6

In June the near lip of the gorge was a village, with rude sheds and a parking area, stacks of lumber, coils of rope, kegs of nails, a powerful compressor, drums of petrol, and more on the way: L-shaped steel rods, cable, cement, bags of sand. The site had become part of Morrison, and he of it; he knew every hump and grade of the near side, knew the wind and the shifts of color on the earth as the sun rose and set; knew that there were owls in the fringes of forest, and woodpeckers, and shy warblers; had seen, far below, where the black water swirled white and the rocks waited like black teeth, a flock of finfoots, planing and swooping in the narrow gap, like the grebes he knew but with red bills and yellow feet. He had been over the side in a cradle of rope and knew the bare granite, its chinks and crevices, the smooth speckled gray of it.

He was alone there some of the time, and worked with half of him waiting for a sign of life across the gorge. He still wanted a sign for himself alone, and grew nervous as the road crept toward that last strip of forest; soon the gorge would be no longer his, but theirs. “We can move everything easily,” Philips said.

“No. No water, for one thing.”

“What are you saying? We will have to truck it in for daily use anyway. And for the concrete.”

“All right. But I think it would be better for the men to live away from the work. Four miles is nothing, after all. Let them have the river at noon. A change of scene morning and night. Go home for lunch. That kind of thing.”

Philips shrugged. “Whatever you say.” But he knew, and soon went on, his eyes laughing: “Maybe you could find a cave in the rocks down there, and stay forever. The white hermit of Morrison’s Gorge. Tourists would come and drop pennies.”

Morrison laughed uneasily, because the demons of the place, who prowled at dawn and at dusk, who early roused the birds and late soothed them to silence, who whispered to him from the dark gorge, those demons were good companions. For him alone. He had come a long way to meet them, lonelier and happier with every step. Some final solitude called. Or a final mystery. To build a bridge was good; to build it to nothing was perfect. A bridge for its own sake. I claim this gorge in the name of Bernard Morrison, in perpetuity.

Across the gap, nothing. Always nothing. But they were there. There are two sides to every gorge.

Saturday evening: the sun just gone and the light fading fast, and he was alone, staring across the gorge and conscious of his own heartbeat. Feeling foolish as he mimed: sunrise, myself here, sunrise, myself here. Waving and pointing and slapping his own chest. Modern dance.

A priest gone mad, conducting insane ritual for an invisible congregation. Embarrassed, chiding himself for an idiot. Philips would bellow laughter.

He mimed again, and then stared at the shifting shadows until the light was gone.

In full darkness he boarded the truck and drove back to the deserted camp. Ramesh’s radio brought him music and missionaries and garbled news of the cabinet crisis. He worried. Heard gunfire, saw his forms impounded, Goray in prison, himself deported.

Alone in the silence of a tropical night, he considered the history of Bernard Morrison, a dismal series of pathetic anecdotes. But the boy in him lived yet, and his conviction grew: he had still a day coming to him. Life owed him that. A day of wrath or a day of laughter.

He was awake at dawn, and ate mango and drank water, hurrying, and drove the four miles, shattering a cool, rosy silence, vandalizing the new day. He left his truck in the shaded grove and shambled almost timidly toward the gorge; and saw the man immediately.

It was the same man. Morrison rushed forward. The bridge of vines was up.

Morrison nodded at the man, and showed both hands, empty. It seemed the thing to do. The man was carrying a crude machete, and with it he pointed to the bridge.

Morrison was afraid, and a closer look at the bridge did him no good. He had expected a catwalk, a floor, a walkway of some sort. He found one six-inch vine for the feet and two thinner vines for handrails. From one handrail to the other, passing beneath the heavy vine, looped about it and supporting it, were twenty or thirty thinner vines. A bridge. His throat closed. He looked down. A mistake.

But then it was all a mistake. A more terrible mistake because he could not turn back. Often enough he had been afraid, but this silent terror was new, and worse; it was self-inflicted. No one had commanded, Morrison, go to the gorge. And in the bright blush of daybreak he no longer believed that life, or destiny, or impish gods and demons, had driven him here. He saw himself driven by an invincible adolescence, by a flabby imagination nourished on illustrated tales of the frontier.

