The Blood-stained Belt (8 page)

Dana said,
‘Kentri is my cousin.’

I said, ‘That’s
good.’ She frowned as if trying to work out what I meant. Then I
blurted out – I don’t know where it came from -- ‘That’s good,
because he’s been lucky enough to know you for a long time.’

Dina’s eyes
glowed and she smiled mischievously. She said sweetly, ‘Well, you
do know how to speak to girls, don’t you?’

I blurted,
‘No.’

‘No? I thought
that you were doing rather well.’

‘No. I mean –
you know, it just came out –.'

‘It was a
charming thing to say.’

No one,
especially a good-looking young woman, had ever referred to me in
the same context as ‘charming’. Strong, loyal, impetuous – even
pig--headed – those were descriptions that I sometimes heard. But
‘charming’ was unusual enough to tie my tongue up again. I flushed
and forgot words while I tried to hide my sweating palms behind my
back.

Dana looked at
me with a quizzical smile and asked, ‘Do you have a sore back?’

‘No. No – you
know – my back is all right – no problem.’

‘It’s just the
way you’re standing – I thought maybe –‘

I tried to
straighten and stand more naturally, wondering at the same time
what a natural stance was when you were trying to make an
impression on an attractive woman. Hands by your sides? Arms
folded? Perhaps I should gesticulate more often to impress her with
my vivacity? I said, ‘It’s just a bit of stiffness – you know, from
training – crawling across the ground, you know. It’s no problem.’
As I spoke, anxiety made me clasp my hands even tighter behind my
back.

We were outside
the temple now, standing in the shade of a tree. Dana asked, ‘Are
you walking back to the camp?’

‘Uh – yes. Yes,
I am.’

‘I’m also going
in that direction. Let’s walk together, then.’

We strolled
down the road together. I was in a state of happy confusion. My
emotions were seesawing. It was as if that moment could decide
everything – and everything right then was whether I would be
confirmed in happiness or abandoned in desolation. I wanted to
speak and act in ways that would advance my cause, but, contrarily,
I held back from doing so, for fear that my squeaky-voiced,
gormless confusion would obliterate my chances of gaining a
foothold in Dana’s affections.

Dana said
brightly, ‘I haven’t seen Kentri for about four years.’

‘Kentri?’

‘Kentri in
Osicedi – you know, the person we were talking about earlier.’

‘Oh, right –
Kentri. Yes, Kentri – he’s your cousin, isn’t he?’

‘Well, that was
still the case, the last time I mentioned him. I don’t suppose that
our relationship has changed in the last five minutes – not that I
know about, anyway.’ She glanced at me quickly with her head
tilted. Then she dropped her eyes and smiled mischievously. I could
have sworn that she was laughing at me silently. If I had been on
my own, I would have bashed my head against a wall in frustration
at my ineptitude. I tried to recover the situation by changing the
subject. I searched for a topic – any likely topic – and asked, ‘Do
you know Sharma?’

‘Sharma? No, I
don’t think that I do. Why do you ask?’

‘He’s my
friend. He’s also from Osicedi.’

Dana giggled
and glanced at me mischievously, asking, ‘Does he know Kentri?’

‘Who?’

‘Your friend
Sharma?’

‘Yes, he’s my
friend.’

‘So you said.
But does he know Kentri?’

‘Kentri? Oh,
yes, Kentri! I guess that he does. We were all at school
together.’

‘Then I must
meet Sharma some time.’

Suddenly all my
senses were on the alert. I imagined that if Sharma were here now,
he wouldn’t be stumbling around in tongue-tied ineptitude. Instead,
he would be fluent and assured, taking the initiative, making just
the opposite impression of the one that I was making. Once again, I
felt like bashing my head against a wall – but this time for a
different reason. I muttered, ‘Yes, you could meet him some time.
But, you know, he’s very busy, so maybe --’

‘Even busier
than you?’ Dana grinned at me knowingly.

‘Well, he’s
just about the busiest person that I know. He hardly ever has time
to relax.’

Dana chuckled.
‘Maybe I can meet him one day, if he stops being busy for a minute
or two.’ She halted, pointed, and said, ‘I live down this way.’

‘You live with
your family?’ I was trying to delay our parting and my question was
about the best that I could do.

‘My mother died
last year. I live with my father. He’s the chief cook to the royal
court.’

