Wild Song, page 2
‘What?’ I said.
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘You’ve got to try harder, Luki.’ His voice was gentle but chiding.
I flattened my face and hid all my feelings. ‘Don’t know what you mean.’
‘They are your friends.’
I scowled. ‘HAH! They were never my friends.’
‘Give them a chance.’
‘A chance to annoy me?’
‘No, a chance to know you.’
‘They have known me since we were children. They can’t stand me.’
‘They like you really, Luki.’
‘They liked my mother. Me? They don’t want to know.’
‘That’s not true,’ Sam said quietly. ‘It is you who reject them.’
Didn’t he get it? The more time I spent with the other girls, the less they liked me. And what if they found out about my hunting expeditions? They would probably rather I became an expert manure trampler than a hunter.
Mother, that was when it occurred to me that this was all your fault. It was you who thought it amusing to dress me in a breechcloth because I liked playing with boys. It had pleased you when I learned to throw Father’s spear and you had shown me how to practise with a target. It was you who made me different. And now you’ve gone to the invisible world, Mother, and left me to face the consequences.
Sam continued to give me advice. ‘Make light of things! Have a laugh with them! Then they won’t be so hard on you. Smile!’
Smile! It made me scowl so hard I could feel the strain on my ears. He was a man, he was allowed to fight, to choose his wife, to hunt. He had no idea what it was like to want something you couldn’t have.
Just then, I heard a voice murmuring by my right hip. I didn’t catch it all, just Luki-something-something-Samkad. All this time, some idiot had been listening.
I spun around.
‘I DARE YOU TO SAY THAT TO MY FACE!’
Oh, Mother. Why didn’t you teach me more self-control? It was Sidong, chasing after us with a ledger from the American school under one arm.
She stared up at me, her mouth open, tears trembling on her brown cheeks.
Samkad was suddenly beside her, smiling. ‘Of course you can, Sidong. We don’t mind, do we, Little Luki?’
‘Mind what?’ I muttered.
‘She asked if she could come along. She wants to watch us prepare the boar.’
Guilt swelled into a lump in my throat. ‘Sure,’ I mumbled. ‘Come along, Sidong.’
My voice must have sounded normal and maybe I even managed a smile, because the little girl’s face brightened immediately. She gathered up her ledger and followed us as if I hadn’t just screamed tears into her eyes.
3
Brothers
Samkad and I hoisted the carcass up on the bamboo scaffold outside his father’s hut and then I watched as he began to cut into the beast with a thin blade. Soon he was tugging the pelt off to reveal glistening pink meat. He took up a larger knife and began to carve out neat slices of meat, slowly filling the large basket at his feet. Chuka sat next to it, never taking her eyes off his face.
Sidong sat on a nearby log with her ledger on her lap, drawing with a stubby pencil. I saw her pick up a lump of charcoal from the charred pile where Samkad lit his fire. Mister William, the American schoolteacher, told everyone that Sidong had a talent for drawing. He actually hiked across the valley to the new Episcopalian Mission in Sagada to beg for pencils and ledgers for Sidong to draw with.
As Samkad worked, he spoke softly to the boar’s spirit, promising that its gift would not be wasted, naming each piece and who would benefit from it. ‘This the ancients may keep, because their teeth can cope with it,’ he told the boar. ‘This the ancients will give away. And this –’ he glanced at me – ‘Luki and I will keep. We will remember you as we become strong with your meat.’
Mother, back when we were still attending American School, Mister William showed us a magnet and how some objects were drawn to it helplessly. That was how we have always been, I thought. Since we were little, Samkad has been like a magnet, drawing me to him.
Now the basket was towering with cuts of meat, and all that was left hanging on the bamboo pole was a vaguely boar-shaped thing made of gristle and bone, ready to be boiled into soup. Samkad tossed a large bone in the air and Chuka caught it gratefully.
I felt a tug on my skirt. Sidong held up her ledger for me to see.
