Chapter 5 - The Garden of Confidence

Self Help

"What is all this stuff, Cimmy?” Rahima asked, looking around at the piles of sketches carefully hand drawn on thin sheets of parchment that covered the table and the walls.

The descriptions of the sketches were elaborate and brightly illuminated, appearing more like art than scientific documentation.

“Oh, nothing. Just some notes I took, on plants and their properties.”

She remembered something and turned around.

“How are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

“The teacher sent me for a potion, one of the girls is running a fever.”

“What kind of fever? Does she have a rash?”

“Does it matter?”

“Very much. Can I come with you and see her?”

Rahima nodded in approval and, upon leaving Cimmy's cabin, they bumped into Josepha, who generously shared her wisdom.

“Oh, go ahead and visit the feverish. Bring some friends along too and talk to as many people as possible. How wise is our resident layer of hands not to worry about all of us catching this thing? It’s indeed a miracle from God we’re all still alive in your capable care!”

Much as Cimmy resented the tongue lashing, she had to agree Josepha was right and felt embarrassed for not thinking about it herself.

Experience is the most valuable teacher, especially when other sources of knowledge are scarce, and the grouch's experience was far more extensive than her own.

Josepha had seen her share of outbreaks and instinctively knew how to protect herself.

For a moment, the girl thought bringing the elder along would be useful in identifying what kind of illness she was facing, but one look at Josepha conveyed without doubt the latter wouldn’t be caught dead within a thousand paces of the patient.

Many of the afflictions that visited upon their village came unannounced, always met with helpless hand wringing, and Cimmy had made it her life’s mission to figure out how to heal as many of them as possible, and since she couldn’t do that from a safe distance, she prayed for luck and went in.

While she tended to the sick girl her mind raced with worries and what ifs, peeved at Josepha for not offering her invaluable input into the matter and mad at herself for needing her help, and was appalled that in all this time, through everything that happened, nobody ever thought of describing the various plagues for safekeeping, so the next generations didn’t have to start from scratch again and again.

Since then, she began sketching rashes and noting symptoms in a large and ominous book that took up half her workspace, a book that no one else would open for fear it might be cursed.

Nobody knew who had spread the rumor, and maybe it wasn’t just one person at all, but a compilation of the collective fears and assumptions of the village people, most of whom were firm believers in the law of correspondence, and for whom a detailed description of disease was a disease recipe, pure and simple.

“You are going to doom us all with that evil tome of yours! Banish the day that brought us together, for it seems there is no harm visited upon us in which you didn’t have a hand. Bertha,” she turned to the latter for support, “let’s have a show of hands to find out how many people think this abomination should be burned to cinders and spread into the four winds before somebody touches it and gets cursed.”

Cimmy had known Josepha long enough to understand she meant to destroy her research, and took the first opportunity to sneak past the village boundary with the book and find a place to hide it.

The disappearance of the tome unleashed whispers that Cimmy was consorting with the forces of evil, and her all too frequent visits to the wilderness instantly became suspect, for what could one possibly seek in the wild, if not malevolent non-human creatures?

“Cimmy...” Rahima started her timid inquiry.

“Yes?”

“We always shared everything, right?”

“Always.”

“So, if you did something, you would tell me.”

“Something?”

“Well, you know… things.”

“Please tell me you didn’t give in to this nonsense! Rahima, you’re my best friend!”

“People talk,” Rahima looked down, embarrassed.

“And that’s new?”

“No, it’s just, you never talk to me about what you do out in the wild, and as you said, we used to share everything.”

“I didn’t know you were interested. Come with me next time and I’ll show you what I learned so far.”

To a group that is accustomed to expressing common opinions and beliefs, the only thing that induces more panic than a secretive life is a conspiracy. As soon as Rahima joined the effort to fill in gaps in diseases' etiology, Bertha became concerned.

“I told you to forbid the girls to learn how to read and write. What need do they have for those worthless scribbles? They’re busy enough with the field work and their household duties. You know what writing is good for? Preserving evil knowledge and hiding it away from the people of good will, like a shameful disease only the unworthy delight in.”

