river woman

‘Do you have any old family photographs?’ Mona asked Losi. ‘Any pictures of your father-in-law, or your own parents? Anything from the early days?’

Mona had become a friend of the Hoxo family. She came to the village every time she visited me in Gurdum, which was three or four times a year now.

‘There is nothing like that,’ Losi said to her, laughing. ‘There are only stories that I hear all the time, and most of the time I think my husband just makes them up!’

But she went to a corner of the house and began pulling clothes and biscuit tins out of an old trunk. She struggled with the lid of one of the tins and rummaged through its contents. Then she came back holding out a creased postcard-sized sepia print.

In the picture was a young woman, with a handsome man in uniform. He was tilting slightly towards her and smiling into the camera. At once my friend and I recognized that here was a woman who was eternally young. She was radiant and darkeyed and her long hair was pulled back in a simple knot. It was a picture of the legendary beauty Nenem, mother of Losi, better remembered as the woman who fell in love with a British officer.

I wondered who might have taken the photograph and how they might have posed, or dared to, in front of an officer’s bungalow. She must have been very brave, Nenem, to accept the miglun’s attention and give him love in return in the face of so much gossip and astonishment. Rakut remembered that his father, happily employed with the migluns at the time, riding the single bicycle in the village and delivering government mail, used to say that he had seen Nenem flitting in and out of the sahib’s office many times, but that he had never accosted her. Only once he had nodded briefly to her but she had looked away quickly.

Those who had known her said Nenem was of quiet demeanour, but with an impulsive streak that was unpredictable. ‘Like the river,’ they said.

It was the time of war in all the world. Such a war had happened once before, but it had not brought many miglun soldiers to the Siang Valley. Now, they seemed to be everywhere, for they were fighting the Japans further to the east, where Hoxo’s and Rakut’s fathers had gone.

Of course, the white sahibs were not strangers in the region by then. Since the Abor expedition of 1912 after the Komsing incident, the whole of the Siang valley had been opened up for exploration and the numerous villages of the frontier hills had been brought under British administrative control. When gunfire set the villages ablaze, the elders had conceded defeat by waving tattered old newspapers. Some years before the war began, the British had set up permanent camp on the banks of the river at Pigo, having bargained with the villages of Duyang for land. The villagers had agreed on a square mile of territory to house buildings for the political agent, a doctor and a police officer.

Now the whole area had become a free trade zone with land and river convoys, officers, traders and porters moving in all directions. The villagers saw the lights of Pigo from their hilltops and were seized with a desire to learn new things, or at least to examine them and find out what it was all about. Everyone was flocking to this new destination which was now the recognized seat of power.

One day, a group of young girls from Duyang were walking to the market in Pigo. It was the season of oranges and the dark green trees were bursting with fruit. Every village in the area boasted the sweetest, biggest oranges, and the girls were carrying baskets laden with the fruit. If they could sell everything they would buy paraffin, molasses, maybe a wad of leaf tobacco. Or they would tuck the coins into their bodices and walk back home.

Suddenly they saw a cloud of dust swirling up and they all stopped.

‘Aiee! It’s the migluns!’

‘Sshhh! Let them pass.’

They all looked down at their dusty feet, clutching their basket straps. An olive green jeep was driving up, and as it passed them it seemed to slow down. Nenem lifted her eyes and met the gaze of the young man who was driving. They stared at each other. Then the vehicle lurched and shot off towards the river. Yasam and Neyang started talking immediately.

‘Aieee… I thought it was going to stop!’

‘As if!’

‘For what would it stop?’

‘Maybe they would have bought our oranges!’

They walked steadily for another hour and a half, and when they reached Pigo they settled down under the big tree where other women from the outlying villages were already seated. Nenem chose her place and laid out her oranges in small, shiny mounds. She got her coin bag ready, the braided one that she had carried with her just for luck.

