Starbook (35 page)

The maiden disapproved of the contest, and made her feelings clear. But events had passed out of her hands; the desire for a visible outcome had taken on its own momentum. Never before had this happened in the tribe – for a woman's hand. It was a historic act. The myth-making event was a fascination so powerful that the people fell under its spell. The maiden withdrew and let it be known that she would not witness the barbarous contest, and would not recognise or sanction the winner.

But what she said made no difference. It promised to be a moment of history, of spectacle. Everyone wanted it to happen. The brooding air, the quiet history of the tribe, the legend that was coming into being. They all seemed to call it forth. And so it had to be. Everyone looked forward to its commencement after the season of rain.

Through all this the maiden maintained her delay. She knew that she could bring an end to all the conflict and rage at any moment simply by making her choice known, simply by making a decision. But she didn't. She intended to delay long enough to know what was right for her, to delay long enough to gain wisdom, to make the right and best decision. And she would delay till someone whom she knew she loved appeared, someone who could also solve the riddle.

A
round that time, while the new pupil quietly performed his numerous duties in the workshop of the maiden's father, and while the rains delayed in coming in from the sea, and before the time of the festivals, a shadow of an event descended on the tribe that moved them profoundly. It came on the great winds of sadness. But the new pupil learnt about it first from the maiden.

She came to her father's workshop one evening and she fell on his shoulders in tears and she wept convulsively and couldn't seem to stop. At that moment they heard lamentations and general weeping from the streets and the mainways, from the other workshops, the marketplaces, and especially from the priestesses of the shrine. And it was some time before they made any sense of this phenomenon of sadness that was sweeping over the community. The maiden wept on her father's shoulder and couldn't explain why, couldn't seem to get her words out. Her father led her to the main house, led his daughter sobbing on his arm.

Lamentation was general throughout the tribe; and whoever was told the reason why there was so much weeping fell into weeping themselves. The cause was contagious. And the contagion of this poignant sadness gathered over the tribe like thick rainclouds, and broke over them all. And no one spoke. People sat wherever they heard the news and stared, with that blank look on their faces, as when we have heard that someone very dear to us has suddenly died.

And so, because no one was able at first to tell the new pupil why everyone was so sad, on account of the fact that no one noticed him, he assumed an air of sadness too. In fact he picked up the mood and felt a poignant sadness for an event he did not know about. Something truly terrible must have happened for the people to feel it so, he thought. And he brooded on this mood of sorrow. The mood lasted for days. There was a subdued air everywhere. The suitors were silent and subdued too at the depth of the news. The marketplace was silent. The workshops were silent. The women were silent. The wind blew through the village, whispering of death and change. The brooding birds piped in the forests. The crickets could be heard. The distant river swelled its banks. The moon was unusually large and white in the clear dark sky. By day footfalls could be heard in the dust. Birds circled the village overhead. Omens roamed through the passageways. Dogs barked unaccountably. Cats padded about warily with shining silver eyes. Everyone was touched by this mysterious sadness, the men, the market folk, the hunters, the women, the children, and especially the young girls and boys, they felt it more, for strange reasons; maybe because the shadow of death moved them into a sudden contemplation of a beautiful unknown, for there was something beautiful about their sorrow.

Then suddenly new works of art began to sprout from the tribe, while they waited for rain. The sorrow brought forth a burst of creativity; it seemed the only way the tribe could express the true depth of their sorrow. And the sorrow that they felt, and expressed, brought out and included the unexpressed sorrows of the centuries, the aeons of pain and tragic moods that they had carried in them through the long twilights of history. The tribe, like a land richly seeded in flowerseeds of suffering, exploded into bloom and blossom during the time of their sorrowing. This was a brief and unsuspected golden age of artistic fruitfulness. It was as though sorrow were being converted, instantly, into beauty; as if sorrow was beauty's secret, and its mother.

