The Great Wave of Tamarind

by Nadia Aguiar

  She held the goggles up for a moment. They were very old. The scratched plastic frames had faded from jet-black to seal-grey, and a knot was tied in the rubber strap from where they had broken a long time ago. Penny touched the lenses, then tucked them away carefully in her bag.

  Tabba yawned and suddenly they were all yawning, tired from the day’s exertion and excitement. Seagrape, who had sagely waited out Ma Silverling’s rage at a safe distance, had tucked her head beneath her wing and was napping on an overhead branch. The children walked down to the sea to bathe, then returned to the hut where, her battle lost, Ma had thrown all her energies into preparations for the children. Enough food had been packed to last them a week. She had repurposed one of Tabba’s old tunics for Penny to wear. She had sewn shells on to the hem, and in the luminous evening light through the palms they gleamed as if they were still wet from the sea. Tabba wore a similar tunic, and Ma Silverling clipped two pink tellin shells in her hair. Jebby wore a new pair of flowing dark fisherman’s trousers and two strings of triangular shells that crossed in an X over his chest. But the best of all were the bright yellow sashes, which they wore on their left arms. The cool silk was glossy as Seagrape’s feathers, the knot soft and square, and the children could barely take their eyes off the lemony yellow glow, like sunshine in the dimming grove. Even Penny, who only cared about getting the Bloom for Granny Pearl, sensed for a moment that she was part of something very old, and bigger than herself, a feeling that seeped out of the earth and air of Kana itself.

  Ma chased the smallest Silverling children around, scrubbing their faces one last time despite their protests, and then the company set out for the town. Their hair still damp from the sea, Penny, Tabba and Jebby hurried along the path with a spring in their steps. The sound of firecrackers and music and jangling merriment grew louder as they approached. The dirt path became a stone-paved street, and Seagrape flew down to perch on Penny’s shoulder. The children turned a couple of corners and emerged in the middle of everything.

  Helix

  Following the rain early that morning, the day was clear. He guessed that he could be in Tontap within a few hours.

  The solitary part of his travels was ending. After days alone with his own thoughts, there were more and more people around. All of Kana was on the move. The closer he got to Tontap, the first town on the festival route, the more people he saw, droves of them: on foot, in carts, on the backs of bizarre creatures. He was only one among thousands who were heading east, travelling between the towns on the festival route, all eventually destined for the narrow crescent of a bay on the northeast coast where the monstrous wave would rise. The discovery that he was part of a great migration was strangely disorientating. He had come on a whim, in what he had believed to be a wholly independent act, but now it seemed that all along he had been compelled by something beyond himself.

  Sometimes he listened to people’s chatter, caught their excitement, but as much as he could he avoided main roads and kept to paths through the jungle, preferring his own company. He wanted his thoughts free to roam, unintruded upon by the needs of strangers eager to talk about the Wave, the Bloom. Every step he took made it clearer to him how stuck he had felt for so long, and how much he wanted to keep moving.

  Helix ducked off the busy road he had been on and walked along a quiet dirt track that ran alongside a wide stream. When he found a good place to stop for lunch, he dropped his bag and gathered sticks to build a fire. While it crackled to life, he waded into the water. The air in the clearing was shady and green. Silver-barked trees leaned gracefully. The breeze rustled in their tiny round leaves, a sound fresh and light as spring yet somehow wistful at the same time. The stream gurgled over smooth stones, and he knelt and splashed his face with cold, clear water. Waiting there until his legs turned numb, deftly he snapped his bare hands together and caught a small bronze fish. He quickly clubbed its head on a stone and instantly it was dead. Returning to shore, he speared it on a spit and set it to roast on the fire. He pulled roots from the earth and washed them, watching the mud drift away in the current, then sliced them and added them to the spit where the fish was slowly blackening.

  He sat quietly and waited for his meal to cook. Something about the place, the tranquility and the quality of light, reminded him of the trees behind Granny Pearl’s house, and brought him back to being there with Penny one afternoon when she must have been about five years old. After much begging on her part, he was teaching her how to track.

