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CHAPTER 2
Berthe lay listening to the rustle of uko leaves that fell past Akiva's house. Both moons were out tonight, the smaller veiled in clouds, the larger free. Moonlight passing between the uko's seminaked branches entered the house at a shallow angle, crossed the room and fell upon Akiva, illuminating the nearer side of his face. With the eye closed it looked like stone.
To see a face as beautiful as yours in this world is stranger than
finding a marble city in the wilderness, she thought. The risk is nothing. The
risk is my life, and that has been in danger since its beginning.
Caution ruled Berthe. She knew it so well that she had won a full
summer's love by secrecy that, in retrospect, astonished her. She had learned
to steal in and out of her house silently as a dream, to hear a footstep twenty
paces behind and elude the suspicious brother or send him on false leads that
kept him busy till he was tired of following her, to feign sleep after coming
at a dead run all the way from the city, and to bring herself alert when she
was ready to collapse from exhaustion. Berthe had always needed to be careful
because she was a witch. People would know that from seeing her urine, always
black as midnight, and they they would have killed her, so she concealed it,
but those deceptions were nothing as to this.
More than a dozen visits, each the object of a careful plot,
forged a hidden chain of happy memory. She and Akiva had even found leisure for
a lovers' quarrel. She had run angrily homeward in the twilight. He had
followed until she stepped off the road, then jumped on her. They wrestled, she
using a fraction of her strength, then they argued in whispers, and then they
forgot. There could be no lasting alienation between them. Both knew they must
remain together because they could love one another and that capacity was so
rare.
A leaf drifted in through the window and slid rasping along the
floor. The summer of my life is ending, Berthe thought. As the uko must finally
stand exposed to winter, so she must eventually be discovered in one secret or
the other. One person knew both secrets already.
She had learned that on Tribute Day, when the people came to the
temple with ceremonial bundles of dried ugewa blooms for boiling down to dye.
Flower-giving was the celebration of plenty after the harvest. No one minded
giving up the pretty blossoms. The leaves, with the corn and barley, would go
later on big tax wagons to the capital. Then even the most pious had no
occasion to rejoice, but Tribute Day was all fun and dancing.
All day, beginning at sunrise, families came. Men and women hauled
big sacks, children tossed their smaller bags at one another, hurled them up
into the eaves of the temple, stole them back and forth and amassed little
hoards of the sticky, crinkly cushions. In the afternoon, wagons arrived from
the outlying villages. Hopeful brides and bridegrooms, out-country mothers who
wanted their children named in temple, sick people who had lost faith in herbal
cures and old ones who wanted to die holy poured out and went searching for the
peasants' priest to hear their supplications. Too ignorant to know what a
priest looked like, many gave their bribes to local codgers. Some wandered into
the city and were chased out with dogs.
This year the confusion was worse because the bumpkins, unaware of
Shurat's death, were looking for an old priest. One grandfather took a dozen
fees and was looking forward to a year's idleness by the time a group of his
victims caught him, beat him and recovered their gifts.
Berthe sat with her family on the ground near the temple where
bales and bags and heaps of purple flowers, sometimes filled in with straw,
spilled out of the building, down the granite steps, across the apron of
hardpacked earth around it, and stopped with a few small packages leaning
against the polished stones of the outer ring. Someone gave a hidden signal.
The gongs and cymbals rang and tinkled and clashed. Babies howled, children
yelled and danced, men and women cheered. The country folk pressed close to the
outer stones.
Akiva came out on the temple steps, wearing his bells and the
purple gown, his hair oiled and plaited, solemn eyes dutiful and loving. He
raised his hands. They all fell silent. He spoke in the church language and
Berthe translated to her family, trying to express not only the meaning of his
words but also the sound and rhythm and the feeling that underlay his speech.
The sermon was a difficult one, not really suited to Tribute Day.
Rather than praising the offerings, Akiva seemed to ask something of them that
could not be so easily measured. Most people didn't understand the god-pleasing
language, though, so they didn't care what he said. Sermons conferred blessing
and that was enough.
