Galilee

Zelim was within perhaps six feet of the couple now, and there stopped, though the man had not ordered him to do so.

“What is your name, fisherman?” the man said.

Before Zelim could reply, the woman broke in. “I’ll not call him by the name of a fisherman.”

“Anything’s better than nothing,” the husband replied.

“No it’s not,” the wife snapped. “He needs a warrior’s name. Or nothing.”

“He may not be a warrior.”

“Well he certainly won’t be a fisherman,” the woman countered.

The man shrugged. The exchange had taken the smile off his face; he was plainly running out of patience with his lady.

“So let’s hear your name,” the woman said.

“Zelim.”

“There then,” the woman said, looking back at her husband. “Zelim! Do you want to call our child Zelim?”

The man looked down at the baby. “He doesn’t seem to care one way or another,” he remarked. Then back at Zelim. “Has the name treated you kindly?” he asked.

“Kindly?” Zelim said.

“He means are you pursued by women?” the wife replied.

“That’s a consideration,” the husband protested mildly. “If a name brings good fortune and beautiful women, the boy will thank us for it.” He looked at Zelim again. “And have you been fortunate?”

“Not particularly,” Zelim replied.

“And the women?”

“I married my cousin.”

“No shame in that. My brother married my half-sister and they were the happiest couple I ever met.” He glanced back at his wife, who was tenderly working the cushion of her breast so as to keep the flow of milk strong. “But my wife’s not going to be content with this, I can see. No offense to you, my friend. Zelim is a fine name, truly. There’s no shame in Zelim.”

“So I can go?”

The man shrugged. “I’m sure you have…fish to catch…yes?”

“As it happens, I hate fish,” Zelim said, surprised to be confessing this fact—which he had never spoken to anyone—in front of two strangers. “All the men in Atva talk about is fish, fish, fish—”

The woman looked up from the face of the nameless child.

“Atva?” she said.

“It’s the name of—”

“—the village,” she said. “Yes, I understand.” She tried the word again, several times, turning the two syllables over. “At. Va. At. Vah.” Then she said: “It’s plain and simple. I like that. You can’t corrupt it. You can’t make some little game of it.”

Now it was her husband’s turn to be surprised. “You want to name my boy after some little village?” he said.

“Nobody will ever know where it came from,” the woman replied. “I like the sound, and that’s what’s important. Look, the child likes the sound too. He’s smiling.”

“He’s smiling because he’s sucking on your tit, wife,” the man replied. “I do the same thing.”

Zelim could not keep himself from laughing. It amused him that these two, who were in every regard extraordinary beings, still chatted like a commonplace husband and wife.

“But if you want Atva, wife,” the man went on, “then I will not stand between you and your desires.”

“You’d better not try,” the woman replied.

“You see how she is with me?” the man said, turning back to Zelim. “I grant her what she wants and she refuses to thank me.” He spoke with the hint of a smile upon his face; he was clearly happy to have this debate ended. “Well, Zelim, I at least will thank you for your help in this.”

“We all of us thank you,” the woman replied. “Especially Atva. We wish you a happy, fertile life.”

“You’re very welcome,” Zelim murmured.

“Now,” said the husband, “if you’ll excuse us? We must baptize the child.”

III (#ulink_de15e550-dc0f-52fc-ad89-a0758f3f316a)

Life in Atva was never the same after the day the family went down to the water.

Zelim was of course questioned closely as to the nature of his exchange with the man and woman, firstly by old Kekmet, then by just about anybody in the village who wanted to catch his arm. He told the truth, in his own plain way. But even as he told it, he knew in his heart that recounting the words he had exchanged with the child’s mother and father was not the whole truth, or anything like it. In the presence of this pair he had felt something wonderful; feelings his limited vocabulary could not properly express. Nor, in truth, did he entirely wish to express them. There was a kind of possessiveness in him about the experience, which kept him from trying too hard to tell those who interrogated him the true nature of the encounter. The only person he would have wished to tell was his father. Old Zelim would have understood, he suspected; he would have helped with the words, and when the words failed both of them, then he’d have simply nodded and said: “It was the same for me in Samarkand,” which had always been his response when somebody remarked upon the miraculous. It was the same for me in Samarkand…

Perhaps people knew Zelim was not telling them all he knew, because once they’d asked all their questions, he began to notice a distinct change in their attitude to him. People who’d been friendly to him all his life now looked at him strangely when he smiled at them, or looked the other way, pretending not to see him. Others were even more obvious about their distaste for his company; especially the women. More than once he heard his name used loudly in conversation, accompanied by spitting, as though the very syllables of his name carried a bitter taste.

It was, of all people, old Kekmet who told him what was being said.

“People are saying you’re poisoning the village,” he said. This seemed so absurd Zelim laughed out loud. But Kekmet was deadly serious. “Baru’s at the heart of it,” he went on. “He hates you, after the way you spoiled that fat face of his. So he’s spreading stories about you.”

“What kind of stories?”

“That you and the demons were exchanging secret signs—”

“Demons?”

“That’s what he says they were, those people. How else could they have come out of the forest, he says. They couldn’t be like us and live in the forest. That’s what he says.”

“And everyone believes him?” Here Kekmet fell silent. “Do you believe him?”

Kekmet looked away toward the water. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my life,” he said, the coarseness going from his voice. “Out there particularly. Things moving in the water that I’d never want to find in my net. And in the sky sometimes…shapes in the clouds…” He shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe. It doesn’t really matter what’s true and what isn’t. Baru’s said what he’s said, and people believe him.”

“What should I do?”

“You can stay and wait it out. Hope that people forget. Or you can leave.”