Zeely (9 page)

Geeder sat across from Zeely. When Zeely began to stare at her hard, she became watchful and held herself more like a lady. She could not read Zeely’s eyes, nor could she fathom why Zeely was looking at her that way.

What does she see? she wondered. What is it?

“Your many beads are pretty,” Zeely said suddenly. “You have a lot of clothes?” She spoke as if Geeder were someone she had known for years. But her voice was halting, the way a person might speak when he hadn’t had anyone to talk to for a long, long time.

Geeder was so startled by Zeely’s question, her mind went empty. “Why, I don’t know!” she said at last. “I’ve a dress to go to a party. I’ve got clothes for school. Mother buys them every fall and Christmas.” She felt ashamed that she hadn’t worn long pants instead of shorts to her meeting with Zeely.

“A girl should have clothes,” Zeely said.

“Miss Zeely, I think your dress is about the most pretty one I’ve ever seen,” Geeder said, shyly.

Zeely touched the bodice of her robe with her long fingers. Geeder could tell she was pleased by the compliment.

“I’ve had it a long time,” Zeely said. “Twice a year, I hang it in the sun so that the colors will catch and hold the light.” Very delicately, she gathered the skirt and smoothed it evenly about her feet. The colors leaped and glowed.

Geeder didn’t know why they had started talking about clothes. Since they had begun to speak, she was bursting to ask Zeely about herself.

“Miss Zeely, do you come from Tallahassee?” she blurted out. “I think somebody told me you came from there.”

“No,” said Zeely, “we come from far to the north, from Canada.”

“Canada!” Geeder said. The thought that Zeely came from such a place excited her. “I’ve never been there,” she said. “Was it cold?”

“Where we were, it was cold,” Zeely said. “It snowed and there was not much summer.”

“Did you have hogs there, too?” Geeder asked. She entwined her fingers, eager to talk.

“We always have hogs,” Zeely said. “We sell the best. We eat the meat of those that are left.” She looked away from Geeder. “It’s by them that we live.”

The way Zeely spoke about the hogs made Geeder feel she had said something wrong. She grew uneasy. “Well,” she said, “I just thought it was maybe Tallahassee you came from. I remember someone told me that.”

“The same someone who says I am a queen?” Zeely asked. Her eyes held to Geeder’s.

Geeder’s hands flew to her face. “I didn’t mean anything bad!” she cried. “Miss Zeely? Here!” She fumbled in her blouse and her hand shook as she gave Zeely the photograph of the Watutsi woman.

Zeely looked at the photograph. She smiled, vaguely, as though she didn’t know she smiled. Finally, she gave the picture back to Geeder. She sat stiff and still. She could have been carved out of the trees, so dark was she seated there. Then, the rigid mask of her face melted, as if it were made of wax. A smile parted her lips. From deep in her throat came a warm, sweet giggle. She threw back her head and laughed and laughed. It was to Geeder a delicious, soft sound.

Geeder was so happy, she began to laugh, too, and got up to sit next to Zeely. All at once, they were side by side, just the way Geeder had dreamed it.

“You are very much the way I was at your age,” Zeely said.

“You were like
me?
” Geeder said. “Were you just like me?”

Zeely smiled. “I mean that because you found this picture, you were able to make up a good story about me. I once made up a story about myself, too.”

“Miss Zeely!” Geeder said. “I wouldn’t have told a soul if I hadn’t found that picture. The picture is proof!”

Carefully, Zeely ran her long fingers over her robe. “My mother’s people were Watutsi people out of Africa a long time ago,” she said quietly.

“Just like the lady in the picture!” Geeder said.

“Yes,” said Zeely, “and I believed that through my veins ran the blood of kings and queens! So it was that my mother came to make this robe for me,” Zeely said. “I had asked her many questions about her people—I talked of nothing else for quite a while. She made this robe exactly like the ones they wore.” Then she added, “I put it on today because wearing it, I can be more the way I was. You may touch it, if you like.”

And very gently, Geeder touched it.

“It’s just the most pretty thing,” Geeder whispered, “it’s the most pretty dress in the world!”

