Redemption in Indigo

4

ansige loses his dignity and his head

The next day, Paama was so miserable that even after she put her tears under the river stone, she could still feel the salt water sitting heavy on her heart. Her sister, who had finally seen Ansige at table, was at least more sympathetic than previously, but it wasn't enough. Her mother wore a look of suffering by proxy and guilt by association that gave Paama no comfort at all, at all, at all. Only her father gave her some hope. He was pondering the problem of Ansige so deeply that his brow was furrowed. Paama prayed that such strenuous mental effort would be rewarded with success.

She confided in him. ‘Father, Ansige thinks that all the things that have happened to him are not because of his own foolishness, but because I am not taking proper care of him. What can I do?'

Semwe's frown fell away for a moment as he looked fondly at his daughter. ‘Paama, there is very little that one can do when a foolish person chooses to think foolish things. But perhaps you could prepare for him a special dish, one of his favourites. You will satisfy both his ego and his appetite.'

Paama smiled. ‘That is an excellent suggestion. I know what he would like best. Millet dumplings. I'll go start grinding the meal now.'

She set up her large mortar with its tall pestle in the court, the usual place to go to grind meal. After all, it was a job that had to be done singing, so that the rhythm could carry the motion of the pestle. As she worked and sang, passing villagers called out the familiar refrain in reply to her verses.

Again Paama filled the mortar and ground the millet, and then filled and ground again. This was for Ansige, so naturally there would have to be a lot of it.

When the song had ended and the grinding was done, Paama's heart felt light at last. She caught sight of Ansige at the far edge of the court, looking at her as if his life depended on the contents of her mortar, and instead of being irritated at him, she felt sorry for him. Such an obsession with food could not be normal. Maybe he had a maw worm, a ravenous parasite living in his guts that ate the majority of the food he put into his body. Maybe he had a dislocation in his brain, so that instead of his feeling happiness, sorrow, or anger, his emotions were replaced by the sensation of hunger. She wished she could help him—not merely feed him to take away the hunger for a short while, but cure him so that food would never rule him again.

She mixed the millet with water, spices, and a touch of honey and cooked up a huge amount, platters full of dumplings, enough for twenty. When she brought them to Ansige, he was so ecstatic over this treat that she was able to go home, content and at peace, knowing that she could have a moment's well-deserved rest.

Ansige was indeed happy. To have food is always pleasant, but to have one's favourite dish, and to have it after watching it being prepared by the hands of someone who cares about you, that must surely be the greatest culinary delight. He ate and ate and ate until the sad moment arrived when he was holding the last dumpling in his hand. He popped it into his mouth and swallowed it down. Still hungry! Heaving a deep sigh, he looked around sadly and saw Paama's mortar still standing in the court.

'Good dumplings,’ muttered a tiny voice by his foot.

He looked down, and there was a beetle, green and gold in the dusty brown soil of the court, worrying a large crumb of dumpling with its mandibles.

It looked up at him and, impossibly, winked. ‘Bet you wish there was more where this came from, eh?'

Ansige's bottom lip pushed out in one of his variations on ‘Woe is me!’ Then he paused, struck by the beetle's words. Perhaps there was a bit of millet left at the bottom. There was only one way to find out. He went to the mortar and scraped a finger around the bottom, coming up with a tiny scoop of precious millet meal. Licking the finger clean, he again reached in and drew out another fingerful, but the small portions were more annoying than satisfying. There had to be a better way to get to the bottom of the mortar. Of course! He could put in his head and lick what he wanted straight from the sides and bottom.

It was one of his most brilliant ideas yet. He soon cleaned down the walls of the mortar and was heading for the remnants at the bottom when something disastrous happened. He could not get any closer! Frantically he extended his tongue as far as it could reach and strained to achieve the last few millimetres to his goal, but soon he had to admit defeat. He tried to pull his head out into the open.

Horrors! His ears, which had slid in so easily, refused to slide back up!

He tried a corkscrewing motion, turning his neck while his hands braced the edges of the mortar. If anything, it only made matters worse. Utterly chagrined, he scrambled blindly away to the side of a building and started to knock his wood-helmeted head against the wall.

Paama, he screamed in silent desperation, if you come and get me out of this, I promise I will never take you for granted again!

Paama sat up with a twitch. She had been relaxing, reclining, sipping coconut water and mulling over ways to convince Ansige to seek professional help for his problem. Then came this spasm, like a warning. It had been too quiet for too long. Ansige was not hanging around, begging for his between-meals snack. Something was wrong.

