Nuni by John Howard Griffin

Author:John Howard Griffin [Griffin, John Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60940-146-7
Publisher: Wings Press
Published: 2010-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

21

Without being aware that I have slept, I find myself awake. My vision is diffused in all directions around and about and beyond the face above me. Briefly, I glimpse the shaded underfoliage forming a high arbor above the black silhouette that peers intently down at me. A child stands in the grass at my head, hands on hips, bending far over me and gazing into my face. Through the muffle of drowsiness, I cling to one thought. I must do nothing to frighten this full-cheeked infant away. Smiling, I speak a soft greeting and move my eyes back in my head to see that it is a girl.

She ignores my greeting but lowers her head closer to mine, engrossed in the upside-down view of my face.

“N’gari kikiki daoka,” she says in such childish accents that I must guess more than I actually understand. And I notice that her skin is smooth and fresh, that she has not yet been tattooed and therefore has not been named, being called simply “girl baby.”

The grass is cool against my back, and I am glad for this sleepiness that deadens my heart to the acute rise of hope that the child inspires in me.

“You sit with me?” I suggest.

“I sit with you,” she answers.

I stretched out my left arm and she hops around to the side and kneels in the hollow of my armpit, sitting back on her heels in the way of these women, with her knees drawn together and her hands folded primly in her lap. Gazing sidelong at her, I allow my arm to encircle her back. She inches forward until her knees are pressed into my ribs.

And she is like any other child in the world, without even the tattoos to give strangeness.

“You are pretty, child.”

“You are pretty, Jon,” she smiles, dimpling her cheeks in a shy overcoming of timidity.

Seeing her and feeling her flesh touch mine with growing ease that is devoid of any hint of repugnance, I have no doubts as to how I must behave. I am at home in the world of childhood and all constraint evaporates from my chest in the blessed relief of familiarity. I can be natural with her, for she is like all children and with children there is never the need to fear the spontaneous intelligence of the heart.

“Do you want a name?” I tease, feeling authority and liberation return to my stunted bloods.

Her eyes open in blank surprise and her head starts forward in a movement of expectancy.

“Since you are no bigger than a finger, I name you Ririkinger.”

Her hand flies up to my chest. I sense its faint weight through the thick mat of my beard.

“‘kinger?” she whispers.

“You,” I say solemnly, “are not N’gari kikiki daoka. You are Ririkinger!”

“‘kinger! ‘kinger! ‘kinger,” she laughs.

“Is that good?” I ask, drawing her close to me, fingering the folds of her feet beneath her infant buttocks.

“Good and very good,” she explodes ecstatically, repeating “ ‘kinger, ‘kinger, ‘kinger,” and thrusting her face forward to giggle into my beard.

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