though I froze in my fear and she swiped at me before turning and waddling off with her cub in tow.

  At first I thought she had only brushed a hair across my face but when I turned to my friends they screamed in horror at the sight of me.

  “Risa! You’re bleeding!”

  I put my hand to my face and could feel the blood and also felt my cheek hanging loosely into my fingers. There was still no pain, no realization. Only the fear and anguish in the faces around me to tell me it was bad.

  We walked slowly back to the village, my hand pressed tightly against my cheek to keep it in place and with each step the pain grew a little worse. Before we reached the village I felt I could go no further. The pain was now my universe and I felt weak and shaky all over. I tried to sit and must have fainted.

  The last words I remember were spoken in tones of horror, “Her face, her face.”

  Momi told me afterwards what happened. I was carried into the village on a litter and a runner was sent to tell Momi. It took her until the next day to arrive and she found me in a high fever, unconscious and moaning. She spent the next four days at my bedside until the fever broke. During that time she cleaned the gaping wound, pinned my cheek back in place with sharp thorns and covered it all with a poultice of healing herbs.

  She said I moaned a lot in pain.

  When I woke from my delirium she was sleeping on a pallet next to mine and woke when I began to stir.

  She held a gourd of water to my lips and carefully sponged my face, though no matter how gentle her touch I winced in pain.

  “Risa, you’re back,” she said.

  “Momi? Why are you here? Am I hurt?”

  It took a while for the memories to return and she waited while my mind caught up. First I remembered the pain and the fevered feeling of the delirium and then the she-bear. Lastly I remembered the anguish on the faces of my friends and when I did, tears of fear rolled out of my eyes.

  “Oh, Momi, is my face so bad?”

  She looked at me with great love and great sadness and her mouth worked but no words came out and I knew the answer.

  I sobbed with fear and anger.

  “But I’m pretty,” I cried.

  The pain on Momi’s face told me as clearly as any reflection could that “pretty” was a thing of the past.

  “Where’s my mother?” I screamed. “I want my mother.”

  The pain on Momi’s face deepened if that was possible and by way of answer she squeezed my hand.

  “She cannot bear it,” she said. “It breaks her heart to look at you.”

  The days that followed were days in hell. The fever was gone, Momi’s poultices had stopped any infection and the wound was healing. She had removed the thorns and tied my face together with a broad strip of softened deer hide. Physically I was mending though pain was still a constant reminder and walking still jarred enough to produce more pain.

  The hell was in my mind, a vile place I had to pass through to learn I was no longer who I had been and to accept who I had become.

  The passage through hell was a passage filled with the expressions on the faces of all who saw me. The monster reflected in their looks, their averted gazes, their physical recoils, was the thing I had become.

  Men, women, children, all who saw me expressed their horror. Some tried to hide it, some could not even try. My mother could not even come to see me. My father would not.

  Only Momi treated me with love and still saw the me I was before, but even she could not conceal her pain.

  Tati was the exception. He had come with Momi in the beginning and then had to leave to visit the other villages as Arbiter. When he returned he came into the house to see me. I had quickly become an expert in reading the signs of horror in people’s faces and looked for it in his. If not horror, then pity.

  But Tati felt none. When he looked at me he saw me, saw into my soul, my spirit. When he looked at my face he saw my wound, saw Momi’s healing hand.

  I could scarcely believe it. The experience of finally being seen as myself after the hell of the past weeks let loose a torrent of tears that I buried in his chest.

  He held me while I sobbed and when I calmed down he asked, “Can you walk without pain?”

  I nodded, knowing I could stand the pain I still felt.

  “Then you’ll come home with us. Pack everything.”

  I was more grateful than I could express and quickly, before he could change his mind, I stuffed all my belongings into one deerskin pouch. I left my wedding dress behind because in hell I had learned I would never marry.

  While I packed he spoke to my parents and since the sun was past the zenith already, we hurried off.

  That was six years ago. The scar left by the she-bear runs diagonally across my face from the hairline, over the bridge of my nose, down my cheek to the jawbone. She missed my eyes for which I am grateful. My cheek sags at the scar and the effect still has the power to make people recoil so I let my hair hang loose when we are among people and that hides and softens my appearance.

  Out here, in the hills, I wear my hair in braids. The animals don’t care what I look like, Tati doesn’t care and even Momi got used to it. Even I got used to it.

  If I had continued to live in the village, surrounded by my friends getting married and having families while I was living as a shunned or pitiable person it would have been different. But out here, with Tati, I became whole again. He demanded it and I was happy to oblige.

