MARCH 2019
PASSAGE
LAWRENCE CADY
PASSAGE
LAWRENCE CADY
Though the lake teams with fish and the fields are replete with grains, peppers, and legumes, the community hasn’t seen a single newborn in more than a decade. Of the fifty-three wood-slat dwellings on the eastern shore that stand atop a foundation of tall wooden pylons, only some thirty-five are occupied.
The neighboring communities––the lowland agriculturists beyond the floodplains, the devout celebrants of the highlands, the wanderers who visit every third year––are long-gone. Over the years, they’ve simply vanished.
The celebrants were the first to go, their numbers so low, so decimated, they wandered off in groups of two or three until none were left. The agriculturists––the Tanganyikae-Rukwa––had become sick, aged and discouraged; there were no newborns among them in decades. And the beloved wanderers: theirs was the most painful disappearance of all. Only months ago all had prepared extravagantly ornate clothing and adornments, dried perch and eel, costumes for trade and festivities. But by the time the rainy season had begun, it was clear that the wanderers had gone, too. Like the others, their wholeness had waned.
*
Radhiya awakens and sees Jabari's rugged silhouette against the stars and crescent moon outside the window. She glances at her sleeping sister, but then rises from their mattress of straw and climbs through the window frame.
"It’s getting worse," she says, squatting beside Jabari on the outer ledge and looking out over the lake, which is shrouded in blackness. "My mother will not speak of it. She says The Regent's words were not for our ears. Why are they so saddened? So secretive?"
"I don't know," Jabari says. "Someone said she's become too old, too feeble."
Radhiya remembers the last time she heard The Regent speak. It was months ago, before the spring floods, before the dagaa had come in to spawn in the shallows and the community had disallowed those not yet of age from hearing The Regent's words. The old woman had set up her tall, high-legged chair at the water's edge, just north of the dwellings, south of the eucalyptus, where the sandy foot-trampled beach gives way to a forest of green pointed water-reeds. It was the place where The Regent said she could most clearly hear the voices of the past, the cries and laughter of women and men gone by.
The Regent talked of the ancients again that day, of Tanganyikae-Malawi from a time when the lake was something more akin to an ocean, when great communities a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times the size of their little enclave existed all across the land, as far as one could walk in a hundred days, as far as the hills and valleys and grasses extended in all directions. She said that more than a thousand thousand generations had lived great lives, had accomplished great things, had explored the ocean depths, visited the stars, uncovered the secrets of the very essence of the stuff of the earth. She said there were ruins of great and noble cities buried beneath the valleys, beneath the grain fields, beneath the seas and the lakes. And she said the Tanganyikae-Malawi had lived a long, noble existence and all in the community should hold their heads high.
Radhiya remembers the wonder in The Regent's voice, the joy in her aged eyes and the gentle, sweeping motions of her hands as she spoke of the ancients and their discoveries and inventions.
*
"My brothers and sisters will say nothing," Jabari says now. "They did not eat tonight."
Radhiya caresses Jabari's cheek with her fingertips. She can feel the sadness in him, just as she felt it in everyone she spoke with throughout the day. It is a dark, permeating sense of something having been lost, though she isn't sure what that something is.
"We should go to the lake," she says. "I don't want to sleep."
Radhiya and Jabari descend the wooden ladder under Radhiya's house and walk hand-in-hand to the place at the water’s edge where The Regent sets up her chair when she speaks to the community. There they stand under the stars and moon, ankle-deep in the cool life-giving water. A teal calls to them from somewhere out on the lake, its lonesome cries shrill, piercing. A cormorant beckons from the wooded expanse north of the dwellings, her call steady, sure, unwavering.
"Listen," Jabari says, pointing to the south where the tall water-reeds dominate the shore. Radhiya hears a rustling sound, then the labored breathing of a large animal.
"An antelope," Jabari whispers. "Sitatunga, I think."
Radhiya listens as the rugged animal steps gingerly into the shallows, its hooves splashing up water, its presence quieting the teal out on the lake. The antelope snorts vigorously and lets out a muffled chattering sound. Then it canters into deeper water, and with a quick guttural exhalation lunges forward and gives itself to the lake.
