Chapter 16 Threads

?We interrupt this program—no, we must. We have to go back, no, even further back, and start again.

?There is more than one thread in a web; there is more than one beginning to every story. The turmoil of the dice within the fritillus, the life of each uncast die as they catastrophically collide and forever change each other's moment and position and trajectory, altering pasts and futures to rotate around this moment, is a model of the universe, sleek and groovy and impatient.

?Here we are with another die, not made of injection-molded plastic but something older and less immortal, less intended to last until the death of the world.

?Not made of found seashells, not bone or ivory, not so old as that. Wooden, perhaps, in a rainforest culture whose things were meant to die and go in peace.

?Here we are back in a world that is not Luriat, but far more alien to you and us than that, because it is our own.

?Here we are.

MARTIM, ONE who knows hats

JO?O, ONE who will be a memoirist

IMIYA, an OTHER, a hunter

EMBI, another OTHER, a poet

DEVAKIRTI, a warden of the south, MOTHER of that other OTHER

FERN?O, an OTHER in ONE's clothing

GASPAR FIGUEIRA DE CERPE, six of ONE and a half dozen of the OTHER

An AUDIENCE, mostly WHITE and mostly AMERICAN

A CHORUS, they've got a beat and you can dance to it

THE SON OF SEVEN MOTHERS, a god, immanent

AN UNNAMED DREAD BEINGfrom a lost age

Thus in Suffolk if a man cuts himself with a bill-hook or a scythe he always takes care to keep the weapon bright, and oils it to prevent the wound from festering.

—James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (1900)

The stage is set. We open on a RUINED VILLAGE, the fires still smoking and the bodies still warm, at the foot of MOUNT ELDER, a wild and forested mountain deep in the southern hills of contested VILACEM, which is the Portuguese mispronunciation for the place called Vellassa, the Hundred Thousand Lakes.

(A secret dedication: Mount Elder is sacred to the SON OF SEVEN MOTHERS, the god of the southern garrison. The SON does not manifest in this text, but remains immanent underneath all these words by right of jurisdiction.)

Bodies are piled along the back of the stage like firewood.

A stagehand holds up a placard titled MID-17th CENTURY IN THE YEAR OF YOUR LORD.

A second stagehand holds up a placard titled CONTENT WARNING: IMPERIALISM, MASS MURDER, TORTURE.

Both stagehands remain present for the rest of this act. The placards wave gently like anemones in the tide.

MARTIM walks onto the stage, a young white man red from the sun, and from all the blood. He has a uniform and a hat. His father owns a hat shop in Lisbon, so Martim knows hats. He is, to the AUDIENCE, relatable. None of the blood is his own.

MARTIM (addressing AUDIENCE): The CHORUS isn't set up yet so I'm going to read you an excerpt from my friend Jo?o's memoir. He'd read it to you himself only he's still back there nursing the calf muscle he pulled tripping over a root in the jungle. Anyway, he hasn't written this yet—he doesn't write it for another forty years, long after he goes home to Portugal. This is the part where he talks about what happened today.

Martim clears his throat.

"At Categao are preserved the offerings which had been made for many years, consisting of gold, jewels, and precious stones, and five hundred armed men were always maintained for its defence," Martim reads. His tone is neutral.

"We had several times made inquiries about it, in our desire to obtain this wealth and to relieve them of their anxiety regarding it. At the beginning of 1642, I was one of a company of one hundred and fifty Portuguese and two thousand Lascarins," Martim says, then pauses, peering at the AUDIENCE for understanding. "When I say I, I mean not I but my foolish friend, Jo?o, who will eventually be the author of this text. You got that, right? This is not me confessing to the acts that he describes, though I was also there—but obviously you understand this, as a sophisticated AUDIENCE. Anyway, these are Jo?o's words:

… the majority of these troops were Christians, under the command of Gaspar Figueira de Cerpe, who was held in high respect among them, a man of ability and well versed in their language and customs.

When we came near the spot where they said the pagoda stood, we captured a native residing close to the spot, and our commander inquired from him if he knew where the pagoda was. He replied that he did, and that it was close by; he acted as our guide and led us through a hill covered with forest which was the only one in that district, and this we wandered round and round and recrossed many times.

