Weaving in the upstairs room –
Nunu, Mama and me –
companionable in the unexpected sun
of this shortest day,
and the anticipation
of tonight’s feast;
our looms strung with wool for coverings
for a bed that will be mine
when I am a woman.
‘Ha!’ says Nunu, hands and shuttle flying,
‘She’s wondering if she’ll ever
find a husband to bring home.’
‘Shush!’ says Mama.
‘Tonight’s the last
Midwinter joy of her childhood –
let her enjoy being a girl
while she can.’
My face burns –
it’s not even true that I’m still a child
I’m not ready to be a woman
and want my Learning to last forever –
though it’s true I was dreaming
of my daughter one day
offering her saffron
and seeing me
on the temple wall.
Nunu would say I’m offending the goddess
even to think it
but Nunu doesn’t always know
what I’m thinking.
I’m still wishing I could find
something clever to say
when a loom weight swings,
hitting my hand so hard
I squeak an ouch
and drop my shuttle –
while from downstairs
comes the crash of a pot
hitting the floor.
Mama and Nunu stop their weaving and Mama rises.
‘I’ll go,’ I say,
happy to hide my burning face
in the solitude of stairs.
But I haven’t reached the landing
when the house shakes
like a dog wet from the sea.
A moment follows –
shivering silence.
my loom weights swinging,
tok-tokking,
hitting and spinning –
then Mama is screaming,
‘Get out! Away from the house, far as you can!’
And I obey, good girl that I am –
two stairs at a time
with my skirt held high,
reaching the bottom
when the house shakes again
not a dog now
but a rabbit in the dog’s mouth
neck snapping,
shaken to death.
Then, like the dead rabbit
loosed from the jaws –
tossed one last time –
Mama flies
from the landing,
her head touching a step
halfway along
and tumbling the rest of the way
with no more sound than the dead rabbit
except for the thump of her head
on each step –
and though the journey
lasts a lifetime
I can’t move or breathe
till she lands crumpled
at my feet.
crouched at her side,
screaming for Dada,
for Nunu,
or anyone to help
because Mama doesn’t move
or speak
and her face is all blood
like the rabbit,
skinned.
But only Nunu calls back –
because Dada is at the shipsheds;
the maids have fled
as Mama told them
and the great beam above the door,
forgetting its job of holding the wall,
has crashed in,
bringing the wall with it
in mounds of brick,
painted fresco and dust –
so we can’t get out
and no one else can get in.
Nunu calls again
though I don’t know where from
or what she’s saying
because the house is groaning,
the earth rumbling
and everywhere
people are screaming
and walls are crashing –
with my maybe-dead Mama
and Nunu trapped at the top
of the broken stairs.
The stone step
where Mama rests her head
is snapped in half
like a branch over a knee
because the walls on each side
have moved in their places,
so most of each wall
is on the steps.
I can’t see round the bend –
but can guess Nunu won’t be here soon.
The earth’s rumbling
grows to a roar
and now the house,
is shaking again,
trying to throw itself
onto Mama and me.
The kitchen’s great table is the only shelter
but in the middle of the room,
so far from the doorway –
how could I drag poor Mama
across the stone floor –
so I run to the table
as if fleeing a wolf,
shove it across till it hits the wall –
I never knew
I could be so strong.
tugging her through the entrance
to crouch beside her
under this new roof.
The shaking lasts for hours, days, a lifetime. The ground floor windows are small and grilled; they’ve disappeared completely now, but some light and then rain come in from a new gap in a wall. There’s enough light to know when the dark comes.
I don’t know if it’s here for evening or forever.
I’ve been lying with my head against Mama’s chest, trying to tell myself that the movement I feel is not just the goddess still shaking the house, but my mother’s breath. I’m terrified that it’s not true. With my face right there, I can smell her blood above the choking mist of grit and dust. Blood and the sour stink of piss, and as the floor gets colder I realise I’ve wet myself. I don’t know when. I don’t even care, and I’m not even shocked that I don’t care.
A groan and another hot flood – and it’s not from me. I didn’t think I could ever feel so happy: Mama’s alive.
I scream again for Nunu. Nunu will know what to do.