“In all your born days, Josepha, did you have any question, any concern that couldn’t be solved by respectfully asking your elders? Who knew everything worth knowing and kept us and our sacred values safe? This writing business, those terrible drawings, I’m telling you, the girl is evil, as I’ve been saying all along, and now she corrupted that hare-brained friend of hers. Poor girl wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but at least she was obedient and respectful. How long before all of our youth gets corrupted, you think? Is it worth putting up with damnation just because an evil doer got lucky enough to cure a few diseases? Who says it was her effort and not God’s grace that did the healing, and she’s not taking us all for fools to advance her unholy plans?”

“So, what do you want me to do, banish her?”

“Them. And why not? Better two get lost than the entire village, two who are as good as lost already. Let them figure out how to live in the wilderness if they like it so much.”

The council of elders was assembled, and it was decided and announced, in dignified fashion, that Cimmy and Rahima were to depart the village and seek their fortunes in the wild.

The two left at sunrise, with nothing but the shirts on their backs, and walked quietly through the wild meadows, not looking at each other. After a few hours, Cimmy gave into her guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Rahima. Maybe Bertha is right. I seem to get myself, and now you, in trouble no matter what I do.”

Rahima refused to answer. She was furious, scared, and never felt more alone. Rahima had built her life inside the soul of the village, and the absence of society hurt her like a wound.

What were they going to do now, how were they going to live, who would take care of them when they were in need, what of all the terrible creatures of the wild, from which they had no protection now?

These thoughts reminded her she hadn’t seen Fay in days, and, upset as she was, she still had to ask Cimmy about his whereabouts.

As if prompted by the question, Fay poked his snout through the high grasses by the side of the path and clambered Cimmy’s leg and arm to reach her shoulder, where he made himself comfortable in her hair.

“Great. You have rat in your hair. What on earth was I thinking?”

“Rahima, please don’t hate me! We’re in this together. We need each other.”

“And what exactly can we do to survive? Have you thought of that? What of your precious sketches? Good luck drawing them now, with no charcoal and no parchment. What about food, Cimmy? Or shelter? How are we not going to starve or freeze to death? Or get eaten?” Her voice went dry with dread.

“Fay managed to survive here, and he’s a rat! Have some faith, will you? We’ll think of something.”

“It would have been better to think this through ahead of need.”

“The thistle cakes are edible, and there are plenty of those. We can make some beds out of the stems, too.”

“Are you mad? Who eats thistle cakes?”

‘She really doesn’t remember anything,’ Cimmy thought, amazed that the skip jumping through history and time she seemed to experience was completely foreign to her friend.

“Rahima, it’s not that hard. You’ve been sowing and reaping and making clothes and cooking food and starting bonfires your entire life. There is no difference between doing it for the village and doing it for yourself, except for your own fear. Let’s set camp somewhere, it’s close to sunset. We’ll find some thistles and berries to eat and tomorrow, before dawn, we’ll sneak out into the fields and gather some seeds and grains to plant out here.”

“What, steal?!” Rahima started shaking.

“No. We’ll just starve to death.”

“You and your cursed book! Bertha was right. It’s a slippery slope and before I know it I will be damned, I know I will,” Rahima started sobbing uncontrollably, refusing to allow Cimmy to comfort her.

“I am doomed, and it’s all your fault!”

“Be that as it may, can we ensure our survival first? You can blame me later, on a full stomach.”

Through all the drama, Fay snuggled comfortably in Cimmy’s hair, watching the two with intense curiosity, trying to figure out if their bizarre behavior was meant to accomplish something.

---

Sailing

"I thought you gathered the seeds from the fields,” Rahima complained, staring in disbelief at a gangly plant with palmate leaves, which was towering over the almost ripe field of wheat.

“I did.”

“We didn’t have this kind of plant in the fields.”

“It’s probably a weed. Pull it out!”

Rahima obliged, irked, throwing the offending trespasser into the nearby stream, to keep it from spreading its seeds.

The water was shallow, and puddled in places after the rain, and the incident was soon forgotten, in the rush to get to harvest and stop subsisting on thistle seeds.

Weeks passed, during which it rained, and the puddles filled and dried out repeatedly, hiding and revealing their submerged contents.

