Aqamdax straightened her sax, arranged the necklaces she wore, and held her breath as the man climbed down into the ulax. She recognized the feet on the climbing log and exhaled with sudden impatience.
“So now your wife is pregnant, you come to me again?” she asked.
Day Breaker set his feet on the ulax floor and turned slowly to face her. “I have no interest in your sleeping place,” he said to her. As though realizing for the first time that Qung stood watching him, he nodded at the old woman, muttered a greeting, called her grandmother in honor of her age. “My wife heard one of the traders say he was coming to visit you.”
“Your wife hears many things,” Aqamdax answered.
Day Breaker’s face darkened, and Aqamdax enjoyed his anger. He had told her she would be his wife. She had believed him, though the chief’s wives laughed when she told them. Now she understood their laughter. How could Day Breaker marry a woman without a father, a woman without uncles or brothers or a grandfather?
“Is it the trader called Sok?”
“Yes,” Aqamdax told him. “The tall one.”
“I saw him try to cheat an old woman.”
“That was one of the Walrus traders,” Aqamdax said. “Sok did not cheat anyone.”
“He gave me a whole caribou skin and dried fish for a small seal skin and a coil of twisted sinew,” Qung said. “He did not cheat me.”
“I have come to tell you to be careful,” said Day Breaker. “My uncle told me no one should ever trust a trader.”
“Your uncle does not trust anyone because he is dishonest himself,” Qung said. “Aqamdax has learned many things in her life. She has had men make promises to her before this.” She stepped close to Day Breaker. “She knows how to be careful,” she said, and stared at him until he turned and started up the climbing log.
“Do not think you are the only one with wisdom,” Qung called after him, then she looked at Aqamdax and giggled like a girl.
They met on old Qung’s ulax roof, so it was difficult to pretend they did not see each other, but neither man spoke. A sudden thrust of anger burned in Sok’s chest—was this one of the men who visited Aqamdax’s bed? But then he chided himself. Why should he care? The woman did not belong to him.
The Sea Hunter man jumped from the ulax roof, and Sok watched as he walked to another, larger ulax. Sok tightened his grip on the salmonskin basket he carried, then paused at the roof hole. He did not know the First Men’s customs about visiting. Did a man call out? Did he use a stick to rap the wood that framed the square roof hole? Tut had said she would meet him here. Should he wait for her?
Finally he called down from the roof hole, then climbed into the ulax. It was a small ulax, less than half the size of many in the village. Of course, most ulas housed several families. This one, as far as he had been able to learn, belonged to the old woman Qung, and only she and Aqamdax lived here. Tut had told him that it was unusual among the First Men for a woman to own a ulax. Most belonged to men.
It seemed the most difficult thing about being a trader, besides the traveling, was learning the customs of each village. It was easy to offend without realizing. Cormorant had told him to speak softly and seldom, especially when he was invited to some villager’s lodge.
The two women stood at the bottom of the climbing log, and Qung made some nonsense of words that Sok guessed was a greeting. He reached into the basket, pulled out two birdbone necklaces and handed one to each women, then turned and looked around as though he were searching for Aqamdax’s husband.
“I have brought these things to honor your husband,” he said in the River language. “He is not here?” When they did not answer, he spoke in Walrus, one word, “Husband?”
“No husband,” Qung said, also speaking in Walrus.
Someone called from the roof hole, and in relief Sok recognized Tut’s voice.
She came down the climbing log, spoke for a moment to Qung, then said to Sok, “They understand that I am here to translate. What do you want to tell them?”
“Tell them I now know Aqamdax has no husband. Tell them I want them to have these things themselves.”
Tut explained in long words, then Qung smiled and took the basket from Sok and set it on the floor. She squatted beside it and pulled out his gifts, exclaiming over each thing as though she were a child.
Sok watched her, then felt a hand on his parka sleeve. “Would you like something to eat?” Aqamdax asked, pantomiming a bowl cupped in one hand, her other hand scooping toward her mouth with two fingers.
“Yes. I am hungry.” He pointed with his lips at Qung and the basket. “You do not want to see what I brought?”
