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THE JEWEL OF PARADOX
A
Visionary Spy Story by Gill Schwartz
Chapter Thirteen
The solvents have been vitally
useful till now
-tears, passion, sweat, drink and semen.
From the initial dissolving, through to transporting the Prima
Materia into the new vessel of the Valley, solvents have been essential.
But they are no longer needed for the Work and so are in excess.
I utilize the heat in emotions
and circumstances are to drive off
the unneeded volatile elements, evaporating into steam. My
driving off the moisture will extract its essentials, condense, stabilize
and intensify the essence.
This Process of expelling the
solvents from the Prima Materia is
called:
DISTILLATION
Much later, I'm back to myself.
Alone. Alone at last to gather my thoughts, to
find some equilibrium. I look around the hut, at the sagging walls, the
smoke-
blackened thatch, grotesques in the tapers' light. No thought, no feeling but
dismaying emptiness. Dazed and dumbfounded, I struggle to lay out some sort
of bedding using the ubu skins, my clothing and the miscellaneous rags on the
cold stone floor. I leave the tapers lit for the little warmth they offer and
lie
down, longing for warmth so that I can sleep again. I close my eyes, and curl
up
again, trying to recapture her soothing sweeping through me. My body closes
up into the womb's curl. Even with distant chatter and the ubus yelping, with
a
pillow that has buckles and a blanket that works apart as if bewitched, I try
to
find comfort.
Incredible. The evening, the day, the whole episode is beyond belief. With
just the softening of detail it gains in memory, it all seems like fiction,
techniques pushed too far to mistake for reality. All but the hut around me.
The
noise. The cold. They are very real, very present.
Welcome to your new home. A stinking hovel as my tomb with spider-webs
for a shroud. Foul, unbreathable air closes about me, the stench of humans
living like animals. Fragments of phrases and images jumble through my mind,
skittering from all sides.
"Oh, Jewel of Paradox praise be, praise be..."
The transfixing eye of that macaw, a huge blue orb floating in the jungle's
wall of green...
Faintly, the muezzin's call to prayer echoing over Balangpur...
The taste of those oniony purple flowers in the food. No, that's not memory.
There's a piece of petal stuck between my teeth from the Night Feast.
"It doesn't matter that you are compelled to go towards what seems like
an
ending," that guiding voice said in my vision of walking to the Sun.
"If you are
certain in your heart..."
Wonderment at her astounding change. Melissa?... Meriflur?... How could
she be here? Could they have bought her? Even with all the money in the world,
was there time? Impossible.
Maybe its some kind of a test, a trap act by the Order. I feel herded, one
long
maneuver from the beginning. Were they watching to see how far I would carry
betrayal. Were they just pushing, pushing to see how much pressure I could
take?
It's a sadistic hoax, if that's what it is. Unless, I shudder at the thought,
unless they think they can drive me to kill myself, by subjecting me to all
this.
I stumble from one uncertainty to another. Nonsense. It's all nonsense.
Passing out those insane gifts before. I try, unsuccessfully, to find the
recollection amusing. What purpose could all that rigmarole serve? And what
so compelled me to play that part, left me so helpless to do otherwise. In
all
this, I'll never known myself to act so act slavish, to so defenselessly
allow my
humiliation.
Did that psychedelic glob Plang gave me to eat cast me into the depths of my
dark, into some personal mythic hell. This thought jars my hold on my
assumptions, And part of this is that I blame my bewilderments and yearnings
on these imagined beings I surrounded myself with, reacting as if they were
totally real.
It must still be more effect of Plang's sacramental drug, I console myself
again. But how am I to know how much of what seems to be happening is
actually hallucination? Maybe,.. maybe everything. And I'm really lying there
on his dressing-room floor. Or in the trunk of a car being taken somewhere.
And all this is projections from my own psyche. All this filth and misery is my
own inner stuff.
For an instant, just edgeways between breaths, I'm certain that the danger
here isn't death, but madness, an adaptive suspension of sanity. I can
already
feel the currents sweeping up out of the depths, the fiery undertow of
delirium
with recurring attacks since the day began.
All this... is only my dream. The thought turns curiously comforting. Can I
tell them they're only images in my dreams? Not real people. Not individuals.
Just personified fragments of my freaking mind. That only this fantasy
calling
itself 'I' will survive as witness when the drug wears off.
But the most insane thought is that all that's happening might really be what
the Wizard had promised me. Here,we are all our "Others".
Things must clarify by morning. The drug will wear off. After some sleep,
I'll be better able to see what's real and what is imagination.
The the repellant in the Cleansing seems to have worn off. During my mental
torment, I slap and scratch at the infesting vermin while I continually
reassemble the drifting segments of my bedding. The whole day, my whole life
seems a mountain of rubble that rolls and hurls me down into this miserable
corner where I lie.
"So this is my Enlightour," I moan in remorse. Later, mercifully,
though my
mind still is gnawing at itself, I drift into stupor, then down into the bog
of
sleep.
Bone deep weariness and the longing to escapes lets me sleep some few
hours. But then my lumpy bedding and the itching filth of my skin make more
sleep impossible. As I come to, I realize how hunched over I am with the
cold. I
try to raise some righteous anger, but nothing comes. I roll to my back, but
recoil with a hundred stabbing aches. As I lay here, the thatched ceiling
seems
closer, a pall of claustrophobia smothering me in this tomb of a hut.
