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The second day saw them deeper in the swamp taking narrow channels sometimes so confined that they had to push their way through reeds and low hanging trees passing from one channel to another. There were four boats altogether, theirs, the canoe used by the guide, and two others carrying the old woman and some other members of the following.
In the evenings, they set up camp, setting up the tents, making a fire, preparing food. The people were still afraid of Wals, avoided looking at him and were careful not to touch him. The morning of the third day, Manueline noticed unmistakable signs that other people had passed the same way before. There were broken reeds where they passed from one channel to another, on one island, she saw the remains of a camp; there had obviously been many fires and she could see some trees had been cut down. She called to the guide, asking him if they were now taking the same path as the following. He came back to her in his canoe, smiling and pointing at the camp site saying that they were. The people had camped on that island on the second night of their journey through the forest.
Manueline looked at the island and apologized to him saying she was sorry for all the damage done by the following. He smiled and shook his head, "It will pass, it will take time but it will pass." He pointed to an unusually high piece of land directly south, ahead of them, "We will meet the southern guide at that place." He laughed and said, "It has a name in our language that means, 'Come and dry your feet.' I don't know what you would call it, 'Footrest Island' perhaps."
They arrived at the island around midday. There was another man of the forest standing on the shore watching them come in. He walked down to the water's edge as they came close, looking curiously at the people in the boat. He stepped back and distanced himself from them as Manueline and Wals stepped ashore following the other guide. There followed a heated conversation between the two guides. While they did not actually point at Manueline, Wals and the wolf, they kept looking in their direction, both of them getting increasingly agitated.
Eventually Manueline decided she would have to intercede and discover what was worrying them. She walked up to them, the southern guide visibly shifted away from her. "What's the matter?"
The northern guide looked at her nervously, apparently wondering what he should say. "This man claims you were seen, south of the forest two days ago." He paused and added, "You and the great dog and the man, all three of you were seen."
Manueline asked, "He saw me with his own eyes?" The southern guide shook his head. Speaking the northern language with a thick accent he said, "No, I heard it from another; he described you and the man, hair color, eyes, they all match." He added, obviously uncertain of himself, "I don't understand, if you could be there two days ago why do you need me to lead you there now?"
Manueline shook her head, "We weren't there two days ago, we were with this man, he will tell you. There are others like us." She almost stopped herself, stopping to think of what she had just said. It was true, not just because of what the man had said, but in that moment she saw that the world was made in such a way that they were not alone. There were other people like them. Other people who faced the same problems they did and would have reacted in the same way. Suddenly it seemed the most natural thing in the world and she even laughed as she spoke again, "There are other people like us. You will find us in many places, maybe even sitting around your own fire. Look for us always, always we will be there. You will take us through the swamp and maybe meet these others maybe not." She smiled and reached out putting a hand on his chest. "Maybe such a person is inside you. I hope I would embrace him if I found him just as I hope I would embrace myself."
The southern guide stepped back as she touched him but steadied himself as she smiled and he felt her touch. He looked down at her hand and then up at her still smiling face as her hand dropped away. He returned the smile and touched his hand to his chest where she had touched him, "I will lead you then."
The northern guide watched them, a quiet, calm expression on his face, "I understand, it is all one, we are each in the world and also a world in ourselves." He nodded towards Wals, "He has shown us there is death in all of us, it is all around us and everywhere we go. But there is life as well and life is good."
Manueline asked, "Is it safe to swim in the water?" The northern guide said, "Come I will show you." He led her up onto the island which at its highest was no more than twenty paces above the level of the surrounding countryside. Still Manueline had a tremendous sense of height as they came to the top of the island. They followed a clear path down the other side which was steeper than the side they came up. Manueline felt as though the country leaned in the direction of the slope. It reminded her of the ice breaking up on the river at the end of the winter. It was as though a great piece of the countryside had been pushed up by pressure from the surrounding land. She had walked up the shallow slope on the other side where they landed and now they were clambering down the broken face of the land. Looking up the way they came down, she could even see the bare earth where there was almost a cliff leading up to the top of the island. She followed the northern guide.
She heard the water before they came to it. Like the height of the island, it seemed exaggerated by comparison with everything else she had experienced in the last few days. The island cliff seemed immense though it was insignificant compared with the cliffs she and Wals had seen traveling on the river after leaving their winter home. In the same way, the trickle of water coming out of the cliff seemed like a torrent as they had seen no moving water for days; everything in the marsh being still, with hardly any perceptible movement at all. They came upon the spring, gushing out near the base of the cliff. It was carefully channeled so as not to erode the cliff as it gushed down into a pool below.
