We knew that Gunnah had no tongue because, when we asked for directions to the village, he opened his mouth and showed us why he could not answer. I suppose he didn’t want us to think he was being impolite.
“Oh, excuse us,” Joe said, embarrassed. Not Joe Petri, the other Joe.
Gunnah smiled, it seemed because he appreciated being spoken to so considerately and was grateful in a way for Joe’s embarrassment as it showed a certain respect.
“Are we far from it?” I asked and Gunnah shook his head. “Well,” I said, starting to ask if he could take us there. But he was thinking ahead of us. He waved his hand at his side beckoning us to follow. “Thank you,” I said.
We walked a few moments in silence, then Joe Petri said, “We’re talking about the village where the American is, right? The one with long blond hair?”
Gunnah nodded, his English was apparently pretty good, and then he made a snip-snip gesture with his fingers and put his other hand to his head, which told us that Chase had had a haircut since arriving at the village.
Chase was a great guy. I knew him because my girlfriend’s girlfriend had married his brother back in New York. Chase came from Seattle for the occasion and we got to talking that night, the first of what would be many subsequent conversations. Chase told great stories of his travels, like the time years ago he was hiking alone with his big backpack in Taiwan, in a rural district where the children had apparently never seen a white man. So here comes Chase, six-feet-five or so, imposing and muscular, long hair flowing. When the kids followed him laughing down the country road, he pulled a mouth harp out of his backpack and started playing. The kids kept following, delighted. He was a nonpareil pied piper, Chase.
“The American is a nice man,” I said, and Gunnah nodded graciously. We walked another mile or so on the dusty ground as an occasional jeep rumbled past.
Chase was living in a stone house no better than the ones the villagers lived in. A few passersby watched as we embraced Chase and told him he looked well, which he did, looking well more in a Peace Corps sort of a way than that of a knight errant. I thought it was wonderful that Chase had joined the Peace Corps, or whatever skeletal remains there remained of the Peace Corps. When some people graduate into adulthood, they abandon their jaunts, their adventure-seeking, their come-what-may dispositions by going into their fathers’ businesses, which Chase could have done. But he went into public service instead.
“Haami has set up some space for the three of you,” said Chase. “You’ll meet him in a few minutes. He’s a kind of village chieftain. Interesting man. The only villager who’s ever been more than fifty kilometers out of the village. All the way to Somalia once and another time to work in Rajasthan and an extended stay in Europe. He’s better educated than most Americans.”
“Where did that nice man go, the mute gentleman?” asked the other Joe.
“Don’t worry about Gunnah,” said Chase, sensing our regret at not thanking our guide a bit more profusely than we had.
“I hope we didn’t hurt his feelings,” said the other Joe.
“I’m sure you didn’t,” said Chase, his face darkening, as it were, with uncharacteristic reflectiveness. Chase watched us as we took stock of the village; from his house where we stood, about half of it was in view, including a primitive-looking little post office and a ramshackle stall where two women sat behind large simmering tea pots. Next to it, there was a stall with a single barber chair where Chase presumably got his haircut. I saw a line of children wending their way toward what appeared to be a school bus stop. The boys were all wearing jackets and ties. I wondered at that moment how these clothes were hung or closeted in the fairly crude shelters that they shared with their families.
“Here comes Haami,” said Chase as we caught side of a thin man, handsome in a particularly sensual way. “Welcome,” he said as he approached. “How was your trip? The walk from the station was not too strenuous, I trust.”
We exchanged pleasantries and, when it was mentioned that Chase had told us something of his background, we briefly talked about Somalia and the problems there. “Some problems never solve,” he said.
“I don’t imagine you feel too much of the ancient turmoil in this peaceful place,” said the other Joe.
“Not too much,” said Haami, cryptically. “Please, let me show you your quarters, which I hope are not too rustic.”
A large enough hut had been prepared with three bunks on which arrays of bone-white pillows were carefully set. The outhouse was behind the hut and a generous supply of bottled water was stacked on a wooden table against the wall. We reassured Haami that we’d be more than happy to take our meals in what he described as a communal eating place. Sometimes people ate there, sometimes at home. It seemed a strange amalgam, this village, of a few modern conveniences, of little boys in public school outfits, side by side with tribal habits older than the gods.
We had almost forgotten about Gunnah until the next morning when, the first to arise, I saw him standing by a pillar some five-hundred yards down one of two roads that intersected close by us. It looked like the remnant of a building, maybe a public facility of some sort, that had been razed but not altogether cleared. I waved, Gunnah waved back, and after I had gone back in to finish dressing, I saw that he had gone. Just behind me, Joe Petri stated the obvious: “I’d like to know the story behind that guy.”
Over at Chase’s house, two little boys were poring over a map; of the United States, I noticed. “I’ve managed to spark a few imaginations,” Chase said with that endearing grin of his.
“These seem to be very decent people,” I said. “Reserved, but very decent.”
“That’s a fair observation,” said Chase. “It will be hard for me to leave when the time comes, but it’s also hard to stay on too much longer. Haami is the only person I can talk to as a peer of some sort.”
