Hainan Dao

Book I Chapter 08

HAINAN DAO BOOK I

CHAPTER 08

A swish from above.

I woke.

The end of a rope had unfurled to dangle before the two of us. I rubbed my eyes and peered up toward the top. The sun wasn’t out yet, but the sky was definitely lighter. I could make out a few faces. They stood out against the light in the sky like angels in the doorway. They shouted and motioned for me to use the rope.

Smiling, I made a loop of the end and eased it onto Biai. I secured it around her middle. I gave the rope a yank and she was lifted up to the top. When the rope returned, I helped myself up in the same way.

Topside, I saw five or six people. They were discussing something among themselves. Some were openly arguing. As soon as I had made it to the top though, the arguing stopped. Breaking into applause, the group rushed over to hug me and pat me on the back.

Biai leapt out of the arms of the woman who had been carrying her and rushed over toward me. I met her halfway. I opened my good arm to her and she vaulted into my embrace. Spinning around a few times like that, I hugged her close to my body while she hugged me right back, as if we were old friends and hadn’t seen each other in years and years. We laughed.

Meanwhile, the group had resumed their debate. They yelled and spat at each other, pointing to my left arm every now and then for emphasis. I glanced at Biai but she just shrugged her shoulders. Having come to some conclusion, the women in the group turned and rushed off, back toward the village, while the men guided me away from the well, and down a trail that led in a different direction. It was not the way to my room, and definitely not a path that I had ever taken before.

***

We entered a grove of coconut trees. The path that we were on now was well worn into the soil, but only in certain patches. In others, bushes in the undergrowth had stretched their fronds across the trail and blocked the way, making the footing unsure. Often, we had to stop and wait while the lead man planted his foot down to test the ground first, before the rest of us could go on and follow him through. The trees on either side were also a hazard. Untended, their leaves and branches swished across our faces as we bulldozed our way through. I still held Biai in my arm, and she made herself useful, by swinging her good hand around to keep stray twigs as well as bugs from flying into our eyes.

As I made my way along that trail, huffing with the exertion of every step, puffing with the heat that thickened with every passing minute, I wondered where we were going. I asked the man in front of me, but he just shook his head and smiled.

We moved past another set of trees, and a break in the landscape caught me by surprise, a secret clearing kept tucked away within the heart of the forest. About twenty minutes away from the main settlement, this field stood alone, amid boles of coconut trees that ringed the area all around, and patchy sunshine that pierced through the dense canopy as if through bullet holes.

We stopped on the edge of the clearing. All around us, the breeze rustled through the trees. The sound of water gurgling seeped through from somewhere nearby. Here and there, stray chickens were wandering around, jerking their heads back and forth, security guards on the look out for intruders to the grounds.

On the far side of this open space, was a hut.

A silent, musing structure, leaning with its back on the forest without a care in the world. Upright and in dignity it stood, unimposing, small and grey, mottled from the pattern of the sunshine that spilled and trickled through the trees. It was an old building, made of wood. Most of the paint that used to cover the walls, was now scattered over the ground in peeled pizza slices. Tilted wooden planks served for doors. Just beside these doors, leaning on the front wall, I saw an old man with grizzled hair that stuck up in swathes, squatting comfortably on his haunches, puffing out cigarette smoke in rings.