A NOVEL SET IN PREHISTORY
The Oak People
Chapter 11: Hua is lost
Ansa
Now that she has eaten, more than anything Ansa longs to lie down and sleep, but the women say she must try to put the child to the breast. Gashi brings the baby and squats beside her.
‘Lift your knees up.’ She obeys. ‘Higher than that — that’s right, or her mouth will not reach.’
Ansa holds the head close to her breast but the baby is tired too and her eyes keep closing.
‘Try stroking her cheek.’ Gashi shows her what to do. It works. The tiny mouth opens. ‘Now — quickly — put her to the teat.’
The baby’s wet mouth slides one way then another, till suddenly the tiny lips close around her nipple and set up a rhythmic sucking. The pulling is much stronger than she had expected. Ansa looks up in triumph to find that Gashi is smiling.
All at once, the cat begins tearing at her belly again and blood seeps out from her puti onto the bedding leaves.
‘That’s right,’ says Gashi, pleased. ‘It’s good for you to bleed now.’
She slides her little finger beside Ansa’s breast and gently into the sucking mouth, to break its firm grip on the nipple, then helps Ansa put the baby to the other breast. The pain dies down and the regular pull of the baby’s sucking is comforting: like a heartbeat — gentle but steady.
It is night and she is tired and hungry. She is sitting on Ama’s lap and Ama is trying to force some food into her mouth. She doesn’t like the taste and spits it out, even though she can tell that Ama is getting angry. The smoke from the fire blows into her face and she begins to cough. Ama wipes her mouth, roughly, then puts more of the horrible food onto her tongue.
‘Eat, Ansa. You must eat.’
She begins to cry, spluttering food everywhere. Ama pats her back and she burrows her face into Ama’s neck and sobs. Slowly, she slides her mouth down to Ama’s nipple.
‘No, Ansa!’ Ama pulls her away. ‘You must learn to eat meat. The baby will need my milk.’
She looks down at Ama’s rounded belly and the tears start up again.
Ansa opens her eyes to find Gashi beside her. The sucking has stopped. Gashi takes the baby from her and helps her to lie down.
‘Sleep now,’ she whispers.
Eighteen months later
Ansa stirs in her sleep and opens her eyes. Eshtu has woken too and is reaching in through the mouth of the cave with his fingers of light. She feels a hand on her breast and stiffens; Bidari likes to couple with her when they are both warm from sleep. But, to her relief, the bedding leaves are cold and it is Hua who is clambering across her stomach and reaching for her nipple. Ansa grasps the small firm body and lifts it so that Hua’s face is level with her own. She rubs her nose against Hua’s but the little girl only squirms to be free. Ansa sits up, wrapping the deerskin more tightly around them both as Hua stuffs the nipple in her mouth. She drinks for a while, swallowing noisily, then begins to play with Ansa’s coarse hair till there are strands caught around her finger. Irritated, Ansa stares into the darkness, trying to free her hair from Hua’s grasp. The little girl gurgles with laughter, but then grabs at her mother’s hair again.
Hua begins sucking from the other breast and Ansa leans back, feeling her muscles relax. The sleeping space she shares with Bidari is away from the mouth of the cave, up a rough slope. It is always the same here — cool and dark and quiet. And the walls here do not drip, even in winter. Alone and hidden, Ansa is happy.
She listens to the familiar sounds of the cave. The gash of light at the cave mouth reveals the figure of Esti, crouching over the cooking hearth. She calls for help with the fire and the small shape of a child appears. He picks up a bark tray, full of ash, and then disappears again into the darkness. From outside comes the dull repeated striking of stone on bone.
Suddenly, she lets out a screech of pain. Hua’s grinding teeth are pushing through her gums and she is chewing Ansa’s nipple. Ansa pulls the child away and taps her, hard, on her arm. Hua begins to wail, struggles from her mother’s grasp and waddles away.
Ansa sits for a while, then crawls away from the wall. Hua is nowhere to be seen but there is a pile of soft turds, where she has emptied her bowels. Ansa is angry; the child is old enough to go to the dunghill. Scooping up the mess with bedding leaves, she makes her way towards the light. Hua is sitting on Bo’s lap, by the cave mouth. Her cheeks are still wet but now she is laughing.
