The Island Gardens of Takau by Kay Kay

Author:Kay Kay [Kay, G.L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781935952077
Publisher: White Cloud Press

WE SCRUBBED BLOOD stains off the fountain. We swept up all signs of the incident and hauled away the wilted garlands. Where people are poor, tragedy soaks into the ground and becomes a firm footing for mothers carrying children on their hips.

I crossed the plaza each morning and stopped at the fountain, where self-appointed caretakers kept the drinking water clean. Kai gave them steel buckets and straw hats. For a small fee, they filled water jugs and liberally dispensed news and gossip. Children played an endless game of tag against these caretakers, who, despite long switches and vehement curses, fought in vain to keep the quick youths from splashing in the pools during the noonday heat.

Old women silently jostled for places in the scant shade offered by the new trees Kai planted in a circle around the fountain. The matrons sat there all day, moving with the shade like sundials, watching for their neighbors and clucking about the strangers coming and going. They watched the businessmen who met at the fountain with elaborate ceremony and strutted away officiously for tea. And they policed the flower beds around the trees.

Elsewhere, Kai’s flower beds soon would have been trampled by the crowds that swarmed across the plaza on market day. But this was Takau, and the greenery and color was sacred to the Rizha. People did not step in the narrow beds. Instead, they pulled cobbles to make more room for flowers. The beds were part of the fountain, which had, from the moment of its dedication, become a shrine. Devotees planted marigolds and chrysanthemums like Catholics light altar candles. They ensured the beds glowed with waves of new flowers. The devout first hung garlands of flowers around Yasol’rhishá’s neck during the festival, then guaranteed the statue never went flowerless the rest of the year.

I foolishly feared people would cut down Kai’s new trees for kindling because of the desperate shortage of cooking fuel. Instead, the revered trees nearly died from care and over-watering. Tree keepers saw to it that well-intentioned fountain visitors did not drown the frail saplings or overload them with fetishes and prayer bundles.

The plaza grew famous. Young acrobat troops from mountain villages, costumed storytellers visiting from the coast, and even white-haired sadhus from India attracted circles of curious people. Across the plaza throughout the day and late into the night, these ephemeral audiences gathered and dissipated like the first fat drops of rain on hot pavement.

Partly by design and partly of necessity — but primarily driven by ingrained custom — Kai’s neat rows of market stalls quickly matured into a thriving bazaar. The construction was modern, but the complex tapestry of trade and tradition that spilled into the aisles was as old as the patterns in a well-worn Takau carpet. Lanes about two horse carts wide divided long parallel double rows of stalls. Reed baskets of all shapes cramped the intersections. Leather sandals and plucked chickens hung side by side. Freshly dyed shirts hung by their sleeves overhead like banners, and the hammered brass that crowded the walls reflected the bright colors.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.