Though unimpressed by religious Judaism, Döblin’s fascination with the theme of exile frequently surfaces in his fictions. These two excerpts, one written fifteen years before he had to flee Germany, the other during his first exile in France (his arduous escape to the USA still a few years in the future), bring the psychological insight of Doctor Döblin to the piteous plight of the refugee.
Exodus to Saxony (from Wallenstein Part 2)
Following the lost Battle of White Mountain, Protestant Bohemians are expropriated, harried by Catholic conversion commissions, and finally driven into exile.
Cuzumarra (from The Land without Death Part 1)
A group of Inca refugees, led by a prince, go down into the Amazon jungle to seek allies against the invaders, and are taken in by the Women People.
Exodus to Saxony (from Wallenstein Part 2)
WAGONS creaked along roads to north and west past laden fruit-trees swarming soldiers; the Bohemian Brethren were emigrating to Saxony. Seated on heavy nags, under wide high felt hats, sword at the side, squat stony men and citizens; on the long-bearded faces could be read: political rights, and the King. Alongside came peaceable Free Confessors, who cradled themselves in their hopes; their Hus had been burned at Constance by the Council; who would join them? What would become of the world and the human soul without the salvation that Hus had brought anew to Bohemia? Jesuits and the Emperor Ferdinand had stolen away the chalice and sword that King George Podiebrad had placed centuries before in the Thein church; they had exhumed dead heroes of the faith, burned them, thrown the ashes in their faces: bodily strength can for all eternity grasp only at material things, only at the material. They all wore long brown and blue smocks, big black floppy hats, vests with red lapels. Many of the younger ones stepped out bright in short jackets with rows of brass buttons and yellow hose, with studded walking sticks.
Behind those ready for martyrdom came the timid, cast down by fear, who wanted only to save their lives. Roads out of villages, town gates were thronged by the poor. No Commission had pestered them; as their benefactors walked by they joined the train; their knapsacks, wheelbarrows, mule-carts blended with the broad stream of wagons and coaches. Here, at the start of their sorrows, they were strongest; the sight of them clouded the eyes of the well-to-do with bitterness; the poor were embarrassed. Peasants already knew, silently watching the laden wagons, backs turned to the migrant stream, what was happening here: misery was teaching an alien sentiment, senseless hatred upon senseless hatred! They would blame themselves for the grief, so that they might forget; would punish themselves for memories of abandoned houses and fields. Thatched roofs, red-tiled roofs, barns sties herb-gardens lavender mignonette mint. Lovely gables with little columns, serrated dormers, shingled eaves with memorial tablets, terraces fronting the houses, behind them pictures and sea-squills.
In many places tearful adherents of the Old Religion thronged about the migrant stream: Catholics, priests in regalia, almost craving forgiveness. They walked blindly in the dust of the road, to which they were unused, buried in thought, in their hand the book, the Bible. The book, that terrible book, loathsome book! How often in their imagination had the Catholic priests, sorrowful and pitying, seen the most wretched people wandering with the book; what unspeakable misfortune had that book caused. Many thousands were moving out, from all classes of society, women and children too. The migrants were taking all fertility with them. Women plump, young, careworn, little mothers, brown faces, proud, shrivelled; women on carts, beside donkeys, in coaches. Long gowns, headbands, colourful skirts, camisoles; embroidered doves in their hair, women from Pilsen in pinned white headdress. Those from the Choden land on the frontier, small bodies in red. They tramped through the waning summer, merged on highways; apple trees dropped round red fruit on them. In villages ahead, officials set watch in the church tower, for in a few places some rogue had rung the bells at their approach to stir the people up at the sight of the sad procession. Troops from the Holstein Regiment were posted to turn the wanderers onto side roads, divert them around larger towns down wearisome perilous lanes, over barren heath.
At crossroads, by roadside crucifixes, men appeared, ragged, looking like beggars, armed with dangerous clubs. They had been sent by old Count Thurn, fugitive rebel leader, now agitating in Saxony Brandenburg Holland. Mocked the wanderers to goad them on: “Where are you off to? Look at you! Did the Emperor buy your land off you? Must have paid a good price, seeing how fast you run to keep it from robbers. How much, how much?”
