Welcome!
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| Luxurious growth - pepino gold |
Mid-winter in the Adelaide Hills, and it’s wet and cold as
it should be. Yet we have our share of sunshine days, which makes for
pleasant gardening and even a picnic or two.
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| Unusual fruit - pepino gold |
There are more plants flowering
now than there were in May, which always surprises me. I have been planting
unusual fruits this year, and today’s pics shows how a small pepino gold that
lost its leaves in its first winter is now taking over my garden – and still flowering and ripening fruit through the cold! I discovered that I don’t really like the
flavour of the ripened melon-like fruit, but fortunately my offspring do. It
can also be eaten unripe, cooked like various other relatively tasteless
vegetables (choko comes to mind) which fill out a casserole or stir fry. I
don’t mind that. And, at the very least, the plant adds lushness to my garden,
which is always welcome.
The story this month, a drama with a hint of myth, shows an
experience involving an ancient sword in the life of an oppressed young woman . The
story is too long for one post, so come by again in August for the second half.
The Crypt
Around the bejewelled sword lying in splendour on a raised
dais lined with royal blue satin stand eleven solemn devotees. They link hands
in the circle and one by one they name a gemstone – emerald, ruby, sapphire,
diamond – and intone the meaning of each symbol engraved in the gleaming steel
– truth, light, strength, honour, hope, power, love.
A
gaunt man in purple robes speaks longer than the others, reminding them of how
the sword came to them through the centuries. He gives them the benefit of his
meditations on just one of the many glories of the sword but he does not
demonstrate it, though he has some skill. His focus has always been more on its
making and its history.
The
attendants leave after a hymn of praise to the maker and the original wielders
of this mighty and glorious weapon of a past age.
A young woman dressed in rich monochrome stands in the
shadow of the crypt. With her back against a wall still warmed by the summer
sun, she tries to slow her wildly beating heart. Beyond her a strobe of
moonlight flashing between the branches of a windblown eucalypt alternately
lights, then hides, a group of boys. They huddle, the backs of their black
t-shirts showing as dark patches in the evening, then spread out, each of the
four in a different direction. One begins to move towards the crypt, slowly,
his head turning left, right, in front as he searches.
The young woman feels for the
handle of the door to her left. It is locked, as it was the three previous
times she tried it. She turns to face the wall and feels upwards for the
window, which is closed. There is no mechanism; her fingernail on her right
middle finger tears as she feels all around the edge, searching for a gap.
She turns back to see where the
approaching boy is now. She panics for a moment, then spots him searching under
the trees of a neighbouring yard, just over the road.
She has known this crypt since
childhood when she and her brothers had played hide and seek among the stone
buildings of the historic precinct. They had always called this ‘the crypt’,
although it was set only a little lower than the other buildings, its
foundations six feet below ground level. A concrete path surrounds the
rectangular building, and concrete retaining walls. Wide concrete steps lead
down to the main door. She has never entered, but a sign states the times of
worship, when the crypt is opened.
Creeping around the corner from
the locked side entrance, the young woman tries to picture the crypt walls as
she saw them in her childhood games. A memory tugs at the corner of her mind as
her fingers trail lightly along the wall. This side is cool, never receiving
the sun’s attention. While it leads away from the one who searches for her, she
recognises it is a dead end trap. There is no knowing where the other boys are.
Even now they could be approaching from behind the hall in front of her. She
listens for footfalls and giveaway crunching of stone or leaf litter underfoot,
but the wind blows all sound aside except its own.
Her fingers identify a change of
texture, and into her memory springs the image of a metal grate as large as a
small dog. She turns to face this dank wall, putting both her hands to the
grate and pulling. It moves with a scrape of metal against stone. She pulls
carefully, feeling the pressure of the unknown at her back but fearing the
sound giving away her location. Pushing, easing, holding her breath, stopping
when the wind stops. Finally the grate comes out. She has no idea what lies
beyond it.
She places the metal carefully on
the concrete path to her right. The space where it was is pitch black. She
feels as far in as she can reach, brushing away accumulated litter. It crackles
a little, and she stops to listen again. Is that an answering crackle behind
her, just to her left? Her heart beat increases and the pounding makes it
harder to hear. It takes all her effort to hold the fear back, to think before
she moves.
The wind’s white noise begins
again. The young woman makes her decision and thrusts her arms and head into
the space, and pulls herself into the tight, cold stone tunnel. The air is
musty, dead, and dusty enough to tempt a sneeze which she manages to supress.
She drags her body through, combat style though the movements are awkward,
arrhythmic in the cramped space. In every moment she fears hitting her head,
her hands touching something other than stone, or her feet being pulled.
Then her hands feel nothing but
space. She forces herself to continue until her waist is at the lip of the
stone, her upper body held in air. She cannot sense what is ahead of her. She
might fall head first, a long way. But there is no other way. She wishes she
had started feet first.
She falls. A jumble of nerve
ending signals and sounds sort themselves, moments later, into a tangle of
wooden chairs, an echoing crash, and a stabbing pain in her right thigh.
Her eyes adjust to the dark;
moonlight entering a high window gives enough light to see the essentials. She
manages to stand, making the chairs tumble further. She hobbles towards a
central section, a platform of some kind. For a while she forgets the threat
outside in the otherworldly wonder of being inside this place for the first
time.
Her feet bump into a step, and she
half falls up a set of them. At the top of the platform is a rail, a wide
walkway, and a large box in the middle. She shuffles forward.
