Origin

by Jessica Khoury

  “I’m not a scientist yet,” I reply mildly. “And I’m not afraid. Will they be asleep?”

  “No. They wait for you.”

  Waiting for me? I feel a nervous flutter in my stomach. “You told them about me?”

  “There are no secrets in Ai’oa.”

  I let him lead the way, since my path the night before took me in a wild zigzag through the jungle. Eio takes me straight to his village, or as straight as you can go in the rainforest. We have to circle giant trees and nearly slide on our backs down steep, leafy hillsides. Even so, it only takes about half an hour to reach Ai’oa.

  The village looks much different tonight. The fires are bigger, and I see that Ai’oa is larger than it seemed the night before. Open-walled, thatched huts stretch in two long lines. They are barely taller than I am. Each hut contains anywhere from five to twenty hammocks, all of which are empty now. Colorful strips of fabric flutter from the poles supporting the roofs, and brightly painted pottery hangs from vines strung between the hammocks.

  The fires march in a perfect row down the aisle between the huts, and I am struck by how perfectly parallel everything is. The more I look, the more I see it. The structure and placement of the huts, the way the hammocks are hung, even the cloths tied to the poles—they are all placed with meticulous care, maintaining aesthetic balance as much as possible.

  I must take all of this into account in mere seconds, because the Ai’oans demand the major part of my attention. They emerge from the huts and the trees, gathering around the fires and waiting, I assume, for Eio and me.

  I’m amazed at how slight the Ai’oans are. None of them is as tall as me. They wear a strange assortment of traditional and modern clothes. Some of the Ai’oans wear the same shorts and tees that are common in Little Cam, while the rest wear next to nothing. One woman wears a shirt with the words I LOVE NYC on it (I wonder who NYC is), and beneath that she wears a skirt made of long grass.

  Eio leads me down the row between the huts, and soon I am surrounded by Ai’oans. I stare, and they stare back. There are murmurs and whispers all around, but whenever I turn to see who is talking, I see only still faces, and the voices slip behind me again. They seem more fascinated by Alai than by me.

  It takes me several minutes to sort the men from women. I finally discern that women wear their hair to the waist and flecked with parrot feathers, while the men wear theirs to the back of the neck. They all have the same flat bangs down to their eyebrows. Except Eio.

  My guide is an anomaly. I look at him once, and he seems to blend right into the crowd, with his face paint and bare chest. But when I look again, he seems as out of place as I am. His hair, unlike the rest of the tribe’s, is too curly to stay in the neat bowl cut they favor. The Ai’oans have flat noses, and their eyes slant slightly at the outer corners, but Eio’s features don’t match. He has a face that could easily appear in Little Cam, due, no doubt, to his mixed parentage. He is also head and shoulders above his people, and even when the Ai’oans press around me and separate us, I can easily spot him by simply looking over their heads. He is watching me closely, an amused smile on his lips, and I ask him what’s so funny.

  “They think you are ugly,” he says. “Like all the other karaíba.”

  “I am not ugly! What’s a karaíba?”

  “It means foreigner, and it’s all right. They think I am ugly too, because of my Papi’s blood.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh at that. “Well, you are ugly!” I say, just to annoy him.

  Suddenly the Ai’oans start to laugh with me. I don’t know why until Eio shoves his way back to my side and tells me, “Most of them speak English, you know. Papi taught them too.”

  “Oh!” I stare at the faces around me. “Well, then…um…hello.”

  I hear a few hellos murmured back, and there is more laughter. My nerves stop humming so violently, and I start to feel less apprehensive. A little girl dressed in a pair of blue shorts and a necklace of fresh flowers appears at my elbow and stares up at me. After a moment, she rapidly chatters something in their native tongue and disappears again. Laughter ensues, this time raucous and uncontrolled. When I look at Eio for a translation, he only shakes his head as his face turns pink.

  “I will translate,” offers a pregnant, bright-eyed woman in traditional Ai’oan dress. I stare at her swollen belly in fascination. I’ve seen pregnant animals, but never a pregnant woman. I realize my hands are feeling my own stomach curiously. Will that happen to me? I’m so mesmerized I nearly miss the woman’s translation. “She said, ‘An ugly bride for the ugly hunter.’”