Peering out into the morning, Ansa sees old Bakar bent low over the tool he is shaping, but there is no sign of the younger men. She slips out and down the slope to empty the mess onto the dunghill. She squats to piss, then runs along the path that winds around the bluff, to the watching place. Her eyes run over the steep slopes below, dotted red, white and yellow with flowers. The men are visible, a trail of ants, already down on the plain. They must have sighted prey because they are making for the oak thicket. She counts the figures: a whole hand of fingers, so Koldo’s boy, Tipi, must have gone with them, to make his first hunt. Ansa drops down to a squat and gazes out for a while, across the plain, towards the great Salt Water.
Ansa’s fingers are busy picking grass peas, but her thoughts are full of the hunt. It is many days since they made a big kill. She pictures how it will be if the men succeed. Dusk. The sound of singing. Everyone running out to watch them climb up, the branch across their shoulders bent by the weight of the carcass. Children watch as the men skin and butcher the kill. Later, the big cooking fire hissing with fat from the meat. Gorging until they are full. Leaning back, bellies full, listening to the story of how Tipi became a man.
It is past midday and Ansa’s gathering bag bulges out from her waist. Shading her eyes, she scans the higher slopes. Ikomar is working at a patch higher up, and there is someone higher still, who might be Bo. Ansa bends again, searching among the straggly foliage, but she has picked all the ripe pods. She spots another clump just above her.
She cannot reach up there with Hua tied to her back — the slope is too steep. She unties the sling, lays the sleeping child in the shade of a bush, then climbs up. Picking the curved, black pods is much easier now. She spots more higher up the slope and looks back, but Hua is still sleeping. Clambering up, she follows the trailing stems to find the pods. Some of them are over-ripe and break open in her hand, scattering mottled white grass peas over the ground. At last, her bag is full.
As Ansa straightens up she feels a tingling in her full breasts. She must wake Hua and suckle her before starting back to the cave. The afternoon wind is blowing across the plain, from the great Water. She starts to climb down, but now fear catches her by the throat. There is the bush, the grass beside it flattened by the weight of the little body, but no sign of Hua. How can she be gone? Ansa spins round, looking in every direction. Nothing. The sky presses down on her — a vast empty weight. She scrambles down to the bush, calling out Hua’s name again and again. Nothing but the flapping of birds’ wings as, disturbed by her shouting, they swoop down from the thicket of terebinth and then up into the sky.
She scans the mountain slopes desperately, making the danger call. The shrill warbling sound carries a long way, but it’s growing late and the other women have gone back. She tries to steady her thoughts. Hua can’t have climbed up the slope — she would have seen her. Which way then? She shudders, thinking of the Crocodile River, flowing full and fast. In terror she calls again, but there is no answering cry, no movement in the grass. She rips off her gathering bag, spilling the pods on the grass, and runs toward the terebinths.
A movement in the branches draws her eye upward and she slows to a halt. A vulture, his head the colour of egg yolk and crested with white hair like an old man, his face turned to one side, his cruel beak curving downward, is watching her intently. Ansa cries out but the bird does not move, just continues to fix her with his unblinking stare. Something about the bird’s cold scrutiny is familiar. Ama. Could it be that her mother has come back, after all these years, to punish her? Just then, slowly and gracefully, the vulture opens his white wings and glides from his branch, down to the grass. He alights beside a gap amongst the glossy leaves and seems to stare straight at Ansa. She gasps as her ears pick up a familiar sound, soft at first but then louder, unmistakable: Hua’s gurgling laugh.
Ansa runs to the thicket and there, hidden from sight under the spreading leaves, is Hua. She is sitting on the grass, her back straight and her chubby legs stretched out in front of her. She is holding a blue-white tortoise egg in each hand and two more broken ones are lying on the ground beside her. When she sees Ansa, she chuckles again and holds out one of the eggs.
‘Ama!’
Shaking, with tears running down her face, Ansa wraps Hua up in her arms, crushing the tortoise egg. She stumbles out onto the open plain just as the vulture gains soaring height –the black fingers of his wingtips reaching down from the afternoon sky.
Thank you for reading. Chapter 12 coming soon …
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