Wackadoodle0987
Arch-Magnate of the Beau Monde Patriciate
This is a story inspired by my grandmother, and I hope it helps anyone with issues of self-acceptance. I know it helped her. Apologies for any errors; it was written a long time ago, and I only skimmed through.
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Once upon a time, not all that long ago, in a place far away there was a remote village where for generations things stayed the same. All resources could allow the people, was to sometimes survive. Progress had not been conceived of. There was barely any change at all. Fear was woven into everything. Culture was limited to such as breast-feeding, fastidiousness in all things, and never ever wasting food, or wood, or opportunity, and of course total obedience. Such as art, legend, inheritance, symbolism had not yet appeared, except within the context of the tales of how to make the tools of survival and hand them and knowledge on with greatest respect and tenacity to detail.
Of course there were celebrations. Food to eat was celebrated by a banquet, long interrupted by bellyache hunger. Drums broadcast regularly the birth of a child. A safe delivery of child and mother was not taken for granted. A healthy child and mother was good for everyone. Celebrate now, before the anxiety of the next pregnancy.
Deaths were quieter. Equally they were shared, grief ruptured and dispersed, heads bowed to the unknown purposes of some all-controlling God. The rains were always welcomed. The harvest of toddlers from the disease bred in puddles was a natural sacrifice to the creative powers of nature. More life than death came with rain. So celebrate. They had no idea after thousands of years, that malaria, certainly not how malaria, was the killer so often. They had no idea that a shivering feverish child should be cooled, not wrapped and held. They were a strong, fine, beautiful people.
Now in those days it was not just that the people had no space in their lives for toys. There was not even any word in their language for toys. But just as every tree has the potential to bare fruit, if conditions are favourable, so has every child born the potential for joy, at least at first. Although no one expressed that the children had a capacity for joy, the idea was somehow accepted, and one thing thoroughly understood. That was the Magic Pool.
Whenever the rains were about to come, there was a place between the village and the river, where overnight a pool would form. Sometimes it started just a grown man’s stretch across, and a hand deep. But almost always within a day or so it would be a shout across, and waist deep at the centre.
You must understand that almost all of the time there was no notion that water was nice. Water was essential and difficult to come by. Other than the thundering yellow river where men lost their lives fishing, which was somewhat salty, water came in small quantities. Its eye might blink up from the depths of the well, as hand over arm non-menstruating maidens pulled it just before dawn, before the sun beat down, in leather buckets that did not graze the soft walls. And during the rains there were, briefly, slimy puddles that festered before scabbing over.
So you can imagine that this crystal pool was magic, not even thought of as water. It was some strange gift not to be questioned.
The village had many taboos. Many of them so personal it does not benefit us to mention them here. In a village like this where firewood is scarce, nights as long as days, and candles not invented, once the sun has dropped, and prayers completed, there is nothing to do but sit with your household and talk until you fell asleep. Children first, keeled over in heaps on their mats, inactive elders last.
Other than rhythmical pounding cous with girl high mahogany mortar and pestle, there had never been any mechanical noise. The human voice carried in the dark, a lower faster melody than the cowbell song from the bats. There could be no secrets. But to laugh or weep loud enough to disturb those in the next compound was an aberration, an intrusion, bad manners.
So you will imagine just how magic was the pool when I tell you more about it.
To begin with, the adults allowed the children to seek the pool without reminding them they had better things to do. Of course we might argue this was sensible, as the children would be required to work all the harder during the rains, (having already denuded the ground at the breaking of the buds on the baobab, not knowing that premature preparation in the drying climate accelerated soil erosion). Once the Magic Pool came, even from the far side of the village, children’s squeals could be heard, and no one ran to beat them for it.
Unlike most things, there seemed to be no fear whatsoever of the pool, no taboos associated with it, even though it must have been realised in all things there are dangers. It seemed to be left to the children not to drown, without warnings. In fact the only taboo at all seemed to be to talk about it, as if that might spoil the unspoken magic of it. Strangest of all, nobody ever considered using the water, even though it was perfectly sweet. Not for washing, not for cooking, not even for drinking was it ever suggested a drop should be taken. But this certainly was not a taboo, this was respect.
So what did the children do when the Magic Pool came?
Well, I suspect you can guess. Every time it was forecast, by the full flower of the moringa, a couple of boys would sit up all night to see what black angel placed it there, and if white devils tried to steal it. But it always arrived the hour they both slept, and was found fixed safely to the sand. Once discovered a stillness rippled through the village as whispers passed between children, and chores were completed amazingly efficiently, before they took leave for release from the whole day’s duties, completed not long after noon.
And when they got there what happened?
Well they walked sedately to the edge, just in case it startled and took flight. Then they poked it with a toe, to see if it was wet. Then in dipped a finger, to see if it was sweet. Then gradually they relaxed and floated old kapok tree shells in it, like dugout canoes, and walked in it, and ran in it, and splashed it over one another, and sat in it, and poured it over themselves, and lay in it, and choked, and laughed, and when they could think of nothing else to do they went to tell the others.
The following days things settled down to more serious business. They would go early, before work, while the water was still ice cold, and just look deep into the pool for the children of yesterday and tomorrow, whose faces were said to be pictured there. They tried peeling back the surface to see the secrets within. And it seemed some quenching of the thirst of the inner spirit was accomplished in the process, as each child eventually moved away of its own accord, presumably satisfied, and ready for the celebration of the rains that followed, and the planting for another year of life.
