Blankmap: Book I

21. Three Labors

Last night's rain still made its presence known: The sand was dimpled from where it had fallen, and the clean smell of it filled Solomon's nostrils as he and Melion stepped out into the morning sunshine. 

From what Solomon could tell, the island was shaped a bit like a fishhook, though certainly much softer around the edges. Melion had taken him around its entire perimeter in just a few hours. There were about 250 people on Kwajro, according to Melion, and almost all of them lived in the heart of the village. 

An oily smoke permeated the air throughout the village, what the ri-Marij called the wota. This came from two sources: nearly every home had a cooking fire burning in its front yard, in which could be seen odd sticks and branches and the husks of the hard brown-shelled fruit that Solomon had sipped from the previous evening; nearly every home also had a covered pit behind it from which smoke poured freely. The young Naweegan traveler, curious as ever, questioned Melion about its purpose. 

"When I tell you what the tanej is for, you will perhaps think me forgetful. This would be fair of you. You had asked me, Solomon Hyrax, whether or not the ri-Marij have jobs as your people have jobs. I neglected to mention one. The tanej creates a kind of job. Allow me to show you."

They ducked behind one of the small houses and stood before the tanej. If Melion was self-conscious about being on another's property, as Solomon was, the older man did not show it. 

"Err--Melion--should we be doing this? At someone else's house?"

Melion winked. "You have much to learn about our ways, Solomon Hyrax." Again Solomon was struck by the same feeling of familiarity that he had first felt upon the deck of the Windjammer, when Melion's eyes had met his own. "Keep your head away from the pit. The smoke comes out fast."

Melion knelt and grabbed hold of the pit's wooden cover, wrenching it backwards and plunging his arm into the hole up to the elbow. Solomon wasn't sure what he had expected to see when the arm came back up, but it was certainly less dramatic than whatever he might have envisioned. 

"Here. The other job of many people of Kwajro." 

In Melion's hand was a dead fish, smoked by the tanej--an underground oven. 

"I don't understand."

"I do not expect that you would. It may not make sense at first glance. You may remember me mentioning a place called Wojke. Yes?"

"Yes, I remember. Where things are so much different from here."

"Indeed. They have many things on Wokje, but they lose something with each passing year that they may never replace. You see, with so many people packed together in such a small place, with so many wants and needs and desires, the island creates a substantial amount of waste. It has begun to overflow--there is not space on an island such as Wokje to store or dispose of all such waste, and perhaps, Solomon Hyrax, you can guess where such things begin to end up."

"In the water."

"Yes. And with the choking of the harbor with waste, you also might be able to imagine what they begin to lose."

"The fish. They lose the fish."

"Quite a problem for a people who have eaten nothing but the fish in our waters and the fruits of our land for centuries."

"So you...you all cook fish and bring it to Wokje. Just like that?"

"It is not quite so freely given as you describe it. We certainly benefit from the arrangement. There is much that we lack, or so people think--mostly those who have had a taste of life on Wokje. For the fish, we are given things like metal and weapons and ijjit, what you would call alcohol. These things are staples of life on Wokje."

"But not here."

"No," said Melion, "not here. Not yet, anyway. Come, Solomon Hyrax. We still have our errands to run." He placed the fish gently back into the tanej and walked on through the tangle of homes. If the heat of the sand bothered him he failed to show it.

They passed by house after house, and in the daylight Solomon was delighted to see that they were far from the blandly homogenous dwellings that he had supposed during the night. Their outsides, he could see, were studded and decorated with all manner of seashells, coral, flowers, so that no two looked alike. It was all quite overwhelming--the most ambitious houses were practically alight with the vibrant colors of Marij's natural world. Solomon surprised himself by meandering closer and closer to them as he and Melion passed through, so that he might reach out and touch these pieces of art that doubled as homes. 

* * * *

Melion's list of errands was as diverse as it was exhausting. By late afternoon, as the unforgiving sun continued to beat down through a cloudless sky, Solomon was quite sure that he was going to collapse with fatigue. Already, since breakfast, he had helped the ri-Marij sailor with a list of tasks that far outpaced any he had been handed onboard the ships. They had spent the better part of two hours standing precariously on top of a roof, re-thatching the bundles of dried palm fronds that gave cover to the kindly old couple who lived beneath it. They were both men, and they spent the whole time shuffling about the coral yard shouting instructions up to Melion. He would smile a knowing smile at Solomon, shout back down to the couple (who Solomon learned were called Akijon and Amja), and then say something like: "These two were master carpenters when they were younger. Let's try this section of roof again," or, "Try tying the bundles a little tighter from now on, or else the rain might come through." By the time they were finished Solomon was sure that his fingers were in even tighter knots than the bundles of thatched palm. But there was no time for self-pity. After they ate in Akijon and Amja's home, a small neat lunch of fish soup and orange berries, it was on to the jungle to chop firewood. Melion was quite sure that he had left an axe behind a particular tree (though how he distinguished that particular palm from the hundreds of identical ones around it, Solomon had little clue), but it was nowhere to be found, so they spent a good deal of time on their hands and knees searching for it in the underbrush. They eventually found it at the original tree, on the opposite side of the trunk from where Melion had told Solomon to look.

In all the searching Solomon almost lost sight of the original errand, which was another few hours in the making. The young Naweegan was extraordinarily clumsy with the axe, which felt awkward and unbalanced in his hands. Melion was patient, though even he was sweating profusely by the time Solomon had built up a paltry pile of logs. 

When his calloused hands wept with blood he gratefully turned the axe over to Melion. The older man made quick work of several more trees, and together they piled the felled logs onto a mat with long handles. Together they dragged the heavy bundle through the forest and into the village, not stopping until they reached a home where four young girls ran around in the yard. They stopped their games as Melion and Solomon approached.

"ri-Lonlon! ri-Lonlon!" they cried, dissolving into helpless giggles. They gawked at Solomon as he and Melion unstacked all of the wood, and Solomon, face burning, tried instead to focus on the raw pain of his hands. They had been bloodied even further by the dragging of the mat and the unstacking of the wood. 

"It means 'Moon person'," Melion explained, before Solomon could ask. They were back in the house where the tree grew through the roof. Solomon's hands rested in a bowl of seawater as they sat and talked. He had gasped with pain when he had first slipped them in, but Melion had insisted that he keep them there as long as he could bear it. 

"What does?"

"ri-Lonlon," he said. "You are the palest person those little girls have ever seen, Solomon Hyrax. To them your face looks like the face of the moon."

"I was darker than anyone in Naweego. Why is it that I don't seem to fit in, anywhere?"

"I'll tell you a secret, Solomon Hyrax," Melion said. "Nobody really does. We all just pretend to until we start to believe it."