Glorious Sunset (10 page)

Taka had not fared much better over the long night. Being in a state of limbo meant that usually he did not have the luxury of sleep or the respite of dreams to break his monotony. But finding himself in the apartment alone, not knowing how long he would be that way, provoked him to try his hand at the most basic of human needs. He had curled up on the sofa and blessedly, almost immediately he felt the first watery flutters of sleep teasing his consciousness. Several times his eyes opened quickly and he wondered how long they had been closed that time, since he had lost track. Even this was pleasurable to him.

When he was a little boy his thirst for information was insatiable. To appease it, his father, the king, would teach him things all the time. He allowed Taka to sit in the kitchen to watch womenfolk create sumptuous meals from seemingly little. He allowed Taka to watch the man who would file the hoofs of the horses, and keep them bathed and healthy. He allowed Taka to watch the warriors train in the field, tossing their spears and fighting each other by hand to increase their strength. He even allowed Taka to watch a child being born, and Taka held the hand of the young mother, barely out of childhood herself, as she grimaced, screamed, and squeezed life into the world from within the safety of her gentle thighs. He'd seen a lot as a child. But what remained with him the most were the lessons he learned from his father's tongue. It was one such lesson that came to him with clarity while he slept.

His father squatted on the ground beside him as Taka struggled to remove a tuber from the ground. It was in a little garden that was Taka's very own piece of land. His parents had felt the future king should know what it felt like to farm, especially since so many of the villagers survived by farming. So instead of having him watch, they'd set aside a little square of land just for him to tend. Nothing too big, but big enough for a child. No one else was allowed to so much as add a drop of water even if the land was parched. It was Taka's lesson, and because he was such an ambitious child, he took it seriously.

He'd chosen to grow potatoes. Both the white kind and the more familiar sweet potatoes. Now they were ready to come up, and his father sat beside him while Taka dug and pulled and grunted against the plant that seemed to refuse to be pulled. Finally he fell back on his behind, his eyes round with frustration, his tender palms red and burning from the effort.

“I cannot do it, Papa,” he said plaintively to the man who watched him with knowing eyes.

“But you can, my son. You cannot give up.”

Taka grew angry and stubborn. “I cannot. The roots are stuck in the ground so deeply they cannot be moved.”

“Everything can be moved, Taka. Nothing in life is immoveable.”

But Taka had grown so tired and dejected, and so annoyed by his father's insistence that he do what was obviously impossible, he crossed his arms with indignation. “It is a worthless plant. The whole garden is worthless. I do not care if it rots.”

The look on his father's face told him that he was being ridiculous, but Taka refused to budge. His father gestured toward the plant for him to start again. Taka looked away, fully expecting to receive the wrath of his father's anger in return. Instead the king spoke to him gently.

“My son, you will learn that in life few things will come easily. As the son of the king you have privileges that normal people do not, but that does not mean it will always be so. In order to become a man, a good man, you must learn to fight for what you want. And fight for what is yours.” He reached down and pulled the plant, testing its dedication to the ground and feeling it give a little. “I will not always be here to ease your way, Taka.”

Taka's arms fell and he looked at the large, strong man beside him. “Where will you go, Papa? Why will you leave me?”

The king released the plant to smile at his son who, he knew, thought he would live forever. He reached out and smoothed his son's wooly hair. “We are men, son, and must go the way of all things that live. Just like the animals we raise, so will we too someday pass on. And when I go you will be responsible for many. For that reason, more than most, you must learn how to hold on to what is yours.” He gestured toward the plant again. “You do not give up because it is too hard. You must fight even harder.”

But Taka's thoughts were still stuck on the idea that his father might someday leave him. He looked upon him with stricken eyes. “I will ask Ani to keep you with me always. You and Mama. He will do it for me.”

The king frowned. “Taka, you are truly gifted to speak as you do with the Great One. But it is right that someday we will be gone. That is the way of life, son. You must accept that.”

Taka did not want to accept that. No, it wasn't right, and he would never say it was. He would fight it, just as his father said. Just as he would fight the resistance of the plant in the ground.

The king smiled as Taka pitched forward to grab the plant and wrestle with it, straining his round face. He thought Taka's renewed energy surely meant his son now understood the importance of working hard. But Taka's energy came from his anger and determination. Anger that he should be told that something he loved could be taken from him, and determination that it would not be taken easily.

Taka woke, sitting up on the sofa, bathed in sweat, heart pounding.
Ah, this is what it is like to dream.
He remembered now. Far from peaceful, beautiful images it could also bring this pounding fear, this awareness.

His father had died in battle when he was fifteen years old and he had learned that despite his relationship with Ani he was, indeed, not immune to loss. And he had become more determined than ever to keep what was his. Now he realized what had driven him to make the agreement. It was not only his great love, but also his great desire for vengeance against the Almighty for daring to take something from him again.

Taka spent the rest of the night and the early morning fumbling around the apartment checking out the surroundings and modern conveniences. He found several bags of little disks wrapped in foil, labeled with variations of chocolate. Ah, he remembered chocolate: a treat for the gods. He tore open the light covering of the bag and unwrapped a disk, sniffing it before tossing it in his mouth whole. He stopped when something burst between his teeth. He looked at the wrapping again. Crisped rice within chocolate! He chewed slower and then increased his speed as his tongue oriented itself to the new, delightful taste. It seemed there was one decent thing about modern times, at least.

He fumbled with the machine that had held coffee the day before and looked it over a few good times, figuring out where the water went and what to do with the little papers in the box beside that said
COFFEE FILTERS.
While he worked the machine, he called out to Ani to continue the conversation they'd begun the night before. Perhaps to pick an argument about the Almighty's clever use of dreams to whip him into shape, but Ani wasn't in a conversational mood, and Taka yelled out in frustration.

