Song of Slaves in the Desert - Alan Cheuse [182]
She walked and walked, her pace tempered by the need, especially in the now nearly final dark under the gnarled and obdurate branches, to keep to the narrow path that stretched into obscurity between the fetid water of the swamp and the boles of the bushes and trees. One misstep and she might slip into the water. She erred toward the trees and now and then took scratches and at least one bump on her left ear, leaning to the wood as she did.
At sunrise—misty first light steeped in residue from seeping trees—she sat down at the base of a tree and tried to sleep. Except that she could not keep her heart still, her fear of what might lie ahead driving that sweet organ to beating near-past its capacity. Winged insects as large as her hand buzzed past her. Every tiny crawling thing also conspired to keep her awake. Nevertheless, she dozed, head bobbing like a heavy flower on a drooping stem. And, with the sun as high as it would get that first day on the run alone through the swamp, she descended into deepest sleep and dreamed, yes, of what life must have been like before she was born, putting together a vision—if that was how dreams get made—out of bits and pieces of stories from the cabins and lessons from the doctor. In the dream a large white cloud settled over green forest, as though the earth itself had exhaled it and then the cloud began to sink of its own weight. Mama, she heard herself say, I have come for the stone. An arm sand-colored and slender reached out toward her.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr—grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Rough, rough, rough, rough!
She suddenly awoke to find herself face to face with a growling, barking alligator, wide-jawed, its pinkish-black tongue dangling between its jaws with the stiffness yet elasticity that the man’s organ sometimes approximates. Its two sharp snap-drawn eyes showed her something so deadly it could almost be a smile. And here sat Yemaya on the back of the beast. Could it be true? Or had she crossed over the line into madness? What did she see in front of her? Did this goddess still exist?
As sometimes happens to us in situations of extreme distress, she found herself smiling, her back pressed against the tree, her face taut in a rictus of astonishment and fear, her bottom parts soaked from the involuntary release of lemony piss.
“Hush,” said Yemaya close in her ear. “This beast, he is a distant cousin of mine, and so a distant member of your family too. Stay still.” Liza complied, becoming so still that a twitching muscle in her leg felt like a clutch of leaves rippling in a wind storm.
Rough, rough! The animal roared.
She could smell its throat-stench, the stink of its scaly head. She stayed still. Still it seemed to smile. Even beyond the monstrousness of its actual being, the monster reminded her of someone! Whom could that be?
Rough!
And oh, ye, all my gods, when it came to her, she began to tremble and quake, the opposite of what the goddess had just advised, and, worse still, she reached out both hands to the open-jawed monster.
“Father!” she said. “Take me, devour me, I am nothing, I am food for the swamp, lowest of the low, a slave to everyone and everything. You have eaten me and I have eaten you, and now we are nothing, and so can begin again.” [Where these words came from, she couldn’t say—from her life, from her reading, from her praying, from her thinking, from the entire mix of acts and words, the million million turns and tosses of the body and mind in time?]
As if it had been waiting for her to say just this, the beast clamped shut its jaws, and Yemaya tugged it by the tail. It went sliding straightaways backwards into the viscous pond among ponds, leaving Liza to twitch and tremble for many minutes after, until the tremors of this marvelous