Nation

for the Grandfathers and the god anchors, he hadn’t seen them at all. They were big stones, but the wave hadn’t cared. Did the gods know? Had they been washed away? It was too complicated to think about. Beer was simpler, but not by much.
    Women made the beer, and he knew that there was a big bowl in front of the Cave of the Grandfathers where an offering of beer was poured every day. He knew this, and it had just stayed in his head as a thing that he knew, but now questions were rising, like: Why did the dead need beer? Wouldn’t it…trickle through? If they didn’t drink it, who did? And would he get into trouble for even thinking these questions?
    Who from?
    He remembered going into the Women’s Place from when he was very small. Around about the time he was seven or eight he started to become unwelcome there. Women shooed him away, or stopped what they were doing when he came near and watched him very hard until he left. The very old women in particular had a way of glaring at you that made you want to be somewhere else. One of the older boys told him that they could mutter words that made your wingo fall off. After that he kept away from the Women’s Place, and it became like the moon; he knew where it was but didn’t even think about going there.
    Well, there were no old women now. He wished there were. There was no one to stop him doing anything. He wished there was.
    The path to the Women’s Place turned off from the track into the forest and then went downhill and southwest and down into a narrow gulley. At the end of it were two big stones, taller than a man, splashed with red paint. That was the only way in, back when there were rules. Now, Mau pulled out the thornbush that blocked the entrance and pushed through.
    And there was the Place, a round bowl of a valley full of sunlight. Screens of trees kept out the wind, and thorn and briar bushes were woven so thickly among them that nothing except maybe a snake could get through, and today the valley looked as though it was asleep. Mau could hear the sea, but it seemed to be a long way off. There was the tinkle of a little stream that dribbled out of the rock at one side of the bowl, filled a rocky hollow that was a natural bathing place, and lost itself in the gardens.
    The Nation grew the big crops in the large field. That was where you found aharo, sugarcane, tabor, boomerang peas, and black corn. There men grew the things that made you live.
    In the Place, the gardens of the women grew the things that made the living enjoyable, possible, and longer: spices and fruits and chewing roots. They had ways of making crops grow bigger or more tasty. They dug up or traded plants and brought them here, and knew the secrets of seeds and pods and things. They raised pink bananas here and rare plantains and yams, including the jumping yam. They also grew medicines here, and babies.
    Here and there around the edges of the gardens were huts. Mau approached them carefully, beginning to feel nervous. Someone should be shouting at him, some old woman should be pointing and mumbling, and he should be running away very fast with his hands cupped over his groin, just in case. Anything would be better than this sunny, empty silence.
    So there are still rules, he thought. I brought them with me. They’re in my head.
    There were baskets in some of the huts, and bunches of roots hung from the ceiling, out of reach of small fingers. They were maniac roots. You learned about them very early on. They made the best beer of all or they killed you as dead as a stone, and the secret ingredient that decided which of these happened was a song that everybody knew.
    He found what he was looking for in the hut by the spring. A whole bowl of chopped root was hissing and bubbling gently to itself under a pile of palm leaves. The sharp, prickly smell filled the hut.
    How much did some dead men drink? He filled a calabash with the stuff, which should be enough. He was careful how he poured it, because it was very dangerous at this stage, and he hurried away before a ghost could catch him.
    He reached the valley of the Grandfathers without spilling much, and tipped the contents of the calabash into the big stone bowl in front of the sealed cave. From the gnarly old trees a couple of grandfather birds watched him carefully.
    He spat into the bowl, and the beer seethed for a while. Big yellow bubbles burst on the surface.
    Then he sang. It was a simple little song, easy to remember,