Tut repeated the question, and with laughter lifting the corners of her mouth, translated Aqamdax’s reply. “She says that Qung is not greedy. She will give Aqamdax a fair share.”
Aqamdax filled a bowl from a boiling bag that hung over an oil lamp and handed it to Sok. He squatted on his haunches and ate. Most women would have found something to do—sewing, or weaving grass—but Aqamdax squatted beside him and watched him. It made him uncomfortable. He kept his eyes straight ahead, and when he finished the bowl, he handed it to her.
There was no politeness in the woman. She did not offer him more to eat or wait for him to speak first, but turned and said something to Tut.
Again Tut laughed. “She says that she is not a fool. She sees by your gifts that you knew she did not have a husband. So she asks, since you did not come to see her husband, why are you here?”
He matched her rudeness with his own and answered, “I am still hungry.”
Tut told Aqamdax, and Sok waited for a scowl or angry words, but she did not seem insulted. She simply stood and filled his bowl, then handed it back to him. Again she watched him eat; again he ignored her.
Finally, as he finished the food, she spoke. Tut left Qung’s side, not bothering to stand, waddling like a puffin, her legs bent beneath her.
“Aqamdax says her mother lives with the River People,” Tut told Sok.
Before Sok could say anything, the old woman Qung called out in a strong voice.
“Qung says that you did not answer Aqamdax’s question,” Tut said. “She wants to know why are you here. Why do you bring these gifts?”
“I enjoyed your stories,” Sok answered.
“So that is worth a belly of oil, perhaps a seal skin,” Qung continued, pausing now and again so Tut could translate. “You give too much. It is not expected in this village. We will take one thing, and you can have the rest to trade.”
A rude people, these First Men, Sok thought, then wondered if it was more rude to say what you thought or to hide true intent under a cloak of words or a basket of gifts.
“I have come to ask Aqamdax to return with me to the Walrus Village and become a wife,” he said.
Tut translated, and both Qung and Aqamdax stood with mouths open. Sok waited for one of them to speak, but they said nothing.
Finally he said, “I know it is not an easy decision. I will leave you now and come back tomorrow.”
Without waiting for Tut to translate, Sok stood, thanked them for the food and left the ulax.
“What did he say?” Aqamdax asked. “He will come tomorrow for your decision,” Tut told her. Aqamdax looked at Qung with worried eyes. “You would give up being storyteller to become a trader’s wife?” Qung asked her.
Aqamdax could not answer.
Chapter Twenty-four
A
QAMDAX WADED INTO THE
bay, first up to her knees and then beyond. The water rose to cover the sparse dark hair that protected her woman’s cleft, then past her belly and up to her small round breasts. For a moment a wave caught her up off her feet and a swell of fear made her draw in her breath, but then the water set her down again. She had never been in so deep and, like most First Men, could not swim. Usually, each morning, she went to the river, to the shallow pool it had carved out where it emptied itself into the bay. There she and the other women would stand, knee-deep, facing the new sun, splashing their bodies with water to cleanse and strengthen themselves.
Today she went to the bay, like hunters did, to the challenge of deeper water and the harsh, bone-aching cold. She had chosen the bay water to harden herself so she would be ready for what she must do next, not only to harden her flesh, but also her soul. Otherwise, how could she hope to survive? Surely her spirit would abandon her and come back to this place she loved, to the rocks and grasses and beaches that were her home.
“So you asked her?”
Sok nodded.
Chakliux watched as Sok cracked the knuckles of his left hand, then his right. “And?”
“And she will give me an answer today.”
“You think she will come with us?”
“There is a chance. They say she is barren. Though her storytelling powers are great, she is unable to give a husband a child.”
“Perhaps she is content being only storyteller.”
“What woman does not want to be a wife? Even a storyteller cannot expect the village hunters to provide as much food as a husband and sons.”
“Perhaps that is true,” Chakliux answered, “but sometimes a gift is in itself enough, worth more than meat or oil.”
“I have told her I would give many gifts,” Sok answered.
Chakliux looked away, did not try to explain to his brother what he had meant.
They were sitting at the iqyax racks, their backs to the wind, hoods up to protect their ears from the cold.