The native gestured impatiently.

Morrison cursed himself silently. He was playing at children’s games, but he could not turn back. Once in his life he would follow a road to its true end.

He knew suddenly that even his terror was false. For generations men had crossed this bridge. He drew a long breath and made a joke: nothing can go wrong because I am a Master of Science.

Twenty meters. Thirty steps.

The native gestured again.

Morrison removed his sandals and slipped them into his pockets. Silly man: these people have been crossing it for years. Leaping like goats and singing.

He grasped the handrails and took one gingerly step. The bridge swayed. He shifted his weight and gave himself to the sway. Another step then, and more sway, and sweat came. With the third step he feared a wilder swing; the bridge bounced and quivered gently. The vine was rough and dry to his feet. He paused; the air here was cooler; he must not look down. Pigeon-toed, unbreathing, he went on, his palms sliding and clutching with each step, never leaving the handrails. He moved faster then, smoothly, swinging with the bridge, out and down, sliding and clutching, knees bent, balance, balance; then up, and the sway diminishing, and he took the last steps like a conqueror.

On the far lip he strode toward his host, and his knees gave way. Absolutely and without warning. He sat in the dust and smiled a friendly smile. The native edged around him at a good distance, and lowered the bridge.

God, Morrison thought: there is still the going back.

The sentry returned to stare. Morrison too stared. The sentry was naked. His body was almost hairless. He was a strong man. No scars, no tattoos. No fancy earrings or plates in the lip or bones through the nose. He might have been any man in a locker room. Except for the crude, jagged machete.

Morrison saw with shock that the man was circumcised. So was Morrison.

The native’s expression never altered, and Morrison could not tell what he was thinking. The man motioned: stand up.

Morrison nodded, and put on his sandals, and rose.

The sentry stood away and waved him toward the hogback. Morrison moved forward and found a track; the man fell in behind him. They climbed the slope. The morning brightened suddenly to gold. Their track led into the brush, and then to the crest of the hill.

The view from the crest was stunning, but Morrison was given no time to marvel. A long slope of yellow grasses fell south to a wall of forest, and barely visible above the treetops was a distant range of pink mountains. Portagee mountains. They followed the track down the slope, and into the forest.

Again Morrison felt the strength in his own body, a private warmth, the sun within him. The forest murmured about them; unseen birds twittered and screeched. Bwana Tuan Sahib. He could disappear forever. Today. Right now. Never seen again. In good health but had been despondent. Hinted impotent. No life insurance. No will. Described by friends as moody. Will not be missed.

This forest was not what he had known. It was steamier. More presence. Of what? Possibilities. Vipers. Orchids.

A hot, yearning happiness almost dizzied him. Never go back. Learn the roots, the flowers. Wildfowl. Fish. Take a bride, round, greedy. Meditate. Prescribe cathartics. The holy man, and they will set bowls of rice before me. Interpret dreams. Scatter blessings.

The trail dipped into a great hollow of shade like a cavern. On the far side of the hollow, under a huge broadleaf, stood another man. Awaiting Morrison. His hair was gray and he wore a loincloth. Morrison’s heart quickened. The man was fat, and stared gravely. He was not tall but seemed majestic. He might have been the lord of these trees, these shadows, these sounds; of all he surveyed.

When Morrison was six feet from him, the man laughed gleefully and said, “Vairy fuckin hallo.”

His name was Bawi. “Bawi,” he said, and jabbed a finger at Morrison’s breast: “you Tami.”

All right. Me Tami. “Tami,” and Morrison nodded.

Bawi spoke to the sentry, who loped off toward the gorge, and then Bawi and Morrison were alone on the trail, sauntering homeward and gossiping. Bawi’s face was broad and open, his smile ready, a free and undisciplined smile, lips stretched, teeth overwhite, cheeks popping up, eyes drowned in a fat squint, head slightly back: glee, glee, glee.

The smile said that he was no chief. He was the official greeter. Or the head poisoner; God alone knew. What was a nice fellow like Morrison doing in a place like this? He saw himself in a pot of water and Bawi rubbing two sticks together.