That part was of course a private affair, the thinking time, done after laughter was exhausted. The Pool was a space for different activities. What exactly was learned there was never remembered. It was a moment to move on from, not hold on to, like most growing.
Generations were born, and died, at least thrice overlapped, like roofing, for better protection from the elements and circumstance.
And there was at one time a terrible war; it was said to end all wars, both sides valiant in the name of their deity. Many men never returned. Two children were born of two such men and by some mystery both survived. They were destined to marry. With no fathers to choose for them, they chose each other. Their mothers were pleased. So cautious these two anomalies, beyond wisdom it was said.
Just weeks after they married, there was yet another war. They decided not to have children, so very strange these two, until peace was restored. They did not want to put a child through what they had suffered. “How wise, how sad for us” thought their mothers. This war lasted even longer than the first. By the time it was over they were quite old. And for two more years no child came to them. It was assumed none would.
But then it happened. After all these years of waiting they had so many ideas for their child. It would have as much value as the dozen born to other parents. Everything would be done right. When she was born, almost a moon later than predicted, three long days and two nights after the onset of labour, they called her Rabia, “she who can see for a long way”, because she insisted on arriving face upwards, not Lahido, (our promise) as they had promised themselves. She was a miracle child in that she was born alive, and after a few minutes breathed, and managed to open those huge, swollen, blue-black eyes. She had long thick wavy black hair, long nails, and long limbs and such white skin. She did not look like a new-born except for that. And she stared at people, and turned her head to her mother’s voice on her first day. Her mother just lay beside her, looking at her for weeks, delighted, until she could resume her work again.
Her mother never allowed her to cry. She did not cry at birth, so why ever should she? She was destined to be different; an only child of old parents. She felt different. They encouraged her to think that being different, feeling different, was a good thing. It would provide security. She did not even entertain the idea that she could not possibly be so very different. It was accepted, understood, without question.
Once weaned all toddlers took their chances with the other children, supervised when remembered, except Rabia. She stayed with her mother who took no chances; there was no possibility of another child for her. When the Magic Pool came the first year after she was weaned, she did not even know.
The following year she wanted to go, but the opportunity just didn’t seem to occur. The third time her father did not want her out of sight, so her mother went with her and watched. Oh for sure she was special, just look at her.
She simply did not behave as the other children; (she lacked the basic experiences). She stood at the edge, delighting in the spontaneity of the other children, hoping that if invited she could join in with them. But they were busy with themselves, as children are, oblivious to others. Thoughtfully she smiled broadly at their antics, her own toes fidgeting indiscernibly in response.
The mother saw her daughter broadly smile, and wondered at her self- possession and great wisdom, so unlike the others of her age group, shrieking and splashing for all they were worth, like monkeys. Her mother’s heart warmed to the joy in her child’s face, she so seldom smiled. And as Rabia smiled at them she looked away, long into the distance, where she continued to smile as she could see herself, in her mind’s eye, playing, with them.
Her mother later reported to her father it was right for her to go. There was value in her going, as did the others. Of course it would not make her silly, like them. She was different, and she liked it, so let her go. “She will gain from it”, she asserted, to make sure of her chance. Such a concept was too alien to speak of, so was never mentioned again. She could go. The following year she was allowed to go alone, almost.
Rabia somehow felt her mother’s consciousness of her departure. Somehow felt her presence. Always overly self-aware she could not “forget herself”. Again she watched and smiled, her heart beating wildly. One day her children would be there in this pool, and she might play with them. Later, when the older children quietly went alone to gaze into the depths, she took a turn to see if she would have children, for she knew her mother nearly did not.
She quietly knelt. Oh see how special, her mother’s heart leapt. She just had to peek to see what Rabia might see. For a moment she saw a small face just like her mother. But then a shadow cast away all visions, found out looking, unease, spell broken. Rabia, stood, turned and obediently left.
“What did you see to turn away so fast?”
“Hannifen Mba."
“Well, maybe next year. And will you tell me, just in case it’s important?”
“Of course”.
But by the next year her mother was dead. Everyone now knew why she had turned so fast, what she had seen, and not told. She put it from her mind. Some feared her.
Time passed. Each year left of her childhood she went to the pool. She felt in her soul there was something there for her, she kept trying. Each year some desperate woman would follow her. The first year, just as her mind was opening, a young woman who had lost every child she had ever born cast her shadow. “What do you see?” she implored. She tried hard, saw nothing. Then she stared into the distance searching.
“I can see them all playing together”. She could not promise a live child, but she could say that, she must perform some healing.
The next year it was an old dying woman whose son had travelled years before the war that had killed the rest. They carried her. “He is alive, and strong, and always thinking of you, and trying hard to get back”. Her reputation was established. Her childhood drifted away. She had never been alone at the Pool.
She became a woman. She married. Her father and his great expectations died. She had children of course that she so much enjoyed. She particularly did not want them to be special. They weren’t. She was something of a disappointment to her husband and he let it be known. Not as devoted to him and domesticated as he would have liked.
The children grew, went to the pool unattended, had lives of their own. The girls scoffed at her reputation, hardly mentioned now. She encouraged that a little. The wives of her sons felt rather threatened by her watching ways, not right.
She felt so lonely.
One day a stranger came to the village. He came from an entirely different world. He looked different. He sounded different. He smelled different. His habits were different. Even his taboos were different. People were shocked, amused. He stayed a while. No stranger this strange had ever stayed before. He seemed to settle in. He began to influence the young boys, with plastic to scrub their mouths instead of twigs. And he showed them strange signs for strange words for strange things. They started not attending their instructions with their elders. They started knowing better than their elders. He was not wanted. Stories grew with their fear.