Only a few times before, in its legend, and in its works, had the tribe known such fertility. And this was the last time that the tribe would enjoy such an intense blessing of beauty. And, as with all such miraculous moments in the lives of a people, they were not aware of it, and did not know how fleeting and how mysterious this phase was through which they were passing. They lived a magic moment in the fugitive dream of lived time, and did not know it. And later the world would wonder at such an astonishing concentration of art so beautiful and so elusive that they would ascribe it to the hands of unknown beings from fabled realms who had descended briefly on a backward land. And some would mutter about a divine touch or spark that had animated, for a time, the hands of an unknown and long forgotten people.

But it was only from the works that began to appear that the new pupil found out the cause of the universal sadness. And it was only when the works had been done, created by so many anonymous hands, made by every single member of the tribe, it seemed; created and made and shown around the shrine, or dotting the village square, or freestanding among the trees in the forest, or sprouting in the farms or the marketplaces, or quivering in front of the cracked mud huts and in circular compounds or bristling along the shores of the river; it was only when the artworks began to vanish, began to leave the tribe, taken away, most of them, by travellers, merchants on the great trade routes, spread out and disseminated; it was only when these works of astonishing variety and richness were created, were shown, and had mostly left the village, to circulate in the kingdom through invisible routes, only then could the tribe of artists speak of that which had brought them such sadness. For they only knew how to speak of it when they had expressed it first in art and then had time to understand something of that which they had expressed.

When the new pupil eventually heard the news he too was saddened. And he joined the women and men and children in their vigils by the shrine to pray for and express their sorrow for the fate of the prince who was a good soul and who they heard was dying. Everyone spoke well of this prince that they did not know. Everyone said he was a prince in a faraway kingdom and he was a gentle soul who loved all the people and always cared for the poor and the simple and the lonely and that too much evil in the world had broken his heart and now he was dying and would die unless the people somehow put enough sweetness in the air to make it possible for him to live. No one knew who this prince was but all were moved by his fate. And the new pupil was very moved indeed for this prince and often sighed to think of him.

'How lucky he is to be so loved,' he thought.

On one of those days he overheard the maiden talking to a companion.

'I would like to make a journey to this prince's palace,' she said, 'and make an offering.'

'But no one knows where it is,' her friend replied.

'I will find a way,' she said. 'Even if it means doing it through my heart.'

Then they wandered off to the forest, towards the river.

By this time the maiden was being quietly hailed by many as a seer. For now the masters began to understand one of the aspects of her enigmatic sculpture, which revealed a dying prince, and which had so baffled the tribe. And they wondered and marvelled at how she had executed the work so far in advance of the news itself.

The maiden was the only one who did not know that she was considered a seer by the most venerated minds and masters. She had forgotten her sculpture and, what is more, she saw no connection at all between her sculpture and the news that saddened them all.

There was so little time left and he knew it, even as time passed so slowly. The tribe kept vigil for the prince and special fires were lit in the forest by the masters of the tribe to keep alive the light of that soul that ran through the land like the vast silver of the flowing mirror that was the river. They waited and worked for healing in dreams and in the many ways that the spirit works to cure things in the world unknowing. And it was a subdued time while the rains came and they waited to hear if he who was dying was dead or would live again. The rains were fierce, and in the heavens thunder battled with lightning, and in the legend of the tribe good battled with evil for the soul of the prince. And the whole land was in dire judgement; for if the prince should die it was said that the land would die in his death, and the white wind would conquer for ever. And death would grow in the farms and bestride the hills like a giant. The rains were fierce and those with unusual sensitivity saw the battles everywhere between monsters of the deep and the creatures of the lightning flash. The rains were merciless and lashed the farms and overswelled the river and carried off huts and abodes and became a racing stream that rushed through the forests uprooting trees and creating gaps and carrying off goats and farm animals and young children who had not heeded their parents' warnings. The rains seemed to go on for ever, while they awaited news of the prince's fate.

And then the rains, more cruel than they had ever been, destroying and tearing down and disintegrating homes and wrecking farms, marketplaces and works of art, made the people forget their concerns for the prince, drowned their sadness in more immediate tragedies. The community battled as one to hold their lives together, to rescue their homes, and protect their villages from being washed away by the angry deluge. The river broke its bank and swept through the village and in the floods a few perished, and yet there were miraculous survivors. People forgot their other troubles. The masters wondered if the tribe wasn't being punished for their divine neglect. There were other masters, however, who hinted that the flood might be an inexplicable form of cleansing, that it might not be as negative, as terrible, as it seemed.