  You don’t look for the whole animal, just part of it, he told her. So, if you’re hunting a jaguar, you may just see its tail or a foot hanging down from a tree branch.

  Maya and Simon were out with their friends, as they often were, but he was home. He never tried to shrug her off like they did; that’s why she liked him so much.

  Look for broken branches, torn leaves, any signs that things have been disturbed. You have to make yourself very still. It’s about balance. If you’re still, something else will eventually move and you’ll know where it is. You want to hide in the undergrowth and make yourself secret – very quiet and very still.

  That’s hard, she whispered.

  She was silent for less than a minute.

  Helix?

  What?

  This is getting boring.

  Shhh, he said. You have to be patient. When you’ve been still for a while, you’ll start to see more things.

  I see Seagrape over there on that branch. She’s watching us.

  That’s good, he said. The other thing you have to learn to do is to breathe slowly and slow your heartbeat.

  She frowned as she concentrated on slowing her heartbeat.

  What about painting mud on our faces? You told me in Tamarind you painted mud on your face if you were hunting.

  You’re right, he said. I guess we’d better.

  She scooped up a handful of mud. This was her favourite part, he knew, though she didn’t understand the purpose.

  To camouflage yourself, so you blend in with the background, he explained. And so that no creatures can catch your scent and find you.

  Oh, said Penny.

  He watched her rubbing handfuls of mud on her arms with quiet glee. She would have to go swimming to wash it off before her mother came home.

  They lay on their stomachs, listening.

  Eventually you become attuned to everything around you – to the vibrations, the sounds, to every chirp and breaking twig and footstep. Understand?

  She nodded happily, though he was sure she didn’t know what ‘attuned’ meant.

  I see a kiskadee over there, she whispered loudly.

  Very good, he told her. Now … you have to learn a creature’s habits and patterns, where they like to go and when.

  Like Maya will be coming home at four thirty?

  I guess – yes, he said.

  Granny Pearl appeared, carrying the basket overflowing with freshly picked lettuce.

  Granny Pearl, said Penny. Helix is teaching me how to track.

  A useful skill, said Granny Pearl with a smile.

  The fish was ready. Helix took it off the spit and let it cool on a banana leaf.

  ‘Hi – do you know if this is the way to Tontap?’

  The man had obviously been trying to get his attention for a few moments. A cart had stopped at the stream and its passengers were arguing about which road to take.

  ‘I think so,’ Helix said, trying to hide his irritation. ‘But I’m not from here either.’

  ‘Mind if we join you?’ the man asked. The passengers of the cart were already disembarking, their noisy chatter lifting to the treetops as if a raucous flock of birds had alighted invisibly, and the thirsty horse was drinking from the edge of the stream, its hooves stirring up the silt on the bottom and clouding the water.

  The place was spoiled. Helix finished his lunch quickly and gathered his things to go. The fire was out, but he kicked the charred wood into the stream where it hissed gently. He waved politely to t
he people and left. On the road, he picked rough, minty lantana leaves and chewed them to clean his teeth, spitting them on the side of the path as he went.

  He needed new twine to mend the strap of his backpack, which had been broken for a few days and was becoming a nuisance. Though he had little desire to see other people, he was looking forward to getting the twine and a few other things he needed in Tontap.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The First Night of the Festival ✵ Bloom Players ✵ A Whistle for a Map ✵ A Mysterious Storm ✵ ‘Whorls have already begun to appear’ ✵ A Small Ivory Sphere ✵ ‘You’ll find it … desolate’ ✵ Bellamy’s Advice ✵ A Moment with Seagrape ✵ ‘Everything can go back to the way it was’

  When Penny and the Silverling family walked into Tontap, the evening was still light, the air violet in the fresh streams of sky that ran above the narrow streets. Below, the thoroughfares were close and crowded, the atmosphere thick with a dizzying stew of scents from the wooden stalls that lined them: charred wood chips, flowers picked just hours before, fruit cores squashed underfoot, spicy chowders bubbling in giant cauldrons. The children were instantly absorbed into the throng, shuttled closely together as people pushed past, weaving and wending, the crowd moving jerkily forward in the brief moments when a few paces of clear path opened.

