A NOVEL SET IN PREHISTORY
The Oak People
Chapter 4: Bo asks too many questions
Ansa
Ansa is lying back on the rocky slope, her head cushioned by a tuft of dry summer grass. She puts one end of the dull black pod in her mouth and nibbles at it, letting the sweetness slowly fill her mouth. Bo is close by, her arms clasped around her knees, looking out across the parched plain, towards the Salt Water.
‘Ansa.’
‘What?’ Ansa’s eyes are closed. The shadow thrown by the oak protects her head from Eshtu’s fierce heat.
‘What is it like?’ Bo asks.
Ansa opens her eyes but she is too comfortable to move.
‘What does it feel like? To have a child growing in your belly?’
The girl spins round and crawls over to place her palm on Ansa’s stomach.
Ansa sits up. ‘There’s nothing to feel,’ she says, moving Bo’s hand away.
Before long, the girl is up and busying herself, turning the pods so that they dry more evenly in the midday heat. Ansa watches her. She is like the long-legged flies, never resting in one place for long.
It was Bo who befriended her when she first came to the mountain, who showed her the springs and the places where tortoises scrape a hole for their eggs. It is Bo who whispers in her ear when the others use a word she doesn’t understand. With the grown women, Ansa still feels like a stranger, but never with this girl.
Bo takes one of the pods to chew and sits but she is soon up again, spitting out the floury seeds. At last she seems to settle. Ansa closes her eyes and listens to the buzzing of the cicadas. The wind plays on her legs: a hot wind from the desert, from her home. She begins to feel drowsy but Bo’s voice drags her back from sleep.
‘Ansa — are you glad you came to the cave?’ Bo’s voice is almost pleading.
Ansa sighs and sits upright; she will get no rest till she has answered. Is she glad? She thinks of that day when she saw the dark shape of the cave mouth for the very first time. The men went inside first, on their guard, but it was empty except for the bones of a hyena’s kill. The Oak People lit fires all through the cave, to smoke out the biting flies. Even on that first day, when everything was so strange, she knew that the green mountain was welcoming her, offering her shelter. She looks out now at the wide plain with its rivers and, in the distance, the gleam of the Salt Water.
‘I like it here.’
Bo has taken her hand and is batting it to and fro between her own palms. She speaks again, almost in a whisper. ‘But what about Bidari — do you like sitting with him?’
All at once, Ansa understands what is troubling Bo. Before too long, the girl will begin to bleed and then she will have to leave the cave and go to live with strangers herself. Ansa remembers that first painful coupling with Bidari.
‘Bidari is kind to me — not like my father and his wife. There is nothing to be afraid of.’
Bo laughs and a blush creeps over her face. ‘Your father’s wife?’ she says, after a while. ‘Isn’t Garoa your mother?’
‘No — my father joined with her when I was small.’
Bo twists right round to face Ansa, her brown eyes bright and alive. ‘What happened to your mother? Did she die, like mine? Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
Ansa shifts her buttocks against the hard rock. She is suddenly tired of Bo’s questions. Always more questions. ‘I had a brother,’ she says and gets to her feet, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. She scans the horizon for any sign of cloud. If the rains come too early, the pods will rot.
‘You had a brother? What happened to him?’ Bo asks.
Ansa looks back up the winding path, shielding her eyes. The others will be back soon, with more pods. She hears Bo behind her, feels the tug on her arm. The girl will not let go — she is like a hyena with her kill.
‘Tell me, Ansa.’
Fighting to part the mist that has come down over her thoughts, Ansa tries to picture her home in the desert. She sees her mother, smiling down on the baby in her arms. The baby has finished feeding and crawls away across the sand. Ansa feels the old fear begin to stir and the picture fades. She is back on the mountain and Bo’s face is close, her eyes like spear points.
‘Did your mother die when your brother was born?’
More than anything, Ansa wants to be left alone, so she just nods her head but now the girl’s arms are around her and she shrinks back. She wants to push the girl away but Bo has started sobbing.
‘Don’t,’ Ansa says. ‘It was a long time ago.’
It makes no difference. Bo is crying for her own mother now and once she starts, there is no way to stop her.
Ansa climbs up, crawls through the opening, and the mountain swallows her. After the glare of Eshtu, she can see nothing at first, but she is not frightened. She is never frightened here in this place that no-one knows about, not even Bo. It is no more than a deep gash in the cliff, high above the path, but wide enough to crawl through and to sit alone, out of the heat or the rain: to sit and not be seen.
Ansa feels for the bag by her belt and takes out the Balqa stone. With her finger she gently rolls it round and round on the palm of her hand, her eyes fixed on the bright, empty sky.
She is back in the desert, squatting with the other children, the breath of Eshtu hot on her head. Her friend Fede is drawing in the sand with a stick. She is the only one to guess what it is, even though Fede has drawn the snake coiled up! She gets up and skips across the scorching sand.
‘Ama!’ She bursts into the tent. ‘Ama!’
When Ama turns round, her face is angry. ‘Shh,’ she whispers sharply. ‘Your brother has just gone to sleep.’
She looks at the way Ama is cradling the baby’s head, so carefully, so gently. His eyes are closed and, for once, he is quiet.
She goes back out and sits down behind the tent, in her special place. She squeezes her hands together till they hurt. What would happen if she squeezed her brother’s head as hard as that? Would his eyes pop out, like a lizard’s?
There is a tiny sound, or perhaps a movement, and the memory is gone as quickly as it came. The Balqa stone has fallen from her hand. Ansa feels around with her fingers. It is there, under her leg. Releasing her breath, she replaces it in the bag and crawls to the mouth of the shelter. Eshtu is low in the sky. She clambers down to the path and starts back for the cave. No-one will have missed her.
Thank you for reading. Chapter 5 is here:
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