All right, all right, I mutter in helpless submission. I crawl to my feet and
leave.
The sky is absolutely startling. I've seen it from remote deserts and
mountain
tops, but never so tightly meshed with stars, as if two or three Milky Ways
hover above. And the wider range of the stars' intensity tell me I'm seeing
far
deeper into the cosmos than ever before.
I go stand under the Tree to look up through its branches at the sparkling
wonderment. The black silhouette of its twisting branches lattice across the
sea of stars, giving even greater drama to the awing beauty.
In this comforting stillness, I go to the seat in the fields and look up. How
incredibly distant, from me, from each other. Stars gathered in apparent
constellations are millennia apart. Some, clear and bright to my eye, have
been
extinct for eons. Permeated with this panorama spanning space and time, I get
a
glimpse of the tiny insignificance of my own trials and disappointments.
"All right, all right, all right", I agree to that truth. I feel
relieved,
unburdened somewhat. I go back to my hut and find, after some more grumbling
at my bedding and the hut's close smell, that I can sleep some more.
For a few breaths in the fragile
twilight between sleep and full wakefulness, I
float refreshed by a lingering dream of bathing, rolling and tumbling through
rivers, down waterfalls, into seas. I am that gigantic fish again and know
those
blissful cascades disperse even as I open my eyes.
I scratch and make a gasp of discomfort. Dust ruches up my nose. I sneeze
and cough. Hearing the others, I know the day must be starting. I sit up,
wincing
with aches and stiffness. I force myself to stretch, one limb, then another.
Stretching from the hips, my back pops with the slightest pressure. I twist
from
side to side and give a sigh of resignation.
Time to get this new vestment on, I jibe at myself. I find the rags even
greasier than expected. The larger square, tattered piece I try wrapping
around
me as a kind of mini-sarong, like the others wear. But the best I can do is
to
tuck it under the elastic waistband in my shorts. The "shawl", as
it serves for
them, is ridiculously small for me. It ends up being moved from hand to hand
and from one shoulder to the other.
Every nerve in my body recalls its own private torment. The minutest
movement is torture. My very bones ache. Nettles and dust mat my hair, and
sweaty grime abrades every inch of my skin.
On investigating some particularly intense itchings, my first clear thoughts
of the day are focused on some large, purple-black lice I find burrowed into
folds and creases all over my body. I search for the lighter, but after
putting the
flame to a bug that clings near my left armpit, I find I'm left with singed hair
and the head of the vermin still embedded in my skin. Not obeying the
lice-law
of letting go under fire. Here, even they are incomprehensible. Well, at
least I
know they're real. No fantasies could bite like that.
I stand outside the doorway, shivering in the morning chill. The light of the
sun is just peeking over the pit's rim and shows the monotonous pink-gray of
the stone wall, free of flaw and variation, as if it had been carved out.
Twenty or thirty people are milling about. The day's activities seem to be
moving into full force. Light from fires pierce some huts' door drapes and
beam
up through the thatching with the heavy smoke. People scurry back and forth
through the thinning ground mist. It seems a little less foreboding, but the
stench and pall of abject poverty are bitterly strong.
"Your man looks tired this morning," an old fright calls to a young
woman.
"Did you make him do you all night?" she cackles.
"And you don't need to spend all night going back and forth past our
house,
pretending to go squeeze something out in the Nature House. Just come in, if
you want to watch," the young one screeches back, to everyone's
amusement.
"We don't mind."
They seem to have had their curiosity about me satisfied last night. A few
briefly stare while they stroke and scratch at themselves, or go to piddle
against
a convenient wall. The one who shows me the longest attention is a naked
little
girl of perhaps three or four. She stands looking up at me, picking her nose,
with bright dark eyes, torn between wanting to chase after her mother who
walks on carrying a firebrand and just gawking at this miserable looking man.
Finally, she too loses interest and abandons me to my thoughts.
Morning, and nothing has changed, nothing is remotely resolved. Same filth,
same aches, same bewilderments. Time is a lie, if tomorrow is just like
today.
I just want to clear out as soon as possible. But recalling yesterday's
journey
through the jungle, and God knows what, the way back could be even harder. I
have to stay at least long enough gather some strength. I remember the
resolve
I'd felt there in the Wizard's dressing-room, ready to accept any dangers,
any
efforts in order to change my life, to change this self I'm so fed-up with.
Yes, this is the only way. I must accept things as they are -the old man as
Dreamer in the Valley, not the Wizard of Balangpur in disguise. And her...
Well, it must go for her too. I must deal with this as its own reality and
trust in
what is happening. There's no way, from all appearances, I can ever sort this
out. My understanding, usually the thing that served me best, now is worse
than
useless. Speculating can only torment me more.
Girded with resolution, I go in search of the old man, anxious to wash, eat,
and begin my pursuits in earnest.
I find the Dreamer crouched against the front of his hut. Sitting in a lump,
the old man appears to be all soft, leathery pouches, eye-bags, jowls, chest,
and waist each resting on each other, like a flabby pyramid. He wears a broad
headband woven of fur with some of the green and red glass beads now woven
into its design.
