When Darkness Falls (10 page)

The healing mother watched him: the humorous, boisterous boy she loved was changing. Her eyes followed him as he stood his eyes drawn to the mountains and the tall trees. He had grown into a handsome youth with a sinuousness that reminded her of a wild animal, his limp replaced by a silent, effortless glide. His love and respect for her was very real. If he felt otherwise about her youngest daughter, he didn't show it, and always treated her with teasing admiration and respect. As for Imagen, she had blossomed into a surprising beauty. If there was any sexual feeling between them, neither had shown any sign. She sighed. It was time to talk to the girl.

The day the tribe finally reached the Oobagooma river and the long waterhole Imagen invited the boy to walk with her to visit the spot where it had all begun. It was something they had done every year on their return to this place. A reunion with the past. They stood in the sand side by side and she watched as his face turned towards the Tall Trees, searching for some sign. She touched his arm.

“Ngala ... I think it is time for you to leave us and return to your own people.”

“Do you want me to go?”

“No. But I see the longing in your eyes. I feel the pain in your heart. You have to go, to look for the past.”

“You know the feelings of my heart? Have I made it so obvious?”

“Only to those who know you...”

“Oh, Imagen ... How dearly I would love to be amongst the trees, to wander the mountain paths, dip my hands in the coolness of the streams.”

“Then go ... there is nothing keeping you here.”

“I can't.”

“Yes you can. There is nothing that binds you to us, to the tribe, my family, or me.”

“But there is. You saved my life. Not once, but twice. By the law of my tribe, the first time I can repay, but the second binds me to you for life. My life is not my own, but for you to do with as you wish.”

“Well, I won't recognise such a stupid law. I don't want to have you tagging after me everyday for the rest of my life. I want to be a healer, free to come and go as I like.”

“You would release me? I am free to go? I will miss you. You and Mother, Nwunta and Gullia. You are right about the calling of my heart. It aches to go home. But you are wrong when you say there is nothing keeping me here. There was my obligation that you have just freed me of, and other things you know nothing of.”

“So? You will go?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tonight, after dark.”

“You'd travel in the dark? You'd get yourself well and truly lost in those trees.”

“No, Imagen. I have night-eyes. I can find my way
anywhere at night. In the mountains, in the trees, we live in the shadows. It is nearly as dark during the day as it is night. Our eyes have grown accustomed to the dark.”

“Then my people must have day eyes,” she responded.

“That explains why you are always the last to see the kangaroos and emus out on the plains, and can never see the eagles as they soar up to the clouds—will you miss me?”

“Miss you? Oh Imagen, you have been a part of my heart from that day I opened my eyes and first saw you. We have been too young to speak of love. But in my heart, my mind, I think of you. If I could take you as a promised bride I would. The Spirits be my witness.”

“I never knew.”

“And I could never tell you while my life was yours.”

“And now?”

“Now it is too late.”

“Ngala ... I am a woman, my blood comes. This summer as we pass along the coast, I will be initiated, promised. It will be too late then. I don't want marriage. I don't want a man chosen by another. I want to be a healer like Mother.”

“What is it you ask?”

“Make love to me. Discredit me.”

“No, Imagen, I can't do that. Take a husband, have children, live your life. But don't ask me to discredit you. You mean too much to me.”

“Ngala. If I can't have you as a husband, I want no other.”

“Imagen. I have told you of the feelings of my heart, there is nothing more that we can do. It is better that I leave.”

“Then, you shall leave tonight.”

That evening the meal gradually subsided to silence. The ties of long years of togetherness were finally being severed. Out of the quietness Mother spoke. “I am not one for long farewells, my son. My fire is always your fire, my home will
always be yours. I look forward to seeing you again. I think, Imagen, you should walk Ngala as far as the end of the billabong.”

“Did you notice that she didn't say goodbye?” Ngala said when they reached the water's edge.