I said, ‘Ah!’
and hoped that it sounded profound.

Dana moved away
from me. Then she stopped and said, ‘I have enjoyed meeting
you.’

‘Could we – ah
– you know –?

‘Yes?’

I blurted,
‘Meet again?’

‘Meet again?
You mean could we meet again?’

‘Yes.’

Dana pursed her
lips and looked at me shrewdly. Then she chuckled and asked, ‘Would
you like that?’

I gulped,
‘Yes.’ Was my voice as high-pitched as it sounded?

‘Yes, I suppose
that we could.’

‘At your home,
perhaps?’

She frowned,
considered the matter, and replied with a mixture of seriousness
and knowing humour, ‘No. That isn’t possible. My father is very
possessive. The last man who tried to visit me at the house nearly
came to a bad end.'

'Really?
How?'

'My father
threatened to boil him alive in cooking oil.’

'Really? Boil
him alive? He would do that?'

Dana gave me a
wondering look and then giggled. 'Who knows? He might. He is very
possessive.' She giggled again, wrinkled her nose and asked, ‘Will
you be at the temple tomorrow?’

‘I could be, if
you’ll be there.’

‘Well, if you
are there –‘

‘I will be
there. For sure, I’ll be there.’

‘Good. Then
we’ll probably see each other.’ Dana nodded and walked away. After
a few steps, she turned and said with a straight face, ‘I hope that
your back is feeling better tomorrow.’

As she
disappeared around the corner, I was torn by emotions. Mostly, I
wanted to shout out to the world, 'Can you believe it! I'm going to
see her tomorrow. How's that for luck?' On the other hand, I wanted
to crawl into a dark place and kick myself for being such a
graceless fool.

I met Dana at
the temple next day and for a number of days after that until there
was no need of a pretext for meeting.

One afternoon
we strolled away from the town. Following the road southwards
through the foothills, we wandered through open countryside. It was
a quiet spring day, warm in the direct sunlight, with the air so
still that the sounds from the town drifted to us as if the houses
were no more than a few paces behind us. I reached for Dana’s hand,
taking her nearest finger awkwardly. She gave me a swift look like
a deer startled while grazing but she didn’t withdraw her hand.

We walked
hand-in-hand for a while, not saying anything, absorbed in this new
intimacy. Then we sat down half way up a hillside, ensconced in the
green folds of the slope and looking down over the red-dirt road
that slashed its way across the bottom of the valley. Dana sighed
happily and lay back with her hands under her head. I looked at the
form of her body that was outlined under the fabric of her tunic.
She stretched her arms above her head and the cloth pulled tighter
across her breasts. I looked away, not wanting to stare at what I
desired.

Dana laughed
lightly and asked, ‘Do you like me, Jina?’ She gave me her quick,
half--knowing, half--humorous glance and then dropped her gaze.

I mumbled,
‘Yes, of course.’

‘Then why won’t
you look at me?’

My throat
constricted and my hands grew clammier. I mumbled, ‘I thought you
wouldn’t like it.’

‘Oh, Jina! Is
that true? Really?’

I mumbled,
‘Yes.’

Dana started to
laugh. She sat up, hugging her legs with her chin resting on her
knees. Then she glanced at me out of the corners of her eyes and
laughed some more. When she stopped laughing, she said, ‘Oh, Jina
–‘She couldn’t say any more because she started to giggle.

I muttered,
‘Hey, what’s the joke?’

Between
giggles, Dana said, ‘You are amusing.’

‘No, I’m
not.’

‘Oh, Jina,
don’t get so upset. You make me happy.’

I said, ‘I’ll
tell you what, Dana. If anyone else called me amusing –’

‘Yes?’

‘I'd settle
with them. They wouldn’t do it again, that’s for sure.’

‘Are you going
to settle with me?’

I took another
deep breath and said, ‘You can call me amusing any time you want to
– but only you.’

Dana took my
hand and laid it against her cheek. She said softly, ‘Thank you,
Jina.’

Dana lay back
again with her arms behind her head, stretched, and gave a relaxed
sigh. I propped myself on an elbow and looked at her. She raised
her eyebrows and lazily returned my glance. I leaned forward and
kissed her tentatively. It was the first time that I had kissed a
woman and I didn’t know what to expect. Her lips were moist and
receptive and opened slightly to receive me. I pressed my lips
closer and a flush like lightning darted across my body. I withdrew
guiltily, embarrassed to think that Dana must have felt it too. But
she just lay there in the same relaxed position, smiled slowly, and
murmured, ‘That was nice.’