"Come on now," he snaps at the people wandering around. "Tell
me your
dreams, take your fire and I will advise you later."
His hut is filled with flame and smoke that bellows out the uncovered
doorway and up through the thatched roofing. Meriflur springs in and out of
this inferno carrying and delivering firebrands to waiting people, emerging
each time coughing more and redder eyed. The old man meanwhile benignly
listens as one after the other crouches by his side, whispering their
confidences, and accepts the thanks and bows of these who receive and return
to their huts with the fire.
He seems totally inattentive to them, making comments to others, ordering
Meriflur around, even open to conversation with me. A poor drudgery is all it
is. Empty ritual to support custom and his ego. Or is there something else,
something unobserved happening?
Noticing me, he starts to rise clumsily to his feet, but quickly submits to
my
sign for him to sit where he is. "Ah, Yason, I missed you at my Tree
Climb last
night, but I am pleased you come to see the people come for the renewing
flame. I am the guardian of the fire," he says in patronizing tones.
"It is the
responsibility of the Dreamer to see that the fire of the Valley does not
consume itself. I stay aware of its needs day and night without rest.
"Of course, that is only the beginning of my work," he prattles on.
"Choosing
the time for the planting and the harvest, burials, and the many sacred days
that
must be remembered. Very difficult. Sometimes," he indicates those
milling
around with his chin, "they must be coaxed and scolded into
understanding.
You know, like children."
I'm intrigued with his response to the huge metallic-green flies that seem to
be thriving with the day's growing warmth. He lets them buzz around his head,
brushing them aside only when they attempt to enter an eye or nostril, and
then
using only a restrained flick of the hand. Occasionally he interrupts the
flow of
hand gestures that accompany his monologue, intently fixes on one of the
flies,
snatches it out of mid-flight, and brings it to his ear in a carefully cupped
hand.
For some moments he listens to its futile raspings in his hand with an
expression that leads me to suspect I am watching a miniature oracle. Every
performance ends with the old man's flinging the fly away, unharmed, with
unvarying shows of pride.
I became uncomfortably self-conscious. Resolve or not, I can't really be so
seriously foolishness. On sudden impulse
I call out as she passes by in her work, "Hey, Meriflur, where's the
shower
around here. I need one, bad."
She pauses in her flurry to look at me quizzically. "I'm sorry, I don't
understand what you say. Later, you could explain," she says, then
flings
herself back into her hectic enterprise.
The old man puckers his face, eyes bulging. "Do you always speak so
strangely in the morning?"
"Sorry," I answer, trying not to sound sarcastic. "The dream I
had last night,
I was a fish. Leaping back and forth between oceans." No, that was my
dream
the night before last. "Guess I was still dreaming," I apologize.
"Ah, was it a good dream then?" the old man inquires.
I answer, floating again for a moment in its afterglow, that huge leaping
fish
once again. "I swam in the water and in the air, washed by them
both." I feel
awkward, as if I'm lying but think I'm not. "It was marvelous!"
"I sent you that dream. You wanted water so much last night," the
Dreamer
boasted. "But you know, now water is for drinking, not to spill on your
body.
This is not the time for that." He gives me a patronizing smile.
I look at him for a long moment. "Well,.. That was nice of you. I
appreciate
it. But right now I'd appreciate some of the real thing to use. I'm dying of
filth
and bugs."
"Oh, you exaggerate," he blurts out laughing. "No one dies of
such things.
The dream was offered because, just now, that is all we can offer. It won't
be
long though," he adds jovially. At the next half moon or so we go above
to
gather food and wood and we will bring back much water." He indicates
ubus
skins drying on a crude wooden rack nearby. "Then we have another great
celebration. Special food again is prepared. Huge fire. We feast and sing
till
morning. And whoever cares to wash has everybody's help. Oh, you will enjoy
it," he laughs gleefully.
"At the half-moon?... You mean it'll be almost a week before I can
wash?.." I
try to control my resentment, to act according to my resolution. But my itch-
tormented flesh demands some retort. "Dirt is a nice cheap gimmick,
Dreamer,
but I hope it makes a bigger hit with your other visitors than it does with
me."
"Sometimes I can't follow what your words mean." He gives me a
bemused
squint, a shrug and a flurry of hands. "But really, Yason, if it has
such
importance to you, I will bring rain. I sent that dream that brought you
here. If
you want rain, it is simple to bring that too."
My face lights with excitement. Meriflur stops, eyes tearing and body
glistening with sweat. "Please granddaddy," she pleads, you know
how such
work tires you. Maybe another time when you are stronger." She smiles at
me,
explaining, "He worries himself sick with favors for people."
Meriflur gently takes my arm and leads me off some distance. "Please,
Yason. Patience will show you how things work here. Grandfather's ways can
be difficult, but they work. You are special to him. You are important to
him,
but it must grow gently." She talks with tender concern for me. In spite
of my
resolve to accept things at face value, I can't help but wonder if Melissa
was
ever able to be with me like this.
"There are only a few more people waiting for fire, then I can give you
the
Morning Feast. Then you will feel better," Meriflur tells me sweetly.
The old man goes back to his pasha-like pose to greet the few stragglers
still
milling around. I glumly sit at the wall next to him, resolved not to scratch
till
my nerves deaden.