The market was laid out in a circular design, with wooden front shops that sold rice, cloth, beads, tobacco and salt. They were run by ayings, plainsmen, who all spoke the local tongue, and no one minded them coming and setting up business like this as long as they were friendly and gave in when the villagers bargained with them. In the centre of this circle stood the old, giant tree, its branches spreading out like a green umbrella over the tin roofs. A small paved path ran round the massive base of the tree, and it was here that the tribes occupying the banks of the river were allowed to sit and lay out what they had to offer. It was a jumble of food, vegetables, bamboo baskets, edible insects, jungle roots, herbs, ginger and local medicines. Some women even brought pieces of woven cloth and jungle twine, flapping the bright colours in the wind and crying out that they would last forever.

Nenem had sold two mounds of oranges when she became aware of a small commotion at the main entry to the market. She noticed that all around her people were sitting up and craning their necks. Then she caught a glimpse of a jeep and saw people moving out of the way as it slowly circled the market and came to a stop by the dusty little bakery. A man jumped out and she started.

Yasam poked her in the shoulder. ‘Isn’t that the miglun we saw just now?’

‘It’s him! It’s him! Lets try to attract his attention and hope he buys all our oranges,’ said Neyang.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Nenem, feeling hot and bothered by her friends’ excitement.

‘Why not? After all he saw how we had to carry this heavy stuff all the way here,’ Neyang insisted. In fact, at this point she almost jumped up and waved to the man who, however, had his back to them just then.

People milled around. Someone came to ask Yasam about the mushrooms she was selling and Yasam spread her fingers and started counting. Everywhere voices were raised in the lively exchange of buying and selling. Some women with babies on their backs were standing up and rocking back and forth to lull the infants back to sleep, while shouting all the time at the older children for not counting out change as fast as they could.

‘Hmm…Or-an-ge…Good?’

Nenem looked up. The young miglun was standing before her and pointing to the fruit. She nodded. He smiled and crouched down beside her. He picked up an orange and began turning it round and round in his hand, as if he had never seen one before.

‘Taste it,’ Nenem signalled with her hand, pointing to the orange and her own mouth. She watched him curiously as he began to peel it.

‘Tell him to buy mine also!’ Yasam whispered urgently, and catching his eye she began tapping her oranges.

The miglun laughed and started eating, nodding to express his satisfaction. Two other men stood by him. They wore khaki shorts, and belts with pistols. They are tribesmen from another country, Nenem thought, but their faces showed no expression and they seemed remote. The miglun said something to them and they ran back towards the vehicle.

‘Where is your village?’ he asked Nenem, gesturing with his hands towards the river and the hills.

She laughed and waved her arm in the direction of the hills. Hers was the village hidden by the trees and separated from this town by the stream with the iron bridge. It was the home of the Doying clans and was counted as one of the prettiest villages around because it was midway up a hill, sheltered from the winds that swirled and screamed down the river gorge. In summer it was cool and shaded by old jackfruit trees. But how was she to communicate all this to him?

‘Aie… Ai…’ Yasam and Neyang were muttering slyly and giggling.

‘My name is D-a-v-i-d,’ the man said, pointing to himself.

Nenem felt like covering her face with her hands. It was funny to hear a foreign name and she did not want to utter it, nor did she want to disclose hers.

The two guards returned with a large canvas bag and Yasam and Neyang quickly scooped up their oranges and piled them into the bag. In the excitement they might have lost count of the exact amount, but it hardly mattered now because the bodyguards placed a handful of bright coins before them. The miglun waited while Nenem put hers away into her small pouch. Then he picked up a small piece of ginger and looking at her mischievously he popped it into his pocket and left, followed by the guards hauling the bag full of oranges.

‘Aiee! Why did he do that?’ Neyang exclaimed.

Ginger was for protection. The wild ginger was a potent medicine against evil spirits. A piece of it was tied round the necks of young children to ward off illness and always carried, out of sheer habit, when a person was travelling.

‘He must know our customs, then,’ Neyang continued. ‘These people, they know everything!’