He took as his subject the greeting spoken by Fatayad, god of
agriculture, to the first farmers. Fatayad said, "I am with you."
"The father of your wisdom did not say, I am with you now; I
am here today. Fatayad said, I am with you. There is a message for us in those
words. It is an assurance, and it is a warning. The gods are with us. Let us
rejoice, let us lift up our faces and be glad, they care for us. Let us lift up
our husbands and wives and our children. Let us raise up our crops for them and
in so doing purify the earth. Let us show generosity and kindness in our
spiritual wealth, for the gods are with us."
Berthe repeated after him in a whisper. Her younger brother
listened closely, frowning.
"We often think the gods are far away, that they are
absorbed in their lofty concerns and they do not think of us. In truth, it is
we who separate ourselves from them, we who care only about our small worries,
about the next rain or the snowfall, we who care only about taxes and the next
harvest, we who wonder, in our greatest feats of vision, about how our sons and
daughters will fare when they are grown."
People were crowding around Berthe. She spoke aloud.
"We are interested in only one generation, when all the
generations of eternity are our proper concern. We are interested only in
feeding ourselves when the nurturance of that in us which needs no food is our
most urgent business. It is our task, it is our most pressing duty, to remove
ourselves from day-to-day affairs, and bring ourselves that much closer to
Ayekar." He paused. The name of Ayekar echoed back from the trees, then
silence. Make them hear, Berthe cheered him silently, but she knew that few of them understood more than an occasional word.
His voice was quiet now. "We must feed the gods, becuase
this is the strongest proof of our love. But we must not become so enmeshed in
the work of feeding them that we forget the gods themselves. We must remember
always that they are with us. Let us never, never think we are alone."
"What?" someone whispered.
"Alone!" someone answered. Akiva glanced at them and
away.
"When disease weakens us, let us have courage. When death
strikes, let us not grieve," he continued. "They are still with us.
When the rain does not fall, when the fields are parched or the fields are
awash, let us have no fear. When we are weary and long for rest, let us remain
steadfast, for the gods are with us. When our friends fail, let us not despair,
for the gods are with us. But my people, when we allow lust and rebellion to
enter our hearts, let us fear and fear greatly, for the gods are with us!"
She was speaking loudly. Akiva looked at her. He shuddered
visibly. Berthe saw her mother's gaze move from the preacher to her daughter.
She guessed. The blood welled up under Berthe's skin, that was too pale to
conceal it. Her mother looked at the ground. She knew. The secret was safe with
her, but one had guessed and soon others would guess also.
The summer of my life, Berthe thought again. She was not afraid.
Who would outlive such a victory, and who could fight thus for more than one
summer? She moved slightly in the bed and Akiva woke.
"Why are you crying?" he asked.
"You, who will be as Verloring..." Berthe murmured.
"I am not crying. I was thinking...thinking how long this summer has
been."
"It started before I knew you," Akiva replied with a
smile. "A thousand years ago." He added seriously, "Berthe, I
was a priest then."
"This wound will make your soul stronger." She wiped
his cheek with the palm of her hand. They lay quiet.
"There is no Verloring," Akiva said.
"Shurat--"
"There is. Everybody knows Verloring leads good children to
paradise."
"It's a story. Shurat said that the Archives--"
"Verloring is our friend. He is the world's lost friend.
Don't cry. We will find him."
"Do you believe it?" he asked.
She laughed. "Not that he leads good children to
Ayekar."
He said nothing.
"Did Shurat tell you about Verloring?" she asked. Akiva
nodded. "Did you believe him?"
Akiva opened his mouth and closed it. He swallowed. Finally he
said, "People called me the Lost Boy."
"Because you talked about the Lost God?"
He did not answer.
"Do they call you the Lost Man now?"
"No. They've forgotten." He sighed. "Berthe, I was
a priest."
