Suddenly in the Depths of the Forest Read online

  Maya said, It seems that things can be pretty sad up here too.

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  But you see, I didn't take the animals, Nehi said. Certainly not all of them. One night, they all simply got up and left the village and followed me to the highest mountain forests. Even animals that loved their homes and couldn't decide whether to stay or go—like Zito, Almon the Fisherman's dog, and Emanuella's tortoise-shell cat and her kittens—even they decided in the end to go up with me, together with all the others. Not because I cast a spell on them and not because I wanted to take revenge, but because even animals have the fear that you know so well, the fear of not being like everyone else, of staying behind when everyone is going, or going when everyone is staying. None of them wants to be without its flock or be thrown out of the herd. You edge a little bit away from the swarm just once or twice, and they won't let you back in. Because you already have whoopitis.

  At first, Na'aman built himself a small shack from branches in a forest clearing on the mountaintop, and every day, his friends, the animals, supplied him with everything he needed: the sheep and goats let him milk them, the chickens gave him eggs, the bees made honey, the river brought him snow water, the squirrels gathered fruit and berries for him, and the little moles dug up potatoes. Long, long processions of ants even carried grains of wheat from the fields in the valley so he could bake himself some bread. The wolves and the bears watched over and protected him. And so he lived for years and years, far from all humans and surrounded by the love of live creatures, big and small. The frogs shortened his name from Na'aman to Na'ai, and in the accent of the jackals and night birds, Na'ai became Nehi.

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  Many years ago, on one of his trips into the wilderness, Nehi came to a hidden valley behind seven mountain ridges and beyond seven deep ravines and found a small bush that had white and purple fruit growing on it that tasted almost exactly like meat. Nehi called them beefberries. He planted the seeds of the beefberry bush all over the forest and cultivated them till they multiplied and spread, because he discovered that all the predators liked the taste of the beefberry and ate so heartily that they had no need to prey on weaker creatures. So Nehi was able slowly to train the tiger to play with baby goats, and the wolf to watch over the flocks of sheep and even go to sleep among them so the sheep's soft wool could warm their bodies on cold nights. Creatures no longer preyed on each other in those forests, and no animal was ever afraid of predators. But they didn't forget completely.

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  And after another stroll around the garden, Maya and Matti already knew how to utter a few words in sparrow-song and a sentence or two in cat-talk and in cow- lowing, and they understood a breath here and a flutter there of the language of flies. Nehi and all the creatures in the garden begged Matti and Maya to stay there with them for at least a few weeks.

  But Matti took Maya's hand and said, They're worried about us down there. We shouldn't distress them so much.

  Then Matti also remembered that right now, at this very moment, just as darkness fell, all the houses in the village were being sealed, all the shutters were being closed, and every door was being locked with two or three iron bolts. Their parents must be so worried about them, and maybe the whole village had gone out to look for them with torches and maybe they'd already given up searching and were in their houses now, each family behind its bars and iron shutters.

  So Maya and Matti asked Nehi to send a swift deer with them, or a dog, to show them the way home down the mountain. Of course, they promised never ever to tell anyone about what they'd seen with their own eyes or what they'd heard with their own ears in the mountain demon's hiding place, and never to say a single word about all the magic they'd seen in his garden.

  But Nehi once again gave them a pensive smile, a modest, almost shy, even sad smile, but a tiny bit sly, a smile that didn't begin on his lips, but in the wrinkles around his eyes, and spread down through the network of furrows in his cheeks till it stopped and lingered briefly at the corners of his mouth. And after his smile, he said that he needed no such promises: after all, even if they did tell it all down there, even if they piled up detail upon detail upon detail, who would ever believe them? All the villagers would only laugh at them and ridicule them if they told what they had seen: the punishment of doubters is to always cast doubt, even on the doubt they themselves cast. And the punishment of the suspicious is to suspect everyone all the time. To suspect even themselves and their own suspicions.

  Matti said, The minute Emanuella the Teacher or Almon the Fisherman start telling us animal stories, everyone makes fun of them. Grownups and children. But sometimes a grownup forgets to mock for a minute—maybe he suddenly feels regret or longing—and starts talking about all the things he's going to deny completely in another minute. There's always one who starts, and all the others shut him up. But every time, it's someone else who starts. And sometimes, before class, one boy or another will tell everyone that, very early in the morning, when he was still half awake and half asleep, he thinks he heard a cheep in the distance, or a buzz or a chirp. Everyone shuts him up quickly, tells him not to talk and not to make them angry. Do the parents deny everything because they're so ashamed? Or maybe they decided not to talk so they could put an end to the sorrow. But I don't think anyone really forgot what it was the whole village decided to forget.

  Then Nehi asked them to tell him a little about life in the village during the daytime. Because he goes down there only at night. He asked them to please tell him what the stone square is like during the long summer evenings between the light of day and the light of sunset. And what it's like when Danir the Roofer and his helpers and other young men and women come there to talk, drink beer, laugh, and sometimes even sing for thirty minutes or an hour. And how is Almon the Fisherman? Does he still argue with the trees in his garden? Still carve wooden creatures with his penknife? One day I almost couldn't control myself or wait till midnight, that's how much I wanted to go down to his vegetable garden in the daylight, to take down the scarecrow and stand there in its place with my arms spread like a cross. Almon's almost blind—maybe he wouldn't notice the difference and then he and I could argue.