It was unthinkable to tell him to go. But he was no longer welcome. They had heard all he had to say, and tired of it. No good luck came from the stranger, and they did not want the bad.
The village leaders decided to consult Rabia. Let her make him go. So they met. She was afraid. She did not know what to say. They sat awkwardly. She saw the stranger watching her grandchildren. Their mothers were furious, and took them away. The space filled with others, unsupervised mavericks. They were cruel to each other, as children are. And she realised, just like her; he was trying not to interfere.
“I hate to see them being cruel. My father was a soldier, and we were always moving. The other children did not want to play with me because they thought I was different. They were very unkind. I did not cry in case my mother knew, and stopped me going with them”.
She began to understand his strange talking; his strange clothes that were so difficult to wear, his strange eating as though he was afraid that his food might soil his hands, instead of fearing his hands might soil his food. She saw his careless washing. She saw him learn not to waste the water she brought. She saw him learn her taboos. And sometimes she saw him asleep, like their young men, oblivious even to the shouting of his name, so carefree.
She ceased to be afraid. She began to look forward to their conversations. She felt she could speak freely, finding words for thoughts, feelings, ideas, and dreams, worries of which she had never spoken. She began to see her taboos for what they were, and he saw his. But both held on to them tightly, lest in losing those, they lost who they were. She needed to know who she was. So did he. Freedom of thought, real freedom, was new to both of them. Horizons skated from under as they sat together, seeing how much they had in common, underneath the skin of taboos. She felt so disturbed, so excited. A burden was lifting from her back, and she found herself clinging to it, which lifted her up almost straight, and younger than she had ever been.
He needed to know who he was, what he should do on this, it seemed, his quest for manhood. He told her of his world, far beyond her comprehension. Eventually she felt ready to break her own taboo, and asked him why he had come. He thought he had come to help people. “So is that why you get the boys to plant those strange trees?” Questions. So many questions. She did not know that she had a lifetime of questions.
“Of course”. His NGO reforestation objective was meaningless. Children collected firewood, girls fetched water, men caught fish, women gathered and pounded, boys hunted squirrels, and chased monkeys. That was how it was. She said nothing, him so full of his irrelevant importance, as the young are, searching for somewhere to put it. He said he had to go back and report what further could be done. He wanted her advice on that. She dreaded the idea of being reported in far off places where no one she knew could represent her. So she asked could she please be left out of it. Then he tried to explain it wasn’t like that, that it was for the villagers to decide what should be done, did she know what were their hopes?
Their hopes were that he would go, but she didn’t say that.
He pursued his explanation. It seemed someone somewhere had been allocated responsibility for this area, and he showed her a map to explain. She was horrified. She had seen a photograph once, a man so small, and could not move or speak. But a map! All that she knew was represented as a speck on a sheet that could blow into the fire. Put it away. She felt sick.
Significant? Significance? She wanted this to pass from her. But her duty was to come to terms with this, for her village. They needed her to do this. What power did he have? What power might fall on her village and children from where he came? Oh if only he had not come to disturb them.
She tried. After a sleepless night again she tried. “Could the rains be more plentiful, or last longer, but not too long?” (What else could they need?). No, but education was a priority he was sure, along with primary health care. They needed so much help to survive. Surely that was in the hands of God? She became so very confused. She knew he meant no harm. She knew he did not think he was dangerous, could not understand, like her, he was feared. She knew he had a clean heart, and she pitied him for his enormous strangeness and all his power that he knew not how to use. She found she wanted to protect him from the truth.
He persisted. They should not lose this opportunity. It was a tight programme with no flexibility to roll over budget surpluses. She was afraid for him. He would fail his entry into manhood. She was afraid for herself, for all of them, at this distant power and its expectations. Panic. She trembled. “I have no thoughts to give you on these things”. She was not wise at all. This was her moment her father had foreseen, that was vital to them all and she had nothing to say. She could speak no more. Her trust in herself drained away completely.
He saw her agony, and stopped. He released her from all his urgent remonstrations, and realised that the meeting of their worlds, through their relationship, was allowing his technology to tear through her spirit. He wanted to undo their conversation, withdraw his words, remove himself and his hard- edged hungry futility from her home. He saw it was better if he had never come: better to do none of the things that he thought so obvious before he knew better. He had the sleepless nights now. He wanted to be forgotten. He had harmed her, he saw that.
He tried again to meet her, to help her. She remained very shaken. “I see you have much sorrow”
“All women carry the burden of sorrow.” She replied as was the custom. He realised their survival required the utmost effort and discipline. He felt so gauche, so selfish. Sentiment had no space here. He could see that. If there was something to do, you did it without question, as though your life depended on it: because it did. Otherwise, between times, in the wilting heat of the day, or the numbing cold of the night, you waited.
He talked to her again about her sadness, her own personal sadness that seemed greater than that of the other women. She was surprised. She had begun to think as did the others, especially her husband and children, that it was her choice, or her nature to be miserable.
“I think my parents would not be proud of me. I am useless. They thought I would benefit my village. It was for that that they had me”. He knew the feeling. His parents were disappointed that he didn’t get a first class degree. He’d taken rural management, not law, as they hoped. That was why this project was so important to him. He protested what he knew. Being careful as he realised sometimes pride was all these people had left to hang on to.
