Chestnut-head stood under them in the sun pattern. The twig was across the curved stick. He looked this way and that round the dead tree, he inspected the ground, he looked forward again into the forest. He spoke side- ways to the others in the boat out of his slit; soft twittering speech; the whiteness quivered.
Lok felt the shock of a man who has trusted to a bough that is not there. He understood in a kind of upside-down sensation that there was no Mai face, Fa face, Lok face concealed under the bone. It was skin.
Bush and Pine-tree had done something with strips of hide that joined the logs to the bushes. They got quickly out of the log and ran forward out of sight. Presently there was the sound of someone striking stone against wood. Chestnut-head crept forward too and was hidden.
There was nothing of interest now but the logs. They were very smooth and shiny inside where the wood could be seen and outside there were long smears like the whiteness on a rock when the sea has gone back and the sun has dried it. The edges were rounded, depressed in places where the hands of the bone-faces had rested. The shapes inside them were too various and numerous to be sorted. There were round stones, sticks, hides, there were bundles bigger than Lok, there were patterns of vivid red, bones that had grown into live shapes, the very ends of the brown leaves where the men held them were shaped like brown fish, there were smells, there were questions and no answers. Lok looked without seeing and the picture slid apart and came together again. Across the water there was no movement on the island.
Fa touched him on the hand. She was turning herself in the tree. Lok followed her carefully and they made themselves spy-holes that looked down into the clearing.
Already the familiar had altered. The tangle of bush and stagnant water to the left of the clearing was the same and so was the impenetrable marsh to the right. But where the trail through the forest touched the clearing thorn bushes were now growing thickly. There was a gap in these bushes and as they watched they saw Pinetree come through the gap with another thorn bush over his shoulder. The stem was clean white and pointed. In the forest behind him the noise of chopping went on.
Fear was coming from Fa. It was not a shared picture but a general sense, a bitter smell, a dead silence and agonized attention, a motionlessness and tensed awareness that began to call forth the same in him. Now, more clearly than ever before there were two Loks, outside and inside. The inner Lok could look for ever. But the outer that breathed and heard and smelt and was awake always, was insistent and tightening on him like another skin. It forced the knowledge of its fear, its sense of peril on him long before his brain could understand the picture. He was more frightened than ever before in his life, more than when he had crouched on a rock with Ha and a cat had paced to and fro by a drained kill, looking up and wondering whether they were worth the trouble. Fa's mouth crept to his ear.
“We are shut in."
The thorn bushes spread. They were very thick where there was an easy way into the clearing; but there were others now, two lines of them by the stagnant water and by the marsh. The clearing was a half-ring open only to the water of the river. The three bone-faces came through the last gap, with more thorn bushes. With these they closed the way behind them. Fa whispered in his ear.
“They know we are here. They do not want us to go away."
AH the same the bone-faces ignored them. Bush and Pine-tree went back and the logs bumped each other. Chestnut-head began to pace slowly round the line of thorn bushes, keeping his face to the forest. Always the bent stick was held with a twig across it. The thorn bushes were up to his chest and when a bull bellowed far off on the plains he froze, face lifted and the stick unbent a little. The woodpigeons were talking again and the sun looked down into the top of the dead tree and breathed warmly on the two people.
Someone dug noisily in the water and the logs bumped. There were wooden knockings, draggings and bird speech; then two other men came from under the tree into the clearing. The first man was like the others. His hair gathered into a tuft on top of his head then spread so that it bobbed as he moved. Tuft went straight to the thorn bushes and began to watch the forest. He also had a bent stick and a twig.
The second man was unlike the others. He was broader and shorter. There was much hair on his body and his head-hair was sleek as if fat had been rubbed in it. The hair lay in a ball at the back of his neck. He had no hair on the front of his head at all so that the sweep of bone skin, daunting in its fungoid pallor, came right over above his ears. Now for the first time, Lok saw the ears of the new men. They were tiny and screwed tightly into the sides of their heads.
