The Wanderer
It was a beautiful day. Although it was the end of autumn, the weather was as warm as a day in late summer. The clear, warm sunlight shone through the leaves overhead as Tanda sprinted to Torogai’s hut.
The path was steep, but familiar. Tanda made good time.
I wonder if Balsa’s here.
Balsa and Jiguro were habitual wanderers, so they
weren’t always at Torogai’s house. Balsa’s foster father, Jiguro, might have
taken her somewhere on a bodyguarding job.
Tanda had last visited Torogai three weeks before. Balsa
and Jiguro had been at the hut then. Tanda hoped that they were still
there.
Tanda stopped running in the grassy area just outside the hut. He blinked in surprise when he saw Balsa engaged in combat with a heavy flaxen bag stuffed with something harder and heavier than rice.
Balsa had a slight build, so watching her take hits from the large bag and strike it in turn made Tanda stop dead in his tracks. He winced on Balsa’s behalf.
After a while, Balsa stepped back from the bag, wiping sweat from her forehead. She faced Tanda and said, “If you’re looking for Torogai, she isn’t here today.”
Tanda blinked in surprise at Balsa’s rough tone. “Where is she?”
“The Lower Fan in Kosenkyo.”
“What? Why?”
Balsa shrugged. “Dunno. She said some kid was possessed by a monster or spirit or something.”
Balsa took a deep breath, then rushed past Tanda toward the well. She loosened her collar a little, then drew up water in a bucket. She transferred the water to a basin, then pulled down a clean rag from where it hung on a makeshift clothesline. She dipped the rag in water and started cleaning herself up.
“...Balsa.”
Balsa pivoted, facing Tanda again. “Yeah?”
“Are you mad about something?”
Balsa’s eyes went wide. She appeared briefly troubled, then turned away. She looked up at Tanda, still hanging her head a little. “I’m not mad at you or anything,” she said. “I haven’t talked to anyone in more than a week. My voice sounds funny when it comes out.”
“You’re been alone here for that long?” Tanda was astonished. “What about Jiguro? Where is he?”
“He went to the Lower Fan, too,” Tanda said.
“For work?”
“He went to another bodyguard to borrow some money,” Balsa said. “His name’s Jijī, I think.”
“And you didn’t want to go with?”
Balsa looked at her feet. She wrung out the rag over the basin, then started wiping down her sides and stomach under her clothes. Her movements were rough, almost violent.
“It would be weird for a bodyguard to bring a girl with him,” Balsa muttered. “It’s not good for us to be seen together too often when we’re this close to the border. Rumors get around.”
Balsa shrugged like she didn’t care, but she was frowning. Her face was red and blotchy from where the bag had collided with her during training.
“Your middle finger’s bleeding,” Tanda said.
Balsa licked the blood off her finger.
Tanda approached the straw bag and pushed it. It was so heavy that it barely even moved. He couldn’t get it to budge so much as an inch unless he used both hands.
The bag started swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Tanda tried to stop it with his weight like Balsa had and felt himself tripping backwards.
Balsa caught Tanda before he fell. He looked up at her, slightly dazed.
“Idiot,” she said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
Balsa helped Tanda stand on his own two feet again. He was dizzy. He coughed, doubling over. Balsa rubbed Tanda’s back until the coughing fit passed.
“Did it hit your head?” Balsa asked.
“I…don’t know.” Tanda didn’t think that the straw bag had hit him in the head, but he was still a little confused.
Balsa helped Tanda sit down in a grassy area just outside the hut. “You and me aren’t very big yet, so if someone big hits us, it’s a shock. Try to remember how that felt so that you dodge next time.”
Tanda’s head felt like it was spinning. He nodded, which made the spinning worse.
“I was the same as you, at first,” Balsa said. “But I’ve been practicing every day, getting stronger, and it does get easier.”
Tanda’s eyes narrowed as he looked up at Balsa. “You’ve been fighting against that bag every day? For how long?”
Balsa bit her lip. “It’s part of spear training. There are times when I’m gonna be weaponless or disarmed, so I need to be prepared for that.”
Tanda wanted to ask if Balsa had been lonely, being here on her own and training for all this time, but he didn’t. If he asked, Balsa wouldn’t answer. She would probably laugh brusquely and shrug the question aside.
But Tanda understood without asking that being left alone for so many days made Balsa restless, bored...and yes, lonely, even if she wouldn’t admit it. There wasn’t much to do here in this hut in the mountains.
“Hey,” Tanda said, getting slowly to his feet. He brushed dirt from his clothes, then said, “Do you want to play?”
Balsa frowned. “Play what?”
