Painted Red suspected that what I really wanted to do was follow Once a Day; that perhaps she was the lost thing I most wanted to find.
And she told me that what saints attempt to do is to become transparent.
How could I know, that spring, what it was I most wanted, or what would become of me? And how was I to know that all of those things were true, that they would all happen to me, every single one?
Well, I didn't. What I thought was this: that despite what Painted Red had said about saints nowadays, somewhere in the world there must be a saint, a saint like the saint I wanted to become; and that what I ought to do first was to find such a saint, and sit down before him, and study him, and learn from him how to go about being what I couldn't imagine being: transparent.
Seven Hands and I had made many expeditions together, sometimes spending a week outside Belaire, just seeing what we could see. I had learned to climb rocks, to make fires with wet wood, tell directions, and to walk all day without worrying that I didn't know just where I was walking to. Preparations, Seven Hands called these; and as my resolve to leave Little Belaire grew stronger, I made these preparations more eagerly, with greater attention. And Seven Hands came to know - though we never spoke of it - that the preparations we made were in the end mine, and not his.
I had a shaggy blue shirt, and bread and a pipe and some dried fruit and nuts; I had a string hammock, light and strong, that Seven Hands had made for me, and a sheet of plastic to hang above it to make a tent. I had Four Pots and some other doses; I had my new spectacles that My Eyes had made for me. They were yellow, and turned the white May morning into deepest summer; I took them off and put them on again for entertainment, looking now and then up into the trees for saints.
In the trees?
Because the saints always lived apart from us, and often in houses built into trees. I don't know why. I thought, one day, I would live in a tree as those old saints had; I would choose a great low-branching oak or maple, like some I passed. I loved already the saint I knew I would be, saw with strange clarity that old man, could almost, though not quite, hear the compelling stories he would tell… When the sun was high, I crept into a little woods that bordered a marshy stream where wild cows sometimes could be seen drinking, and smoked. Then there was nothing to do but keep on. With only a morning of my adventure passed so far, it began to seem impossibly long; and I decided I would lighten that load.
Of the Four Pots, it is the silver one that lightens a load. It contains many small black granules like cinders, of different sizes; I knew this because I had seen Mbaba open it and swallow one. I knew also that to lighten the load of a journey, you must know clearly before you lighten your load just where you are going, how you will get there, and when you intend to arrive. I knew the way to That River, and that it would take me till nearly sunset to find it and the bridge of iron that Seven Hands and I had crossed; so I cracked open the pot and - a little uncertain and a little afraid of what was about to happen to me (for I had never done this before) - I selected a small one of the black granules and swallowed it.
A little bit later my footsteps slowed as I approached an enormous maple that shaded the way. The sound of the wind in its branches grew slow also, and low, like a moan, and then slower, till it was too low to be heard. The sound of the birds slowed, and the movement of the leaves; the sunlight dimmed to a blue darkness that was still daylight, like the light of an eclipse; one branch of leaves absorbed my attention, and then one leaf; I had leisure between one footstep and the next to study it quite intensely, while the sunlight on it didn't change and the low call of a bird extended note by note infinitely. I was waiting with enormous patience for my raised right foot to fall, which it seemed it would never do, when the leaf and the birdcall and the soundless moan of the wind went away, the footfall struck and I found myself standing before That River, downstream from the iron bridge, watching the sun go down. I laughed, amazed. Lighten my load! I had traveled the whole of an afternoon, miles, and hadn't noticed it. I suddenly understood the chuckle of old men when they look, a little startled, at some day-long task they have completed after taking one of these black cinders to lighten the load.
I looked back the way I had come, the trees turning their leaves in the evening breeze, and regretted missing the journey. You lighten a load, I saw then, which you have carried a hundred times before; or to go a journey you must make but would rather not. It wasn't for new journeys or new saints. There's a lesson, I thought, and spun the little pot so that it skipped across the brown swollen river and sank.
Across That River the sun still lit the tops of the hills, but down amid the weeds and roots at the water's edge it was growing dark and a little cold. A frog plunked. I put my hands in my armpits and watched the current go by; I was tired - I really had come a long way - and I wondered if I had put match to more than I could smoke. There was a gurgle and splash of water then, and out on the river a man strode by. Strode: the water came up to his chest, and his shoulders made the vigorous motions of a man striding; a wake flowed out behind him. He shot on past me without seeing me in the shadows; he was moving quickly on the current.
Amazing! Without exactly knowing why, I ran along the riverbank following him, stumbling on roots and plunging my feet in mud. I lost sight of him, then glimpsed him through the trees floating away serenely, a fair pigtail and his wet white shirt flapping. I was some time crashing through the willows and vines at the river's edge, the mud sucking at my boots, till I saw him again, standing up as ordinary as any man, on a wooden wharf built out over the water, laughing with a woman who was toweling him vigorously as he squeezed water from his pigtail. Just as they turned to see what was clambering through the bushes, I lost my footing and slithered like an otter into the muddy river.
They helped me out, laughing and wondering how I came to be there, and it was a moment - a spluttering moment - till I realized they were truthful speakers. They took me up onto their wharf, which connected by a set of stairs to a house built into the bank of the river. And tied up to the wharf, riding high out of the water without his weight on it, was what had allowed him to walk the river: two big cylinders of light metal, with a seat attached between them, and handholds, and broad foot pedals to make it go. He was Buckle cord, I knew then. I was going to tell him about my amazement at seeing him on the river, but just then a boy burst through the door that led out of the house, stopping when he saw me. He was a couple of years younger than me, tanned already, and his hair sun-streaked. He carried a stick and was naked except for a blue band around his neck.
I was thinking how I might explain myself to him, but at that moment a boy came out the door behind him, stopping when he saw me. He was tanned, and his hair sun-streaked; he carried a stick and was naked except for a red band around his neck.
They were the only twins I have ever seen. It was hard not to stare at them as I wrung out my wet clothes. They stared at me too, not that there was anything remarkable about me; they stared with a look I didn't understand then, but know now is the look of people who don't see strangers often.
"This is Budding," said the man, "and that is Blooming." I couldn't help laughing, and he laughed too. "My name is Sewn Up, and she is No Moon. Come in and get dry." Buckle cord, as I supposed; and the woman must be Leaf; the two boys were harder to tell, maybe because there were two of them.