Soon Meriflur serves the last woman and beckons us into the Dreamer's hut,
smiling and wiping the sweat from her face and body with her shawl. Only a
small fire remains and the smoke has cleared. It's left an acrid smell I
prefer to
last evening's stench.
Meriflur serves us with the same silent, attentive manner. Its much the some
meal as last might, but a bit more putrid, I eat the cold mush, all the while
watching her eyes, her calm expression and movements. I'm still awed and
somewhat frightened, uncertain if this is the woman I'd known, yet unable to
believe it isn't. If this is Melissa, if she was capable of being this way
all along,
then I didn't really know her at all. I must assume that whatever her reasons
and
motives are for being here, they're unknowable, perhaps unimaginable to me.
The meal finished, the Dreamer tells me, "Today will be interesting for
you.
I will show you some of the special parts of the Valley." He places a
filthy hand
on my shoulder, first as a brace to help him stand, then to lead me by.
"I've seen the pit. All of it. Last night as I came down," I find
myself snap
back. Still not able to hold my intentions, it seems.
"It is best to call this place the Valley," he says with quiet
force. Then he
laughs to soften things. "But, of course. I see that you can perceive
much in
only a moment. Yet, the hidden truth can only come in the form we can
receive.
The wiser you become, the deeper you will be able to see into the visible
face
of the invisible.
"I have counsel for you," he says, tone rich with insinuation.
"Take nothing
here as it seems. Appearance is merely the first thing to be discarded. The
purest vision will be the last one revealed."
As he leads me out of the hut, I look back at Meriflur, and find her smiling
after me.
All about, there's activity. A constant run of chatter, laughter, and bits of
song. Women crouch between the rows of huts, caring for meager possessions,
some carding and spinning ubu wool. Several are nursing infants. A few
children dash from hut to hut. Others laze about in the sun, picking vermin
off
each other. Several men are working in the fields at the far end of the
Valley's
stone floor. A few other men, several women, girls, a toddling infant.
Numerous
ubus sit and lie about in the broad expanse of the Tree's shade.
"What is this?" I ask and nod at it..
"The Tree, yes. Again you show your wisdom. You go right to the center,
right to the heart of the Valley. Yes, I see more and more how well I chose
in
you," the old man says, smiles and nods approvingly at me.
As he talks, I can't help being taken with the ubus' antics. Apparently free
to
carry on their own lives, they too carry out their needs and pleasures. The
size
of a house-cat, but with prehensile tails and hand-like paws, they're easy to
identify with. They groom each other and get the found lice as a snack. Their
soft, saucer eyes seem to take in everything as they yapp at each other, meow
or
scream, showing sharp, tearing teeth. The mothers carry the infants under
their
bellies, watching. Thick fur, from walnut to ochre, quick, alert movements
and
bright expressions, feeding or at playful wrestling, they keep the smile on
my
face.
"It is the Tree that joins the seven realms. All things, above and
below, outer
and inner, all are joined by the Tree. And I, Dreamer, use it to journey
between
them."
I follow with cautious interest. Soreness makes walking difficult, but his
rolling gate is slow enough. "I went to the other realm to summon you
that way
too," he explains, giving an admiring bow to the Tree. "Tell me,
you seemed
surprised when I told you that I called you here. How did you think that you
came?"
It sounds like an honest question. "I was sent here by someone in that
other
realm. Someone who looked and sounded like you. He told me he was a Wizard,
with special powers," I explain and hope some of this gets across.
"Why? Why did you tell him to send you?"
"He said it could be a way to change my life. I was... I was to meet my
'other'."
He nods his head knowingly. "What reason did this Wizard have to send
you
here?"
"I don't know," I answer frankly. "I have my own concerns
about that. I
never asked him. And why did you go to so much trouble to get me here?"
That
suddenly seems like the crux of the matter.
We walk on in silence, the Dreamer's face working like a near-empty sack
being pulled back and forth with each turn of his thoughts. He leads to a
crude
stone slab bench built against the field's ledge. We sit enjoying the
fountain of
shade cast down by the Tree.
He breaks the sweet silence. "i need your help. You see how old I am. Of
course, everyone can see that," he mutters self-consciously. "I'm
just not up to
all there's is to do being the Dreamer. My work goes from morning till night
and I don't have the energy it needs anymore. Or the courage. Going into
other
realms to help the people with their sickness and problems. It needs a
younger
man, and my guides told me that you're the one to do it," he says as if
this
makes it a done deal. "So, when time is ripe, we can do the Transmission."
"Now, wait a second. I'm not from here. I didn't come here planning to
stay.
I'm here just for this..."
"This realm, that realm. You, your 'other'. Everything is double in
nature.
One nature twists one way on the Spiral, the other nature twists the
other." The
Serpent of fire, I remember Plang's teaching, and the Serpent of smoke.
"Usually, the two realms are ignorant of each other. They have no
natural
reason to meet. Although what is above is also below, and what is beyond is
also within, most people aren't able or don't want to discover this. But some
few, by labor or suffering, are awakened to discover the existence of this
Otherness. Do you follow what I mean? That is when they appear in the Valley.