“You kinjo man,” Bawi said with assurance.

“Yes.” Whatever you say. Actually I am an American engineer. I am not Tami and not kinjo man. But then how could he be sure? They walked in single file, Bawi leading, through sparse jungle broken by sunny clearings, and downhill, amid bird-call and monkey-chatter. Bawi rolled gently as he walked, shoulder and buttock rising and falling; his eyes were downcast, as though there might be snakes or scorpions, but now and then he turned to flash that joyful pumpkin grin. Morrison imitated his strut. Perhaps he was, after all, Tami. And kinjo man. Bawi gestured languidly at a blood-red blossom: “Flar.”

“Yes. Flower. Pretty.”

“Pitty?”

“Beautiful.”

Bawi shook his head.

“Good-looking.”

Bawi grinned. “Ah lookah.”

“Ah lookah.”

“Dis bint ah lookah.” Bawi laughed aloud. “Plenny bint. You see.”

What was bint?

Insects chirred. The forest thinned soon, and after half an hour Morrison saw a dark blue gleam, and a curl of black smoke. His heart thudded; he heard it. He shook with it. Clammy hands and sudden sweat. And great thirst.

Here too there were suburbs: disused huts and a tiny goat, white and frisking. A wet smell. The huts were small and low, three posts and a grass roof. They approached a thin wall of shrubbery; a skinny dog rose from the grass and barked twice.

“Dog.”

“Dog.”

They breasted the shrubbery, and their journey was over.

Ten or fifteen huts stood scattered in a small clearing. At the edge of the clearing a blue creek glided lazily. Beyond the village, across the creek, the land dropped away, tangled and scrubby forest sloping off suddenly; green hills rolled to the distant mountains. Portagee side. It would be a long climb for the Portagees. The nearest Portagee town was ninety miles away, its population about three hundred; it seemed somehow closer and larger. The border was at hand, slicing through that scrubby jungle. Morrison was lonely.

The villagers were waiting, and a babble rose. Morrison tried to look agreeable but was struck blind by breasts and buttocks and hairless sexes, and cursed himself in disgust. There were faces, too, gawking at him, and he nodded regally. There were many children, all laughing; the men and women stared in silence. Some wore loincloths. The old ones. They made a lane for the travelers. At the end of the lane, sitting cross-legged before a hut, was the chief. He was much younger than Morrison. Bawi led Morrison to him and made the formal presentation: a slight bow with his hands open, palms up, one indicating Morrison and the other the chief.

The chief bowed his head twice, and Morrison did the same.

“Tami,” Bawi said. “Dulani.”

“Dulani,” Morrison said, and bowed again.

The chief spoke in his own language.

“You here, good,” Bawi said.

“Thank you.”

Dulani spoke again.

“Eat?” Bawi said. “Drink? Bint?”

“Water, thank you.” The sun beat at the back of his neck; he remembered then and removed the purple jockey cap.

Bawi translated, and the chief spoke again. There was a stir, and soon a young woman came to Morrison with a gourd full of water.

At her ripeness he trembled, as though he had never before seen the flesh. He closed his eyes and drank slowly, but the image of her sturdy breasts and lightly downed cleft entered him with the cool water. He drained the gourd and handed it back blindly. She went away.

The chief spoke.

Bawi grinned again, and said, “What you want here?”

Morrison stood stupidly for a time, and then returned the smile. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never thought of that.”

After that his fears vanished. Dulani was uncertain about his last answer but remained the polite host. He instructed Bawi to show Morrison the village, and said that they would eat and drink afterward. He then retired to his hut. Women fluttered about him. He was not chiefly: a thin young man of gloomy countenance. As Bawi and Morrison strolled among the huts, they heard Dulani call out orders, and the crowd dispersed slowly.

“Work,” Bawi said. “Plenny work.”

“What work?” The huts were almost bare: earth floors, a pot, skins, feathers.

Bawi raised one finger. “Hunt.” Another finger. “Mmmm—cassawa.”

“Cassava.”

