Leaving Mother Lake Read Online Free PDF Page B

helping with the house chores and the work in the fields. Before long the summer rains began pouring and the narrow mountain path back to Qiansuo turned into a sloshy, slippery, and dangerous prospect, and my Ama decided that it would be best to stay and wait until the people gathered for the yearly festival of the mountain goddess to catch up with her family. She would return to Qiansuo after the festivities.
    In truth, quite aside from the problem of the weather and that of her pride, my Ama had begun to enjoy herself too much to want to go home just yet. The young men found her exotic ways from Qiansuo hard to resist, and although she proved equally hard to please and no one had won her heart, she had already amassed an impressive collection of new belts and could not wait to show them off at the festival.
    That year, when the people came out to dance under the stars in honor of the mountain goddess, all the men’s eyes were on my mother.
    Around the bonfires, the men danced in a group and faced the women, who likewise danced arm in arm, their multicolored belts tied around their waists. My mother’s waist was thick with all her trophies. Stomping the ground with their leather boots, the men moved toward the women, and soon both groups were dancing in one circle, stepping and swaying their hips in a single rhythm. Then the women pushed my Ama to show off in the center, and while she danced, a young man broke out of the circle and snatched a belt from her waist.
    But my mother kept dancing by herself and the young man withdrew from the middle back into the men’s group, and he threw the belt to one of his friends, who caught it and then threw it to another. My mother laughed and skipped from man to man, but she did not catch her belt. She would take it back only when a man worthy of her songs caught it. And so the belt flew from hand to hand in one direction and then the other, and still my mother could not make up her mind — until Numbu caught it, and he did not throw it to the next man but stepped into the circle and handed her belt to my mother.
    My Ama did not move, but Numbu smiled and stood his ground. My mother hesitated, and then she snatched her belt from his hand and ran back to the women’s group. But the women, who had seen the way she had looked at Numbu, pushed her back into the center.
    His hands on his hips, Numbu began the courtship song:
    Little sister, you are like moonlight in the middle of the night sky,
    But the moon needs a star above it.
    And my Ama answered:
    Night has not fallen and the moon has not risen,
    But the butterfly is already looking for honey.
    Then Numbu sang:
    The butterfly has found a beautiful flower, and
    The moon is already high up above the lake.
    She answered:
    If the moon is high above Mother Lake, the water is untainted.
    Mother Lake is where I wash and comb my hair.
    And Numbu sang:
     
     
    But why do you comb your hair, little sister?
    Oh, little sister, for whom do you comb your beautiful hair?
    My mother and Numbu danced together in the middle of the circle, arm in arm, until a new song began and another couple took their place. Late in the night, as the fires began to die and couples melted into the darkness, my mother followed Numbu to the shore of Lake Lugu.
    AFTER SHE FELL INLOVE WITH NUMBU , my Ama told herself that she was not ready to go back to Grandmother’s house. Qiansuo was such a long way, two days’ walk away: Numbu might get tired of visiting her there. And when she felt her daughter kicking inside her stomach, my Ama sent news with the horse caravan to let Grandmother know that she was going to set up her own house in Zuosuo, within walking distance of Numbu’s village.
    Grandmother sent some small presents in return, and a message: “Tell Latso,” she told the horsemen, “tell her: I can’t hold your heart back.”
    At these words my mother again cried bitterly, but she did not return to Qiansuo.
    My mother’s decision to start her own family