There was no answer to this, so she said lightly,"You are
still a priest. Priests are supposed to love their people as well as the
gods."
"The people are stupid, narrow, dirty sheep. The gods--I
read the books in the Archive. They waste themselves. They could be gods, but
they are like people. They are like me."
She rocked him back and forth until he fell asleep. He is as
tired as I, she thought. To decieve my family is nothing--he must evade the
sight of heaven. Sometimes when she prattled about the gods he became annoyed
and she thought of Fea giving up her child Zatoye to the sun. The goddess held
out her misbegotten to its father with gestures of hope, and tears. As it
grieved Fea to know her golden child would be raised by earth instead of her,
so it must grieve this priest to know he would never meet his people in Ayekar.
To deceive my family is nothing, she thought. Her next-younger
brother was the most difficult one. A romantic, he lay awake nights or went out
to walk in the moonlight. Often as not when she said she was going to sleep in
the hayloft he came with her, and then she must stay there because he might
wake at any hour with some question like, "Berthe, why do they keep rain
in the sky when it's only needed on the ground?"
The elder brothers were always suspicious, but too lazy to follow
her unless their father insisted, and he was simple. When she said she would
sleep in the barn, he forbade it or else he hesitated and then nodded, or else
he agreed. If he agreed at once he would send someone later to make sure she
was there. If he hesitated, then he had satisfied himself she was innocent, and
she might leave at once. Tonight he had hesitated a long time, partly because
she had not asked him while he was sober.
He drinks too much, she thought. All the good brandy and whiskey
they had put down for her wedding was gone, and most of her sister's, too. The
grain he kept aside to ferment took as much land and trouble as the ugewa.
After a summer's day afield he came in too weary to sleep, and then he must
drink himself into a stupor to be ready for the next day.
Sometimes Berthe looked out through the doorway at evening when
the smoke of hearth fires rose from the distant houses and thought of the
suffering that each wisp signified, the overworked fathers and worn-out
mothers, the children beaten and allowed to starve. Something must come of
this, she thought.
Something. There would be a baby soon at home. Her mother's
labors were usually easy. She is old, though, Berthe thought, too old for
children, almost, too old to work in the fields. Almost.
Her brothers ought to marry. A strong young woman could let the old
ones rest. But then, she herself was the strongest woman she knew. If she could
not release her father from toil, he would never rest. Could she do it? She
sighed. Not now. When she was caught and these meetings stopped, then she could
work day and night to be a good daughter.
She heard the leaves whirling down onto the roof and closed her
eyes, remembering an old nightmare. Once in the evening when she was small and
afraid of the autumnal wind, her mother had sat by her and told stories about
the trees that were really mothers bewailing their lost children and again,
alternatively or at the same time, she being too young to know, they were souls
of those who had died weeping, turned to trees and forever howling with their
arms upraised. They wept for the Lost God, Verloring, ever and ever sorrowing,
and so if this child did not stop crying she might be transformed...the ploy
had failed when Berthe decided the tiny saplings that sprung up in the field
were babies and she hid the weeding hoes, imagining herself the mother of a
race. Had she really done that? She remembered being beaten for it.
Her mother had woven cloth for the city people as a young wife,
before her eyes began to fail, and often Berthe had heard the twang of the loom
in her sleep as her mother wove by firelight, torchlight or moonlight because
the orders were always so big, nearly impossible, and she was given so little
time. At dawn her children would find her asleep at work and drag her to her
pallet before their father woke, because if he knew she wove all night someone
would suffer.
About the time Berthe became aware of what it meant to be a
witch, her younger brother was born. This baby somehow took his mother's sight.
She could not weave by the light of hissing torches any more and for a while
she wove all day while Berthe struggled with the housework, and then when
Berthe was called to work the crops she wove in the day and cooked and mended
at night.
