The Burning Shore - Smith Wilbur. Страница 83

It was difficult and challenging and she was sitting close to H'ani so she could watch her lips, when suddenly she let out a surprised gasp and clutched her stomach with both hands.

It moved! Centaine's voice was filled with wonder. He moved, the baby moved! H'ani understood immediately and she reached out swiftly and lifted Centaine's brief tattered skirt and clasped her stomach. Deep in her body there was another spasm of life, Ai! Ai! shrilled H'ani. Feel him! Feel him kick like a zebra stallion! Fat little tears of joy squeezed out of her slanted Chinese eyes and as they ran down the deep corrugated wrinkles on her cheeks, they sparkled in the light of the fire and the moon. So strong, so brave and strong!

Feel him, old grandfather. O'wa could not refuse such an invitation, and Centaine, kneeling in the firelight with her skirts lifted high over her naked lower body, felt no embarrassment at the old man's touch.

This, announced O'wa solemnly, is a most propitious thing. It is fitting that I should dance to celebrate it. And Uwa stood up and danced in the moonlight for Centaine's unborn infant.

The moon dipped into the dark, slumbrous sea, but already the sky over the land was turning to the colour of ripe orange at the approach of day and Centaine lay for only a few seconds after she awoke. She was surprised that the two old people still lay beside the dead ash of last night's fire, but she left the camp hurriedly, knowing that that day's trek would begin before sunrise.

At a discreet distance from the camp she squatted to relieve herself, then stripped off her rags and ran into the sea, gasping at the cold invigorating water as she scrubbed her body with handfuls of sand. She pulled her clothing over her wet body and ran back to the camp. The old people were still wrapped in their leather cloaks and lying so still that Centaine felt a moment of panic, but then H'ani coughed throatily and stirred.

They are still alive, anyway, Centaine smiled and assembled her few possessions, feeling virtuous for usually H'ani had to chivvy her, but now the old woman stirred again and mumbled sleepily.

Centaine understood only the words Wait, rest, sleep. Then H'ani subsided and pulled her cloak over her head again.

Centaine was puzzled. She fed a few sticks to the fire and blew up a flame, then sat to wait.

Venus, the morning star, lay on the backs of the dunes, but paled and faded at the approach of the sun, and still the two San slept on, and Centaine began to feel irritated by the inactivity. She was so strong and healthy already that she had actually been looking forward to the day's journey.

Only when the sun cleared the tops of the dunes did H'ani sit up and yawn and belch and scratch herselfGo? Centaine used the rising tone that changed the word into a question.

No, no, H'ani made the negative waving sign. Wait night, moon, go there. And she pointed with a quick stabbing thumb at the dunes.

Go land? Centaine asked, not sure that she understood.

Go land, H'ani agreed, and Centaine felt a quick thrill.

They were going to leave the seashore at last.

Go now? Centaine demanded impatiently.

Twice during the last few days when they had stopped to make camp, Centaine had climbed to the top of the nearest dune and stared inland. Once she had imagined the distant outline of blue mountains against the evening sky, and she had felt her spirit summoned away from this monotonous seascape towards that mysterious interior.

Go now? she repeated eagerly, and O'wa laughed derisively as he came to squat at the fire.

The monkey is eager to meet the leopard, he said, but listen to it squeal when it does! H'ani clucked at him in disapproval and then turned to Centaine. Today we will rest. Tonight we will begin the hardest part of our journey. Tonight, Nan Child, do you understand that? Tonight, with the moon to light us.

Tonight, while the sun sleeps, for no man nor woman can walk hand in hand with the sun through the land of the singing sands. Tonight. Rest now. Tonight, Centaine repeated.

Rest now. But she left the camp and once again climbed up through the sliding slippery sands to the top of the first line of dunes.

On the beach four hundred feet below her, the two tiny figures sitting at the campfire were insignificant specks.

Then she turned to look inland and she saw that the dune on which she stood was a mere foothill to the great mountains of sand that rose before her.

The colours of the dunes shaded from pale daffodil yellow, through gold and orange, to purplish-brown and dark song de boeuf, but beyond them she imagined she saw ghost mountains with rocky crenellated peaks. Even as she stared, however, the horizon turned milky-blue and began to waver and dissolve, and she felt the heat come out of the desert, a whiff of it only, but she recoiled from its scalding breath, and before her eyes the land was veiled by the glassy shimmering veils of heat mirage.

She turned and went down to the camp again. Neither O'wa nor H'ani was ever completely idle. Now the old man was shaping arrowheads of white bone, while his wife was putting together another necklace, fashioning the beads from pieces of broken ostrich shell, chipping them into coins between two small stones and then drilling a hole through each with a bone sliver and finally stringing the finished beads on a length of gut.

Watching her work Centaine was reminded vividly of Anna. She stood up quickly and left the camp again, and H'ani looked up from the string of beads.

Nam Child is unhappy, she said.

There is water in the egg-bottles and food in her belly, o'wa. grunted as he sharpened his arrowhead. She has no reason to be unhappy. She pines for her own clan, H'ani whispered, and the old man did not reply. Both of them understood vividly and were silent as they remembered those they had left in shallow graves in the wilderness.

I am strong enough now, Centaine spoke aloud, and I have learned how to keep alive. I don't have to follow them any more. I could turn back to the south again alone. She stood uncertainly, imagining what it would be like, and it was that single word that decided her.

Alone, she repeated. If only Anna were still alive, if only there was somewhere out there for me to go to, then I might attempt it. And she slumped down on the beach and hugged her knees despondently. There is no way back. I just have to go on. Living each day like an animal, living like a savage, living with savages. And she looked down at the rags which barely covered her body. I just have to go on, and I don't even know where, and her despair threatened to overwhelm her completely. She had to fight it off as though it were a living adversary. I won't give in, she muttered, I just won't give in, and when this is over I will never want again. I'll never thirst and starve nor wear rags and stinking skins again. She looked down at her hands. The nails were ragged and black with dirt and broken off down to the quick. She made a fist to cover them. Never again. My son and I will never want again, I swear it. it was late afternoon when she wandered back into the primitive camp site under the dunes. H'ani looked up at her and grinned like a wizened little ape, and Centaine felt a sudden rush of affection for her.

Dear H'ani, she whispered. You're all I have got left. And the old woman scrambled to her feet and came towards her, carrying the finished necklace of ostrich shell in both hands.

She stood on tiptoe and placed the necklace carefully over Centaine's head and arranged it fussily down her bosom, cooing with self-satisfaction at her handiwork.

It's beautiful, H'ani, Centaine's voice husked. Thank you, thank you so very much, and suddenly she burst into tears. And I called you a savage. Oh, forgive me.

With Anna you are the sweetest, dearest person I've ever known. She knelt so that their faces were level and she hugged the old woman with a desperate strength, pressing her temple against H'ani's withered wrinkled cheek.