“Anything,” Tanda said. “Anything you want to do. I can play today, so I think we should do whatever we want.”
“I don’t really want to play,” Balsa said. “I don’t have time. I’m almost out of dried meat and perishable food, so I was thinking I’d set some traps today.” Balsa rubbed the wet cloth against her neck, which was still sweating.
Tanda watched Balsa wring out the rag again and considered the food situation, then said brightly, “I know! We can go fishing!”
Balsa considered for a long moment, then nodded cautiously. “All right, let’s fish. I haven’t eaten seafood in...I don’t remember how long.”
Tanda raised his fist in the air and smiled. “Finally! We can go tabo fishing!”
“Tabo fishing?” Balsa looked confused.
“You’ve never gone tabo fishing before?” Tanda asked.
Balsa shook her head.
“Okay, I can teach you. It’s fun. I need to get a few things ready, but then we can head down to the river.”
Tabo were insects that lived in soft soil. Fish loved eating them, so they were excellent bait. He went to the entryway of Torogai’s hut and wiped dirt off his legs with the cleaning rags that were stored in a bucket by the door. Once he was cleaned up, Tanda went inside and looked for the kind of thick twine that Torogai and his mother used for mending clothes. He’d visited Torogai so often that he remembered exactly where it was.
Tanda picked up a long length of twine, folded it in half and cut it in two. Then he rolled the twine into a little round ball and slipped it in his pocket.
Tanda left Torogai’s hut and went to the nearby shed to fetch two fishing rods. “Balsa!” he called out. “Come here! I’ll teach you how to fish!”
Balsa rested a fishing spear against the wall of the shed. “I don’t need a fishing rod,” she said.
Tanda nodded, then passed her a length of twine and showed her how to wrap it. “You don’t actually need a fishing rod to catch fish, as long as you have tabo.”
“What are tabo?” Balsa asked.
“Small insects,” Tanda said. “They make holes in the mud...do you see?”
Tanda pointed to some tiny, but distinct, holes in the mud near the shed. Balsa nodded when she noticed them. “Ah, okay. So tabo make those holes.”
“It’s a nest,” Tanda said. “They stay hidden, wait for larger insects to pass by and jump on them to eat them. Watch.”
Tanda took his length of twine and unrolled it near the small holes on the ground. After a moment, a small black insect emerged from the hole and started nibbling on the twine. Tanda lifted the twine quickly, hoping the tabo would stay on it, but it dropped from the twine and vanished back into the nest.
Tanda sighed in disappointment. Balsa crouched down next to him. “Pass the twine to me,” Balsa said. “I wanna try.”
After Tanda passed Balsa the thread, she rolled it in a ball again, then started unrolling it little by little over the tabo nest. Tanda thought she was holding the thread too far away from the nest for the insects to be tempted to emerge, but he was proved wrong when several tabo darted from their nest at the same time. Balsa waited for the tabo to be firmly attached to the twine, then lifted it swiftly, as Tanda had done. The tabo stayed attached, but Balsa directed the twine at Tanda’s nose.
“Gah!” Tanda took a step back, feeling one of the tabo crawling over his face.
Balsa laughed. “There’s a whole bunch of dead ones in a jar in the shed,” she said. “So we don’t need any more. Anyway I’ve caught ‘em before, just didn’t know what they were called.”
“We can’t take them from the jar,” Tanda said. “Anyway, it’s my turn to catch some tabo.”
“Are you sure?” Balsa asked. “You seem kinda scared of them. I think they can sense it, and that’s why they were so shy with you. Maybe you reminded them of themselves, shy and always hiding.”
Tanda crouched down near the tabo nest with an expression of deep concentration. He didn’t want to believe that what Balsa had said was true, so he tried catching them over and over again. Each time, the tabo he’d managed to lure out jumped off his twine and fled back into their nest.
When Tanda looked up after another failed attempt, Balsa was gone. She returned shortly with a jar from the shed that was probably full of dead tabo.
Tanda frowned sourly, remembering what Balsa had said. He was determined to catch some tabo this time. He imitated Balsa’s movements, unrolling the ball of twine slowly a little distance away from the tabo nest.
And then...
“Got ‘em!” Tanda lifted the twine, and the tabo came up along with it. He counted seven or eight of them. He took the jar from Balsa and slipped the bugs inside.
Balsa and Tanda gathered up the rest of their fishing gear and went down to the ravine together. As they passed under the shade of bamboo trees, thick clouds of mosquitoes swarmed around them. Tanda pulled up fistfuls of tanto grass and passed them to Balsa. The smell of the grass repelled mosquitoes. They rubbed it on their arms and faces.
