is. Whenever I see her, which is rarely, I just can’t get over it. I want to be closer to her. Jasmin Sanjukta. Jasminsanjukta. It’s like you gently bite her bottom lip when you say her name.’ Tap-tap. He looked out over the water, apparently clutching her in the keepsake drawers of his heart. Tap-tap.
‘And did you hear her talk?’ Aron said. ‘It almost makes me forget about the thick lava of Vesta’s voice immediately. What? What’s so funny?’
Ravno could hardly suppress his growing grin but his hair stayed sprayed and ocean-like.
‘I’m sorry; you’re just all over this Jasmin Sanjukta. Yes, her name is a delight to say, the way it makes your tongue run around.’
Aron tilted his face suspiciously. ‘Well you best keep your distance my fair fellow because I found her first.’ He smiled almost big enough for his teeth to peek through.
‘Oh is she a prize to be won? I wasn’t aware…. You’ll have to check and see if she prizes you too, I’m afraid.’ Ravno spoke as if he pretended seriousness, even though he truly believed in what he said.
Aron’s eyebrows popped up. ‘I’ll have you know she invited me to come along to a thing she’s going to in a couple days. The Bhavata, or something.’ He laughed. ‘Of course I was having difficulty focusing on the details—though I was eating up every word.’ He flicked his frames.
The Sunberry boto came to rest at the intersection of Duat. The two men got out, along with three other passengers, and waited for a boto to take them north to the city. As they continued up the main south-north vein that led across Lurruna, the two chatted buoyantly. After Aron confessed his love for Jasmin Sanjukta, Ravno felt a stronger affection for him, for when weaknesses are undressed, relationships strengthen. They talked about the historia forum that day and their own theories on vacant canal botos gone missing or even, though infrequently, little children that slipped through the spruce, as they say. Ravno asked about Aron’s employment: Ishi grounds assistant, boto builder, and materials artisan in the pottery. Aron told Ravno about the morning he found his glassless glasses on the north beach in the Kuroshio drifts—the same morning he first saw Jasmin Sanjukta and her kukuis.
When they were silent for a time Ravno realized that he couldn’t switch with women at all. The red capa on the path to the garden, Mr. Sunshine on the boto, and Aron at the Ishi’s. He tried to see through Jasmin and all he got was Aron. He could’ve switched with anyone in the boto that day but it was the porter—and no doubt about that. He began to feel even more inept in his emerging skills and useless in the face of such power. With time he would improve. Or maybe with more visits to Vesta, he thought without demur.
‘Ravno.’
‘Yeah, what’s the breeze?’
Aron pinky-flicked his frames and shifted on the sugar pine bench. ‘Jasmin did mention that you could come along to this Bhavata thing, if you’re free.’ And they settled the details.
Ravno documents his curious adventures
Ravno decided to record the switches when he returned to his pack. His attempt to make progress started with recording progress. He found some papyrus rolled and tucked in the space where he slept, and a small aureate patinaed well of crushed-walnut-shell kurumi ink. He set out a list:
Cokha
Lehen—Capa kokkino capa morea
Bigar—Boto di saya ini dan Mister
Hirugar—Daen Ishi dan rimu kuro Aron sebaliknya
Which meant:
Switch
First—Red capa violet capa
Second—In the boto with Mister
Third—On the Ishi’s oval through Aron’s black frames
He set down the ink-stained halibut bone beside the well and stared at the list. He didn’t want to make the record too obvious in case someone else found it. But even if they did, who could imagine he meant he could see what those other people saw?
Ravno worried that people might be afraid of him or put something or someone on the other side, like Mr. Sunshine had mentioned. They would see him as some sort of creature and ask him to leave the island, though Ravno doubted that outcome. He could go to another island, in that case. But would they banish him from the archipelago? Besides the batsu omhaals, Wawasens were magnanimous. Though, Ravno had only recently begun to learn about the ancient peoples—had they been even more forgiving?
A meeting at the Bhavata House and the person Ravno sees there
A day into the first quarter of bulaniru Ravno met up with Aron on the Duat Canal. They planned to head north to the Teratas Canal, cut east across the island to the sea, and walk the difference to the Bhavata House. Though the house sat just north of the east-side beaches, which Ravno frequented on his maritime mornings, he decided to meet Aron and take the long way around. The early hours offered birds, grebets and maintenance people as company. Ravno ate his radicchio and eulachon, simmered in seaweed and dill, which he had prepared in his half-sleep before he had left.