“Gypsies, gypsies,” they yelled laughing behind them. Now many were overcome with pain and despair; their shoulders grew weak, their knees knocked. Oh the road! After weary hours of walking the riff-raff straggled up behind them again, quaint figures on muleback, saluted them: “Praise be to Jesus!” The popish greeting was ignored in silence. “Are you heathens?” – “Have they cut your tongue out already?” – “Oh, pious people, these are pious. Dissenters. For whom the Jesuit gents weren’t pious enough. See, there’s Simeon from the Needlemakers’ Guild. Did you open up your chests, Simeon, pack all your glassware in a sack?” – “Simeon, don’t be proud, I’m a tramp too, master, my greeting is offered in earnest respect.” – “The respectable damsel Faustina, look at her, on a wagon beside her father; taking herself off to Saxony to find a husband, hope she won’t forget me.” – “Honourable upright gentlemen one and all, aunties, cousins, God be with you. Delightful company along the whole highway. Welcome between our doorposts. You had the forethought to bring your own roofs.”
Whips snapped at them from wagons; stones were thrown. They fell back: “The highway, the highway! Dear brothers! Sisters! Little brides! Would you like to come with us, read palms, sell moonshine and gentian?” – “Auntie Walpurga, tender delicate creature, come down to us from the lady your mother. You’re no infant now, fly into my arms. I stole a big cushion from an Italian, I’ll tie it about your waist, under your skirt; you can earn hellers and Bohemian groats with me. What will you give me for my instruction?”
As they leaped around mocking and jabbering, waving their caps, smacking their legs, curses rained down from the mouths of the men who continued calmly walking, from those with sacks and sweat-dripping cheeks, from the old man behind the dog-cart. “Take your God-be-with-you and be damned, you rogue!”
“Master, well spoken. You’ll have no troubles. You carry your good fortune in your mouth.”
“Damned swinish ruffian.” Now one stretched out on the verge, pointed his dirty bare feet in an affected manner: “So I am cursed, and I thank you for it. Look at me: your words have not improved me, master. They were no use: I’m no prettier, no sleeker, no more gentle than before. Do you know others?”
“Filthy tramp, treacherous dog, godforsaken thief.” A merry swarm followed the angry outbursts at a distance, shook their heads: “Still no use, still no use.” Stones flew.
NEAR Leitmeritz the valley of the Elbe broadened out, fruit heavy on the trees amid dense foliage; on the slopes grapes shimmered green, brown, blue, villages, villages. Beyond them long lines of mountains, isolated cones swathed in haze. The road became steeper. The pointed peaks of Radobýl and Lovoš to left and right; spruce forests. Gillyflowers grew wild – Mary’s tears, shed on the path to Golgotha. Where now is our Mother Prague. Little springs trickled at the roadside; the small green-smocked man with the reedy voice and no left thumb who sits there red-haired, he’s sewing his boot; he keeps a pot for the souls of the drowned. Higher and higher, sweet mountains, sweet forests, sweet springs. How the crags tower, try to box them in. No one leaped out at them, here only birds sang. Cool forest, needles underfoot, peaceful villages unmolested by Commissions, manor houses, green meadows, farms. Moments ago they were sliding their feet across lush ground as if to drink it in, were gasping at the sight of gorges and rockwalls below, now here a level plain stretches bewitched before them, wagons and animals men children women move into it as if sinking into nothingness, disappearing into an expanse that reaches from heaven to earth and out to every side. Voices fell silent, colour drained from faces; barren wastes, barren wastes, hostile to humans, unapproachable by living beings.
They tiptoed cautiously around bluegreen clumps of swamp-pine, plucked bog plants that stabbed their fingers; the marshy ground shook, they danced, stumbled. Looked behind them, began to grow frightened, no more dark forest to be seen. The air uncanny. Here and there poor people crept out of the earth ahead of them, carrying hammer pike bucket; grey dust, ore; strange caves, huge spoil dumps, enormous sinkholes. The ground began to fall away, the wagons moved more easily, wave by wave the ground descended, heathland, dark silent forests. Slowly they all came down with bated breath into an unknown region, over there.
