From Here, All the Water Flowed North
From the moment his memory returned, Zalika became progressively more aware of Jamaani as a man rather than as a large cat. He was built lighter than her, and she could easily overpower him. His endurance was no better than that of an average man and fell well short of the Maasai who had chased her. He set their daily pace, rarely more than half what she would do alone. He was a bit quicker than she was, but that hardly made up for the shortfalls. It was his certainty and aggression that made him stand out. He would rush into things with a zest that bordered on abandon. With any threat, he would try to protect her, even though there was very little in the wild capable of hurting her that she couldn’t outrun. This attitude carried into everything he did, down to the simplest of things. He did not drink so much as he challenged the water not to quench his thirst. With the strength of what he had become and the re-found intellect of a man, he was the master of his world.
Zalika found it easy to get caught up in his confidence. They would find a home and people to accept them as equals. Even his sweet, sharp, musky smell made her feel safe and at home. It gave her hope that together they would be all right.
Late afternoon, a week after Jamaani recovered his memory, they reached the pass through the mountains. Zalika looked out over the world before her from the valley at her feet to forests and out to a vast lake near the horizon. “From here we leave our people behind.” She was more than tired of being shunned or chased, but she did not want to give up hope of finding her father.
“This is a new world. We will find a place for ourselves in it, and if not, we will make a place for ourselves in it. Just you wait and see.” Jamaani placed his hand on Zalika’s far shoulder and pulled her into him. “Just you wait and see.”
“It will be dark soon enough, and up here it gets cold at night. Before we make a place for ourselves, we must find a place for the night. What do you think of that small lake?”
“Why, that is just where I was going. I shall make a fine hunter out of you yet.” With that, Jamaani started towards the lake like he was walking across the Serengeti.
The climb near the top of the pass needed Zalika’s attention with every step she took. Her hard feet, so well suited to running in open country, often slipped on the jagged and sometimes loose stones. Going down the other side was even worse for her. Here, when her foot slipped on a rock, her momentum took her forward and down, making it hard to keep her balance. Twice, she stumbled on rocks that refused to stay put when she stepped on them. She would have fallen if Jamaani had not been there to catch her. He just scrambled over the rock, not bothered by it at all.
At the lake, Jamaani found a sheltered spot and began arranging the brush, weaving it into a denser barrier against any wind that might come up during the night. With Zalika’s help, the small shelter was finished, and a cooking fire was going before dark. Jamaani cooked a small meal of meat on a stick while Zalika heated some water, grass, and a slice of meat to make a thin hot soup.
After dinner, Zalika walked to a grassy meadow by the lake to look out at the stars. ‘Men are men, and I expect that they are not so different wherever I might find them in this world,’ thought Zalika. Her mood was broken when she caught the familiar pleasant smell of Jamaani as he approached. Whether she liked it or not, she was becoming aware of the differences between male and female, in some very personal ways. That she had never experienced any of them did nothing to blunt the intensity of her feelings.
She felt him place his hand on her side just under her arm, where the robe she wore gaped in its wrapping, allowing his hand to come right to her fur. “Oh, for that to be simple skin,” she thought. Her next thought was to remove his hand, but she didn’t want it gone. The truth was, she had been dreaming about what it would be like to be touched like this since they met. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sensation of his hand moving down her side, with his claws extended just enough to reach through her fur to the skin below. The sensation went through her whole body like hot ice. Shivering with excitement and uncertainty, she was caught up in the moment and willingly went wherever Jamaani wanted to take her.
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She woke up to the smells and sounds of Jamaani cooking, feeling that her world was both new and right. Over time, she would realize that it was not the world that had changed, but herself, and that this feeling would not last.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, I can’t remember a better night. What are you cooking?” Zalika looked at what smelled suspiciously like a porridge her mother used to make. She had loved it as a child, but her mother had never taught her how to make it.
“It is a porridge I used to make for my children.”
