When he tried to draw out of me, I said, “Not yet.” This is the best part: lying together afterward with his body in mine. Knowing that nothing which happens outside this room or this building or this bay matters.
He drew himself out slowly, one particle at a time, one part at a time. First a finger, then a toe. He pulled out his arms and his chest and his trunk and legs until I could feel only his head inside mine. I stifled a moan when he pulled out completely. He slid his arm under my shoulder and his arm grew opaque. My head rose and he cradled it on his chest so he could toy with my hair.
At last he said, “I watched one of your old dramas. This is where they smoke.”
I laughed, and so did he. When light poured from his mouth, I kissed him to block the light. To stifle the sound in his throat while his chest quaked. The light also tasted like jaggery. I drew away and pressed his lips together. Trying to flex them, he made soft, protesting sounds.
“Shh,” I warned, “you’ll wake the children.”
He became serious then. He pulled away and said, “Can’t have that, can we?” His voice was a grave bass.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said. I rose and found my nightgown inside out. I fumbled it outside in. Even as I pulled it over me, I said through the now comforting fabric, “No one should know, that’s all. Not yet.”
“No one does know,” he said. His clothing reappeared, and he sat up. “How’ve you been?”
“Same,” I replied.
“Is it your friend?” he asked. “The one the others could never call Cassandra because of that prophet of the Ancient Mediterranean?”
“She wasn’t my friend,” I said. I lay down beside him and urged him to lie close. Once again, I rested my head on his chest. “Cassie was going mad. No one can be real friends with someone like that.”
“Because you couldn’t help her,” he asked, “or because you were afraid you might become like her?”
“I read a book once,” I said. “It was about the first law of space travel. It’s not really a law because it can’t be proven empirically.”
“And it’s not like you to change the subject,” he said.
“No matter how far the human race leaves Earth behind,” I told him, “we can never be completely at home anywhere else. I’m paraphrasing, of course.” I sighed. “Maybe that’s what Zhou Feng was trying to say the other night, at dinner, when he said we’d all like to leave.”
“You can’t go back,” Harun said.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” I teased.
He pretended he hadn’t heard, and I should have known better. He talks glibly about love except when we’re alone. “Physically you can go back,” he was saying, “but you were all born here.”
“Try telling that to the Khond,” I said.
He snorted, then smiled at allowing himself to become annoyed. It’s all humorous to him, even annoyance.
Everyone knows the last thing a Khond or a Demi does before dying is to laugh. A loud, long laugh which empties its body of its spirit in the form of a light. The light begins with the red of destruction, races through the spectrum into the violet of creation, and fuses into a blinding, white light. So people say. No human has ever seen a Khond or a Demi die. When the time for this comes, they flee into the Pyrrhic Range.
“The Khond,” Harun said, “dream of an age that never existed. It’s true your coming brought them the notion of time but now they’re weaving a fantasy of their past. ‘Time without time,’” he scoffed, repeating the Khond chant. “‘Form without form. Life without death.’”
I pulled away from him and sat up. “I wish you wouldn’t mock your own people like that,” I said. “I mean not your own people but –”
“I know what you meant,” he said.
I turned with my jaw set and found a weak smile lighting his face. I kissed the spot where his navel should be. He grew translucent, and I moved my hand down.
He clasped my hand to stop it from sliding between his thighs. It still bothers him. He can make love to me as no man ever could, yet he’s still not completely human. He moved my hand up to his chest, which rippled from translucence into transparence. My hand sank until I could feel his heart, there below his breastbone. His heart beat under my palm. He likes doing this to show his heart beats only for me. It’s part of the wedding ritual of the Demi: to clutch one another’s hearts for the only time in the presence of others. During those long nights when I still grieved, when I couldn’t allow myself to make love to him, he would say, “Touch my heart.” The night I could finally bring myself to do this was the night we finally made love.
“Once long ago,” he now said, “before you were even born, I went up into the mountains. I forced myself to endure a ritual my father told me about. ‘Spread yourself thinly,’ he said, ‘and when the sun eclipses, your ancestors will sing to you.’ I don’t think he ever dreamt I’d do it.” Harun’s face hardened. The light between his lips faded into a grey that might have been either sadness or anger. It must be sadness, I thought. He’s incapable of anger.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“The aurora appeared,” he said. “The Ah-Devasi –”
“They do exist!”
“Of course they do,” he said, “only not the way you think. And not the way the Khond think either. That’s what galls them. I’ve heard of Khonds who go into trances and see the world through the eyes of the Ah-Devasi. And these same Khonds don’t like what they learn about themselves because they’ve become, well, unworthy of their ancestors. Don’t ask me if it’s true.”
“The ritual?” I prodded.
“The ritual,” he said. “It was the middle of the day and the sun was eclipsed. It was cold. So cold. Then the aurora appeared and its beings really did sing to me.” He reached for my hair.
“Well?” I asked.
“They cast me all the way to the other side of the world,” he said. “‘We are the spirits of the aurora,’ they sang. ‘The aurora of the spirits.’ They? It was many voices. It was one voice. Maybe the Khond never did speak with one voice the way some of them like to believe. Just as some of them like to think humans speak with one voice. When a Khond looks at you, all it sees is a human. Not an individual, distinctive being. When they look at me, all they see is a Demi.”