They crossed the wide bare plateau sadder, more exhausted. Hateful Croatian riders pranced on little horses up ahead, came round behind them. Wild sheepskin hats askew on black locks that swirled high; they kneaded their brown mounts with their feet; their legs in dazzling white linen trousers and high boots jogged up and down. They rounded up the train with whips and pikes, circled them like sheepdogs. Incomprehensible orders were shouted by soldiers in a foreign tongue. A curse: you ducked. And yet fear of them faded the closer they came to the frontier down below. They saw with anxious unease how this was happening: how they were retreating from the high ground. Soon these riders will have vanished, returned to the beloved homeland, they will once again see the green meadows, while we remain outside. Unconsciously they slackened the pace of travel; the Croats urged them on; sometimes an axle was deliberately broken, blocking the whole road. Several tracks marked the way, and they could have hurried on down, but instead the train piled up immobile behind the blockage. They exchanged glances of furtive sweetness, touched arms wearily, picked stones from the path, kissed the sparse dwarf pines, hearkened to the squawks of ravens as if they were songs from human mouths. Some approached the riders, humbly asked that they be allowed to rest a while here, little thinking how they were to find food. Some just lay down. The Croats became fiercer, started manhandling them; this region was repugnant to them. And the Bohemian refugees, as if disaster lay ahead, jostled against one another, were forced apart, moved on in misery, checking checking every downward step.
Until next morning a shocking mind-numbing distant sound of bells behind a little rise ahead, carried on gusts of wind. The riders uttered shrill cries of joy, laughed at one another: Saxony! The first white wretched Saxon roofs!
The riders pulled away from the caravan; then howling, hanging from the saddle, they raced from behind and both sides straight at the wagons. Spears axes whips: swing, a merry crack!, force a path, smash the train, hurl wagons downhill. Horses bolted. Saxony!
Women howling all around, magnified tenfold to the rear. All pushing screaming whirling around, whatever would not move left lying there. The dreadful bells rang out all day. The Croats rampaged back up the hill. Helter skelter. And once they were over the frontier, their feet on the Saxon highway, endless laments, supplications, handclaps at the head of the train.
They were swept forward as if by waves, swam pressed pushed back.
The nearest Saxon villages and towns had sent councillors with cartloads of bread and preachers to the frontier to receive their co-religionists, the martyrs, welcome them and bring them comfort. Trudging through the night with torches and all next day, they found migrants lying motionless on the road, in fields; no adult would take the food they offered. They lay on the earth as if deposited from a shipwreck, all had climbed down from the wagons. Horrible screams rang out from time to time: one would cry out, a hundred, then all. Then they fell back, clawed their faces as they looked across to where the Croats blockaded the frontier. Bobbing sheepskin hats, white trousers: there! Day and night from five thousand hearts the name of God was invoked mulled chewed bitten swallowed. In tears and dust they blended with the road, stood up soiled and battered, mingled hollow-eyed truculent. If any looked beyond, past the church tower, their blood ran cold before the incomprehensible.
They must move on. Cattle bellowed, children cried, it’s going to rain, the Saxons urged them gently onward. Bitterly they suppressed outbreaks of loud lamenting. They were guided into the Plauenscher gorge, towards the region of the Ore Mountains – they resisted moving farther on; towards Zschopau, Sayda, not far from Chemnitz. In the town of Wolkenstein half the houses stood empty. The refugees were too sombre, too deeply subdued and numb to wonder why; for a long time they were unheedful of the timid whispers of the townsfolk: they were lodging in abandoned plague houses, whose inhabitants had all died. The plague with its boils and pustules was still active in this region; they hardly reacted to the news. When it was suggested they send young girls to the wise man to learn spells to ward off plague, they kept silent; sympathetic townsfolk included these people’s houses in their spells. At midnight chosen young lads, pure maidens gathered at one end of the town together with a widow woman; the females stepped aside and undressed; the maidens harnessed themselves to a plough and cut a furrow in the dark all around the town. The widow led them, one lad followed, the other guarded the clothes.