Surely she was not there just to please her parents or the village. They had their lives; something of hers must be just for her. She could not see it that way. She had to be special. He understood being polite wasn’t polite. He had made her face something that could destroy her. He felt it, even if she did not know it yet.
He tried to pull something together to give her. She saw his desperation. She thought seeing her as an impostor with whom he had wasted his time agitated him. “All these years I have prepared myself for the time to help my village. Now is the time. I have nothing to say. I have no right to be with the speaking people. I am not a baby, so my place is with the dead. My life is a lie.”
Her sadness broke into tears that could not be shared. She was mourning her own useless life. He did not know anyone could weep so, and so silently, especially not these proud, obedient people. He knew he had to stay with her as she released her sorrow. She forgot who she was, where she was and even why she was. At first he felt awkward, ashamed. Then he knew it was all right. His soul moved towards hers and joined with all the souls who cry out in loneliness and despair. He felt humanity as one creature, lost, and she and he were part of that. Then he felt love for humanity. He knew why his parents wanted so much not from him, but for him. He felt free to love himself, and them, and her who had brought him to this wisdom so young.
The weeping drained away. They made light of it. The time passed for it.
Weeks passed. He still came to speak to her, more, even though she could not help him. Now she trusted him. Having exposed herself, he told her more about his world, his parents, and his doubts. His priorities were changing. His hopes were changing. He no longer needed to make his parents proud. She pointed out that their arms outstretched to him might be useful to grasp.
She could see how hard it was for these people, with so much power and so many choices, and no wiser than her own, to know what best to do. That an unmarried boy could drive a plane as easily as a donkey cart, surprised her far less than that so many chose to climb into that screaming bird, that did not, after all, foretell the ending of the world. Still they talked. He was going. The village relaxed. There was no plot.
She seemed to regain some self-esteem. He seemed to believe she was a bit magic, as she had been thought of as a girl, she knew his thoughts. How? “You are so much like me when I was your age”. She had never known anyone so much like her before, never known anyone so much. They laughed. Two generations, two colours, two sizes, two shapes, two genders, two cultures, two religions as different as a storm cloud from a moonbeam. He agreed when he drew breath, they were so alike. They nearly split with laughter, trying hard not to be heard, not for decorum, but lest required to explain. They laughed until they cried, and their tears as they wiped them off with their hands touched, and mixed, and many things that had been so important were diluted, and could drain away.
For all her return of confidence she could not advise him. Time ran out. The rains were due and he must leave while it was still possible to travel. She still had her inner sadness, but it was in remission. He needed to know he was leaving her in good spirits, and sometimes made reference to their earlier conversation. She did not want to bother with it, but he was persistent. So she thought.
She decided that her problem was she had never found her destiny. So he decided he would look for it for her. He looked under cooking pots, in her sleeping house, in her store box, even in her washing pile. His invasion went too far. She was angry at his young male impertinent intrusiveness. Furious when he would not stop, but laughing as she tried to beat him. She fought with him as if with the siblings she had never had. For some minutes they struggled in their play, her losing.
She astonished herself. Forty years fell away in a moment in her desperation to control him. “I never found my destiny because they never gave me time. The place to find it is the Magic Pool.” She told him all about it.
“Then we must look there”
“But I am too old”. Her agitation and excitement collapsed. He could not leave it like that.
“Am I too old to look?”
She gazed at his young face, and said, “Nearly”. She took him to where it might be. It was just forming. She kept well back.
It really did seem magic. The moon was bright, the night creatures hardly awake. People were still eating. He crept forwards and stared deep into the pool. There was no breeze. All he could see was reflections. He let go his breath, and it animated his reflected face. He thought how foolish to come here, to do something, and find himself trying to believe in magic. But wasn’t that magic? He let out another breath. Again his reflection moved. He drew back. He remembered going through all her personal things. They had no mirrors.
“Come Rabia, and see your destiny.”
“Is it there?”
“Of course, it has waited for you.”
“Can you see it? I do not think I will be able”. He reached back, and took her arm, and drew her forward. He knelt behind her, holding her shoulders, then pointed.
“Look.”
“I can see nothing at all.” She said in dismay.
So he pointed to his own reflection. “Can you see me there?” She could. “Then who is this with me?”
It was more difficult to see herself. He held her chin in his hand. And he watched her seeing herself for the very first time. “Oh I am so old and ugly!”
He was shocked. He was used to seeing her. He did not expect her to be so un-accepting. “Rabia, am I ugly?”
“Oh no, not now I am used to your strange looks. You are young and beautiful”
“So then, when I am old, will I cease to be beautiful?” She could not answer at first for the sorrow of knowing not every child who grows reaches age.
“You will always be beautiful.”
“And are we not alike?” Which was quite extraordinarily funny, if you saw them.
So she took another look. They looked together, knowing her sole destiny as with all of us, was to see herself just as she is, and have the courage not to turn away. And their destiny also was to see that, side by side, two worlds, two strangers, one humanity needing to be accepted to be free.
Feeling his respect gave her the courage to do now what she had never done in youth. Soon he left to return to his life. She stayed and continued with hers. The world continued to turn, without hesitation or acknowledgement, as it must. But there was a difference, in both of them.
He never returned. Once he sent a message to say, “Tell the boys to cut down the eucalyptus we planted. They will lower the water table, and take away the Magic Pool.” But the boys were busy. The elders would not instruct them. Who needs a magic pool when progress was anticipated? Anyway, the boys cleaned their teeth with neither plastic, nor sticks, and were beyond instruction.