“Yis sor.” Another finger. “Mmmm—” It was too much for him: he placed a hand on a grass roof and made weaving motions.

“Yes,” Morrison said.

“What dis?”

“Hut.”

“Hut.” He had once known the word.

“Bawi: how do you know English?”

“En’ish?”

“You talk my words.”

Oh, that grin. Deafening. The sun stood still when Bawi smiled. “Tami,” he said. “Ol’ Tami.”

“Ol’ Tami.”

“Yis sor. He come much rains.” With his hands he counted twenty-two. “I show.” He gestured urgently.

At the last hut, a few feet from the forest and still in shadow, Bawi said, “Kinjo.” He stooped, scuttled within, and rooted in a corner. Morrison thought he saw canvas and grommets, a buckle. Bawi popped out. He was wriggling into a khaki shirt, and Morrison saw an inverted chevron on either sleeve.

“Tommy,” Morrison said.

“Tami.” Bawi grinned again. “Oh fine Tami. Vairy fuckin fine Tami.”

“Tommy stay here?”

“Tami here one rain. Rain go, he go.”

“Where he go?”

“Portagee side.” Bawi waved southward.

A deserter. “He come back?”

Bawi shook his head sadly, and said something that Morrison could not understand, but not in the chief’s language. Portuguese, he realized suddenly.

“You talk Portagee?”

“Oh yis sor. You talk Portagee?”

“No. How come you talk Portagee?”

“Talk Portagee fine,” Bawi said. “T’ree rain, Portagee come. T’ree rain, come back. T’ree rain, t’ree rain, Portagee come. I show.”

Their audience was gathering again; they trailed a retinue. Morrison could look at them now; it was a perfectly normal day in a perfectly normal year and he was paying a call on some perfectly normal old friends. He waved. Children giggled. The boys were not circumcised; the men were. Painful. There were old women he remembered from magazines, with breasts like wattles.

But Bawi tugged him along, and at another hut—they were all alike to Morrison—he scuttled again and emerged with a small roll of white cloth. “Portagee.” It was ordinary thin cotton. He replaced it and pushed Morrison forward. “I show.”

At Dulani’s hut he squatted, and his finger traced whorls in the dust as he chattered. Dulani grunted and nodded wearily and spoke to a woman, who slipped away. Morrison watched her go; she was young. Dulani’s eyes were cloudy. He did not look; he peered.

“Soon,” Bawi said.

So Morrison squatted beside him, hunkered down with his behind on his heels, and traced letters in the same dust until his civilized arches gave way. He rocked back on his heels then and stood up. But the woman was back, and with her an old man in a cotton cloth, not merely a loincloth but draped about his middle like a kirtle or whatever it was that Gandhi wore.

“Malani,” Bawi said, rising. “Him pop,” pointing at Dulani and doubtless meaning that the chief was the old man’s son, which did not seem right, but Morrison was far from home and disinclined to pry.

Morrison bowed, and the old man bowed. Then from a fold of his diaper he drew a knife.

It was a jackknife, well cared for, with three blades: the knife-blade, a nail-file and bottle-opener, and a corkscrew. Morrison was at ease now and feeling rather superior to these interesting folk, so he thought of Malani as the sommelier.

“Good knife,” he said.

“Knife,” Bawi said happily, remembering, and repeated it to Dulani.

Malani nodded, as if in relief: “Knife,” he said.

“What is a knife in your talk?”

“Urka,” Bawi said. Or Ruka. R’ka. He made a strange click deep in his throat and belched forth an r.

“What is water in your talk?”

“La.”

La. How right. La.

“Why does Malani keep the knife? Why not Bawi?”

Bawi smiled, this time gently and with admiration. “Malani make pig, make dog, make—” He squatted again and grimaced, waved, chittered, picked at his armpits. The villagers chuckled and giggled.

“Monkey,” Morrison said.

“Mon-key.”

They all practiced, in a general murmur.

“You show me.”

They turned away, but Morrison remembered his manners. “Tell Dulani thank you.”

Dulani nodded again without interest. Bawi spoke and they moved off, cortege and all.