She ran to the fields, because that was where he had ended up during the previous two crises. No Ansige. She rushed back into the village and went towards the guest lodge.

Bup bup bup.

Paama wondered who could be pounding meal in such an odd fashion. Rather than the subdued, deep tone of wood on wood, it sounded like wood on stone.

Bup bup bup.

She came into the court and there was no-one there, but still there was this sound. There lay her own pestle, which she had left and forgotten after her morning's work??ut where was the mortar? A knowledge of something, she knew not what, made her run to the alley by the guest lodge, the direction of the sound. What she saw there made her stop still for a moment in shock.

'Ansige? Ansige, is that you?’ she asked incredulously.

'Don't act as if you don't know me!’ he said, his voice muffled from the depths of the mortar and choked with tears of frustration. ‘You had to go and leave a bit of millet at the bottom of the mortar, and my head got stuck when I tried to reach it. I can scarcely breathe!'

'Don't panic,’ said Paama, a bit breathless herself with the strangeness of this scrape.

She ran to the court, muttering to herself, ‘Now what do I do? I am running out of bright ideas.'

She began to yell. ‘Help! Help! It is all my fault! It is all my fault!'

With such a good line, people could not resist coming to see who was blaming herself so freely. ‘What is all your fault? What is the matter?'

'Ansige is stuck in my mortar! I told him he had a big head, and he said no, he didn't have a big head, and I said, “I bet you can't get it into my mortar. If I put my wedding ring into the mortar, could you get it out again using only your mouth?” And he said, “Just you wait, I'll show you,” and then he put his head into my mortar, and now it's stuck and I'm to blame!'

The villagers looked at Ansige, listened to Paama's story, and burst out laughing. ‘Never mind, Paama. We'll get him out somehow,’ they said soothingly.

Perhaps it was unkind for them to laugh at him while he was in such a predicament, but no matter how you turned it about, who was the one at fault, the person who made the dare, or the person who took it up and came to grief? And wasn't this the third time in three days that they were running to rescue this man from some mishap?

Tasi and Semwe stepped out of the crowd and came up to their daughter. Tasi gave Paama a consoling hug and spoke quietly in her ear. ‘A good story, but you are still wearing your wedding ring. Take it off and drop it on the other side of me, where no-one can see.'

Paama quickly obeyed while all eyes were still fixed on the strange sight of Ansige cowering in the alley with his head encased in a mortar. As the ring fell to the ground, Tasi immediately covered it with her foot, all the while patting Paama's shoulder comfortingly.

After some of the villagers had stopped laughing long enough to consider the problem, it was decided to use an axe to get Ansige out, and this had him so frantic with worry that he embarrassed himself further by whimpering and flinching. Finally they struck off only the very bottom of the mortar, quite a distance from his head, and then gently split the round open using a chisel and a crowbar. Every hammer and chop had been magnified a hundredfold by the wood pressing on his ears, and Ansige was quite traumatised when they finally got him loose.

Semwe took hold of his son-in-law with a grip that was sympathetic yet surprisingly firm. ‘What a frightful experience! You must visit a doctor to ensure that there has been no permanent damage. Let me take you to the lodge and help you pack. The Makendha Infirmary is far too small to treat your case. We must get you to Ahani as soon as possible.'

Ansige followed Semwe without protest. In a bewilderingly brisk few minutes, he found that his belongings were packed, his bills settled, and a small crowd of villagers—some solicitous, some inquisitive, and some still frankly laughing at him—was escorting him to await the next omnibus to Ahani.

Paama watched him go, her arms folded and her lips folded as she listened to those who were quietly laughing and poking fun at Ansige. A wasp flew a time or two around her head, and certain ears would have heard it say:

'Look at him go! A fool to the last. No-one would think any less of you if you laughed at him, too, Paama. Go on, Paama! Beat the man down!'

Paama continued to stare at Ansige's retreating back. Behind her, half-hidden in the dust of the court, lay her discarded wedding ring. Tasi quickly stooped and picked it up, opening her mouth as if about to voice some reassurance, but Paama immediately turned away and walked homewards, not once looking at her parents, not once glancing up at the jeering insect.

Just outside the village, a pair of unseen observers exulted.

'Did you see that? She didn't hear it!'

'Or she heard it and ignored it.'

'Either way, she must indeed be the one to hold the Chaos Stick. They cannot influence her!'

'I'm glad you agree with me at last. Go arrange for it to be given to her as soon as possible.'