Song for Night

Rest Is a Chin Held in a Palm

“Death is our burden to carry,” the woman says, when I point to the coffin and raise my eyebrows. The water she gave me has revived me and I am sitting up, propped against the coffin, smoking another cigarette. I offer her one, but she shakes her head, reaching into her bra and pulling out a small round silver box with a mirror on its lid. She taps it a few times, twists the cap off, and dips a moistened forefinger into it. It comes out packed with snuff, which she rubs against her gums. She makes a satisfied sound, tears running from the harsh hit. She turns and gives me a watery smile. I look away. I have a persistent hunger, an appetite for something I can’t define. Above, the sky is becoming overcast.

“We should find shelter before it begins to rain,” she says.

I nod and get up. I look down the road. There is a bamboo grove not far. I guess the river winds back at that point. Bamboo clumps grow on the banks and droop like willows, rippling fingers through the dirty water. Grandfather said they were mermaids who while washing their hair didn’t notice the gaze of humans until too late. They became frozen, the bamboo all that was left of them, still vainly trying to wash their hair in the river. It should be easy to build a shelter there. I turn to the woman.

“What is your name, Mother?” I sign, using the respectful term for a woman old enough to be my mother. It is the way here. She likes it, she smiles.

“My name is Grace,” she says.

“Come, Mother,” I sign. “We can find shelter ahead.”

She helps me hoist the coffin onto my head and we move along. It is natural and fitting that I should take the coffin from the old woman. I am stronger and younger, yet I feel even closer to death with the infernal box on my head. Grace says nothing, just follows. When we get to the grove, I clear the ground shrub just away from the road, the blade of the machete fast against the hollow bamboo, sounding a song of steel and wood. In no time I have built a lean-to and roofed it with bamboo leaves woven into small squares; and just in time because I have barely hauled the coffin into the shelter when the sky opens up in a storm.

“Can you build a fire?” Grace asks.

If she thinks it is strange that I don’t speak, she has said nothing. I nod and gather kindling. It is easy — I just reach back into the grove. Soon there is a small but cheerful blaze going. Grace opens the coffin and pulls out a pot and some cooking ingredients. As she stands the pot in the rain to collect water, she asks: “Is that yam I see in your bag?”

I nod and offer it to her. She peels it quickly with my bayonet, her grip experienced, and then she holds it out in the rain to wash it clean. She chops it and puts it in the pot of water, adds the last of the oil from my bag, some herbs she has, and a piece of dry fish she has been clearly hoarding for some time. While we wait for the rain to abate and the yam pottage to cook, I smoke and she rubs snuff on her gums. She begins to talk.

“I’ve carried this coffin for so long; for such a long time. You see, we are nothing if we don’t know how to die right. That sums us up as a people. Not the manner we come into the world, but the manner in which we leave.”

After all that I have seen, it sounds a little self-indulgent, but it’s not like I can interrupt her, so I let her go on. It seems important to her to tell me this stuff, although I don’t know why. Why, even in moments like this, do people feel they have to explain their oddness? If no one felt that kind of shame, that kind of embarrassment, would there be no more war? It sounds silly. I guess this is what Grandfather meant when he would say I was acting my age.

“One day I will die and then my killers will be able to bury me easily.”

I want to laugh but it would be unkind.

“I even have a headstone in here,” Grace continues, pointing to the coffin. No wonder it is so bloody heavy, I think. But she isn’t too irritating and I am grateful for the company. Besides, the food smells great. She busies herself dishing it into earthenware bowls she digs out of the coffin. A right Pandora’s Box, I think. We eat in silence. I remember her taking the bowl from me, but nothing else.

When I wake, she is gone. Like the rain and the bamboo grove. In fact, I wake up in the coffin beside the river, quite a distance from the grove. I leap out. She must have moved me, but how, and why? What kind of sorcery is this?

Just then, across the river, I catch sight of Nebu and the rest of my platoon. They are resting on the opposite bank. I scream and wave but I think I am too far away because they don’t act like they’ve seen me. There is nothing else to do but cross the river. I have no boat, so I push the coffin into the water. Shuddering, I get in and begin paddling with my arms.