It was certain that the pagoda was at the top of it but I do not know what magic it possessed, for out of the five guides whom we took, the first three were put to death because we thought that they were deceiving us, for they acted as if they were mad and spoke all kinds of nonsense, each one in his turn, without the one knowing of the others…

—Jo?o Ribeiro, The Historic Tragedy of the Island of Ceilāo (1685), translated P. E. Peiris (1909)

While Martim reads, the CHORUS has been hurriedly walking on stage and taking their places. The CHORUS is composed of the DEAD. Some of them have been dead for a while and are showing bone. The ones that still have skin are showing that, too. Everyone is bare-bodied, as is the custom of this country, including the women. Martim sneaks glances at them and his skin gains a third shade of red.

CHORUS(singing, a capella; the taller dead in the back are beatboxing): Break a thornless branch, hang it on a tree, to gain some kind of sanctuary, from that old devil in the jungle, oh that old devil—

(Among the most recently dead members of the chorus is EMBI, a young woman so recently killed she's still bleeding. Her throat is cut. She was the third guide that Jo?o speaks of. She steps forward.)

EMBI(solo): Ask me again, I'll lie again.

Her cut throat modulates her song, adds a whistling coloratura in rust.

EMBI(speaking): Too long, didn't read. The story of the invasion of Categao is simpler than all that. Here is all you need to know: we never broke, they never found the sacred city, and most of them never came out of the jungle alive.

MARTIM(annoyed): Quiet, I'm still talking.

EMBI: Fuck you.

The stage darkens; indistinct figures of stagehands flit about in shadow, and there are a few thumping sounds and, distinctly, a muttered curse that is probably not part of the play. The AUDIENCE chuckles appreciatively.

The lights come back on.

The setting has changed. We are now in a DARK ROOM, inside one of the few unburned huts in the village. In the centre of the room, bound hand and foot to a wooden chair, is IMIYA, who is (if you recall) an OTHER. He is being tortured by FERN?O, who is both ONE and OTHER.

(Their otherness is about where they are from. Fern?o is a third-generation Catholic from the occupied coastal territories in the West: despite his name, he has no Portuguese ancestry. It is also about their souls. Fern?o has one, which is tortured; Embi and Imiya and the others do not.)

Imiya's material body is filthy and bloodied. His long hair has come loose from the knot and is clouded about his head, matted on one side with blood. His eyes are glazed. His beard is patchy, as if someone has ripped chunks of it from his face in a fit of anger. His lips are swollen. Three of his fingers are severed: they lie on the floor in front of him. Fern?o is working on a fourth, but his knife has been dulled and he is audibly complaining.

A young white man in uniform is sitting in the back of the hut wearing a pained expression and rubbing his calf. We infer that this is Martim's friend, JO?O, the future memoirist. He will only observe.

Another man, CAPTAIN GASPAR FIGUEIRA DE CERPE, stands behind Imiya, listening patiently but not speaking. His father was white, but Gaspar was born here and has never been off the island. He also has a soul, slightly worn. He is in charge here.

FERN?O(sawing mightily and speaking over his shoulder to the AUDIENCE): It's okay, the ends justify the means because he talks eventually.

IMIYA: I don't.

FERN?O: You will.

IMIYA: Didn't you hear Embi? She explained how it turns out. She said you never find the sacred city.

FERN?O: You're hallucinating from the pain. Your Embi's been dead for hours.

IMIYA(nods toward EMBI in the choral lineup): She's right there.

EMBI: I'm right here.

FERN?O: There's nobody there.

GASPAR(interrupting): Who's your village headman?

IMIYA: Embi's mother was our warden.

GASPAR: A woman?

IMIYA: Devakirti Mahage. She died in the first attack.

EMBI(simultaneously): My mother, who was keeper of the sacred songs before me.

FERN?O(sarcastically, pointing unseeing in the direction of the chorus): I suppose the Mahage is also standing right there.

IMIYA(squints at the chorus): Yes, I see her. Slightly to the left.

DEVAKIRTI is an older woman, her death-wound an ugly bullet wound in her chest: the first attack was a surprise bombardment from the base of the hill that abuts the village, a dawn chorus of jingal wall guns, their mounts unsteady on the slope.