Nenem barely heard her. She was thinking about the look he had thrown her when he dropped the ginger into his pocket. He was funny. Why had he done that? She also felt a little unnerved by the stir his visit had caused. Everyone in the market was looking their way. She had to pretend as if it was routine business, though she knew that it was unheard of for a British officer to walk into the market and start eating oranges with the tribeswomen.

Nenem was the only child of Sogong, the senior headman of the village of Yelen. She was nineteen years old at the time, but this is a guess, because in those days there were no official records of births and deaths. What can be confirmed is that she was one of the few women of the region to gain admission into a proper school.

A few years earlier, her father had taken it into his head to send her to the first mission school for girls that had opened in the town across the river. He wanted her to learn to read and write and become famous because he thought she was as capable of doing so as any son. For Nenem it had been an unimaginable prospect. From her happy days of intermittent attendance in the village school she was thrown into a cold, closed space and she hated it. She hated the text books and the prayer books, she hated the teachers with their flowery dresses and thin lips, and most of all she hated the room where all the girls slept in long rows like dead fish. After a year, she fell ill and would not recover. It was a great triumph for her when her father gave in and took her back home. She faced the mountains again and felt the river breeze as the ferry strained upstream, and was immediately restored.

All she wanted was freedom, she later told her friends. The thing she had been most frightened of in school was that her soul might shrink, or be altered forever, and that she might never see the river again.

Now, walking back from the Pigo market, Nenem was reminded of the light hair and blue eyes of the matron at the mission school. The miglun’s hair and eyes were the same colour. But in his eyes there was a smile, and a promise of something rash and tender.

That evening, the air was heavy with the thick, sweet scent of the sap of the jackfruit trees. Nenem prepared the evening meal humming all the time. Her father was sitting out on the veranda with the other men of the village, and her mother was poking the fire.

‘Waah! What is this?’ her father said when she brought out the rice beer along with small portions of chopped egg mixed with grated ginger. She laughed happily. ‘I made it,’ she said, handing out the mugs of brew and placing a packet of eggginger beside each one. This was one of the few days that her father was at home. Most other days Sogong would walk for miles into the forest tracking his mithuns sent out every morning to graze. Or simply fall by the wayside and drink all night with his friends. He was a well-known orator and had brokered peace among men and villages through the force of his words in many kebangs, but more than that, he was recognized far and wide as an honest man with a good heart. His only weakness was the drink.

‘There he is, your father, look!’ her mother would say, hissing with irritation, and sure enough, Nenem would see him draped in his white shawl, negotiating the stones of the village in a happy state of drunkenness.

‘In the old days life was very hard,’ he would say. ‘We crept out of the rocks and called to each other because we were afraid to be alone in the wilderness. Now the ayings are taking our land and we have to creep back into the boulders and stones. Waah! But I can still feel my way through these stones. I know everyone of them, by shape, by size and feel,’ and then he would actually bend down and pat them lovingly.

He was talking about the rocks and stones again, and Nenem knew that the men would be sitting up till cockcrow, whispering and consulting amongst themselves. Her mother had already wrapped herself up like a cocoon with the white homespun and was fast asleep in the corner. She sat for a while, appreciating the evening, her parents, her village, and all her friends and her own life that, at this moment, seemed to be brimming with an unaccountable feeling of happiness.

The green jeep began to appear regularly after that day. As if by accident the officer called David met her on the road, offered to drive her—an offer she always refused—and skirted the market place like a determined policeman in search of someone. Yasam and Neyang watched her closely.

‘Hai, you better hide from him!’ they said and laughed every time David appeared. ‘What! Is he going to buy more oranges? How many oranges does he eat!’

But David was undeterred. He stalked and surrounded her and willed her attention. He had no fear and Nenem knew in her heart that this strange man was calling her into an unknown zone that could only bring disaster. What was more frightening was her own agitation when the familiar vehicle failed to appear, sometimes for days together. Then there he would be, suddenly, as if by magic, looking sunburned and full of joy to see her again. She felt drawn to him. For no reason that she could think of she felt as if she knew him, the kind of man he was. ‘How can it be?’ she asked herself in bewilderment, thinking how they couldn’t even understand each other’s language. David was doggedly trying to master her language, using local words with a funny accent that made her and Neyang and Yasam burst into giggles, but she, Nenem, had learned nothing and could not even understand the sounds of his!