I shuddered even as his lips drew back. He was capable of anger, after all, if compassion failed him. If he saw the Khond exactly as he claimed they saw humans. The light from his mouth glowed red. Even his eyes glowed faintly red. He closed his mouth and his eyes. When he opened them once more, they looked normal, the irises a pale violet. He opened his mouth to speak, and the light from within looked normal, too. “I’m sorry,” he said. He clutched my hand to his heart and it beat rapidly beneath my palm. “You see, I still have vestiges of the Khond in me. Too much for my own good. If only they could find a way to lose their anger, then their own eyes wouldn’t glow so much. Do you know what happens to a Khond if it’s consumed by anger? It goes blind.” Harun smiled, and light flickered between his lips.
I couldn’t decide whether to believe him. “Did the Ah-Devasi say anything else?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “‘You are not of us,’ they or it said. ‘Nor are you of the humans,’ they-it said. They-it sound like I do when I’m in public, like a character from one of your old dramas.” He shrugged. “I went through all that to learn what I must’ve known all along?”
He smiled again, so brightly I kissed him to stop the light from flooding the room. The light no longer tasted like jaggery now. It tasted bittersweet. We made love again, less playfully than before, but I made him remain inside me a long, long time.
As soon as Harun left, through the ventilation grille as always, I glanced at the clock. It was the middle of the night and I still wasn’t sleepy. I barely sleep on the nights he visits me and yet I never feel tired. It’s as though he leaves a residue of his energy in me.
I left the flat once more and, this
time, found the Khond at work. Silently. Few of them looked me in the eye. In the eyes of those who did, I saw a surly glow. When I reached the lift I found it out of order. I still punched the up button, then waited with my arms crossed. Through the large window, I watched the twinkling lights of Tonkin Bay far to the east.
A voice startled me: “May I be of service?”
I knew even as I turned that I would find a Khond. A faint smell of ammonia was filling the air. The Khond’s head poked out through the closed lift doors.
This is why the Khond are so good at maintenance: they can go anywhere. Up to a point. The very oxygen we humans breathe gives them their form and they like this. They like feeling useful. But too long among humans and a Khond can never venture into the ammonia rich atmosphere. It’s trapped inside and lives out a life shortened by oxygen. The Khond sneer at the Demi, who move so fluidly between our two worlds, and yet Khonds who are no longer useful slouch through walls if they can. Slouch against them if not. No Demi would ever slouch. I watched this Khond closely and waited for it to speak.
“I believe the stairs work,” it said at last.
“No kidding,” I said. I turned toward the flat. I wasn’t about to walk twenty floors up to the dome.
“I believe kidding is for goats,” the Khond said, “though I have never set eyes on such a creature.” The Khond pulled itself farther out from the lift. “Might you have on your esteemed person a modicum of divine tobacco? It refreshes the weary and makes one sleep as soundly as a babe. Oh, if –”
“I’m sorry,” I said, as politely as I could. “I don’t smoke.”
The light in its eyes barely flickered when it smiled. “Do not concern yourself,” it said. “Tobacco affords a truly fetid and diabolical smell. It chokes the air. . . .”
I let the Khond continue. I should say I let this particular being continue. It was an individual, distinctive being, not the representative of an entire species. But I knew exactly what it was doing: entertaining me with servitude. Ingratiating itself. Any other time, late in the day when I’m tired, I would have let my annoyance show. I do care, but I resent having my politeness used against me.
“Look,” I finally said. The Khond stopped in mid-soliloquy. “I’ll make you a deal. Let me up to the lounge, and you can come by later and help yourself to anything in my pantry.” I raised my index finger. “Any one thing.”
The Khond snorted. I expected the smell of smoke yet smelled only more ammonia. “A test,” it said. “Nothing more.” After it looked left and right, up and down to ensure there were no Khonds within hearing, it said, “If any of my kind inquires, however, pray insist you exchanged a gram of tobacco in return for my humble service. Irreparable would be the harm to my reputation, such as it is, should rumours begin to the effect that I bestowed my favour on a human.” The Khond’s right hand emerged from the lift door. “Okey dokey, liddle schmokey? Shake.”
I reached forward but we never made contact. The hand pulled back through the door. Chortling, the Khond stepped completely out of the lift, then pressed a button on its work belt. The lift lights came on.
When I touched the up button, the doors slid open. I stepped inside and turned in the doorway so the doors couldn’t close. “What’s your name?” I asked.
Startled, it said, “Pray, why do you inquire?”
“So I’ll know what to call you next time.”
“I have long believed,” it said, “that no member of your species could distinguish any member of mine from another. Except domestics, but familiarity also breeds –”
“Okay,” I said. “Fine.” I stepped back.
“A moment,” the Khond cried. “I beg you!” It stepped forward and the doors slid back. “You require my human appellation or my original appellation?”
“I wouldn’t be able to pronounce your original name,” I said.