  And how are the ladies' conversations in the grocery store? And the council of women who do their washing at a bend in the river? And how is Emanuella now? And the old men who come to the riverbank at ten in the morning to sit together on benches and smoke their pipes? If I weren't afraid that everyone would run away from me screaming in terror, I might still go down there once in the daytime. Just once. Slip over and sit with them, take part in their arguments-memories, and inhale the aroma of pipe smoke. Maybe some of them haven't completely forgotten me?

  Maya said, The ones who remember are ridiculed. The silent ones stay silent.

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  Just imagine, Maya said to Matti, and to Nehi, who was walking down the winding forest trail with them as they made their way home in the last light of dusk, just imagine what would happen if one day you finally did come home to the village, Nehi, and all the animals that left us so many years ago to go up the mountain with you came back to us too. Just imagine the panic and the shock, but think of the joy!

  Matti said, And the sparrows and finches would nest in the trees again, pigeons would fly around all the dovecotes, crows would shriek at dawn, all the old cow barns and chicken coops and stables and paddocks and sheep pens would be fixed, and dogs would bark again in our yards and on the dirt roads, and swarms of bees would buzz around their hives.

  Maya said, And old Almon could sit on the riverbank with his beloved dog and talk to the fish that would come back to the river, and even his old scarecrow would finally start arguing with real birds instead of with Almon.

  Matti said, And Solina the Seamstress could give Ginome, her husband, a kitten of his own as a gift. Or maybe it should be a lamb. Or a squirrel.

  Maya said, My mother could stroll around the village streets surrounded by a cloud of birds and scatter bread crumbs for all of th
em, and Emanuella would wave hello to her from her balcony and maybe, if you came back too, Nehi, maybe, who knows—

  Nehi listened in silence to everything they said. A bluish vein or artery pulsed on one side of his forehead as if the heart of a chick were beating rapidly there. But at the end of his silence, he said in his low voice, a voice as pleasant as a warm kitchen on a winter night: And what if they ridicule me again? Or abuse me? What'll happen when I suddenly have the urge to take revenge by hurting someone or I do something bad?

  A moment later he added, And what if the big brutish farmers, the ones whose parents were in my class when Rafaela, Emanuella's mother, was our teacher, what if they start beating and cursing dogs again and lash the alley cats with leather whips and poison them, and drown mice in barrels of sewage, and start going out to the forest with their rifles again to kill deer, foxes, and wild goats, and sell their fur, and set traps for rabbits and wild geese? And spread nets again to catch fish in the river?

  When they'd gone past another five or six bends down the mountain trail, which was growing dark under the thick forest treetops, Na'aman said, Of course, they'll all be happy and excited to get the cows and horses back, and the chickens that lay eggs for them and the goats and ducks and sheep and pigeons, yes, and some of them will probably get very attached to their dogs and cats and songbirds again. That—yes. But what about the rats? The worms? What'll happen to the roaches and mosquitoes and house spiders? And what'll happen to Nimi there? And to me?

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  When they reached the edge of the forest, where they could already see the first village houses, Nehi said to them, Look, it's almost night. And they're worrying about you there. Go home, and if you want, you can come to our mountain hideaway sometimes. You can stay with us for a few hours, or a whole day, or more. Meanwhile, please be very careful not to catch that mocking and scoffing disease. Do just the opposite. Try gradually to get your friends, or at least some of them, out of the habit of taunting and teasing. Talk to them. And talk to the insulters and even the abusers and all the ones who take pleasure in other people's misfortunes. Please, both of you, talk to anyone who will listen. Try to talk even to the ones who make fun of you and condemn you and mock you. Don't let them get to you—just try to tell them over and over again.

  Until one day, there might be a change of heart, and then we'll come down from the mountain and maybe a new heart will be born in all the people and animals and birds, and all the meat-eaters will get used to eating beefberries instead of preying on other animals. And maybe all my friends and I and Nimi the Owl will be able to come out of the dense forest and return to the village and live our lives in our homes and yards and fields and caves and on the riverbank, and my desire for revenge will crumble and fall away from me like a snake's dry skin, and we'll work and love and take walks and sing and play and talk without preying on others or being preyed upon and without ridiculing each other. Now please go on your way. And don't forget. Even when you grow up and become parents to your own children, don't forget. Sleep well, Maya and Matti. Good night to you both.

  As Maya and Matti came out of the dark forest, hand in hand, and walked toward the lights of the village, Matti said to Maya, We have to tell Almon. We have to tell Emanuella. We have to tell Danir.

  Maya said, Not just them, Matti. We'll have to tell everyone. My mother. The old people. Your parents. And it won't be easy for us.

  And Matti said: They'll probably say we have whoopitis.

  And Maya said: And we have to find Nimi. We have to bring him back.

  And Matti said: Tomorrow.