The channel and the pool were both made from wood; the channel being a hollowed out log like a long canoe with a hole either end of it. One end was set right into the cliff, the other end projected out over the pool with a constant rush of clear water falling from it into the pool a good three paces below it. As she came closer, Manueline saw that the pool was not made entirely of wood but merely had wooden sides, the bottom of the pool appeared to be a fine gravel.
The northern guide turned to her, a smile on his face, gesturing to the pool. "This is a fine place to bathe. My people believe it is a source of knowledge and health to bathe here. Can you find your way back?" He asked the question, the smile still on his face but a serious look in his eyes.
Manueline thanked him and assured him she could. "Good, then I will leave you. He bent and picked some leaves from a broad-leafed plant that was growing a little way off from the pool. There were dozens of the plants dotted around the pool. Manueline realized, deliberately so, as he handed the leaf to her and said, "Crush this and rub yourself with it. It will cleanse your skin and keep the insects away," He laughed and added, "and it smells good."
The guide disappeared and Manueline found herself standing alone beside the pool. It seemed as though she was alone for the first time in her life. She thought about other times, being alone in the courtyard was not really alone as there was always the remembered presence of so many others; her parents, her brother and sisters, the whole hierarchy of the place was inescapably present, whether there were people there or not. Then she thought of times in the woman's house in the forest, especially before the wolf came and she remembered, she had been alone then. Truly alone, because Wals was so absent from himself.
She sighed and shook her head, pushing it all away, coming back to herself standing by the pool. She saw that being alone was not something tied to the presence or absence of others but rather to who she was. The loneliness of the house in the forest was something she ran away from because she was afraid of herself and of the life she had thrown herself into. She was still afraid but there was something different about it.
She took off the cloth she had wrapped round herself and stood naked for a moment on the edge of the pool, still holding the plant the guide had given her. She was about to step into the pool when she heard something on the path and looked up. There was no fear or expectancy, she simply looked to see who came and laughed when she saw it was the wolf. He came trotting down the path. Evidently pleased to see her or pleased with himself for finding her. He had disappeared as soon as they stopped at the island, as he usually did as soon as they reached land and so missed her going off with the northern guide. She crouched down and put her arms round him as he came up to her, burying her face for a moment in the rough of his neck.
She got up and stepped into the pool, watched idly by the wolf. She walked over and stood in the stream of water where it plunged into the pool allowing it to pour over her. She thought back to the immense waterfall that they saw just before they came down to the country where the eight men attacked them. She imagined herself standing under it, feeling the full power of the river pouring over her body, washing it of all the grit and dirt that life had ground into it. She imagined herself becoming the river, pouring herself into the water, letting herself become the river, till everything the river touched, she touched; till all the life in the river and on the banks of the river became her life. She became the villages along its banks, the men fishing and working on the water. She was the swamp and the river in the forest. She was the river beyond the forest all the way to the sea. All of the people that lived on it and by it, beyond the forest to the south, all of it was in her and all of it became her as she stood in the stream of water. She did not even flinch; she hardly even heard when the wolf howled his full-throated, midnight moon call, howling out in the middle of the day. He knew what she felt, he knew and he called for her, called out to the creatures of the forest around him, telling them of her life, of his life and his wild, howling sense of life and of being alive that he recognized in her.
Manueline stayed in the water for a long time, finally remembering the leaves and going back to the edge of the pool where she had left them. She smiled at the wolf now lying with his head on his paws watching her. She remembered his call for her in the water but it was something that she could hardly acknowledge it was so powerful in her still. She still felt the massive power of the river and waterfall coursing over her. She stepped delicately, being careful with herself and the world around her. She took the leaves and returned to where the water fell into the pool and started rubbing herself . The leaves made her skin tingle; she felt the dirt run off her as the sap from the leaves worked into the surface of her skin and shifted the dirt, letting it run off into the pool and out, back to the world it came from. She washed her hair, her feet, everything, until she felt clean from head to toe. Reluctantly she got out of the pool and contemplated the clothes she had been wearing, they were not clean. She just picked them up, slipped her feet into her sandals and walked off up the path, calling the wolf after her.
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JP Thompson (patrick@standingwaiting.com)