Essence turned on the small cot and the back of her hand wiped the tears that spilled from her eyes. She was still asleep, but mumbled, “Fifty in our years, but 250 in theirs. Oh grandmother, you were such a warrior.”
“We all are warriors, child, especially those who were enslaved and did not succumb to death, but kept believing and working to break the chains of slavery. My child, some of the greatest warriors simply kept faith.”
While Carmen de Walker hummed a mento and cooked, Essence slept deeply, her grandmother dreaming her the memory she needed to fulfill her duties. She woke after the day had gone to rest. Her mother always cautioned her to wait until day was chasing evening before entering the enslaved world. She woke feeling powerful, and immediately her eyes located Carmen sitting just outside the cottage on a low stool and a man standing behind her massaging her shoulders. Essence rose quietly and walked to the door, but even before her feet were over the threshold, Carmen called to her.
“Yu was well tired. Yu sleep sound.”
“Yes, your cot is very comfortable,” Essence replied, her eyes scanning the man, the father of Carmen’s unborn child; she detected that he was safe.
“Dis be Joint, also known as Sammy.”
Joint smiled at Essence, and his eyes fastened on her like burr-burr, that thorn-like weed that easily attached itself to cloth.
“Me did know yu,” he declared, moving from behind Carmen and walking towards Essence. “Me did know you from another time when memory flowed like river water.”
“Joint was here before,” Carmen interjected. “Him was here two times more dan me, but de both of we been here before.”
“And are you free also?” Essence asked.
“Slavery days done!” Joint declared, spittle spewing from his mouth, his nostrils flaring.
A rush of excitement flushed Essence’s skin. She wanted to rush back to the colony and tell Tuba and the others that they could come up now, that they no longer needed to live underground, but first, she had to hear the full story. She had to confirm what Carmen and Joint told her, and had to decipher the smell that clung to the colony. Essence walked up to Joint and licked his cheek and then his arm. She had to be sure; taste was the ultimate confirmation. Carmen reared up and Joint brushed Essence away gently.
“Dat’s me oman dere,” Joint said, pointing to Carmen who had her arms akimbo. “We be family. Me no want no more oman.”
Realizing that her action was misinterpreted, Essence hastened to explain.
“It’s only through taste that I can verify what you say. It is the language of the Starch people.”
“Is who oonuh be?” Joint asked.
“Whe oonuh live fah real?” Carmen followed on the heels of Joint, now insinuating herself between Essence and Joint, and linking her arms with his.
Essence smiled at this gesture of ownership. How would Tuba react if she were to openly declare her intention to posses him by licking his soles and tracing his spinal cord with her tongue at one of their weekly public gatherings? Would he in turn circle her navel with his tongue and lick her eyelids to indicate consent and signal their union?
“Tek me whe yu live,” Carmen de Walker stood in front of Essence, demanding of her. “Tek me; mek me see cause me is one of oonuh.” Her voice was determined. Both feet were planted firmly on the ground and her arms were akimbo again. Essence could see that she would not be dissuaded easily, yet dare she take an outsider into their free colony?
“I cannot take you. You do not know how to transform and become a root.”
“Me can become whateva me want. Jus tek me and show me how,” Carmen de Walker insisted.
Essence knew she was cornered, but her mind quickly reviewed the first tenet of Piliferous Layer: Safety is the responsibility of all, from the youngest to the oldest, and no outsider must be allowed into Piliferous Layer without the approval of the leader, an elder, and two other members of the community. Essence respected this rule and knew that the colony had been protected all these years because everyone, including her great-grandmother who had been captured and made to live like a slave, honoured that code. She could not and would not break it, even though she believed Carmen de Walker was one of them, and wanted to show her how they lived. But before she could explain to Carmen why she could not take her, she felt a cool wind on her arms and legs, and knew instantly that someone else from the Maroon colony was approaching. Almost immediately, she smelled the sweet potato and smiled. So Tuba had come after her as she had hoped.
“The leader of my colony is approaching. You can make your request to him.”
Tuba strode into their midst, his skin rich like wet soil, his muscles taut. Essence moved quickly to him and licked his knuckles in greeting as he ambled through the gate leading to Carmen de Walker’s cottage. Immediately Joint stepped forward, his hands fisted at his side. With her peripheral vision, Essence glanced at Joint and smiled at the folly of men, free or enslaved; they amused her with their need to always lay claim, to establish their territory. Apparently Carmen was equally aware, because she moved quickly beside Joint and placed her hands over his fist, massaging it. “Him is not here to cause trouble,” she said to Joint, although her eyes were on Tuba, drinking him in.
Essence felt like someone was yanking on her dreadlocks and her scalp prickled. She had not experienced this sensation before, but she knew enough to know it was her way of wanting to claim territory, indicate to Carmen that Tuba was hers, even though she had not yet made such declaration to him or the colony. “Tuba, I am glad that you have come after me. Slavery is over. Everyone is now free. This is Carmen de Walker and her man, Joint. They are free and she is carrying his child.” She knew she had said more than she needed to by way of introduction, but she felt the need to establish Carmen and Joint as a couple.