But the wished-for plague failed to strike the refugees. Weeks passed before they unloaded the rain-soaked wagons, even half a year later carts could still be seen outside houses and cottages, as if they had arrived just yesterday. Lethargy, reluctance and resentment underlay it; they were left there in a kind of loving indulgence, a fear of acting. The necessary work was undertaken with curses and threats. No longer did the Bible lie in every room on table, trunk or little shrine; the book was buried absent-mindedly under rugs, put away furtively on purpose, hidden deep in chests. No one spoke of it, daily prayers and graces were hardly ever spoken. They kept a secret, concealed something as if it were a crime. Anyone who spoke of home, put on their old finery, the embroidered bonnet, red waistcoat with its brass buttons, could expect to be overwhelmed by a hissing wave of scorn; and those to whom the blazing frightened eyes were directed felt ashamed.
They dwelled in the alien Voigtland between field toil and domestic sorrow, in defiance and a simmering fury. The Saxons were endlessly amazed at the impiety of the famed Bohemians, who never went to church, toiled, toiled. Often a Bohemian would throw his axe down, gaze at the log, spit on it with a despondent groan. Nothing for the long term: who would bother decorating a place where they had no business being. They wept and could not bring themselves to mix mortar for a new house, to break the ground assigned to them. They toiled with half an effort, and they were never so happy as when Saxon officials and tax collectors rode by and chided them. At evening they would angrily tell each other in their cottages: the Saxon on his horse scolded me, I feel I shall strike him dead if he comes by again. And now and then an explosion tore through the house: an old man groans, determined and unstoppable, loud wails and howling of women and their unhappy neglected children. The streets shook with laments and whimpering; it rolled on from house to house, window to window; and anyone seeking his house in the dark knew from afar what awaited him. They kissed, called one another by name, pointed to the children, spoke joyfully of Bohemia, Caslau, Teschen, Königgrätz, reminded one another of the trek over the mountains, laughed tearfully about the Croats, remembered without rancour, with love ecstasy transfiguration, the terrible scenes of conversion, spoke of Braunau’s dragoons, the madman Wolfsstirn – the children listened. For half an hour at a time, the door shut tight, the shutters closed, tallow candles burning, it was as if they sat again in Bohemia; all they had to do was open the door to hear the hateful sorely missed Catholic vesper bells! As if betrayed, they would later fall into a rage, smash chairs, stretch out rigid arms, could not endure it, always always endure it. Children cried, hid. These dismal orgies lessened their frustration, then dark flames of anger, savage hate and spitefulness flared anew from their apathy. Brutality was the order of the day among the exiled Bohemians; they were feared in the countryside and in towns where policing was inadequate. They had no connection with one another, no love, and only this prevented disaster. For many the Saxon churches were a constant affront, and Saxon mayors could not inveigh enough against brazen attempts to block the Sunday churchgoers.
Cuzumarra (from The Land without Death Part 1)
WHEN the strangers from the land beyond the mountains came down the northern rivers and stopped at villages, they were received as guests, welcomed and cared for, given presents when they left. The village of women was richer than any they had seen in the north since their escape over the passes, but here they were escorted like prisoners. Below lay a wide, smooth lake, they had a good view of it, boats carried people to and fro, tall grass and clumps of reeds loomed over its mirror, the water gleamed very pale. The view opened up even wider as they were led around a bend in the hill, the lake lay behind them, in front the hill fell away gently, covered to its foot and beyond into the plain with fields and meadows, dotted with little huts and toiling people. Farther on there was scrub, then thick black forest like a frontier wall. But here and there breaches had been cut in this wall, and pale water, endless water glimmered through. Their hearts leapt into their mouths, they forgot where they were, they thought it was the ocean. They conferred and traded questions.
And now one of the spearwomen grinned, pointed to the pale endless water and said proudly: “Amazon!” This was their river. The strangers stared at one another, incredulous.