Zeely laughed. It was a quick, dry sound. Ever so slowly, the pleasure faded from her. A sadness came over her. Geeder sensed Zeely moving away to a place within herself.

“When I was your age,” Zeely said, “my mother died.”

“Oh!” Geeder said, “I’m awfully sorry, Miss Zeely.”

Zeely didn’t say anything for a time. Then, she began again. “I was tall,” she said. “The children laughed at my skinny arms and my long legs. I wore my robe all the time, for I thought it beautiful and I wanted the children to believe about me what you have come to believe.”

“But you
are
a Watutsi,” Geeder said.

“Yes,” said Zeely, “but wait . . .”

“You just said you came from Africa,” Geeder said.

“Wait!” Zeely said. “We all came out of Africa—what of it?”

Geeder was quiet. She wasn’t sure what was happening and she wished, suddenly, for Toeboy.

“I remember,” Zeely began, “some time before my mother died, I wore my robe every day. My mother didn’t like that. She would say, ‘Zeely, you must wear clothes like other children, you must play and be like other children!’ I would say, ‘No, mama. No!’ and one day she sat me down and told me a story.”

“A story?” Geeder said.

“Yes,” said Zeely. “One day, when my mother was very sick, she called me to her. She had this story to tell me. I remember she cautioned me to listen closely and I knew by the look in her eye that this was to be the tale I had always hoped for.”

Zeely looked long and hard at Geeder. “It’s an ancient tale, like these old trees around us. It means everything to me. Will you listen?”

Geeder said, “Yes, Miss Zeely, I will listen.” She didn’t understand all that Zeely had said. But she listened now, and waited, content for the time with the simple rise and fall of Zeely’s soft voice.

14

ZEELY TAYBER TOLD
her story. Geeder listened, hardly breathing for fear she would miss some of it. Never had she heard such a tale. It was about the beginning of the world and it told of a young woman who waited for a message to come. The message would tell her who she was and what she was to do.

“In the beginning,” Zeely said, “there were only a handful of people in each corner of the world. The Voice High Above had commanded them to wait for a message that would tell them their station in life. They were to sing while they waited so they could be found more easily. The Voice High Above had sent many couriers with messages. For each person, there were three couriers. The couriers for the young woman of my story were a gecko lizard, a coypu rodent from South America and a man whom The Voice High Above had not yet given a language to speak.

“The three couriers set out at once with their messages for the young woman,” said Zeely. “The tiny gecko lizard’s name was Ecko. He was nocturnal and travelled only at night. He had to sleep and hide from the light during the day, and he didn’t make good time the first week of the search. The going became even harder for him when he left his country of Malaya. The climate changed too quickly for him to adjust to it. So it was that far from his home he died. His message for the young woman was buried forever beneath heavy snow.”

“Miss Zeely, that’s so sad!” Geeder said. “He should of known he couldn’t make it!”

Zeely smiled but said no more about the gecko. She shifted her position so as to sit more comfortably and then continued her story.

“The coypu lived all his life in water,” Zeely said. “His name was Coy and he did well the first week of the search. He swam through familiar rivers and lakes, stopping off to dine with relatives along his way. He was sure he would deliver his message in fine time.

“When Coy reached the edge of his continent, he swam swiftly to the Atlantic Ocean and began the hard part of his journey.”

Geeder leaned forward, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She sensed by the change in Zeely’s voice that something serious was about to happen.

“Coy headed south,” said Zeely, “and used winds and currents for faster travel. But unknown to him, he was trapped in the powerful Brazil Current. He drifted northward and swam many days in chilly waters. One awful night, he was tossed about in the cold current of the Gibraltar Strait. He grew sick and feverish and was forced to seek shelter on the Rock of Gibraltar. After a short illness, he died from exposure. His message blew away with the wind,” Zeely said, “never to be found.” She lifted her hands above her head, held them there a second or two and then let them fall heavily into her lap.

Geeder understood the meaning of Zeely’s hands in the empty air. She was silent, thinking of the poor coypu. It was a long time before Zeely resumed her story. When she did, the tone of her voice was full of suspense.

“We come now to the last courier,” Zeely said. “He was the man and he had no name, for The Voice High Above had given him no name as yet, as He had given names to the animal men.”