The hint of moonlight reflects off
something on the top of the box. She lets her fingers provide the details her
eyes cannot make out. There is silky fabric in generous folds around the edge,
and then something hard and cold and long in the middle. Lightly tracing its
shape from the top, she understands that it is a sword. Its pommel is scratchy,
lumpy, and the cross guard similarly textured. Her hand slips into the grip
and, without meaning to, she begins to lift the sword from its bed. It is too
heavy. She lets it go again.
Why, she wonders, is there a sword
in here, the centrepiece of this room? A crypt is normally a burial place but
instead a sword lies in the place of honour. It is a mystery.
Scuffling and muffled voices
remind her that this is not the time for mystery. She berates herself for
losing focus, for not closing off the tunnel that is even now giving her
enemies the same access she used. She is trapped. She would like to kneel or
sit hidden but she remains standing, likely outlined by the moonlight, because
she does not trust her right leg to do anything else. She waits.
They come, three of them, one by
one tumbling out of the tunnel with a clatter and a shout. She waits for the
fourth. Perhaps he is too big for the tunnel, or stands guard outside.
They fan out, still systematic in
their method, edging around the room, approaching the platform from three directions,
muttering instructions in short phrases. They have done this before, she
thinks. Fear rises in her chest again. She feels the futility of resistance,
and sweats the temptation to reveal herself and surrender to their vile
intentions. It would be a relief, really, after all this time. If it isn’t
these boys, it’s her stepfather, his son, her French teacher – a string of
parasitic males and their sycophant female partners. She has been playing hide
and seek for real for so long. How bitterly ironic that she should finally be
caught here, inside the favourite refuge of her unsuspecting childhood.
‘Hsst!’
She has been seen. She braces
herself, adrenaline overcoming any thought of surrender. She steps up to the box
and grasps the sword. Again she wonders at the way it fits her hand. She knows
the sword is too heavy but she sets herself to raise it anyway. She is here, it
is here, and her enemy is upon her.
The sword rises, glinting in the
faint light as if it flashes a message. The fear drains from her and in its
place a battle cry fills her lungs and forces its way through her lips: ‘The
sword of light! You cannot defeat it.’
Exaltation sustains her as the
first boy comes at her, jeering, ‘Ha! That thing’s twice your size. You’ll kill
yourself before you can hurt us.’
He lunges at her and she waves the
sword wildly at him, both hands on the hilt. The weight of the blade smacks him
on the shoulder and knocks him off balance. He groans and rolls away from her.
The second boy runs up the
platform steps. ‘You little bitch! You don’t deserve to live – you’re nothin’
but a gash and I’m gonna prove it.’ He pulls from his boot something small that
glints as he dances around, twisting it, thrusting it, moving closer to the young
woman. She swings the sword, loses her footing; he darts in and slices at her
side while she is hefting the sword back in his direction. She feels the sting
of contact with his blade even as the sword slices towards him. He ducks. The
sword clatters against the railing and bounces. It is all she can do to hold
it. She has no control of its direction.
The knife-wielder is joined by the
third boy now, both of them keeping out of the sword’s range, side by side on
the platform with the box between her and them.
Her arms are getting tired and the
weight of the unwieldy weapon drags at her shoulders. The initial exaltation is
dulling. Her strength will not last as long as her determination. But still she
holds the sword with both hands, letting it rest for a moment against the box
while she strains to see the movements of her assailants.
The first boy is on his feet
again, clutching his struck shoulder with the other hand and swaying like a
drunk. ‘I say we just run at her—‘
‘Shut up.’ The third boy’s words
hold authority. He turns his attention to the young woman. ‘You’re getting
tired, aren’t you? You’ve put up a good fight. Pretty impressive for a slight
build like yours. I’ll say this for you – you’re feisty.’
She feels a new measure of
wariness. He is cunning, this boy with his honey words, using the soft touch while
his mates are harsh. In spite of herself she answers. ‘You’re no better than
the rest, even if you play Mr Nice Guy. You don’t fool me.’
‘Quit blabbin’,’ the second boy,
the knife-wielder, growls. ‘Let’s just cut her and get outta here.’
Their leader pays no attention. He
holds them back, standing nonchalant, relaxed, as if all the searching and
chasing were just to engage in conversation with her.
She flexes her fingers and
resettles her grip.
‘You realise, of course – you’re
no idiot – that we’ve got you cornered. You can’t win against three of us.
You’ll just get hurt. It’s heavy, isn’t it, and your muscles aren’t trained to
use it. You did well getting in here. It took us a while to find you. But you
know, don’t you, that even your smarts can’t beat the three of us.
‘Why don’t you just put the sword
down,’ he continues, ‘and let’s sort this out calmly. We won’t kill you – we
just mean to have our fun, so if you’re really smart you’ll cooperate with us.
I’ll make sure Sharpy here puts his knife away. I’m not into cutting.’
Sharpy growls but he puts the
knife back into his boot.
‘See,’ says Honeytongue, ‘they do
what I tell them. You will too.’
There is no threat in his tone,
just supreme confidence in his authority. He seems so reasonable, so sure of
himself, the young woman thinks that it would be easy to believe him. She is
tired, her leg and her arms telling her in no uncertain terms that they are not
enjoying this unfamiliar action.
‘No,’ she says, grimacing at the
pathetic whisper. ‘No.’ She says it more firmly, and clears her throat. But she
has no more words to add in the waiting silence. She raises the sword and
balances the weight on her feet. The silence stretches until she’s sure something
will snap.
‘Too bad,’ Honeytongue remarks, ‘I
prefer my catch unbruised. Go to it, boys.’
(To be continued)
See you next time!
Claire Belberg
