She paused, not so much to listen but to learn, to learn the
feel of the day, for every day was different in her forest. Her forest—it lay
along a steep valley through which rushed a river called “Shark”, halting only
in selected places to make pools deep and sure with eddies that swirled
backwards in their own placid repose, slick on the surface, secret in their
tumultuous depths, where enormous, ancient trees stood sentinel. All fast
asleep in ageless repose, same height, same girth, same breadth as though
created simultaneously by some mighty hand that reached out from eternity and
sowed their dreams in unison so long ago, before words like day or night were
made to punctuate the passage of time.
Time had been invented by one of her ancestors, she was
sure. Before she entered her forest, she left it, together with her shoes, down
by the road. Papita had told her about the Caribs of long ago, their family,
the old people who owned all the land. She had told her about the river and of
the Oriyu, the water spirits. She always felt that she had just missed them and
that, had she come a little earlier, she would have seen them. But she was
always just in time to see the ripples they left on the water fade away into
placidity. Sometimes, she heard a loud slap upon the surface of the pool. Once,
she saw an enormous shape turn around and around in the water like a wheel.
Today, she saw the face. A shimmer just beneath the surface of the pool, it
seemed to call out with open mouth. A song, she thought. Now she knew for
certain that there was a Maman Dlo living in Shark River.
After that, she would bring flowers and pretty buttons, a
buckle from a shoe, a dolly’s head, quite pink, with staring eyes of blue and
tiny holes where hair would have been implanted. She brought little gems made
of red and green glass, pins and pretty bow clips. One morning, as she slipped
in silence throught the woods, the river, coursing with a roar through the
rocks and bolders, gray and striped with white lines, she saw something glimmer
in the water. It was a lovely comb made of shell and silver, gold-tipped. She
stood there entranced, the river foam, a lacy frock around her legs. She picked
up the comb and ran it through her hair. At once, she heard music, a song,
sighing, which filled her heart with yearning—for what? She had no idea. She
knew she must keep this gift a secret.
She would spend her days sitting in the sunshine where the
water fell from high up to crash upon the rocks, its spray a brilliant rainbow
irridescent about her, combing her long, black hair and listening to Maman
Dlo’s comb. She learnt that Amana was her true name and that she had a sister
who was called Yara, “beautiful river”, which flew into a bay not too far away.
Others were called Marianne, Madamas and Paria. She heard the sirens’ song of
sailors who had been dashed to death upon the rocks at Saut d’Eau, and learned
not to dread the deafening silence of the forest.
She saw the stranger come into her forest. He grew afraid at
her sight, his eyes were startled. She did not smile but combed her hair,
listening to the melody of Maman Dlo’s song. The river’s spray made iridescent
colours swirl about her. He ran away. They laughed at him. He would return.
In the time that followed, whenever she combed her hair with
the magic comb, she heard a voice that warned her of her curiosity for the
stranger and cautioned her to dismiss him from her memory. Maman Dlo’s voice
came to her like a mother’s plea to remain pure and not fall victim to
curiosity. But she longed to meet the stranger and would dream him with her in
the river.
One day, Maman Dlo rose up from the water to tell her “no”.
She saw her terrible beauty, her feminine form conjoint with that of a massive
anaconda that swirled about and slapped the water with its tail, making a sound
like the cracking of huge branches. “No,” Maman Dlo breathed, “don’t go.” But
go she did and as time went by, her comb no longer sang its silent song. Mr.
Borde and herself would build a house at Cachepa Point and live a happy life.
Close upon a century later, as a very old woman, she sat to
the back of a pirogue which was plunging through a turbulent sea towards Yara
bay in the hope of beaching at the river’s mouth. The outboard engine wined and
coughed, and the huge waves threatened to swamp the overcrowded boat. She
sensed the terror in the group and took an old, broken comb with an unusual
shape out of her pocket. Standing up in the plunging boat and steadying
herself, she called to the tillerman to point the bow at the river’s mouth and
asked the passengers to pray. In a voice at first old and frail, then strong
and commanding, she began to sing:
“Maman Dlo, oh Maman Dlo, save us from this terror sea. Be
calm, be calm,” she told the waves, “Be slow, lie low.”
The swirling waters seemed to pause and flatten into an
insulent roll that fell away at her call.
“Ma Dolly calmed the sea,” they would later say. “She calmed
the sea at Yara Bay.”
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What a beautiful tale and formidable attempt at reviving Mama d'leau.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful & entrancing tale. Thank you.
ReplyDelete