Have you ever found yourself thrust into a religious ceremony of which you had NO idea what the hell you were doing or what it meant to anyone? An evangelical gets this kind of feeling in a mild sense, even attending a Catholic or Lutheran worship service, which is supposedly the same religion.
This is Clete's predicament in this section. He feel like he ought to go along with what the Sea Witch is having him do, but at the same time, what he does NOT want to do is to do something that will create a contractual obligation or create a liability within that culture. He knows that intent is a highly developed idea in American law, but strict liability is often a component in other social systems. Feng is not here to advise him here in this foreign country of "The Outside," so he has to wing it on his own.
In any event, the story continues ...
“This is a no-shoes area,” she warned
me.
She removed her sandals, opened the small door and crawled
in on all fours. A dutiful guest, I did as I was told. We found ourselves in a paneled room with
straw mats neatly mortised and trimmed covering the floor. The room was
illuminated with indirect natural light, so it was slightly dim, but rather
mimicked the subdued daylight in the forest we had just taken refuge from.
There was a small central, short table. She entreated me to pull up a cushion
and be seated.
On one side of the table of a draw from which she extracted
a scroll which she then hung on the wall. It was several words written in
kanji. I recognized a couple of the words from my meager knowledge of Chinese
recalled from Chinese school lessons, but the hanging scroll was
unintelligible. One word I recognized as “heart.” Written Chinese is not
Chinese. “What!” you might say. I would tell you that a Chinese person of
course will say that. But that is a very close-minded thing to say. I say that
it is a writing system that was invented by people who lived in what we now
call China, but it existed even before there was this concept of what we call
“China.” I would say in a more fair way that this writing system has been
employed in part by the Japanese and the ancient peoples from which modern-day
Koreans descend, but to call it all Chinese is to succumb to a China-centric
way of thinking. So, I will just say I saw these words up on the wall.
Another word up on a hanging was the number 10. I knew
enough that while these are words by themselves, but used in combination with
other characters they can take on other meaning. Still, they were like familiar
friends caught sight of in a room of strangers, and so I focused my attention
on them.
The room was neat and tidy, but it was obviously it was
regularly used and cleaned. The smells of past meal preparations had been
absorbed into the mats. It was not unpleasant. The room did not look like
someone’s home, but it smelled like someone’s home.
There was a small stove there in the room; it was fueled
with canister gas, propane I’d imagined. She poured water from an earthen jug
into a small cast iron kettle and set it on the stove fire. She set a double
boiler on the second burner, filling the lower pot with water, pouring some
sort of wine into the top. The food preparation area in the corner where she
was working was not matted, but rather had a floor of dressed stone.
“May I help?” I asked.
“This service is mine to
perform. I know that you want talk. And we will. But we must first put our
hearts into harmony with the gods. Take this time now to think about all you
have received and are grateful for. I shall do the same.”
“You’ve been moving around on your knees
faster than people move around on their feet. And it’s like you’re gliding. You
haven’t spilled a drop.”
“It is a way of life for me.
Though, I will take that as a compliment.”
“Please do.”
Her words were directive but soothing. I decided to
cooperate. Luckily, gratitude came easy to me. In a lot of ways, I’m just a
Sunday Christian, but offer prayers in thanks I’d have to say is my only real
spiritual practice. I got tired of being in churches where prayer time was
basically a grocery list. The “give us our daily bread” part? To me there’s no
point in asking if you’ve got the ability to go get it. It was good to see this
pagan priestess got this part right. I just went into my usual meditative mode.
After sitting a bit, she set out 10 small candles. Her worldview
was sure hung up on the number 10. Probably based on the 10 fingers of the
hands.
“I
will say each of the 10 words,” she offered. “You will repeat them. You will
think what these words mean to you. We will take turns lighting the candles as
they are spoken in turn.”
“Loyalty.”
(Of course, I thought. I kept running into this here.)
“Authenticity.”
(Now THAT’s novel.)
“Authority.”
(Ugh! Where’s the door?)
“Limitation.”
(Double ugh!)
“Legacy.”
(Can you spell B-A-G-G-A-G-E?)
“Life
and death.” (ALL RIGHT! I’m sorry about killing all of those ants that
pissed off Qi. Maybe I am a karma factory.)
“Faithfulness.”
(This again—isn’t this the same as #1? Guess the guru ran out of ideas here.)
“May
I add that this is specific to being faithful to one’s spouse.” (What? Is she
a mind reader? Well, she is a Witch … Maybe I need to ask follow-up questions
on some that made me scoff.)
“You
are visibly flinching. Is this an issue for you?”
“How can it be when one is not married?”
“I
understand you told the Second Princesses that you were.”
“That … was a very, very long time ago.
Word gets around here doesn’t it?”
“It’s
a small island. Very well. Let us continue. Control.” (Sounds good to me. But
mostly when I’m in control, that is.)
“Truth.”
(Ah! A very useful tactic when skillfully employed.)
“Contentment.”
(A most elusive virtue for us capitalist Americans. I try to be content, but I
sure miss being younger and stronger.)
I have to say, all of that introspection just succeeded in
putting me in a foul and bitter mood. She opened a cupboard and fetched a
container from which she removed a large sheet of a cracker-like baked good,
which she broke into several pieces roughly two-inches square each. She got out
a jar of orange goop that looked rather like Cheez-Wiz, which she spread on
each of these pieces. They did not look appetizing. The smell had the nature of
some sort of fermented bean curd.