I smiled at the sound of a wild bird call far off. It seemed to come from beyond the two mountains that engirded the village to the east. “I wish I could identify such sweet thunder,” I said. “It’s nice to give names to things.”
“Haami knows them all,” said Chase. “The other day he was very pleased to spot a trogon. They’re not supposed to be in these parts.”
The tongue is an extraordinary instrument. I remember long ago I had a persistent chancre and the doctor, checking to see if a biopsy was advisable, told me how intricate and multifaceted the muscle is. We really take it for granted. The dorsal surface is a stratified squamous keratinized epithelium. There are many, so many, mucosal projections, which we call papillae. The ventral surface is stratified squamous non-keratinized epithelium, which is smooth. He did do a biopsy, and the discomfort was most unpleasant, lasting the next two weeks or so. But the test results were negative, so here I sit.
We skipped breakfast and, at lunch, communicated affably enough with the villagers at our end of the table. I watched as a few children, girls and boys, lingered quietly, admiringly, close to Chase where he sat and reminisced. “After all my travels, I began to reflect on how the only world I really knew was still the American Northwest and not even that. It was Seattle I knew inside out, just Seattle, really. So, I decided to live some place like one of the places I had visited and passed through.”
“Funny, how no one thinks about the Peace Corps anymore,” said Joe Petri.
“I didn’t think about it at all myself until one summer when I was a ranger during the fires in Wyoming,” said Chase. “And I wouldn’t have thought about it then either, except one of the other guys was talking one night about how his parents met in the Philippines where they were both stationed.”
“They say in those days parts of the Philippines were absolutely overrun by Peace Corps workers,” said Joe Petri. I sensed that both he and the other Joe were wondering about the same thing I was, but the three of us demurred, as Gunnah’s story was probably not our business one way or the other. Finally, I took the plunge anyway, deciding to get at the topic in a politely roundabout way. “So what kind of work does Gunnah do?” I asked. “I mean, assuming he does any.”
“No work per se,” said Chase, nodding and half-smiling. “He’s just kind of a fixture.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Wandering somewhere,” said Chase. “He never eats with the rest.” Just then there was a thunderclap that startled even the villagers around us. One of them, a man in his middle years, spoke loudly so everyone could hear, and the others nodded their heads.
“What did he say?” asked the first Joe.
“I’m not sure,” said Chase. “I’m not really all that fluent and even if I were…sometimes they speak a variant dialect…very hard for me to make out.” At that moment Chase’s expression darkened just a little but noticeably enough, another odd, uncharacteristic expression. Somehow, I suspected that Chase did indeed understand what the man had said but thought better of telling us.
“Where’s Haami?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Chase. For the first time since I’d known him, he sounded frail to me at that moment, even a little frightened. It was most curious and a little unsettling. The Chase I’d always known was all boldness and vitality. Later as the three of us, in for the night, lay in our bunks, I said that I’d love to know more about this village, it was an interesting place after all, don’t you think? Interesting, I added, even by the standards of far-flung village life in most developing countries.
The next morning, it was a relief to see some of the children on the street playing the same way that children play everywhere. We had arranged to stop by Chase’s after we got up. For a few moments as I waited outside for Joe Petri and the other Joe to emerge, I found myself surveying the village, taking it in as I looked around to see if I could find Haami. He did join us later, just before noon, for a hike and bird watch.
“What did you think about the strange thunderclap yesterday?” I asked. “Loud as a bomb but not a cloud in the sky.” Chase gave me a meaningful look. He knew I was probing for something and may have had mixed feelings about it.
“It happens infrequently, but it happens,” said Haami. Suddenly he smiled, very broadly. I would not have thought that such a smooth narrow face could hold so broad a smile. “Shall I tell our friends the story behind the thunder?” he asked Chase.
“If you please to,” said Chase, almost unctuously.
“Well, the thunder is no doubt some sort of atmospheric anomaly peculiar to this locale,” said Haami. I marveled at his vocabulary, and the singular life experiences that so set him apart from his fellow villagers. How had he been raised, what were his parents like, and where had he received what had to have been a fairly rarefied post-colonial education? Why did he return here? He had not mentioned any family, not even surviving parents, nor had Chase enlightened us on that score. “Some sort of electrical phenomenon, perhaps from storm centers above our atmosphere,” he continued. “Perhaps like Catatumbo lightning.” I was dumbfounded by that reference as I’m sure Joe Petri and the other Joe must have been as well, especially Joe Petri who had spent time in and around Maracaibo and had himself seen that lightning.
“The people of this village do not, of course, know of such things,” continued Haami. “They have come to believe that those thunderclaps are the voice of Farishta.”
“Farishta was a village elder who died some thirty years ago,” said Chase. “The people here believe that those thunders are Farishta’s warnings from the next world.”
“Oh, a green avadavat,” whispered Haami, pointing to a bird fully visible in a tree just ahead of us. “Such a beauty, yet can’t you see from its slick green plumage the clear evidence of reptilian descent?” We walked on, briefly silent; perhaps Haami had wanted to change the subject. But then he himself said, “I don’t think it’s so much that Farishta wants to warn us as that he sees fit to remind us.”
“Of what?” asked Joe Petri.
