Articles – The Christmas before the first|
Articles – The Christmas before the first |
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Histoires pour enfants Divers Regain (journal de la Confédération Paysanne) |
The woods to either side were dark and howling, so they hastened on. These were not their woods, and the unfamiliar sounds crispened with the smell of the ice from the nearby mountains, not wet nor dry. A crescent moon and its close companion star were rising, and the cold began to bite. If they could reach the village before the dark blue finally blackened, then they might be safe. The child might be born. Her glance to him was past sorrow, past hope. Already they had stolen this day once from death, yet the memory was now distant. The pain and the exhaustion made everything distant. They only continued because it was no more difficult to continue than to stop. To stop would be to die at once. To continue would be to die soon enough. In between, perhaps the child would be born. As they walked in silence they imagined they heard the crystals forming slowly on the branches of the trees. Each footstep's echo was sharp and disjointed from the last, so that you could never follow them back to the escape that morning, now so very long ago. The wound on his side no longer hurt. When they reached the large clearing their hearts were too tired to leap. The smoke from the fires rasped its way down into her cold lungs. They fearfully approached a circle of crouching people, staring people. A boy broke the ring to run round them, then looked back for signs of how he should behave. Finding none, he fetched them water. After the meal of scorched meat she ran her fingers stiffly through his hair and he groaned. A groan that spoke of deliverance. A sound that he had learned from the water as it sprung from the rocks while the snows were melting. The boy who had brought them water tried to copy the groan, but it didn't sound the same. The people here made noises that were rougher and harsher. They frightened her, and she could tell that she frightened them too. As the tribe sat around its fires, couples cleaned each other and grunted their ferocious grunts. A group of children hummed insolently in unison. Little by little the fire dwindled and the people made off into their caves and shelters. Some of the grunting gave way to boisterous copulation. When the cold threatened once again to vanquish the flames, the boy of the first bowl came up to them as they huddled together, then led them to an opening in the cliffside, where he shared with them the skins and the straw that he and his mother used to keep warm. There were spikes laid across the entrance and concentric circles carved into the stone wall behind them. Aaaaaaahhhhhh. Loolaaaa loolaaaa looboooolaa. The boy's old mother stroked the round belly and held her left hand. Loolaaaba. The day began with a strip of bright red dawn that thinned as it rose to blend with the pale winter's sky. On the mountain just above, the snow was already deep, and below them in the valley there were sparse wisps of cloud. The cackle of a loud bird mingled with the shrieks of extenuation as a tiny baby girl was born. A shepherd taking his animals to the lower winter pastures was passing, and upon hearing the infant he gazed longly at the dark round face then tethered a small brown goat to a large white stone as a gift, and went on his way. Far away, three women on tall laden llamas were crossing a village that had been burned to the ground. Zéblani came from the cold reaches of the highest mountains beyond the great breach, Layúra from the wide plain where people had learned to make food from the heads of the luscious golden grass, and Amáparu from the hot stony desert that once the fierce wind had swept with such devastation that it had then returned softly to sow day-long rosy petals before returning across the sea. Layúra, Amáparu and Zéblani were the only people in the world to have names. They were riding steadily east to greet the new-born baby girl, who just one day ago had escaped the slaughter of her village safe inside her terrified mother's womb. Could they trust the giant lopsided star to take them further than it had planned? Nyaaagiii, nyaagiii, nyagiii. Shepherds' children touched the new girl's perfect fingers. Those tiny nails! That wrinkled face! So dark, so dark, so dark, as she sucked the milk from her mother's welcome breast. She knew it was the child inside which had protected them before, as they lay trembling, their hearts making all that noise, among the rushes, where they had gone to be alone that still night with the giant star, that had not always been there. Now with the new girl there was a new sun, outside the cave whose walls had no distance, with the old woman who had gripped her hand, her face so strong but so pale. Through the space where there had once been teeth she drew in air and curled it around her tongue to make a screech. She clapped her hands and stretched out her arms to take the baby, and the mother swayed weakly to the riverside. She was not afraid. Tomorrow she would be strong because the new girl needed her. Night came again so soon in this mother's tiredness, and she did not notice the clamour at first. The village around its evening fires had arisen in terror, and some had taken spears to kill the long-travelling riders on their strange beasts. But Amáparu made loud sounds so long and intricate and soothing that they fell back in awe. They dismounted and Layúra knelt beside the mother and child. From her belt she took a sprig of white flowers and held them under the new girl's nose, then began to utter echoing sounds so strange that at first they seemed to stretch the reason of the incredulous villagers to almost unbearable limits. They had never heard such sounds before, but for this single night they understood. "Smell this lovely lovely lovely jasmine. It comes from so far so far so far away. I brought it just for you, you wonderful little child. You very first new girl." Then she took a hollow stone from the folds of her crumpled tunic and from it placed a speck of yellow powder on the baby's tongue. "Just taste this delicious ginger, from so far away. With these things, and others like them, you may bring vigour to the tired, air to the breathless, and calm to the pained. Through this gift your people will know the preciousness of every single human life." Then Zéblani approached carrying a peculiar wooden object with a long handle. She grazed her long nails gently across its fine threads, and the hushed village imagined that such a sound could only be produced by taming the very wind and the rain. "Listen to that, then, you beautiful little one. I made this for you from a huge cypress tree that had fallen. I heaved back and forth with sharp serrated iron until the parts would fit together. Then I listened carefully and shaved here and there until it was right. This is the heartbeat of the world, the pulse that feeds us in our mothers' womb. It paces the falling snow and the growing grass. It distils the father's despair and the young boy's exuberance. For as long as she listens, a young girl may be wise and an old woman carefree. With this gift your people will dance, cry, laugh and wonder. Through the chinks in the tissue of tones you weave, they will glimpse for instants as short and intense as a spark where they came from and where they are going." Amáparu was already touching the new girl's moistened lips, so gently. "Loolaaaa loolaaaa looboooolaa. Beloved perfect new girl, I have brought no sweet essence or crafted object, yet I bring the greatest gift of all. I bring the gift of speech. Your people will spin delicate webs to capture the fleeting thoughts in their minds and place them on the wind for others to share. Though few will ever understand how such a thing could be, this will make your people stronger than the mightiest buffalo and faster than the leopard. It will even give them the key to the supreme riddle that gnaws within them between sleep and wakefulness." "But because it is so powerful, my gift is also terribly dangerous. All must possess it, and some may use it wrongly to stir consuming hatred. It will even come to be said that the gift was lent by a snake to a careless woman one day in an orchard. And even you, my precious one, may die for using it so well, so sweetly, so truly." The riders returned to their llamas and mounted. With a tender look back and the vaguest toss of her long black hair, Amáparu prodded the side of the animal with her heel and shouted, "Come on then, Relámpago, gallop away". The villagers would always remember the sound of her earthy laughter as the ponderous beast just spat and hobbled away unconcernedly. |
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