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It took a better part of the rainy day for Ravno to skirt Vorra Mound around the north. The gale had cleared and Vorra overshadowed the garden where he entered by the broad-leafed rutabagas and sprouts. He walked to the canal and munched on wet kale and spinach leaves. He husked a tomatillo and tossed the wrapper into the drenched forest. The sun left a net of eventide draped across the sky. He came upon the bridge and crossed to the other side.
Ravno followed a vacant trail and stopped in the dim shadows before he entered Mara. He opened his mind to see what the world had to offer—if not the world then the island, or at least the modest city of Mara. He stifled his excitement as the obscurity before him unveiled in unsaturated silverscreen. The shadows emerged as if caught by the tempered moon. Through the switch, he watched with the single Botorang as if it were himself; he admired the stealth and plunder. The thief moved through darkness in unfamiliar packs as though they were his own. When the thief departed the last apartment, Ravno located and watched him with his own eyes. Once closer, Ravno identified the same boy with the pac choi crop atop his head. Ravno let him pass, then stepped into the trail and said, ‘Cahaya.’
The Botorang slid almost imperceptibly to the edge of the trail.
‘Koko karuna,’ Ravno said hurriedly, unsure whether the boy knew Wawasen. He wanted to show the boy that he had the best intentions. Ravno stood fixed in the dark. His muscles tensed and tempted him to run after the boy, as he lost sight of the Botorang’s silhouette in the lightless roadway. Ravno automatically switched and clearly saw his own figure, which stood in the middle of the path, a statue poised among puddles. Relieved, Ravno slowly gestured with a cupped and friendly outward first hand at waist-height and placed his second hand on his heart.
‘Cahaya, I’m Ravno,’ he said to the darkness. In those tense moments no galaxy collapsed but time certainly changed its attitude for Ravno. No other movements disturbed the stillness between where they stood except for a solitary frog that sang gloriously in the bush. Then the Botorang came forward, slow, resolute, until the two were but an arm’s length apart.
Does he recognize me or is he only curious? Ravno wondered as his eyes gradually adjusted to see the boy in front of him. Ravno saw the sharp knife that hung accessibly at the hip. Again, in supplication, he murmured, ‘Koko karuna,’ and again his first hand cupped and moved outward like a boto in uncharted waters. His hand floated there as it came to rest, only four finger’s width from the Botorang’s tight waist. They endured like the dance between Aron and the crow, momentarily uncertain. Then the boy took Ravno’s hand and spelled his name against the palm. A straight finger against Ravno’s palm-edge, then to the tip of Ravno’s index, and palm-edge again, tip of the fourth finger, hooked index on Ravno’s palm, and index to thumb. He made a T and an E and a T O R A. Then the boy’s second hand dropped from under Ravno’s first and came to rest on his own heart.
Ravno grinned excitedly and took the boy’s hand in a strong embrace. They looked at each other quietly and without judgment. Ravno spelled his own name on the boy’s hand: Hooked index on Tetora’s palm, index to thumb, index and middle apart on the palm, then those two fingers joined together, and his index on the tip of the fourth finger to complete the R A V and N and O.
Tetora’s thick fingers came across his own nose and lips and he looked questioningly at his new acquaintance. Ravno remembered his own bloodied state of disarray. He inwardly thanked the Kawani and her rashness when she had slogged him in the coneflowers; perhaps his battered appearance made Tetora trust him so readily.
He laughed and Tetora joined in—cautiously at first, then with unsuppressed enthusiasm. Ravno tried to explain, within the limits of his awkward gestures, how he came to be within ownership of the noh, and broke it, and returned it unwillingly to the naked Kawani. Tetora followed the story, with difficulty and humor, as the two young men negotiated a form of understanding between them.
They walked to the village dock and Shisen appeared with their skiff. Ravno’s throat floundered when Tetora jumped in; he wanted them to stay. Did the episode end there or would they invite him to see where they go? Tetora motioned him toward the boto. Had the time come for Ravno to take to the ocean? Did all his prior switching culminate to this, a deliverance to the sea? Later, when Ravno remembered that evening and the excitement, he felt ashamed at the absence of Keba from his thoughts as he considered leaving the island with the two Botorang.