  “What!” I whirl until I find Eio, and I pin him with a wild look.

  He waves his hands. “No, no! It isn’t…I didn’t…”

  “In Ai’oa, little karaíba,” continues the woman, “it is the custom for the hunter to bring back a wife from another village, but only if she accepts him. But Eio is so ugly, perhaps no girl from the Awari tribe or the Hatpato tribe wants him, so he must find an ugly scientist girl for his wife.”

  “I’m not going to be anyone’s wife,” I reply hotly. And I think Eio is far from ugly, but I don’t say it. Even so, I feel warmth in my cheeks.

  “No,” agrees Eio. “I did not bring Pia here to be a wife, Luri.”

  “Why did you bring her then?” asks Luri. “Look at her. She has no questions to ask about how we use annatto and suma. No paper and pens. Nothing to trade with us like the other scientists.”

  “I brought her,” replies Eio, drawing himself up, asserting his height, “because last night I heard the jaguar, and when I went to look for it, I found her, the girl who commands the jaguar. Don’t you see? It is a sign. The spirits made the jaguar call, to send me looking, so that I would find her and bring her back.”

  This is met with silence. I wonder if they will laugh at him again, but their faces are straight and solemn. Then Luri says, “This is a matter for the Three.”

  The others murmur their agreement in both English and Ai’oan. The Three? I don’t have long to wonder who they might be, because the crowd in front of me falls away until there are only three people left standing there in a row.

  The first is a man elaborately garbed in a heavy collar of parrot feathers, animal teeth, and beads. He holds a spear taller than himself with feathers tied around it. Next to him is a plump woman with intricate facial tattoos and piercings in her lips and nose. Her arms are also tattooed. She is so elegant and confident that I hardly even notice she is naked from the waist up. Beside her is a man so old he is bent double, and the skin on his face hangs in folds. His hair is white and thin. Ropy vines hang over his shoulders and around his waist, and from them dangle bundles of herbs, carved bits of wood, and multicolored beads and gourds.

  I know instinctively that these must be the leaders of the Ai’oa.

  The oldest one watches me with eyes that belong in a younger man’s face. They are bright and sharp, and I find it difficult to meet his gaze for long. I feel as though he can read the thoughts in my head. I look instead at the woman, who seems softer. There is a small smile on her face, but her look is inquisitive and searching, flicking from me to Alai. The man on her other side simply stares at Eio.

  They all seem to be waiting for someone to speak, and I hope it isn’t me. I’ve no idea what to say. I don’t know what Eio meant. They should be asking him.

  Finally the oldest one speaks. His voice is soft as a sigh, but every word is clear. Unfortunately, he speaks in Ai’oan, so I have no idea what he says. Luri steps close and softly interprets for me.

  “The sign of the jaguar is a powerful sign. If the Farwalker heard the call, then it must not be ignored. The foreigner girl must have a powerful magic, to be heralded by the spirits and to have the respect of the mighty jaguar.”

  “I heard the call,” Eio confirms.

  “I don’t have any magic! Tell him I don’t have any magic.” Except immortality, of course, but that isn’t magic, it’s science.

  �
�It is not good to go against a spirit man like Kapukiri,” Luri says. “I will not tell him. What he says must be true. If Eio Farwalker heard the jaguar and went looking and found you, the spirits must want you here among us.”

  “I can’t stay with you. I have to go back to Little Cam.”

  “Go back or stay,” she replies with a shrug.

  Kapukiri steps closer to me. He stands straight, unfolding himself from his bent posture, and sticks his face only inches from mine. I expect Alai to object to the man’s proximity, but to my surprise, the jaguar merely watches calmly. My impulse is to back away, but the Ai’oans form a barrier behind me, and there is nowhere to go. I am forced to stare down at the shriveled little man as he pierces my eyes with his own. What is he looking for? My “magic”? I don’t believe in these natives’ spirits and signs—that wouldn’t be scientific—but I cannot doubt the sincerity in their gazes. They are all waiting for Kapukiri to make some sort of announcement, I guess.