The water came to a boil. She put a few spoonfuls of green
powder into a bowl to which she added the water and stirred it resolutely with
a whisk. She had set the goop-laden cracker chips on a metal tray that she had
set over the stove burner. These she transferred to a plate that she set before
me. She poured the heated wine from the double boiler into a second bowl.
“Are you ever going to remove your mask?”
I asked. "I like to see who I'm talking to."
“You are sitting in the
House of the 10th god who is over the other gods, the one whose true
name is not knowable. Whose grim visage is terrible to behold and to look upon
it is death. I represent that glorious host while you are in this house, so
think not about me.”
She handed me a flimsy piece of joss paper.
“We will lift each other’s
grievances now.”
“What does that entail?”
“You need only repeat after
me. ‘For all that you have done to give me the right of retribution or just
cause for revenge and vendetta I release you.’”
“I can’t say that. The 10th god
never did anything to me.”
“I would argue that the 10th
god has acted against you as it has everyone, but in this part of the ceremony
we are proxies.”
“Proxies? For whom?”
“The living and the dead.”
“So I’m saying this for someone else
right? Not for me?”
“It is better if you mean it
for yourself as well.”
“Well, I don’t think I
have any active lawsuits right now. And Luther did say ‘Without faith, there is
no sacrament.’”
“If that helps you to
perform the ceremony, so be it.”
“What if I just get up and leave right
now?”
“Whether with me or someone
else, the ceremony must be done. But to leave now would be highly improper and
extremely rude.”
“Will you strike me down with something
like prostate or testicular cancer? That’s the kind of thing you do according
to Ting Ting.”
“You probably already have
prostate cancer. It is a normal development in men. You seem to care a lot
about what you are asked to say.”
“Damn right I do.”
“And yet you hurl curses so
blithely about.”
“You know. I really, REALLY hate it when
strangers point out my hypocrisies so clearly to me. Have you thought I might
consider that rude?”
“Are you ready now? Shall I
repeat it for you?”
“‘For all that you have done to give me
the right of retribution or just cause for revenge and vendetta I release you.’”
“Put anything you want to
rid yourself of on the paper in your hand.”
“Write on it?”
“If you wish, I have a pen.
But thinking it is enough. Strike this match and light the paper that I hold in
my right hand.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Light it.”
She calmly let the paper flare up and then burn to an ash in
her palm.
“Didn’t that hurt?”
“My skin is burned yes. But
it must hurt. Your turn. Hold out your hand.”
“I don’t think so.”
I looked her in the eyes through the mask. She had tears
welling in them. I held out my hand and I let her light the paper. Damn but did
that sting, but I would not let her outdo me in stoicism. She pulled out a
lidded ceramic bowl that had some kind of salve within. She pulled out a
generous dollop and put it on her right palm. She put her burned hand on mine
and we rubbed the ointment on each other’s hand. It was some kind of topical
anaesthetic that immediately cooled down the inflammation and removed the pain.
I looked at my hand it had been completely restored.
“What the hell is that stuff? Aloe?”
“You were feeling irritated,
restless, and maybe a bit guilty just a minute ago. Is it gone? Do you perhaps
feel empty now?”
“I still have a lot of problems.”
“They are waiting for you
outside. Waiting to be picked back up.”
“I don’t need to pick mine up. They’ll just
jump right on my back.”
“Not to be denied.
“I guess I’m empty enough.”
“Then be filled.”
She lifted the tea bowl and passed it to me. There was some rigamarole of turning the cups this way and that, but after a bit I took it and
lifted it to my lips. I surprised me that it was still hot. I was not
meditating as long as I thought I had. The tea bitter at the start, turning
flat, then toasty, then ending on a sweet note. I drank one half the bowl. I
assumed it was to be shared and I handed it back to her. She drained it.
The tray of crackers was offered to me. I took one and ate
it. She did likewise. The essential salty-sour taste of fermented slime moved
me back to my childhood home for a moment and then the nostalgia passed.
The bowl of rice wine then was passed in front of me. Like
the tea, I took in one half and she finished the rest. The small token
nourishment had its effect. We sat together like that feeling the caffeine, the
carbs, and the alcohol move through us like waves. It was enlightening and draining
all at once.
Just as I thought I would not bear the intensity of this
encounter any more, the Sea Witch clapped her hands together. The sound jolted
me back into my body.
“Rise. Face me.”
She positioned my hands, palms up at waist level. Hold them firmly in place. She raised
her palms and smartly slapped them against mine. It stung. She positioned her
hands as I had. She nodded. I stared at her through the eyeholes of her mask,
unsure. Her eyes narrowed and she nodded abruptly. I raised my open hands and
brought them against hers. It stung just as badly as when she had struck me.
She held her reddened hands shoulder level, palms open toward me, fingers
spread. I did the same. We interlocked hands. She gave a reassuring squeeze to
each, which I returned. We released.
“Let the doors be open. Let
the light shine in.”
We walked to the doors. She slid hers to the left, me to the
right. The light flooded the room, along with the smell and sounds of The
Grove. She threw the remaining cracker bits about the ground around the porch.
We padded back to the small door to put on our shoes, and then seated ourselves
on the porch.
© Copyright 2012 by Vincent Way, all rights reserved.
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Be truthful and frank, but be polite. If you use excessive profanity, I'll assume you have some kind of character flaw like Dr. Wong. Tks!