“Do not hope too much, brother,” Chakliux said.
The wind cut suddenly around the racks, sending a spray of sand into their faces. Chakliux closed his eyes and tightened his hood. Tut had told him that the wind was stronger here than where the Walrus Hunters lived, and traders claimed it was stronger still farther to the west. Chakliux blinked the sand out of his eyes, then noticed that something moved out on the water.
An otter, he thought, and pushed back his hood to see better. The dark otter head rose from the water, lifted and became not otter but woman, hair as black and shining as obsidian, molded like a garment over the woman’s shoulders and breasts.
He heard Sok gasp beside him, then felt his brother’s hand hard on his arm. “Turn your head, brother,” Sok said.
And Chakliux knew his words were not because the woman was naked. The First Men took less care about hiding their bodies from one another than the River People did. It was because the woman was completing some sacred washing, a tradition among the First Men, as Tut had once explained.
Still, the woman’s grace held him, and suddenly he knew she was the storyteller Aqamdax. She lifted her hands toward the sky, then lowered herself again into the water, where again she seemed to become otter. Sok was right; this was something sacred. He turned his head, closed his eyes.
Qung did not look up when Aqamdax entered the ulax. The old woman was weaving one of her grass baskets. It was small, no larger than her fist, not much use for gathering or storage, a basket for the eyes, as Qung would call it.
“Sit here,” she said without looking up from her work.
Aqamdax sat down beside her.
“Watch,” Qung said.
Aqamdax focused her eyes on Qung’s deft fingers. The body of the basket rested in her left hand, and she held thin strands of split grass in place between her left forefinger and middle finger as her right hand twisted weft strands over warp. Usually after Qung told her to watch, both women sat in silence, but this time Qung began to speak, her fingers working in rhythm to her words.
“Making a basket is little different from weaving a story,” she began. “The strands of grass are like words. Each has its own place; each has strength to add to the whole. I choose the grass carefully—strong inner blades, dried slowly—just as I choose my words.” She dipped her fingers into a small wooden bowl of water. “I keep it wet, so it will remember how it grew strong under the rain, and thus remain strong as I weave, just as stories remain strong, and grow stronger with each remembering.”
Again she was silent, and Aqamdax bent her head to watch Qung’s fingers. She wove a long time, then she stopped, inverted her basket over a carved wood form, the same size and shape as the basket itself. She sorted through the split strands of grass at her side, selected two, crossed them at their centers, looped them over each other, twining them together. Now they were weft strands, weavers. She added a warp strand between them, twined the weavers over it, continued to add warp grass. She looked up at Aqamdax.
“You have decided to go with the traders, have you not?”
Aqamdax twisted her fingers together in her lap. “My mother lives among the River People. Perhaps I will find her.” She did not mention what Mouth and the other women had said.
Qung pulled herself into a ball, tucking her arms around her upraised knees, lowering her head so Aqamdax could not see her face. Finally she spoke, her words almost a whisper. “If you marry a trader, perhaps you will come back.”
“Perhaps each year,” Aqamdax said.
Qung lifted her head. “You will not forget the stories?”
“I will never forget the stories.”
Again silence. Qung fingered the basket she had just begun, then suddenly thrust it at Aqamdax. “You have much to learn. Watch me, and follow my hands.” She took up her own basket and began to weave. Aqamdax, her fingers sticky with nervousness, watched, tried to imitate. It was difficult. The grass was so thin, the circle of warp and weft so frail under her hands. She wove, and Qung set her own basket down to watch, shook her head, ripped out Aqamdax’s work, told her to start again.
All afternoon, they wove, and still Aqamdax had no more done than when she had begun. Finally, Qung checked her work and nodded her head, allowed Aqamdax to continue, then showed her how to add more warp strands. Aqamdax wove, though her neck and shoulders ached, her eyes burned.
“Enough,” Qung finally said. “Put it away. Your River man will come soon.”
Aqamdax set aside the small circle of weaving she had completed. She combed out her hair, oiled her skin until it shone, changed her woven grass aprons for those she saved for celebrations, woven in bright colored bands and hanging to her knees, one from the front of her belt, the other from the back.