She’s fed me things I’ve never eaten before. I was getting familiar with the alpine terrain, so when my leg got a bit better I tried to make the house a bit bigger with some wood. I put up an awning, so that even if it rains she can still write outdoors sitting under it.
Sometimes first thing in the morning Ohiyo brings back things like crabs or rats and puts them on the steps of the wooden house. I think she wants to offer tribute to Alice.
When Alice isn’t writing she likes to talk to me. At first we did not know what the other was saying but gradually we got better and better at “sensing” meaning. She tells her stories and I tell mine, of Wayo Wayo, Rasula, my Yina, the Sea Sage and the Earth Sage, and the beached whales. I don’t think it really matters if she understands me or not, because to Wayo Wayo islanders words can be smelled, touched, imagined and closely followed with your gut the way you follow an enormous fish.
I like to tell my stories and to hear Alice tell hers. I like the sound of her voice and the look on her face when she pets Ohiyo. Sometimes her voice reminds me of my Yina, other times of Rasula. So as long as the rain isn’t too heavy, we sit together day after day in the morning, gazing at the sea. I tell her, “Let me tell you about Wayo Wayo, to let an image of Wayo Wayo grow in your mind.”
Ours is an island of warriors, a place where dreams gather, a way station for shoals of migrating fish, a coordinate of the rising and setting sun, and a rest stop for water and for hope. Our island is woven out of coral and covered with the droppings of seabirds. Kabang has formed a small lake upon Wayo Wayo out of His tears, a lake we depend on to eke out our existence.
In the beginning, all things imitated one another: the island imitated the sea turtle, the trees imitated the clouds, and death imitated birth, so that everything was more or less the same. Originally our tribe lived deep in the ocean. We built a city in a trench, and Kabang gave us a kind of fluorescent shrimp to eat. In an underwater land of plenty, we didn’t have a care in the world. But, being the cleverest race in the sea, we discovered that there were many things tastier to eat than shrimp, and we kept reproducing, feeding, migrating, expanding our city without restraint to satisfy our every whim, until we had almost driven away or annihilated all the other ocean races. Finally we roused Kabang to anger.
Kabang resolved to punish us. One night the undersea volcanos at the two ends of the ocean erupted, a great murky cloud engulfed our city, and our ancestors emerged upon the face of the deep. But just then a school of dosi dosi fish swam by, their scales glistening so brilliantly they blinded the eyes of almost all the ancestors. The blind did not know where to turn. The few tribesmen who had not gone blind were responsible for caring for those who were without sight. Among the sighted, the warrior Salinini speared a dosi dosi fish. He wanted to give it to the elders to eat, only to discover that every scale bore the unmistakable mark of Kabang. Only then did the people realize that they had angered Kabang, that this was His punishment, and that the only remaining recourse was to beg for His forgiveness. The brave Salinini resolved to swim alone to the Sea Gate at the extremity of rain and mist, for it was said that on the other side there was a True Isle, the abode of Kabang. Salinini wanted to go there and pray to Kabang, hoping to receive His mercy, that He might grant the people a new place to dwell.
Salinini swam for the time it takes for the sun to live and die a thousand times. His skin peeled, his hearing failed, and his back fin broke, but the rainbow was always in the distance. Finally, moved by Salinini’s determination, the omniscient Kabang decided to give the people another chance. He said: I can allow you an island, but your numbers must never exceed the trees growing thereupon. You will lose the ability to subsist in the sea for more than a short length of time, and you will be exiled from the vast, shoreless, open ocean. As prisoners on the island, you will know isolation and the fear of drowning. Once a friend, the sea will become a foe. It once gave but now it will take. Yet you must still rely on it, trust in it, worship it. Hearken, ye people, my song will turn to rain, my gaze to lightning, as my mind is all-pervading like the water of the sea. The words I utter will become the spirits of the deep. They will watch over you and edify you.
Thereupon, our underwater ancestors waded out of the sea and onto Wayo Wayo, and these words of Kabang became the most sacred prayer in our Sea Rite.
One day, who knows how many years later, a gigantic bird arrived on the island. The bird began to preen itself and out of its feathers fell seven baby birds. Each of these baby birds became the leader of a tribe. The birds taught our ancestors the skills they would need to survive on land. When the birds left, they each left an eyeball behind, one for every tribe to guard and watch over. One stormy day, the seven eyes all split open at once. Two of those eyes hatched arms, two legs, one a head, one a torso and one an organ of increase. And the spawn of the seven eyes then combined into a swarthy giant of a man, a man with a sorrowful mien who called himself: the Sea Sage.
The Sea Sage was well-endowed: he never closed his eyes, not even while sleeping, like a fish. While diving he memorized the hills and dales of the seabed and the extent of the great kelp forest. He also familiarized himself with all the cracks in the rocks around Wayo Wayo where swimmers could breathe pockets of underwater air. He could even foretell the mood of the sea, knowing whether it would be fair or foul, in high spirits or low, and presage precipitation and ocean flow. Every day he made three tours of the island, declaring that he had to listen carefully to the news brought back by every seabird, every gust of wind and every little shell. He once said that every beached whale would leave behind valuable wisdom concerning the future and fate of the island. He knew that every stretch of sea and shore had its own unique aroma, shadow and glow, and since his knowledge came from the migrating ocean races, there was nowhere it did not reach. His incantations were like feathers, each one-of-a-kind and inimitable. The signals brought back by the waves were so faint that the Sea Sage would often stand at the shore like a parched tree, his sun-bleached hair sparkling. He refused to eat or drink, nor would he smile.
But sageship has never been inherited. Since the beginning it has been attained through initiation and instruction. The children of the Sea Sage cannot call their father Father, because the Sea Sage is of the island and no longer the head of a family or the father of children. The Earth Sage is the same. Each sage can choose any boy on the island and teach him everything he knows. Because any single boy might not get the chance to grow up, each sage chooses more than one disciple. My father is the Sea Sage, and to become the Sea Sage he had to receive a complete training from the previous Sea Sage. I received the Sea Sage’s training along with my twin brother, and five other island boys. We learned everything there is to know about the sea.
My father is short a leg, but he has a keen inborn intelligence, and though many did not look well upon him he still found favor in the former Sea Sage’s eyes. Knowing that he was disabled, he honed his swimming technique until his good leg was overgrown with barnacles. The Sea Sage used a whalerib as a staff, and even with just one leg, he was an unrivaled swimmer. It was as if that good leg of his was his tail fin.