The Gathering Night (8 page)

‘That reads true,' said my wife's father, ‘though your word should have been enough.'

‘I have no lies to tell,' said Kemen. ‘But I want to tell you how—' ‘You shall. But you'll also tell the Wise among us. Come!'

My wife's father turned on his heel and strode back to White Beach Camp. I glanced at Kemen and gave him a small smile, which he could read as he pleased. Sendoa slapped me on the back and linked his arm through mine. He seemed happy, but I couldn't help wondering if Kemen was telling the truth. Supposing he
had
been cast out? Had he murdered a kinsman, or raped a sister, or a cousin? How could a man say ‘I have no kin' unless his People had sent him away? I didn't say anything though. Sendoa and I walked together and Kemen followed us, and so the three of us followed my wife's father back to Camp.

Kemen said:

This was the story I told them as we sat round the fire that evening at White Beach Camp. I told it as well as I could but it was difficult: their tongue was different from mine. I tried to speak as they did so they'd understand. But sometimes my words didn't work with them, and we had to seek for other words as I went along. Now, of course, I can tell you very easily. Nor could I know, then, that I was part of a story that began many Moons before I arrived. I'd never heard of Bakar – I knew nothing of the Auk People's loss.

So I began: the Year was eight Moons old, and my family were at our Fishing Camp, which lies – lay – at the mouth of a River. Where I come from, the land is low-lying, covered mostly with oaks and birch and hazel, which grow taller than they do here. All along our shores we have sand dunes – we
had
sand dunes – and long beaches. We don't have the bird cliffs you have here. That's why, when Sendoa described White Beach Camp to me, I wanted to come with him at once to try my hand at this new sort of hunting. Anyway, our Camps are bigger than yours. The Lynx People lived quite close to each other, all down the shore and along the Rivers. We have
big
Rivers in my country. We fish all the Year round, and still the fish keep giving themselves. There are so many fish that many People don't even bother to go inland to hunt. We young men go, of course, but often some of the family stay at Fishing Camp all the Year round.

My brother Basajaun and I were at the age when we were often up at Hunting Camp with cousins like ourselves. Away from our families we could move fast across country and go where we liked. Basajaun is older than me, and always very daring. My mother used to say I was the cautious one. Basajaun would get us into trouble, and I'd be the one to find a way out. That's what she used to say, anyway.

Basajaun and I had just come back from a hunting trip. We'd killed an aurochs among the high birches, and we'd brought back our share of the meat – as much as we could carry. That got us a good welcome! We'd been back at Fishing Camp two days.

We were on the shore, Basajaun and I, a little way from our Camp, mending our boat. The hide was no good any more. It leaked. We'd stripped it off, and replaced some of the sinews that bound the hazel wands together. Now we were laying new hide over the frame. We'd already pierced the holes back at Camp, and we'd just started stitching the rawhide over the lip. Our dogs lay at our feet, disappointed because we weren't going anywhere. There was no hurry. The Year was past its prime, but the Sun wasn't too tired to burn the chill off the morning. There was no wind. The air was so clear we could hear children's voices back at the Camp, and the women laughing, and the rhythmic chink of stone on stone. Everything was ordinary, just as it should be.

But the dogs were growing restless. They whined and padded under our feet. They ran a few steps back to Camp, and whined again. ‘Stop that!' Basajaun aimed a kick. The dogs cowered. After that they were quiet. When I looked up from my work again they'd gone. If they were bored they'd have headed back to Camp. I thought nothing of it.

We heard a far-off noise.

Basajaun stopped stitching and looked up. My hand, holding the needle, was still.

The noise was like thunder far away, only it never ceased. It was not above our heads. It came from under the Sunless Sky. I put down my needle, and stared out to sea.

Basajaun grabbed my arm – ‘Look!'

The sands were growing bigger. I saw that first. No, that was wrong. The sea was shrinking. The tide was coming in – but the sea was going out. We saw, but also we couldn't see, because it wasn't possible. Out and further out – beyond the lowest tide. Sand we'd never seen before, pale and gleaming. Ripples like stars, and the frightened crabs scuttling over them. Fish flapping, madly trying to swim in this sudden world that had no water.