Then, without a word, they were led one by one into a longhouse, a big empty structure, it seemed to serve as a guesthouse. On the floor were sleeping mats with pretty patterns, several chairs lined the back wall, doubtless for chiefs, decorated with colourful strips of raffia. The chairs were shaped like animals, made of wood, you could see a black head with big ears, and eyes of little mussel shells. Fat tufts of gaudy parrot feathers hung motionless from beams. Stout wooden rollers carved with snaking lines lay in front of the chairs. These were neck rests.
By the time the strangers were all brought inside this big empty house, the last light of evening was shining through the door. They walked in, no women followed, they looked about, observed, waited. They knocked on walls, picked up chairs, beside the door they found empty arrow-stands. Outside, a big fire had been started to combat the swarms of mosquitoes that invaded the dusk. Smoke drifted through the door, red flames lit up the room where the strangers stood and moved about. A few women warriors crouched around the fire, chattering and laughing.
Two men entered the house. They looked like men of the last tribe the strangers had come to. They brought gourds with a pale strong-smelling concoction. Then they brought flatbread, bananas and roasted ants. Cuzumarra asked what tribe they were from. They made no reply. When he held up a gourd and asked them what the brew was called, they glanced fearfully at the lighted doorway, gurgled and pointed to their mouths. The tongues were stumps. The shocked strangers squatted on the mats, tried to eat and drink. They feared poison, but they were dying of thirst. They slept only for the first part of the night, were then wakeful, fearing attack. A thunderstorm rolled briefly past. The fire outside burned low. When Cuzumarra strode angrily to the door a woman stood up, then others, twenty women. They barred the way with spears. Cuzumarra stood still, said not a word. The air was chill. They poked up the fire. He went back into the house. The men wrapped themselves in mats.
The companions spoke to Cuzumarra: “We have come far to the south. Who will listen to you here? These are Amazons, enemies of men. We are afraid.”
Another: “They cut out the men’s tongues. Why did you lead us here? Do you know what they will do to us? They won’t spare you.”
Cuzumarra could give no answer. Like them he complained: “We have come too far south. People did not listen to us. We should have turned back. Don’t scold me. We must gather our courage. Perhaps we can sleep again.”
“It’s too cold, Cuzumarra. We’d rather sit and talk. We’ve been meaning to talk with you.”
“Then talk.”
“We had no courage, because you are the leader and we the led. Cuzumarra, we beg you, let us go. We are bewitched and cannot follow you.”
He sighed: “What do you propose?” Now they would say what he did not trust himself to say.
“We fled from the Whites over the passes with our clothes and weapons. Our weapons we lost long ago. The forest stripped our clothing from us. Our skin is covered in sores. We have been too long away from our country, we have come too far south through this steaming forest, to this terrible river. It lies just over there, we feel it even in the night. It sends up a cold mist. We have no thoughts of home any more. We have lost everything, and everything has been taken from us by witchcraft. Sometimes we speak about the whiteskins and what they have done to us and our families, then we forget it again, laugh, and are different men. We follow you, Cuzumarra, but we no longer know why we follow. Help us.”
Another said quickly: “We are bewitched. We speak of the whiteskins but without anger, as if they were just agoutis that dogs hunt in hollow trees, or dolphins. The Whites don’t hurt us. Why do we no longer hate them, Cuzumarra? It was because of them we made this terrible journey, and now we laugh and drink and sleep.”
Cuzumarra hid his face in the mat so they would not see by the light of the fire how he rubbed his forehead. “We shall turn back. We shall go back.”
One said: “But I – I am not going back. Never.”
Another said loudly: “I – I am not going back. I shall never go back.”
A third: “I shall never, never go back. Never again shall we go back up into the mountains.”
Cuzumarra listened in horror from under the mat, not showing his face, they were speaking his thoughts. “And you would betray your kinfolk?”
They did not respond, it grew chillier, one smiled, one yawned, they stretched out. They snuggled into the mats. They slept.
Next morning two elderly women came, stood outside the door and called to them: They would soon be brought before the queen.
They entered a big finely decorated house. On the mats many women sat with legs tucked under them, fists anchored at their hips. Some were young, some older. Along the wall three sturdy older women sat on the wide animal chairs and gazed sternly back at them. Nobody spoke. No one indicated that they should sit.