  He taught me the ways of the animals in the forest around us, Momi taught me the healing herbs and how to use them, and they both expected of me that I grow into a full person living a full life.

  I knew the village would have stunted me and I was happy to comply with their expectations.

  It was on a day very near the summer solstice when the runner came from the village of the Deer Clan. He was a boy of twelve or so, looking very serious and nearly exhausted from his ten mile trek.

  “I come for the judger of men,” he gasped when he burst into our clearing. He gasped again when he caught sight of my face but was nice enough to try to repress it.

  “Catch your breath, take some water, rest a moment and then tell me your errand.”

  The boy gratefully sat and drank from the gourd I offered and waited while his body returned to normal.

  “I followed the blazed trees,” he said proudly. “It’s my first time.”

  “You did well.”

  When his chest no longer heaved from his exertions he said, “There has been a death in our village. And the wife has run away.”

  “Why come to the Arbiter?” I asked.

  Deaths were not uncommon and runaway wives not unheard of. Surely a burial would end the affair.

  “Lena believes the hosti did it. Murdered her son. She wants the Judger to command the wife to return.”

  I looked at the boy closely, knowing as I did it was useless as a way of reading him. He was repeating a message and didn’t know or understand its meaning. The hosti were evil spirits, imagined to be t
he cause of all misfortune that had no obvious cause. Often they were blamed for accidental deaths but I had never heard them accused of murder before.

  “Rest. Eat some fruit,” I said, indicating a leaf piled with berries and nuts I had gathered. “When the Arbiter returns he will speak with you.”

  CHAPTER II

  Tati was out in the forest where he spent most mornings when we were at home. He was usually gone from dawn until midday, time he spent moving quietly through the woodlands noting and observing the state of the animals and plants that surrounded us. Much of the time he returned with food; an animal, a fish, fruit or plant. At least as often he returned with nothing but knowledge added to his storehouse of wisdom. On those days he came home smiling and happy.

  When he stepped into the clearing his hands were empty and his face happy. He greeted me with, “The wolf pack has grown by six pups. All healthy.”

  He indicated the boy with a tilt of his head and asked, “Why has the village of the Deer sent him?”

  I told him what the boy had said. The boy, meanwhile, looked quizzically at Tati who wore only a loincloth and was streaked with dirt and had leaves stuck to his hair from crawling through the brush.

  Tati went into our one room house and after a while emerged as the Arbiter. His body was clean, his hair combed out and flowing down past his shoulders, a deerskin garment across his chest and loins and the Staff of Judgement in his hand. The boy was appropriately impressed and sat up straighter on the stump.

  “First, tell me the message they sent you with,” said Tati. “Then tell me what you saw. And what you think.”

  The boy was visibly enlarged by the implied respect for his opinion and launched into his story.

  “Lena said her son Camo was killed by the hosti, and the hosti made her daughter-in-law run away and Lena wants the Judger of Men to bring her home.”

  He looked up at Tati and was encouraged to continue.

  “I saw the body of Camo and there was a lot of blood. I didn’t know the hosti would do that.”

  Tati shook his head.

  “What else did you see?”

  “I didn’t see this, but they said the Bear Slayer found Camo.”

  “The Bear slayer?”

  “Namu, Camo’s brother.”

  “Why does Lena think the hosti did it?”

  “She says no man could have killed Camo. He was a warrior and hunter. If a man had attacked him he would have fought and the other would be dead.”

  Tati looked speculatively at the boy.

  “No man is so mighty,” he said.

  “Can you find your way home?” he asked the boy.

  “Yes sir. I follow the blazes to the river and then follow the river to the setting sun. Our village is on the bank.”

  “Good. Go back and tell them I will be there tomorrow at this time. Meanwhile nothing should be done to the body. Leave it as it is for me to see.”

  Tati paused, thinking.

  “Tell them I can see the signs of the hosti, but not if the body is handled too much.”

  The boy nodded and repeated Tati’s words over several times, committing them to his memory.

  “Yes sir,” he said at last, then turned and ran off.

  “You always told me there were no such things as hosti,” I said.

  “So I have. There aren’t.”

  “So why go?”

  “Because there are no such things as hosti. And the wife ran off.”

  “You think she killed him?”

  “No.”

  I was going to ask more questions but his face told me he was done talking about it.

  “We will leave at dawn. Get yourself ready.”

  “Get myself ready,” meant make a pack of whatever we might need to have with us, make sure his ceremonial robe was presentable and secure the house against animal invasion. It also meant prepare myself to walk among the people.

  I would once more be taking my face with me to suffer the inevitable reactions it provoked. It was better than it used to be, but it still required a hardening of my will to handle it.

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