Mamang Dai - The Black Hill

Also by Mamang Dai

Fiction

Stupid Cupid (2008)

The Legends of Pensam (2006)

The Sky Queen (2003)

Non-fiction

Mountain Harvest: The Food of Arunachal (2004)

Arunachal Pradesh: The Hidden Land (2003)

Poetry

Midsummer: Survival Lyrics (2014)

The Balm of Time (2008)

River Poems (2004)

Children's books

Hambreelsai's Loom (2014)

Once Upon a Moon Time (2003)

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

An independent publishing firm promoted by Rupa Publications India

First published in India in 2014 by

Aleph Book Company

7/16 Ansari Road, Daryaganj

New Delhi 110 002

Copyright Mamang Dai 2014

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from Aleph Book Company.

eISBN: 978-93-83064-90-8

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

'Oh that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thou wouldst keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst appoint me a set time, and remember me!'

Job 14:13

Song thief, my heart,

how shall you capture them? You suffer.

Like a painting

take the black ink

And lay in the red.

Perhaps by the time you have done your task

You will no longer suffer pain.

Irene Nicholson, Firefly in the Night

Contents

Prologue

I once knew a man whose shoulders touched the sky. He was a very brave man. Everything came to him as if he was appointed by the gods to go where no man had gone before. Everyone who met this man wanted to turn into someone else. They wanted to exchange their old selves for a new life. This is the story of that man. Noit is the story of two men, for now, after all is done, I can tell you that they were one. I can still see them, walking together in the high mountains. So silent and endless, this storywho can tell it all? I only know that I will remember, and never forget

These are the words of a woman telling me a story. If anyone were to ask me where I heard this story, how I found it, I would have no answer. Every dawn I think all the stories of the world are connected. At night another voice tells meno, there are more stories yet that are silent and separate. There are many lost stories in the world and versions that were misplaced yesterday or a thousand years ago. Perhaps this is one or the other of them.

I have books in front of me. They tell me things about this land, and a priest who walked across these hills carrying a cross and a sextant. They tell me what he saw and thought, but these are words fixed on yellowed paper. There is another story from an unwritten past hidden beyond the mountain wall. I journey for many days to find it, and one day I come upon a black hill. It is a deserted site, so bleak and sad, and it is here that my eyes fall on an abandoned hut, half burnt, where shafts of light pierce through the roof like golden arrows. There is no one in the house, but in the deep silence I sense a presence, as if someone has come in and lit a candle. A closed book is opening. Someone is speaking to me from the past and the words are clear as day: A man, a woman, and a priest. This is their story.

I can see them now, vivid as the red flowers of the coral tree against the pillars of smoke rising up on the far side of the riverjust as it was one March evening in the nineteenth century when the events that I am going to relate take place. The reader can decide whether this story be true or not. The reader can decide whether to believe, or not, what I believe: that after everything is laid to rest, all that matters is love; and that memory gives life, and life never ends.

A woman is standing on a hill. Her name is Gimur. It is the name of the month she was born in a village called Mebo. It was a cold day, her mother had said, but red flowers were ablaze on the beautiful tagatcoral tree. The tall and thorny tagats that surround the village are in bloom again, and Gimur has to rear up to look beyond the treetops. In the last light of the sun she is a sculpted silhouette poised on a rock at the edge of the hill. What are those pillars of smoke rising up from the flat land across the river? Are they fires? She wonders, staring hard as a thick band of fog begins to spread over the river like a screen, shutting out the distant plains.

What are you looking at?

Gimur turned around. Are you following me?

The young man who had addressed her raised his hands. I was passing by and saw you here, he said. Everyone is looking for you.

Looking for her. They were always looking for her, thought Gimur, her friends, relatives, uncles, aunts. Her mother most of all. What did they want that they were always looking for her?

Its late, said the young man.

She cocked her head to one side and nodded without saying anything. He waited. The sun had sunk behind the steep cliff and except for the dark hill and the red band of light above the horizon, everything had been swallowed in a milky blue haze. She stood in silence for some time then abruptly jumped off the rock and turned swiftly in the direction of her house. The young man stood aside to let her pass. His name was Lendem. He was some ten years older than Gimur, and his father was a village elder just like Gimurs father had been before he died quite suddenly when she was still a child.

What a girl! I must be her only friend in this place, he thought, as he watched her walk imperiously ahead of him.

Gimur did everything that young girls in the village were expected to do, in fact she was better than most at household chores; but, as her mother always said, she was uncontrollable and daring, more like a boy, whistling and climbing trees and getting into scrapes. At the time this story begins Gimur was seventeen years old. Of late her impetuous nature appeared to have toned down to an uncommunicative silence, and now she liked doing nothing better than to spend her time sitting alone on the veranda at the back of her parents house staring at the hills all around. She wondered if there were other villages hidden in the hills and if there were people living across the river.

Of course there are, Lendem had told her many times, but she would not believe him.

Where, where are they? I dont see them. She would narrow her eyes and say, I see only you!

Hoh Ho Hoiee! A long shout ricocheted off the cliff and Gimur and Lendem began running back to the village. It was a signal. Here was proof of others living beyond their village! Night was falling and every man, woman and child in Mebo was on alert for the return of a group of men who had left Mebo at crack of dawn to meet some strangers at the foot of the hill. It was what Gimur had been on the lookout for. Hoh! Hoh Ho! The men were approaching swiftly. They were coming up the hill. Gimur felt the ground reverberating and suddenly their village came alive with the brightness of bamboo flares, the pounding of feet, and cries of welcome. Everyone was talking at the same time: Theyre here! Are they here? What news? What news? She caught a glimpse of the men at the head of the column and her heart raced at the sight. They were like gods, with their spears and shields and their war helmets resplendent with the feathers of the hawk and the curved tusks of the wild boar. The men were bare bodied and shining with sweat. Right in front was Lendems father, his chest like a bulls and his calf muscles twitching in the eerie light.