One doesn’t realize relationships exist in context, and while Rahima was Cimmy’s most devoted admirer, supporter and confidante when they both lived in the village under the ceaseless scrutiny of the elders, being thrown into the wild to fend for herself had turned her into an assertive, critical authority, who could find fault with the weather if she thought her friend had something to do with it.

Some resentments run deep and she never forgot it was Cimmy’s obsession with all things weird and unnatural that landed them in this tragic circumstance.

She didn’t have a specific complaint, since both her wherewithal and work load didn’t much differ from what she’d been used to her whole life, but the blood of the tribe runs deep, and being separated from everything and everyone she knew made her feel half dead.

She kept wallowing in self-pity and ruminating over the stupid diseased book, as everybody called it, wishing she’d never laid eyes on it and wondering where did Cimmy hide it, now that her old aspirations for writing and drawing were obviously unattainable.

As she pondered on the sorry state of her life, her eyes wandered to a puddle that had dried out, leaving behind a whitish film.

‘She hid the book in the stream?’ Rahima asked herself, bewildered, and since the hypothesis was too crazy to entertain, she drew closer.

On the bottom of the dried puddle lay a sheet of something that looked very much like parchment, woven through with rough brown thread.

Resentment took a back seat to opportunity. Cimmy and Rahima sat down and debated the potential uses of the material.

The whitish dried paste looked kind of pointless, but the threads’ usefulness was immediately clear, although they weren’t near as soft and beautiful as the ones the plant with blue flowers yielded.

Cimmy wished she still had her charcoal and her parchment, so she could draw the new plant and detail its characteristics. Everyone grieves in his or her own way. While Rahima suffered the anguish of social isolation, Cimmy was distressed over the loss of her favorite activities, which gave her a reason to look forward to each day. She wasn’t a conscientious type, Cimmy, and having to go back to working the fields was more punishment than her friend would think for her. Field work was tedious and repetitive, and yielded no surprises.

Fay emerged from the tall grasses and sat himself on top of a flat rock, munching on grains.

“Are they ripe?” Cimmy asked him.

The rat gobbled down another helping and gave her a blank stare.

“I guess that’s a no. Do you ever get bored being a rat? I wish I had something to do that didn’t involve digging, mowing, or lifting heavy bundles.”

Fay had had his fill and descended from the rock, careful not to scrape his pudgy belly on its sharp edges. Nature had provided bountifully for the little critter, if one were to judge by his girth. He trampled through a mud puddle and advanced towards the sheet of dried white paste, which he intended to chew up and fluff to build a nest, tracking perfectly clear paw prints, tail prints and whisker prints on its bright surface in the process.

He had to be moved away by force from the useful material by a very enthusiastic Cimmy, who grabbed the sheet and rushed to the extinguished fire pit to find charcoal.

“Look at this, Rahima! Just look!” She forced a fresh drawing of the new plant, complete with written details, on her uncooperative friend, until she managed to pique the latter’s interest.

“It’s just like parchment, but better. And we can make so much of it!”

She turned around in dismay, remembering they threw away the plant, seeds and all, and she couldn’t remember seeing any other plants like it around.

“I don’t know about the white sheet, but the fibers would be useful,” Rahima deigned to agree.

“Where do you think it came from? There can’t be just one plant.”

“Maybe a bird ate it somewhere far away, flew back and dropped it here.”

“Flew back from where? We’ve seen all the land. It always ends at the waters.”

“Maybe there is more land on the other side of the waters. Think about it, Cimmy! What if there are splendid, unimaginable wonders in that land beyond?” Rahima’s eyes were instantly veiled by the mist of wanderlust.

“I thought you wanted to stay in the village, and adventure was another name for misery.”

“This adventure is. How is being banished from society but still within eyeshot of Bertha, in order to do exactly the same thing, only alone, a valiant exploit? But that… I wonder if we could, Cimmy! Maybe find high ground and look as far as we can, to see if we can glimpse land across the waters.”

“Say we do. How do you expect to get to it?”

“I saw driftwood floating on top of the water. Maybe we can tie some together with those threads. They seem sturdy enough.”

Cimmy didn’t want to spoil her friend’s good mood, which had become such a rarity lately, and they spent the afternoon making plans to climb the shallow dune near the beach in the hope the waters would gift them a wonderful discovery.