  Suddenly the medicine man steps back, his eyes wild. He begins shaking from head to foot in spastic, jerking motions. I wonder if he’s having a seizure. Then he pulls a small gourd from one of the vines around his body and begins shaking it. It rattles noisily. He shakes it above his head, from side to side, and at his knees. While he shakes the gourd, he moans and chants in Ai’oan, eyes rolling, body trembling. Beside me, Alai makes a strange sound, half-growl and half-whine deep and low in his throat.

  “What’s the matter with him?” I ask. “Does he need help?”

  Luri shakes her head and puts her hand on my arm, motioning for silence. The other Ai’oans watch their medicine man raptly. When he finally stops shaking and moaning, he lifts his hands to clasp both sides of my face. I don’t try to pull away, but wait nervously to see what will happen.

  “The Farwalker heard the call,” he announces as Luri hastily translates, “and I, Kapukiri, have seen the mark in the foreigner girl’s eyes.”

  “Mark?” I ask, and Luri shushes me.

  Kapukiri continues. “I have seen the sign of jaguar, mantis, and moon. This foreigner girl is…” Luri stumbles in her translation, her eyes wide and fixed on mine. “Tapumiri.”

  A murmur goes through the crowd.

  “Jaguar, mantis, moon,” whispers Eio. “The Ones Who Were but Are No More. Tapumiri.”

  Kapukiri removes his hands from my face and picks up my wrists, turning them over so that the pale blue veins beneath my skin are showing. He traces them with his gnarled fingers as gently as a butterfly’s touch.

  “In these veins flow the tears of Miua,” he whispers.

  Silence falls over Ai’oa. I feel a chill and credit it to the cool night air. Kapukiri’s words mean something to these people, something that strikes them dumb with awe or fear, I cannot tell which. They stare at me with long faces and wide eyes, and I don’t know whether it’s revulsion or worship in those looks. Uncomfortable, I try to avoid their gazes. Even Luri has stepped back and melted into the crowd of faces.

  “Jaguar, mantis, moon,” they whisper in Ai’oan, the words already branded into my memory, thanks to Luri’s translation. “The Tapumiri, who are no more. The tears of Miua flow again. Jaguar, mantis, moon.”

  At first the whispers are jumbled and incoherent, but gradually they blend into one voice, a unified chant that makes my blood crawl. I don’t know what it means or what it has to do with me, but I feel I’m missing something big and important.

  “Eio,” I whisper, “what are they saying?”

  He alone is not chanting; instead, he’s staring at me with a calm, searching gaze. “That you have come to save us.”

  TWELVE

  “Save you?” I repeat. “Save you from what?”

  But Eio doesn’t answer. He grabs my hand and pulls me to the biggest of their fires and makes me sit, with Alai stretched at my feet. The Ai’oans start bringing banana leaves and pottery filled with food. Much of it I recognize, since Little Cam often trades with the Ai’oans, earning fruits and meat in exchange for clothing. But there are other dishes that are strange to me, and I don’t want to touch them.

  Everyone is watching expectantly, urging me to eat, so I try each dish as it passes by. I don’t know what else to do. Eio is on my right, looking absurdly smug for reasons that escape me, and Luri sits on my left. The Three sit across the fire, seeming apart from the others despite the fact that they’re surrounded by Ai’oans. They watch me quietly, and after a while I decide to just ignore them as much as I can. After that, I begin to enjoy some of the food. After I’ve tasted everything, the Ai’oans begin to eat too, even though it must be around midnight.

  I know I should go back home, but I can’t tear myself away. This village and its people are so alive and strange and different from everything I’ve ever known. I’m terrified, bewildered, and completely enchanted. I wonder if this is how my father feels when he researches a newly discovered beetle or how Uncle Paolo feels when he makes a breakthrough discovery on one of his experiments.

  For whatever reason, they have made me the guest of honor. It must have to do with the “jaguar, mantis, moon” mark that Kapukiri claims he saw in my eyes. What they think I’m supposed to save them from, they do not say. But it’s hard to dwell on that while they are draping garlands of orchids around me. Children press close to me and ask shy questions in a mixture of English and Ai’oan, and they don’t seem to mind when I can’t answer. They try to pet Alai, but he warns them away with a snarl.

  The children fascinate me. I’ve never seen anyone younger than me before; growing up, I was the only child in Little Cam. The children’s games and laughter and the way they move—as if they weigh less than flowers drifting in the wind—enchant me. They are so small and so free, my heart almost aches from watching them.

