Chapter 192 - Zenzele, My Love part 11

True to her word, Bula intercedes on my behalf. Onani objects, quite loudly, and I hide from his anger behind her thighs. But Bula is unafraid, and he relents. The medicine woman visits and pronounces me cured of my fever. My arm is scarred where the jackal gored me, but it is no longer swollen or painful.

When I am well enough to venture out, Onani's mother allows me to roam the village freely. I explore. I play with the other Zul children. I miss my real home, my real family, but the company of Bula and her daughters helps to ease my homesickness. They treat me kindly, and I even form a friendship with one of Onani's younger sisters, a girl named Atswaan. Onani departs. He does not say where he is going or why he is leaving, but he is absent from the village for nearly the full length of the rainy season. In his absence, I grow closer to his mother and sisters. I even begin to address them as if they are my own family. Mother Bula. Sister Atswaan. One night, I realize I can no longer remember the face of my real mother and I weep inconsolably.

As I explore my new surroundings, I notice a peculiar thing. There are very few men loitering about the village. Most of the eyes who follow me through the alleys when I leave Mother Bula's hut each morning are female eyes. There are some very young boys, a few males who are old and gray-headed, but no men. I ask Mother Bula where all the men have gone, and she spares me a curious expression.

"Our men do not cohabit with us, as the men do in other tribes, Zenzele," she answers. The expression she makes is proud and wistful, both at the same time. "They only visit when they wish to copulate, or to provide meat for the bellies of their children."

"But who protects us?" I ask.

"We protect ourselves!" Bula laughs. "We do not need men to protect us!" She sighs, setting aside the basket she is weaving. "Let me tell you about men, little one. They are only good for two things: hunting and putting babies in your belly. Aside from that, all they do is fight and lie around giving orders to women, and we do not have the time or energy to put up with such foolishness. We have enough to do as it is. No... ours is the better way, my child. Let them visit, and be on their way when morning comes. Life is more pleasant that way."

I am also intrigued by the Zul practice of scarring their flesh. All the adult women in Bula's household have unique designs etched into their skin. Mother Bula's cheeks and chin are inscribed with wavy lines. She says the markings represent water. She has always had an affinity with the element, she says, when I ask her about the markings. Even her name, Bula, is a symbol of her kinship with the element of life. It is the Zul word for hippopotamus.

"What is the symbol for air?" I ask, thinking of First Woman, whose spirit was a hawk, and the big woman takes up a stick and draws in the dirt. She makes a series of V shapes, one sitting inside another. It makes me think of birds, or clouds.

"Can I be marked with this symbol?" I ask.

Bula nods. "When you are older, child," she says. "You are still two-natured. After you have had your womanhood rite, you can ask one of the elder men to put the symbol in your flesh."

A few weeks later, I wake to find my sleeping furs soiled with blood. My thighs, too. The blood, I realize, is coming from my uke, and I wake Atswaan excitedly. "Look, Atswaan! I am bleeding!"

My adopted sister is just as excited as I am.

"You have become a woman, Zenzele!" Atswaan exclaims. "Now you can be wed to Onani, and we shall truly be sisters!" Overjoyed, we hug one another. I do not think of my real sisters at all.

Onani, who has returned, hears the good news from one of the old men in the village. He comes to visit. He thinks he comes to claim me for his wife, but Mother Bula disappoints him again.

"You know it is bad luck to lie with a woman who is two-natured," she intones sternly. "The spirits will make her barren."

I have never told Bula that Onani and I have already coupled, though we could not do it as a man and woman do it. I see from the expression on his face, when he peeks sideways at me, that this was a wise decision. He looks ashamed. His embarrassment makes me feel ashamed.

"Then let us summon the medicine woman," he says. "She can perform the rite on Zenzele and Atswaan. They are both ready. You know Gungi wishes to be mated with Atswaan. He asks about her every time I see him."

Bula sighs at her son's impatience, but she does not object.

"What is this ritual?" I ask Atswaan later. "What does Mother Bula mean by 'two-natured'?"

