Hidden Memories

 

It was on one of these cold winter mornings, somewhat foggy and wet, that my mother, my sister-in-law and I were sitting around the fire in my mother’s room. There was a big pot of water boiling on the fire in the corner and beside it another one for soup (made of dried deer meat, which was mostly reserved for occasions like this one). Smoke pervaded the whole room. Now and then Uncle Nyiding, Ma Ashol, Auntie Nyalo’k or Grandpa Oolyng would come in. “How is our daughter doing?” they would ask. “She’s doing just wonderful,” Ma would reply with a look of great pride painted all over her face. And my sister-in-law, Nyalyng, would go down on her knees and bow (part of tradition and a sign of respect to elders) to serve them. She would pour hot water into their calabash, and some would also take with them hot soup. And of course, I would sometimes carry the calabash for some of them. Everybody would come for a chitchat with Ma and then disappear into the-foggy morning air.

My family house comprised three huts. They were built in a circle, surrounded by a solid fence with two entrances, one for men and other for women.

A figure came in through the women’s entrance, and when I finally found out who it was, it struck me as kind of odd. Ma helped him into the room. At first I could not make him out. But as Nyalyng started to put out the fire under the pot, the smoke cleared a little bit, and when I peered hard across the room, there he was, suspended on Ma’s shoulders like a broken arrow. He looked ailing, frail and sick and as white as a ghost. Jalldong Kiirr was standing next to Ma and supporting himself by holding on to her right shoulder. I wanted to yell out loud, “Hey it’s been a long time Grandpa! Where on earth have you been?” as I was so excited to see him, but he looked very sick. I felt sorry for him and just kept silent. Somehow, I remembered that children were not supposed to talk like that to their elders.

While I was helping Nyalyng clean the calabashes and gourds she had used to serve the visitors, Ma spoke with Jalldong Kiirr for a very long time. And for some reason I started to think, from the way their conversation absorbed them, that they were talking about some serious issues that affected the village and everyone in it. So I decided to eavesdrop.

“What do you think would happen, Kiirr?” I overheard Ma asking him, and as usual she addressed him by name. Of course, only elders could address one another by their names.

“I don’t know, Arrokk. Anything is possible.” He went silent for a while and then continued to say, “Maybe we should let the boys leave the village and go to the war.”

He paused for a long while, as if lamenting on a memory far hidden in the dusty shelves of the past; he just gazed into space. And for a split second I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. It was the pangs of fear. Of course that cannot be true, I thought. But worse was yet to come.

“We should let them die heroes, don’t you think so, Arrokk?” he said in a dreamy manner, gazing still at the dark ceiling of my mother’s room as if he were trying to come to terms with a mystery far beyond the spider’s web hanging loose. His expression was of an individual waking from a terrible nightmare, fully concious and yet the nightmare persisted.

Ma just nodded her head in agreement and remained silent. They must have sensed that I was listening, because neither of them spoke again.

“Nyallo, would you please carry this for your grandpa?”

Ma was deep in thought and looked very troubled, but she concealed her feelings extremely well. She smiled sweetly as she handed me a gourd of steamy soup. I led the way out, Jalldong Kiirr following me, and we talked as we progressed towards his home on the other side of the village.

It was on this cold winter morning that our warm and everlasting friendship was born.

Although Jalldong Kirr had told me a lot of great songs from the past and beautiful fairytales of the world beyond the darkness, he had never told me how old he was. And I doubted whether he ever knew or even cared to know that piece of himself. Once, I had wondered about that and was very close to asking him. But to me, he was the oldest human being on Earth, and the wisest grandpa. And that was that. He did not have to tell me. For it was all written in his wrinkles. I was very contented with his companionship. He was the gentlest and most compassionate soul that had ever touched mine.

His knowledge about his age was based on facts such as he’d lived through many more rainfall seasons than any man in his village. He also knew deeply that he’d lived through many more suns and moons of farming and harvesting than he could ever remember. He recalled sadly, having seen many children born into the village, that they would grow up into men and be tragically snatched away to the war or just disappear into the darkness beyond.

“It must be some kind of curse to live this long,” he confided, tearfully, one day under the baobab tree, which had become a shrine of our friendship.

“Don’t you like to be the wisest man on earth?” I asked.

“But no one in this village believes that. They think that I have lost my mind, and maybe my soul as well.”