If she answers I can’t hear. The goddess is still rumbling and I hate her with a blind red rage – and I’m not shocked at that either. Then I’m begging her to save Mama, promising whatever sacrifice she wants and the only one I can think of is my painting in the temple. Take that, I plead, I offer it to you and all that it means, the painter can paint another maiden, but no one can make another Mama.
The goddess doesn’t care. She shudders again, dumping ceiling onto my table roof, and I’m shaking too, choking in the dust of what used to be my home. My eyes are streaming, though I don’t know if that’s dust or fear, because this is not how the world should be.
There are no more screams or shouts from the street. Nunu still doesn’t answer. I don’t know if she’s dead or trapped behind rubble on the stairs. All I can hear is the grumbling of the house and the deeper rumbling of the earthmother.
She’s no mother, to destroy like this!
I’m alone. As alone as anyone could be: the only one left alive, with my dying Mama.
Why didn’t you finish the sacrifice and take me too? Though I don’t scream it out loud, even now. The goddess has shown what her rage can do, and I don’t know if I can face what she wants of me.
I also don’t know how all this can race through my head while I’m still coughing, screaming and weeping, my body trembling as much as the house.
Then my face, pressed against Mama’s chest, feels a quiver. Another muffled moan escapes her lips. And finally, I understand.
The only one who can help Mama is me.
Which is almost more terrifying than being alone with her death.
So, as the shaking stops, I crawl out from under the table. Clearing the way to the outside door will take too long; I need to clean Mama off now and give her something to drink. The storage pots of food, wine and oil are stored under a bench – I can’t see it in the darkness, but it’s only a few paces away. All I have to do is creep along beside the wall and I’ll find it.
But the floor is a pile of sharp clay shards; my palms are bleeding by the time I crawl out from the shelter of our table. My knees are too, stabbed right through the thick wool of my long winter tunic.
My sandals are by the door, lost in darkness and rubble, but there’s no choice. I slide myself upright, waiting for the terrible unknown thing that will hit me, jab me, cut me. Nothing does, so I edge along, my feet tentative, feeling their way, till my right foot hits the bottom of the cupboard. Closer, and I’m touching the side; it seems to be intact, though covered by a layer of debris. The pots and ewers that should have been standing on top are part of that wreckage, their contents scattered and lost, but underneath are the niches holding the storage pots.
Bracing myself against the wall, I start shoving debris off the bench. There’s wetness and stickiness, and I’m imagining even more blood and horror – is someone trapped between benchtop and rubble? My skin crawls at the thought of touching a dead maid. And how would I ever move them to get what I want?
Ouch!
A sudden sharp jab, a splinter in the side of my hand, and I’m sucking away the pain before I can think. But it’s not blood I’m tasting, it’s gritty, sticky sweetness – the remains of something for our solstice feast. I suck my fingers clean before tracing them gingerly across the benchtop. They find the holes for the niches; I lean closer and reach in.
Three of the big pots are broken, but there are smaller pots inside – some of them are whole, and so are all the baskets of dried foods. No point in looking for water; the giant pithos was at the door for easy refilling of jugs, and the jugs would have been on this benchtop or the table – I’m probably standing on one now. What I have is olive oil, wine, honey and goat milk. The milk is delivered for me fresh every morning, because Mama believes women need it to grow their own breasts, to feed the babies that will come after marriage. My throat is so dry and choking I drink it straight from the jug, three great gulps before I even think of sharing.
The goddess shakes again, punishing me for my greed. I feel so wicked I’d spit it out if I could. But instead of crushing me, she tumbles out a chunk of wall between kitchen and storeroom. There’s no window in that inside room, but a dim light comes in from somewhere – and wherever that is, I’m grateful.
I pick my way back with a jug in each hand, dip my finger into the honey and put it to Mama’s mouth. ‘Sacred food of the gods, feed my mother and let her wake!’
Her lips quiver, her tongue comes out to lick the honey, but she doesn’t wake.
What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?
If she were a baby, she’d need changing, but the blood on her face is more frightening, so that’s what I do first. One of the baskets holds a loosely woven cloth to protect food from insects. I pour olive oil onto it, and start gently wiping the blood from her forehead. At first I’m so tentative that I barely touch her; the cloth is covered with blood, but it doesn’t look as if any has gone from her face. I pour on more oil and try again.
