Marshlands Read Online Free PDF Page B

reason he couldn’t get one built had nothing to do with a shortage of skilled workers, or even with the bad feelings toward the occupation, but rather with the transgressive nature of the desire itself. It was wrong to want a communal building for one’s own. No one had taught him that in his own country. That lesson had been left to marshmen.
    She was inside the guesthouse by the long rectangular hearth, sobbing and cradling her purse. The rules of the marshes applied even here, in a museum in the capital. He didn’t know why, but they did. He was entitled to enter a guesthouse, no matter the emotional state of anyone else. If she’d truly wanted to be left alone, she could have chosen any of the reed huts that dotted the path.
    Marshmen would often find their way to a guesthouse when they were suffering the throes of indecision or grief. There was comfort in numbers, even if some of the guests might, on the surface, be strangers. There was always coffee, always a bowl of rice, sometimes fresh, sometimes stale, but nourishment, nonetheless. He’d sought comfort there, too, during the long occupation, but never managed to shed the burden of his uniform.

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    She didn’t acknowledge his presence, but it was her right not to. The guesthouse was a public place, but one that nevertheless allowed for a certain amount of privacy.
    He lingered by the door, even though he was curious about the hearth, which had been prepared for a demonstration of the coffee ceremony. An authentic kettle hung from an iron tripod. There was a sack of marsh coffee, a grinder, a coffeepot—everything necessary for a hospitable cup, even a battered tin of sugar.
    Marshmen started coffee fires the ancient way: with flint. When he was first shown the fire starters, which were shaped like spearheads, he’d marveled at the ingenuity of finding a domestic use for a killing point. Later, he was told that the similarity of the fire starters to spear tips was coincidental, but he preferred to think of it his own way: the beating of a sword into a plowshare. It seemed to represent progress. This was back when he believed in progress, when he saw himself as an agent of it.
    The fire starters were supposed to be in a leather bag that hung from a hook as one entered the guesthouse, always on the right, never on the left. He looked on the right side, but there was no leather bag. Neither was it on the other side of the doorway.
    In addition to the fire-starting fetish about left and right, the marshmen also had a rule about north and south. He walked the length of the guesthouse and found the bag hanging in exactly the wrong place: by the left side of the southern door.
    He took the bag and hefted it. Its precious shifting contents felt strangely intimate in his palm. He looked around self-consciously, but there was no one here to call him out, no one to mock him.
    He squatted by the hearth and made a small pile of dried grass. He could sense objections forming inside of her, but she didn’t voice them. The tinder pile sparked easily. He built up a mound of sand around the base of the tripod, and as the water heated in the kettle, he added a ring of stones. The stones weren’t really necessary. There was plenty of sand to kill a fire, but he wanted her to relax.
    He toasted a handful of coffee beans, then ground them. The grinder was fancier than he was used to. It had a porcelain knob. He was used to wooden knobs worn smooth by palm leather. He tapped the grounds into two empty cups.
    Her interest was gathering, along with the impulse to tell him to put these things down. These were artifacts, museum property. Who was he to handle them? But she saw that he knew what he was doing. It had been decades since he’d made marsh coffee, but it all came easily back.
    When it was time to pour from the kettle, he wrapped his sleeve around the hot wire handle. Only then did he realize he’d made a mistake: marshmen never brewed