• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Anunu laughed. No, but I’ll certainly get one now.

They were green and red and purple feathers, and you had worn them much longer than you’ve worn Western clothing. It’s amazing to me that time is so conflatable, said Kate. No doubt we’ve done this sort of thing together before.

It no longer seemed strange to her that she was outside the medicine loop. In the mornings Kate woke early to record her dreams, drink her morning cup of Bobinsana, and walk down to the river to bathe. She had decided not to worry about piranhas or crocodiles but to concentrate instead on her inner peacefulness. She began to have the feeling that it was this inner peace that attracted peace around her. If she approached the river in this frame of mind, she felt sure no creature would bother her.

Under the palapa she was now much needed. It wasn’t that she was asked to do anything specific; she was mostly required to be present.

Armando had asked her about the sadness of Lalika and been surprised and saddened to learn she had killed a man.

A bad man, said Kate.

Armando looked skeptical.

He had raped her and was trying to rape her friend.

Oh, he said.

In the circle Kate watched as Lalika, under the influence of the medicine, sat with tears streaming down her face.

After the killing she and her friend had tried to escape but they’d been captured and thrown into small, windowless country jail cells. They were beaten by the patrolmen who’d caught them and once inside the jail were raped repeatedly, over several months, by jailers and inmates alike. There had been a surveillance camera in their cells and they had been watched night and day. The beatings and brutal rapes had been preserved on video and marketed by two of the guards. There had not been one moment of privacy until word had finally gotten out about their condition and legal assistance from out of state had come to their aid.

When Lalika had tried to tell her the story Kate had asked, during a pause, whether she’d had therapy.

Lalika had laughed, the only time she did so.

Now she watched as Lalika writhed on the floor across from her. She seemed to be trying to escape from her own body.

Kate rose and knelt beside her. Out of Armando’s way, as he sang over her, and out of Cosmi’s way, as he blew on a burning twig that released billows of pungent smoke. The smoke covered them like a shroud and Kate realized they were indeed at the beginning of something dying. Looking at Armando to ask permission, which he with a nod gave, Kate took Lalika’s hand. It was dry and cold, as if already dead. Lalika’s eyes had rolled back in her head.

Armando was singing a song about forgiveness.

Who is it that most needs forgiving?

Who is it that feels so much pain?

Who is it that would really like to fly

Far far away?

Who is it that can return

Free and gentle

Like the rain?

It is the Self, my love,

My adored one,

It is the Self

That even now

Is running for its Life

Running to its life

Into the arms

Of death.

But we are here

The little sweet friends

Of the Self

And we are holding

On to nothing

But the Self

And we are saying

Beloved

Come back.

He sang this song over and over. Kate, whose time in her hut after dinner every night was spent, with Cosmi’s help, translating Armando’s songs from Kechua or Mayan into Spanish and then into English, began to weep herself, from the beauty of Armando’s voice. When she had first heard his voice on a recording played for her by Anunu, she’d been unable to tell whether he was male or female. She’d thought him very old. He was young though, only in his forties. How was it possible he felt confident, in healing others, to attempt so much?

Was it because the world was in such bad shape, the young must activate the ancient within themselves and the older must activate youth? On a spiritual level was there any difference?

I could not avoid killing him, Lalika had said. He was so huge. When I hit him with my fist he laughed. When I kicked him in the balls he said he felt excited. He wanted to fully experience