  On every corner was a different band blowing shells, shrilling reed pipes, drumming empty turtle shells. Singing choruses of men clustered around, already sweaty and rumpled, swigging from flasks of palm wine. In the stalls, grimy-aproned men turned sizzling meat on giant spits. Flames leaped out, almost singeing the hairs on Penny’s arm. Rafts of smoke burned her eyes. Women in hats piled high with fresh flowers sailed past, their clothes still crisp and bright, sleeves dripping with neon feathers, hems singing with tiny shells. Home-made firecrackers exploded in the sky. Small monkeys staged bold forays on the food stalls, then fled through the smoke to the rooftops, their brown tails hanging down, tick-tocking down the time between raids.

  It was impossible to stick together in such a mass of people, so Tabba, Jebby and Penny, with Seagrape on her shoulder, soon peeled away from Ma and Pa and the youngest Silverlings. In the square, Penny saw that the yellow flag was still there, but she didn’t let herself feel too disappointed – she had only put it there a few hours ago, after all. The children bought conch fritters from a man selling them from a tray balanced on his head, and gorged on the oily breaded bits as they walked. Penny’s mouth watered as they passed tables heaped with ice-white dragonfruit and sour jungle fruits dipped in shimmering crystals of cane sugar, deepwater fish wrapped in big floppy leaves, giant blue crabs steamed over hot stones.

  A smiling man stopped the children, nodding at their yellow sashes, and pressed a small bag into Jebby’s hands before walking on.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Penny.

  ‘Insects,’ said Jebby, peeking into the bag. ‘That guy’s a Beetler – they come through the towns selling bugs a few times a year. They’re giving them to us because we’re Bloom Players. These ones have been fried – they’re good.’

  ‘They’re gross,’ said Tabba, grimacing. ‘I hate it when Ma cooks with them.’

  ‘Try one,’ Jebby challenged Penny, a merry gleam in his eye. He held out the bag and gave the insects a shake.

  Penny wasn’t eager to eat a bug, but nor was she willing to show any weakness. She reached in, pinched a tiny hardback between her finger and thumb, allowing herself only a brief glance at it – a small, knobby creature with blunt, antler-like antennae, crisply fried – before she popped it nonchalantly into her mouth. It was salty and crunchy.

  ‘It’s good,’ she said.

  ‘Liar,’ said Tabba, but she looked impressed anyway.

  Rai appeared, making her way through the crowd towards them. Her hair had been swept up, and she was wearing a tunic like Penny and Tabba’s, woven with shiny round shells.

  ‘There you are!’ she cried. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you. I’ve got a map for you from my cousin Pallo.’

  ‘Oh, great!’ said Tabba eagerly. ‘Let’s see it!’

  ‘There’s just one thing,’ said Rai. ‘He wants something in exchange …’

  ‘What?’ asked Jebby.

  ‘Your whistle,’ said Rai.

  Jebby groaned. ‘My whistle?’ he said. ‘It took me ages to make this one – I can do forty-eight different calls with it!’

  ‘Does it do a silver kingfisher?’ asked Rai. ‘That’s what he wants.’

  ‘Of course it does,’ said Jebby glumly.

  ‘You can make another one,’ said Tabba.

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ replied Jebby. ‘It’s the best one I’ve ever made.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Rai. ‘I would have just given it to you. I tried to make him. But you need a map, and Pallo says it’s the best he has. I looked at it – it’s a good one. Trust me.’

  ‘Come on, Jebby, just give it to her,’ said Tabba.

  ‘He won’t even know how to do half the calls it can make,’ grumbled Jebby, but he took the whistle off his neck, looking at it a last time before grudgingly handing it over.

  Rai blew the whistle a few times, testing it. Seagrape cocked her head. Satisfied that her acquisition would pass muster with her cousin, Rai slipped the whistle into her pocket and handed them the map. Jebby opened it long enough for Penny to catch a glimpse of blue inlets and slivers of roads wending through jade-green jungle dotted by towns before he let the roll snap shut.

  ‘All right,’ he said with a nod. ‘Looks good.’ He handed it to Penny to put in her backpack.

