Read Online Marshlands by Matthew Olshan - Free Book Online Page B

called unclean .”
    â€œI heard,” she said.
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œYes.”
    Something grew in him until finally he blurted it out. “Did we just insult his memory?”
    â€œOh, Gus,” she said. “My father admired you. He thought of you as one of us.”
    â€œI wanted to be. I tried.”
    â€œWell, you were and you weren’t,” she said. “Just like me.”
    He wanted to ask what she meant, but she yawned and said it was way past her bedtime. “Besides,” she murmured, “it’s almost time for work.”
    The building was waking up. He’d stubbed his toe on a plastic three-wheeler the other night, and now he heard a child racing it up and down the hallway. He lay still, trying to sense the faint vibrations of the wheels, the way he used to pause sometimes at dusk outside the camp, listening for thunder.

II
    (TWENTY-ONE YEARS EARLIER)

1
    Master , my canoe boy asks, breaking the silence that has reigned between us for nearly an hour, tell me again, what is your tribe?
    I don’t have an easy answer for him. I could say my tribe is the occupying army, or the hospital staff , or my aging parents, who say they understand what I’m doing in the marshes, but keep agitating, year after year, for me to come home.
    What I want to say is, My people have evolved beyond tribes. But to a marshman, that would be absurd. It would be like saying, My people have evolved beyond hunger.
    A man must eat. Just so, a man must have a tribe.
    But it’s an earnest question, and earnest questions ought to be answered. First of all , I say, how many times have I asked you not to call me master?
    He turns and smiles good-naturedly, as if I have praised and not chided him.
    You and I are not so different , I say. We both come from small tribes surrounded by strong enemies .
    It’s an oblique answer. I’m not even sure what I mean by it myself. Sometimes the sentences run off on their own when I use the language of the marshmen.
    He finds meaning in it anyway. I can tell he approves by the way his eyes narrow. My answer seems guileful to him, and guile is something the marshman respects.
    Then, for the umpteenth time, he proceeds to recite his lineage, which is his way of scolding me for my lack of roots. He’s talkative today. For two weeks, we’ve been living in close quarters, and he has respected my wish for quiet. But now the hunt is over. It’s time to return to the field hospital. I’ve ordered him to turn us around—no small feat in the weed-choked channels, which are barely wide enough, in most places, to accommodate the sharp prow of my canoe.
    The prospect of sleeping once again in his own hut has loosened his tongue. He narrates highlights of our hunt as if I hadn’t lived them myself. Five pigs! he exclaims. Who will believe we killed five pigs? He digs a heel into our game bag, which is bulging with the day’s coot. A good hunt , he says. He’s proud of my shooting skills. I’m proud of his, too.
    In a moment of enthusiasm, I call him by his nickname, Chigger, which makes his shoulders ripple with pleasure. He prefers that I use his official title, canoe boy , within earshot of his friends, but out here, with no one else around, we are at ease.
    The long afternoon is over. The weed-strewn water has lost its oppressive glare. The sky is thick with fowl. There’s a kind of relief in simply enjoying their flight, appreciating the noisy formations without worrying about sight lines or losing downed birds in impenetrable grass. We are safe from you , their eager honking seems to say. To which I feel like answering, And we from you!
    The water has receded since the beginning of the hunt. Chigger tries mightily to avoid leaping in the shallow brine to free us when we run aground. It’s a point of pride with him.
    But the water is so low, and the towering reeds so thick, that at times we’re both forced out