Jom had indeed removed his vest and stood before the orange trees with his powerful chest and shoulders lit by the moon. My father’s wife walked toward me with her brisk, constricted steps and knelt on the flagstones to receive the touch of my hand. I touched her formidable hairstyle, which was barbed like a sea urchin, and she rose, muttered good night, and walked stiffly off to her room. We could hear her scolding one of the servants. Footsteps pattered, a light flashed. Then the house was dark, submerged in silence.
“Jomi,” my mother said. “First One, what have you done with your vest? No, leave him,” she said to me, touching my arm. “He likes it. And he’s only happy because his brother is home. Aren’t you, Jomi. Aren’t you, my little squirrel…”
Her little squirrel, her little mouse. When she spoke to us her voice overflowed with love, a love that was naked, glowing, transparent, the same pure ardor that poured from her eyes when she looked at us, that lit up the curve of her cheek, inexhaustible, never flagging in strength. This love existed only to give itself, an eternal fountain. And now, it seemed to me, that my father was dead, she was free to bestow her love without the fear of being mocked or of exposing us to the danger of his jealousy. Moonlight fell in the courtyard, a white rain, immobile, diaphanous. Jom put his hands into it and rubbed his face. He went through all the motions of washing, scrubbing his hair and the definite, vivid contours of his bricklayer’s physique. Soft moans escaped from him, and his laugh which was quiet and strangely flat, devoid of all but the most private emotion. A laugh like the chuckling call of a dove. He was still far from me, so far, whitening in the moonlight like a statue.
The following morning I rode to Painted Mountain.
My mother had described the secluded spot where Lunre had chosen to live. I rode up through the vivid and varied greenness of Tinimavet, the dark green of the mango trees, the yellow-green of the coffee bushes. The canna lilies, not yet in flower, had leaves of a cool and opaque green; the papayas, throwing their white trunks toward the sky, were crowned with a green that was almost blue. Lunre’s house stood alone at the end of a dusty path, its thatched roof sheltered by an enormous flame tree.
I dismounted in silence, my satchel a weight on my shoulder. The house was small, isolated, looking across the valley, surrounded on all sides by trees and dwarfed by the heavy arms of the flame tree kindling its myriad torches in the shadows. It was strange to see my master emerge smiling from the doorway, stooping to pass underneath the hanging thatch. He clasped my hand and greeted me in Olondrian, and the daylight showed how tanned with the sun he was, how white his hair.
“A beautiful morning,” he said. “As always, here on the edge of the valley! Often I stand here, just looking out, just looking…” And he put his hands on his narrow hips and squinted over the valley where the sunlight poured on the misty green of the farms. “Beautiful!” he repeated. “Sometimes I can see all the way to Snail Mountain. Ah, but come—come in.” He motioned me toward the open door, wearing a bashful, unfamiliar smile. I ducked inside and he followed me, pulling shut a door of unfinished bark.
“A shame to cut off the view,” he said. “But Niahet says it lets in the flies.” The room was dim and cool, with screens of woven reeds on the windows; but even in the poor light I caught the anxious glance he darted at me, his sudden firmness of purpose in saying “Niahet.” I did not know what to do with myself and stood holding my satchel in front of me while Lunre urged me repeatedly to sit down and finally seated himself on one of the woven mats on the swept earth floor, hunched and awkward, all gangly arms and legs. It was clear that he was not yet accustomed to sitting on the floor, but he managed to make himself comfortable by leaning against the wall. I sank down on the mat across from him, my back to the door, the satchel beside me. “So, here I am,” he said.
He smiled at me, his teeth white in the gloom. Flecks of sunlight clung like gold dust to the screens in the three windows. Aside from the mats there was no furniture in the room but the old sea chest, its blue paint peeling, set against one wall. A few books were stacked on top of it and, I saw with a curious throb of the heart, a simple jut, veiled to the waist, its spraddle-legs fashioned of copper. It must belong to the wife. It presided over my master’s books in squat, enigmatic silence: one external soul watching the others.
“Welcome,” said Lunre, cracking his slim knuckles in the old manner but with an overattentive air, a suppressed agitation, and I knew that he was nervous and sought my approval, that for him this visit of mine was of the most profound importance. The brilliant green of his eyes was flecked with shadows of uncertainty, bits of flotsam dulling the flashing waters. And his gaze was no longer quiet and direct: it moved, glancing here and there, at the bare walls or the attenuate streaks of light.
“Ah, Niahet,” he said abruptly. His voice was unusually loud. She came in, pushing the curtain aside with her shoulder, holding a wooden tray. She was not beautiful, nor very young, though she was twenty years younger than he. She knelt before me with practiced grace.
“Hot date juice in the morning,” Lunre said, still in that strange loud voice, and switching into his accented Kideti. “I know it’s unusual, but I find it so—I like it so much.”
I kept my eyes lowered. My face was hot.
“Ah, thank you,” he said as the woman turned and knelt before him and he took his cup of date juice from the tray. I sat holding mine: its smell was heavy, dark, nostalgic, it reminded me of childhood fevers and sleep. The woman rose. I realized that I knew her, only by sight, as one knows almost everyone in Tyom: she was the daughter of small farmers, the pudgy one, the quiet one. Her brother worked as steward on a neighboring estate. She did not speak to me, of course, though Lunre gazed at her hopefully, and also, I noticed, with a mild affection. She went out with her back erect, planting her solid, bare feet on the floor, her heels glowing like yellow soapstone.
“A wonderful,” Lunre said. His voice was hoarse and would not rise. He cleared his throat. “A wonderful woman,” he said.
I sipped the sticky drink. My courage almost failed me; like Lunre, I did not know where to look. Here he was, married to an illiterate islander, having discovered a richness in the soil of Tyom. Once you have built something—something that takes all your passion and will—it becomes more precious to you than your own happiness. There was no way to begin, so I began clumsily.
“Thank you for lending me books for the journey,” I said. “But you might have suggested Leiya’s autobiography.”
He raised an eyebrow, maintaining his smile though his gaze was very still. “Ah?”
My laugh clattered. “A joke. Of course you wouldn’t have sent it with me. You knew it was banned, like her other books. The Handbook of Mercies, for example. I had a chance to read that one, while I was away.”
He set his cup down on the tray and sat with his head bowed, frowning at it. When he raised his eyes, the pain in them went straight into my heart.
“I gathered from Sten that something had happened to you,” he said quietly. “Something I may not have prepared you for. I am very sorry.”
“Don’t,” I said. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t want to complain. I just didn’t know how to say—I met someone. She gave me something for you.” I clawed at the satchel, tore it open, and pulled out the two pink packages tied with string. “She gave me these. She asked me to bring them.”
Lunre looked at the packages. He blinked at them. He touched them. For a moment he seemed not to understand their significance. More than this: it appeared that he did not know what the letters were, what writing was, that he had forgotten how to read. Then, without warning, his breath caught and his face went pale to the lips. He grasped at the packages with feeble fingers. And as I stared, my heart pounding, I heard him groan: a low and terrible sound, ghastly and grating, a sound to chill the blood.