his thumb, allowing the dirt under his fingernails to escape. His own capa, skirt and cloth were folded on the bicycle by the rocks. His clothes provided shade for barnacle footprints and seaweed slime on the stones below.
His thoughts lingered on the woman, rather than on the sunshine that dripped, thick as honey, into the ocean right in front of him. Loons dressed in black and white bobbed one, two, and three, right in front of him. And four or five caspian terns flew in arcs and cruised along the surface in front of him. He hardly saw the birds at all.
Ravno’s ankles asked to go deeper, or retreat, instead of standing still in the prickly cold. His thumb and forefinger still danced, furiously. But all his lusty eyes could see was the woman drawn to the water’s edge the next beach over. Like a bee to the hive she emerged between rock clusters. She crossed crushed-shell tide lines with grace to the sea, where she now stood like a mirror of his delayed sea entrance.
Keba’s feet shifted indelicately as the ocean stole sand and grit away from underneath them. All the events that lead up to this morning had happened so quickly. Her saudara had had to drag her out to see the batsu omhaal and to see the tears that had stung the fresh wound on the little boy’s neck. It’s impossible that they think this is the best way, branding whole families at a time, she thought sadly. And out in the open for all to see. She had thought those atrocities only happened thousands of years ago—hundreds of thousands of years ago, when the ancient peoples dominated the earth.
On the beach, she let her head sink to the right. Whatever was left of her buoyant joy rushed out with her breath and joined the sea dance in the air.
At the batsu omhaal, she had caught eyes with that stormy woman, Jasmin Sanjukta, who poured oil on the wounds of the victims. Jasmin Sanjukta had seen Keba’s discomfort and had told her to come for some support and insight this morning. Now Keba was ready to go.
But then her eyes shot to the man who no longer stood in the water. He had dropped face down, like a dead tree into the sea.
His eyes blinked from the seawater. He coughed, and asked in halting Wawasen, ‘When did you get here?’ Keba’s second hand held his wrist, her first arm firmly looped under his neck. He lay in the surf, his hair wet and his back on the sand in the water. He faced his feet that waved haphazardly to the stout, naked arbutus on the high edge of the beach.
Keba looked down at him. ‘Just now—you caught my eye when you fell in. You okay?’
‘I was just… looking at you, over there.’ Ravno tried to look past her but her capa hung open and blocked his vision. He felt stupid to admit that he had been watching her but he didn’t know what else to say. He tried to figure how he came to lay in her arms in the maro bulanbederatzi—the ninth-month sea.
He asked her, ‘Are you okay?’
Miraculously, she laughed—though her laugh seemed most natural to him. Keba’s eyes warmed with the honey droplets of sun that still lingered toward Peninnah.
She said, ‘I’m fine, just a bit more wet than I planned to be this morning.’
As she helped him up, Keba could tell that the ocean was still too cold for swimming. His tight skin had tiny winter bumps and his nipples couldn’t be harder. He shook with each breath and his penis hid way under its skin. His balls hid even farther up in his body to stay warm. Keba held his arm as he walked tentatively up the beach to the bicycle.
‘So did I just fall, just like that? I don’t remember diving and my back’s not broken, is it,’ he said between shivers. ‘Maybe I tripped on something—a rock, or something.’
‘Well I wasn’t watching, but you seemed to just fall.’ She regretted that her comment unintentionally reproached him for watching her, which she didn’t mean—and didn’t mind. She decided he should wait till at least bulaniru or later, perhaps, but it was still a wonderful morning for a sunrise on the beach. And with him. She fastened her capa to block the hiemal breeze from her bare skin.
Keba laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Will you be okay? I need to get going, so I won’t be able to walk with you anywhere.’ She debated heading toward the uncertainty that storm would bring up the beach.
‘Oh no, I’m fine and I’ve got the bicycle,’ he said. ‘The water feels great actually and I couldn’t have started my morning better.’ He buttoned his skirt and slung the capa over his shaking shoulders. He wanted her to stay a while longer. ‘We could double, if you like.’ His pale hand motioned to the rusty handlebars.