One day when she lay sick from a childhood illness, Berthe
twisted basketsful of cord for her mother to weave for some hopeless order. The
woman sat rigid, slightly curved around the baby, fingers scrabbling in the
warp as she raced against the sun. Now and then she glanced outside or cast a
fearful look at the heavens and then she worked even faster. Sometimes she
sprang up to relieve her aching back, at others she examined the roll of
finished cloth or looked to see how much warp remained. All day she worked as
though someone were lashing her.
At sunset she muttered, "There's a little time yet,"
and they dragged the heavy loom outside to use the last bit of twilight. She
paused occasionally to yank strands of her hair and bits of her tunic free and
Berthe heard her weeping while the strings were quiet. The sky turned deep red
as the sun fell, the layers of thick and fine cloud making a lattice of darker
and lighter color that faded slowly until they were a delicate grey and it was
truly night.
"There must be more!" Berthe's mother yelled, shaking
her fist at the sun. She stood and railed.
My mother is turning into a tree, Berthe thought. She tottered
out and stood beside her mother, trying to become a sapling, until the others
came home and put them both to bed.
Berthe looked at her own dirt-ingrained fingers, too big from
work to do any weaving for the city, and at Akiva's. His were thin and
dexterous but not strong enough. Our mothers, she thought, we have squandered
all you gave us. The trees shifted violently in a gust of wind, branches
touching. Their fingers are strong and graceful, she thought. They weave...they
weave moonlight. Some day I will be married to you, Akiva, in a veil of
moonlight as we dream together at the burial ground.
What if they sent her away? She looked outside again. The wind
blew strong now, the leaves fell rapidly. If they sent her away, they would
die. No, her brothers would bestir themselves and marry before the old folks
starved. But what if they didn't?
She got up. Maybe she could go to the temple and talk with Fea.
The moonlight struck her face. She blinked.
"Berthe, come out," someone whispered.
She stepped into the shadow. It was her younger brother, standing
outside the window. So this is the way it happens, she thought. Should I be so
calm?
"Berthe, come out. Mother is laboring. She told me you were
here--she's crying for you, Berthe. Come home. I won't say a word, I promise.
Come on!" He gripped the windowsill.
A low, nasty laugh interrupted. It came from her next elder
brother, who stood a little beyond the house, near the forest. "Here you
are. Want to be laboring yourself. Women love pain, I swear it."
Behind her, Akiva had drawn his knife.
"Put it away. I will not let you harm my brother," she
said. The polished blade must shine in the moonlight. She could almost hear it
shining; wicked, powerful and safe. For a moment she longed to take it and cut
herself free from these hands at the windowsill, piercing the night if need be
until she stood alone in the dead light that shone always beyond the mantle of
darkness. She heard the knife slide back into its sheath and the longing
vanished.
"Come on," the younger brother pleaded.
"Don't move," the elder contradicted. "Pa's
already gone to raise the priests."
Berthe lay down. Her father had chosen the difficult path. Had he
kept quiet, the evil priest would have had to reward him with strong blessings.
He had spoken because to remain silent would be to betray his people.
"Tell him when I am gone that I do not repent but am proud
to be such a man's daughter," she said.
Her brother sobbed in distraction, pressing his head against the
wall so a few bits of clay and straw stuck in his hair. Though he had lived all
his life among cruelty and desperation, his look when he raised his head was
that of one meeting evil for the first time. She came to the window and
embraced him, holding his head against her shoulder so she would not have to
see his eyes.
Men were entering the house now. A kick sent her forward,
knocking her brother off balance. She fell on him. Hands came toward her, palms
and fingernails flashing white. They clenched in to fists and struck blind, as
though she were not a human being with head and limbs but a featureless mas to
which all blows were the same. Their shouts echoed cries of malice in the
house, where a group of priests were fighting with Akiva. Hands pushed at one
another in the uneven torchlight and once she saw Akiva's arm swing up and then
down. Their rage is the measure of our victory, she told herself. A strip of
her dress had been torn from the collar to the girdle at her waist and now it
hung down like bark peeled from a tree. A club cracked against her shoulders
and she fell, groaning.
Chapter 3
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