To my wife Vibeke, and to Nina, Maia and Evie.
In appreciation to Vibeke for her very helpful suggestions and recommendations for the manuscript, and to Bronte Wright for her invaluable contributions and excellent work in the final edits.
The Floating World
“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace.” Isaiah
Chapter 1
Jiemba was a cripple. The mountains and valleys that surrounded his life were impressive in their intense, wonderful, and fearful beauty. It was a windswept landscape of rugged vastness. Jiemba often watched the clouds that touched the serrated peaks as they drifted between their sharp ridges. He knew well the storms that erupted from these wispy clouds which would quickly darken and become a deluge of raging waters roaring down the hillsides, transforming the rocky streams into fierce torrents in the narrow valleys. He also felt the gentle breezes which caressed the grassy plainlands of the lower slopes before silently rising through the deep valleys to the barren, snowy heights. It was a landscape that, in its expanse and complexity, mirrored his existence.
Jiemba was told that his name referred to the bright star that appeared both in the morning and in the evening. It was called the laughing star, but he had never seen it. All his life he lived in a different dimension from the others among whom he dwelt. The proportions and boundaries of his world were defined by the physical limitations that he struggled with each day. No one in his small mountain top village would tell him how he came to have such twisted, malformed legs or how he had become an orphan. Whenever he asked someone in the village what had happened to his family, their faces became downcast and they quickly turned away. It was enough for him to know by the look in their eyes not to pursue the matter. Jiemba was raised from a young age by an older couple in the village, Waru, and Kirra, his wife, who took him into their home through pity. Waru was respected as the wise man of the village. He was intelligent, kind and generous, and being educated in reading and writing, decided to pass on this knowledge to Jiemba so he would have more of a chance in life.
Waru quickly discerned that Jiemba was a bright and diligent learner who absorbed all Waru could teach him. As he grew in years, Waru was happy to have Jiemba assist him in his work as the village scribe, sitting beside him at his desk as villagers would come and dictate all manner of letters and other documents that needed to be written, or reading to them what had been written by others. Jiemba was especially good at composing and writing these letters for the mostly illiterate villagers. Of more significance to Jiemba, however, was something hidden in Waru's house. Concealed within a cabinet was a special treasure that opened a whole new world for him. It was a collection of books. The many varied and diverse volumes revealed a new world of thought and ideas that gave him inspiration and hope. Often he sat with Waru and listened to what the older man had learned from reading them. In many ways his time with Waru and Kirra provided an experience of family life and the consciousness of being an orphan seemed to diminish in this atmosphere of acceptance and hope.
Jiemba did have one friend in the village; a boy much larger and stronger than he, with a big, round face, unruly hair and bushy eyebrows that contrasted noticeably with his own slender and frail physique. But whereas Jiemba was quiet and pensive, his friend, Minjarra, was the exact opposite. A loud, boisterous and clumbsy lad who seemed to abound in all kinds of impetuous and outlandish foolishness that often pushed the limits of their friendship. In short, Jiemba found Minjarra intolerably annoying and mostly a painful companion. Yet, in the years of growing up together, Jiemba had grown to love the essential goodness of his character and his loyal faithfulness to him. This was always evident whenever the other boys in the village picked on Jiemba for being a cripple. Minjarra would step in and challenge them both physically and verbally in defence of his friend. The outcome was that both became closer together as mutual outcasts from those of their own age.
Waru and Kirra tolerated Minjarra almost as if he was a forth member of the house, except that, unlike Jiemba, who ate little, Minjarra was voracious and seemed to always be hungry.
“What's to eat?!” he would cry out whenever he appeared. Kirra always had something to give him and would often ask “Doesn't your family feed you?” to which Minjarra would only grin in reply as he devoured his treasure.
Despite his achievements and progress under Waru and Kirra's care, and having gained some standing in the village in the eyes of some, it was always painfully obvious to Jiemba that he lived under the reproach of most of the hard-working villagers. They were the tough men and women of the mountains who mainly grew fruit trees and vines on the steep slopes and beside the rapid flowing streams. Their whole lives were absorbed in wresting these meagre crops from the hard soil and trading the fruit of their labour with the merchants of the plain. It was a hardy and strenuous life, and one in which a cripple had little place.
To escape from the sense of rejection he experienced from those among whom he lived, Jiemba would often sit secluded in a valley below the village, further down the mountain, beside a deep stream. His legs were often painful and sore, made more so by the harshness of the terrain and by the difficulties of traversing it. He found relief by dangling them in the cool stream as he sat on a rock at the water’s edge. He loved the little fish that swam around his twisted legs and he spoke gently with them, imagining their sweet voices responding happily. He delighted in how freely they floated and swam in their watery world that contrasted so much with his own. He loved his tranquil place by the stream. None of the villagers could see him as they worked on the hillside.
But in the afternoon, as the sun crested the jagged ridges above the valley, the dark shadows spread over him, bringing a sense of heaviness to his soul. Even the little fish saw this and left him alone.
Jiemba had brought with him some paper, a brush and some ink, promising Waru that he would practice his writing by the stream but, inspired by the beauty of his surroundings, he found himself casually drawing images of the little fish. He was fascinated by them. The ripples on the surface of the water distorted their slender shapes and he reproduced this in his attempts to capture them in inky brushstrokes. The wonder of peering into a different and abstract world full of mysterious forms and colours absorbed his concentration.
As he reflected on his attempts to draw, observing the brush marks and smudges of what he had wanted to portray, he became aware that during this time of intense focus his legs seemed less painful, as if he had forgotten them. So much of his life had been surrendered to the limitations, frustrations and challenges caused by the state of his body.
As he was absorbed in these reflections, a novel thought came to him. How wonderful would it be if he could overcome his physical and emotional pain by intentionally using his imagination to focus his thoughts on a whole new world?
He lay aside the paper, brushes and ink and glanced up.