One evening, after he had been gone a few days, she saw him down by the small new cinema hall, just walking past. Watching from the road above she wondered how she had begun to recognize his gait, and she rushed away, unnerved by her own feelings. She had no need to sell oranges or even visit the marketplace, she was the daughter of a revered village elder, she should go back. But she liked going to the market with her friends and she had no desire now to study or be married. She walked quickly along the road breathing in the evening air, feeling the sweat evaporating from her body as the wind began to blow. Then she heard the sound of a vehicle and knew it was him.

She was walking alone. He was driving beside her. He stopped and motioned for her to get in. When he saw her hesitate he made a sign that he would only drive her up to the bridge. She clambered in to the seat and nearly died when the jeep lurched and she was flung forward. He put out his hand to steady her and she held her breath. They whizzed past pedestrians and she caught a glimpse of startled faces. When they reached the bridge David got out and opened the door for her. Their bodies brushed against each other. He stood still and quiet and she turned uncertainly. He touched her hair very gently and placed a finger on her lips. Then he smiled, went round to the other side and drove away.

That summer the sun in the east narrowed the world into silent afternoons and long, slow burning nights. She had lost her fear of him and allowed him to walk a short distance with her. Sometimes he stood with her by the bridge. They continued to see each other like this, and six months passed. Small details captured their attention. One day she saw a green moon rising on the shoulder of the hill. The river shone silver and on the pale road they felt their souls turn, lifting and doubting, attentive and tortured. Many people saw them together like this.

From the sketchy accounts available of that time, captain David Ferguson was apparently an intelligence officer who had been recruited from the Bengal provinces to serve in the hills district and assist the new political officer in his duties. Everyone knew him as David sahib. He was about twenty-eight years old, an open and friendly man who spoke fluent Hindustani and seemed to have a knack for picking up languages because he was already quite conversant with many of the hill languages. He played volleyball with the police boys. Sometimes he stopped his jeep if he saw a group of village kids, and they would let out a great shout as he skittered into the field and let them examine the vehicle inside out.

He told Nenem, haltingly, struggling with the newly learned words, that his father had also been a frontiersman who had travelled widely in India and had even sailed up to this region in the days of the steamer ships of the East India Company. He told her that beyond the line of hills the river that they were looking at now curved in a great loop of water and thundered through a deep gorge that only a few of his countrymen had seen, because the gorge was always covered in clouds of mist and vapour. He made wide, arcing movements with his hands and Nenem listened and tried to understand every word.

It was an enigma how two strangers could be so unaccountably drawn to one another in a little town in the hills from where even the rest of the country was remote and unknown. With her very rudimentary knowledge of letters and books David might have been totally alien to Nenem, but deep within her she felt she understood his life. She sensed the big waves of the seas that he talked about, pointing to the river all the time. Through him she saw the world beyond. She saw cities and streets full of people and heard the skies reverberating with the sound of airplanes that filled her with a longing for far-off places.

In secret he too stared at her, amazed. Why was he so drawn to this quiet, strange woman who was young and unlettered, but who conveyed to him through all her gestures and expressions that feelings were the evidence of god within? He pondered this all the time. It was as if they had come together again from a previous life. When he was with her he smiled and tried to hold her interest, afraid that she might suddenly disappear. He explained everything about himself to her very carefully so that she would know him and not be afraid of him. But when he was alone he listened to the sound of the wide river and knew that it was he who was searching for the meaning of his life, and he sensed that through this woman he was beginning to unveil the secrets of the earth, the stillness of the sky, and even the depths of an unaccountable, ageless sorrow that he had always carried inside but from which, he now knew, there could be rebirth.