They reached the top of the hill at high noon, which didn’t show very good planning, because the water was gleaming like a mirror, impeding all visibility, while the unforgiving sun was threatening to cook them alive.

“Look! Look over there! See?” Rahima pointed in a random direction towards something that wasn’t there. It was impossible to tell what was there or not, with all the glare.

“It’s not land, Rahima,” Cimmy tried to diffuse her friend’s enthusiasm. “How can you see anything? There’s nothing but glare.”

Just to contradict her, the sun hid in the clouds for a second, revealing a flash of something green in the distance, just a flash, and then it was gone.

“So, say that is land. What do you want to do about it?”

“Go there, of course!”

“You are going to get us killed.”

“You sound exactly like Josepha, you know that?"

“You take that back immediately!” Cimmy bristled, offended.

“Only if you promise to come with me to the new land.”

They argued over the feasibility of the project until the sun went down, and while they were sitting on top of their dune, watching the sun go down, the new land came clearly into view, impossible to deny now, as it appeared, surrounded by the rosy and purple hues of the sunset.

After much back and forth, Cimmy had to concede once they reaped the harvest and stored the grains there wouldn’t be much to do anyway, and with the weather being so accommodating, it didn’t seem impossible to float atop a bundle of driftwood to the land in the distance.

Nobody had ever crossed the edge of the water, and to Cimmy it just looked like liquid land: you look in the direction you want to go and just advance steadily towards it, what could be more simple than that.

Once the harvest was gathered and stored, they started work on the floating device, which was a lot more trouble than one would have expected, ground some grains, on a whim, to have some food, stocked up on a sizable quantity of thistle cakes and pushed the contraption in the water.

They barely had time to lift themselves on it before a strong current grabbed the vessel and pushed it decisively in the wrong direction.

“Jump!” Rahima said. “Jump now!”

“But we’re on water!” Cimmy returned her a blank stare, too shocked to react.

“You have to jump off now!” Rahima pushed her and jumped, as the ambitious raft picked up speed and was soon lost from sight.

With the whole brouhaha, Cimmy forgot to panic, and as a result, she found herself floating effortlessly on top of the accommodating waves.

“Who needs driftwood? We can just float there!”

“Put your feet down, or you’ll drift out to the horizon just like that raft!”

The waves had dragged them rather far from their camp, and it took hours for them to get back to it, and by the time they did, it was already dark.

“That was pointless,” Cimmy started.

“Well, not entirely. We learned what’s not working.”

Nothing could dampen Rahima’s enthusiasm for the project, least of all the impending drowning.

“We need something to push the float in the right direction.”

Three sets of paddles and a very long stick later, the design was revisited.

“It’s never going to go in the direction we want. We don’t have enough strength to push it ourselves.”

“Why don’t you make the water do it?” Cimmy asked sarcastically, but Rahima had lost all sense of humor and was taking everything seriously.

“You are right! We need to trick the water into pushing us where we need to go!”

The addition of the rudder didn’t seem to make a lot of difference, other than the improvement of now floating sideways in the wrong direction, instead of straightforward, so they took another dive and watched sorrowfully as the second raft disappeared into the distance.

As they huddled to dry up next to the campfire, Rahima started again.

“Maybe we can make the wind push us.”

“Or maybe we can drown ourselves directly and be done with it,” Cimmy mumbled, resentful. She was cold, she was wet, and the fresh design held the promise of lots and lots of hard physical labor. “Besides, I think we ran out of driftwood.”

“One more try, Cimmy! Just one!”

Cimmy curled up, trying to keep herself warm in the evening's chill, her clothes still wet. She had noticed, as she jumped off the raft again, to avoid getting dragged to that place behind the horizon where all the water dropped into a chasm, that it tasted salty and made her stomach revolt when she tried to drink it. Now that the water on her skin and clothes had started to dry, it left behind the pinchy substance, which was itchy and uncomfortable, and made her skin feel leathery.

Rahima was wide awake, ignoring the wet clothes and salty skin, with wide eyes filled with dreams staring into the fire, and Cimmy could almost see the daring voyage in their dark mirrors, a voyage that to Rahima was eminently possible, and which she had taken in her mind a thousand times, so much so that it felt second nature to her.