‘Kemen! The sea! Look!'

I saw it then, far off under the Sunless Sky. A grey cliff, white-tipped. A cliff made of water. A noise like a mountain falling. My heart turned cold.

And the Camp behind us – my mother, my sisters, the children . . .

The grey cliff roared like a waterfall. Its sound filled the world. It raced towards us.

We froze.

The grey cliff crashing down. Our world ending.

‘Kemen, run!'

My body came back to me. We raced back along the beach. The grey cliff screamed behind us.

Basajaun ran faster than me. He always could. I turned once. I saw the cliff made of water. All the thunder I'd ever heard was rolled up inside it. It flew towards me, faster than an eagle. I ran.

The trees bowed in the wind.

Basajaun glanced back. I smelt the water. It roared over us. It was swallowing my head. Basajaun ran back to me, and seized me by the shoulders. ‘Too late. Hold on!'

The sea smashed down on us. Its roar swallowed us. It gobbled us like little fishes. Its belly was noise and whirlwind. We kicked and fought. No air. I was drowning. I died.

It was a kind of death, anyway. Because in that crashing sea my old life was swept away, and, in so far as I still walk the earth – I, Kemen, in this body – I've come back from the dead, so I must have been born all over again, out of that wave which swallowed Basajaun and me.

Because after I'd died – inside that whirling water-cliff – the sea spat us out.

We were tossing in rough water, still clinging together. There was air. I breathed air. I couldn't see. There was only water. Nothing else. Basajaun and I held on to each other. We tried to swim. He was stronger than me. I'd always been a better swimmer, but he was stronger. He held me up.

Something hit me in the back.

Basajaun cried, ‘Hold on! Hold on!'

Before I knew what I did I held on. My hands clutched wet wood. It was an oak branch, sheered off at the end. We held on. It lay low in the water, but it rode the waves.

We were cold. If the Year had been any older we'd have died. The sea had just enough warmth in it for a strong man to live a short while. Basajaun and I were strong. We were together. That gave us twice the strength of one. We lived in that sea for a night and two days. We clung to our oak. We saw no land. We had no water. Our thirst was bad. It hurt to shout above the waves. The water grew calmer, but still we couldn't see. We were too low down to see over the waves – our land isn't high, like yours. There was nothing but sea, and sky.

The sky was kind to us. If the sky had been cruel we would have died. The sea had risen from its bed and tried to kill us. If the sky had done the same, and sent us bad weather, we would have died, for what's a man against the combined strength of sea and sky? But the sky was kind to us, even while the sea was cruel.

The sea forgave us. At last, as we rose to the top of the swell, we saw land: a blue line under the Evening Sun Sky. After that we watched for it whenever we came to the top of a wave. It looked so far away that there seemed little hope of reaching it. But Basajaun and I are strong, and we're brothers. Together we held our oak and kicked as hard as we could, swimming towards that distant strip of land.

Very slowly the land took shape. It turned from blue to green. At last we could see, from the top of the swell, a line of yellow sand. But we were so tired! Sometimes one of us rested, but never both at once, for fear of being swept back. Our legs ached with kicking. And now that we were working hard our thirst was growing. My dry tongue felt so huge I thought it would choke me. It was the thought of water, not of life itself, that kept me from going under. If we reached land there would be water. In the end I could think of nothing else.

At last we came to the breaking surf. A wave seized us. It hurled us forward. It was our friend. It dumped us, and drew away quickly as if the sea wanted nothing more to do with us. We crawled on to dry sand and lay face down like logs.

When I think of it I still feel the warmth of dry sand seeping into my body. I was so soaked in seawater that it came leaking out of my eyes as I lay. I stretched out my arms and let the sand sift through my fingers. It was grainy and warm, and almost dry. The spirits of the sea were done with us.