What we call New Born, right. You say you have come seeking, and I say you
were sent for. Two faces of the same thing. And in order for you to carry out
the
task, you must merge both faces. We say they become 'not-two'. Separate, but
joined.
"And through the task, the presences of the two selves can act as one.
That is
the turn-around-time. That's what this is all about."
"Yes, the Wizard did say there would be a task, a ritual involved with
this.
Can you tell me what that is?" I ask hesitantly.
"Certainly. Of course I can. But it's most important that you understand
the
task correctly. At first it might seem a strange thing to be asked to do. But
you
have just been born to our way. It is even more confusing because you want to
believe that what you knew on the other realm is true here too. But you will
agree that..."
"Please, Dreamer, a little more to the point, if you can. Sometimes we
seem
to have a difficult time understanding one another."
"The only true communication is when each one senses what the other need
not say." He stares at me a bit, his hands fidgeting in his lap, his
face contorting
between smile and frown.
"No. You must understand us and our ways more before you can grasp the
meaning of your task. Why carry it out without knowing the people you do it
for?" He gives me a fake warm smile and takes my hand.
Numbly, I leave my hand there.
"You've already met someone you could
learn much from," he
continues excitedly. "Turo has that special way to
somehow say something to
help". Still holding my hand, the old man leads me
back towards the huts calling.
"Turo... Turo..."
The name echoes back and forth
against the encircling stone wall. Other
voices join in, some in earnest,
some in play, from the fields, the Tree, the huts
till the name's reverberations
become a physical sensation. Finally, a man is
hurled from one of the rearward
huts with such force that he almost falls to his
knees. "Here's the oaf"
a gruff man's voice calls out after him.
He stands dazed until he notices
the Dreamer motioning to him. He breaks
into an open, full-faced grin and
comes towards us, stumbling and throwing his
bandy legs out as he walks. His
spindly hands constantly flutter about his
ragged skirt and shawl, as if
seeking some place to hide.
"Ah, here is the man I want
you to meet," the Dreamer tells me.
"How are you? How are
you?" Turo asks the Dreamer, patting him on the
shoulder with timid warmth,
beaming at him in adoration.
"Thank you, Turo. I'm well.
I called you because I want you to speak with
our New Born, Yason here."
"Oh, that's nice," Turo
says with bashful pride. He turns to me and confesses,
"I'm Turo," holding his
arms outspread and increasing the glow of his smile
even more. "How are you,
this New Day, Yason?" Every time I meet him will he
act like its the first time?
"I'm fine, Turo. Just fine.
And how are you this New Day?" I respond,
embarrassed to find myself
repeating this. He takes then drops my offered hand.
His is limp and damp.
"Fine. I'm fine this New
Day," he responds enthusiastically. "Very fine." He
rubs his hands over one another,
doing little shuffles of pleasure as if this was
the most engrossing conversation
he's had in a long while. Unheeded, I watch
the huge metalic-green flies
settle on his skin and clothes, clusters around his
eyes, and, occasionally, enter
his slack mouth to be subjected to the
happenstance of a cough or
swallow.
"Dreamer is a very good man.
Very good." Turo seriously explains to me.
"Yes, I'm sure he is,"
I answer, turning to stare inquiringly at the old man
who emphatically smiles back at
me .
The three of us stand in a
triangle looking from one to the other, to the
ground, up into the Tree, then at
one another again as the silence seems to grow
sticky.
Eventually the Dreamer says,
"Yason is trying to learn the ways of the
Valley. I thought you would help
him when you can. You know, you can tell
him what we have taught you and
some of the things you have discovered for
yourself."
Once again I'm put in the hands
of this fool.
Turo closes his eyes. His face
puckers with the strain of thought. "Yes, I
know what is good to tell you
first," he says opening his wide, gums-riding
grin. "For when you go to
the Nature House," he indicates, flopping a loose
hand in the direction of the tiny
hut tucked in the corner where the field meets
the Valley's wall. I'd wondered
if there was that convenience, but I'd just used
the fields till then. "After
you go from here," he points down to his crotch, "you
must spit once. And when you go
from here," he points behind, "spit twice.
Some people don't. But if you
don't, you might find it served to you in your
food," Turo confides, his
eyes wide and moist with wonder.
I began to shake, not certain
myself if it's laughter or a fit. "That's very good
advice, Turo, I'm sure. I'm glad
you told me that. Maybe you'll tell me more
some other times." I peer
from his face to the Dreamer's. Neither shows any
trace of an explanation.
"Well then, I think I must
go now. It is time for the ubus morning feed,"
Turo says. They have been making
their screechy meows, but I took it for just
their usual background noises..
Turo energetically shakes both our hands. "I
like talking with you very much,
Yason. I think you must be a good man too."
He shakes our hands again, bids
us each good-bye and stumbles off, still
smiling, rubbing his hands,
nodding and talking half-aloud to himself till be
nears the field. There he
suddenly stops and spins round as if searching. His
expression plummets to woebegone
confusion. Both hands go to his head to
support the burden. After a few
moments of frozen hesitation, he resumes his
smile. With a resolute nod and
purposeful strides, he lurches off towards the
Nature House.
As I watch him, I sense that what
I'd thought were odd mannerism or make-
believe affectations are really
neuromuscular dysfunctions. This whimsical
walk of his, the way he sits,
guarding his fire. His way of looking up from that
craned neck of his. Its hard for
me to believe it's acting. Helpless bewilderment
overflows again.
