True, some of those who were used to making fun of Lilia's crumbs would sometimes linger for a moment or two at the foot of the trees or the bank of the river, stand there, and wait: Maybe just once? Despite everything? Why not? But a moment later they would rouse themselves as if someone had suddenly clapped near their ear. And they would shrug and walk away, slightly embarrassed.
But the whole village had no qualms about ridiculing, openly and with ugly laughter, poor penniless Solina the Seamstress and her invalid husband, Ginome, whose memory was gone and body so shrunken that he had become a baby as small as a pillow, who bleated in a thin voice like a lost lamb. Every evening, Solina, his wife, wrapped him in diapers, covered him with two wool blankets, and took him in a pram for a long walk through the streets of the village all the way to the banks of the river, whose angry roar made Ginome bleat in a sharp, despairing voice, as if all were already lost.
10
And this was the secret: Once, Matti and Maya were walking barefoot along the river to collect round, polished pebbles that Matti's mother used to make the small pieces of jewelry she sold. In one of the bends of the river, in a hidden place, some water had drained into a cranny, creating a sort of shaded pool concealed in a block of gray rock, a very small pool, almost as small as the space between the legs of a chair. A tangle of water plants hid the bottom of the pool. Those water plants scattered the sun reflected there, as if it were shattered into slivers in the water: a host of shimmering, bright gold sparkles were ignited in the pool.
And suddenly, between the water plants and the sides of the rock, it can't be, darting, dazzling, flickering, glistening, wriggling, but how could it be, glittering like a knife in the water, shimmering live-silver scales dancing, was a fish, look, a fish, but how could it be a fish? It can't be a fish, are you really really sure, Maya, that you saw a fish here too? Really? Because, I, listen, I am absolutely, positively sure that, even though it's completely impossible, it's a fish. A fish, Maya, a fish, a live fish, you and I, we both just saw a fish here, and we didn't just think we saw it, we could see clearly that it was definitely a fish.
A fish and not just a leaf, a fish and not a sliver of metal, a fish, I'm telling you, Matti, a real live fish, a fish without a shadow of a doubt, a fish, I saw it, and so did you, it was a fish, a whole fish, and nothing but a fish.
It was a small fish, a tiny fish, half a finger long, and it had silver scales and delicate, lacy fins and pulsating, transparent gills. Its round, wide-open fish eyes had looked at them both for a moment, as if it were saying to Maya and Matti that all of us, all the living creatures on this planet, people and animals, birds, insects, reptiles and fish, we're all actually very much alike, despite the many differences between us: Almost all of us have eyes with which to see shapes and movement and colors, or at least feel the shifting light and darkness through our skin, and almost all of us hear sounds and echoes of sounds. And we all constantly absorb and classify smells, tastes, and sensations.
And more: All of us, without exception, are sometimes frightened, even terrified, and we're all sometimes tired or hungry, and each of us is attracted to certain things and repelled by other things we think are disgusting. And all of us, without exception, are very vulnerable. All of us, people-insects-birds-fish, all of us go to sleep and wake up, go to sleep again and wake up again, all of us try hard to be comfortable, not too hot and not too cold, all of us, without exception, try most of the time to take good care of ourselves and keep away from things that cut or bite or prick. And all of us, bird and worm, cat and child and wolf, every one of us tries most of the time to avoid pain and danger as best we can, and yet we put ourselves in danger every time we go out to seek food or fun, even adventures, thrills, power, or pleasure.
So much so, Maya said after turning this thought around in her mind a bit, so much so that we can actually say that all of us, without exception, are in the same boat: Not only all the children, not only the whole village, not only all people, but all living things. All of us. But I'm still not sure what the right answer is to this question: are plants in some way our distant relatives?
So anyone who mocks or hurts another passenger, Matti said, is actually being stupid and hurting the whole boat. After all, no one here has another boat.
A moment later, or perhaps in less than a moment, the small fish twisted its body, spread the fan of its slender fins widely, and plunged into the dark water, down to the river plants.
That was the only animal Maya and Matti had ever seen in their lives. Except for some drawings of cows-horses-dogs-birds on the pages of books or on the walls of Emanuella the Teacher's classroom, and the small carvings Almon the Fisherman made and gave to the village children.
Maya and Matti knew it was a fish because they had seen fish in picture books. And they knew without a doubt that it was a live fish and not a drawing because no creature drawn in those picture books could move its muscles, twist and turn, and slip away from them so quickly, dive so suddenly to a deep, invisible place among the shadows of the water plants.
11
That was the first living creature seen in the village for many years, since that horrible night when Nehi the Mountain Demon gathered a long procession of animals, from horse to dove, from mouse to sheep to bull, and led them out of the village forever. Some of the parents, without any warning, would suddenly be flooded by a wave of longing or sorrow and begin to imitate animal sounds for their children: the chirping of a bird and the lowing of a cow, the howling of a wolf in the forest, the cooing of a dove and buzzing of a bee and the flapping of a river goose's wings and the croaking of a frog and the whoop of an owl. But a moment later, those parents denied that they were sad, pretended that, in fact, they only meant to entertain their children a bit, nothing more, and insisted that none of those sounds were part of the real world but existed only in fairy tales and legends.
