At first the lizards, still chilled by the fog, basked on the sunny front of the dunes, but within minutes the heat was oppressive and they ran across the ridges of the slipface to shelter on the shady side, Later, when the noon sun dispelled all the shadows, they would dive below the surface and swim down through it to the cooler sands beneath.
H'ani and Centaine shouldered their carrying bags and, bowed under the weight of the egg-bottles, went down to the beach. O'wa was already at the camp and he had a dozen fat lizards impaled on a stick of driftwood, and a goodly bag of the gingery desert rats laid out on the flat stone beside the fire.
Oh, husband, what an intrepid provider you are. H'ani laid down her carrying bag the better to praise the old man's efforts. Surely there has never been a hunter of all the San to match your skills! O'wa preened quite unashamedly at the old woman's blatant flattery, and H'ani averted her face for a moment and her eyes flashed a message to Centaine in the secret language of womankind.
They are little boys, her smile said clearly. From eight to eighty, they remain children. And Centaine laughed again and clapped her hands and joined in H'ani's little pantomime of approbation.
O'wa good! O'wa clever! And the old man bobbed his head and looked solemn and important.
The moon was only four or five days from full, so that after they had eaten, it was bright enough to throw purple dark shadows below the dunes. They were all still too excited by the fog visitation to sleep, and Centaine was trying to follow and even join in the chatter of the two old San.
Centaine had by now learned the four click sounds of the San language, as well as that glottal choke which sounded as though the speaker was being strangulated.
However, she was still struggling to understand the tonal variations. The different tones were almost undetectable to the Western ear, and it was only in the last few days that Centaine had even become aware of their existence.
She had puzzled over the way H'ani seemed to repeat the same word and showed exasperation when Centaine had obviously not been able to detect any difference in the pronunciations. Then, quite suddenly, as though wax plugs had been removed from her ears, Centaine had heard five distinct inflexions, high, middle, low, rising and falling, that changed not only the sense of a word but the relationship of the word to the rest of the sentence.
It was difficult and challenging and she was sitting close to H'ani so she could watch her lips, when suddenly she let out a surprised gasp and clutched her stomach with both hands.
It moved! Centaine's voice was filled with wonder. He moved, the baby moved! H'ani understood immediately and she reached out swiftly and lifted Centaine's brief tattered skirt and clasped her stomach. Deep in her body there was another spasm of life, Ai! Ai! shrilled H'ani. Feel him! Feel him kick like a zebra stallion! Fat little tears of joy squeezed out of her slanted Chinese eyes and as they ran down the deep corrugated wrinkles on her cheeks, they sparkled in the light of the fire and the moon. So strong, so brave and strong!
Feel him, old grandfather. O'wa could not refuse such an invitation, and Centaine, kneeling in the firelight with her skirts lifted high over her naked lower body, felt no embarrassment at the old man's touch.
This, announced O'wa solemnly, is a most propitious thing. It is fitting that I should dance to celebrate it. And Uwa stood up and danced in the moonlight for Centaine's unborn infant.
The moon dipped into the dark, slumbrous sea, but already the sky over the land was turning to the colour of ripe orange at the approach of day and Centaine lay for only a few seconds after she awoke. She was surprised that the two old people still lay beside the dead ash of last night's fire, but she left the camp hurriedly, knowing that that day's trek would begin before sunrise.
At a discreet distance from the camp she squatted to relieve herself, then stripped off her rags and ran into the sea, gasping at the cold invigorating water as she scrubbed her body with handfuls of sand. She pulled her clothing over her wet body and ran back to the camp. The old people were still wrapped in their leather cloaks and lying so still that Centaine felt a moment of panic, but then H'ani coughed throatily and stirred.
They are still alive, anyway, Centaine smiled and assembled her few possessions, feeling virtuous for usually H'ani had to chivvy her, but now the old woman stirred again and mumbled sleepily.
Centaine understood only the words Wait, rest, sleep. Then H'ani subsided and pulled her cloak over her head again.
Centaine was puzzled. She fed a few sticks to the fire and blew up a flame, then sat to wait.
Venus, the morning star, lay on the backs of the dunes, but paled and faded at the approach of the sun, and still the two San slept on, and Centaine began to feel irritated by the inactivity. She was so strong and healthy already that she had actually been looking forward to the day's journey.
Only when the sun cleared the tops of the dunes did H'ani sit up and yawn and belch and scratch herselfGo? Centaine used the rising tone that changed the word into a question.
No, no, H'ani made the negative waving sign. Wait night, moon, go there. And she pointed with a quick stabbing thumb at the dunes.
Go land? Centaine asked, not sure that she understood.
Go land, H'ani agreed, and Centaine felt a quick thrill.
They were going to leave the seashore at last.
Go now? Centaine demanded impatiently.
Twice during the last few days when they had stopped to make camp, Centaine had climbed to the top of the nearest dune and stared inland. Once she had imagined the distant outline of blue mountains against the evening sky, and she had felt her spirit summoned away from this monotonous seascape towards that mysterious interior.
Go now? she repeated eagerly, and O'wa laughed derisively as he came to squat at the fire.
The monkey is eager to meet the leopard, he said, but listen to it squeal when it does! H'ani clucked at him in disapproval and then turned to Centaine. Today we will rest. Tonight we will begin the hardest part of our journey. Tonight, Nan Child, do you understand that? Tonight, with the moon to light us.
Tonight, while the sun sleeps, for no man nor woman can walk hand in hand with the sun through the land of the singing sands. Tonight. Rest now. Tonight, Centaine repeated.
Rest now. But she left the camp and once again climbed up through the sliding slippery sands to the top of the first line of dunes.
On the beach four hundred feet below her, the two tiny figures sitting at the campfire were insignificant specks.
Then she turned to look inland and she saw that the dune on which she stood was a mere foothill to the great mountains of sand that rose before her.
The colours of the dunes shaded from pale daffodil yellow, through gold and orange, to purplish-brown and dark song de boeuf, but beyond them she imagined she saw ghost mountains with rocky crenellated peaks. Even as she stared, however, the horizon turned milky-blue and began to waver and dissolve, and she felt the heat come out of the desert, a whiff of it only, but she recoiled from its scalding breath, and before her eyes the land was veiled by the glassy shimmering veils of heat mirage.
She turned and went down to the camp again. Neither O'wa nor H'ani was ever completely idle. Now the old man was shaping arrowheads of white bone, while his wife was putting together another necklace, fashioning the beads from pieces of broken ostrich shell, chipping them into coins between two small stones and then drilling a hole through each with a bone sliver and finally stringing the finished beads on a length of gut.
Watching her work Centaine was reminded vividly of Anna. She stood up quickly and left the camp again, and H'ani looked up from the string of beads.