David’s senior, the political officer, or migom, as the tribesmen fondly called him, lived in a bungalow fenced off from the road by a painted white wooden fence. David occupied a smaller bungalow near by that was shielded simply by a hedge of hibiscus. The houses of the migluns were made of wood, with corrugated tin roofs, and stood a foot above the ground on concrete pillars to be above snakes and leeches. Both the bungalows had windows overlooking the river. David brought Nenem here once so that she could see the view of the river that he saw all the time. She peered over the hedge and stared at the swirling green river. The sunlight danced and bounced off the undulating water and she felt as if she were moving in that current, destined to go… where?—who knew, but she was young and wild, and open to all influences, believing that whatever was happening to her now would have future value.

The longing for change came like a strong wind, echoing from the belly of the hills. It blew with such insistence that Nenem began to wonder if she would survive. It threw her into a panic and she questioned herself desperately: For what reason? And for whom? Why the longing to change everything, from the way she lived to the words she spoke to the thoughts that bound her? She was like a caged animal, crouched and listening to the voices of the wind, ready to sweep aside time and place when she became one with that fierce wind that called and sang louder and louder in her blood.

One day Nenem came down from the village with Yasam and Neyang and David was waiting by the bridge. The plan was for her two friends to go to the cinema hall then meet her here again so that they could return to the village together. Nenem got into the jeep and David started the engine. Hardly had they gone a short distance when they hit a cow. There was a heavy thud, the vehicle veered sharply and then, crunching hard on the gravel, veered back to the road. She had flung out her arm to clutch at him. He had grinned at her. The cow bellowed and cantered off. Nenem laughed in relief, and then he sped on, recklessly. A light drizzle covered the land and the mountains turned greener against the backdrop of the grey, lowering sky. He reached out for her hand. She did not pull away, and he changed gears with his hand over hers. They were both laughing now and when they whizzed past the last fenced house at the boundary of the town, Nenem did not protest.

The small rest house by the river was scruffy with peeling plaster and creaky wooden floors. It stood on a promontory jutting out over the river and was used by the sahibs on tour duty, or sometimes for a spot of fishing in the river, but for most of the time it was empty. A wild lemon tree shaded the house from the road and perfumed the air with its white blossoms.

The surprised caretaker rushed out to greet the sahib and called loudly for his son to come and carry in the baggage. When he saw Nenem he was seized with a bout of coughing, but he opened one of the two rooms with a great flourish of keys and said he would make tea. He was holding a candle stuck into the neck of an old bottle and shuffled to a drawer to pull out another stump of candle. He began to look around for a matchbox.

‘Just light it with the one you are holding,’ David said. ‘We won’t be needing anything else.’

When they were alone they only heard the rain and it drowned out all other sound. Nenem dropped down the mosquito net and laughed, seeing it for the first time. Then she piled it back on top again. David looked at her, her limbs moving and glowing in the dim light, and a rush of terror and desire seized him. When she said something he could not answer.

She looked at him and stopped speaking. He came up and sat on the bed beside her. The candle flame danced over his face and throat and she lowered her head so that he would not see her own agitation. A warm liquid was running through her body and she did not know when he grasped her hand. She tried to draw back, to say something to ease the tension, but she could not utter a word. She was drowsy, and his mouth was breathing against hers. She lifted her head and closed her eyes. David trembled like a child, almost lifting her in the tightness of his embrace. She shared his trembling. He opened her mouth with his, probing mercilessly, trying to erase her hesitation, pushing her head back until she gasped.

‘No, no…’ he murmured, afraid he would lose her, and clutched her hands, bruising her.

Nenem had not expected this kind of love. She thrilled to the touch of this man who revealed himself so desperately. Who was he? Why had he become like this? His desire inflamed her.