The twists and turns of the villagers' memories were strange: The things they tried very hard to remember sometimes eluded them and hid deep under the blanket of forgetfulness. And the things they decided they'd be much better off forgetting were the ones that would rise out of the forgetfulness as if to deliberately upset them. There were times when they remembered the smallest detail of what had almost never been. Or they remembered what had been and no longer existed, remembered it with pain and longing, but their shame or sorrow was so great that they would decide firmly that it had all been a dream. And they would say to their children: It's just a fairy tale.
Others said: It was just a little joke. That's all.
Some children, when they heard those stories, felt a vague longing for what might have been there once, and perhaps had never been at all. But many children never wanted to hear those stories, or heard them and made fun of their parents and of Emanuella the Teacher: no animals had been seen for so many years that most of the children came to the conclusion that all those moos and coos and maas and meows, all those bzzzes and baas and yaps and quacks, were all just strange inventions their parents had come up with, old-fashioned superstitions that should be tossed away so they could finally live in the real world, because people who live in their imaginations are not like the rest of us, and people who aren't like the rest of us will get whoopitis, and everyone will avoid them, and then it will be too late to save them.
Perhaps only Danir—the jolly, long-legged roofer, favorite of all the village girls, who loved to sing all day with his helpers as they worked on the high, slanted housetops, and liked to stop on his way home and talk to children through open windows as if they were grown-ups, or the opposite, to chat with them as if he himself were still a child, and also liked to whistle tunes in the streets under the windows of the village girls—perhaps Danir was the only one they should ask what was true and what wasn't.
But the trouble was that with Danir and his friends, who gathered around him in the stone square on long summer evenings, you could never ever know when they were joking or playing tricks on you or on each o
ther. And if they did speak seriously, even then they seemed to be joking. Anyone who tried to have a real conversation with them also found himself, for some reason, suddenly speaking in jest. Even if he definitely didn't mean to.
Almon the Fisherman, who nobody listened to because everyone made fun of him, was the only one in the entire village who could teach the children that the real world is not only what the eye sees and the ear hears and the fingers touch, but also what the eye cannot see, the ear cannot hear, and the fingers cannot touch. And it shows itself sometimes, for only a moment, to those who see with their mind's eye and know how to listen and hear with the ears of their soul and touch with the fingers of their mind. But who wanted to listen to Almon? He was a long-winded, almost blind old man who stood there and argued endlessly with his ugly old scarecrow.
12
And after the fish had gone, they could see the shock and fear on each other's faces: the mouth that dropped open, the eyes that gaped, the white-as-a-sheet paleness that spread over their forehead and cheeks. Tell me, Maya said, did you hear what I heard? Tell me, Matti said, did you hear it too? Had they really heard three or four muted, dreamlike sounds rolling down from far, far away beyond the valleys and slopes, from the edges of the steep forests on the northern cliff of the mountain ridge, low-dark echoes that sounded like the barking of dogs, then faded quickly?
Maya and Matti had heard how dogs bark in Emanuella the Teacher's stories, but was there anyone who didn't make fun of poor Emanuella the Teacher, who went after every man but, in the whole village, had never found herself even the shadow of a husband who would deign to glance in her direction?
And now, a little while after seeing the fish, Maya and Matti thought that the faint sounds coming from the northern ridge sounded a bit like barking. Or maybe it wasn't the barking of real dogs? Maybe it was just a distant rockfall? Or a trick of the treetops panting with excitement, beginning to screech and sigh with the onslaught of the gusting wind?
Who would believe that Maya and Matti had seen a live fish in the river? Or that, at almost the same time, they had heard the sound of dogs barking in the distance? Was there anyone who wouldn't laugh at them? Sometimes, one of the children would come to the schoolyard in the morning and try to tell the others about how he heard—he swears he heard it—a sound that might have been a chirp. Or a buzz. Not for a second did the children believe the boy who told those stories, and they made fun of him and teased him and said, You better stop it, and fast, before you end up like Nimi the Owl.
Perhaps because ridicule protects the ridiculers from the risk of loneliness? Because they ridicule in groups, and the one they ridicule is always alone?
And the grownups? Perhaps only because they tried so hard to silence an inner whisper? Or were ashamed of a certain guilt they felt?
Matti and Maya went back to that place many times, bent over the pool, their faces so close to its surface that their noses almost sank into the water, but the little fish never appeared again. In vain they searched every one of the dozens or hundreds of the river's small pools scattered here and there in the banks alongside the flowing torrent, among the rocks, in hidden bays, in places where water plants concealed the golden sand of the riverbed.
But once, toward evening, it happened that something suddenly passed very very high over their heads: something glided high in the darkening sky, something sailed by, slight and illuminated like a single cloud in the evening air, back and forth from the forest, completely transparent, slowly and silently passing high over their heads, then back to the forest, and faded almost before Maya and Matti realized they were seeing it.
Almost—but not before they managed to see that something was there and had passed over their heads, soaring and silent, floating onward, very high above the village and river, high above the dark forests. And Maya's and Matti's eyes met and they both shivered.
