Fog (30 page)

Barktak nods. ‘Come. I’ll dry you off. Seema will give you new clothes and I’ll tend to your ankle and examine your lower abdomen.’

She rubs me down and I shuffle to my pallet like a ghost. I didn’t plan on revealing any of these things. I should leave tonight, I think as I lay down and shut out Barktak’s probing hands. Anything below my waistline does not belong.
 

The cream-coloured fabric above me changes into the sky and back into a ceiling of a simple yurt. Back and forth. There are a few wrinkles. Soft ones, not like the gashes in Barktak’s face.
 

Yes, I will disappear tonight. In the back of my mind, a thought begins to niggle. Some part of reality is pulling me back. Didn’t I plan to do something here? What was it that needed doing? Why the urgency?

The pressing and tugging at my belly, thighs, and between my legs ceases. Cold bites my ankle.

Slowly, I return to myself. I feel the softness of furs, the tickling of animal hair against my neck.
 

I look down along my body. Furs cover me. Barktak has left. Not important. I close my eyes.

Before I drift off, Seema says, ‘Many women here have lost a child. We know how you feel. You can talk to us.’

No. You don’t know a thing.

———

Another tap to my head. Does everybody wake everybody here by whacking them on the skull?

A youngster of maybe eight or nine years gives me a serious stare. She waves a knife at my face, triggering my reflexes, raising all the hairs on my skin, and bringing me dangerously close to leaping at her and twisting her neck.

‘Heard you are a Sequencer,’ she squeaks. ‘I’m a huntress. In four years I’ll be a woman and then you can take me on as your apprentice. I’ll be the best huntress in the world when I’m fourteen.’

‘Are you planning to stab me before I can recruit you?’

She blushes and quickly hides the knife behind her back.
 

‘How long have I been sleeping?’ I ask.

She shrugs. ‘You arrived at noon, now it’s evening. If you are hungry, you’ll have to wait. Everyone is in the log house. Masha died last night.’ Her gaze drops to her boots and she wipes her nose with the back of her hand, knife still clutched in it. Then, her face lights up. ‘I’ll have new brothers and sisters. And you! Oh!’ She whirls around, sheathes her knife, and dashes outside just to return a moment later, arms full of brush. She tosses the load onto the floor and gets six more armfuls. ‘I’m making a big bed.’

‘Could you get me a bowl with snow, please?’

‘Sure,’ she says and leaves, as quick as a flea, and returns with a pot full of snow.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask.

‘Uma.’

‘Hi Uma, I’m Micka.’ Without thinking, I hold out my hand.
 

She looks at it, puzzled. ‘So you people really squeeze fingers when you meet?’

I drop my arm. ‘Sometimes. Other times we wave our hands or just nod at each other. When we like someone a lot, we hug.’

‘When we don’t like someone, we don’t say anything.’ She grins wickedly. ‘We look them in the eyes and make sure we don’t turn our backs to them.’

‘Makes sense. And when you like them?’

‘We head-butt them.’ She giggles and slaps her thigh. ‘No, we do this.’ And she takes a step forward, bends down to me and softly touches her forehead to mine.

That reminds me of how Katvar said goodbye to me two years ago. ‘When someone touches your lips with his fingers to say goodbye, what does that mean?’

‘Uh. Serious stuff. That’s what husbands and wives do. Do you need help with that?’ She points at my ankle.

‘No, thanks,’ I say as I unwrap the bandages.

‘Okay.’ She shrugs, turns to her humongous pile of shrubs, and begins to layer them neatly on the other side of the stove. The outlines grow to a square of about two by two metres.
 

‘I’m used to sleeping on a small rug,’ I say, worried my hosts might believe I needed a huge bed or other wasteful things.
 

‘Good,’ Uma replies without looking up from her work. ‘That’s for four people. You’ll probably be used as a pillow.’ Her smile shows through light-brown bangs. There’s a tiny gap between her upper two front teeth.

‘Who else will sleep there?’ I ask.

‘Masha’s kids. Chief’s one of their dads, so they’ll live here now.’

‘How did she die?’

The girl stops, about to answer, but then continues laying twigs on the slowly growing mattress. After some consideration, she whispers, ‘Sometimes I think I don’t want to have babies. I don’t want to leave them alone when my time comes.’