His mouth tore away and slid down her throat. She felt his hands moving to touch her breasts and expose them. A deep flush suffused her and she arched against him, pressing the hardness of her nipples against his cupped palm. It was too late now. She tried to hide her face on his shoulder as he lay her down. She could not protest, she had no will. It was strange to her that he seemed just as helpless. Her wrap opened and fell away and her nakedness made him groan. Her damp hair swept against his mouth when he came up, and he held her down by the wrists as he entered her in an anguish of tenderness and flame. He wanted to be gentle with her, to take her slowly and feel the growing ache as he made her love him back, but she was turning and twisting her head wildly and whimpering. He grabbed her face and made her look at him. He sank into her as their gaze locked. He hurt her when he raised her up, tearing her flesh, punishing her, loving her, consuming her until she dropped her gaze and her face quivered and broke as she cried out his name and the tears came to her eyes.

Oh sweetness! Oh wild, wild beating! He raised himself and looked down at the whiteness of her skin, the sloping line of her belly, down to the dark mound where they were joined, and his body shuddered and surrendered. For a long time he lay unmoving, his head buried in her embrace. He was terrified by his feelings and wondered if it would be like this forever and he would never again be alone. He turned slightly to look at her again. She whispered something and clung to him. So they lay together, silent, for a long time.

In her father’s house Nenem looked into the small mirror tacked to the wooden post. Her face was clear. The eyes looked back at her, wide and lustrous. Her mouth was innocent and unadorned though she could still feel the salt and bruising and how the blood had swelled her lips giving them the quality of some living, tactile river animal that moved and slipped and flowered with tentacles of fire. Her body had changed. She was complete and she felt no fear. She felt alive, full of power, and full of the desire to give and to receive.

When the scandal broke, Sogong, the headman, did not speak to his daughter. Instead he threatened to burn down the house of the miglun and drive him away from the land. He recalled that the Duyang clans had originally given the migluns a written agreement for only a square mile of territory to settle in Pigo. Now they were trying to rule all the villages. He would throw them out. He consulted with a few friends and they tried to help him with this unprecedented misfortune. A daughter of the village and a miglun! It was unthinkable! Yet they could not stop a woman from loving a man, everyone knew that, and Nenem was a difficult one. She was capable of doing anything if baited or prevented from doing what she wanted. Her mother cursed the day Nenem was born and cursed Sogong for being a drunkard, and in the end everyone ended up cursing each other so much that the cause of the uproar was even forgotten a little.

One day Rakut’s father saw old Sogong rush into the office of the migom wearing his red coat and carrying his long walking stick. The big sahib was a kind, elderly man with years of experience in dealing with the many tribes of the country. He spoke the local tongue and immediately called out to Sogong.

‘Come, come in! Hey, Sogong, how are you? Let’s have some tea, shall we?’

Rakut’s father said that Sogong and the sahib sat together for a long time. He tried to hear what they were saying but the green curtain on the open door was short and flimsy and he was afraid that they might see him if he stood too close. All he could say was that when Sogong came out he looked very thoughtful. Perhaps the two men had discussed lives, loves, the way of the world—who knows? Both were aging men and fathers.

After that meeting Sogong did not say anything more about the whole business, though he began to avoid his own house, staying away for longer and longer periods in the homes of his many friends. Nobody liked to talk about the details and soon people went about their business and pretended to ignore the matter. Except the big sahib, who broached the subject with his junior one day.

‘Captain David,’ he said in his loud, clear voice. ‘There is some talk going around, ahmm… about you, that you have taken up with a tribal woman.’

When David did not answer, he said, ‘I am a man of peace. The people here are good people. I have nothing against love, or even love affairs, for heaven’s sake, but don’t you think your behaviour might jeopardize our mission?’

Still David didn’t say anything.

Finally the old man said, ‘You love her?’

‘Yes.’

There was a silence. Then the sahib said, ‘You’re going to make an honest woman of her?’

‘Yes, sir! I mean…But she won’t have me like that. She won’t come away with me if I leave this place, sir!’

‘What, oh, I see. Hmm…’ The senior man coughed and stared at the young man. His eyes softened. ‘Well, they’re strange here, these people. Yes, they won’t transplant easily, I dare say. Well, be careful.’