There was no doubt in her mind they were going to reach the other shore, and she was already planning the logistics for when they got there.

Maybe whatever is possible in the mind is possible in real life as well.

Maybe that was all her unusual adventure was all about, and if it wasn’t, she didn’t seem to have something better to do, anyway.

“Maybe your garden is there,” Rahima joked.

What if she was right? Cimmy thought.

Motivation makes all the difference in an endeavor.

“We start work on the new float tomorrow,” she mumbled. “Sleep. It’s going to be a lot of work.”

---

Tresspassing on Paradise

She was exhausted and wet, and the sand on the beach was burning hot in the sunlight, and it felt so much like one of her garden dreams, Cimmy found it difficult to believe her surroundings were real.

Out into the distance, across the waters, she could see a sliver of land which looked arid by comparison, so alien she could barely recognize it as home, as she stood in the middle of this lush paradise, filled with plants she’d never seen before, except maybe in her dreams.

Rahima's energy seemed limitless as she skipped around the new home, expressing delight and surprise whenever she came across something that sparked her excitement.

“Be careful,” Cimmy warned. “You don’t know what’s lurking under that thick foliage.”

“Spoil joy!” Rahima retorted, sticking out her tongue in a childish gesture, picking unfamiliar berries, tempted by their pretty colors and ripe aromas.

“I hope you’re not thinking of eating those,” Cimmy jumped, outraged.

“Not yet,” Rahima hesitated.

“Rahima, rest a little and then we should figure out how to get back home. There’s plenty of driftwood and vines here. We shouldn’t have any trouble making another raft.”

Not that the one they had built had been any help at all. They had just left the shore when the darned thing fell apart, leaving them with only its floating pieces to hang on to, and it was sheer luck, or divine providence, that ensured the strong current they got caught in drew them to the new land like a watery magnet and dumped them in its shallow waters which extended far out from its shores.

In those waters, there were creatures—colorful, innocent-looking gelatinous beings resembling transparent mushroom caps—along with fast, flat blue, yellow, orange and green animals that brushed against their legs in large groups, never needing to surface for air.

Cimmy was scared silly when she almost stepped on a flat creature lying on the sea floor, which took off in a hurry, making her think the ground beneath her feet had disappeared.

“Why?” Rahima replied, completely taken by the new environment.

“You don’t want to go home?”

“Certainly not! We don’t have a home anymore, remember? If we have to live off our wits, here is way better. Besides, do you want to risk drowning again?”

“Oh, now you find wisdom!” Cimmy mumbled, resentful.

She wasn’t very sure she wanted to go back either, even though she felt guilty for abandoning Fay and was embarrassed by the selfish need on which she had built her relationship with the rat: if Fay was not there to show them which of the fruits were good to eat, how were their going to survive in this new land.

A familiar squirming quickened inside her blouse, and before she had time to react, Fay clambered his way up her arm and made himself comfortable in her hair.

“I see you brought your pet too,” Rahima commented, without looking surprised. “It’s settled, then. We stay here?”

“But...” Cimmy stared at the sea in disbelief, absolutely certain Fay wasn’t with them when they left the shores. She wouldn’t have brought him with her, and put his life in danger if danger were to befall them.

For the first time since they’d met, she started wondering if Fay was just a rat, as she had always taken for granted, if maybe he wasn’t some magical being, sent to her by the divine providence she had called out to, in order to help.

“Aha,” Rahima mocked. “Can you get the magical rat out of your hair and have him help us figure out what’s good to eat around here? I don’t want to starve to death in paradise.”

A few hours later, bellies full, they were sitting on the beach in the shade of a strange-looking tree whose fruits they had enjoyed earlier, wondering if it was even worth building shelter in this place where everything, the air, the water, the landscape, seemed perfect.

The breeze felt soft and balmy against their skin, and the calm waters populated by scores of colorful beings were warm and inviting.

“Does this look like your garden, Cimmy?” Rahima asked, eyes closed as she bathed in the afternoon sun.

“No,” Cimmy replied. “No, Rahima, this doesn’t look like my garden at all.”