My skin prickles. I watch the girl while the snow melts on my ankle, cooling the pain down to a rheumy throb. As I dab off the water, she begins carrying in the furs to cover the twig mattress. ‘That looks very comfy,’ I say.
 

‘It’s a good bed.’

‘Why do the women here have many husbands?’ I must have been half blind last time I was here, because I didn’t notice how their families were organised. I was probably too focussed on Runner and on finding out what he did for a living.
 

‘Because that’s normal,’ Uma answers and squints at me. Her brain is rattling behind her eyes. ‘Is it not normal where you come from?’

I blink and look up at the ceiling. Swirling patterns of clouds, stars, moon and sun have been sewn there with blue thread. I’m about to say that, where I come from, it’s normal for a man to have several wives aged nine to twenty-five. Sometimes, but not often, the girls are even younger. But they are never older, because they’ve already been used up by abuse, rape, malnutrition, and excruciatingly hard work. Or they’ve been shot or beaten to death, sometimes burned. But they usually die when giving birth to their fifth or sixth child.

‘One man can have many wives,’ I say at last. ‘I’ve never seen a woman with more husbands than one.’

‘That’s not smart,’ Uma pipes up. ‘What if the man dies? Who will hunt and provide for all his kids and wives?’

‘Hm. Good question,’ I mutter although I already know the answer: no one. If your husband dies, your kids will either be assimilated into military training, or, if too young to carry a rifle, they’ll be killed with a blow to the head and a knife to the throat. Widows are made available to all men in the camp. Some women would call it prostitution. But I’ve read somewhere that a prostitute gets paid for her services.

Blood is seeping onto the thick bandages between my thighs. It’s as if my uterus is weeping hot tears for a loss it cannot explain. Maybe it’s compensating for something my eyes are unable to do.

———

The yurt is dimly lit by an oil lamp. Shapes of sleeping people form bumps on the floor. The large bed is occupied by Uma and Masha’s three kids. Tears were spilled in abundance; the smallest of them — a three year-old boy whose name I didn’t hear properly — fell asleep at Seema’s breast and is now curled up in Uma’s armpit.

No one has interrogated me and I don’t understand why. How can these people survive if they keep inviting strangers into their homes, not asking them the most important questions? Where did you come from? Where are you heading? What side are you on? Who did you kill? Who do you plan to kill?

I lie on a pallet that used to be Uma’s and I’m glad I don’t need to share it with three orphans. I don’t like being touched. Hate it.

My mind’s eye shows me the usual: war, death, carnage. The yurt collapses, an avalanche of Erik’s troop rolls over men, women, children, staining the snow deep black in the faint light of the waning moon. My hand doesn’t stray from my loaded pistol.

———

I have not seen Katvar in three days. Birket’s home is now closed to everyone who is not family, because the new mother needs rest. That’s me. I’m considered a new mother although the necessary other half is missing.

Seema explained to me that a woman doesn’t stop being a mother when her children leave — be it to marry a man or woman in another clan, or to go to their ancestors.

I nodded at her then. I can accept that notion of souls going places, I guess, but it’s not my belief. I’m pretty sure that when you are dead, you’re dead and that’s it. No paradise at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

The Dog People feed and pamper me. Uma tells me it’s what’s done with all new mothers. They have to heal and regain their strength. I get the impression that women here are considered valuable and that weighs like a rock on my chest.
 

At headquarters, the girls and women were considered dirty (I should say “even dirtier”) for twenty days after giving birth if the child lived, and ten days if the child died. That alone was a motivation for many men to get rid of newborns. But even then, only a females’ lower half was the dirty part. The mouth was considered unsoiled.

‘You look like you want to kill someone,’ Uma says and moves her fingers in the air.
 

I think of my own child and how short her life was. My mind strays there unbidden and frequently. I wish I could cut that part out.

‘I said, “You look like you want to kill someone.” Are you still here? Micka?’

My head snaps up. I try to relax my jaws. She nods at the piece of wood in my lap. I look down at it; my right hand is trembling. I uncurl my fingers and a bead of blood crawls along the ridges and furrows of my palm. The sharp little rock I’m holding is black with my sweat. I take a deep breath and rub my palms on my pants. ‘I need to take a walk.’

