2. THE DEAD

Reality needs to be faced, and then the party can begin properly.

It was well that Mirumda dropped her chidling the day she did, and dried her tears ready for sunset. She would have liked the scrap of life to have breathed, if only once, but the scrap of life came out of her both painfully and lifeless, and she knew from watching the older women day in and day out that lifeless was as normal as lifeful, but tearful none-the-less.

Mirumda wept, of course she did, and couldn’t help her tears as they rolled down Owongo’s back where she rested because she was that miserable. He feigned understanding, of course he did, but no understanding beat in his heart. How could it when he didn’t know?

She might have taken him up the Mount of the Dead and showed her the wretched cold meat and then pointed, wordlessly, to her own belly, but he wouldn’t have been much the wise even after that. He was a man and man-stuff was hunting and fighting, not understanding. Or was he even a man? True, his voice was a man’s voice and had been so for a full turning of the seasons, but a man? His beard was still sparse like an autumn withering, not robust like the green magic of spring.

So it was just as well it happened when it did because tonight was the annual free-for-all around the biggest fire ever lit. You see, autumn was giving way to winter and the nights were growing that little bit longer, and anyway many folks who spent the warm months going bare now wore a pant or a thong or even a skin-coat because of the chill.

Hence the fire. For bright lights and brighter hearts, for warmth where the cool winds blew, for singing and dancing.

The old men, some of them even more than three tens years on the riverside, formed a rhythmic band with deerskin drums and reed-whistles, and all became jolly because the winter would be less so.

Owongo led Mirumda by the hand.

Mirumda! She was an angel amongst the tribes-folk, pretty as a fawn in spring, lovely as the first light of summer sun, fragrant as the flowers down the valley where the hunters roamed and found their meat. All men said how lucky Owongo was to have so beautiful a bride, and he knew it too. Of course he did! He had eyes, didn’t he? And a heart that beat for her. He knew love like many a young sprog knows lust.

It was on this one lovely night that folks from both sides of the river joined in song, those from the other side who spent the rest of the year lording it over the wretches where Owongo and Mirumda had their cave. And it was from amongst those who dwelt on the other side that Mirumda had come, and joined with Owongo out of love and hope and because she’d been cast out of her childhood home for complaining, like some young girls do.

Beth-with sidled up to her daughter. Beth-with had born the lass full ten and five years ago and had mourned her for going even though going was only across the broad river, but mothers then as now are mothers, and maternity burns long in their hearts.

“Mirumda mine,” murmured Beth-with, nudging up to her daughter and smiling a red-lip smile, red from the berries she stained them with day in and day out until the red never faded.

“Mother-mine,” responded Mirumda shortly, and Owongo looked at Beth-with, grinning a friendly grin that perhaps accused her of un-motherly haste in disposing of a daughter she had loved, or was maybe just a friendly grin, as empty as a boy’s head.

“I saw you fat,” muttered Beth-with, “I saw your belly.”

“It been good meat season,” agreed Owongo before Mirumda could reply, “And Owongo hunt well!”

“You callow wretch!” spat Beth-with, and Mirumda was shocked to her very core by that mother’s outburst to her man. Owongo was callow, yes, but she was the woman-bride so it was her task to know it, not her red-lipped ma.

“Mother!” she spat, “Mother Beth-with!”

“Well, he can’t think fat stomach was meat, be it good or bad,” grumbled Beth-with. “Me see your belly and that belly with child!”

“Good meat all summer long!” declared Owongo, “Owongo catch hind and fawn and feed Mirumda well!”

“Then you think that, callow wretch fool!” spat Beth-with, and she marched off, marched because of the rhythm of the drums filling everything, and the anger in her heart.

Mirumda knew it must be time for Owongo to learn a snippet of the truth, so she took him by the hand.

“Owongo come with Mirumda,” she begged, and he could never resist her begging so he let her take that hand with her lovely warm hands, and lead him off, away from the gigantic fire and the party, the food and the drink. He even left the bitter stench of the poppy-dust that oldsters scattered into the glowing embers and whose smoke turned the minds of men into jelly that dreamed.

She led him, by the hand, towards the path that led to the Mount of the Dead, and Owongo knew many things but he couldn’t fathom why she wanted to lead him there. After all, it was a sombre place and fit only for those who had passed beyond the realms of life.

“Why?” he asked, a tremor in his voice. After all, the bones up there would be bleached and he wasn’t ready for the great journey, whatever it was and wherever it went. Not yet and not for two tens of years.

“Owongo see,” she replied, with enough force in her voice to keep his hand in hers as she fought her way up to the hilltop where the dead were taken.

It was a good system, for it provided meat for the creatures of the wild whilst at the same time allowing the disease of putrefying flesh to be blown away safely on the wind, though neither Owongo nor Mirumda once thought of it that way. To them it was a portal. A mysterious gateway to somewhere they couldn’t begin to understand but knew deep in their hearts must be there.

Mirumda had been up on that hilltop earlier that day and she knew the very spot that she wanted to show Owongo.

Owongo, though, was a man and maybe he wouldn’t understand even though it was he who had lain with her and filled her with his lust which had grown into the dead lump on the hilltop. But men, they didn’t see the connection, not the one between the lust and a swelling belly anyway, though they might have seen the connection between a sharp spear and a full belly, and been grateful for it.

Mirumda stood before the scrap of meat that had been inside her, now cold and so still not even a breeze could stir it, and suddenly wept.

She couldn’t help the tears. After all, she was human and she was a mother and no matter how many layers of civilisation might be stripped away during a backwards trip through time, a mother was still a mother and grief was still grief.

“Mirumda’s chitling,” she said, quietly. “Dead in the world. No breath, not breathing.”

He looked at her.

It might have been understanding or it might have been fear.

“Mirumda’s?” he whispered, then in a quantum leap of thought he added “and Owongo’s?”

She smiled and nodded.

He knew, and that was well. And the party down below still raged, and they must go there to eat, to drink, to turn their base minds to jelly for a little while before the dawn.

She led him back down, not happy yet not quite so sad.

TO BE CONTINUED…

© Peter Rogerson 11.04.17