“Are you saying goodbye?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don't want to feel the pain of regret for what I might have had. No, Imagen. I am leaving for good.”

“Then make love to me.”

“No. That is impossible.”

They stood on the cool night sand, facing one another in the dark. She searched for his face, but could only see the outline against the stars.

“Kiss me, Ngala. Please.”

He bent to kiss her lips and put his hands upon her shoulders. As their lips touched, he felt her cool fingers wrap themselves around his manhood. He began to draw away, but she pulled him into a lingering embrace. “Please, Ngala, give me your child.”

“Please Imagen, let go.”

“Why?”

“Imagen, I just can't give you a child because you want one. I have never experienced love. In your custom, you are promised to a man and you can have as many children as you wish. But in my tribe, young girls and boys are given to the old men and women to gain experience, and then the young men are given to the older women as husbands. If we are lucky we will father a child, if not, it is the will of the Spirits; it is their way to keep the tribe within limits. Why do you ask this thing of me? Why, Imagen?”

“Because I need you. A discredited girl, especially one with child, will have trouble getting a husband.”

“Imagen ... You don't know what you ask.”

“Yes I do. You are my only hope, Ngala.”

With a sigh he wrapped her in his loving arms. In the coolness of the night sand, they broke the law. It was a night of insatiable love. With the coming of the dawn, he knelt beside her in the sand.

“I have to go, the dawn comes.”

“I'll wait for you, Ngala, every year at this time, I will wait for you here. Think of me, Ngala.”

“I will come if I am able, though I make no promises. Imagen ... you will make a fine wife. Tonight you made me a man.” He rose to his feet and walked towards the trees. “Walk softly, woman, walk proud. I love you.”

“Go, Ngala. Take my love.”

Like the shifting shadows he moved amongst he disappeared.

When the tribe returned the following year, Imagen waited patiently for evening, then she wandered down to their meeting place and sat in the cool sand, idling the time away. Evening after evening she returned there at sunset, expecting at any moment to see a shadow detach itself from the others. As the days passed, she knew he would not come. Her heart was heavy, but she recalled the words he had spoken. “I will come if I am able, though I make no promises...”

At nights she lay in loneliness. When the tribe moved on, she packed her belongings, waited another day, then followed in their footsteps. Though her heart was heavy with longing, it was not overburdened with sorrow; he had said he would
come and in her heart she knew that he would, if he could. If not this year, then next.

She walked the miles through winter, rain, wind and dust, until finally her footsteps came again to the banks of the Oobagooma, that lay beneath the hills of the land of the Tall Trees. With hope, she went at nightfall to their meeting place. She looked for any sign he might have left, and finding none, felt a sagging in her spirit.

As the evening moved into darkness and the shifting shadows of the leaves swayed with the evening breeze, she couldn't stop the tears that began to trickle down her cheeks. The pain of heartache filled her being; she lifted her face to the stars and turned to go. The movement was as fleet as a thought: and she stopped and looked again.

Out of the darkness emerged a flowing shape, a shadow detached from the other shadows. He was no longer the boy that she remembered. She saw a tall, graceful giant with broad shoulders, smooth shiny skin, rippling muscles and shoulder-length black hair. A white narga covered his manhood. She shivered involuntarily and felt her legs go weak, her breath shorten.

“Imagen ... how long I have waited for this moment!”

“Ngala!”

“Why the tears? I thought you would be happy to see me ... Here, let me see you.”

“Please, Ngala ... just hold me. I wish these stupid tears would stop so that I could get a good look at you.”

They stood lost to the world around them. Wrapped in the love they had carried for each other from the time that they first met. Suddenly Ngala stiffened and froze; he placed a warning finger to her lips and searched the shadows behind her for the intrusion he sensed.

“Can anyone join in this reunion?”

“I see you, Mother.”

“As I see you, my son. Come, boy, let me welcome you home.”

“But who are these children with you? Are you a mother at your age?”

