Read Online The River and the Book by Alison Croggon - Free Book Online
Authors: Alison Croggon
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evaporated like spit on a hot griddle. It dawned on me for the first time that I had no idea what I was doing. What had I been thinking? What was I going to do now?
I stood in the middle of the empty marketplace as the dusk deepened. A noisy bunch of starlings was squabbling in a locust tree and, further off, I could hear the faint shouts of children playing and the plaintive bleats of goats being brought in for the evening’s milking. A couple of people walked through the square and stared at me incuriously as they passed. I saw myself suddenly as others did: a scruffy, skinny lad. Even the dogs took absolutely no notice of me.
I almost turned around and went home. It would be a couple of days’ hard row upriver, and inside I flinched at the thought. Then I remembered the shame in Yani and Sopli’s eyes when they had returned empty-handed from Kilok. I felt that shame already burning in my stomach, and I knew now it was shame at my own powerlessness. I couldn’t turn back yet. My pride wouldn’t let me.
At the same time, I didn’t have the first clue what to do next. The thought of knocking on one of those doorways, of facing the sceptical eyes of a stranger, made my heart shrivel. As I stood there, caught between one action and another, the sun set and a fat orange moon rose, throwing strange shadows everywhere. In its unwavering light the houses looked sinister and dangerous, and I shivered as I made my way back to my boat. At first I missed it, I had hidden it too well, and for a few horrible moments I thought someone had stolen it. But then, with a rush of relief, I put my hands on its friendly wood, and I scrambled into its bows as if I were coming home. Which was true, really; that boat was now all I had of home.
I pulled out my blankets and made myself a bed of springy branches nestled inside the sheltering hull of my boat. The night was mild and clear, and I lay on my back looking up with burning, sleepless eyes through the shrubby branches at the stars burning in the luminous dark blue sky. I had been sitting idly in the boat all day, so I wasn’t tired, and now my thoughts chased each other around and around in my head like a lot of stupid, frightened puppies.
Mainly my thoughts were telling me I had just made the most foolish decision of my life.
17
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I lay back and watched the white ship of the moon on her long voyage above me. As the hours passed I felt my soul sinking, as if I were floating down through darkness, as if I were falling away from the moon and the world silvered by her light into an endless, black ocean. The waters beneath me were still and deep, and as each hour passed I sank more deeply into the darkness, further from the light, into a world that was ever more silent and more heavy.
I think I hadn’t really believed until that night in Kilok that the Book was gone. I had somehow kept the knowledge from myself. Now I couldn’t escape it.
There aren’t proper words for pain. When you hurt your body, or when you suffer toothache or a bad headache, the pain fills the whole world, and the only way to express it is to scream or groan; and then, when it’s over, you don’t remember it. The pain vanishes and your body forgets. I suppose it’s because if your body remembered what pain was like, it would be frightened all the time. It’s the same with grief or loneliness. Nobody can really know what pain is like for another person. Words can point towards the feeling, but they can’t describe it. You just have to hope that the person to whom you’re trying to describe the experience has felt similar pain themselves, because then they might nod and say, yes. Yes, it was like that.
But even though I would like to be understood, I hope no one who reads these words has felt like I did that night in Kilok. I had felt rage and intolerable sorrow when my mother died, but at least I was in my home, with my people. In Kilok, nothing made sense any more. I
I stood in the middle of the empty marketplace as the dusk deepened. A noisy bunch of starlings was squabbling in a locust tree and, further off, I could hear the faint shouts of children playing and the plaintive bleats of goats being brought in for the evening’s milking. A couple of people walked through the square and stared at me incuriously as they passed. I saw myself suddenly as others did: a scruffy, skinny lad. Even the dogs took absolutely no notice of me.
I almost turned around and went home. It would be a couple of days’ hard row upriver, and inside I flinched at the thought. Then I remembered the shame in Yani and Sopli’s eyes when they had returned empty-handed from Kilok. I felt that shame already burning in my stomach, and I knew now it was shame at my own powerlessness. I couldn’t turn back yet. My pride wouldn’t let me.
At the same time, I didn’t have the first clue what to do next. The thought of knocking on one of those doorways, of facing the sceptical eyes of a stranger, made my heart shrivel. As I stood there, caught between one action and another, the sun set and a fat orange moon rose, throwing strange shadows everywhere. In its unwavering light the houses looked sinister and dangerous, and I shivered as I made my way back to my boat. At first I missed it, I had hidden it too well, and for a few horrible moments I thought someone had stolen it. But then, with a rush of relief, I put my hands on its friendly wood, and I scrambled into its bows as if I were coming home. Which was true, really; that boat was now all I had of home.
I pulled out my blankets and made myself a bed of springy branches nestled inside the sheltering hull of my boat. The night was mild and clear, and I lay on my back looking up with burning, sleepless eyes through the shrubby branches at the stars burning in the luminous dark blue sky. I had been sitting idly in the boat all day, so I wasn’t tired, and now my thoughts chased each other around and around in my head like a lot of stupid, frightened puppies.
Mainly my thoughts were telling me I had just made the most foolish decision of my life.
17
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I lay back and watched the white ship of the moon on her long voyage above me. As the hours passed I felt my soul sinking, as if I were floating down through darkness, as if I were falling away from the moon and the world silvered by her light into an endless, black ocean. The waters beneath me were still and deep, and as each hour passed I sank more deeply into the darkness, further from the light, into a world that was ever more silent and more heavy.
I think I hadn’t really believed until that night in Kilok that the Book was gone. I had somehow kept the knowledge from myself. Now I couldn’t escape it.
There aren’t proper words for pain. When you hurt your body, or when you suffer toothache or a bad headache, the pain fills the whole world, and the only way to express it is to scream or groan; and then, when it’s over, you don’t remember it. The pain vanishes and your body forgets. I suppose it’s because if your body remembered what pain was like, it would be frightened all the time. It’s the same with grief or loneliness. Nobody can really know what pain is like for another person. Words can point towards the feeling, but they can’t describe it. You just have to hope that the person to whom you’re trying to describe the experience has felt similar pain themselves, because then they might nod and say, yes. Yes, it was like that.
But even though I would like to be understood, I hope no one who reads these words has felt like I did that night in Kilok. I had felt rage and intolerable sorrow when my mother died, but at least I was in my home, with my people. In Kilok, nothing made sense any more. I
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