GASPAR: Who did she serve?

IMIYA: We are free hunters, not vassals. But our allegiance is to the King in the Mountains.

Devakirti and Embi detach themselves from the chorus and come to stand next to Imiya.

DEVAKIRTI: Tell them nothing.

IMIYA: I don't plan to.

EMBI: Tell them to stick their dicks in a nest of red ants. There's one over there by the jack tree.

IMIYA: She says—

EMBI: Wait, wait. (She thinks.) Tell them you can teach them how to protect themselves against the demon in the forest.

IMIYA(suspiciously): The demon in the forest?

GASPARand FERN?O, overlapping: What demon?

Embi squats and whispers into Imiya's ear.

IMIYA: The path to the sacred city goes through the jungle. It's protected by a demon.

GASPAR: We can send for a priest.

IMIYA: It will eat him.

FERN?O: Shut up.

GASPAR: Talk! How do we protect ourselves against this demon?

IMIYA (eyes closed, listening to EMBI's whispers): The demon respects an ancient compact with our people. Every seventy-seven steps in the jungle, you must reach up and snap the branch of a living tree, such that the broken end stays connected by only the thinnest skin of bark. Keep doing this. The demon will ignore you, and you will find yourselves on a hidden path that will lead you up the mountain to the sacred city.

FERN?O: This is nonsense.

Gaspar watches Imiya's battered face for a long moment. Gaspar is the sort of man who prides himself on his ability to discern character and truth from another man's face.

GASPAR: Nothing wrong with taking precautions.

EMBI(to IMIYA): That should do it.

DEVAKIRTI: That's the true rite, daughter.

EMBI: That's the idea.

DEVAKIRTI: Why are we giving it away?

IMIYA: Wait, the demon is real?

FERN?O: See, even he doesn't believe it.

EMBI: Demon doesn't describe it very well? There's a song cycle that—

DEVAKIRTI: This is not the time—the demon is very real, and that ancient rite will summon and bind it to its ancient promises.

IMIYA: The dead tell me the demon is real and that this rite will bind it. The dead do not lie.

Gaspar studies him carefully, coldly, for perhaps as long as two minutes.

GASPAR: All right.

Fern?o is disgusted, though he's not sure who he's most disgusted with. He throws his dull knife away and begins to strike Imiya repeatedly in the face.

GASPAR: Let's get it over with. Sack this secret temple of its riches and get out of here before either the King in the Mountains or the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie send troops to find us.

Gaspar, Fern?o, and Jo?o leave the room.

Everybody on stage is silent and motionless for another few minutes. The AUDIENCE grows restless. Somebody in the audience takes a picture—the flash is blinding—even though there was a sign at the door that said NO PHOTOS, NO SMARTPHONES. There are muttered complaints. Imiya blinks. His pupils are huge.

Devakirti returns to the chorus and starts organizing them to move on to their next lives.

Embi walks over to Imiya, who is slumped forward with his eyes closed. He is trembling, and the remaining fingers on his mutilated hand are clawing slowly at the air.

Embi picks up the knife that Fern?o threw away. She rasps a short verse of sharpening until the edge sings.

IMIYA(eyes still closed): Is that you, Embi?

EMBI: Yes.

IMIYA: Listen, I'm sorry about how it all turned out.

EMBI: It's okay, I have a new plan. We have a strategic advantage in rebirth, but it's going to be—

IMIYA: No, I mean, I thought—

EMBI: Yes?

IMIYA: Never mind now, I suppose.

DEVAKIRTI (rolling her eyes from across the room): I'm sure you two will have another chance to make a go of it, somewhere further down the great wheel of rebirth.

EMBI: Oh. Eh. I could see it going a lot of different ways.

IMIYA: What about—

Embi cuts his throat.

EMBI: Now our people are all dead, and the ancient compact is broken. The rite of protection is now a summoning, nothing more.

DEVAKIRTI: Yes, daughter. I figured it out, thanks.

IMIYA(dead, coughing up blood and black ectoplasm): I still don't get it.

EMBI: One thing at a time. First, stop coughing.