MORNING LIGHT PASSED through pine trees and refracted in still water. Maia and the children remained at the shore long after the boat was a speck on the horizon.
“Where do you think they’re sailing to?” Maia asked the children.
“To the sea.”
“The sea?”
“The lake has no bottom, linking it to the sea.”
“It’s our longing for the sea.”
“It’s salty, full of tears of the living for the dead.”
Maia absorbed the children’s stories. Retold from old tales or newly made-up, each tried to illuminate what is. She glimpsed their connectedness: what was visible on the children, she carried a sliver of within. She noticed the deformities less and less and recognized the children by their words and actions. Though distinct, they moved interdependently as if they were a part of a single mammoth being. She wondered whether they could continue in this human-created hell—living in isolation on the ranch, operating with the disfigurement handed to them.
Or could they find a way to transcend the illusory world of borders?
It was a Sunday, so the children had to fend for themselves. They swam and bathed in the lake and then scrubbed their scanty clothes on the flat boulders. They caught fish with bamboo poles and trawled for shrimps and crabs with wicker nets. They dug sweet cassavas from the ground and picked wild red berries off vines. They gathered dried leaves and twigs to start a fire. By midday, they had a feast that for a time filled the emptiness Kabab’s departure had left.
When evening came and a bright moon appeared, it was time for the children to return to the communal home. Maia stayed behind. The children headed off in a single file along the lake toward the pine forest. They moved with a lighthearted romping, as if dancing, singing the song they had just learned. The children disappeared into the forest, but she could still hear their voices. Alone by the lake, she joined in the dance.
Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight,
Come out tonight, come out tonight,
Buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight,
And dance by the light of the moon?20