The woman in the middle had yellow circles on her cheeks. She asked Cuzumarra who they were. He replied. She asked want they wanted. He replied. When he spoke of the Whites she whispered to her neighbours. She bade Cuzumarra approach, stared at his ragged clothing, stroked the skin of his face, touched his golden ear discs. Then she turned to the companions. One by one they stood before her. She whispered about the strangers’ hairstyle and skin colour. Cuzumarra was invited to speak to her in his own language. After he had done so the women engaged in rapid conversation. Finally the queen invited the men to take their place on the mats. Then everyone ate hot mash.
Following this interview they were allowed to wander as they pleased through the village, alone or together. They were assigned an escort so they would know where they were welcome and where not. They saw the extensive village and its gardens, and on a nearby mound was one even larger, and across the river there were supposedly many more villages of women. They were allowed to talk to men, only a few had been rendered mute, most were crippled by the wounding of a leg, an arm or an eye. There were many children and nursing mothers. The men who were these women’s lovers were nowhere to be seen. The women demanded of Cuzumarra and his companions more stories of their homeland and the Whites than had any of the northern tribes. And after Cuzumarra’s first comprehensive account of the cruelty of the Whites, and the women, like the men of the north, had danced their spear dance and the women of the next village had answered their warcries, Cuzumarra beamed at his companions: “Are you content? Are you still afraid? They will lead us back. We have done what we had to do. The Whites will come down into this land and die in a trap.”
They were not content. He realised with a shock that they really had no desire to go back. In the guesthouse where they lodged they turned on Cuzumarra: “What did you say to the queen? Again and again about the Tumbo and how they leaped into the abyss and about the defeat of our lord Tangasuku. We beg you, stop telling these stories. We believed them once. Now we don’t believe them.”
Cuzumarra thought they were mad: “All right, so we tell the queens and the women that the Tumbo are still alive and we live in peace with the Whites and we deserved what happened.” Cuzumarra grasped their hands and regarded them one by one.
“It won’t do any good,” they said, “to gaze at us one by one and hold our hands. We told you we no longer want to go back. We’ll never wear the white shirt and coloured cloak again. You go to Cuzco, if you yearn for the Son of the Sun on his golden chair. We thank you for leading us over the passes. Otherwise we would have stayed the same as our parents.”
“You are bewitched, my dear companions, can you not sense it?”
“Thank you. Once we were bewitched and now we are no longer. Cuzumarra, recall what they told us in the north and along the dark river? They said we must have been divided for the Whites to cast us down like that. They saw things more clearly than we did. For there is more to the story than what you tell, Cuzumarra: that the last great lord with his fivefold red headband had two sons and they allowed the country to fall into the hands of the Whites. Division was among us long before that, during the time when our parents and grandparents toiled and order reigned and leaders of five families and ten families were set over us.”
Cuzumarra could not bear to listen, and wept. But when they tried to leave he held them back and asked: how had he injured them? For they were his good companions at home and in war and they had faced so many deadly perils together and who knew what more lay ahead, he had always understood them and did not want to misunderstand now and leave them abandoned to the wilderness.
So they continued, said words that broke his heart: “We do not blame you, Cuzumarra. If we are to speak, please let us speak without causing you pain. We have all toiled in the saltpans, as long as we had gold we made golden vessels, fetched red cinnabar from the earth for pigment, tended coca bushes, brought home the harvest three times a year. We never disobeyed. You say we were happy. We were neither happy nor unhappy. We hate the Whites, those wild jaguars, as much as you, but they only destroyed what we too did not wish to keep.”
Cuzumarra groaned in horror: “You summoned them! Your spirits invited them to our country!”
“Understand, Cuzumarra, we do not mean to wound you, don’t hurt us, we don’t hate you.”
“You hate your country.”
