Free Black Juice by Margo Lanagan Page A

empty gathering-barrel, which makes something like that sound.’
    The Bard frowned down at him.
    ‘It’s a better sound,’ explained Dot, ‘the two voices together.’
    The Bard thought for a moment. ‘That’s true, Dot. For the one cannot live without the other.’
    Dot was very young at this time; he couldn’t imagine his mother not living, entirely capably, should everyone else except himself and Ardent be taken away by storm or disease or war. But you didn’t argue with the Bard.
    ‘No one sings Viljastramaratan, though,’ said Dot.
    ‘Pah,’ said the Bard, swishing his robes and sitting down again. ‘Who would want to? Who would need to? The song of Viljastramaratan is around us all the time, in the racket of the birds and the goats’ complaining and all the carryings-on of the children as they play their childish games, or fall and hurt themselves. This song gives men the headache, and must bekept well away. The children, they will learn, when they reach their middlehood, to still their voices to Anneh’s or Robbreh’s song; as for the goats and the birds, and the myriad other voices of the world, we can do nothing more to calm those than hum Anneh, and throb Robbreh, loud enough to cover them.’
     
    T HE MEN WENT AWAY TO TOWN EVERY NOW AND THEN , when they had to fetch certain things such as medicines, or firewood, or for some relative’s funeral. Winsome had heard stories from her dad, about the little plastic house they stayed in, about the coffee-palace where they saw television, which was a box full of alarming music, and moon-faced people kissing each other, and sometimes the soccer. They took two days about it and came back tired and silent, the Bard always very angry until he had swum in his river, and all his children and wives had embraced him.
     
    ‘Y OU NEVER SPEAK TO THE B ARD YOURSELF ,’ said Dot.
    ‘Don’t you worry.’ Bonneh was oiling Ardent, who otherwise grew dusty-looking, and twitched and moaned. ‘The Bard has plenty of people to talk to him.’ She paused to rub the oil in between Ardent’s clamped toes. ‘He doesn’t need my wisdom.’
    ‘And he never talks to you. Except when you’re in a bunch and he’s talking to everyone, telling them how much to put aside for market or something. He never says anything straight to you, does he?’
    ‘What would he say, boy?’ She smiled and swung into longer strokes up Ardent’s calves.
    ‘Like he talks to Winsome’s mum. Just about children, and work. Then maybe other people would talk to you, too.’
    ‘Darling-darling,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I had enough of talking, with your father and our families. Nowadays I haven’t the patience for people; I work and I watch. I keep this house quiet, for Ardent, and for you to come back to when you want peace. For talk, you can always go to Winsome’s house, or Toad’s, and soon you’ll be middling and visit the tea-tent, too.’
    ‘I’m not worried about me,’ said Dot. ‘It’s you. If the Bard would only act differently—be more friendly.’
    ‘Kids been taunting you about this?’
    ‘No. I’ve just seen it myself.’
    ‘Hmm. You want to watch those sharp eyes; you might hurt yourself on them.’
     
    T HERE WAS A BOY who must never have slept, and whose ears must have been especially strong to know the Three so well before his middlehood. Down at the river with the water to hide his voice he would
hum
Anneh, and
b’dum
Robbreh, on and on as he built jeeps and rocket-ships out of the mud. Then one day, when spring was on the way and they were all excited for the coming plenty, this boy threw back his head and sang … nobody knew who, but if Viljastramaratan had had four sisters and five brothers, dancing together, theymight have brought these sounds out. Up shot his voice, as if by accident, wandering among the clouds and jumping from water-point to water-point across the river. Viljastramaratan’s baby-coughs and wheezes interrupted the slippery song and