I leaned over
to repeat the experience but she put up a restraining hand, saying,
‘Enough for now, Jina.’

‘I want –‘

Dana raised her
hand again, closed her eyes, and murmured, ‘Take it slowly, Jina.
We have plenty of time.’

As it turned
out, we didn’t have plenty of time. But we couldn’t know that,
creatures of the moment as we were, idling in the sun on a grassy
hillside.

The lightning
was still darting through my body, igniting my senses. At the same
time, my mind was in a haze of confusion as if the concentration of
force in my senses had drained my other faculties. I flopped onto
my back, lying next to Dana, hands behind my head as well. I
exhaled, breathed in deeply, and exhaled again. The thumping in my
blood began to subside. I exhaled again.

Dana said
gently, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’ I glanced at her. Her
dark eyes were enigmatic. I thought I caught a flicker of teasing
amusement but it was only a flash and I couldn’t be sure. Dana held
my gaze for a moment and then closed her eyes, inclining her head
to receive the full radiance of the sun.

We lay there,
enveloped by warmth and by the silence of the valley. The quietness
lay across me like a blanket soothing my senses back towards
normality. I closed my eyes and began to doze. As I drifted between
waking and dozing, I thought how paradoxical it was that Dana could
fire my senses and at the same time lull me into a state of
relaxation.

We must have
been lying there for about ten or fifteen minutes in silence when
Dana said something. I asked, ‘Hmm? What?’

Dana said, ‘I
asked whether you ever felt that you could drift like the clouds.’
She stretched out and put her hand across mine, palm lying against
palm.

‘Drift? Like
the clouds?’

‘Yes, like the
clouds.’

‘No, I haven’t
ever felt that.’

‘I have. I
imagine that my body expands and diffuses –‘

‘Diffuses?
What’s that?’

‘It gets
thinner, less solid – oh, you know, it gets almost like a cloud, so
that it floats and drifts.’

‘Where does it
float and drift to?’

Dana clicked
her tongue in exasperation, saying, ‘Don’t be so practical!’

I hesitated,
pondering a suitable response. Once again, Dana had caught me off
guard, making me stumble over both my thoughts and my tongue. I
responded cautiously, ‘I’d like to be a cloud with you.’

‘Oh, Jina!
Really!’

‘I’m
serious.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And if you
were like a cloud --?’

Lying back with
my eyes closed, I said, ‘Imagine if we could leave the highlands.
Imagine if we could leave Keirine.’

‘Yes?’

‘Imagine if our
bodies weren’t so heavy with our feet always thumping back into the
earth! Imagine if we could float and drift instead of having our
weight always pulled down onto the earth. Imagine that!’

Dana squeezed
my hand. ‘Yes?’

‘Well, I guess
that’s about it.’

‘No, Jina,
that’s only the beginning. Imagine if you were like a cloud --
where would you drift to?’

I closed my
eyes and thought for a while before I replied, ‘I’d drift
eastwards. I’d drift over the lowlands, I’d drift right over
Dornite territory, and I’d drift right over the coastline.’

‘And then
--?’

‘Then I’d drift
over the Endless Ocean. I’d drift over the islands.’

‘Yes? The
islands?’

‘I’d see the
ocean and the islands all spread out beneath me.’

Dana murmured,
‘That would be beautiful.’

‘Yes, it would
be.’

‘Tell me
more!’

‘The islands
would be like pearls set in the neck-piece of a gown.’

Dana replied
dreamily, ‘Like pearls? Yes, perhaps they would be – green and
brown and ochre pearls? Who knows?’ She ran her fingers across the
palm of my hand. ‘And could I be drifting with you, seeing the same
things?’

‘Of course.
Look at the sky. It’s huge. It stretches from here to the limit of
the world wherever that is. We can’t see the beginning of it and we
can’t see the end. There must be room for a hundred thousand clouds
all drifting at one and the same time. For sure, there's room for
both us and plenty more.’

Dana said
nothing for a while. Then she remarked reflectively, 'You're not
always practical, are you?’