Tuft and Chestnut-head were crouching down. They were shifting leaves and blades of grass from the foot- prints that Fa and Lok had made. Tuft looked up and spoke:
“Tuami." Chestnut-head followed the prints with outstretched hand. Tuft spoke to the broad man.
“Tuami."
The broad man turned to them from the pile of stones and sticks which had occupied him. He threw a quick bird-noise, incongruously delicate, and they answered. Fa spoke in Lok's ear.
“It is his name."
Tuami and the others were bent and nodding over the prints. Where the ground hardened towards the tree the footprints were invisible and when Lok expected the new men to put their noses to the ground they straightened up and stood. Tuami began to laugh. He was pointing towards the fall, laughing and twittering. Then he stopped, struck his palms loudly against each other, said one word and returned to the pile.
As though the one word had changed the clearing, the new men began to relax. Although Chestnut-head and Tuft still watched the forest, they stood, each at a side of the clearing, looking over the thorns and their sticks unbent. Pine-tree did not move any of the bundles for a while; he put one hand to his shoulder, pulled a piece of hide and stepped out of his skin. This hurt Lok like the sight of a thorn under a man's nail; but then he saw that Pine-tree did not mind, was glad in fact, was cool and comfortable in his own white skin. He was naked now like Lok, except that he had a piece of deerskin wound tightly round his thin waist and loins.
Now Lok could see two other things. The new people did not move like anything he had ever seen before. They were balanced on top of their legs, their waists were so wasp-thin that when they moved their bodies swayed backwards and forwards. They did not look at the earth but straight ahead. And they were not merely hungry. Lok knew famine when he saw it. The new people were dying. The flesh was sunken to their bones as Mai's flesh had sunken. Their movements, though they had in their bodies the bending grace of a young bough, were dream- slow. They walked upright and they should be dead. It was as though something that Lok could not see were supporting them, holding up their heads, thrusting them slowly and irresistibly forward. Lok knew that if he were as thin as they, he would be dead already.
Tuft had thrown his skin on the ground below the dead tree and was heaving at a great bundle. Chestnut- head came quickly to help him and they lifted together. Lok saw their faces crease as they laughed at each other and a sudden gush of affection for them pushed the heavy feeling down in his body. He could see how they shared the weight, felt in his own limbs the drag and desperate effort. Tuami came back. He took off his skin, stretched, scratched himself and knelt on the ground. He swept a patch bare of leaves until the brown earth showed. He had a little stick in his right hand and he talked to the other men. There was much nodding. The logs bumped and there was a noise of voices by the water. The men in the clearing stopped talking. Tuft and Chestnut-head began to move round the thorns again.
Then a new man appeared. He was tall and not as thin as the others. The hair under his mouth and above the head was grey and white like Mai's. It frizzed in a cloud and under it a huge cat-tooth hung from either ear. They could not see his face for his back was to them. In their heads they called him the old man. He stood looking down at Tuami and his harsh voice dived and struggled.
Tuami made more marks. They joined; and suddenly Lok and Fa shared a p
icture of the old woman drawing a line round the body of Mai. Fa's eyes flickered sideways at Lok and she made a tiny down-stabbing motion with one finger. Those men who were not on watch gathered round Tuami and talked to each other and to the old man. They did not gesticulate much nor dance out their meanings as Lok and Fa might have done but their thin lips puttered and flapped. The old man made a movement with his arm and bent down to Tuami. He said something to him.
Tuami shook his head. The men went a little way from him and sat down in a row with only Tuft still on watch. Fa and Lok watched what Tuami was doing over the row of hairy heads. Tuami scrambled round the other side of the patch and they could see his face. There were upright lines between his eyebrows and the point of his tongue was moving after the line as he drew it. The line of heads began to twitter again. A man picked some small sticks and broke them. He shut them in his hand and each of the others took one from him.