The grebets’ morning-fresh sprightliness whisked them along Teratas Canal. Despite the dramatic angle the sun imposed on the sitka spruce and western hemlocks, Aron characteristically maintained his level of foolery with a sporadic tap-tap as he posed all manner of ideas and questions to his new friend. Ravno worked on his morning meal with zeal and only now and again added an, ‘uh-huh,’ ‘oh really?’ or ‘hmm, not sure.’ One time he looked up, alarmed after he sensed that Aron had been scrutinizing him for a moment. He wondered if perhaps Aron knew about the switch at the oval, or more absurdly if he was switching with Ravno right at that moment. But Aron hadn’t been scrutinizing or switching and broke his own trance as he tap-tapped his frames and chuckled softly.
‘It’s crazy how defensive we get when we spend good time making something and someone else asks what it’s for,’ Aron said, ‘as in questioning it’s effectiveness, you know? It hurts when the person proves your logic wrong. It’s maddening and we start saying all sorts of things to protect our pride that we regret almost immediately.’ Aron pictured in his mind a powerful wind taking Vesta’s roof from her hut and exposing all the details inside. He scoffed tightly through his nose.
‘Why do we do that, Rav? What do we achieve? Our pride is even worse off after the interaction is over. And it’s unsaid but you both know it, if you have enough sense to look past your indignation.’ Another scoop of the morning mash muffled Ravno’s ‘hmm’ and the boto sliced on through the salty waters of the canal.
They hadn’t left soon enough, or perhaps the grebets weren’t as sprightly as they seemed, for they arrived after the group finished yoga outside the Bhavata House. Small pockets of people stood around papyrus matting that hadn’t yet received it’s blessing of morning sun. The aroma of cinnamon and sage sat calmly on Ravno’s palate. Men and woman donned their capas and some retrieved skirts that had been left along the side of the house. One woman turned around as she re-clasped her asparagus green capa; Ravno stood facing his muse from the beach three months ago. Her sweat flattened the atmosphere of her hair and mixed with the cinnamon and sage. His mouth dropped open. Fortunately he had to swallow, and that closed it back up again. It’s a nice morning for a swim, he thought.
‘Cahaya, I’m Keba.’ Her hand was hot.
‘Cahaya, I’m Ravno. But call me Rav.’
She smiled at his large nervous eyes and warmly squeezed his hand.
‘Call me K,’ she said.
Ravno’s blood fired under his skirt and he was frustrated with himself for it. This girl intrigued him. Her shoulders stood firm and confident and her eyes shone like sunflowers, but the warmth of her hand and the nearness of her body made his body react so quickly. To control his penis from becoming too alert, and to keep his face composed, he ended the hot embrace of their hands much sooner than he preferred.
Meanwhile, Aron found Jasmin Sanjukta standing by a tall woman in a tight-necked black capa and black cargo skirt. The woman’s black hair parted distinctly and hung neatly and behaved on the one side, but ran up and over like midnight jungle weeds on the
other. She held herself in a stern, militant way, despite the love in her eyes under thin black brows. Jasmin Sanjukta untwined the fingers of their hands so she could greet Aron.
‘This is my maitatu, Dabi, who gives guidance and inspiration to the Bhavata. I’m so happy you came this morning, Aron.’
The taller woman, Dabi, stretched out her first hand. As Aron brought his hand forward, he noticed a tail-like scar that ran down from the part in her hair. Or was it a vein? It hung as a water trail on a raised paddle hangs, at the edge, when the droplet of sea it carried careens back to the canal. Dabi’s water trail did not have a droplet, in spite of the light perspiration near her hairline, but ended abruptly just above her brow. Then her eye under the brow was the droplet that plunked into the ocean of woman that stood with her hand locked over his.
Did she say maitatu? Aron thought.
‘Cahaya, Aron. It’s a pleasure to have you here.’
‘Cahaya, Dabi. Thanks for having me, or, us. Sorry, we missed yoga, I think we miscalculated the length of the Teratas from Duat.’
‘It’s no matter,’ Dabi said. ‘You’re here now and you’ll come earlier next time, if you like. Now, let’s move to the theatre out front.’
The group, thirteen altogether, made their way from the north side of the house, in the little clearing where the mats lay, to the
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