"I can't see what you're
trying to get across to me," I mutter to the old man.
"One moment we're talking
about my task. And the next you bring over that,..
that idiot, or someone pretending
to be one, to teach me."
"Yason, I try to explain.
You have to be humble enough to open to our way
of understanding things.
Otherwise you will never get what you came for. What
you already know does not work
here. That's clear to you, isn't it?" The old man
is quite easily upset.
"Yes, it's clear," I
answer contritely.
He softens towards me. "I
know how difficult it is. Many, at first, find it so.
Be sincere, and there can be no
loss. Be sly, and you will find a way."
He stoops to scratch the ear of a
rangy, old ubu that lays at his feet. Its big,
moist dark brown eyes give it a
very human, plaintive look. "The sooner you
learn about one person or one
thing in the Valley, the sooner you will
understand the whole Valley.
Rather than just looking at the foolish side of
Turo, it would help, too, if you
could learn something of Turo's good-natured
acceptance of things. You said
you want to learn about the incomprehensible.
There is a good teacher for
you."
The old man laughs at my
expression. "I don't mean to scold you, but you
have much you need to learn in
preparation for our Rites of Transmission."
Now it's blossomed into a Rite.
"Turo would be such a good
teacher for you because he was not always as he
is now. He has experienced
something of that transformation you seek."
The little girl that had paused
to inspect me earlier now passes the bench
where we sit. She's carrying a
boy-infant just slightly smaller than herself. She
smiles uncertainly at me and says
something incomprehensible to the old man
before walking on. "She said
she's glad you have come," he says offhandedly.
After some effort, he recaptures
the thread of his thoughts. "Yes, Turo, not
unlike other people with his...
his condition, was very ill-natured as a child.
When he wasn't screaming, he wore
a mean face looking for evil to do. The
women refused to suckle him
because he bit, till he was given over to a nursing
ubu bitch. People who tried to
care for him would find his excrement rubbed
into their clothes and hair.
"They didn't consult me at
first. You know how people are. They think I only
know about the heavenlies. Maybe
they were ashamed or thought he would get
better by himself. But if they
thought time alone would do the job, they were
disappointed. He got worse. Till
it was time for his Initiation into being
caretaker for the ubus.
Of course, he was unable to make
the transition. He knew nothing about
passing through death, as he
would need to do in order to share with his flock.
He could do nothing with his
hands but hurt and humiliate. Then it became my
concern.
"I called him. We sat face
to face in my house." The old man turns his body
towards me on the bench, and
motions me to turn to face him. "Only we two.
Then Meriflur waited on us in the
Rites of Communion. All the while I kept
fear of his doing some mischief
clenched between my teeth. Awe and respect
held him back. I held my silence
as long as was wise. Then, when the way
between us was open, I spoke. I
opened my heart to him. At first, his eyes
glinted tight and sharp at mine,
and his face was set like stone.
"Turo," I gently told
him, "I know what is buried inside you, your secret self,
that others can't see. Because
they cannot see this true self, it's difficult for
them to love you. Because you are
full of hurt feelings, if you are not held in
love, they may mistake your pain
for anger and hate.
"His eyes softened and
widened as I spoke. Then his body fell and began to
tremble. I took notice but
continued as before.
"There is a way for you,
Turo, to do it differently, to use that flame that now
only chokes and burns you. And
the way is to use it, to let this Turo, whose
pains and longings you cling to,
be consumed by that very fire. You can decide
if that fire is to be a torment
or gift. Out of that fire a new Turo could come, an
outer friend to the secret Turo.
If you can brave that dying, all the powers of the
Three Worlds will help you."
He is telling me about this talk
with Turo, but his expressions and gestures
tell me he's trying to get
something across to me too. I'm embarrassed by how
deeply I and the old man are
looking into each others eyes. I glance away, then
feel foolish and self-conscious
for doing so and turn back to him.
"As I watched him," the
Dreamer shared in an awed whisper, "he decided. It
was wondrous to watch the hurt
and misery dissolve from his soul in the
warmth of our
understanding," he confides to me, deeply moved. He shows me a
gesture of his cupped hands that
slowly open. "His anguish passed from him,
his wounds healed in his very
next breath."
The old man sits back and surveys
the Valley, contentment warming his
gaze. He seems very much at
peace.
Turo, I note, is now walking
around the Tree, carrying the boy-infant and
chatting with the little girl.
"His every mood and action
was different from then on," he continues in
wonder. "Instead of being
nasty and destructive as before, he is energetic and
creative. Rather than falling
into moods of dark brooding, he grows quiet and
thoughtful. Thus his healing
prepared him for his Initiation. Now he naturally
understands the world of the
spirit." His voice turns heavy with sentiment.
"Now he is truly one with
the Valley. In fact, he is the shepherd of all ubus.
I look around at the ubus
sniffing and meowing on their ubu errands, start to
smile, then stop. I am inclined
to say that the man still seems an idiot and has
an idiot's job. But I swallow my
words. I suspend disbelief. I will not judge, I
scold myself. "Yes, very
interesting. I'm sure there is something important
for me to learn there, somewhere.