Jabari turns and points to the long streak of rippled light that is the reflection of the moon. The antelope appears, its tall, rapier-like horns well above the surface, its muscular form shifting, pulsing with vitality. After only moments he is out of the moonlight and into the darkness.
Jabari puts his arms around Radhiya and pulls her close. "They say, Radhiya, that you and I will soon become one. They say we may be the first to bring newborns back into the community."
A shock of Jabari’s coarse black hair has fallen over one eye, covering it completely. His mouth is pursed with concern, trepidation. He is no longer the child Radhiya remembers he once was.
Radhiya kisses him and feels the excitement they've been sensing for some time. She knows they are ready to enter into that phase of their union when the community will ask more of them, and they will ask more of each other. But she's anxious, fearful. So many before them have failed, lived as husband and wife with no success, no newborns. Some of the younger wives have grown swollen and even begun to produce milk, but then they give birth to children with no pulse, no breath. With each failure comes sorrow; the elders mourn and the entire community falls silent, the tiny linen-wrapped corpses entrusted to the palm groves to return to the elements.
Radhiya senses someone approaching. She touches Jabari on the lips, and together they recede furtively into the water-reeds. As they watch, a hunched, shadowy figure––someone from the community––steps into the water where they've been standing. The figure dips one hand into the lake and drinks, and then in a hushed, tremulous voice utters words of gratitude. Radhiya recognizes the voice to be that of The Regent herself.
"Great waters of Tanganyika. The sun, the moon, the stars; may they watch over you, may they sustain your vigor, your life-blood."
The Regent drinks from the lake again but then falters, goes down on one knee in the water, but then rights herself. Radhiya and Jabari step from their hiding place among the reeds.
"Are you all right?" Radhiya says.
The Regent turns to face them. In the moonlight, Radhiya sees that her eyes are dark, deep-socketed, her cheeks hollow as if she’s been ill.
"Radhiya?" she says. "Is that you?"
"Yes. And Jabari too. We came to the lake to listen to the night."
The Regent nods. "Did the lake speak to you?"
"We heard a teal and an antelope," Jabari says.
"When your mother was a child, Radhiya, some years younger than you are now, she encountered a water cobra––the most venomous creature in the lake. Our fishing party, twelve dugouts strong, had come in late; a storm had held us up earlier in the day and forced us to take respite on the far western shore. We returned, I remember, to this very place, where we stand now. Your mother, little as she was, ran into the water to greet me and in her excitement dislodged a net from my boat. A skinny, quick-darting water cobra, who'd been mistakenly captured, flip-flopped from the net and into the water. He swam all about your mother's feet and ankles but then turned and swam out to deep water. Your mother, knowing nothing of the water cobra, fell to her knees and called out that she loved him and wouldn’t he please, please come back.”
“She could have been killed,” Jabari says.
The Regent stands for some minutes, her shadowy eyes blinking. "You must leave the community very soon, Radhiya and Jabari, and never return. There are others in the east, others like you. They will console you, as you will them."
Radhiya puts an arm around Jabari's waist.
"Do you hear the teal?" The Regent says, the animal's cries echoing now, reverberating loudly as if to admonish.
"I hear her," Radhiya says, swiping at her eyes. "The antelope swam to her earlier."
"I know," The Regent says. "I am to meet the antelope and the teal; together they will escort me to the other side of the lake."
"But it takes many hours by dugout," Jabari says. "How can you swim so far?"
"With great ease. With such escorts, how could I go wrong?"
The Regent wades into the lake and without looking back swims away from the shoreline. Radhiya and Jabari watch as she drifts into the moonlight, then into the darkness.
They stand for a time, listening to the teal's echoing-receding cries. But then sensing the truth, the solace in The Regent’s words, Radhiya says, "We will leave at sunup. We'll go on foot."
Jabari goes down on all fours and drinks from the lake. He says, going upright on his knees, "We will need some bread and dried fish. Do you think we will have to travel far to the east?"
"I think so," Radhiya says, kneeling beside Jabari, swishing her hands through waters she knows are already lost to her. "I think we will have to go as far east as anyone has ever gone."