“This is true.” It chortled until a faint light glowed in its eyes. “My human appellation is Henry – short for Henry the Fourth, Part One. My sibling, as you may surmise, was Part Two. Alas my sibling is, to all purposes, no more, having stiffened in a living death somewhere in Corinth Bay. My original appellation, however, might roughly translate as –” The light in its eyes dulled, and its shoulders sagged. “Even my comrades, my kith and kin, address me as Henry. Why is this?”
Before I could try to answer, it backed away and the lift doors closed.
I consoled myself with what I now knew. What most others, even Zhou Feng and Zhou Li, don’t know. The Ah-Devasi didn’t drive Cassie mad. It’s avoiding contact that drives a human mad, and not simply contact with those we love. Or once loved. If we can’t make contact with the aurora beings, we can at least make contact with Khonds. They’re all around us and yet, just as most humans pretend the Ah-Devasi don’t exist, so most humans treat the Khond as if they, too, barely exist.
Spiro, for one, but then he’s so caught up in his precious work. . . . No, that’s not fair. It is precious. We’re trying to find a way to oxygenate the entire planet without killing off the Khond. As for the Ah-Devasi, Spiro cares about his children as much as I care about the twins, but I wonder if he could defend anyone with his life. If it came to this, if the violet glow ever rolled out of Bight Pass onto the plain, I would protect the twins with my life. I would even kill to protect them. What am I thinking of, though? There are likelier ways of dying than being murdered in our beds: meteor showers, quakes, vehicle crashes. Especially crashes. Life is full of danger even for the Khond. They simply have less to lose, or so people say.
The lift doors opened and I hurried to the observation chair. I strapped myself in and raised it. I turned the chair through north toward the northwest. Toward the aurora.
The strands hung down, even braided, then waved free and curled blue on green. Where the aurora dipped behind the Pyrrhic Range, a strand glimmered in blue shading into indigo. The aurora was resisting the rising of the sun. Before long, though, the aurora lost its battle. It retreats by day and surges back at night. Now it has faded, drawing into itself while the sun keeps rising. While its harsh, harsh rays wash out the lights of Tonkin Bay. The sodium content of the atmosphere has increased since yesterday morning, when the sun looked more blue. Today the sun will be a warm, yellow-orange.
I should go downstairs now to let Cora in. I should be there when the children wake. I think they will like Harun.
SECTION V
RE-IMAGINING THE PAST
The anthology closes with three stories that re-imagine the past: “The Living Roots” by Opal Palmer Adisa, Journey Into the Vortex” by Maya Khankhoje, and “Necahual” by Tobias Buckell. The Caribbean past of slave resistance and rebellion is the subject of Adisa’s story but she brings in a whole other layer of meaning. Khankhoje’s lyrical story links together pre-Columbian history and myth and contemporary Native American realities. And the natives in Buckell’s story – who have had multiple dislocations from their homelands – play a more active role as yet again they face people who see themselves as carrying the white man’s burden.
Opal Palmer Adisa is always wrestling with a story in her head while she goes about her busy day juggling life, teaching, mothering, and loving herself. She is grateful to the places and people who grow large in her head, and hopes she does them justice. Her most recent poetry collection is Caribbean Passion (Peepaltree Press, 2004) and her forthcoming novel is The Orishas Command the Dance.
The Living Roots
Opal Palmer Adisa
Dusk skipped in like a woman in haste to meet her lover. The sun, hiding behind the mountain, was the only witness as Essence’s head emerged flat from the side of the cotton tree. She knew as soon as the air hit her face that she should have waited until night had crept in like a man returning from a clandestine affair, but she was impatient. She had told Tuba, who claimed the Maroon leadership after her father died, that they had been too long underground; that Piliferous Layer, although a safe haven for them, was only meant to be temporary. He saw h
er advice as a challenge to his authority; he believed that perhaps Essence, as daughter of the past leader of one the most formidable Maroon colonies, felt she should be the heir. But Essence was only amused by Tuba’s masculine insecurity. She loved being a reconnaissance scout and had no ambition to be a leader. She had witnessed firsthand the challenges and sacrifices her father had made, and understood how leading and trying to be everything to everyone had worn him down. Besides, she fully intended, when she was ready, to woo Tuba to her bed and make him her husband; he had both the mind and body that was as close to an equal that she would get, and it didn’t hurt that he titillated her. Perhaps that was why she was on this mission, defying his order, knowing he would come after her and provide her with the opportunity she needed for them to be alone, away from colony scrutiny – especially her mother’s, a master strategist.
Before Essence could withdraw and blend fully into the tree, the woman spotted her, and cried out, “How duppy come out so early?” Instantly, the woman dropped the bags in her hands, cupped her palms together, blew in them, and then tossed her palms above her head as if throwing something away. Essence smiled. It was not the first time that an enslaved person thought she was an apparition. The woman gathered her bags loaded with fruits and ground provisions, glanced around at the tree, and took wide strides, her arms swinging vigorously despite the heavy bags that she clutched. Essence was tempted to call to her, but decided against it, as there was no urgency. Why scare the woman out of her wits, she mused. In due time, she would have the information she needed to report back to Tuba and the colony. Essence stayed connected to the trunk of the tree until night was fully dressed like a bride in a veil.
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