“Oh, Ngala. Nothing of the sort, my son. I am their grandmother. This is Mitticarla, your son, and your daughter Pintibi.”

“My son? My daughter?—You didn't tell me of this, Imagen.”

“You haven't given me a chance.”

“By the ghosts of our Ancestors, I'm glad to be here. This brings me more happiness than I have ever known. What of Nwunta and Gullia? Are they still with you?”

“They wait patiently, hoping you might return.”

Imagen gently urged the children towards their father. “Ngala, stay and play with the children. Let them have a chance to get to know you. I will go with mother and help prepare food.”

The family sat talking around the fire under the giant Cudgibutt tree. It was more of a homecoming than Ngala could ever have imagined. His two small children crawled and climbed all over him, their first moments of awkwardness long gone. The food was passed around, with a fermented brew made from the sweet flesh of boab nuts.

Nwunta and Gullia welcomed him with joy and showed him their young son. Mother sat urging all to eat and drink. Her grand-daughter, feeling the pull of sleep, crawled into her lap and made herself comfortable. When Mitticarla crawled into his father's lap and closed his eyes in sleep, Ngala knew the joy of being a father.

“And what of you, Ngala. We haven't given you a chance to talk. What has life given you?”

“There is nothing much to say about the life that fate has dealt me. But as family, you have a right to know. I have kept my Lowlands name as respect for the family who saved my life. I have been promised to a woman of a northern tribe to keep the peace between our two tribes. She has power and possessions and the best of the land in her tribal grounds. I think all she needs is a hunter to supply her with fresh meat.”

“Then you will be moving further away from us?”

“Yes, Mother. The land is far to the north and more mountainous than the country we live in. It has bigger trees and plenty of streams. The animals are harder to hunt. Though their lands run into the sea, they do not use it for food: too many of their people have been taken by the large crocodiles that live in the waters of the tidal creeks. They are so far from your lands that they have no access to the big red plains kangaroos that are your totem—their skins are much sought after.”

“Then you won't be coming this way again?”

“Perhaps ... yet maybe not.”

“Don't talk in riddles, Ngala. As you know, we are a simple lot. Will you explain?”

“Ahhh, my beautiful Imagen, mother of my children, you haven't changed. This time last year, I came and sat amongst the trees and watched you sitting there, sad and lonely. My heart told me to come to you and comfort you, but my head was stronger. I sat looking and longing and in my frustration and anger, I left. You were not only taking hold of my heart, you were in my head as well.” He paused ... “Had I known then that you had given birth to these two beautiful children, I would have come and lived the rest of my life with you loving you and my children every moment, with every breath. But you never once brought the babies, and without that knowledge, I committed myself to my fate.

“This year, I came to fill my head with your image, enough to last my lifetime. But your tears were the undoing of me. I sat in the shadows and watched and when my eyes beheld your beauty, your womanhood ... I will never regret, ever, this time that I have been able to spend with my Lowland family. Now more than anything, my children bind me to you.”

“Why don't you just join us? Forsake your coming marriage,” Gullia suggested.

“Ah, Gullia, if only I could. But it would mean the death of me, and the death of your own tribe. You don't know how savage my tribe can be, especially when they are wronged.

“Now that they know the secret of how your tribe has been able to defeat my tribe in the past, it will never happen again. They would simply ambush your tribe out on the plains in the darkness of night and destroy you to the last man, woman and child. No, my friend, I would not be the cause of your deaths, nor my children's.”

“What secret, is this that you speak of son? I am not aware we have a secret that enables us to push your people back into the Tall Trees. We did it simply so that we could have water.”

“Then you have no choice?”

“No. Even now, while we sit here and talk there is one who sits in the shadows and watches.—Don't even bother straining your eyes, Gullia, you would never see him. The one consolation is that I am the only one of my tribe that speaks your tongue; they do not understand our conversation. But believe me, Mother, and Imagen, the existence of my children will be reported long before I return.”