Looking amused, Atswaan explains, "Men and woman are born into this world with both sexes, Zenzele. Don't you know this?"

I frown. I saw my younger brothers and sisters when they were born. They did not have two sexes. I say this to Atswaan and she shakes her head. "You do not understand. Boy's are born with their male organ enfolded in flesh, which is female in nature. Girls are born with little peles secreted in theirs, which is male in nature." When I am no more enlightened, Atswaan pulls up her skirt and says, "Look!" She spreads the lips of her uke and exposes a little bulb of flesh. "See my little pele?"

I peer closely. It does resemble a tiny pele... somewhat.

"And they cut it off?" I ask, laughing nervously.

Atswaan nods.

"This is done so that men and women are single-natured. When they are single-natured, men and women are drawn together, so that they may be whole. If they remained two-natured, they would not feel so compelled to marry. The desire would not be as powerful, or so the old ones say. Also, it is said that childbirth is easier when a woman is single-natured."

It all sounds pretty dubious to me, but I desire many children, even if it is to be Onani who fathers them. At least the men and women here live separately. The longer I stay with the Zul, the more I like their living arrangement. It is peaceful.

"Does it hurt?" I ask.

Atswaan flaps her hand and says, "The boys endure it without complaint."

So that is why Onani's organ looks so strange! I think.

The day of the ritual is set. The men arrive early in the morning. They come in large groups and singly, and from every direction. After they greet their wives and play with all their children, there is a celebratory feast and then the old men get out shells filled with tinted ochre mixed with animal fat and spend several hours painting everyone's faces. There is much chanting and dancing, and the younger girls adorn our hair with flowers. Atswaan and I-- and one other village girl, a young woman named Ghinini-- are escorted, finally, to the place where the ritual is to be conducted. Onani, his face painted with yellow and red horizontal bands, grins at me as I pass, and I smile back at him, my heart racing with anticipation and fear. I hate him, and yet I love him, too. I wonder: can a person's heart be two-natured as well?

We march down a winding wooded path, leaving the celebration behind. The sun flashes in the gaps between the leaves. Birds chatter raucously. The medicine woman limps at the front of our procession, leaning on a gnarled walking stick. Four burly village women accompany us, two in front, two behind. The Zul call them "Big Mothers". When the ceremony is over, the Big Mothers will stay behind to watch over us. Atswaan glances at me, her eyes wide and anxious. Ghinini is trembling. She looks as if her courage will break at any moment. We walk until we come to the end of the path. There, a deep ravine yawns. It is like a hungry mouth. The earth is a dry yellow clay.

The ravine is surrounded by tangles of black thorn bushes and ancient acacia trees. This place has an air of secret magic. The surrounding plant life seems to tremble as we enter the clearing. It is just the wind, I tell myself, but I know in my heart of hearts that the trembling of the trees is more than just an errant breeze. I sense human voices, just fallen silent-- the voices of women, shouting out in agony and ecstasy, or a combination of both.

One of the matriarchs helps the medicine woman down the steep slope of the ravine. Ghinini descends ahead of me, then I follow. The side of the pit is dry and crumbly, and I lose my footing and slide a little before one of the older women reaches out to steady me.

Once we have descended, I expect the ritual to be done quickly, or perhaps I only wish it to be because I am frightened, but the older women instruct us to sit and then they go about making a fire. I sit besides Atswaan and we smile at one another. I wonder if she is as nervous as I. Does her heart race, and does her belly roll over and over inside her body? I look at the barren earth beneath me and I see that there are dark splotches in the soil, stains. There is a pile a woven cloth torn into narrow strips not far from the pit where the older women are building a fire.

When the fire is crackling, one of the women brings us fruit. "Eat," she says. "The juice will dull the pain."

The fruit is soft and sour-smelling, but I eat all of it, and then a second when it is offered to me. They taste retched, but I am afraid of the pain. I would choke down a third if there were any more of the fermented fruit left to eat. The rancid flesh of the fruit feels warm inside my stomach.