‘Sure and we can fall again, only this time the sea won’t catch you,’ she said, kindly. ‘But I’m off down that way, passed the jetty there. I guess you’re going up the path here?’ She brought her mossy-green eyes back from the mossy-green trees that stood like an army behind the arbutus. He let her look at his wide eyes a moment before he told her ‘yes,’ and she was off down the beach as if she’d never been there at all.
Ravno took the bicycle up the rocks to the root-shrouded path. He realized he didn’t even know her name. He had been too busy shivering and wishing the weather was warmer so they could’ve relaxed on the beach together. He wondered if he would see her again the next day, or at least another time in the city.
Ravno missed the cloud fingers give one more dazzling pronouncement of saturated hues before they grew grey in the brightening sky. They retreated, like an octopus escaping along the seabed. Ravno had three more months of maritime mornings before he saw her again. After those three months Keba’s joy still hadn’t found its way back inside.
Dabi boards a boto on her trip to Santulita
The day Ravno and Temperance discussed flowers and switching, Dabi and her scar boarded a boto to Santulita. She had joined a small group of Wawasens along the Duat Canal, near Phoyara. As they weaved along the canals, passengers appeared like hawks from the forest as they floated down ramps to the boto. The dawn, sea mist, and island-spewed steam all enveloped to create ghosts of each migrant being. They arrived at the end of the Lurruna Branch, the chosen point of embarkment for southern trips to various islands. Amidst the large egress of steam from the para zona that vented and veiled the docks, those on their way farther south, like Dabi, changed to a sturdier inter-island boto built for channel crossings.
It would take about two days for Dabi and the ghosts to pass Sekitsui, the first island of ten under Yerku’s responsibility, and the other nine islands, before she would arrive on Santulita, the last island in the province of Pangitain. She hoped to be there in the first hours of the day after tomorrow but was uncertain from Yerek’s letter whether to expect the full Group of Eleven or not. The letter’s closing line, ‘We’ll be waiting with the last of the moon,’ told her she had no reason to rush. She had a window of approximately eleven days. This flexibility hardly abated her heart from rushing and the upcoming meeting tore at her usual sobriety. Dabi partly wondered if, upon arrival, it might be only Yerek’s phosphorescent-blue eyes and pale, solemn face that waited for her. What would be the result of that? The two women would be strictly professional, and avoid any lingering moments or talk of a personal nature. ‘You were born on Passat and have lived on every island around the ring, Yerek?’ ‘Yes, and now Santulita’s my forty-ninth.’ ‘Will you stay on Peninnah once you get there? Passing of course through Lurruna and coming by my area.’ ‘No I’ll just turn around and head back to my birthplace. Passing of course through Lurruna and repeatedly stopping by your area.’
Thoughts and inner dialogue aside, the dense steam this side of Lurruna Island and the pretty dawn did Dabi well. She briefly closed her eyes and pictured Jasmin Sanjukta: Sable diamond thick and bold in silver on her forehead, shaded lids and tapered cheeks, eyes that hail the island’s spirit, dusk-hued skin in constant contrast with brilliant colors of a patchwork capa, and only twelve kukui’s left around her neck.
Dabi steadied her breath to the rhythm of the oars and smiled broadly. Moisture gathered on her windward jungle weeds, and a shy drop of sea sallied the camber of her forehead and followed a scar’s path to her delicate brow. It was
hard to tell where the next salty drops originated from as they rolled the soft chine of her face before tumbling amidships.
Trials with Aron on the fifth day’s waning
‘Ravno, why don’t we lift our arms up to the sky like the trees do?’
‘They’re feeding, Aron. It would be ridiculous for us to walk around with our arms up when we don’t even feed that way.’
‘Well we should stretch our arms toward our food,’ Aron said. ‘I think we would have better awareness of what we’re eating, or what we’re about to eat.’
They were walking north from Mara to Phoyara along the hard packed, rose-red earth. Aron lifted his arms in the air as they edged closer to the city. A grey crow watched nervously from a low cherry blossom branch, preparing to take refuge to a higher perch if this human did anything more erratic. The three of them carried on for a few moments in this balance of uncertainties, as neither species knew what would happen next. An unusual bout of clouds dotted the eastern sky.
Ravno couldn’t help but smile at his friend, though he debated how to tell him his news: I can switch—too ambiguous and unclear; I can see through other people’s eyes—too creepy; I’ve fallen upon a way to see what other people see—a bit