Kisngalria 3

Two stringy young men appeared at the lip of hill at the beach. They dressed in shiny clothes, like the missionary woman, whose ragged breathing made the warm air heavy with her panting. Kisngalria thought they must have been in such a hurry they did not have time to get dressed. Unlike other missionaries whose men followers religiously wore a wool coat, high collar and tie, no matter the weather, they did not. Their round-collared white shirts were still to be finished, and the sleeves attached, giving them something of a mongrel appearance. One of the men had grown the black beard of the missionary that hid their mouths and shaped their lies. The other had no hair on his head as if someone had slipped in when he was asleep and stolen it. But they resembled each other in a pale moon-faced way as if they might be brothers.

Kisngalria swivelled like a dancer, chin tucked in, and cut with the blade upwards as the man with the beard grunted and tried to catch hold of his waist, but failed to hold him. His hairless companion hurled himself at Kisngalria, and they toppled together onto the shale like fallen logs. His adult weight pinned him, but Kisngalria bit his pink ear and tried to worm away when he screamed and clutched at the side of his face.

But the bearded one twisted Kisngalria’s wrist and hand until the knife dropped. He was sure his arm was broken and he groaned and grasped for breath. His face was as white as the missionaries and his knees sagged. If the bearded one was not holding him up, he’d have fallen to the ground and wept. 

The missionary woman bawled, with much added spittle something in his face. But others of her tribe had already gathered. An elder with a turquoise headscarf stood next to men wearing similar shiny coats and big boots. Some of the men had grey hoods over their heads and caps with long peaks and arcane letters that put their faces in shadow.  

‘It’s only a boy,’ cried a squat woman with blue hair.

The bearded one unlocked his arm, a little, and let Kisngalria breathe. ‘The lad’s got spirit, I’ll say that for him,’ he muttered through clenched teeth, wiping the blood on his thick arm. He smiled showing strong white teeth. ‘And he’s got a bit of a bite.’  

‘But he shouldn’t be carrying a knife,’ said the hairless one.

The woman with the blue hair pushed between them. ‘Let him go. You’ve made enough of a fool of yourself for one day. And don’t be getting any more stupid ideas.’ She pointed at Kisngalria, ‘Can’t you see, you’ve terrified him.’

The bearded one stuffed his hands into his trouser pocket. Reddening, he removed them. ‘I’ll need to get a tetanus.’

‘I’m keeping the little freak’s knife.’ The hairless one traced the concentric circle pattern of the all-seeing eye with his index finger. ‘Never seen nothing like it—and so sharp—he’s obviously stolen it from someplace.’   

‘No, you’re not.’ The crowd of shiny people behind the blue haired woman seeped away like water in reed basket. ‘Tell you what, you give it back to me and I won’t report you to the police for assaulting a minor.’

He hesitated, but she held out her hand.

‘It would be a great pity if you and your brother were handcuffed together and on the next flight out of here with your fat sister.’

‘You threatening us?’ the missionary woman’s eyes narrowed, but there was a note of pleading. ‘I’m telling you, there’s something not right.’

Kisngalria rubbed the blood back into his wrist and hand.

‘Look at the way he’s dressed—and the fish—there’s been nothing like that in these waters for…’ and she made a snorting noise of the walrus… ‘about fifty-odd-years, or more, at least…’

The blue haired elder looked at Kisngalria and glanced down at the red salmon. She passed back his knife, the way she’d collected it from the missionary woman, with the blade pointing towards her own heart.

Kisngalria bowed to the elder and cleaned the blade on his trousers. He picked up his fish.

Turning back to the missionary women, the elder signalled for her to listen. ‘Make yourself useful Julie. Go and get John the Janitor’s grandad.’

‘But he’s nothing but an old drunk.’

‘He wasn’t always old and he wasn’t always a drunk—just do it.’

The blue haired elder spoke missionary language to Kisngalria, and gestured in case he didn’t understand. ‘Coming?’

He picked up the salmon. She looked round to check he was following her as if it was his choice, but he kept a step behind her.  

They sauntered over the brow of a hill, the mountains behind it, past a long red building, on stilts, and made of metal.  It was bigger than any building Kisngalria had seen. The old church could have fitted inside it and with the graveyard and smokehouses attached. Dogs ran around in the dust, but not it the unfriendly way, like those on the beach, just a bark to say ‘hello’. The sun slid behind pink rimmed clouds.

Clustered around it they passed by long houses also on stilts with tin roofs.  Kisngalria smelled from inside them something cooking and he smacked his lips. It made him ravenous for the meat of seal or walrus or moose to fill his bones.

He followed the blue haired up the stairs. The floor was scrubbed and smelled of disinfectant and Sunday school. A clutter of tables and chair and papers and books, many books, covering empty space, like ground moss. Kisngalria felt too big and too small for the house. Sweat ran down his back and he didn’t know where to put down the salmon.

‘Here,’ the blue haired elder pointed to the sink and put a hand over her mouth as she yawned. She guided him towards the sink in the kitchen.  ‘Put it down there…It’s already began to stink and I’m not sure we can eat it.’

Kisngalria did as he was told. The blue haired elder busied herself heating  broth of barley over some kind of metal stove, which she waved her hand over to instruct it to cook.  Music jangled in the air, and the blue haired woman took a wand shaped like a book out of her pocket and talked into it.

‘Just bring him over.’

He heard a voice talking back to her from the wand. A woman’s voice.

She smiled at Kisngalria. ‘Just sit down and I’ll get you some soup?’

He was hungry, but before sitting at the table he wandered over to a dusty photograph hanging on the wall.   His black and white image, but as an older man, squinting at himself from the frame, his father’s father a grey smudge in the background. Their cheeks pierced with bone labrets in the shape of a seal. His mother’s mother’s lower lip plump with beads in the foreground. He wondered what message his father’s father was sending him.

The blue haired elder wandered up behind him, her shadow trying to divine his thoughts. ‘You know those people?’

Kisngalria made his face like a basin of cold water, the way his father’s father had showed him. His thoughts settling on the surface. He jerked back from her when music played in the air again and she pulled out her wand.

‘Goddam it,’ she spoke into it. ‘If you’re at the door, just come in.’

Julie poked her head around the front door. ‘It’s just me,’ she twiddled her fingers, before stepping into the living room.

Stepping out of her shadow was a shivering old man dressed in shabby missionary clothes. Grey suit trousers, too short, he held them up with one hand. And a wool coat that swamped his body and his head peeked out. He stank of booze and wood smoke.

Julie fixed a smile on her face and tried to make herself small in the cluttered space. ‘This is John-John.’

‘I know who it is.’ The blue haired woman stood tall. ‘I’m just putting out some soup. You got time for some?’

‘No, no, really gotta go.’ Julie was already backing towards the door, her bum brushing against the arm of the sofa and knocking a book to the floor. ‘Sorr-rry.’

Kisngalria paid no heed to banging of the shutting door. John John had looked over his shoulder at the picture and then at him.

John John slapped his chest hard. ‘I am standing,’ he said in the soft language of the people. ‘I am standing. I am standing like a man.’

Kisngalria stared into his unblinking eyes. He placed the palm of his right hand over his heart. ‘I am standing. I am standing like a man.’