“What are animal men?” asked Geeder.

“Why, they are men the same as human men, except they are animals,” said Zeely. Then she continued with her story.

“The man was confused by the time he completed the first week of travel. He couldn’t find anyone to ask directions of. He had no language and could not talk to the animal beings, who spoke many tongues. Still, he travelled on, trying to somehow find his way.

“He was a man almost eight feet tall. Think of it!” Zeely said to Geeder. “He was that tall and he didn’t know his height was unusual. There were no other people around to tell him. He was thin of limb, with skin as black as the darkest tree bark. Oh, he made a striking figure against the ice and snow!”

Zeely rocked from side to side as she said this, and Geeder could almost see the man walking in that cold place, a man black as night and tall as trees.

“The cold chilled the man to the bone,” Zeely said.

“Cold wind whipped at him, causing him to feel much pain. He was lonely, travelling so far by himself. It wasn’t long before he realized that the country in which he found himself was not his own.

“One day, the man came upon an animal which had fallen on the sharp end of a broken sapling and died. The man tenderly took it in his arms and buried it beneath the snow. After this happened, there grew in his mind a picture of a long, wood shaft with a sharp point. At once, he set about making the shaft and fixed a sharp stone to its tip with strips of sapling bark. With the shaft, he could scrape a hole through the ice on any water he came upon and spear the fish beneath. This was how he was able to eat and survive. Then, many pictures grew in the man’s mind. He began stalking a huge, white animal he had seen. The animal was a bear and he had seen it following him. He had no fear of it, for he had no way of knowing it was hungry and a danger to him.

“As you see,” Zeely said, “the man learned quickly. He took to hunting as though he had done such work all his life. He tricked the bear into falling down a deep trap he had dug. At the bottom of the trap were sharp poles which killed the bear when he fell on them.

“From the bear’s fur, the man made a long cloak and warm shoes. He felt comfortable, then, and could travel more quickly. Many more cold weeks and months passed before he reached a place we know as Labrador. In front of him lay a mighty body of water. He was about to turn back—he knew nothing of swimming—when he heard a sweet, pure voice on a wind that was not cold.”

“It’s the girl!” Geeder said. “It’s the girl he was supposed to find!”

“It
was
the young woman,” said Zeely, “and the man recognized the wind as the wind of his homeland. He couldn’t understand the voice because he had no language, but the wind was fresh with the scent of hills and grass.

“The man built a boat with sails made from the hides of animals,” Zeely said. “He set out on the water, sailing with the wind, which grew warmer, and with the voice, that now taught him language. Soon, he threw away his cloak and shoes but was careful not to lose the message he carried in a pouch around his neck.

“One day,” Zeely said, “the wind left him. He drifted for months and months. He lived from fish of the water, birds of the air and sudden rains from the sky. Always, the voice was with him and always it told him not to be afraid.

“Early one morning the man awoke to find that he was in sight of land. He shouted his happiness and the voice at his ear laughed with pleasure. The land he saw was the coast of a continent; he landed at its northernmost port. Here, he found many peoples, for couriers had already delivered their messages. Mankind had begun to multiply.

“All kinds of people, seeing his great height, wondered if he were their king. They bowed to him and clung to him, begging him to lead them. He had no way of knowing what they spoke and turned sadly from them. He walked on and on until he came to a land oddly silent. There seemed to be no people anywhere, but something about the land felt comfortable. He stopped long enough to make himself a garment to wear, sandals for his feet and a staff to lean on. He walked many days in a wide valley and many nights through mountains. Often, he stood still and silent, looking down into this warm land he found so peaceful.

“One day,” Zeely said, “the voice that was always with him seemed very close by. He looked down at his feet and on every side. At last, he looked up and there he found her, high above him on a green hill. Her figure against the deep blue sky was the most perfect image he had lived to see. Most pleasing of all to him was that she was as tall and dark as he.

“After such a long journey, the man had to climb the hill with his last strength. When he reached the young woman, he fell to his knees, trembling in every limb.

“ ‘Ho, traveller, welcome,’ she said, ‘I have waited years and years.’