“Your children? How old are you?” Zalika looked at him with both ears. She had thought he was no older than she when they met, but now she was not sure.
“I don’t know.” Jamaani stood and thought for a while. “Not a child anymore, I was an elder when I was changed. That was my son and his wife you sang up from the dead. My memory of before I met you is not complete, but it comes when I need it to.”
“So, last night was not your first?” Zalika thought it should matter somehow, but she wasn’t sure it did.
“It was, and it wasn’t. Yesterday, I could only remember my youth. Today I remember my wife. You don’t look like her at all, but I am sure she would not recognize me either. It was not until I woke up this morning that I remembered her. Last night I knew what to do but could not remember ever having done it before.”
Zalika felt as bad now as she had felt good last night. She had to think about this, and thinking took chewing on something. She took a basket and poured some of the porridge into it. Then she walked off to the meadow. Jamaani started to follow, but stopped when she waved him off. She stopped briefly in the meadow before continuing to a rock large enough to sit on. She pulled up some coarse grass, dipped it into the porridge, took a bite, and began to chew.
When she finished the porridge, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine her home and what she would be doing now if nothing had happened. No clear memory of home or herself as a child would come to her except in cloudy scenes that felt like a story about someone else. It was all there. Any single item she focused on, she could remember. That person was just not who she was now.
Slowly, she became aware of Jamaani’s musky smell. When she opened her eyes, he was there, squatting down, his feet on the ground, his chin on his knees, his arms and tail wrapped around his legs.
“Does it really matter?” He asked quietly.
“Hold me,” was all Zalika said.
He stood up, walked over to her, and held her from behind.
Zalika relaxed into him. “Don’t ever leave. I don’t want to do this alone.”
“I won’t leave you, but if I am taken from you, promise me you will find another. People are not meant to be alone. Together, we can do this. Just you wait and see.”
Jamaani’s enthusiasm for life helped fuel Zalika’s growing affection for him. Together, they spent some enjoyable days slowly working their way north and west, exploring the local area. When conditions were right, they could sometimes see the vast lake in the distance. Remembering her father’s tales of his travels, Zalika thought that it must be the sea.
This land was quite different from the wide grasslands dotted with small hills, sparse bushes, and crossed by a few rivers that fed the herd. It was a rugged terrain that gradually led into thicker forests. Jamaani could easily disappear into this forest, and he often did. While Zalika could almost always smell him, she never got used to how quiet he could be or his habit of suddenly appearing next to her when she wasn’t looking.
Once in the forest, they quickly lost sight of the lake. Only by moving downhill could they have any idea of where it was. Since they had no place to be and no time to be there, their pace was casual and slow. When they found a place they liked, they would stay awhile, usually until the local people made it uncomfortable for them to stay longer.
Nearly everyone they saw resembled the people of Zalika’s village, with slight differences in clothing. When she and Jamaani would hide and listen, they could understand some of what was said. When meeting the locals, they encountered a blend of fear and respect, with fear dominating respect, in much the same way her people had reacted to her.
Occasionally, they came across different people whose speech neither of them could understand, but it reminded Zalika of the Maasai. These people either ignored them or chased them.
Nothing dampened Jamaani’s optimism in the least. He would say, “We are wearing them down. They do not chase us as hard as they did last time. Soon we will win them over, just you wait and see.” Or he would say, “We are gaining their confidence, see how much closer they let us get before they run. Soon they will invite us over for a meal, just you wait and see.”
Zalika would reply in turn, “You listen to Anansi too much. They will surely invite us over for dinner and say, ‘Please step into this pot.’ Such a scene would be a crazy cat and a foolish zebra sitting in a pot as the spider asks, ‘What are you doing in there?’ Will you have an answer for him?” Zalika would pretend to hold a large pot at an angle and point to its open end.
Jamaani, for his part, was never discouraged, and his confidence in eventual success gave Zalika the feeling that they would someday find a home despite her doubts. Meanwhile, the forest made it easy for them to hide whenever they wished.