Then just as suddenly as they appeared, the rains ended, the flood subsided, and the land flowered and bloomed as never before. It was its last bloom in that way. The shrine had been unaffected. If anything it seemed to shine with a greater light. The mainways and paths and minorways all were new and clean. The village was altered. The marketplace now was made to face in a truer direction. The farms were richly fertilised with death and rich riversilt that made the crops sprout and grow as if transformed. Huts and homes had better alignments. A new harmony appeared amongst the devastation. Artworks which were lost turned out to be ones which were quite useless and ones that were quite invaluable too; and this had the effect of reminding the tribe about what they lived for, what their true purpose was, which they had partially forgotten.

The masters and the priestesses of the shrine mounted a grand ritual, in which the whole tribe participated, for the rededication of their lives to their chosen art. It was a new covenant with their deity and their destiny. It was a ceremony of great inspiration.

Then the tribe learnt of the preservation of the prince, and they rejoiced in a double jubilation of good events and good omens, at last.

Through all this the new pupil toiled and performed great unnoticed feats during the rains, and during the flooding. He rescued women who were drowning. He helped strangers save their possessions. He helped carry vital supplies to dry places in the hills. He helped families move. He built impromptu huts on hilltops. He kept up the spirits of those who had lost their homes. He brought food for the homeless in the hills. He cheered up the children huddled miserably in high places. Along with the galvanised men of the community, he lifted the shrine to the dry mouth of a cave. They bore the gods to the stone terraces. It was at this point that he began to teach. He spoke to them of one God, one father, one source as the source of all. They heard him, but they didn't listen. It was at that point he began to speak of the unreality of death. Life, he said, is stronger than death. Death is only a shadow, a brief darkness, a fearful mask that frightens those that use only their eyes. Life, he said, is a light that shines for ever. They listened, but did not hear him. He performed miraculous healing on the sick, the diseased, on those who were traumatised by the floods, those who had died for a long moment while drowning, those with broken legs and broken hearts. He performed miraculous transformations on the spirit of the community, and didn't know the effect of what he did. All this he managed, in innocence, while still looking after the workshop of the master, moving the statues and carvings to safe ground, making sure nothing was lost or carried away during that time of confusion, the raging of the storms. And through all that time the maiden avoided him; or, as if still under a spell, did not notice his existence. Nor did anyone else in the village, except those he helped, and the masters, who saw, but kept silent. But there were young girls who were touched by his spirit, and fell in love with him for the rest of their lives, and passed on the legend of their adoration to their children, in oblique songs.

When the flood passed, when the beautiful fury of the rains had crossed the sky and journeyed on to drier destinations, when normality began to return to the tribe, when they began to sort out their lives and make the best of their devastations, when songs began to be heard again from the girls, and laughter heard among the flowers, the new pupil, unnoticed by the maiden, decided it was time to reveal, wisely, his love.

One day he began to speak to her in his mind. It was the only way to speak to her. He spoke to her dreams. He learnt from the statues how, through stillness and oddness unnoticed, to appear in people's dreams, and then speak to them as himself. This he did. At first she did not notice because she did not much notice her dreams. And so a backlog of unchecked messages accumulated in her unnoticed dreams. Then one night, after sitting in silence in moonlight, listening to inaudible whispers in the wind, all the messages and the dreams came through all at once, all in a rush and tumble, at great speed; and this alarmed and perplexed her. But he went on speaking in her dreams more tenderly, taking many forms. Sometimes he was a flower that she was twirling in her hands in a dream and his face 'would appear in the petals of the rose and he would speak to her gently. Sometimes he spoke to her as the moon. Sometimes when, in a dream, she was on a canoe on the river, he would be the canoe, or he would be the river. Sometimes when, in a dream, she was riding a lion, or an antelope, or playing with a gazelle, he would be the lion, the antelope, or the gazelle. Sometimes he was a white bird that she dreamt of which returned often and lay still in her lap, and then, circling her head three times, would fly away to a distant constellation, leaving her quite alone. Often he was just a person she knew in her dreams, a familiar person whom she could not quite place; but one for whom she had a great affection. Through these forms he spoke to her of their ancient love that went back centuries and which was born on another realm, another planet, far from this galaxy. He spoke of the brevity of time given them here in which to meet and love and be so happy. So brief was the time allotted them, he said; and that it was less than the space of time between one moon and the next. And then, he said, they would be separated till the distant time they would meet, in another space, where they would have to start all over again learning to recognise their ancient and future love, their unconsummated love, their great love. He spoke love verses into her dreams.