That roused them, they surrounded Cuzumarra and shouted: “Not true! We blame the princes, and if you number yourself among them, then you too. It is your fault that the Whites have conquered our land and murder us and burn our villages. What you did with the land was not good. No, Cuzumarra, all those roads and granaries, welfare for the old and sick and the apportioning of seed and harvest, all those things you speak of, none of it was good. Were we ever allowed to say a word that was not already approved by the Inca and the princes and the leaders he set over us? We never donned a garment that you had not accounted for. You tallied every mouthful that we ate. Are we bewitched when we say: that was not good? We suspected it already back in our homeland. You curse us as traitors. But Cuzumarra, you princes knew how to raise traitors among us so that we could never prevail. For there was nothing that bound the traitors to you. They could find nothing to honour. So they became wretches, criminals and traitors. You led them along this path, because you trained them to be parrots and monkeys.”
“Were you not happy, were your parents not happy, was the empire not happy?” Tears coursed down Cuzumarra’s face, he sobbed aloud: “Why did you not say this earlier? Why did you come with me over the mountains? Why did you let me wander this way and that through the forest, and most of those who came with me perished in the swamps, why, for what? Oh, if only you had taken pity on me at the right time. Now I am here, alone, and curse my life.”
So they all sat around him on the mats and tried to console him. They said: he’d asked them to speak out, they’d stay with him and bring him as far as he wanted to go. He lay on the ground and would not be comforted. They feared that the women would become suspicious and accuse them. So they sat for long hours with Cuzumarra in the house. Then Cuzumarra roused himself again and for the first time heard and saw his companions speak and act with him as friends. They combed him. They made him cast aside his filthy rags and put on a skirt of raffia and a belt like them. They took him down to the lake to bathe. They danced around him in the water. He allowed himself to be led back up, where they painted him yellow and red. They drew snake lines over his arms, they said the women liked it.
That evening as they sat drinking with the warrior women around the big fire, there was peace among them. Cuzumarra desired to sleep. And as he slept he dreamed that he was ill again, and was being lifted from a healing spring in the old country. Men manipulated and massaged his limbs. But when they stopped the limbs grew stiff again, finally the attendants walked one by one out of the room with their cloths and salves. But as soon as they left the room, he felt himself lifted off the ground, he flew and bowed down to the sun that rose over the mountain peaks. And because he was still bound around with bandages like a corpse, he flew on ever higher. The sun began to burn terribly. The heat was beyond measure. In fear he tried to stop. But the impetus of his flight did not abate. Smoke poured from his body, the bandages loosened and smouldered. Now he knew he was an offering and would be sacrificed. He was enveloped in hideous pain, suffocating.
He awoke. He stood up. It was dark. Ah yes, they were with the Women People. Oh woe, what did the companions say to me. He lay down again, pulled the mat over him and fell asleep at once.
Dreaming, he landed on a big jagged leaf, next to it grew a huge flower, he flew into the flower, he was a hummingbird, he stuck his long beak in, the flower wouldn’t let him, he stabbed and stabbed and then it held him fast, and he sucked honey, sweet cool honey, sweet honey flowed without cease into his beak, the beak was glued to the flower, he sucked and sucked, it was heavenly.
When he awoke the fires were out, dawn was breaking. He lay there. His companions slept on.
As the queen did not send for him next morning, he went to her. She was away hunting. He had stayed long enough. The old women he found in the chief’s hut advised patience. The queen would let him go soon. That day several young warrior women came to them in the guest hut, led them without a word to little huts standing in the fields behind the great rows of village houses. They said the queen was away hunting, visitors had come from other villages of women, the men would be treated hospitably even in the huts. Cuzumarra and the two companions saw preparations for a feast and the brewing of beer from the sugarcane juice, like the sora of their homeland. But the huts were slave huts.
The strong tireless warrior, who for many months had carried no weapons, stepped from his hut into the rippling field of maize, knelt down with his face towards the veiled sun, reproached himself and uttered the ancient prayer: “Mountains and plains all around, circling condors, owls and nightbirds, hear this avowal of my guilt.”
He went down to the pond where his companions had bathed him when they removed the last of his clothes from home, and uttered the prayer again. He pressed his forehead to the ground, and washed himself. He cursed himself for giving in and allowing the companions to throw away his rags. When he saw himself naked but for skirt and belt he wept, dizzy with anger. This was a long dying. He asked after the companions. Answers were evasive.