At that moment Violet walked in the door looking guilty, her shoes in her hand. Taka was caught a moment by her beauty, fighting the urge to immediately go to her and pull her into his arms. His one piece of heaven on earth. His one selfish desire.

“I heard you speaking to someone,” she said, dropping her purse and keys on the table, the shoes on the floor, and walking into the kitchen to look at him suspiciously.

It was the look that woke him up. It was not the look her face should bestow upon him. Zahara's face had always looked at him with admiration and unrestrained love. But this face, Violet's face, looked at him with suspicion. Guarded caution. Doubt. Mistrust. He felt his heart seize with the impact and looked away from her, she hurt his eyes so.

He fumbled with the machine and she still stood there with her arms crossed and her hip jutted out, apparently having eyed her bag of treats on the counter.

“Well, just help yourself to my stuff, why don't you?” she said.

He took an extra-long time chewing, made a point of swallowing loudly, and stopped destroying her machine long enough to pull another candy bar out of the bag to, pointedly, begin chewing again.

Zahara had never been selfish. Zahara would have given the last morsel of food to a stranger, even though she was queen. And he would have given everything he had to her. Gladly, without being asked, he had showered her with gifts and tokens of his love. It had been a joy to share with her. And yet this woman now looked at him as if he were a thief for having eaten some candy.

“You have no food in this house,” he said gruffly. “I am supposed to starve because you are too self-involved to remember you have a guest?”

“I fed you yesterday, didn't I?” she snapped back. “And who were you talking to before I walked in?”

“That is my affair.”

“It's my apartment; it is my affair.”

“If you had been here you would have no need to ask me to whom I was speaking. The next time, if you are so concerned, perhaps you should stay home and watch me.”

“Mhmm. Move over, I need a cup. Coffee. I need coffee.”

He moved and watched her lean awkwardly in front of him to reach for a mug off a high shelf. The green dress was only slightly mussed from the night before, but her skin was as perfect as ever. It glowed with life, like if one were to mine it they would fine gold living just beneath the surface. The brown was so warm and inviting, so comforting and soft even though it could flare with fire at his slightest touch. Even now, he was so near he could touch her, so close it would be easy to lean down and sniff the perfume of her hair. The braids were gone and the black strands were straightened somehow, but he still recognized it. He still recognized her scent, her essence. His lungs longed to fill with her perfume.

“Excuse me, genie, are you blocking me from the coffee as payback for what I said about the chocolate? Because that's mine too,” she said, cruelly interrupting his fantasy.

It was only when he stepped back farther that he realized how close he'd come to taking her in his arms. Fortunately, she seemed none the wiser as she poured herself a cup of coffee and sipped it desperately, plopping into a chair at the little kitchen table, stretching and wriggling life into her feet, all the while unaware that he couldn't keep his eyes off her.

“Where have you been?” His voice was too hoarse and he put a touch of anger in it to mask her effect. “I have been waiting for you all night. Three days and you have already squandered one.” His statement generated nothing but a blank look and as she took another sip of coffee with a deadpan expression on her face, he analyzed the look more completely. It was a look he remembered vaguely from a time long ago. A look some of his warriors would wear while they gathered to practice or to battle. A look that would usually come with a ribald story of their intimate activities with their women the evening before. A look of success and acquisition. He glared at her, his face contorted with disgust.

“By all that is sacred and holy, please do not tell me you allowed that imbecile license to your secret garden? Woman, how could you let that pathetic insect of a man defile your body? Your temple? It is like . . . like... a dog taking a piss upon the altar.”

“In all fairness, the defiling went both ways.”

“I do not want to hear this; the absurdity cuts my ears like a thousand blades. You allowed that piece of nothing to take you without the blessing of the Father. You allowed him to use you for your precious gifts while he offered nothing in return. He is not worthy of your charms.”

“Says who? We are engaged to be married, sort of. If he's not worthy yet, I don't know when he ever will be.”

“I have met the cretin; he is not marriage material. Oh, he would marry you, of that I have no doubt. With pomp and circumstance he would put on a show for the world but you have only to look into his beady eyes to see what he lacks. How can a woman of your intelligence and insight become so close to a man and not see that beneath the shell there is nothing of substance? You have so much to offer; why would you give it all to the likes of him?”

“You have no right to judge him. You don't know him,” Violet said, her face pinching with annoyance.

“It is not him I judge; it is you. This man selfishly takes the most sacred and honored from you as if it is his right because you allow it. It is wrong and it I will not pretend otherwise.”

“Good Lord, who asked you to pretend anything? Who even asked you? Now I remember why I never had a roommate. I was in a good mood until I walked in here.”

“Rubbish. You will not convince me in a million years that that toad of a man you call a fiancé could possibly satisfy you properly, any more than you can convince me that in the aftermath you could feel anything other than revulsion.”

“Genie—”

“Perhaps I misjudged you. I suppose I assumed that because you have a business and speak with a sharp tongue that you are more intelligent than you actually are.” He poured himself a cup of coffee as well, taking a big sip. He couldn't sit opposite her not knowing where she had been and whom she had been with. If it weren't for his strong stomach . . .

He turned away and stalked to a window, preferring the freedom to speak to her without having to visualize another man's hands on her or see her big brown eyes smirk with amusement at his pain.

“I am in this time and place to grant you three wishes, an opportunity that will never come again in your lifetime, a gift written about in books and relayed in childhood stories as a fantasy because adults are too jaded and hardened to even entertain the idea that there is a Higher Power and that He has the ability to grant miracles. I am a miracle standing in your home, woman. I have traveled a thousand miles and lived hundreds of years to fulfill a destiny. There is no more personal a relationship than that and if any living being has more of a right to judge you and this situation I would like to see them. I would dare anyone to argue that I do not—”