BEFORE
by Carolyn Dunn
I.
I HAVE A NAME.
It sits upon the tip of my tongue like the taste of something familiar. Something warm. Something that sends droplets of memory down my throat and warms my empty belly. Water on a hot day; the splash of coolness after the heat of the ever-present fluorescent lights that burn the rims of my eyelids raw, the merciless brightness that keeps sleep pressing from behind and underneath the burning of my eyes.
The lights are always on so my captors can watch me behind their veil of darkness, keeping me under their ever-watchful gaze so I cannot escape. Where can I go where there is no one watching me, pinned down by bright lights that never dim, never burn out? Chained by bonds to this hard, cold steel platform that serves as bed, table, chamber, prison? I am their prisoner. I have known nothing else, no light, no darkness, no night sky, no stars shining overhead to guide me home. I have no home. Only the one I go to in my dreams.
If I did dream.
I imagine instead, lying here on this cold, hard platform, what my dreams would be like. I see my mother there. We are on a cliff high above a large body of water that I suppose is the ocean. I have never been there, but in my waking dreams it feels very familiar, and so I go there to pass the time, the waiting for the stealing of my blood. I go there in my head and I can see my mother standing, her hands moving across the grasses as the ocean wind whirls around us. My mother’s voice is full of awe and joy as she tells me a story:
On the island of Limuw, there is a story of a beautiful young woman. She was so lovely they called her Pahe Pahe, or Flower of Limuw. She was the pride of her family, of her mother and father and sisters and brothers; and she grew up knowing each place for the stars, each ocean, each plant, each animal of the land; and she was a good girl because she understood her world as one would understand their world, through the stories and songs of her people.
One day, Pahe Pahe took her tomol, her canoe, out into the beautiful kelp beds surrounding her home. While out on the kelp beds, she became entranced by their beauty, by the way they waved to her, dancing underwater to the song she sang: “Beautiful place, beautiful home of mine, singer of stars and light, keep me safe on this journey to and from my beloved homeland….” The giant kelp swayed back and forth, graceful, loving Pahe Pahe’s song.
Old Man Coyote saw Pahe Pahe out in the water and he decided to trick her. He didn’t like water, but so great was his desire to trick Pahe Pahe that he swallowed up his pride and dove under the water, making himself look like a seal. Quietly, he crept up on Pahe Pahe’s tomol, pretending.
Slowly Old Man Coyote inched up the line of Pahe Pahe’s lure, and soon Pahe Pahe felt the tug on her line, and look! She pulled up and it was Old Man Coyote! Pahe Pahe laughed and laughed. “Old Man Coyote, what are you doing here on my line?”
So funny did Pahe Pahe think Old Man Coyote looked, all bedraggled and wet and smelling like two-day-old wet dog, that she dunked him back into the water. “Perhaps you need a bath to smell sweet again?” She laughed and dunked him once more. Old Man Coyote sputtered under the lash of the water and the moomat, growing angrier and angrier—and still Pahe Pahe laughed and dunked him three more times, until Old Man Coyote let go of the line and swam back to shore, old and bedraggled and wet and furious.
As she paddled on and on, Pahe Pahe became sorrowful, for in spite of his tricks and lies, Old Man Coyote was a respected elder among the people; and maybe, just maybe, Pahe Pahe had been disrespectful of him by teasing him the way she did. So despondent she became over her behavior that she just sat there as the birds came and took all of her fish, and she sat there all night even as the stars came out and twinkled their greetings to the Flower of Limuw. She returned her tomol to land, growing more and more unhappy as she did.
At sunrise, Pahe Pahe’s guilt got the better of her, so she climbed to the top of the cliffs above her on Limuw and swore that she would kill herself for her terrible transgression toward Old Man Coyote. As soon as the sun peeked up over the eastern mainland, she leapt off the cliff and into the water below. But the tide had receded, so she hit the bottom of the white foam and broke her legs from the fall.
Hatash, the Great Mother, took pity on Pahe Pahe because she was such a good and loyal and beautiful daughter, so that wherever the water touched Pahe Pahe’s broken body, scales the colors of abalone—pink, green, blue, lavender, all the colors of the flowers of Limuw—took shape on her legs. Fins that danced and waved like the giant kelp sprouted from these colors—and grateful for her gift of life, Pahe Pahe dove into the waters, swimming on the dawnlit sky reflected in the deep ocean. Her brothers and sisters came to swim with her—the dolphins, whom she loved, the seals, and all the beautiful fish jumped and dove with her in their joy. Pahe Pahe swam all morning, all afternoon, and when she grew tired, she found herself at Pimu Island, some seventy miles from Limuw.
As she went upon the rocks to sun and warm herself, a little boy who was helping his grandfather tie the nets together to fish saw her. “Grandfather!” cried the little boy. “Look! Look there!”
The grandfather and his grandson were so moved by Pahe Pahe’s beauty that there were tears sparkling in their eyes. “She was once the Flower of Limuw,” the grandfather said, “and now she is the Flower of the World.”
I stare into the sun, watching the light stream across the sky, hitting the ocean with sparkles like stars. My mother’s voice fades as the bright lights come into view once again.
Pahe Pahe is the name of the Flower of the World. This is the story of her name, and I remember this as I lie under the burning light, my eyes fixed ahead but also on the sea. I imagine myself as Pahe Pahe, not as “2231” or “it” or “dirty Indian.” Pahe Pahe would not allow herself to be poked and prodded by her enemies. She would sing them away.
My name, ever elusive, burns like a deep gnawing thirst that refuses to be quenched under these lights. They hide behind the lights, keeping their faces hidden from me. The illness that sets their blood on fire, bursting within their bodies, is not inside me. They think that by taking my blood from me they will be healed. Their skin grows sallow, pale, colorless under the lights. My skin, like their rage, grows darker and darker under the lights. This enrages them even more, so that their words lash out at me under their lights. They think their words hurt. Redskin. Whore. Bitch of the earthborn.
“2231,” they say, or “it.” “Thing.”
Sometimes, when the kinder ones come to stick my bruised, torn skin with their long, sharp needles of steel and other shiny metals, I am “her.” Upon the kind ones is the scent of impending death. This sickness in their blood makes them the same as the others. This disease doesn’t understand the difference. Their faces are covered by thick, clear plastic, so that all I can see of them is a reflection of the light that burns behind my eyes. I can see myself in their masks. The girl I see there is not who I picture in my mind….She is a dark-skinned wisp of a girl, with closely cropped black tufts of hair sticking out from her head, and bruises and curses where there should be kisses.
Perhaps they are kind because they sense their end is coming fast.
I remember when two long braids hung from either side of my head, skimming past the line of my shoulders to the middle of my back. Mama made sure my braids were smooth, shiny, and tied into even lengths, with red bows fastened at the ends. I wonder sometimes if whoever first shaved my head kept the bows as souvenirs.
The door opens and they come. The kindly ones. Their eyes are hidden, like the others, but I see through the shadows. I see the blood that is filling their eyes and blinding them. This is a disease of their own making, grown in a lab somewhere, much like the one where they are holding me. So much time has passed, yet they still think my
