No one seemed to be home at the other houses she passed. No smoke rose from their roofs, no one leaned out of the doorway to call a greeting. Some children were playing a game behind the houses. She could hear their bodies snapping through the brush and then a collective scream when someone was caught. At first her presence had stopped their games. The same children who played in her house in the morning rushed to hide beneath the houses, spying, giggling, shrieking even. But now they didn’t notice, didn’t even come to see what was in her basket for them. Now they knew she would come to each of their houses and they would see the goodies later.
From the last house on the women’s road smoke was rising. All five fireplaces were being used, and she could hear heavy footfall, more like running than dancing. She heard murmurs but no words. Instead of calling out from below first, she climbed up the ladder without a word. The running footsteps grew louder and the whole house shook. People seemed to be yelling at each other in a loud whisper.
Nell-Nell di lam, she said before she pushed the bark cloth aside and stepped in.
It was dim, all the blinds drawn, and she could see little. There was a high-pitched clattering at the back half of the long house, shells or stones being moved around and women whispering and their bare feet thudding quickly across the floorboards. Malun greeted her and offered her guava juice as she always did. Her eyes adjusted and she could make out mosquito bags laid out down the length of the house, but only the long ones, none for the children. Women, thirty or so, many more than usual, were strewn on the floor. Some had torn nets or half-finished baskets in their laps, but many were doing nothing, which Nell had seen plenty of times among the men but never among the women. The women here were never idle. Some raised their heads and whispered their greetings to her.
Malun returned with the drink. Her face was bathed in sweat. The house held a humidity far beyond the normal tropical damp. As she handed Malun things from her basket, she watched her carefully. Her pupils were dilated and tears of sweat were running down her stomach. She had an odd, enigmatic expression on her face and seemed to be trying hard to concentrate. Nell looked for signs of betel nut, lime powder, and mustard pods—a potent combination she knew the Mumbanyo used for a strong high—but saw nothing. Or perhaps they had some other drug. They were high on something, she knew that much. Some seemed unable to keep a smile from twisting up the sides of their mouths, like her brother at the dinner table after he’d snuck off with a bottle of her father’s gin. Her own sweat prickled her face and thighs. She’d worked through her own illness and injury; she’d worked with people who only told her lies, who chatted and laughed through every question, who ignored her, teased her, imitated her. It was all, all of it, part of the job, but this odd conspiracy of sweaty women seemed to press at a tender spot deep in her. She picked up her basket and left. It was silent as she climbed down, but when she was five steps away the house exploded with laughter.
11
Seven weeks. I waited seven full weeks and then I could not wait anymore. I got in the canoe before sunrise and gunned it, slaloming through black clouds of mosquitoes and the occasional croc drifting like a tree limb. The sky glowed a pale green, the flesh of a cucumber. The sun came up suddenly, too bright. It grew hot fast. I was used to the heat, but that morning, even moving swiftly in my canoe, I was overcome by it. Halfway there my vision began to sparkle and blacken, and I had to pull over briefly.
I knew the Tam were already a success by the greeting I got. The women in their canoes in the middle of the lake called out loud hellos that I heard over my engine, and a few men and children came down to the beach and gave me big floppy Tam waves. A noticeable shift from the chary welcome we’d received six weeks earlier. I cut the engine and several men came and pulled the boat to shore, and without my having to say a word two swaybacked young lads with something that looked like red berries woven in their curled hair led me up a path and down a road, past a spirit house with an enormous carved face over the entryway—a lean and angry fellow with three thick bones through his nose and a wide open mouth with many sharp teeth and a snake’s head for a tongue. It was much more skilled than the Kiona’s rudimentary depictions, the lines cleaner, the colors—red, black, green, and white—far more vivid and glossy, as if the paint were still wet. We passed several of these ceremonial houses and from the doorways men called down to my guides and they called back. They took me in one direction then, as if I wouldn’t notice, turned me around and doubled back down the same road past the same houses, the lake once again in full view. Just when I thought their only plan was to parade me round town all day, they turned a corner and stopped before a large house, freshly built, with a sort of portico in front and blue-and-white cloth curtains hanging in the windows and doorway. I laughed out loud at this English tea shop encircled by pampas grass in the middle of the Territories. A few pigs were digging around the base of the ladder.
From below I heard footsteps creaking the new floor. The cloth at the windows and doors puffed in and out from the movement within.