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The next day the river turned suddenly south. Manueline woke early and got Wals and the wolf into the boat and left, with the usual surge of activity as they made their way out into the current; people taking down the tents, packing their belongings into boats, frantically searching for something lost as the boats pulled out into the stream. Manueline saw a child running frantically down the beach obviously separated from its family. Someone just picked the child up and put it in a boat. Manueline was astonished at the number of boats that now followed them. She literally couldn't count them. If there had been forty the previous day there must have been more than twice that number now. She guessed there were over a hundred boats, many of them obviously big working boats or even river ferries, all of them full of people.
Manueline looked at them wondering what it all meant. Why were all these people following them? Where did they think they were going? She had no idea. She turned her attention to the boat, hoisting the sail and sailed clumsily out into the slow moving stream, the sail barely making any difference to their progress through the water.
Halfway through the morning they passed another large village, bigger even than the one they had passed at the beginning of the previous day. More than half the boats went ashore and again there were shouts and cries heard over the water. Manueline and Wals drifted on downstream soon passing beyond the sound of the stricken village. She saw the smoke and knew that it was burning. It seemed the villages now knew of their coming. Some sent boats out to meet them.
Manueline watched them going from one boat to the next trying to understand what was happening; seeking how to avoid the visitation of death and destruction that threatened them. It did them no good. There was no one to talk to. None of them even tried to talk to Manueline and Wals. They rode in one of the smallest boats on the river. The wolf was invisible, asleep in the bottom of the boat. Many of them seemed to give up in despair and followed the others, not knowing what else to do.
The next day the crowd of boats grew again. Manueline heard them coming to the beach all through the night. That day there was a huge crowd of boats on the river stretching as far upstream as the eye could see. Now most of the villages they came to were deserted. The people had either fled down river, spreading word of their coming, or come up river and already joined them. Invariably some of the boats would go ashore and strip the village of anything useful, boats, food, shelter, animals; they took it all, leaving nothing but smoldering ashes behind them.
At the end of the day, they camped on a beach again. The tent and food appeared along with the chairs. It started to rain and an awning appeared, raised above them even as they sat by the fire. Manueline sat quietly looking out at the rain, the wolf lying at her feet. She thought about the events of the days past, thinking of the villages and all the people now traveling with them. She tried to understand the connection between her and Wals and all the people around them. She could not see how it had happened. None of it made any sense to her. It was as though she had been drawn into the death hut in the field and that now the whole world was in the hut with her or the hut had been turned inside out and the whole world had become a death hut, trapping them all in an inescapable descent into death. Death had come among them and the world turned to an obsession with it.
But the world had not been with them that night, they had been entirely alone. It was only because they were alone that it had been possible for her to reach Wals. If anyone else had been there, she never would have reached him. Now, the presence of the other people seemed entirely coincidental. Sitting there, she thought for a moment that they had nothing to do with it. It would have happened whether they were there or not, it would go on whether they were there or not. She knew there was a fundamental lie in that; there was something about their coming that set it off. It might be that their presence now made no difference but their coming had made a difference. Guilty or not, they had started it, both of them. Try as she might she could not turn away from it. They might not carry the responsibility for what happened, but there was no real question in her mind. Wittingly or unwittingly, they started it and she knew the corollary, when the time came, they would have to stop it as well.
The rain stopped and she could hear people up and down the beach coming out from whatever shelter they had been able to find. She called the old woman and the two of them walked up and down the beach. There were now so many people that they spanned several beaches and in some places, they had moved inland as well. Manueline carefully made her way throughout the crowd, making sure she was seen and heard by as many people as possible. She spoke to many people, asking them especially about the villages they passed and she let them know that burning the villages was not something she approved of. Taking food or other movable goods that had clearly been abandoned was one thing, but wanton destruction would just bring death to them to them all. She said the same thing in a number of places and saw that people heard and understood. She was not sure it would make any difference but it eased her mind a little think that people might be more inclined to go home if there was a home to go to. She also emphasized the importance of keeping themselves and the area around them as clean as possible. At first, people looked at her strangely, not understanding what she meant. She realized they could not do much about personal cleanliness but they could at least keep the camp clean and, especially, keep the water clean. She spoke about it several times in several places and again she saw the people making an effort to understand her and follow her words as best they could.