At first glance, it was just a dirty page, streaked with charcoal. But the more I looked, the more I began to see. The black resolved into Samkad’s hut, the scaffold, the carcass dangling from it. She had left places unshaded so that everything looked dappled by sun. One wavy scrawl was unmistakably Chuka, alert for a treat. And then there was Samkad. And there was me.
How did she do this? In the picture, Samkad’s back was turned as he hacked at the meat, but in those black smudges, I could feel the weight of his body, the power in his arms. Looking at myself, the tilt of my head, the way I leaned towards him, I could see all my feelings.
‘Is that how we look?’ Samkad whispered over my shoulder.
He smiled at me and I smiled at him, and for a moment, I pictured a warm fire, a cauldron bubbling, and children sitting around it, laughing … and they all had Samkad’s eyes.
Suddenly, Tilin’s voice began to call: ‘Sidong! Sidong!’
‘Ay!’ Sidong clapped her hands. ‘He’s here!’
‘Who’s here?’ I asked.
She leaped to her feet, putting her pencil stub away in a pouch and hugging the drawing ledger to her chest. ‘Truman Hunt!’
‘Is that today?’ Samkad said.
‘Yes, don’t you remember? The ancients reminded everyone about it the other day.’ Sidong peeked up at Samkad. ‘How could you forget? Kinyo is going to be there to speak American for the ancients!’
Samkad turned his face away. When his adopted brother, Kinyo, had decided to move down to the river to work for Americans, they had quarrelled bitterly.
‘Sidong!’ Tilin sounded impatient. ‘Don’t keep me waiting!’
‘Go, little one.’ I smiled.
Sidong waved and disappeared round the corner.
I felt the clap of a hand on my shoulder.
‘Where is this giant boar?’ someone boomed in my ear. ‘I’ve been told that everyone will be eating meat tonight.’
‘Kinyo,’ Samkad said softly. ‘Hello, brother.’
*
Kinyo’s mother and Samkad’s mother had been best friends. When Kinyo was orphaned, he had been cared for by an aunt who had married a lowlander. They lived in a lowland village, even after his aunt was widowed. Growing up in the lowlands, Kinyo had filled his throat with lowland words, and then Mister William came to live there and taught Kinyo English as well. When the war rolled through the lowlands, Samkad’s father had risked his life to fetch Kinyo and his aunt to the safety of the mountains. They brought Mister William with them.
Before Samkad’s father had died, he declared Kinyo his son and brother to Samkad.
I stared at Kinyo. He was wearing trousers and a shirt, buttoned up to his chin. His hair was cut in the American style, close to his head and around his ears so that they stuck out like the handles of a cauldron.
The trousers made him stand in a different way, hand in pocket. And what a difference the haircut made! He looked sleeker somehow. I liked it!
But I didn’t dare say it out loud. Not when Samkad looked like he wanted to smash boulders with his bare fists.
‘You look like an idiot,’ he said. ‘You think you look American, but people only have to look at those bare feet to know you’re a fake.’
Kinyo stared sadly at his toes. ‘Don’t worry, I intend to buy a pair of shoes and socks when I’ve saved up enough money.’ He smirked at Samkad. ‘Brother, aren’t you tired of looking like a wild man?’
There was a pulsing in Samkad’s temple. He shook out his hair, long in the back and long over his eyes. ‘So you think I look like a wild man?’
Kinyo sighed, offering his hand to Chuka, who’d been sniffing, as if trying to decide what was different about him. She licked it enthusiastically.
‘Eheh, thank you, Chuka. It’s nice to feel welcome.’
I tugged at his elbow. ‘I’m glad to see you, Kinyo, even if Samkad is not. How are you? What’s it like, working for those Americans?’
‘It’s great!’ He grinned. ‘My boss, Mister Jenks, is writing a book about us. He is collecting objects from here to show off when he returns to America. He’ll buy anything – baskets, bowls, spears, shields. They are kind, and they pay me well. It’s fun. Mrs Jenks gave me this suit.’
‘And it was she who made you cut your hair, I’ll bet!’ Samkad snarled.
Honestly, Mother, Samkad was determined to make a quarrel of everything. I frowned at him but he ignored me.