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Once upon a time, not all that long ago, in a place far away there was a remote village where for generations things stayed the same. All resources could allow the people, was to sometimes survive. Progress had not been conceived of. There was barely any change at all. Fear was woven into everything. Culture was limited to such as breast-feeding, fastidiousness in all things, and never ever wasting food, or wood, or opportunity, and of course total obedience. Such as art, legend, inheritance, symbolism had not yet appeared, except within the context of the tales of how to make the tools of survival and hand them and knowledge on with greatest respect and tenacity to detail.
Of course there were celebrations. Food to eat was celebrated by a banquet, long interrupted by bellyache hunger. Drums broadcast regularly the birth of a child. A safe delivery of child and mother was not taken for granted. A healthy child and mother was good for everyone. Celebrate now, before the anxiety of the next pregnancy.
Deaths were quieter. Equally they were shared, grief ruptured and dispersed, heads bowed to the unknown purposes of some all-controlling God. The rains were always welcomed. The harvest of toddlers from the disease bred in puddles was a natural sacrifice to the creative powers of nature. More life than death came with rain. So celebrate. They had no idea after thousands of years, that malaria, certainly not how malaria, was the killer so often. They had no idea that a shivering feverish child should be cooled, not wrapped and held. They were a strong, fine, beautiful people.
Now in those days it was not just that the people had no space in their lives for toys. There was not even any word in their language for toys. But just as every tree has the potential to bare fruit, if conditions are favourable, so has every child born the potential for joy, at least at first. Although no one expressed that the children had a capacity for joy, the idea was somehow accepted, and one thing thoroughly understood. That was the Magic Pool.
Whenever the rains were about to come, there was a place between the village and the river, where overnight a pool would form. Sometimes it started just a grown man’s stretch across, and a hand deep. But almost always within a day or so it would be a shout across, and waist deep at the centre.
You must understand that almost all of the time there was no notion that water was nice. Water was essential and difficult to come by. Other than the thundering yellow river where men lost their lives fishing, which was somewhat salty, water came in small quantities. Its eye might blink up from the depths of the well, as hand over arm non-menstruating maidens pulled it just before dawn, before the sun beat down, in leather buckets that did not graze the soft walls. And during the rains there were, briefly, slimy puddles that festered before scabbing over.
So you can imagine that this crystal pool was magic, not even thought of as water. It was some strange gift not to be questioned.
The village had many taboos. Many of them so personal it does not benefit us to mention them here. In a village like this where firewood is scarce, nights as long as days, and candles not invented, once the sun has dropped, and prayers completed, there is nothing to do but sit with your household and talk until you fell asleep. Children first, keeled over in heaps on their mats, inactive elders last.
Other than rhythmical pounding cous with girl high mahogany mortar and pestle, there had never been any mechanical noise. The human voice carried in the dark, a lower faster melody than the cowbell song from the bats. There could be no secrets. But to laugh or weep loud enough to disturb those in the next compound was an aberration, an intrusion, bad manners.
So you will imagine just how magic was the pool when I tell you more about it.
To begin with, the adults allowed the children to seek the pool without reminding them they had better things to do. Of course we might argue this was sensible, as the children would be required to work all the harder during the rains, (having already denuded the ground at the breaking of the buds on the baobab, not knowing that premature preparation in the drying climate accelerated soil erosion). Once the Magic Pool came, even from the far side of the village, children’s squeals could be heard, and no one ran to beat them for it.
Unlike most things, there seemed to be no fear whatsoever of the pool, no taboos associated with it, even though it must have been realised in all things there are dangers. It seemed to be left to the children not to drown, without warnings. In fact the only taboo at all seemed to be to talk about it, as if that might spoil the unspoken magic of it. Strangest of all, nobody ever considered using the water, even though it was perfectly sweet. Not for washing, not for cooking, not even for drinking was it ever suggested a drop should be taken. But this certainly was not a taboo, this was respect.
So what did the children do when the Magic Pool came?
Well, I suspect you can guess. Every time it was forecast, by the full flower of the moringa, a couple of boys would sit up all night to see what black angel placed it there, and if white devils tried to steal it. But it always arrived the hour they both slept, and was found fixed safely to the sand. Once discovered a stillness rippled through the village as whispers passed between children, and chores were completed amazingly efficiently, before they took leave for release from the whole day’s duties, completed not long after noon.
And when they got there what happened?
Well they walked sedately to the edge, just in case it startled and took flight. Then they poked it with a toe, to see if it was wet. Then in dipped a finger, to see if it was sweet. Then gradually they relaxed and floated old kapok tree shells in it, like dugout canoes, and walked in it, and ran in it, and splashed it over one another, and sat in it, and poured it over themselves, and lay in it, and choked, and laughed, and when they could think of nothing else to do they went to tell the others.
The following days things settled down to more serious business. They would go early, before work, while the water was still ice cold, and just look deep into the pool for the children of yesterday and tomorrow, whose faces were said to be pictured there. They tried peeling back the surface to see the secrets within. And it seemed some quenching of the thirst of the inner spirit was accomplished in the process, as each child eventually moved away of its own accord, presumably satisfied, and ready for the celebration of the rains that followed, and the planting for another year of life.
That part was of course a private affair, the thinking time, done after laughter was exhausted. The Pool was a space for different activities. What exactly was learned there was never remembered. It was a moment to move on from, not hold on to, like most growing.