They returned to Wals and the tents. That day the river had turned east again and Manueline asked the old woman to find someone to come and talk to her who knew the river and could describe where it went. She disappeared and came back a little while later with an elderly man who came and knelt at Manueline's feet touching his head to the ground. She told him to sit and he edged away from Wals not even daring to look at him.
She asked him how the river went and had him draw a map both up river to the gorge and the falls and down river into the forest and beyond. He knew the whole length of the river right down to the King's City and sat late in the night telling her stories of the river, the people on its banks and the path it took, especially through the forest. In the forest, the river became a huge marsh. "It is easy to get lost in it. You follow what seems to be a main branch of the river, the water flows, never fast you understand but it flows, you think it must go somewhere but it just seeps into the swamps and disappears, leaving you to try to find your way out."
Illumina asked, "When do we get to the forest?"
He looked nervous, "Another two days at the rate we have been traveling, the swamp begins three or four days after that." Manueline asked him if he knew the way through. He shook his head, fearful of the denial but even more afraid of lying to her. He told her only the local people knew because it constantly changed. They would have to find local people to guide them through or the whole crowd would be lost and they would all die.
The old woman had been sitting to one side listening to the stories told by the river man. Manueline turned to her and told her that they would have to find local people of the river, people who could guide them through the swamp. The old woman said she would spread the word and it would be done.
Wals had eaten earlier and sat quietly listening to the stories as well. He moved and cleared his throat looking down at the wolf that sat at Manueline's feet. He bent over and looked at the wolf calling him over. The others watched, Manueline thinking nothing of it but sensing that the others saw matters differently. The wolf got idly to his feet and walked over, sitting down, leaning against Wals' legs. He sat looking round as Wals caressed his ears. He looked up, his mouth open, tongue hanging out, looking at Wals for a moment; then he barked, a low gruff sound, stood up and trotted off into the dark. Later in the night, they heard him calling to the moon and in the morning he returned, his coat spattered with blood, people saw him trotting through the camp in the early morning just as the sun rose.
Manueline got up to find the wolf sitting outside her tent, still smelling of the kill. She wrinkled her nose at him and then wrinkled her nose at herself, realizing they both stank. She looked around her at the people covertly watching them and she felt something explode inside her. She had had enough and needed to be able to do what she wanted to do. She wanted to be free of them, to act as though they did not exist.
She called the wolf and ran down to the water's edge. She stripped off the cloth that she wrapped around herself. The same one she had worn all the way from beyond the forest. She stripped it off and went into the water. She scrubbed and rubbed herself, calling the wolf in as well. She scrubbed him getting the blood off and playing with him in the water.
Part way through this, Wals came out of the tent and stood watching her. He was the only person on the beach who watched her. All the others turned away not daring to look. He watched her, quite unselfconsciously fascinated by her body, the texture and color of her skin and the way she moved, playing with the wolf, coming out of the water and wrapping herself in the cloth again. The wolf shook himself, spraying them both with water and she laughed.
She called out to the old woman, saying she wanted another cloth. The old woman had evidently anticipated her for she immediately produced one. Manueline took it, taking the old one off and drying herself with it. She put the new one on and gave the old one to the old woman who had carefully turned her back. Manueline asked her to clean it and bring it back, she said, "No, on second thoughts you can keep it, just make sure I have a clean cloth every morning."
With that, she called to the wolf, gathered up Wals and got them both in the boat. This time she didn't push off herself but called some people nearby and had them push the boat out into the water. It seemed the whole riverbank came to life and followed them out onto the water; there were so many people and so many boats, the surface of the river seemed to come alive. It was as though you could walk across it by stepping from boat to boat.
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JP Thompson (patrick@standingwaiting.com)