Tuami got up, went to a bundle and pulled out a bag of leather. There were stones and wood, and shapes in it and he arranged them by the mark on the ground. Then he squatted down in front of the men, between them and the marked patch. Immediately the men began to make a noise /with their mouths. They struck their hands together and the noise went with the sharp smacks. The noise swept and plunged and twisted yet always remained the same shape, like the hummocks at the foot of the fall that were rushing water yet always the same in the same place. Lok's head began to fill with the fall as though he had looked at it too long and it was sending him to sleep. The tightness of his skin had relaxed a little since he saw the new people liking each other. Now the flock was coming back into his head as the voices and the smack! smack! went on.
The shattering call of a rutting stag blared just under the tree. The flock left Lok's head. The men had bent till their various heads of hair swept the ground. The stag of all stags was dancing out into the clearing. He came round the line of heads, danced to the other side of the marks, turned and stood still. He blared his call again. Then there was silence in the clearing, while the woodpigeons talked to each other.
Tuami became very busy. He began to throw things on to the marks. He reached forward and made important movements. There was colour on the bare patch, colour of autumn leaves, red berries, the white of frost and the dull blackness that fire will leave on rock. The men's hair still lay on the ground and they said nothing. Tuami sat back.
The skin that had tightened over Lok's body went wintry chill. There was another stag in the clearing. It lay where the marks had been, flat on the ground; it was racing along and yet, like the men's voices and the water below the fall, it stayed in the same place. Its colours were those of the breeding season, but it was very fat, its small dark eye spied Lok's eye through the ivy. He felt caught and cowered down in the soft wood where the food ran and tickled. He did not want to look.
Fa had his wrist and was drawing him up again. Fearfully he put his eye to the leaves and looked back at the flat stag; but it was hidden for men were standing in front of it. Pine-tree was holding a piece of wood in his left hand and it was polished and there was a branch or a piece of a branch sticking out of the farther side of it. One of Pine-tree's fingers was stretched along this branch. Tuami stood opposite him. He took hold of the other end of the wood. Pine-tree was talking to the standing stag and the flat stag. They could hear that he was pleading. Tuami raised his right hand in the air. The stag blared. Tuami struck hard and there was now a glistening stone biting into the wood. Pine-tree stood still for a moment or two. Then he removed his hand carefully from the polished wood and a finger remained stretched out on the branch. He turned away and came to sit with the others. His face was more like bone than it had been before, and he moved very slowly and with a stagger. The other men held up their hands and. helped him down among them. He said nothing. Chestnut-head took out some hide and bound up his hand and both the stags waited until he had finished.
Tuami turned the wooden thing over and the finger lingered, then dropped off with a little plop. It lay on the foxy red of the stag. Tuami sat down again. Two of the men had their arms round Pine-tree who was leaning sideways. There was a great stillness so that the fall sounded nearer.
Chestnut-head and Bush stood up and went near the lying stag. They held their curved sticks in one hand and the red-feathered twigs in the other. The standing stag moved his man's hand as though he were sprinkling them with something, then he reached out and touched them each on the cheek with a frond of fern. They began to bend over the stag on the ground, stretching their arms down and their right elbows were rising behind them. Then there was a flick! flick! and two twigs were sticking in the stag by its heart. They bent down, pulled the twigs out and the stag made no movement. The seated men beat their hands together and made the water-hump sounds over and over till Lok yawned and licked his lips. Chestnut-head and Bush were still standing with their sticks. The stag blared, the men bent till their hair was on the ground. The stag began to dance again. His dance prolonged the sound of voices. He came near; he passed under the tree and out of sight and the voices ceased. Behind them, between the dead tree and the river, the stag blared once more.
Tuami and Bush ran quickly to the thorns across the trail and pulled one aside. They stood each side of the opening, pulling back, and Lok could see that now their eyes were shut. Chestnut-head and Bush stole forward softly, their bent sticks raised. They passed through the opening, disappeared noiselessly into the forest and Tuami and Tuft let the thorns fall back.