Uma opens her mouth for a reply, probably to comment on my ankle and that Barktak forbade me to put weight on it, then she shuts it and looks down at my work. ‘Okay,’ she says, her hand making a wiggly sign in front of her chest.

She’s teaching me sign language. Someone has told her about the ivory dog Katvar made for me and since then she’s convinced I should be able to speak my friend’s language. ‘We are not friends,’ I told her.

‘Then do it out of respect,’ she retorted.
 

I couldn’t disagree with that. So I’m learning sign language now. It’s a waste of time, because I’ll be leaving here soon. And it’s a bit like tying knots in my brain.

‘This is never going to be a longbow,’ I mutter at the crooked piece of oak I’m holding.

‘Looks like firewood to me.’ She giggles. ‘If Seema sees it, she’ll insist you babysit Jarvis instead.’

My face falls. When, two days ago, Seema held out her tiny boy to me and told me to be useful, I was close to losing it. ‘Anything,’ I whispered. ‘I can do anything for you, but not that.’

So now she wants me to make a longbow for her. Or whatever this thing is going to be. With a sharp rock, no less, instead of a knife. Seema showed me how the layers of wood are shaved off the hard core. She’s teaching me stuff from the Stone Age. Sometimes, when I run obsidian over oak, I touch the two pendants around my neck: the dog made of tooth and the silvery exabyte drive made to bring down the sky. Low-tech and high-tech. They belong as little together as I belong here.

Jarvis kicks off his fox fur blanket and grasps the edges of his basket. Tiny pink fingers slip between woven willow twigs. Uma bends down to him and dips her forehead against his. His mouth begins to search for his mother. ‘Uhm-uhm,’ he says.

Uma looks up at me. ‘Was that a smile?’ She signs the words she speaks, and suddenly pokes my nose. I give her a dangerously cold stare that blanches her cheeks.
 

She stands, walks to the door, and sticks her head out to call for Seema. I scoot back to put a little distance between me and the basket.

‘Need help?’ Uma asks as she sits back down.

I wave her away and pick up my crutch. I’m getting better at walking. Crossing the room in five seconds is my new goal for today. It takes me six seconds to reach the flap door. I’ll try again in an hour.

‘You bring war.’

My neck prickles and heat rushes over my skin. ‘What?’
 

‘You bring war,’ Uma whispers. ‘Everyone can see it.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ I even manage a smile before I turn my back on her and grab the door.

‘When men return home from battle, some have the same look you have. War rides on their shoulders.’

The door flap escapes my grip.

‘They bring suffering to their families,’ Uma continues. ‘You should leave soon.’

Slowly, I turn my head and gaze over my shoulder. ‘You are wise. Don’t worry, I’m eager to leave.’

I step out into the deep snow. The sunlight blinds my eyes and I stagger as far away from Seema’s yurt as I can without hurting my ankle and delaying my departure. I walk past a group of women skinning and cutting up deer carcasses, past the laughing, jesting, and the telling of stories about dog, wolf, and bear — as if these people understood the languages of beasts. No mentioning of battles won or lost, no talk about strategies, weapons, enemy positions and movements. Don’t they know what’s coming? How can they be so ignorant?

Behind a group of trees I hide, crouch down and bury my face in my hands. War rides on my shoulders. What an apt description.

A gentle wind pushes clumps of snow off the trees. They land with small thuds in the snow cover, punching holes into it. The sun throws sparks over the white landscape. Crows are cawing above me; they can be found all around the village, scavenging for bits of food. They seem to find enough to get through the winter.

I think of Rajah, of the first day we spoke. She had taken one look at my clenched fists, my cold and determined face, and she knew. She knew I wanted nothing more than to die and take as many men with me as possible. I was on the way to Erik’s hut, to grab his semiautomatic rifle and squeeze a spray of bullets into his chest, run back out into the camp and fire until the weapon stopped sputtering. The moment I walked past Rajah, she straightened up from her washing and said, ‘I made tea. Sit with me for a moment.’

Tea. How could anyone think of drinking tea in that hellhole? And yet, I sat and let my bangs slide over my brooding face.

‘I am Rajah. You are Micka, I heard.’

I nodded.
 

She held up her hand and spread her fingers. ‘Look.’