“Farishta was not an unkind man,” answered Haami. “I knew him well when I was a child. He encouraged me to develop my interests, to seek out foreign lands if I was able to.”
“And Haami sure was able to,” said Chase.
“It was unfortunate, what befell,” said Haami. We waited for him to continue, not wanting to importune. The air seemed alive with the birds, the Babel of the songs and speeches of untold species. “You’ve met Gunnah, I know,” he said after the pause.
“Yes,” said the other Joe. We were all intrigued by this turn in Haami’s narrative with the mention of Gunnah’s name.
“When Gunnah was a very young man,” said Haami, “Farishta saw him walking just past the flower stall, on the little outer road that borders us on that part of the village.” Another pause, and Chase, as if trying to be helpful, or to overcome the odd timorousness I had quizzically noted the day before, said, “Gunnah was walking slowly, as he usually does, but Farishta noticed a certain agitation in his movements.”
“’How goes it?’ Farishta asked him as he approached where Gunnah was,” related Haami. “’I saw it,’ Gunnah told him,” said Chase, continuing the narrative. “That’s all he said: ‘I saw it.’”
“Before Farishta could even ask what it was that he saw, Gunnah divulged it,” said Haami. “I don’t know if Gunnah divulged it in fear or horror or excitement or joy, but he did divulge. And Farishta started to walk away but, as if my divine ordinance, he was carrying a knife in his belt, a…oh, a…” “Something like a utility knife,” assisted Chase. “He carried one for odd tasks in the village.”
“Yes, just so,” said Haami. “And Farishta turned back suddenly…” “Suddenly, but not in rage or terror or passion, but methodically, like a man who had a job to do,” said Chase.
“Yes. And Farishta ordered Gunnah to open his mouth and, when he did so, Farishta grabbed his tongue and carefully inserted the knife and cut out the man’s tongue,” said Haami. “Poor man,” said Chase.
“What had Gunnah seen?” asked the other Joe.
“My friend, if I knew that, Farishta’s harsh action would have been altogether in vain,” said Haami. “Farishta took it to his grave,” said Chase. “We don’t have graves,” said Haami, good-naturedly. “A figure of speech, Haami,” said Chase with a smile.
“No one ever tried to get Gunnah to tell, I mean, using gestures or signage or whatever?” I asked.
“Farishta forbade that,” said Haami, “but yes, for a time after Farishta died, they did ask questions – are we in danger, Gunnah? were there people doing something sinful, Gunnah? why did Farishta cut out your tongue, Gunnah? – but Gunnah would either shake his head or a helpless look would come across his face.” “As if the questions they were asking couldn’t possibly lead to a comprehensive answer, to a truthful answer of any sort,” said Chase.
That night, the three of us lying on our beds, Joe Petri said, “Maybe Gunnah saw him in some sort of compromising situation, and the old man was just protecting his reputation when he cut out the poor guy’s tongue.”
“I doubt that very much,” I said. “Gunnah would have resisted or, failing that, maybe even recriminated afterward, village elder or not.”
“Hammi never answered my question about the thunder,” said Joe Petri.
Joe Petri is a very nice man but you have to understand a few things about him. Joe’s background is a little different than ours. He grew up in a tough neighborhood. He can be impetuous. He tends to speak to other people more directly than we do; sometimes he seems to be challenging people in situations where it’s not appropriate. I really admire how he pursued his career, how he overcame hardships and obstacles. Sometimes I think that, had he gone into the financial services, he would have made millions of dollars. Some things in his personal life have not gone well, but the same can be said about most of us who’ve grown up under more favorable circumstances. The other Joe has had his troubles. So, for that matter, have I.
“It would be interesting to see Gunnah before we leave,” said the other Joe. It would indeed, I thought, especially knowing what we now knew; we only had a day or two left. The next morning, we walked around the village before checking in with Chase. We went to the flower stall that Haami mentioned, at the far end of the village. It was a crude establishment, to be sure, but the man who sat in it was typing away on a phone that was probably as well-equipped with the latest features as any such technology in the world. We traipsed past a row of homes, their whole living spaces fronting the street and open to the world’s view. We saw stolid-seeming husbands and women bending over pots, we saw children about to venture out and, on this morning, we even saw the school bus whipping up dust a mile or so away. Behind us to the west was a tranquil vista of hills and trees. Of course, the birds were variously cawing and trilling. Whatever the birds said sounded wonderful.
If we were looking for Gunnah, he was nowhere around. When we saw Haami, he was talking to the attendant outside at the post office. “Greetings,” I said and smiled as did Joe Petri and the other Joe. Haami smiled back and continued smiling even when Joe Petri rather abruptly said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I apologize,” said Haami. The man he’d been talking to sidled away as at the same moment Chase approached us from our right. “What was it you wanted to know?”
“What do the people think the thunder is saying?” asked Joe Petri.
“Not so very much, really, when you get right down to it.”
“You said the elder is warning you through the thunder,” said Joe Petri.
“To be precise,” said Haami, “I said it wasn’t so much a warning as a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“Of why none of us must ever teach Gunnah how to write.”
Illustration : Suman Mukherjee