Read Online A Stranger in Olondria: A Novel by Sofia Samatar - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sofia Samatar
Ads: Link
not smiling.”
“Good.”
Such aggression in a motionless body, a nearly expressionless face. Her small chin jutted; her eyes bored into mine. She had no peasant timidity, no deference. I cast about for something to say, uneasy as if I had stepped on some animal in the dark.
“You spoke as if he were dead,” I said at last.
“You should have asked.”
“I was led astray by your choice of words,” I retorted, beginning to feel exasperated.
“Words are breath.”
“No,” I said, leaning forward, the back of my shirt plastered to my skin with sweat. “No. You’re wrong. Words are everything. They can be everything.”
“Is that Olondrian philosophy?”
Her sneer, her audacity, took my breath away. It was as if she had sat up and struck me in the face. For an instant my father’s image flared in my memory like a beacon: an iron rod in his hand, its tip a bead of fire.
“Perhaps. Perhaps it is,” I managed at last. “Our philosophies differ. In Olondria words are more than breath. They live forever, here .”
I held out the book, gripping its spine. “ Here they live. Olondrian words. In this book there are poems by people who lived a thousand years ago! Memory can’t do that—it can save a few poems for a few generations, but not forever. Not like this.”
“Then read me one,” she said.
“What?”
“Jissi,” her mother murmured.
“Read me one,” the girl insisted, maintaining her black and warlike stare. “Read me what you carry in the vallon .”
“You won’t understand it.”
“I don’t want to understand it,” she said. “Why should I?”
The book fell open at the Night Lyric of Karanis of Loi. The sun had moved so that my knees were no longer in shadow, the page a sheet of blistering light where black specks strayed like ash. My irritation faded as I read the melancholy lines.
Alas, tonight the tide has gone out too far.
It goes too far,
it stretches away, it lingers,
now it has slipped beyond the horizon.
Alas, the wind goes carrying
summer tempests of mountain lilies.
It spills them, and only the stars remain:
the Bee, the Hammer, the Harp.
“Thank you,” said the girl.
She closed her eyes.
Her mother took her hand and chafed it. “Jissi? I’m going to call Tipyav.”
The girl said nothing. The woman gave me a fearful, embarrassed glance, then stumped across the deck and called down the ladder.
“Brother.” The young girl’s eyes were open.
“Yes,” I answered, my anger cooled by pity. She is going to die, I thought.
A puff of air forced itself from her lungs, a laugh. “Well—never mind,” she murmured, closing her eyes again. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her mother returned with the servant. I stood aside as the old man knelt and the woman helped the girl to cling to his curved back. The old man rose with a groan and staggered forward, his burden swaying, and the woman rolled up the pallet, avoiding my eye. . . . I pulled my chair farther into the shade of the awning and opened my book, but when they reached the ladder the girl called back to me: “Brother!”
I stood. Her hair was vibrant in the sun.
“Your name.”
“Jevick of Tyom.”
“Jissavet,” said the dying girl, “of Kiem.”
In my twenty-ninth year, having lost my heart to the sea, I resolved to travel, and to come, if I might, into some of the little-known corners of the World. It was with such purpose in mind that I addressed myself to the captain of the Ondis , as she lay in the harbor of Bain; and the captain—a man distinguished, in the true Bainish style, by an elegant pipe and exquisitely fashioned boots—declared himself very able to use the extra pair of hands on board his ship, which was to go down the Fertile Coast. We would stop at Asarma, that capital of the old cartographers, and go on to fragrant, orange-laden Yenith by the sea, and finally travel up the Ilbalin, skirting the Kestenyi highlands, into the Balinfeil to collect our cargo of white almonds.
“Good.”
Such aggression in a motionless body, a nearly expressionless face. Her small chin jutted; her eyes bored into mine. She had no peasant timidity, no deference. I cast about for something to say, uneasy as if I had stepped on some animal in the dark.
“You spoke as if he were dead,” I said at last.
“You should have asked.”
“I was led astray by your choice of words,” I retorted, beginning to feel exasperated.
“Words are breath.”
“No,” I said, leaning forward, the back of my shirt plastered to my skin with sweat. “No. You’re wrong. Words are everything. They can be everything.”
“Is that Olondrian philosophy?”
Her sneer, her audacity, took my breath away. It was as if she had sat up and struck me in the face. For an instant my father’s image flared in my memory like a beacon: an iron rod in his hand, its tip a bead of fire.
“Perhaps. Perhaps it is,” I managed at last. “Our philosophies differ. In Olondria words are more than breath. They live forever, here .”
I held out the book, gripping its spine. “ Here they live. Olondrian words. In this book there are poems by people who lived a thousand years ago! Memory can’t do that—it can save a few poems for a few generations, but not forever. Not like this.”
“Then read me one,” she said.
“What?”
“Jissi,” her mother murmured.
“Read me one,” the girl insisted, maintaining her black and warlike stare. “Read me what you carry in the vallon .”
“You won’t understand it.”
“I don’t want to understand it,” she said. “Why should I?”
The book fell open at the Night Lyric of Karanis of Loi. The sun had moved so that my knees were no longer in shadow, the page a sheet of blistering light where black specks strayed like ash. My irritation faded as I read the melancholy lines.
Alas, tonight the tide has gone out too far.
It goes too far,
it stretches away, it lingers,
now it has slipped beyond the horizon.
Alas, the wind goes carrying
summer tempests of mountain lilies.
It spills them, and only the stars remain:
the Bee, the Hammer, the Harp.
“Thank you,” said the girl.
She closed her eyes.
Her mother took her hand and chafed it. “Jissi? I’m going to call Tipyav.”
The girl said nothing. The woman gave me a fearful, embarrassed glance, then stumped across the deck and called down the ladder.
“Brother.” The young girl’s eyes were open.
“Yes,” I answered, my anger cooled by pity. She is going to die, I thought.
A puff of air forced itself from her lungs, a laugh. “Well—never mind,” she murmured, closing her eyes again. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her mother returned with the servant. I stood aside as the old man knelt and the woman helped the girl to cling to his curved back. The old man rose with a groan and staggered forward, his burden swaying, and the woman rolled up the pallet, avoiding my eye. . . . I pulled my chair farther into the shade of the awning and opened my book, but when they reached the ladder the girl called back to me: “Brother!”
I stood. Her hair was vibrant in the sun.
“Your name.”
“Jevick of Tyom.”
“Jissavet,” said the dying girl, “of Kiem.”
In my twenty-ninth year, having lost my heart to the sea, I resolved to travel, and to come, if I might, into some of the little-known corners of the World. It was with such purpose in mind that I addressed myself to the captain of the Ondis , as she lay in the harbor of Bain; and the captain—a man distinguished, in the true Bainish style, by an elegant pipe and exquisitely fashioned boots—declared himself very able to use the extra pair of hands on board his ship, which was to go down the Fertile Coast. We would stop at Asarma, that capital of the old cartographers, and go on to fragrant, orange-laden Yenith by the sea, and finally travel up the Ilbalin, skirting the Kestenyi highlands, into the Balinfeil to collect our cargo of white almonds.
Similar Books