I'll think about what you've said."
The blue of the sky has thickened
and is brushed now by a few tufts of
cloud. I glance at my watchless
wrist and smile at my habit. The sun shows late
midday and the rows of huts and
their shadows are now of equal size.
"A little while and I begin
preparing for the Noon Rites," the Dreamer tells
me. "But we can walk out on
the fields. It is very pleasant there."
On our way, we pass the Tree.
Round it walk many of the people and most of
the ubus. They circle it in both
directions, some very near the Tree, some far
away. Some walk solemnly, some
use elaborates gestures and contortions. A
few are singing, joking and
giggling, making quips, even obscene gestures.
Turo and the young girl continue
their circuit, balancing the baby on the back
of a large, uncomplaining ubu.
The Dreamer pauses near the seven
steps hewn in the face of field and takes
a clay pitcher from a niche
there. Holding it at arms length above his head, he
pours a thin, amber stream into
his mouth. "Tea. Cool and good," he says,
offering the pitcher to me. I
decline. I'd like something I know is clean for my
thirst. Turo appears and reaches
for the tea.
He follows as we mount the steps
up to the top of the field. I imitate the old
man's bow at each one, though
uncertain if he is doing it out of ritual or
infirmity. There are small,
raggedly kept plots of several kinds of vegetables,
one larger plot of millet, a few
tiny plots of herbs, some of which I have never
seen before. Three men work a
plow, two harnessed in front and one behind,
steering. Several others stoop to
chop at the dusty gray, exhausted looking soil
with short handled hoes.
"The rains start soon. We
must prepare the earth to hold all that falls. An
unbroken skin accepts
nothing," he chuckles in a senile way.
Turo comes over with his idiot
grin of glee. "See. See. It is a good sign. A
few days more and there will be
clouds too." He points to the sky for emphasis.
"Then, some few days
after," the pitch of his voice rising with excitement,
"there can be rain! You
know, water from the sky. As much as you want," he
shrieks with glee.
"Everything will get wet, the fields, the homes. And puddles
of water everywhere, Yason,"
he tells me reassuringly. "The ground goes gooey
and you find puddles in the
funniest places. In a hollow stone. In a leaf. Then
you can wash and wash as much as
you want," he grins and nods.
"Thank you, Turo, for
letting me know all that. I am happy there will be so
much water." I picture the
place turning into a swamp in the monsoon he's
predicting. "Yes, I will
wash and wash all I want to." I nod emphatically to him
and the old man standing silently
by. "Will you wash too?" I ask Turo with
perverse humor, knowing his
hygiene of choice.
His face drops, startled, hurt.
"No. Oh, no. I wash the ubus. They like to be
clean. But I don't wash me."
He grimaces and shudders. His strong feelings are
very clear. He goes off with his
rolling Chaplinesque gait, head down,
muttering and looking back at me
once in a while with a grimace.
I laugh at myself. Pretty crude
way to get entertained. Then I laugh at the
Dreamer who watched all this
without a word. I sense we're still on tour.
"What is it you raise
here?" I ask.
"Ahh," he sighs with
pleasure, back on track. "We raise various tubers,
potatoes, yams, taro and
such-like. We have two, sometimes three, grains
growing; maize, millet and wheat.
We have legumes like beans and peas. Also
melons, gourds and cucumbers.
Around the margins of the larger crops is
especially for sesame, turmeric,
herbs and healing plants. Over there are leeks,
onions and chilies. The only
thing we need to get from above, besides wood and
thatching for the houses, is
water.
I look around at the scruffy
fields with their parched emaciated crops and
then at him with perplexity. What
is he talking about. I see little of what he
describes, and the poor
simplicity of the meals proves the lack. Yet, as he leads
me about, the Dreamer indicates
each of plots and tells me about each separate
crop. "One day I will tell
you the miracle of how each of these marvelous foods
was created for us," he
says, drawing near to stroke the poor scrubby plants we
pass."
"Is there really enough food
here for everyone?" I ask.
"All that is here was
determined from the beginning. All our needs, except
for the water and wood we gather
from above, are given us by the fields and our
animals. We have need of nothing
else. Besides, with hunger in the belly, every
Feast is welcomed."
I note the flat, impoverished
smell of the broken earth. "Wouldn't fresher
earth help?"
"We use the same earth that
was in the beginning as we plant and harvest
with the same seeds and
songs."
"Well, at any rate, should
anything unforeseen happen, there must be other
resources, other places where you
could go for help," I ask, trying to soothe my
discomfort.
"Yason, again I will
explain," he says with deliberate emphasis. "For us,
there is no other place. The
Valley is as it should be and has always been. Every
speck here is sacred. Unless and
until you accept that, nothing else can be
done." He delivers this with
sharp flicks of his eyebrows.
I want to treat it more lightly,
but I can't find words that might not offend
him even more. So I keep my
silence.
"I think I will go
now," the old man says, noticeably upset, "to prepare for
the Noon Rites. It will give you
a chance to think on things. Perhaps it might
help your grasp on things if you
speak with Fars." He points him out,
recognizable for his massive body,
working at the far end of the field. "As you
can learn about acceptance from
Turo, Fars can teach you about doing, making
steady efforts in good ways. The
fields prosper because of his steady care."