Samkad continued. ‘Americans think our hair is dirty. Did she tell you your hair smelled bad? Was she afraid you had lice?’
‘Samkad,’ I hissed. ‘Leave him alone.’
‘Shut up, Samkad,’ Kinyo groaned. ‘I can grow my hair if I want to.’
Samkad tapped his head. ‘It’s not your hair that’s the problem, it’s what’s inside your head. Look at you. Do you even know who you are any more?’
‘So you would rather I stayed here and helped you dig your paddies,’ Kinyo snapped.
‘They are not just mine. The paddies belong to both of us. Father left them to OUR care. Why am I tending them on my own?’
‘It is not my fault you want to tend the paddy fields,’ Kinyo said. ‘Is that your plan, brother? To stay in this village forever – hunting boar, planting rice, trampling manure?’
Samkad pushed his face into Kinyo’s. ‘It’s our way of life. I am proud of it.’
‘It’s a TINY life!’
They looked like goats about to ram each other. Chuka yapped nervously, ears flat.
I shoved myself between them. ‘Enough!’
They glared at each other over my head.
‘Brother, do you know why Truman Hunt is here?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Do you?’
‘He’s signing people up for a trip to America.’
‘But it isn’t going to happen,’ I interrupted. ‘The ancients have forbidden it.’
Kinyo raised his chin. ‘I’ve signed up. My name is the first on his list.’
Samkad grabbed Kinyo by the shoulders. ‘As your brother, I order you to take your name off that list.’
Kinyo shrugged him off. ‘You are not my brother.’
Samkad hands dropped from his shoulders. He stared at Kinyo.
‘You know as well as I do that I’m adopted.’ Kinyo said. ‘We are not really brothers. You cannot forbid me to do anything.’
Samkad’s eyes turned red.
‘My father called you his son,’ he whispered. ‘He gave you his own axe. He gave you shelter. He fed you.’
‘He was a good man, and I loved him and called him Father,’ Kinyo said. ‘But I don’t have to call you my brother. Do you want the axe? I have no use for it. You can have it.’
‘Kinyo, you don’t mean any of that,’ I stammered.
But he’d already turned to leave, the pale fabric of his trouser legs swishing against each other as he sauntered to the Council House.
4
The Invitation
‘Come, Samkad,’ I said. ‘Everyone is required to be there.’
Reluctantly, Samkad put his knives away and stowed the meat safely in the hut. He followed me into the alley, now choked with people. Chuka skittered past us, wriggling quickly through the forest of legs and out of sight.
There had been a sizeable throng when we had presented the boar to the ancients. Now there were many times that number, come to listen to Truman Hunt.
He and Mister William were perched on wooden chairs made of pinewood. The ancients squatted alongside, close to the ground, while Kinyo stood next to them, ready to translate American into Bontok and Bontok into American.
Five years ago, we had all been aghast when the Americans conquered the lowlands and announced that the highlands belonged to them as well. At first the ancients had resisted. ‘We are not lowlanders! We govern ourselves.’ But we had no choice but to accept the new state of affairs. As you explained to me, Mother: ‘How can we make war with men who tower over us like giants? Whose guns can kill twenty of our men before they had managed to take aim with their spears?’
They took control of the mountains, flying their striped flag everywhere, carving roads up and down the valleys, felling forests and floating the trees down the Chico River to build jails, missions, chapels and schools. We obeyed when they commanded women to cover their shoulders under clumsy blouses. And we obeyed when they ordered warring villages to cease their fighting.
But, Mother, it hasn’t been all bad has it? We all love Mister William and the American School – those tall stacks of magazines filled with photographs of American towns and trains and buildings taller than trees and women in outlandish hats and great big skirts. And what child wouldn’t rather go to Mister William’s school and learn English than toil in the rice paddies with their parents?
The courtyard was packed. Samkad and I slowly pushed our way through.
Hunt sat, there, waiting beside Mister William with a slight smile on his pale face, his forehead beaded with sweat despite the cool mountain air. His hat, one of those American ones shaped like an inverted bowl, was pushed to the back of his head. He kept reaching into his waistcoat and looking at his watch as if he was nervous, even though he shouldn’t have been.