“Is it better or worse?”

“Neither. Just different.” Cimmy looked around in disbelief. “Very different. What do you think we should do next?”

“Absolutely nothing!” Rahima opened her eyes, offended. “I swear to you, Cimmy, if you invent us stuff to do just so we’re not idle, I’ll leave you right here and walk along the beach to a place that’s far enough away to live there alone. We’re in paradise. Everything we need is within arm’s reach, just ripe for the taking, and you want to make me toil?”

“I’m going to get bored,” Cimmy tried to explain herself.

“Go fetch us more of those fruits then,” Rahima commanded. “And crack one open for me.”

“Fine, we’ll just sit here.” They lay down on the beach in silence for a while. Cimmy got restless.

“Are you sure we don’t need shelter?”

Rahima jumped to her feet, visibly annoyed.

“I can’t even look at you right now! We have one chance, one unexpected chance to be happy, and you have to mess it up with your stupid pestering. Fine! Let’s do some busy work, so that here feels just like home. Maybe you can impersonate Bertha while we’re at it. For authenticity.”

Truth be told, lying around doing nothing wasn’t all that was cracked up to be, and Rahima was getting a little antsy too, so she was eager to grab onto the pretext her friend provided her with to justify some sort of activity.

“We’re not building anything. I built enough rafts to last me a lifetime. Let’s take a walk around this place and figure out where all the good stuff is.”

After walking on the beach for a few hours, they were surprised to find themselves back where they started.

Rahima remembered their old home was surrounded by waters too, and decided that wasn’t that unexpected.

With night approaching, they gathered some large feathery leaves scattered on the beach, fashioned a cozy nest, and readied themselves for sleep.

They froze in their nest, staring at each other, bereft of thoughts.

Eventually, Cimmy remembered Fay and worried he was nowhere to be found; she was slightly relieved to see his round eyes glimmer in another flash of light, while his muzzle poked through the brown leaves to reach deeper under them for shelter.

Rahima finally dared to ask.

“Do you think God is mad at us?”

Cimmy looked up and another terrifying blaze slashed through the sky, determined to confirm the assertion.

“Why would God be mad at us?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we’re trespassing. This looks like paradise, no?”

The accompanying rumble finally arrived, making the sky and the earth tremble with divine retribution.

Cimmy didn’t answer.

“Cimmy, I’m scared,” Rahima whispered in a small, dry voice. “Let’s get away from here, please! Let’s find us a place to hide!”

“Hide where?” Cimmy protested. “We walked around this whole place in a few hours. Where do you think we could possibly hide?”

“What do you think God is going to do to us?” Rahima elaborated on her terror, eyes widened to take in the formidable spectacle.

And just then, as if to answer, the skies burst open and unleashed rain upon the land. It was a warm summer downpour that drenched them to their bones in an instant, scattered quite a few large and feathery leaves on the beach, and stopped soon after.

They didn’t move, waiting for the resolution of divine’s just reward, but the skies had already cleared, as was made evident by the glow of countless stars.

“Maybe he just thought we should wash,” Rahima finally deigned to speak.

“This must be the craziest thing you ever said to me.” Cimmy couldn’t believe her ears. She suddenly remembered something and turned towards Rahima. “Hey, speaking of water, did you happen to spot a stream anywhere while we were walking?”

“No.”

“Look over there,” Cimmy pointed to a large waterfall that was cascading over the top of the mountain in the distance, and sparkled in the faint light of the stars.

“Do you think God brought us water to drink?” Rahima refined her argument.

“And that’s the second craziest thing you ever said to me,” Cimmy retorted. “Oh, my God, where’s Fay?” She jumped, anxious that the rat might have gotten washed off in the downpour.

Fay made his way out of the soaked foliage, and he must have been buried deep underneath it, because he was perfectly dry.

Cimmy got instantly aggravated the rat had outsmarted them again, and then remembered they had picked a low-lying area on the beach to build their nest, because it felt cozy, a shallow bowl which was now starting to collect all the water from its surroundings, and quickly turning into a puddle.

Rahima didn’t dare look at her, and had a guilty look on her face.

“Maybe we should reconsider building that shelter,” she mumbled.

“You think?”