  One day, when my immortal race is complete, there will be no more children. There can’t be or we’d risk overpopulating the earth. As often as I’ve dreamed of creating my immortals, for a moment, the thought only makes me shudder.

  I have to move back a few yards when a circle of Ai’oans begins twirling around the fire. This is nothing like the rigid, methodical dancing at my birthday party. The Ai’oans move wildly, unpredictably, as swift and vivid as the fire. Several sit and beat drums or play on slender wood flutes, and the dancers add their own rhythm with their bodies. No two move alike. I stop eating and just gape, probably looking like an idiot. But I can’t help it. It’s captivating.

  “Come.” I look up and see Eio standing over me, his hand extended.

  I shake my head. “I don’t dance. Trust me.”

  “Come.”

  Reluctantly I take his hand. It is warm and strong, and he pulls me up and whirls me around before I can change my mind. Then there is no escape; I am trapped in the ring of dancers as if drawn by some magnetic force. But I don’t care. In fact, I soon forget everything and just feel the music, the fire, the swirl of small, lithe bodies twirling around me, pulling me onward, around. Eio is right by my side, still holding my hand. He and I move as if we are two flames on one torch, like Uncle Antonio and Dr. Klutz when they danced. But we are wilder, and every step we make is purely spontaneous, springing from some primeval impulse I never knew I had.

  I forget I am immortal and that I’m not supposed to be here. I forget about Uncle Paolo and poor Roosevelt. I forget that the years will roll by, and all of these people will die, and I will live on. For now, for these few precious minutes, I belong in this dancing ring. I belong to the jungle and to the Ai’oans and to their intoxicating fires. I’m not Pia. I’m not anyone. I’m just another body, lost to the drums.

  Lost in Eio’s arms.

  He spins me and catches me, and everywhere I turn, he’s there. His touch is like fire, light and effortless, but searing. The tips of his fingers burn on my wrists and my shoulder. Don’t stop, I think. Don’t you dare stop. My own thoughts terrify me, or at least they terrify that other Pia. Tonight I am Wild Pia, and nothing can scare me, not even the tingle that
runs down my spine every time my eyes meet his.

  But even if I can dance all night, Eio soon grows exhausted. We spin out of the circle and collapse, laughing, to the ground, where children flock to me with more fruit and flowers. I take a roasted plantain skewered on a long stick and smile warmly at the little girl who gave it to me. She smiles back before giggling and running away.

  “Eio, what did the old man think he saw in my eyes?”

  “Kapukiri?” Eio is still breathing heavily. He lies back, eyes shut. “He saw the sign of jaguar, mantis, and moon. The mark of the Kaluakoa.”

  “But what is it? Last I checked, my eyes were no different from anyone else’s.”

  Eio waves at the fire in front of us. “There is your answer. The mark is only seen by fire. Are there no fires in your village of scientists?”

  I’d give anything for a mirror right now. Though I’m not totally sure I believe him, I know the only way to find out is to see for myself. “What did you mean when you said they think I’ve come to save them? Save them from what?”

  He sits up and shrugs. “Who can say? Maybe it hasn’t appeared yet. But why else would the spirits send an undying one?”

  Startled, I pull away, eyes wide. “Undying one…”

  He returns my stare evenly, his blue eyes fixed on mine. Something inside me, something that came alive in the light of the Ai’oan fires, begins to crumble. “But…how did you know what I am?”

  “I didn’t. It’s like Kapukiri said. I only followed the call of the jaguar, but Kapukiri saw the mark of jaguar, mantis, and moon. It is the mark of the Kaluakoa, and of the Tapumiri. The undying ones, who do not know death.”

  I feel oddly sad, and the roasted plantain I’m holding no longer looks so delicious. So Eio knows what I am, and once more I am immortal, perfect Pia. Completely unique. Completely different. Completely alone. The word reverberates through my body like a shard of ice, bouncing off my ribs and settling in my stomach.

  But…I’ve always been alone. Hence my dream of creating more immortals, so that I won’t be. So why does the word strike me so deeply in this moment and in this place? It has never…hurt like it does now.