The neighboring communities––the lowland agriculturists beyond the floodplains, the devout celebrants of the highlands, the wanderers who visit every third year––are long-gone. Over the years, they’ve simply vanished.
The celebrants were the first to go, their numbers so low, so decimated, they wandered off in groups of two or three until none were left. The agriculturists––the Tanganyikae-Rukwa––had become sick, aged and discouraged; there were no newborns among them in decades. And the beloved wanderers: theirs was the most painful disappearance of all. Only months ago all had prepared extravagantly ornate clothing and adornments, dried perch and eel, costumes for trade and festivities. But by the time the rainy season had begun, it was clear that the wanderers had gone, too. Like the others, their wholeness had waned.
*
Radhiya awakens and sees Jabari's rugged silhouette against the stars and crescent moon outside the window. She glances at her sleeping sister, but then rises from their mattress of straw and climbs through the window frame.
"It’s getting worse," she says, squatting beside Jabari on the outer ledge and looking out over the lake, which is shrouded in blackness. "My mother will not speak of it. She says The Regent's words were not for our ears. Why are they so saddened? So secretive?"
"I don't know," Jabari says. "Someone said she's become too old, too feeble."
Radhiya remembers the last time she heard The Regent speak. It was months ago, before the spring floods, before the dagaa had come in to spawn in the shallows and the community had disallowed those not yet of age from hearing The Regent's words. The old woman had set up her tall, high-legged chair at the water's edge, just north of the dwellings, south of the eucalyptus, where the sandy foot-trampled beach gives way to a forest of green pointed water-reeds. It was the place where The Regent said she could most clearly hear the voices of the past, the cries and laughter of women and men gone by.
The Regent talked of the ancients again that day, of Tanganyikae-Malawi from a time when the lake was something more akin to an ocean, when great communities a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times the size of their little enclave existed all across the land, as far as one could walk in a hundred days, as far as the hills and valleys and grasses extended in all directions. She said that more than a thousand thousand generations had lived great lives, had accomplished great things, had explored the ocean depths, visited the stars, uncovered the secrets of the very essence of the stuff of the earth. She said there were ruins of great and noble cities buried beneath the valleys, beneath the grain fields, beneath the seas and the lakes. And she said the Tanganyikae-Malawi had lived a long, noble existence and all in the community should hold their heads high.
Radhiya remembers the wonder in The Regent's voice, the joy in her aged eyes and the gentle, sweeping motions of her hands as she spoke of the ancients and their discoveries and inventions.
*
"My brothers and sisters will say nothing," Jabari says now. "They did not eat tonight."
Radhiya caresses Jabari's cheek with her fingertips. She can feel the sadness in him, just as she felt it in everyone she spoke with throughout the day. It is a dark, permeating sense of something having been lost, though she isn't sure what that something is.
"We should go to the lake," she says. "I don't want to sleep."
Radhiya and Jabari descend the wooden ladder under Radhiya's house and walk hand-in-hand to the place at the water’s edge where The Regent sets up her chair when she speaks to the community. There they stand under the stars and moon, ankle-deep in the cool life-giving water. A teal calls to them from somewhere out on the lake, its lonesome cries shrill, piercing. A cormorant beckons from the wooded expanse north of the dwellings, her call steady, sure, unwavering.
"Listen," Jabari says, pointing to the south where the tall water-reeds dominate the shore. Radhiya hears a rustling sound, then the labored breathing of a large animal.
"An antelope," Jabari whispers. "Sitatunga, I think."
Radhiya listens as the rugged animal steps gingerly into the shallows, its hooves splashing up water, its presence quieting the teal out on the lake. The antelope snorts vigorously and lets out a muffled chattering sound. Then it canters into deeper water, and with a quick guttural exhalation lunges forward and gives itself to the lake.
Jabari turns and points to the long streak of rippled light that is the reflection of the moon. The antelope appears, its tall, rapier-like horns well above the surface, its muscular form shifting, pulsing with vitality. After only moments he is out of the moonlight and into the darkness.
