6. The search for the Root People

This is an excerpt from Samla Bishap's version of Geneva Farewell. Her novel, unlike John Levesque's version, is not available in your world. I, Peter Chaff, have occasional access to it. I am offering this excerpt partly in the spirit of self-preservation, which means something different to me now and will be explained in my next post.

The voice in the excerpt is that of a Translator, Ardyth, the partner of my Uncle Grigor. Geneva and I are sitting in their living room in the town of Deception River. The trees surrounding the house are shrouded in blue winter twilight. Ardyth is telling the story mainly to Geneva who leans forward to listen. Uncle Grigor and I sit a little further back, at the shadowy edge of the lamplight.

"My ancestors walked to this continent to look for the Root People, or Neanderthals as you know them. But there were none here to find. No humans at all. A few months passed. After browsing the seashore, breaking trails inland and finding no human signs anywhere, winter descended and a homesickness set in.

"In the spring most of us returned home along the land bridge between Asia and here that existed at the time. But some of us decided to stay on. There were hard feelings before we parted ways. Those who were going home couldn't understand the depth of yearning for the Root People in the hearts of those of us who stayed behind. They couldn't imagine any impulse overwhelming a human's homing instinct. By the time they left, they were afraid of us...

"Our camp was in a sheltered inlet where fish and small game abounded. The winters were dark, damp and cold. Our bodies were accustomed to the bright clouds and the dry cold winds of our homeland that blanched bones so cleanly. Here the clouds settled over us like a wet blanket. We shivered in the moldy shelter of those clouds for a few generations and against all odds we multiplied like the fish and game!...

"Our best hunters wanted us to move east through openings in the ice sheets, along the migratory trails of the caribou and woolly mammoth. The hunters were sure the Root People would have followed the great herds deep into the continent. In those days we were camped at the foot of giant trees that bore the imprint of nature's earliest breath in them, the Douglas fir and sequoia, lining the coast through the present-day provinces of New Columbia, Washington and Oregon. We basked in the warmth of these great trees and thought in our deepest selves, 'Surely this is the paradise where the Root People now live. Surely we will find them here, among the trees."

The floor lamp behind Uncle Grigor and me flickered. Ardyth paused, Geneva looked at the lamp and at my silhouette in the strobing light. Grigor leaned toward the base of the lamp. "Not to worry, it always does that," he whispered.

"...Further south, after many generations of living and dreaming, we came to seemingly barren lands where we discovered people who looked like us but were but not us...It shocked us to the core. These people had many of the same customs and stories as we did, yet they were different. The same thing happened to those of us who had gone east with the hunters.

"Were we Root People ourselves, we wondered, and these other peoples our long-lost kin? Had we been looking for ourselves all along? One of the matriarchs said the discovery of these others was a sign of coming times and we should return to the groves of the giant trees where no one would find us. But we just stood there and gaped, for years and years.

"Then the living changed and the fear of famine and other misfortunes receded. Trading between peoples opened new ways of living. Surpluses were bartered, preferences were indulged, clothing and adornment became more colourful. Our joys lost their note of loneliness. Meanwhile the elders were preoccupied with untangling the complicated ways different peoples understood basic things. The trading became less trustful, more formal. Petty differences grew into rivalries and rivalries blossomed into blood and war..."

Ardyth shifted in her chair for the first time. The pulsing lamp played differently on the angles of her face.

"All the while, our ancestral home drifted farther from us, into the farthest limits of the setting sun. Memories of the Root People faded into legends and dreams. We forgot that the Root People had taught us how to use rhythm and music to regulate our lives. We forgot that they had shown us how to invite our ancestors to live again in our bodies when we sang and danced. That we had come to this land to look for the Root People was also forgotten...

"One summer we turned inland to avoid ferocious peoples who had built cities of stone to glorify their power. The ocean which had fed us from our first day on this new continent now became a dream of our communal childhood. We moved through desert homelands of mudbrick towns and settled near some of them along the way. We learned valuable local practices and remedies from these farmers, though we weren't staying long.

"Eastward we drifted, up into the great plains, the land of giant skies, great herds of bison, endless fields of maize.... The bounty of it all! Clouds of birds that eclipsed the sun! Creatures of all sizes and shapes moving through lands and waters! Sounds of life day and night, under sun, moon and stars! We saw it all, we smelled it, we could touch it...

"Greg, can you get me a glass of water please, my mouth has gone dry."

"I'll get it," Geneva said. Grigor rose but Geneva said she would do it and went to the kitchen. A tree limb out in the night tapped against a window. Uncle Grigor said, "She tells this story often, but never the same way twice. She reads the room, so to speak, and off she goes." We both looked at Ardyth but she sat still and silent. Geneva returned from the kitchen and handed a large glass of water to her. She nodded and took a long slow sip that felt like a refreshment for us all.

"...The peoples of the plains were the first to tell us stories of white-skinned devils who plundered the stone cities in the south. These devils sat upon horses they had brought with them from beyond this world. The horses made a deeper impression on us than the birchbark faces of the devils who rode them. Their tools also impressed us. Their lances and spears, their muskets and swords, their ambitious god who endorsed the plunder, their whole barbarian civilization. It was a lot to take in. We are still taking it in.

"The living changed and so did the dying. The white devils kept coming from all directions with their horses and hardware. The continent lured them as it had lured us a long time before. They already had too much of most things but they came from Europe to compete for more of everything. It was a devil civilization they came here to build, and the guise of all their blind pursuits, the big lie, was that they were here to spread a message of love and eternal salvation...

"Of course we didn't know that these devils were the distant descendants of the Tool Makers who had driven the Root People out of Europe thousands of years before. The devils themselves didn't know it. They built their empires on slave labour from Mother Africa while they penned the rest of us in. Here we faded and some of us died. The devils' ambitious god assured them that the ends justified their means. The sweet smell of musket smoke and burning bodies blended with the churchly scent of myrrh and sandalwood. Blood flowed generously and America gave birth to itself..."

Ardyth stopped at that point. We murmured our appreciation of her story but none of us knew what to say. Grigor was the first to go to her. She rose slightly to receive his fervent kiss. Then she stood up and said she was famished, so we all helped to make her a sandwich. Then Grigor said it was late, Ardyth agreed and the evening passed into night.