Nation

from? Every man has a mother, and so does every mother. We gave birth to little grandfathers, and filled them with milk, and wiped their bottoms and kissed their tears away. We taught them to eat, and showed them what food was safe, so that they grew up straight. We taught them the songs of children, which have lessons in them. And then we gave them to the Grandfathers, who taught them how to kill other women’s sons. The ones who were best at this were dried in the sand and taken to the cave. We went back to the dark water, but part of us remains, here in this place where we were born and gave birth and, often, died.”
    “The Grandfathers shout at Mau all the time!”
    “They are echoes in a cave. They remember the battle cries of their youth, over and over again, like the talking bird. They are not bad men. We loved them, as sons and husbands and fathers, but old men get confused and dead men don’t notice the turning of the world. The world must turn. Tell Mau he must roll away the stone.”
    And they left. She felt them slide out of her mind.
    That, thought Daphne, was impossible. Then she thought: Up to now, anyway. They were real , and they’re still here. They’re what I felt when Twinkle was being born, as if the Place was alive and on my side. Perhaps some voices are so old everyone understands them.
    The light came back slowly, gray at first like the dawn. Daphne heard a faint noise close at hand, looked around, and saw a young girl standing in the hut doorway, staring at her in horror. She couldn’t remember the girl’s name, because she had been here only a few days, and was going to tell her off when she did remember that although the girl had arrived with some other survivors, none of them had been her relatives. And she’d been about to shout at her.
    Moving very carefully, Daphne crouched down and held out her arms. The child looked as though she was one heartbeat away from fleeing.
    “What is your name?”
    The girl looked down at her feet and whispered something that sounded like “Blibi.”
    “That’s a nice name,” said Daphne, and gently drew the child to her. As the sobs began to shake the little body, she made a note to tell Cahle. People were turning up every day now, and people who needed looking after were looking after others. That wasn’t such a bad thing, but while everyone got food to eat and a place to sleep, there were other things that were just as important that tended to get overlooked when everyone was busy.
    “Do you know about cooking, Blibi?” she asked. There was a kind of muffled nod. “Good! And do you see that man lying on the mat?” Another nod. “Good. Good. I want you to watch over him. He has been ill. The meat in the pot will be ready when the sun has moved a hand-width above the trees. I’m going to look at a stone. Tell him he must eat. Oh, and you must eat, too.”
    Where will I end up? she wondered as she hurried out of the Place. I’ve slept in the same room as a young man without an official chaperone (would Mrs. Gurgle count?), made beer, have been going around practically naked , and let gods talk with my mouth, like the Pelvic Oracle in Greece in ancient times, although the voices of the Grandmothers probably didn’t count as gods and, come to think of it, it was the Delphic Oracle, anyway. And technically I was nursing him, so that was probably permissible….
    She stopped, and looked around. Who cared? Who, on this island, cared a fig? So who was she apologizing to? Why was she making excuses?
    “Roll away the stone?” Why did everyone want him to do things? She’d heard about the stone. It was in a little valley in the side of the mountain, where women weren’t supposed to go.
    There was no reason to go now, but she was angry at everyone and she just wanted to get out in the fresh air and do something people didn’t want her to. There were skeletons, probably, behind the stone, but so what? A lot of her ancestors were in the crypt of the church at home, and they never tried to get out and they never spoke to people. Her grandmother would have had something to say about it if they did! Besides, it was broad daylight, and obviously they’d only come out at night—except, of course, it would be pure superstition to believe that they came out at all.
    She set off. There was a clear track leading uphill. The forest wasn’t very big, she’d heard, and the track ran right through it. There were no man-eating tigers, no giant