Jabari puts his arms around Radhiya and pulls her close. "They say, Radhiya, that you and I will soon become one. They say we may be the first to bring newborns back into the community."
A shock of Jabari’s coarse black hair has fallen over one eye, covering it completely. His mouth is pursed with concern, trepidation. He is no longer the child Radhiya remembers he once was.
Radhiya kisses him and feels the excitement they've been sensing for some time. She knows they are ready to enter into that phase of their union when the community will ask more of them, and they will ask more of each other. But she's anxious, fearful. So many before them have failed, lived as husband and wife with no success, no newborns. Some of the younger wives have grown swollen and even begun to produce milk, but then they give birth to children with no pulse, no breath. With each failure comes sorrow; the elders mourn and the entire community falls silent, the tiny linen-wrapped corpses entrusted to the palm groves to return to the elements.
Radhiya senses someone approaching. She touches Jabari on the lips, and together they recede furtively into the water-reeds. As they watch, a hunched, shadowy figure––someone from the community––steps into the water where they've been standing. The figure dips one hand into the lake and drinks, and then in a hushed, tremulous voice utters words of gratitude. Radhiya recognizes the voice to be that of The Regent herself.
"Great waters of Tanganyika. The sun, the moon, the stars; may they watch over you, may they sustain your vigor, your life-blood."
The Regent drinks from the lake again but then falters, goes down on one knee in the water, but then rights herself. Radhiya and Jabari step from their hiding place among the reeds.
"Are you all right?" Radhiya says.
The Regent turns to face them. In the moonlight, Radhiya sees that her eyes are dark, deep-socketed, her cheeks hollow as if she’s been ill.
"Radhiya?" she says. "Is that you?"
"Yes. And Jabari too. We came to the lake to listen to the night."
The Regent nods. "Did the lake speak to you?"
"We heard a teal and an antelope," Jabari says.
"When your mother was a child, Radhiya, some years younger than you are now, she encountered a water cobra––the most venomous creature in the lake. Our fishing party, twelve dugouts strong, had come in late; a storm had held us up earlier in the day and forced us to take respite on the far western shore. We returned, I remember, to this very place, where we stand now. Your mother, little as she was, ran into the water to greet me and in her excitement dislodged a net from my boat. A skinny, quick-darting water cobra, who'd been mistakenly captured, flip-flopped from the net and into the water. He swam all about your mother's feet and ankles but then turned and swam out to deep water. Your mother, knowing nothing of the water cobra, fell to her knees and called out that she loved him and wouldn’t he please, please come back.”
“She could have been killed,” Jabari says.
The Regent stands for some minutes, her shadowy eyes blinking. "You must leave the community very soon, Radhiya and Jabari, and never return. There are others in the east, others like you. They will console you, as you will them."
Radhiya puts an arm around Jabari's waist.
"Do you hear the teal?" The Regent says, the animal's cries echoing now, reverberating loudly as if to admonish.
"I hear her," Radhiya says, swiping at her eyes. "The antelope swam to her earlier."
"I know," The Regent says. "I am to meet the antelope and the teal; together they will escort me to the other side of the lake."
"But it takes many hours by dugout," Jabari says. "How can you swim so far?"
"With great ease. With such escorts, how could I go wrong?"
The Regent wades into the lake and without looking back swims away from the shoreline. Radhiya and Jabari watch as she drifts into the moonlight, then into the darkness.
They stand for a time, listening to the teal's echoing-receding cries. But then sensing the truth, the solace in The Regent’s words, Radhiya says, "We will leave at sunup. We'll go on foot."
Jabari goes down on all fours and drinks from the lake. He says, going upright on his knees, "We will need some bread and dried fish. Do you think we will have to travel far to the east?"
"I think so," Radhiya says, kneeling beside Jabari, swishing her hands through waters she knows are already lost to her. "I think we will have to go as far east as anyone has ever gone."
Lawrence Cady's short stories have appeared in Other Voices, The Literary Review, Natural Bridge, Portland Review, South 85 Journal, Roanoke Review, among others. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and Portland State University, Lawrence serves as managing editor for the peer-reviewed science journal Astrobiology (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.).