We had to find water. We didn't know where we were. When we stood up we were unsteady on our feet after so long in the sea. We saw at once that our troubles weren't over. There were no sand dunes. The sand we were on wasn't a beach. It was strewn with uprooted oaks, birches, alders and pines. Torn branches were scattered everywhere. We had to climb through. We couldn't take off our soaked deerskins and soften them – our naked bodies would have been ripped to shreds. As our deerskins dried out the leather grew stiff. It chafed our skin, which was already softened by seawater. Before long we had open sores. That was nothing. All around us the sea had uprooted the forest and flung it down like so much kindling. There must have been Animals here but their paths had all vanished so there was no way in. We found a dead pig impaled on a pine branch. Of People there was no sign at all.

There were no Birds. Can you imagine that? In all the lands I ever heard of, there was never a forest without forest-birds, just as there was never a coast without sea-birds. It's quiet now because night's fallen: your cliff-birds are all roosting, but how do you know when it's morning, before ever you open your eyes? You don't know how you know – you've never thought about it – but I, who have heard the silence, am the one to tell you that all your lives have been accompanied by the songs of your forest-birds or sea-birds or hill-birds – just wherever you happen to be.

Never in my life, before I came to that accursed place, had I breathed air that had no songs in it. Once the silence had thrust itself upon me I couldn't get rid of it. With each breath I breathed I felt the fear inside my lungs. And I had reason to be afraid, as you shall hear.

We found fresh water flowing across the sand: a stream that had lost its course, just as we'd lost ours. It was no deeper than my smallest fingernail. We had to lie down to drink, and then spit out the sand. We didn't care. We lay on the sand and sucked in water – it was too shallow to drink properly – until our thirst was gone. Then we slept.

In the morning Basajaun and I talked about what we should do. All the forest was torn apart. The soil was covered with fine white sand: we couldn't gather food inland. The whole shoreline had been washed away: there was nothing to eat there. My knife had been stuck in my belt while I was working with the needle – it seemed long ago now. Basajaun had laid his beside the boat, so now we only had my knife between us. It was enough to cut along the belly-line of the pig we'd found, and to cut up its meat when we'd skinned it. I used the knife as little as possible because we had no way of sharpening the blade, and nowhere to get new flint if it broke. While I prepared the meat Basajaun found an oak stick and a long sliver of pine, and made fire. One thing we weren't short of was firewood. We cooked all the meat and wrapped it in such leaves as we could find. Now that we had gut and sinew we weren't short of twine. We were ready to set off on our long journey.

We started walking along the broken shore. Below the new tide line the waves had washed the sand clean so we could get through. The Sun was already sinking when we came to a small River. There were smooth rocks scattered on the sand. When we came close they were not rocks but bodies. Their Camp had been swept away. We didn't recognise the place any more, but when we rolled over some of the bodies we knew them. They weren't close kin, but they belonged to our People. A hard lump came into my throat and tried to choke me. I was thinking about what we'd find when we reached our own family.

There was nothing we could do for the drowned People. Some of the remains of their settlement were washed up on the shore, or scattered among the trees – tent hides, baskets, wooden hafts. Basajaun said we could use these things because our need was great. I was afraid. We'd done nothing to hurt the dead, but if we took where they had not given, they might be angry. I followed Basajaun reluctantly as he searched among the debris. I watched him turn over an old man's body. I knew that man, though I can't name him – all those names went out of the world when the sea took them. I covered my face with my hands as Basajaun searched in the old man's pouch. He drew out a flint core. We needed flint badly – we had no tools.

Basajaun said the spirits were telling us to take from the dead to save our own lives. When I hung back he said we could speak to the spirits before we went any further. We stretched up our arms and explained what we were doing. We asked the spirits to make things right with that old man's soul, and with his kin who'd made the other things we were about to use. The spirits showed me how the old man's soul had wanted us to come this way, so I promised that as soon as we'd made our knives we'd build a platform for the dead. I saw how the old man had wanted us to find his flint so we could make blades to cut the wands. We had to do what he asked before we made anything for ourselves. So we made a platform and laid the bodies on it. We didn't have enough twine to lash them, but I explained that to the spirits.