Hunt was one of many American soldiers who downed their guns at the end of the war and hurried to the mountains, thinking to get rich on our gold. But unlike the other Americans, who traded with us in trinkets, matchsticks and bolts of cotton, Truman Hunt traded in cures – syrups that could cool fevers, stinging solutions that washed the fester out of a wound, sweet pellets that relieved headache, diarrhoea, and all manner of ailments. We all liked Truman Hunt. His cures worked better than the chants of the ancients and when the American powers realized how popular he’d become, they made Truman Hunt governor of a bracelet of mountains.
I could feel the crowd leaning towards him in anticipation. We were just like that last time when Hunt announced that Theodore Roosevelt, the President of the United States, would like to invite us to visit America. After he delivered the President’s invitation, we were all talking too fast, and laughing too loudly, like we’d been chewing too much betel nut. I remember you were so enthusiastic, Mother! But right after you died, the ancients told us, no, it was impossible. They forbade anybody from accepting the invitation. Truman Hunt was about to discover that he’d been wasting his time.
Now here was Truman Hunt repeating the invitation. After so many years in Bontok, he had learned quite a few Bontok words and seemed to enjoy the laughter when he got it wrong. But he still needed Kinyo to make himself understood.
I wondered how accurate Kinyo’s translation was. Did Hunt really mean it when he said President Roosevelt would send a boat the size of a mountain – a whole mountain! – to ferry us across the ocean? Did he really mean thirty days when he told us how long it would take to sail to America? And then there would be a train – Mister William told us they were like houses on wheels – to take us to a city called Saint Louis, where we would live in a village built specially for us.
‘Unfortunately,’ Hunt said, looking nervously at the ancients, ‘it is not a journey to be taken by those who are elderly or infirm.’
It was called a ‘World’s Fair’, Kinyo translated. In a place called Saint Louis, they had built a magnificent city of white buildings, great gardens and waterfalls. At night, the city was strung with stars from the sky so that it was lit up as bright as day. Tens of thousands of Americans were coming to Saint Louis just to see us. And people from all over the world too.
We hung onto every translated word, glancing at each other with wide eyes.
But, as Hunt spoke, we could see the ancients’ faces growing longer and longer. The corners of their mouths drooped right down so that I was afraid their lower jaws might fall off completely.
‘We will arrive in America in March and leave in December. There will be a payment of thirty-five American cents for every day you are in Saint Louis,’ Kinyo was saying.
American cents! Mister William had taught us about money, twenty-five cents was a quarter, ten cents a nickel and five cents a dime, but none of us had ever seen such coins – apart from Kinyo, who earned them from his American employers.
‘President Roosevelt has appointed Truman Hunt manager of all Igorot guests,’ Kinyo said. ‘He will look after you. He leaves for America next week; those who wish to go must give him their names before he leaves today.’
Around me, faces were shining with hope. But then it was the ancients’ turn to speak, and one by one, they told Truman Hunt why nobody would be going to America.
First of all, there were the paddy fields, carved into these mountains by our forefathers. They could not be left untended. There were stone walls to be repaired and weeded, seedlings to be planted, ground to be tilled, rice to be harvested, granaries to be filled, before the winds turned and the monsoon rains began to thrash the valleys.
Second, the journey was deemed unsuitable for ancients. How were young people to cope? What would we do without the guidance of our elders? Who would read the portents? Who would make all the vital decisions?
Third, how could we leave behind the invisible world of the spirits? Our ancestors watched over us, kept us safe from harm. Without them, we would be utterly defenceless!
After Kinyo finished translating, Mister William stood up and said something about how he had hoped we would be able to see for ourselves all America’s wonders. Then Truman Hunt rose to speak, his eyes red-rimmed, as if he wanted to cry. His voice was petulant, like a small child. ‘How can you not want to go? It’s the chance of a lifetime! You are invited to the World’s Fair and you would rather stay here and plant rice? You have no idea what you’re turning down!’