'When the moon is full

It spreads a light

That is cool

And round and white

All over the land that is you.

That moon is like my love.

Even the air knows this is true.

But my love never wanes like the moon –

My love is not there only at night

And like a ghost is gone before noon.

My love has the power of seven.

My love is the light

And the promiise of heaven.'

Sometimes, in her dreams, he took her hand and journeyed with her through all the happiest places in the universe, among the stars of ecstasy and delight, and to some of their ancient homelands in faraway galaxies. He showed her their palaces of pleasure, their castles of love, their cities of happiness.

When he was not speaking to her in dreams, he arranged anonymous surprises for her in the waking hours. Children brought her bouquets of rare feathers. Strange children brought her rich brocaded cloth. When she was musing by the river an old man gave her a single flower that no one had ever seen before, or since. He said the flower came from the stars and that he was a messenger of one that would not be named. The maiden accepted the flower hesitantly, and smelt its fragrance. At that moment something happened in her heart. She was not sure what it was; but suddenly she felt things more clearly. The fragrance altered the wind. She heard the faintest echo of a melody. The river was calm. The old man had turned into the faintest mists of gold fading in the distance of the green cloud of the forest. The flower would never wilt, never die; but sometimes it became invisible and was lost, and it would reappear again, depending on how she was feeling. That flower, along with her only child, was the legacy she passed on to the next generation. Every now and again, for a decade, or for twenty years, the flower would be invisible, and then on an auspicious day it would appear in the hand of one of her descendants, always clarifying the heart. Such a curious flower was she given among the anonymous gifts from an unnamed and an unseen one.

There were other odd gifts that the new pupil caused to come her way. One day a beautiful young woman brought the maiden a rare ruby. She claimed it came from the far heavens and she was a messenger from one who could not be named. Another beautiful young girl, with a dazzling smile and a bright countenance, brought her a pure white stone, not of this earth, and repeated the magic words of the other messengers. A child dressed in gold brought her a white bowl. When later the maiden ate from the bowl she noticed how well she felt, how contented. Then she noticed that the bowl somehow enriched her food, and in eating little she was not only satisfied quicker but that she experienced an unusual sense of nourishment. These gifts puzzled and frightened her a little, but she kept her puzzlement and fear to herself. She kept her silence. She refused to let even curiosity and a great sense of mystery divert her from her chosen course of delay, patience, and awaiting the wisdom of the revealed hour.

But more gifts of astonishment came to her and left her, from one day to another, reeling as if in a strange moonlit intoxication. A child dressed in heavenly blue brought her a handful of shining ashes, and with enchanted words poured it into the maiden's palms. Then came special messengers, all seven of them, all beautiful, all dressed in white, repeating love verses from one who should not be named, but whose love came from the stars.

By now the maiden was bewildered, then curious, then amazed, then enchanted, then fascinated by these gifts. She was so curious about this personage who should not be named that she followed the messengers and was astonished when, with a cry and a flash of light in the air, they vanished as soon as they entered the forest.

Then, slowly, her love found focus. When the messengers stopped coming, when she didn't hear from them, nor receive any more gifts or verses from them again, she found that she missed the mystery quite deeply. Then she found that she had fallen in love with one who was unknown, with one she would never know. Her lovesickness had found an object, a personage, who was not there.