After a while, I go away from myself. It is like my thoughts are no longer inside my head, but float a short distance apart, looking on the scene with a strange sense of detachment. Two of the Big Mothers are boiling water over the fire while the medicine woman kneels and chants and waves her bony hands in the air. She bows her body down, forehead to the earth, and then flings herself up, arms trembling, repeating the motion over and over.

I rub my face with my hands and think how strange the sensation is. It is like there are hundreds of little spiders crawling all over my flesh. When I turn my head too quickly, my thoughts wash gray and foggy as if I am trying to see the world through a dense morning mist.

One of the older women is shaving Ghinini's head. I watch the flowers and hair land in a moist pile beside Big Mother's knees. She finishes with Ghinini, then moves to Atswaan. Atswaan's hairless scalp shines prettily when she is finished shearing her. Finally she comes to me, and I smile as she lathers my head. The suds feel good. Tingly. She smiles back and says, "Be brave. You will be a Zul woman soon, Zenzele." The stone blade scrapes across my skull with a scrrrrriiiippppp sound.

I start to reply but she is gone.

Where did she go?

I look around, confused, and see her near the fire. How did she get over there so quickly?

Atswaan laughs, and the sound is curiously slow and deep. She sounds like a giant. It is so funny hearing that deep voice booming out of her little throat that I laugh, and I have a giant's voice too.

I glance up. The sky is pink and orange.

Evening already?

Somewhere to my left, there is a deep-pitched keening sound. It goes on and on and on, and I turn my head, annoyed by it, the whole world smearing as I shift my eyes in that direction, and I see that it is Ghinini making that sound. The older women kneel at both sides of her, holding her by the arms and legs. The medicine woman is crouched between her thighs. The old woman's arms are smeared in blood-- bright red blood-- and Ghinini is screaming through her clenched teeth, her eyes squeezed shut, the muscles in her neck standing out like ropes. She is shaking her head no-no-no but the women holding her down do not release her. The medicine woman does not stop.

I blink, and Ghinini is lying unrestrained. She is trembling, her legs bound together by strips of cloth, her eyes closed. Her cheeks are wet with tears, but she is no longer screaming. It is over for her. She is a woman now.

That wasn't so bad, I think, and I recline on the cool soil and look up at the sky. I drift away, and do not wake until the women gather around me, and take my arms and legs in their hands.

"It is time, Zenzele," one of them say.

I nod.

I look down between my thighs and watch the medicine woman lower herself shakily between my legs. She looks tired. Her eyes and cheeks are sunken, the wrinkles of her flesh deep and black like she has begun to crack beneath the weight of her own great age. She speaks to me, but I cannot follow what she is saying. It is like her words are broken apart. They float in the air singularly, each to their own self, like the beads of a necklace that has been torn from a woman's neck. I do not feel fear until I see the knife in her hands-- long and narrow and made of glossy black stone-- and then I begin to struggle.

"Hold still, child!" one of the women hisses.

"It will be over in a moment," the one who shaved my head tells me.

The medicine woman fumbles with the fleshy folds of my uke. Her bony fingers pinch one side of my genitals, her long dirty nails digging into the tender skin, pulling it taut, and then she begins to cut.

I scream. I can't help myself. The pain is white hot and all-encompassing. I scream until it feels like my throat will burst, and still the old hag cuts at my maidenhood. She cuts and cuts, tossing little bloody pieces of my flesh aside as if they have no value-- my flesh!-- and then she digs the tip of the blade even deeper, carving out my little pele, and I scream so loud there is not breath enough to make the sound, tears of agony coursing down my cheeks, and then it is over, finally, it is over, and they clean my bloody groin with hot water. The medicine woman rises and totters away and the Big Mothers smear my mangled sex with an odorous paste. They press my knees together and bind my thighs shut with strips of cloth, knotting them firmly.

I try to move, and the pain drives all thought from my skull. When I awaken, the medicine woman is standing over me. "You must remain here until the sun has passed through the sky three times, woman," she croaks. "The Big Mothers will stand guard at the foot of the path. Cry out if any beasts come sniffing after the blood. I will return and check on you in the morning."

I nod, and then my thoughts slide back down the dark throat of unconsciousness.