Generations were born, and died, at least thrice overlapped, like roofing, for better protection from the elements and circumstance.
And there was at one time a terrible war; it was said to end all wars, both sides valiant in the name of their deity. Many men never returned. Two children were born of two such men and by some mystery both survived. They were destined to marry. With no fathers to choose for them, they chose each other. Their mothers were pleased. So cautious these two anomalies, beyond wisdom it was said.
Just weeks after they married, there was yet another war. They decided not to have children, so very strange these two, until peace was restored. They did not want to put a child through what they had suffered. “How wise, how sad for us” thought their mothers. This war lasted even longer than the first. By the time it was over they were quite old. And for two more years no child came to them. It was assumed none would.
But then it happened. After all these years of waiting they had so many ideas for their child. It would have as much value as the dozen born to other parents. Everything would be done right. When she was born, almost a moon later than predicted, three long days and two nights after the onset of labour, they called her Rabia, “she who can see for a long way”, because she insisted on arriving face upwards, not Lahido, (our promise) as they had promised themselves. She was a miracle child in that she was born alive, and after a few minutes breathed, and managed to open those huge, swollen, blue-black eyes. She had long thick wavy black hair, long nails, and long limbs and such white skin. She did not look like a new-born except for that. And she stared at people, and turned her head to her mother’s voice on her first day. Her mother just lay beside her, looking at her for weeks, delighted, until she could resume her work again.
Her mother never allowed her to cry. She did not cry at birth, so why ever should she? She was destined to be different; an only child of old parents. She felt different. They encouraged her to think that being different, feeling different, was a good thing. It would provide security. She did not even entertain the idea that she could not possibly be so very different. It was accepted, understood, without question.
Once weaned all toddlers took their chances with the other children, supervised when remembered, except Rabia. She stayed with her mother who took no chances; there was no possibility of another child for her. When the Magic Pool came the first year after she was weaned, she did not even know.
The following year she wanted to go, but the opportunity just didn’t seem to occur. The third time her father did not want her out of sight, so her mother went with her and watched. Oh for sure she was special, just look at her.
She simply did not behave as the other children; (she lacked the basic experiences). She stood at the edge, delighting in the spontaneity of the other children, hoping that if invited she could join in with them. But they were busy with themselves, as children are, oblivious to others. Thoughtfully she smiled broadly at their antics, her own toes fidgeting indiscernibly in response.
The mother saw her daughter broadly smile, and wondered at her self- possession and great wisdom, so unlike the others of her age group, shrieking and splashing for all they were worth, like monkeys. Her mother’s heart warmed to the joy in her child’s face, she so seldom smiled. And as Rabia smiled at them she looked away, long into the distance, where she continued to smile as she could see herself, in her mind’s eye, playing, with them.
Her mother later reported to her father it was right for her to go. There was value in her going, as did the others. Of course it would not make her silly, like them. She was different, and she liked it, so let her go. “She will gain from it”, she asserted, to make sure of her chance. Such a concept was too alien to speak of, so was never mentioned again. She could go. The following year she was allowed to go alone, almost.
Rabia somehow felt her mother’s consciousness of her departure. Somehow felt her presence. Always overly self-aware she could not “forget herself”. Again she watched and smiled, her heart beating wildly. One day her children would be there in this pool, and she might play with them. Later, when the older children quietly went alone to gaze into the depths, she took a turn to see if she would have children, for she knew her mother nearly did not.
She quietly knelt. Oh see how special, her mother’s heart leapt. She just had to peek to see what Rabia might see. For a moment she saw a small face just like her mother. But then a shadow cast away all visions, found out looking, unease, spell broken. Rabia, stood, turned and obediently left.
“What did you see to turn away so fast?”
“Hannifen Mba."
“Well, maybe next year. And will you tell me, just in case it’s important?”
“Of course”.
But by the next year her mother was dead. Everyone now knew why she had turned so fast, what she had seen, and not told. She put it from her mind. Some feared her.
Time passed. Each year left of her childhood she went to the pool. She felt in her soul there was something there for her, she kept trying. Each year some desperate woman would follow her. The first year, just as her mind was opening, a young woman who had lost every child she had ever born cast her shadow. “What do you see?” she implored. She tried hard, saw nothing. Then she stared into the distance searching.
“I can see them all playing together”. She could not promise a live child, but she could say that, she must perform some healing.
The next year it was an old dying woman whose son had travelled years before the war that had killed the rest. They carried her. “He is alive, and strong, and always thinking of you, and trying hard to get back”. Her reputation was established. Her childhood drifted away. She had never been alone at the Pool.
She became a woman. She married. Her father and his great expectations died. She had children of course that she so much enjoyed. She particularly did not want them to be special. They weren’t. She was something of a disappointment to her husband and he let it be known. Not as devoted to him and domesticated as he would have liked.
The children grew, went to the pool unattended, had lives of their own. The girls scoffed at her reputation, hardly mentioned now. She encouraged that a little. The wives of her sons felt rather threatened by her watching ways, not right.
She felt so lonely.
One day a stranger came to the village. He came from an entirely different world. He looked different. He sounded different. He smelled different. His habits were different. Even his taboos were different. People were shocked, amused. He stayed a while. No stranger this strange had ever stayed before. He seemed to settle in. He began to influence the young boys, with plastic to scrub their mouths instead of twigs. And he showed them strange signs for strange words for strange things. They started not attending their instructions with their elders. They started knowing better than their elders. He was not wanted. Stories grew with their fear.
