Page 53 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
He lifted his gaze, saw her, took the two swallows and gestured her closer. “What do you wish to ask?”
Kateri scooted close, sat down with her knees almost touching his and pretended to think. Actually, shewasthinking; thinking she couldn’t ask what she wanted to ask, which was, “Why doesn’t my mama love me?” Instead she said, “Tell me the legend of the frog god.”
Uncle Bluster narrowed his rheumy brown eyes. “I’ve already told you. So many times.”
“Again. Please. I love it when you tell me.”
“I wish all the kids listened like you. Showed some respect for the traditions. Learned about their collective pasts. Modern kids. No respect. They don’t respect me.” His voice rose. “Do you know I could kill you with one hand?”
“I know. You’re tough and you’re dangerous.” She touched the bottom of the bottle, urging it toward his mouth. She watched him swallow, wipe his mouth, and she asked, “When was the frog god born?”
Uncle Bluster belched; some of the belligerence eased out of him and he settled into the role of honored storyteller. In a sonorous voice, he began, “When the world was born, a giant monster grew in the depths of the ocean. He was the frog god, fearsome, dark and green, living in a universe lit only by fluorescent fishes that darted out of his reach, then died when he sucked them into his gullet. Yet the frog god hungered, for light, for heat… for love. He sought a mate. She spurned him, ran from him.”
“She became one with the sun, right, Uncle Bluster?”
He broke off and in an irritated voice, he asked, “Who’s telling this story? You? Or me?”
“You are. You are!”
“All right.” He settled to the task again. “She became one with the sun. For centuries he brooded, growing more and more wrathful about the deprivation he suffered. Finally he pushed his great legs against the ocean floor and leaped toward the surface, seeking light and heat! Seeking her and the sun! When he did, the earth shuddered, the ocean rose. Trees fell, waves pounded the shore.”
Kateri caught her breath, imagining the cataclysm of earthquake and tsunami.
“In our lands, the harbor filled. Boats were swept away. Men, women, children disappeared, never to be seen again, swallowed by the angry blue boil of the sea. They were a sacrifice to the frog god’s hunger. Yet”—Uncle Bluster paused, his arms lifted, his eyes on the horizon—“he failed. His mate escaped him. He sank once more into the depths. The sun continued its trek across the sky. Today and every day, he hungers. Soon the frog god will jump again.”
“What about me?” Kateri shifted. Leaves and needles crackled beneath her bottom. “Tell me about me!”
“The frog god is a great god, yet he can live only at the bottom of the ocean. He is imprisoned by his monstrous size, his inhumanity… by a god loftier than himself. Far and faint, beyond the drumbeat of his heart, he can hear a woman’s cry of defiance, of survival. She goes to the shore. She bathes her feet. She is not his love, yet he takes her, swallows her, kills her, disgorges her, making her a god of prescience and strength, an emissary on land of his greatness…”
“Is that me?”
“To every generation, a goddess is born whom the frog god loves… and destroys. Once upon a time, I foretold that your mother was that goddess. But she gave herself in love to a mortal man, she drowned herself in liquor and desperation.” His voice dropped to a mere whisper. “Be careful, Kateri Kwinault. Don’t go to the shore. Don’t swim in the ocean.”
“I have before and I’ve never seen the frog god.”
“You will.”
Kateri leaned forward eagerly. “Because I’m special, Uncle Bluster?”
He took a long pull of vodka, taking the level dangerously close to the three-quarter mark. “Don’t ask me. I’m only a drunk old mercenary sitting under a tree waiting for the day when the ocean rises and sweeps me away.”
With absolute certainty, Kateri said, “Uncle Bluster, the frog god will never take you. You keep his legend alive.”
Uncle Bluster’s gaze examined Kateri, and he saw too much. “Why are you really here? What is your real question?”
She shifted again, uncomfortable, hot, embarrassed. “I already asked—”
“You are special. But not so special I can’t tell when you lie.”
Kateri’s hands slid down over her belly. She had the cramps. She was bleeding. This was gross, uncontrollable—and the first time. She wanted her mother to be with her. But her mother was sleeping it off. Kateri burst out, “I want my mother! I needed her last night and she… she was in the bar, she was drunk, she was with a man, she was laughing. She doesn’t care about me!”
“Why did you want her, child?”
Kateri crossed her arms over her budding breasts. “I’m not a child anymore.”
“Oh.” He nodded. He understood. “No. You’re not.” Lifting his bottle, he took a long pull. “I remember the day you were born. I held your tiny body in my hands and saw you had the frog god’s eyes. Now you have stepped across the line and become a woman. Here.” He offered the bottle. “I guess you’re old enough now.”
Horror. Fury. Indignation. “No!”
