of my husband who is the maker of names; I don’t want to remember the name he gave Amo after his birth, which was the most painful of them all. Amo, you are Amo, you are my pain and my touch, and my resolution. On the day you find enough strength in your tongue to utter my name, it will be heard by every beast and every plant, and repeated from forest to forest, from lake to lake.
Without hearing the sound that belongs to me I feel that my body belongs to me less; and this must be age, nameless in growing separate. My husband’s age also appears to me through separation, and so I see his name growing apart from his body. He only comes to my house when a new birth is due, he stays to beget another child and then leaves me by the shore of this lake. What age and what separation does he take from me to keep in his memory while he wanders under the changing moons, between the homesteads of our own breed? He knows his paths as I know mine, and around him there are the beaten tracks, wide and many, of the wordless multitudes. How can he believe that man and beast must remain friends?
The other day a bird, violet and yellow, followed me to the house. It flew about the roof, as if choosing a place for its nest, nibbled at the leaves which were still green in the plaited twigs, then perched itself on the ram’s horn and made me laugh when the ram began to leap and turn round. The bird didn’t fall but cleaned its hooked beak on the horn, pecking the ram whenever it tried a higher jump. Amo heard my laughter, got up from the pile of skins he had been preparing for the winter and now stood facing me.
‘You have light in your eyes.’ He spoke in a voice, timid at first, as was his habit.
‘Such light gives you the sky’s own beauty.’ He bent and kissed my hair.
‘Give the bird a happy name,’ I told Amo, but his lips twitched and came close together. I knew he thought of his father’s right. I took Amo’s hand and walked with him to the circle of stones in the kitchen. Then I looked back.
‘It’s a listening bird,’ I said. ‘Look how it follows us wherever we go, tilting its head this way and that way. You think of a name for him, a name that listens.’
And that night the bird slept near my bed under the image which my husband had drawn on the clay of the wall when the clay was still moist. I woke up just before sunrise.
Not to the clashing of the reeds, not to the clapping of the lake, but to a voice, sharp and screechy, which was opening a word, as if that word were coiled up inside a shell.
‘Bi-rrd, birr-d.’
Our eyes met and his didn’t go blind. They only blinked, became red, and where the colour touched a thick curve, it was already the red of the beak. As I raised myself on my elbows I felt a deep hunger in my belly, which made me forget for a moment that the voice had come out of that beak. But the screeching started once more inside it and I could hear almost clearly:
‘Am birrd, yourr birrd.’
‘No bird speaks,’ I whispered.
The sun glow divided the colours on his feathers and they seemed to spark whenever the bird shifted his wings, violet over yellow, black across yellow and violet.
‘Learrnt speechch from shshee.’ Listening to him I didn’t know which shimmered more: his words or his feathers.
‘She—who is she!’
‘Shshee iss you.’
I was tempted to ask the next question, for I felt, as I had once felt, nineteen children ago, that no question could come alone and go alone.
‘You know my name, listening bird!’
‘Yess, yess.’ The wings flapped, out of the sun glow and in again. ‘Learrning speechch, learrning yourr ssound.’
‘Don’t utter it, bird. It will kill you.’
‘Ee-vve,’ he screeched into the silence of my house, ‘Ee-vve.’ Neither the first sound choked the bird to death, nor the second. And echoes lost both soon in the clay-muted corner beyond my son’s bedding. A shadow stirred above it. This time a question had to pass
Without hearing the sound that belongs to me I feel that my body belongs to me less; and this must be age, nameless in growing separate. My husband’s age also appears to me through separation, and so I see his name growing apart from his body. He only comes to my house when a new birth is due, he stays to beget another child and then leaves me by the shore of this lake. What age and what separation does he take from me to keep in his memory while he wanders under the changing moons, between the homesteads of our own breed? He knows his paths as I know mine, and around him there are the beaten tracks, wide and many, of the wordless multitudes. How can he believe that man and beast must remain friends?
The other day a bird, violet and yellow, followed me to the house. It flew about the roof, as if choosing a place for its nest, nibbled at the leaves which were still green in the plaited twigs, then perched itself on the ram’s horn and made me laugh when the ram began to leap and turn round. The bird didn’t fall but cleaned its hooked beak on the horn, pecking the ram whenever it tried a higher jump. Amo heard my laughter, got up from the pile of skins he had been preparing for the winter and now stood facing me.
‘You have light in your eyes.’ He spoke in a voice, timid at first, as was his habit.
‘Such light gives you the sky’s own beauty.’ He bent and kissed my hair.
‘Give the bird a happy name,’ I told Amo, but his lips twitched and came close together. I knew he thought of his father’s right. I took Amo’s hand and walked with him to the circle of stones in the kitchen. Then I looked back.
‘It’s a listening bird,’ I said. ‘Look how it follows us wherever we go, tilting its head this way and that way. You think of a name for him, a name that listens.’
And that night the bird slept near my bed under the image which my husband had drawn on the clay of the wall when the clay was still moist. I woke up just before sunrise.
Not to the clashing of the reeds, not to the clapping of the lake, but to a voice, sharp and screechy, which was opening a word, as if that word were coiled up inside a shell.
‘Bi-rrd, birr-d.’
Our eyes met and his didn’t go blind. They only blinked, became red, and where the colour touched a thick curve, it was already the red of the beak. As I raised myself on my elbows I felt a deep hunger in my belly, which made me forget for a moment that the voice had come out of that beak. But the screeching started once more inside it and I could hear almost clearly:
‘Am birrd, yourr birrd.’
‘No bird speaks,’ I whispered.
The sun glow divided the colours on his feathers and they seemed to spark whenever the bird shifted his wings, violet over yellow, black across yellow and violet.
‘Learrnt speechch from shshee.’ Listening to him I didn’t know which shimmered more: his words or his feathers.
‘She—who is she!’
‘Shshee iss you.’
I was tempted to ask the next question, for I felt, as I had once felt, nineteen children ago, that no question could come alone and go alone.
‘You know my name, listening bird!’
‘Yess, yess.’ The wings flapped, out of the sun glow and in again. ‘Learrning speechch, learrning yourr ssound.’
‘Don’t utter it, bird. It will kill you.’
‘Ee-vve,’ he screeched into the silence of my house, ‘Ee-vve.’ Neither the first sound choked the bird to death, nor the second. And echoes lost both soon in the clay-muted corner beyond my son’s bedding. A shadow stirred above it. This time a question had to pass
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