Malani’s hut was at the riverbank. Some of the children left them to slide and plunge, like otters playing. Bawi and Morrison squatted again while Malani puttered in the shade. The sun was higher; another brazen day.

Malani ranged three pieces before them: a pig and a dog and a monkey, in grainy gray wood. They were badly proportioned and static, just a pig and a dog and a monkey, not doing anything, not rooting or sniffing or scratching, but recognizable.

Bawi beamed. Malani was properly withdrawn; indifferent; preoccupied.

“They’re beautiful,” Morrison said. “Very good-looking.”

Bawi rattled the compliment to Malani, who bowed, cast his eyes down, and smirked slightly in the manner of the lionized artist, so perfect in his condescending thanks to a negligible critic that Morrison had to repress a bray.

“Tell Malani thank you.”

Bawi did so, and they took gracious leave of the master.

“What do you give the Portagee?”

Bawi did not understand.

“The Portagee gives you knife. What do you give him?”

Still unclear, Bawi offered, “Eat. Drink. Plenny bint.”

Bint again. So bint was food and drink.

“Eat, drink now,” Bawi said. “You come.”

Morrison turned to inspect their following, twenty or so, braving the sun for him. Three were men, impassive. Half were children, who tittered trying to hide behind one another. The old women shushed them. Four or five were young women, and it was difficult not to stare. There was much to stare at, and it was somehow handsomer than he had ever seen, stronger, healthier, directed frankly at him, not pale and imprisoned and gouged by straps. Overpowering. The faces were open black faces, clear eyes and wide nostrils, small ears, the hair only a frizz. They stared back at him. He wanted momentarily to take them and go to a dark place; but he could be of no use to them, and they were not born for dark places. He was perturbed, assaulted, made small; they called to him and shamed him.

Bawi grinned. He knew. “Bint,” he said.

“Let’s go,” Morrison said, and turned away.

Dulani was a sick man. Morrison saw that in his lethargy, his dim sight, his indifference. When he needed a gourd, or a broad leaf, he spoke, and one of his women placed it directly before him, and in reaching he groped. Morrison wondered how much of Bawi’s translation was truth and how much fiction; how much Dulani and how much Bawi.

“What you want here?” Bawi asked again.

They were drinking water from gourds and eating breadfruit. Their bowls were gourds; leaves their plates. The same young woman served Morrison, kneeling to place the gourd before him, and the sunny, musky smell of her breasts was an ache inside him.

“I wanted to know the men on this side.”

Bawi understood, and was pleased. He made the announcement, and a murmur answered. “What you make?” He gestured loosely toward the gorge.

Morrison sipped at the water, and rushed in: “A new bridge.”

Bawi shook his head.

“To cross.” With his hands Morrison outlined a gorge, deep, deep, with one finger arched a bridge across the top. Then he drew it in the dust.

“Ah.” With alarm; Bawi was alert now. “You talk what?”

“Bridge,” Morrison said again. “Big bridge. Good bridge. Walk on like this.” With the flat of his hand he pounded the earth. “Many men walk together, same time.” He showed Bawi the fingers of both hands and pointed to many of the villagers. “All on bridge. Big bridge.”

Bawi explained that. Silence followed. Morrison saw the pot of hot water again.

“Tami come?”

“No. No more Tami. Man like Bawi come. Black man.”

“Come do what?”

Morrison shook his head. “Come do nothing. Come give knife. Many things.”

He shut up then, chilled suddenly by the sharp wind of untruth. In this village were no lies, he believed, and he could not know what the bridge would bring.

Bawi said gloomily, “Hut here.” His arm swept a half circle. “All time hut here. Bawi pop hut here. Pop pop. Pop pop pop.”

“All time pop.”

“No, no. Ol’ ol’ pop come here.” He pointed. “You come. Same you come.”

“What for ol’ ol’ pop come here?” The talk seemed natural now. He would some day tell Devoe, “Make bridge all done. You give Moe much money.”

“Mmmmm.” Bawi’s search for words was agonizing. His mind strained back twenty-two years. He waved again toward the gorge, the country itself, the capital. “Tami come. Too much Tami. Bad Tami. Ol’ ol’ pop come here. All pop come. No bad Tami here.”

