The Land of Painted Caves - Jean M. Auel [391]
“I don’t think it matters.”
“Tomorrow morning? As soon as you can get everything ready?”
Ayla shrugged, as if she didn’t care. At that moment, she didn’t. “It’s as good a time as any, I suppose,” she said.
39
Jondalar was filled with as much anxiety and despair as Ayla. He had tried to avoid everyone as much as possible since the big ceremony where everyone was told about men and why they were created. He recalled parts of that night only vaguely. He did remember smashing Laramar in the face over and over again, and he couldn’t erase from his mind the picture of that man moving up and down on top of Ayla. When he woke up the next day, his head was pounding, and he was still somewhat dizzy and very nauseous. He couldn’t remember ever being so sick the next day, and wondered what was in the drinks he consumed.
Danug was there and he thought he ought to feel grateful to him, but he didn’t know why. He asked Danug questions, trying to fill in the blanks. As Jondalar learned what he had done, he started to recall what had happened and was appalled, and full of remorse and shame. He had never much liked Laramar, but nothing he had ever done could be as bad as what Jondalar had done to him. He was so filled with self-hatred, he could not think of anything else. He was sure everyone felt the same way about him, and he was convinced that Ayla could not possibly love him anymore. How could anyone love someone so despicable?
Part of him wanted to leave everything behind and just go, as far away as he could get, but something held him back. He told himself he had to face his punishment, at least find out what it would be and somehow make amends, but it was more that things felt unfinished and he couldn’t go leaving everything so unresolved. And deep inside, he wasn’t sure he could simply walk away from Ayla and Jonayla. He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing them again, even if only from a distance.
His mind became a confusion of pain, guilt, and desperation. He could think of nothing he might do to make his life right again, and every time he saw anyone, he was sure they were looking at him with the same disgust and loathing that he felt about himself. Part of his self-recrimination stemmed from the fact that as dispicably as he’d behaved, and as ashamed as he was, every time he closed his eyes to try to sleep at night, he would see Laramar on top of Ayla, and feel the same rage and frustration he’d felt then. He knew in his heart that under the same circumstances, he would do it again.
Jondalar’s mind dwelled on his problems constantly. He could hardly think of anything else. It was an incessant itch, like continually picking on the scab of a minor cut, never giving it a chance to heal, making it worse and worse until it became a running infection. He tried to get away from people as often as he could, and began taking long walks, usually beside the bank of The River, most often upstream. Each time he went he’d walk a little farther, stay a little longer, but he always reached a point where he could not go on and would have to turn around and walk back. Occasionally, he would get Racer and instead of walking along the river would ride out across the open grassland. He resisted taking his horse too often because it was then that he was most tempted to keep on going, but this day he wanted to ride out and put some distance between himself and the Camp.
As soon as she was fully awake, Ayla got up and went to The River. She hadn’t slept well; at first she was too edgy and restless to fall asleep, and then she was awakened by dreams that she couldn’t quite remember, but that left her uneasy. She thought about what she needed to do to make the Clan ceremony as close to correct as possible. While she looked for soaproot to purify herself, she also kept an eye out for a nodule of flint or even a leftover piece of reasonable size. She wanted to make a cutting tool in the Clan way that she could use to cut off a piece of leather to make a