The sun had moved so that the stag that Tuami had made was smelling at the shadow of the dead tree. Pinetree was sitting on the ground under the tree and shivering a little. The men began to move slowly in the dream sloth of hunger. The old man came out from under the dead tree and began to talk to Tuami. Now his hair was tied tightly to his head and spots of sun slid over it. He walked forward and looked down at the stag. He reached out a foot and began to rub it round in the stag's body. The stag did nothing but allowed itself to be hidden. In a moment or two there was nothing on the ground but patches of colour and a head with a tiny eye. Tuami turned away, talking to himself, went to a bundle and rummaged. He brought out a spike of bone, heavy and wrinkled at one end like the surface of a tooth and fined down at the other to a blunt point. He knelt and began to rub this blunt point with a little stone and Lok could hear it scrape. The old man came close to him, pointed to the bone, laughed in a roaring voice and pretended to thrust something into his chest. Tuami bent his head and went on rubbing. The old man pointed to the river and then to the ground and began to make a long speech. Tuami thrust the bone and stone into the hide by his waist, got up and passed under the dead tree out of sight.
The old man stopped talking. He sat carefully on a bundle near the centre of the clearing. The stag's head with its tiny eye was at his feet. Fa spoke in Lok's ear:
“He went away before. He fears the other stag."
Lok had an immediate and vivid picture of the standing stag that had danced and blared. He shook his head in agreement.
EIGHT
Fa shifted herself with great care and settled again. Lok, glancing sideways, saw her red tongue pass along her lips. A pause linked them and for a moment Lok saw two flies who slid apart and could only be brought together by great firmness. The inside of the ivy was full of flying things that sang thinly or settled on his body so that the skin twitched. The shadows between the bars and patches of sunlight detached themselves and sank until the sunlight was on a different level. Odd sayings of Mai or the old woman swam up with pictures and mixed with the voices of the new people until he hardly knew which was which. It could hardly be the old man below them who was talking in Mai's voice of the summer land where the sun was as warm as a fire and fruit ripened all year long, nor could the overhang mix as it now did with the thorn bushes and bundles of the clearing. The feeling that was so unpleasant had sunk and spread like a pool. Lok was almost used to it.
There was a pain in his wrist. He opened his ey
es and looked down irritably. Fa had her fingers round it and his flesh was raised painfully on either side of them. Then quite clearly he heard the new one mew. The birdchatter and high laughter of the new people was lifted to a new height as though they had all become children. Fa was turning in the tree back to the river. For a while Lok lay bemused by the sun and his mixture of waking dreams and new people. Then the new one mewed again so that Lok himself turned with Fa and peered through to the river.
One of the two logs was moving in to the bank. Tuami sat at the back, digging, and the remainder of the log was full of people. They were women, for he could see their naked and empty breasts. They were much smaller than the men and they carried less of the removable fur on their bodies. Their hair was less astonishing and elaborate than the men's. There was a crumpled look about their faces and they were very thin. Between Tuami and the bundles and crumpled women sat a creature who caught Lok's eye so firmly that he had little time to inspect the others. She was a woman, too, she carried shining fur round her waist that rose and was looped over either arm and formed a pouch at the back of her head. Her hair gleamed black and was arranged round the bone white of her face like the petals of a flower. Her shoulders and breast were white, startlingly white by contrast, for the new one was struggling over them. He was trying to get away from the water and climbing over her shoulder to that pouch of fur behind her, and she was laughing, her face crumpled, mouth open, so that Lok could see her strange, white teeth. There was too much to see and he became eyes again that registered and perhaps would later remember what now he was not aware of. The woman was fatter than the others, as the old man had been fatter; but she was not as old as he and there was milk standing in the points of her breasts. The new one had hold of her shining hair and was pulling himself up while she tried to drag him down; her head was leaning sideways, face up. The laughter rose like the charm of starlings. The log slid under the limit of his spy-hole and Lok heard the bushes sigh by the bank.