After David left, the sahib sat at his desk for a long time. He tapped with his pencil on the papers lying in front of him. It seemed strange to him that so many years had gone so quickly. He had been serving in these hills since 1932 and the year was already 1943. There was a war raging back home and its effects were far reaching. Perhaps time was really running out now, he thought ruefully. How many survey missions had he led, to map terra incognita, and here he was now, at the end of a long career, wondering about the strange ways of young hearts! Oh god! It was time to be sailing back to England and here was another officer sailing off in the opposite direction on some daft mission of love. He was fond of the boy, but it was daft. He knew that David’s posting orders were out and that the boy would have to leave soon, unless he could pull a hat trick.

Before a year was up word got around that the white sahibs would be leaving soon. All their friends and families across the rest of the country were already pulling out. The officer David would also be leaving before the big sahib. Yasam and Neyang were the first to talk about it to Nenem. They were surprised by her composure.

‘Yes, I know,’ she said. ‘He will be leaving soon. Don’t worry, I won’t disappear! How can I go with him?’

Both Yasam and Neyang breathed easier now. They could not imagine Nenem going away from the village. Many times they had discussed this and almost wept just thinking how they would never see each other again if David took her away. Yet they were all grown women now and knowing each other so well they were both aware that she was only taking refuge in a show of equanimity. But this was something that could not be discussed even among friends.

David left early one morning when a pale sky highlighted the clear line of the hills. Nenem had come to him when it was still dark. His vehicle had not returned yet from the fuel depot and they were alone in the house. She saw his face, silent and still. He was also waiting, uncertain, and his large hands were folded at his side, the knuckles pressed into the chair as though they were bearing all his weight. Love seemed such a difficult goal for them. She sensed his confusion and hid her eyes when he gazed back at her with pleading and devotion.

‘Nenem! Nenem…’ His words fell out like a cry, as if he was afraid that he might weaken, and she quickly rose and placed her hands on his face to stop him from speaking. He clasped her to him. She whispered incomprehensible words. He wept. She clutched him harder. She spoke slowly then, willing him to understand. She wanted to see him triumph and she wished him courage, she said. She wanted him to know that as long as she loved him, no harm would come to him, and that her love would follow him across the summit of the hills like a ribbon of light.

Then she had no more words to offer. The house was empty and silent, but for the men waiting just outside the door, scraping their feet, waiting to escort him to the ferry.

He left in a panic, a young officer clutching his canvas bag in the front seat and looking nowhere as the old jeep started and drove away.

Only when Nenem saw the small mushroom cloud of dust passing by the circular market did she realize she was heartbroken. She threw up her hands to her face and wept. ‘Oh! he is gone! We will never see each other again! What will I do? What will I do!’

It is not clear if David and Nenem had really planned anything together for the future. Or what he said to her father before he left. By all accounts David had always been friendly with the old man, and had visited him many times when he needed to find out something about the place or the outlying villages, communicating with broken words and precise gestures.

The whole country was changing as it struggled to take over the reins of government from the British. New officers were arriving and as the big migom too would be leaving soon, all the headmen of the villages were busy with the constant arrivals and departures. In this period of change Nenem returned to her old life and quietly took over the household chores. Her mother shared her sorrow in silence. Her father’s clumsy attempts at good humour touched her. He was drinking hard these days and the look in his eyes was old and tired. She wanted to say so many things but kindness shrank her soul and she tried to be inconspicuous instead. She pretended she was untouchable because she had overcome her fear of pain and hurt. She celebrated when her friend Neyang got married and one day gave birth to a baby boy. Yasam was also betrothed, and so life moved on. The war in the east had ended and Hoxo’s and Rakut’s fathers had also returned, full of stories of adventure and about how they had worked with the migluns to stop the Japanese armies from climbing over the hills and invading their villages. Men and women stretched their limbs by the fire and gossiped about their hopes and fears.

At night the sky above the village was full of stars, and every night Nenem said to herself, ‘No one dies of love. I loved him, and now I am enough on my own.’