13
So it happened that those children, Matti and Maya, like an underground cell with only two members, began to convince each other that perhaps animals really did exist somewhere. Matti was very frightened, Maya a bit less, and yet they were still drawn, as if under a spell, to set out on a great adventure to find signs of life. The decision to plan such an adventure didn't come easily for Matti and Maya. They didn't completely trust themselves: Perhaps the little fish and the barking sounds were tricks of their imagination? Perhaps it had only been a shiny silver leaf rising from the water for a moment before it sank and disappeared? Perhaps an old tree had broken in one of the distant forests and it was only the echo of the break that had been carried on the wind to them, and had sounded vaguely like barking? How and where should they begin their adventure? And what would happen if they were caught and punished? And everyone made fun of them? What if they came down with whoopitis, like Nimi the Owl?
And what would happen to them if they made Nehi the Mountain Demon angry? What if they too vanished forever under his black cape just as all the animals had vanished so many years ago—so the grownups say—from the village and its surroundings?
And in fact, where should they begin their search?
14
The answer to that question, their hearts told them, was that they should begin their search in the forest. The answer frightened Matti and Maya so much that for three or four weeks they stopped whispering to each other about the plan for their adventure. As if something so shameful had happened between them that it was better to pretend it had never happened. Or it had happened but was completely forgotten.
But the adventure had already taken root so deeply that it seeped into their dreams at night. They no longer felt happy or curious or excited or brave about it, but had only a dull, nagging feeling that this was it. That this is how it was and there was nothing they could do about it. That from now on, it was their responsibility. That, in fact, they had no choice.
So they continued to whisper together about the forest, the little fish in the pool, the distant barking of the dogs, the cloud that had passed over their heads but wasn't a cloud, and other signs of life. Again, that whispering led to all sorts of rumors, winks, and chuckles among their classmates and sharp-eyed neighbors: Look at that pair, they're probably holding hands already. Hands? What hands? I bet they're kissing already. And who knows, maybe they've even let each other have a look?
Some people even said that they were actually a good match, those two oddballs, she with that mother of hers, the crazy baker who throws bread crumbs into a river that has no fish or scatters them under trees that have no birds, and he with the things he writes in his little pads and doesn't show us but runs straight to show them to Almon the Fisherman, who argues with the walls. Or maybe he doesn't show what he writes to Almon, only to Almon's scarecrow?
So the ridicule accumulated around them like a dark mud stain that spreads in water and makes it murky. But Matti and Maya had already dug through the ridicule and come out on the other side: one morning they got up very early and instead of going to school walked out of the village and straight up to the forest.
15
Maya and Matti walked up along the bank of the river, but they didn't hold hands except perhaps once or twice when they crossed the river on the slippery rocks scattered across it at one of the bends. As they jumped from one wet stone to another to reach the other side, they had to hold on to each other to keep from falling into the cold river. The higher up the mountain they climbed, the thicker the forest grew. Occasionally they had to push away branches and bushes and draw aside climbing ferns so they could make their way through.
There were moments when they felt they weren't alone in the forest, that someone else, or something else, was there, broad and large and dark, something that seemed to be breathing deeply and quietly behind them. But wherever they looked, they saw only thick green plants that seemed to be turning blacker and blacker. And no matter how hard they strained their ears, they heard nothing but the whispering of the wind in the treetops, the churning of the river among the rocks,
and the crunch of dry leaves and branches under their shoes.
Every now and then the tangle of trees and bushes grew so dense that they could move forward only if they bent over or crawled on their hands and knees. From time to time, they passed the opening of a cave, but when they looked inside, they saw only black darkness crouched there and breathing at them, giving off the ancient smells of dust and thick mildew.
Then suddenly they passed a cave opening that didn't smell of mildew but gave off the pleasant fragrance of a wood fire that sweetened the air as a gentle curl of smoke drifted out from inside. At first, they froze, but a moment later, Matti whispered to Maya: Let's get out of here fast before anyone spots us. Maya whispered back: Before we go, I want to crawl just a little farther to see what's in there, because I just have to. Wait here for me, Matti. Hide behind that rock and keep guard. If you see me come flying out of there, run back down the mountain too, don't hesitate and don't wait for me. Just run home as fast as you can and don't look back. I'll run as fast as I can too. But if you see that, let's say, fifteen minutes have gone by and I haven't come out, don't keep waiting for me. Run home and try to remember exactly how we got here and tell Danir the Roofer, no one else, only him. So my mother won't be alarmed.
That frightened Matti, and he was going to whisper to Maya, No, it's too dangerous, there's no way of knowing what's lying in wait for us in the cave. But he held back and said nothing because he'd always known that Maya was braver than he was and he felt a bit ashamed about it, even mocked himself.
Two curves and three rock steps led Maya into a narrow alcove at the end of the low cave. The fire made nervous shadows dance on the soot-covered walls. Pleasant-smelling smoke rose from the fire. And Matti, after some hesitation, decided not to listen to Maya but to follow her into the cave: two curves and two rock steps, but before the third step, his courage ran out and he stood still, hiding among the folds of the rock and peering out to see what would happen to Maya.