Tuba nodded to the couple, but his eyes were fastened on Essence: she read both irritation and desire.
“I had to come, and for defying your order I will submit to your punishment,” Essence said more coquettishly than she had planned. It was the general rule that when the leader was disobeyed, the violator had to spend every minute of two weeks shadowing the leader.
“There is to be no punishment,” Tuba replied, smiling at Essence for the first time.
“No punishment!” Essence was incredulous.
Tuba moved closer and licked her neck. “I conferred with the Elder Council before I left. I told them I approved your mission because like you, I believed we have been underground too long.”
Thrown off guard, Essence could only mumble as her mind raced ahead to try and discern if Tuba was laying a trap for her.
“But you always opposed me,” she shouted.
“It might have appeared that way, but perhaps I was allowing you to practice your rebellion on me,” Tuba spoke softly.
Essence felt as if all the wind and fight had been knocked out of her. Was Tuba more complex than she had thought him to be? He was certainly liked and admired by most, including the Elder Council.
“So Mr Leader, tek me and Joint so we can see whe oonuh live,” Carmen de Walker interjected, jarring Essence.
“First we must experience this freedom that you have gained,” Tuba said, focusing fully on Carmen. “My people have been waiting on this day, when they could come up and breathe in the sweet air of freedom. The drums will sound this news when Essence and I return. Then perhaps you can come and see where we live, but of course there will be no need now that you are free. Living in the belly of the earth was how we resisted slavery.”
“Well, slavery done, but we still have fi struggle fi get the laws change,” Joint, said circling his arm around Carmen’s waist. “Some of the bacras dem still want treat we like we is dem slaves. Dem no want give us no land fi grow and plant and profit from me own labor. Dem no want we have any say in how de island fi run.” By now Joint was worked up and going at full speed.
“We free, but yet still we not free,” Carmen interjected. “Dem still flog pe
ople like dem is slave for de slightest ting. Dem nu want pay we what we worth. Dem is true bad-minded people, dem bacra people who chat like hot coal in dem mouth and skin red and blotchy like wild leaf dat yu boil fi wash sore foot.”
The four laughed, feeling a warm cameraderie.
Tuba was invited to dinner and they ate and exchanged stories about their day-to-day activities in their respective homes. Although Joint and Carmen weren’t sure, they believed that slavery had ended more than two years before. They insisted that Essence and Tuba tell them about Piliferous Layer, and they listened to all the details with their jaws agape and their eyes big. Essence and Tuba also sought more details from them about their new freedom, and the four agreed that they would travel the island over to make sure that everyone now enjoyed freedom. Carmen de Walker said she would lead the way as she had travelled most of the island, and had even witnessed some of the torching of the fields, as well as some killings. Still, she insisted that she wanted to visit Essence’s colony and have her unborn child live in a place where people refused to be slaves. After yawning and declaring it was time to sleep, Carmen stretched out on the ground and pressed her ears to the soil. A smile covered her face.
“Me hear dem talking. Me hear dem, me always used to hear dem. Me is one of oonuh.” She turned on her back and smiled up at the sky sprinkled with stars. Joint and Tuba reached down and helped her up. “Well, me tink we is all tired and must get some shut eye,” Carmen started moving towards the cottage. “Es, you and Mister Tuba can take the cot. Joint and I will pass the night on de floor.”
Essence wanted to ask Carmen why she called her Es, but decided now wasn’t the time, and besides, she rather liked the sound of Es. And she had no intention of taking her bed and told her so. They argued back and forth for a while, then Carmen proceeded to spread bedding on the floor for Essence and Tuba. With the lamp out, the two Starch people stumbled toward each other, unsure of their next move. They could hear Carmen and Joint settling on the small bed. Suddenly, Essence felt Tuba’s tongue circling her navel. Now twice in one day he had beat her to the punch, this time by declaring his affection.
“It does not count,” she whispered in his ears.
“It does to me,” Tuba rejoined, licking her neck. “When we return, I shall honour you in the appropriate manner, before the community.”
Essence pulled Tuba to her and whispered in his ear. “You are my sweet-potato.”
“And you are my cassava,” Tuba said as they fell into a sound sleep nestled together, tongue against skin.
Maya Khankhoje was born in Mexico City to a Belgian mother and and Indian father and studied in Mexico and India. Her essays, stories, and poems, which have won several awards, have been published in India, the U.K., Ghana, the U.S., and Canada in several anthologies and magazines including Shakti, Herizons, Montreal Serai, Feminísima, and Toronto South Asian Review. She recently retired after a 25-year career as interpreter and translator for the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal in order to write fulltime. “Journey into the Vortex” was first published in Voices and Echoes: Canadian Women’s Spirituality (Wilfred Laurier, 1997).