I watch him descend from the
field, making his little obeisance at each step,
and then laboriously hobble
across the Valley to his hut. I stay with my eyes
vaguely focused without moving a
muscle or breaking the slow, shallow flow of
my breath. I'm stunned. It's as
if every word means the opposite of what I think
it should. The expectations I had
about all this are totally mocked, and I don't
feel I have a resource in the
world.
When I finally do move, I am
uncertain if I've been in another trace or
simply stunned. But I know I've
been standing still a long time.
Will I ever get the hang of this?
Maybe the grooves of my thought are so
deeply worn that nothing can
change
them, my own doings or anyone
else's. I'm trying. I am trying for all I'm worth.
But so far... so far...
I walk over to Fars, because
there is nothing else to do.
He's bent double, shoulders
slack, eyes blankly on the short handled hoe he uses
to pick at chunks of dry earth.
He seems devoid of tension, moving with the
regularity of a sluggish but
indefatigable machine. At my greeting he looks up
without pause in his work, and
after a few blank moments, looks back to the
swinging hoe.
I'm taken with the look in his
dark, almost pupiless eyes. Dramatically
framed by his sun and dirt
darkened face, it now seems that what I had taken for
sight problems is perhaps more
like a focus on Infinity. What's near at hand
gets little attention. In
Balangpur, the man had worn heavy glasses. Maybe his
expression is mostly myopia. At
any rate, uncertain as to whether I'm
recognized or not, I speak to him
again.
"Good New Day, Fars. I came
here last night. I met you at the Dreamer's
Night Feast. Do you
remember?"
"Remember, yes. Good New
Day, Yason," he answers abstractly.
By this time, I've developed a
rhythmical brushing motion across my face to
keep it fairly clear of the flies
that now are so numerous they grace the Valley
with an emerald hue and the
undertone hum of their wings. Fars, I notice, is free
of them. Maybe it's the motion of
hoeing. Or maybe they have an understanding
between them with his already
having reached a balance of filth.
I hesitantly ask, "Do you
mind if I stand here for a while? Maybe we could
talk a little. And I enjoy
watching you work. Your motions are very smooth,
very...efficient." I know he
loved that word in Balangpur.
"You have no work?" he
asks without looking up.
"Work..." I reflect.
"Yes, I suppose I have work to do. But it's hard to find a
way to do it."
Fars stops hoeing and faces me
with a strained look. He grimaces. "Watch
another who does the same
work," he advises in a tone that implies it's common
sense.
"Yes, Yes, I'm sure that's a
good idea. That's probably what the Dreamer has
been trying to get across to
me."
"If he teaches you, pay
attention. Learn with your eyes. Do the way he shows
you. When you come to see, you
will be glad." He says all this slowly with a
show of effort.
Fars studies my face awhile.
"I must say this. I don't tell this to anyone
before, but I see you hurt to
learn. He taught me too. He taught me music, in my
dreams. Before I was like an
animal, a dead thing. Understood nothing, not even
to have the shame to be like
that. Learning music from him was hard, so hard in
dreams. But I was so glad then
not to be like a dead one, like an animal that has
no way to... to..." He
shrugs mutely at not finding words. "I tell you, no matter
what you must do to learn your
work, afterwards you will have thanks for him
always."
He stands stock still for some
moments, abashed by the torrent of his own
words. Then he nods twice,
emphatically, to affirm that all he said is true. "Now
you go do your work. And I can do
mine," he concludes and stoops to resume
his hoeing.
I wonder if he's in some recaptured
innocence, or was flung back into the
ways of a five-year-old by some
illness or trauma.
"Yes, well you see,
Fars," I explain, "The Dreamer is busy right now with
Rites, and, well... I thought you
might be able to tell me some things that would
help me."
"Nothing I can say of your
work," he answers without looking up.
"Well then, tell me about
your work."
"I work with my body, not my
mouth," Fars mutters without breaking stride.
The steady thwack of the hoe
through the surface of the soil is soothing,
reassuring. He's a human
metronome. "Yes, of course I understand that," I tell
him. "I mean, I am
interested in your farming. I was surprised when the
Dreamer told me you raise enough
to feed everyone here, that you never need to
go outside for food."
"I would be surprised too,
if he told me that." He pauses to look up at me.
"Do you mean it isn't
true?"
"Oh, no. If the Dreamer said
it is so, it is so. But,.. he talks in many
meanings. But if no one went
above for food, all of us would be starved a long
time now."
"So, you do go other
places," I respond, controlling my excitement. "Then
it's possible we could have met
somewhere else, under other conditions, I
mean." I try to confront
him.
"What happens elsewhere is
unimportant. What we might do there we have
no use for here. So we forget.
Only the Valley matters."
"But if we've met before,
when we were different, then maybe..."
"No matter. It could mean
nothing," Fars says with finality. Pointedly, he
returns his full attention to his
labors.
Unwarily, I mutter, half-aloud,
"It could mean nothing.
Nothing. Swirls in the dust by
the wind." No, I counter that voice. I feel
shiftings in my body, in my deep
mind. Concentrating beyond the edge of my
awareness, I glimpse that these
apparent confusions and conflicts have purpose,
even if not meaning.
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Copyright Nathaniel Schwartz 2010
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