It was unthinkable to tell him to go. But he was no longer welcome. They had heard all he had to say, and tired of it. No good luck came from the stranger, and they did not want the bad.
The village leaders decided to consult Rabia. Let her make him go. So they met. She was afraid. She did not know what to say. They sat awkwardly. She saw the stranger watching her grandchildren. Their mothers were furious, and took them away. The space filled with others, unsupervised mavericks. They were cruel to each other, as children are. And she realised, just like her; he was trying not to interfere.
“I hate to see them being cruel. My father was a soldier, and we were always moving. The other children did not want to play with me because they thought I was different. They were very unkind. I did not cry in case my mother knew, and stopped me going with them”.
She began to understand his strange talking; his strange clothes that were so difficult to wear, his strange eating as though he was afraid that his food might soil his hands, instead of fearing his hands might soil his food. She saw his careless washing. She saw him learn not to waste the water she brought. She saw him learn her taboos. And sometimes she saw him asleep, like their young men, oblivious even to the shouting of his name, so carefree.
She ceased to be afraid. She began to look forward to their conversations. She felt she could speak freely, finding words for thoughts, feelings, ideas, and dreams, worries of which she had never spoken. She began to see her taboos for what they were, and he saw his. But both held on to them tightly, lest in losing those, they lost who they were. She needed to know who she was. So did he. Freedom of thought, real freedom, was new to both of them. Horizons skated from under as they sat together, seeing how much they had in common, underneath the skin of taboos. She felt so disturbed, so excited. A burden was lifting from her back, and she found herself clinging to it, which lifted her up almost straight, and younger than she had ever been.
He needed to know who he was, what he should do on this, it seemed, his quest for manhood. He told her of his world, far beyond her comprehension. Eventually she felt ready to break her own taboo, and asked him why he had come. He thought he had come to help people. “So is that why you get the boys to plant those strange trees?” Questions. So many questions. She did not know that she had a lifetime of questions.
“Of course”. His NGO reforestation objective was meaningless. Children collected firewood, girls fetched water, men caught fish, women gathered and pounded, boys hunted squirrels, and chased monkeys. That was how it was. She said nothing, him so full of his irrelevant importance, as the young are, searching for somewhere to put it. He said he had to go back and report what further could be done. He wanted her advice on that. She dreaded the idea of being reported in far off places where no one she knew could represent her. So she asked could she please be left out of it. Then he tried to explain it wasn’t like that, that it was for the villagers to decide what should be done, did she know what were their hopes?
Their hopes were that he would go, but she didn’t say that.
He pursued his explanation. It seemed someone somewhere had been allocated responsibility for this area, and he showed her a map to explain. She was horrified. She had seen a photograph once, a man so small, and could not move or speak. But a map! All that she knew was represented as a speck on a sheet that could blow into the fire. Put it away. She felt sick.
Significant? Significance? She wanted this to pass from her. But her duty was to come to terms with this, for her village. They needed her to do this. What power did he have? What power might fall on her village and children from where he came? Oh if only he had not come to disturb them.
She tried. After a sleepless night again she tried. “Could the rains be more plentiful, or last longer, but not too long?” (What else could they need?). No, but education was a priority he was sure, along with primary health care. They needed so much help to survive. Surely that was in the hands of God? She became so very confused. She knew he meant no harm. She knew he did not think he was dangerous, could not understand, like her, he was feared. She knew he had a clean heart, and she pitied him for his enormous strangeness and all his power that he knew not how to use. She found she wanted to protect him from the truth.
He persisted. They should not lose this opportunity. It was a tight programme with no flexibility to roll over budget surpluses. She was afraid for him. He would fail his entry into manhood. She was afraid for herself, for all of them, at this distant power and its expectations. Panic. She trembled. “I have no thoughts to give you on these things”. She was not wise at all. This was her moment her father had foreseen, that was vital to them all and she had nothing to say. She could speak no more. Her trust in herself drained away completely.
He saw her agony, and stopped. He released her from all his urgent remonstrations, and realised that the meeting of their worlds, through their relationship, was allowing his technology to tear through her spirit. He wanted to undo their conversation, withdraw his words, remove himself and his hard- edged hungry futility from her home. He saw it was better if he had never come: better to do none of the things that he thought so obvious before he knew better. He had the sleepless nights now. He wanted to be forgotten. He had harmed her, he saw that.
He tried again to meet her, to help her. She remained very shaken. “I see you have much sorrow”
“All women carry the burden of sorrow.” She replied as was the custom. He realised their survival required the utmost effort and discipline. He felt so gauche, so selfish. Sentiment had no space here. He could see that. If there was something to do, you did it without question, as though your life depended on it: because it did. Otherwise, between times, in the wilting heat of the day, or the numbing cold of the night, you waited.
He talked to her again about her sadness, her own personal sadness that seemed greater than that of the other women. She was surprised. She had begun to think as did the others, especially her husband and children, that it was her choice, or her nature to be miserable.
“I think my parents would not be proud of me. I am useless. They thought I would benefit my village. It was for that that they had me”. He knew the feeling. His parents were disappointed that he didn’t get a first class degree. He’d taken rural management, not law, as they hoped. That was why this project was so important to him. He protested what he knew. Being careful as he realised sometimes pride was all these people had left to hang on to.