Most of the blood has come from a big cut just under the hairline, though her face is scratched and bruised all over. Her nose, that strong beautiful nose, is crooked; when I wash around her mouth her tongue comes out again, with a broken tooth on it. I take it out and put it by a table leg so we don’t lose it.
By the time I’m ready to wash her lower half, it’s stopped seeming strange and wrong. It’s something I have to do, like some of the odder tasks to prepare for the Learning, and until I’ve finished I don’t have to worry about what to do next.
The dim daylight fades.
In the darkness, there is no time. I don’t know how long we’ve been here. Long enough that I have to sidle out of our table shelter again to pee in the corner; Mama, I think, has peed again since I cleaned her. There is nothing soft to lie her on, nothing dry; all I can do is smooth olive oil down her legs as I would a baby.
shrivelled like a snail in summer
in the shell of this house
not maiden or mother or crone
not even a memory
if there is no one left to remember.
Maybe Mama is lucky:
not yet dead, but feeling nothing.
Then Mama groans,
so I know she can feel;
a lion fierceness roars through me
because she is not Mama now
but my own babe,
and I, blind in the darkness,
walk my fingers to the wall
for more precious sheltered pots;
dip my finger into honey again
and when her tongue takes it,
drizzle in drops of pure sweet wine –
in hope that it will lull her pain.
‘Drink, Mama,’ I say,
‘Drink and be well.’
And I have the same:
honey on my tongue
to sweeten the wine,
then curl up by my mother
and sleep.
A crash jolts me awake, my heart pounding. The house is falling on us!
But the house isn’t shaking. The sound is someone upstairs shoving things across the floor.
‘Nunu!’
No answer, just another crash. Nunu’s not dead! She’s trapped upstairs as Mama and I are trapped down here.
Scrambling out from under the table to the vestibule, I hobble to the stairs. The last time I saw them, before the roof blocked the light from the window, each step was broken in the middle and covered with chunks of wall.
Another crash. Still no answer when I shout.
Even my hands are blind in this blackness; I kneel on the bottom step, sweep my forearm across the next one to clear it, and crawl up to it. I feel unbalanced, because steps should be flat, and these slope down from a peak in the middle. The only thing that’s even is how much my knees hurt, because I’ve only knocked enough rubble off that I can get up there. There are still lots of sharp pieces left to dig into me.
With each step there’s more wreckage, and the chunks of masonry are bigger. One big piece bounces past me and tumbles to the bottom, just like Mama did. Mama who is lying helpless, just through the doorway from the bottom of the stairs.
What if it’s hit her and I’ve killed her!
I slide down, bringing more brokenness with me, landing on the big chunk that’s crashed at the bottom.
Of course it didn’t bounce through the doorway and onto Mama!
How could I know that on a day when the world has changed?
I can’t go back up without checking her again. My ear on her chest tells me that she’s still breathing, her heart still beating. I whisper my lips over her face, guided by her breath, and meet no chunks of wall, but a taste of blood in my mouth.
I can’t do this.
But I can’t sit here and wait to die, or wait for Nunu to get through, which might be the same thing.
‘I’ll be back, Mama,’ I tell her. ‘Don’t move!’ Even though I’ve been begging her to do that since she landed here, that lifetime ago.
I creep back up the stairs, shoving and kicking the debris behind me as I climb. The blackness is still complete, and the sharp-edged shards still make me squeak and bleed, but I don’t care anymore. I’ve tried too hard to wait and die now.
The stairs go on forever. It feels as if I’ve climbed far enough to be on the roof when I touch a wall in front of me – and I realise I’ve only reached the first bend.
No matter how hard I try to picture the stairs as they used to be, when they were smooth and straight and the staircase was lined with paintings, I have no idea how many steps there are. All I can do is creep around the bend and find the first stair. My head is spinning, and I think I might have slept for a moment – it’s hard to tell in this blackness, but I hear myself calling Nunu for a cup of water, as if I’ve forgotten where I am and why I’m thirsty.
I can’t quite hear the words, but whatever they are, they’re better than water, better than wine, and I’m wide awake again. I scramble up the ruined stairs to the landing.