  The children bought slices of cassava pie from a vendor and kept wandering. The sky had passed from violet into starry darkness. Strings of swaying sea lights zigzagged across the streets.

  ‘So,’ Penny said matter-of-factly, ‘of the other Bloom Players, who’s our main competition?’

  ‘Um, everyone,’ answered Rai, giggling.

  ‘But who does everyone say is the best?’ Penny asked.

  ‘There are two brothers from Dorado who everyone’s talking about,’ said Rai. ‘They swam the Zalla Channel in a storm. Then there’s a boy from Mamano who’s really good, too. He caught an eight-foot-long oarfish with his bare hands and wrestled it to the ground.’

  ‘That’s probably just a story.’ Jebby sniffed. ‘I don’t see how anyone could do that.’

  ‘Well, he did,’ said Rai. ‘Everyone says. And there’s a guy from Lamlo who you’re going to have to watch. They say he can dive deeper than anyone else in all of Kana – a girl dropped a ring into Dallo Lagoon. It’s so deep you can’t see the bottom, even on the sunniest day. They said he was underwater for ages and when he came up he wasn’t even out of breath. And he had the ring. And look, quick – over there – that boy is from Tuptow.’ She nodded across the street. The others sneaked a look and saw a beefy guy with bulging arms and a barrel chest, who was leaning on a wall, eating charred meat on a stick.

  ‘That’s not fat; it’s muscle,’ Rai went on. ‘He rolled a giant boulder between two villages. And see that guy over there – yeah, the short one in the red trousers – he swung from vines all the way from Maum to Moloro without touching the ground.’

  ‘So, that’s the Dorado brothers, Oarfish, the Lamlo Diver and Boulder Guy,’ said Penny.

  Rai blinked. ‘Good memory,’ she said. ‘But those are just a few. There are plenty I haven’t even heard of yet. And some others I have heard of who are really good – like him over there, see?’ she whispered, nodding to a tall young man passing on the other side of the street. ‘People have been calling him Grasshopper Boy. He’s from the southern edge of Kana. Apparently he ran for three days and nights without stopping – even to eat or drink. He just grabbed fruit off trees as he went.’

  Grasshopper Boy’s long, lean limbs had earned him his nickname. He had a lanky, aloof sort of grace and seemed strangely untouchable as he glided alone through the crowd, not talking to anyone. He didn’t bluster and brag, like so
many of the other players they had seen. He was perfectly relaxed, his expression mildly amused. He reached up once to gently tug the tail of a monkey that had just stolen fruit from a stall. Even after he disappeared into the crowd, the impression he had made lingered.

  The children kept strolling, searching for other Players, who they recognized by their yellow arm sashes. Penny dismissed some of them immediately, the ones who didn’t seem serious enough as they joked around, play-fighting with each other, indulging in too much food. For them it was just a lark, a game. Others looked deadly serious and the sight of them made her feel nervous and jittery.

  ‘Everything everyone has done … they’re all just feats of strength or endurance,’ said Jebby thoughtfully. ‘Not brains, or knowledge about anything in particular. Or any difficult skill at all really.’

  ‘Well, whatever – they’re pretty impressive if you ask me,’ said Rai.

  ‘None of them did anything like Kal did, though,’ said Jebby.

  ‘Well,’ said Rai. ‘If you want to know the truth … people have been talking about Kal a lot. People from outside Tontap, even. He’s getting famous for what he did. But no one really likes him. It’s not as if anyone wants him to win. People like the brothers from Dorado. And the Lamlo Diver. And everyone’s really curious about Grasshopper Boy. There are a lot more Players you need to worry about than just Kal.’

  ‘TABBA! JEBBY!’

  Penny looked up to see children running towards them. Moments later she found herself in the middle of a small swarm of kids from Tontap who were all talking at once.

  ‘Tabba, Jebby, are you really going to be Bloom Players?’

  ‘Is that the Outside girl?’

  ‘Did you honestly see her come over the Line?’

  ‘Did Kal really open a whorl on the Line?’

  ‘How did you get your parents to let you go?’