Surely she was not there just to please her parents or the village. They had their lives; something of hers must be just for her. She could not see it that way. She had to be special. He understood being polite wasn’t polite. He had made her face something that could destroy her. He felt it, even if she did not know it yet.
He tried to pull something together to give her. She saw his desperation. She thought seeing her as an impostor with whom he had wasted his time agitated him. “All these years I have prepared myself for the time to help my village. Now is the time. I have nothing to say. I have no right to be with the speaking people. I am not a baby, so my place is with the dead. My life is a lie.”
Her sadness broke into tears that could not be shared. She was mourning her own useless life. He did not know anyone could weep so, and so silently, especially not these proud, obedient people. He knew he had to stay with her as she released her sorrow. She forgot who she was, where she was and even why she was. At first he felt awkward, ashamed. Then he knew it was all right. His soul moved towards hers and joined with all the souls who cry out in loneliness and despair. He felt humanity as one creature, lost, and she and he were part of that. Then he felt love for humanity. He knew why his parents wanted so much not from him, but for him. He felt free to love himself, and them, and her who had brought him to this wisdom so young.
The weeping drained away. They made light of it. The time passed for it.
Weeks passed. He still came to speak to her, more, even though she could not help him. Now she trusted him. Having exposed herself, he told her more about his world, his parents, and his doubts. His priorities were changing. His hopes were changing. He no longer needed to make his parents proud. She pointed out that their arms outstretched to him might be useful to grasp.
She could see how hard it was for these people, with so much power and so many choices, and no wiser than her own, to know what best to do. That an unmarried boy could drive a plane as easily as a donkey cart, surprised her far less than that so many chose to climb into that screaming bird, that did not, after all, foretell the ending of the world. Still they talked. He was going. The village relaxed. There was no plot.
She seemed to regain some self-esteem. He seemed to believe she was a bit magic, as she had been thought of as a girl, she knew his thoughts. How? “You are so much like me when I was your age”. She had never known anyone so much like her before, never known anyone so much. They laughed. Two generations, two colours, two sizes, two shapes, two genders, two cultures, two religions as different as a storm cloud from a moonbeam. He agreed when he drew breath, they were so alike. They nearly split with laughter, trying hard not to be heard, not for decorum, but lest required to explain. They laughed until they cried, and their tears as they wiped them off with their hands touched, and mixed, and many things that had been so important were diluted, and could drain away.
For all her return of confidence she could not advise him. Time ran out. The rains were due and he must leave while it was still possible to travel. She still had her inner sadness, but it was in remission. He needed to know he was leaving her in good spirits, and sometimes made reference to their earlier conversation. She did not want to bother with it, but he was persistent. So she thought.
She decided that her problem was she had never found her destiny. So he decided he would look for it for her. He looked under cooking pots, in her sleeping house, in her store box, even in her washing pile. His invasion went too far. She was angry at his young male impertinent intrusiveness. Furious when he would not stop, but laughing as she tried to beat him. She fought with him as if with the siblings she had never had. For some minutes they struggled in their play, her losing.
She astonished herself. Forty years fell away in a moment in her desperation to control him. “I never found my destiny because they never gave me time. The place to find it is the Magic Pool.” She told him all about it.
“Then we must look there”
“But I am too old”. Her agitation and excitement collapsed. He could not leave it like that.
“Am I too old to look?”
She gazed at his young face, and said, “Nearly”. She took him to where it might be. It was just forming. She kept well back.
It really did seem magic. The moon was bright, the night creatures hardly awake. People were still eating. He crept forwards and stared deep into the pool. There was no breeze. All he could see was reflections. He let go his breath, and it animated his reflected face. He thought how foolish to come here, to do something, and find himself trying to believe in magic. But wasn’t that magic? He let out another breath. Again his reflection moved. He drew back. He remembered going through all her personal things. They had no mirrors.
“Come Rabia, and see your destiny.”
“Is it there?”
“Of course, it has waited for you.”
“Can you see it? I do not think I will be able”. He reached back, and took her arm, and drew her forward. He knelt behind her, holding her shoulders, then pointed.
“Look.”
“I can see nothing at all.” She said in dismay.
So he pointed to his own reflection. “Can you see me there?” She could. “Then who is this with me?”
It was more difficult to see herself. He held her chin in his hand. And he watched her seeing herself for the very first time. “Oh I am so old and ugly!”
He was shocked. He was used to seeing her. He did not expect her to be so un-accepting. “Rabia, am I ugly?”
“Oh no, not now I am used to your strange looks. You are young and beautiful”
“So then, when I am old, will I cease to be beautiful?” She could not answer at first for the sorrow of knowing not every child who grows reaches age.
“You will always be beautiful.”
“And are we not alike?” Which was quite extraordinarily funny, if you saw them.
So she took another look. They looked together, knowing her sole destiny as with all of us, was to see herself just as she is, and have the courage not to turn away. And their destiny also was to see that, side by side, two worlds, two strangers, one humanity needing to be accepted to be free.
Feeling his respect gave her the courage to do now what she had never done in youth. Soon he left to return to his life. She stayed and continued with hers. The world continued to turn, without hesitation or acknowledgement, as it must. But there was a difference, in both of them.
He never returned. Once he sent a message to say, “Tell the boys to cut down the eucalyptus we planted. They will lower the water table, and take away the Magic Pool.” But the boys were busy. The elders would not instruct them. Who needs a magic pool when progress was anticipated? Anyway, the boys cleaned their teeth with neither plastic, nor sticks, and were beyond instruction.