Ravno anxiously crouched on the end of the rough dock and squinted at the pair, ready to board as soon as they gave further instruction. But Tetora simply held out a stick, nodded his head and urged it to Ravno. Unsure of what to do, Ravno switched with the boy to see a noh, complete and complimentary, there in the thick skin of Tetora’s hands. The size was the same as the one he had stolen from the Ammit. The end of the noh still looped around, intact, like a scorpion’s tail. Ravno prolonged the switch and felt pride surge throughout Tetora’s jaw when he took the branding tool from Tetora and nodded in return. Then Ravno sat alone on the dock with the cordgrass, under a waning moon, and with a new creambush rod of justice.
A custom batsu omhaal at the Bhavata House
The sea sat low on the coastline, exposing vivid ocean smells. A half circle of five Wawasens stood on their knees in front of Ravno on the beach by the Bhavata House. They knelt around the fire that heated the noh from Tetora. Fine sand powdered their hairless legs and, even with the excitement that grew around them, no one smiled. Keba, to Ravno’s first, held hands with Aron beside her. Patanjali and Tzeko both transferred their eyes between the fire and Ravno, back to the fire and to Ravno again. There sat Jasmin Sanjukta, to his second, with her silver-bound black amulet above her eyes. She watched as Dabi grabbed hold of the billet from the fire and placed her second hand on Ravno’s shoulder. And Ravno, with a final switch, gazed down at himself as Dabi looked at him with admiration. She squeezed her hand with wordless support. He smiled to himself and she pressed the hot noh against his neck.
‘Hng!’ he yelled. He couldn’t suppress the painful groan. His head turned away from the burning sensation. Four of his companions dropped their foreheads to the sand, out of step and in apprehensive silence. Only Jasmin Sanjukta stood and came around the fire to his side. She looked with Dabi at the mark.
‘No. No intak kayama….’ For the first time Ravno heard Jasmin falter in her presence. It is not clear. She shook her head and her hands lowered the ancient glass vial of kukui nut oil. But Ravno’s insides were already raw and tears lined his jaw. The goal was all he saw, so he said, ‘Do it again. Right away, do it again Dabi, Jasmin, please.’
Keba raised her sandy head enough to see the noh reenter the flames and crash with indifference against Ravno’s neck. This time he breathed out loudly, his voice gone, and crumpled to the shore. Keba came to him and held his shoulders and brought his sandy hands away from his neck and hair. Jasmin Sanjukta poured the healing oil over his wound that was clearly pronounced. She let the umber kukui nut burn out as it was passed around. Nine nuts remained on the hemp string around her body’s lovely chersonese.
Ravno trembled. Sand powdered his sweat-soaked face. He mumbled to himself, ‘No ini kayama, no ini kayama, no ini kayama, no ini kayama….’ In turn, all of his companions were branded with the noh. By the end, seven lonely kukui nuts were left to grace the neck of Jasmin Sanjukta.
The Group of Eleven meets at low tide
At the same moment of Ravno’s second impression, but halfway down the archipelago, Prime Minister Varchapet emphasized for a second time, her hands enunciating every sign, ‘Our designates will be back from Lurruna before the new moon. There will be extensive opportunity to intervene in this new matter.’ Chivors nodded emphatically with agreement.
But Mek, one of the Eleven, said, ‘Yes Gara, I saw your comment the first time and I respectfully disagree. We must act quickly on every violation. From the time it takes for us to be informed, our designates to be employed—’
&nbs
p; ‘We are informed very quickly, most often before the infraction is born,’ Prime Minister Varchapet insisted. ‘In this new case, yes, it has been already seven days—’
‘And will be seven more!’ Mek’s serious eyes stayed, unfaltered, as his serious hands fell open with impatience. The new violation was already the third of the year within Vets’ small domain, second from the island of Magulo. It infuriated Mek that the child had grown for an entire year in the mat’s womb and neither her maitatu, nor the eldest of the original two children, nor even the local Ishi, had informed Vets. Had the Group of Eleven lost their persuasion? The disobedience of Mek’s own domain, which included the islands of Peninnah and Lurruna, added to his building fury. The trio was currently returning from Lurruna Island’s third contravention of the year. Mek’s toes played in the wet sand of the small shoal that the Eleven met upon.
They held the meeting on the mini-island, defined by its low tide, as an attempt of transparency. But because the shoal was only accessible by boto or through a foot of sea along the sand bar to Bu, it did not accommodate Wawasens well, unlike previous locations in city centers and on rocky