Dulani spoke.

Bawi said, “Good here. La. Waw-da. No, mmm, gun. No Tami. Much cassawa. Much pig. No want much man here.”

“Bawi.” Morrison too struggled with the vocabulary. “This side good man. Black man like Bawi. Portagee side maybe bad man. Maybe bad man come here. Take all. No good. Then good man come help Bawi push ’em back.” He gestured violently.

“Portagee man not bad,” Bawi said flatly.

“One rain, two rain, ten rain,” all Morrison’s fingers fanlike, “maybe Portagee man bad.”

Bawi was obviously unimpressed. After a moment he said, “Bad. Bad. Bad.”

There were no mass farewells. By noon, when Morrison started back to the gorge, most of the village was bathing in the stream; a formal and customary respite, he gathered. Men, and women, and children bathed in separate groups. They rubbed themselves with sand. The children ducked and spouted. Morrison was about to ask if this was a ceremony for Sundays, but remembered that there were no Sundays.

He pointed. “All time?”

“Sun here,” Bawi’s arm vertical, “come wawda.”

“Every day.”

Bawi smiled as memory blossomed. “Ever’ day, sun here, come wawda.”

“Me too,” Morrison said.

“You want come wawda now?”

“No. I’ll go on now.”

“You come back?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Bawi said, and they set out for the gorge.

Along this same trail, twenty-two years before, had come Old Tommy, Lance Corporal Anonymous, fabled in song and story as the Unknown Deserter, pride and idol of millions; he had had this bloody war and would no longer be a number. Or even a name. From the dim artificial light of a Birmingham slum and a sluggish troopship and a sweat-stinking barracks he had passed this way to the black incandescence of a border village, and on then to the world, born again. Morrison saw a short, tough street rat, dropping aitches, joking indecently, taking charge. The magic cigarette lighter. A stolen pistol. Now owning a saloon in Rio de Janeiro or Lourenço Marques or Singapore. I am that I am. Old Tommy. Dead and resurrected. Twice-born. Hail!

“This Old Tommy,” he said.

Bawi paused.

“Old Tommy have another name? You call him another word?”

“No no. Ol’ Tami, him.”

Lost. There would be records. Sir: We are searching for a lance corporal last seen snipping the equator with a stolen pair of government-issue wire-cutters. He has come into a small legacy. Please advise. TOMMY: COME BACK. ALL IS FORGIVEN. UNCLE MALANI NEEDS YOU IN THE BUSINESS. No questions asked.

No. Old Tommy would not like that. It was odd to think that any Englishman over forty—a clerk in a bowler in Cheapside, or the drunken beachcomber of New Providence—might be Old Tommy. He might even have gone back to Birmingham, and be a factory hand right now, this moment. Keeping the wogs out of the union. Or—

“Old Tommy white man or black man?”

Bawi grinned that sunrise grin and laughed aloud. “Whi’ man. No Tami black man. No Tami black man.” His laughter melted to a giggle, and Morrison saw by his eyes that he was composing the anecdote. He will tell them at the sunset meal, Morrison thought, and it will go down to the sons and the sons’ sons. “With the white man I was walking, where the grass turns yellow at the great red hill, and he was talking, and he talked of black soldiers.” How they would laugh and shout! And the story would never fail. On dull evenings one man would nudge another and say, “Let’s see if we can get Bawi to tell that story about the crazy white man and the black soldiers.”

It was all rather sad.

They made ceremonious farewells at the bridge, and Morrison crossed with no difficulty. The two black men lowered the bridge, and waved, and vanished into the bush. Morrison drove back to camp, and sat in the wawda a while, and slept naked in a hammock.

Philips found him there at about four.

“Welcome home,” Morrison said sleepily. “A good weekend?”

“The usual. Martha sends regards.”

“Thank you. I don’t see any bruises.”

“It was really very quiet,” Philips said. “As I assume it was here.”

“It was. I pondered the words of Ramesh and found serenity.”

“Oh,” Philips said. “Your crane has arrived.”