Helpless he squatted by the slave hut on a mat. To the sun, now sinking low amid enormous yellow and red clouds, he sang words from home: “Cunac Nusta, lovely young daughter, here is thy brother who shatters thy vessel and hurls thunder and lightning. Queen, thou makest bright water to fall as rain. Water borne up to thee by Pachacamac, who set thee in thy place and gave thy soul to sing.”
BEFORE evening two young warrior women came to the hut, sat with him and said they came from the queen. It was beyond their skill to weave fabrics as fine as those he had worn from his homeland. But they wanted to untangle and oil his hair and, as far as they could, to decorate his body. He became hoarse with fury, swore: they were deceivers, they had already deceived his companions, they would attack the guests for breaking the laws of this tribe. They left, and returned with older women. They assured him no laws had been broken, and the young warrior women only wanted to make him up as best they could in their own style, since the queen had no means to provide fine fabrics. He mulled this over for a long time. All at once he felt limp and defenceless. He succumbed, glowering. They set to at once.
And again the old feeling overcame him from that long trek through the forest, where the sweltering heat never let up and dampness fell constantly on their skin, as they trudged for hours each day along narrow forest paths and fat opossums darted by, the homeland falling ever farther behind: I no longer know what I should say, I am losing my words, where is my home, we are bewitched, a sorcerer has stolen everything from me. The companions had said the same; they had foundered sooner than him.
The young warrior women plucked hairs from his body, even removed his eyelashes. They had sharpened sticks of bamboo and wanted to trim his hair. He was reluctant. They scolded, called him monkey, forest-man. He yielded enough for them to start cutting. And as they proceeded, one on the left and one on the right, they followed their fancy. They shaved his head in front and at the sides, and left a long tail to dangle down his back. They had no pigments with them, it was already dark. They shook the mat. Each gathered some clippings and tucked them into her belt. When they left they said they would return in the morning.
He lay alone in the hut. A fire burned not far away. Even here he was watched. In disbelief he fingered his scalp. He was no longer Cuzumarra. They did with him as they wanted. Flocks of little bats flew like dry leaves, he could see them in the firelight. His hand touched constantly at his bare skull. “Circling condors, owls and nightbirds, hear this avowal of my guilt.”
It was deathly quiet. Voices from the village above. Piping frogs.
He slept. No dreams brought relief.
THESE were rich villages, with their fields and houses.
The queen kept several men. Some built the fire. One knew how to cut her hair, and comb and oil it. One knew how to paint her. One had found out what songs she liked best. One played the flute.
Cuzumarra became her husband.
Cuzumarra no longer wanted to think of his homeland. But thoughts of the whiteskins and their cruelties tore constantly at his vitals. The queen asked many questions, he had to tell stories, these were followed by endless female chatter.
In these rich villages they knew how to weave, though not as finely as in Cuzumarra’s country. He was given a handsome piece of cloth, and sat with the other men on mats when the queen received visitors and wanted to display her wealth, and they marvelled at his golden ear discs.
As the great river became sated and began to shrink and islands appeared, Cuzumarra grew fat and idle. Every morning like a cockerel he woke the queen with a favourite song she had heard as a child. He was given little to do. He avoided looking towards the setting sun, anyway he could descry no mountains or snowy peaks, no smoke from volcanoes. The land lay peaceful, green, endless green, a sea of green, and over there the great milky-white river still flowed, devouring field and forest; and sky, steaming air, heat of the day, cool nights. He stood as people ran around him and children laughed, women and slaves ground meal, wove raffia, carved spears, stood under buriti palms. His mouth, which every morning had to crow, now breathed: “Mountains and plains all around, circling condors, owls and nightbirds, hear this avowal of my guilt.”
On each shoulder sat a red parrot, the queen’s favourites. They squawked in his ears, he rubbed his bare neck on their plumage. He smelled the queen’s pungent oil with which he massaged her. His companions had mouldered away in the damp earth.
And when the first Whites came downstream in heavily manned boats, and alarm drums pounded and people remembered his stories and his companions, he too had already mouldered away.