Journey Into the Vortex
Maya Khankhoje
They told her she would come out on the third day. That is what the mediators of the Lords of Xibalba had led her to believe. At least, that is what they wanted to believe. The hunger of their hollow power could only be assuaged with their own lies and delusions. It is true that the war of the heavens is the opposition between night and day. It is also true that the stars have to be conquered and sacrificed, so that the sun can drink their blood and the day begin all over again. In order to keep the universe in movement, people have to spill their blood so that it does not perish. But she knew them to be wrong when they said she would be out in three days. She grasped this truth as firmly as she grasped and held on to her mother’s breast soon after she was born.
Her birth was auspicious. She exited the real world of the void to start her journey through the world of illusion on 12 Baktun, 16 Katun, 8 Tun, 7 Uinal, and 5 Kin, under the round and radiant face of Ix Chel, the moon goddess who wanders endlessly through the dark night so that the sun, her consort, does not burn her into oblivion.
It is to Ix Chel’s care that her own mother entrusted her, shortly before she was sucked back into the vortex of creation. Her poor mother, who paid for the honour of birthing her with a torrent of sacrificial blood that drained her body as her hungry child drained her breasts dry for the first and last time. At least her mother had been transformed into a lovely butterfly, the reward bestowed on a man who dies in battle or a woman who exchanges her own life for that of her newborn child.
This is one of the many truths that she understood but failed to accept: that men are rewarded for destroying life and women for creating it. But that seems to be in the nature of all dualities, for how can we see the radiance of goodness when there is no shadow of evil to set it off?
Birthing her was indeed an honour. It was written that this female child born under the sign of Ozomatli, the monkey who invented fire, was to be a great medicine woman. So the midwife swaddled the baby carefully in her mother’s blanket, hurriedly buried the cord that tied her to her unborn twin in the very centre of the house, and stole into the night with a little bundle in tow. Under the complicitous gaze of Ix Chel.
The midwife had acted out of kindness, for she knew that power is a good and strong thing, but not before its time and not in the wrong place. Before its time, power can turn upon itself, which, in this case, would hurt the lovely child who would now be hers.
And when power is used in the wrong place, it can be misused by the enemy. For the midwife knew that she alone could pass on to this child the knowledge that she acquired from the Final Mother, without any interference from the child’s father and his high-born clan.
So she was named Sac Nicte and was brought up in the neighbouring temple city of Tulum, where the breeze blows cool air from a turquoise sea and children grow big and strong. Sac Nicte grew to be as pretty as her namesake flower and as strong as its fragrance, although her secret name was to remain hers alone. It is in her secret name that she nursed her power while it grew and took shape, whereas her public name only held her outward appearance, which, by the way, enchanted many men and made the maidens envious.
But Sac Nicte paid scant attention to her body or her face. At least, not in the way it was expected of her. She was nursed by a kinswoman of the midwife until she was three, when she playfully started biting the very breasts that made her teeth so strong. Her nurse, who had many children of her own, was glad to wean this strange child and send her to her Tata, the midwife. Under her Tata’s loving hand, she grew up to be wilful and sure of herself.
It is thanks to her Tata that no pebbles were strung from her soft baby head to a midpoint between her eyes, to make them crossed. Crossed eyes might be beautiful, but she needed to see straight for the arduous tasks that awaited her. Her teeth were also spared being polished with stone and water to make them sharp like the teeth of a baby shark. It was her Tata who refused to encase her forehead between two planks of wood, to give her the gallant elongated look of the temple friezes. For that, she was grateful. In any case, she did not intend to carry heavy baskets slung from her forehead over her back. She did not know why, but she sensed that the source of her strength and her understanding lay somewhere behind her forehead, in a point between her eyes. After all, she had observed that people fall into a deep dreamless sleep when they are hit hard on the head. And babies whose heads get stuck in their mothers at birth often grow up to be dull.
Sac Nicte was not vain, but she was sensuous. She liked to sit at her Tata’s doorstep and allow the old woman to oil her hair and braid it into two long braids that fell below her waist. And after bathing in the sea, she would rinse herself in sweet water and anoint her body with pungent red resin which would start a fire in her loins if she happened to be thinking of him.
His name was Can Ek and he was a son of one of the Lords of Xibalba. Can Ek was as tall as she was full and his skin had the burnished look of a dying sun. His mother had burnt the roots of the scanty hairs on his face before he reached manhood and now his face was as smooth and soft as hers. His lips were round and red and his eyes were as black and as sharp as an obsidian knife. So was his rod.
He came from far away to visit his kinsfolk and to plunge into the jade sea. He plunged into her soft flesh instead and tasted the salt on her lips. The first time she felt him inside, she cried out in pain and the blood between her legs was not the blood that was preordained by the rhythm of the moon. After that, she marvelled at how he could be hard and soft at the same time, a lesson she, as a medicine woman, still had to learn. At times she imagined that what she held in her hand was a plantain that was not yet ripe; at others, she accused him of being like a slippery eel not wanting to be caught.
But his very beauty was her undoing. They said that he had an evil streak. How could it be that she, a medicine woman, had not detected it? They said that when he turned seven, he killed a butterfly, that could have been her own mother! And at fourteen he had killed a deer, merely to possess the gland which holds the secret of all life. But as a grown man he had met Sac Nicte and his eyes filled with tears. A man who could be thus moved was a man to cherish.
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