After descending a narrow mountain path for a while, Tanda heard the sussuration of insects and the rushing sound of water. The river was close.
Bright sunlight shone off the smooth white stones lining the riverbank. The breeze blowing over the river’s surface was cool and crisp.
“You can use a fishing rod if you want,” Balsa said. “I wanna use a spear.”
Balsa gripped her fishing spear and splashed it into the water, over and over again. Its sharp point struck the white stones lining the bottom with a strident clang.
Something about Balsa seemed different than it had a second ago. She gazed at the water’s surface with an expression of deep concentration. When her first few passes with the spear turned up nothing, she stood completely still and simply watched, every muscle tense.
Tanda observed Balsa for a few moments, watching her movements and feeling her tension like it was his own. Then he laughed.
Balsa looked up at him and frowned. “What?” she asked.
“You’re like a bear when you fish,” he said. “I’ve seen it. Have you ever looked at a bear poised over the water, waiting to smack their paw in and take out a fish?”
The look Balsa gave him was one of exasperation. “Don’t distract me with something so ridiculous when I’m trying to fish.”
Balsa walked a little away from Tanda so that her calves were submerged in the water. This river was deep, but the current was fairly slow. Balsa saw white froth on the rocks further downstream. Tanda got down on his stomach near the shore and looked down at where the fish swam in their hidden homes. His favorite fish swam in this river, and he was determined to catch some.
Tanda took some tabo from the jar he’d brought, placed a few on a slightly protruding rock in the river, and waited. Once he got used to the movement of the water, he could see what was under the surface much better. Bubbles formed at the base of reeds and popped as the river’s current passed through them. Every once in a while, Tanda saw dark shadows darting in and out of the reeds. Some shadows that he saw were completely still. Tanda wondered if those fish were sleeping, or if they had somehow mastered the art of remaining in place despite the water pushing them around.
Buyo were a kind of flying fish that emerged from the water to eat insects. One of them surfaced near Tanda, causing all the other nearby fish to flee with their eyes wide open and their mouths agape.
Tanda sighed a little in disappointment. So they can see me, like I can see them? What do I look like to them? He tried putting his finger in the water and watched all the fish dart away again.
The fish must think he was a bird or something, come to pluck them out of their homes. What else were they supposed to think, with his shadow passing over their heads like that? No wonder they were afraid.
Tanda frowned a little, imagining the thoughts of the fish. Even if his imagination was correct, fish like buyo did come above the water to eat bugs. How could the fish tell the difference between bugs and a bird? Was it simply the difference in size?
My hand is big, so they’re scared of it. Any sudden movements will scare them away, too.
After considering the situation for a short while, Tanda decided to try something. Slowly, very slowly, he put his hand in the water, then his entire arm. Fish fled away from him, but he expected it. It was an unbearably hot day, but it was the end of autumn and the river water was seasonably cold. The hand that Tanda had dropped underwater soon went numb from the chill.
Tanda kept his arm completely still. Some fish approached it, but when it didn’t move, they left it alone. Tanda was tempted to chuckle to himself, but he refrained.
There was a sudden slap to his head from behind. Startled, Tanda pulled his arm from the water, then rolled over on his back on the rock he was stretched out on.
Balsa crouched above him. Tanda hadn’t even heard her approach. “You can’t do it that way from the rocks,” Balsa said. “You’ve gotta get all the way in the river for that to work.”
Tanda simply stared. He was still stunned by the hit and the shock of his arm leaving the cold water.
Balsa sighed. “If you really wanna do it, I’ll show you. Watch.” Balsa started wading into the river.
Tanda flipped over and called out, “Balsa! Don’t!”
Balsa looked back at him with a puzzled expression. “You were trying to catch fish with your hands, right? I can show you. And you shouldn’t shout. The fish are already hiding.” She started explaining how fish reacted to seeing sunlight, not shadows, but it was clear that Tanda wasn’t really listening. She put her hands on her hips and laughed.
Tanda shrank back a little, confused, but Balsa walked backwards in the water, crouched down and grabbed him. “You can see how the fish react if you do this!” Then she threw him in the river. She was right behind him, jumping in with a terrific splash.
The water was cold, but Balsa was still laughing. Tanda turned to face her and laughed, too. He’d swallowed some water and his ears felt a little funny, but it really was a beautiful day. The trees overhead were red-gold with fall leaves, and above them, the clear blue autumn sky stretched out as far as Tanda could see.
Tanda coughed up a little water, then started swimming. He could just touch the bottom of the river with his feet. He headed for shore, soaked all over, and kicked off his clothes. The he made a graceful dive from the rocks and joined Balsa in the river again.
No comments:
Post a Comment