Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 85

• Предыдущая
• 85/140
• Следующая

Pirri was born from this experience and he was taller than any other men of the tribe and lighter in colour and finerfeatured, with the mouth and thin nose of the Hita.  He was different in character also, more aggressive and acquisitive than any Bambuti Kelly had ever met.

Pirri is Pirri, Sepoo replied evasively, but although the old antagonism was still evident, Kelly sensed that it was something other than his elder brother that worried him.

Although it was only a few hours journey to Gondola, the two of them talked the daylight away and evening found them still squatting at the cooking-fire with the threat of rain heavy in the air.  Kelly used the last of the light to cut the thin supple wands of the selepe tree and, as Pamba had taught her, to plant them in a circle in the soft earth and bend them inwards and plait them into the framework of a traditional Bambuti hut.  Meanwhile old Sepoo went off on his own.  He returned just as she was completing the framework, and he was bowed under a burden of mongongo leaves with which to thatch the hut.  The structure was complete within an hour of the work commencing.  When the thunderstorm broke, they were huddled warm and dry in the tiny structure with a cheerful fire flickering, eating the last of the monkey steaks.

At last Kelly settled down on her inflated mattress in the darkness and Sepoo curled on the soft leaf mould close beside her, but neither of them slept immediately.  Kelly was aware of the old man lying awake and she waited.  With darkness as a cover for his unhappiness Sepoo whispered at last, Are you awake, Kara-Ki?  I am listening, old father, she whispered back, and he sighed.  It was a sound so different from his usual merry chuckles.  Kara-Ki, the Mother and Father are angry.  I have never known them so angry, Sepoo said, and she knew that he meant the god of the Bambuti, the twin godhead of the living forest, male and female in one.  Kelly was silent for a while in deference to the seriousness of this statement.  That is a grave matter, she replied at last.  What has made them angry?  They have been wounded, Sepoo said softly.  The rivers flow red with their blood.  This was a startling concept, and Kelly was silent again as she tried to visualize what Sepoo meant.  How could the rivers run with the blood of the forest?

she wondered.  She was finally forced to ask, I do not understand, old father.  What are you telling me?  It is beyond my humble words to describe, Sepoo whispered.

There has been a terrible sacrilege and the Mother and Father are in pain.  Perhaps the Molimo will come.  Kelly had been in camp with the Bambuti only once during the Molimo visitation.  The women were excluded, and Kelly had remained in the huts with Pamba and the other women when the Molimo came, but she had heard its voice roaring like a bull buffalo and trumpeting like an enraged elephant as it rampaged through the forest in the night.

in the morning Kelly had asked Sepoo, What creature is the Molimo?

The Molimo is the Molimo, he had replied enigmatically.  It is the creature of the forest.  It is the voice of the Mother and the Father Now Sepoo suggested that the Molimo might come again, and Kelly shivered with a little superstitious thrill.  This time she would not remain in the huts with the women, she promised herself.  This time she would find out more about this fabulous creature.  For the moment, however, she put it out of her mind and, instead, concerned herself with the sacrilege that had been committed somewhere deep in the forest.

Sepoo, she whispered.  If you cannot tell me about this terrible thing, will you show me?  Will you take me and show me the rivers that run with the blood of the gods?  Sepoo snuffled in the darkness and hawked to clear his throat and spat into the coals of the fire.  Then he grunted, Very well, Kara-Ki.  I will show you.  In the morning, before we -reach Gondola we will go out of our way and I will show you the rivers that bleed.  In the morning Sepoo was full of high spirits again, almost as though their conversation in the night had never taken place.

Kelly gave him the present which she had brought for him, a Swiss army knife.  Sepoo was enchanted with all the blades and implements and tools that folded out of the red plastic handle, and promptly cut himself on one of them.  He cackled with laughter and sucked his thumb, then held it out to Kelly as proof of the marvelous sharpness of the little blade.

Kelly knew he would probably lose the knife within a week, or give it away to someone else in the tribe on an impulse, as he had done with all the other gifts she had given him.  But for the moment his joy was childlike and complete.  Now you must show me the bleeding rivers, she reminded him as she adjusted the headband of her pack, and for a moment his eyes were sad again.  Then he grinned and pirouetted.  Come along, Kara-Ki.  Let us see if you still move in the forest like one of the real people.  Soon they left the broad trail, and Sepoo led her swiftly through the secret unmarked ways.  He danced ahead of her like a sprite and the foliage closed behind him, leaving no trace of his passing.

Where Sepoo moved upright, Kelly was forced to stoop beneath the branches, and at times she lost sight of him.

No wonder the old Egyptians believed the Bambuti had the power of invisibility, Kelly thought, as she extended herself to keep up with him.

If Sepoo had moved silently she might have lost him, but like all the pygmies he sang and laughed and chattered to her and the forest as he went.  His voice ahead guided her, and warned the dangerous forest creatures of his approach so that there would be no confrontation.

She knew that he was moving at his best pace, to test and tease her, and she was determined not to fall too far behind.

She called replies back to him and joined in the chorus of the praise songs and when he stepped out on the bank of the river many hours later she was only seconds behind him.

He grinned at her until his eyes disappeared in the web, of wrinkles and shook his head in reluctant approval, but Kelly was not interested in his approbation.  She was gazing at the river.

This was one of the tributaries of the Ubomo that had its source high up in the Mountains of the Moon, at the foot of one of the glaciers above fifteen thousand feet, the altitude where the permanent snowline stood.

This river found its way down through lakes and waterfalls, fed by the mighty rains that lashed this wettest of all mountain ranges, down through the treeless moors and heather, down through the forest of giant prehistoric ferns, until at last it entered the dense bamboo thickets which were the domain of gorilla and spiral-horned bongo antelope.  From there it fell again another three thousand feet through rugged foothills until it reached its true rain forests with their galleried canopies of gigantic hardwoods.

The Bambuti called this river Tetwa, after the silver catfish that abounded in its sweet clear waters and shoaled on the yellow sandbanks.

The Bambuti women shed even their tiny loin-cloths when they went into the waters of the Tetwa to catch the barbeled catfish.  Each of them armed with a fish basket of woven reeds and bark, they surrounded the shoal and splashed and shrieked with excitement as they flipped the struggling slippery silver fish from the sparkling water.

That had been before the river began to bleed.  Now Kelly stared at it in horror.

The river was fifty yards wide and the forest grew right to the edge and formed a canopy that almost, but not quite, met overhead.  There was a narrow irregular gleam of sky high above the middle of the river-course.

From bank to bank the river ran red, not the bright red of heart blood, but a darker browner hue.  The sullied waters seemed almost viscous. They had lost their sparkle and were heavy and dull, running thick and slow as used engine oil.

• Предыдущая
• 85/140
• Следующая