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The old man's eyes were closed.

"He had a dream," another boy prompted.

The old man opened his eyes. "You see, Rani had thought his dreams were real, just as the world is. And one night he dreamed that Rania was wading in the Lir and she put in her hand and pulled out a fish. He called to her to show him the fish, but she ran away. He chased her, and she dropped it back into the river.

"When he woke up, Rani said to Rania, 'Why wouldn't you show me the fish?' And she said--"

"What fish?" the children chorused.

"Why, just now, we were wading in the Lir..."

"We were not!"

"But I saw it--"

"You had a dream!" they shouted.

"Rani thought that perhaps it wasn't true. Perhaps she was hiding the fish and didn't want to tell him. He got angry. He shouted, 'I'll get the truth from you!' and he hit her."

"Then what happened?"

"Did she run away?"

"Oh, yes." The old man watched a yellow worm crawl across his finger. "She ran away and lived somewhere else for a long time."

"Did he miss her?"

"He did." The man shook his head. He was a widower. "So he went to look for her. He looked a long time, but no, he couldn't find her. Then one day as he was searching, he saw a man dressed in white with golden skin and golden hair. Rani didn't know what to say. He hadn't known there were other men at all. The stranger spoke to him. He said, 'Behold your brother.' Rani was surprised. Behold your brother. So the Mother Goddess had two sons. He said, 'My name is Rani.' The stranger said, 'My name is Zatoye.'"

The old man paused to rub his chin. The children leaned forward.

"'Zatoye, have you seen a beautiful lady hereabouts?' And Zatoye said, 'Rania has come to live with me.'

"Rani sat down. He thought about it. Then he got up and he said, 'Brother, will you ask her to come back to me?' Zatoye just walked away. Rani thought he was angry, but the next day Rania came back to his house. She was pregnant. When the child came she went away. She came back without it. Rani asked her where it was. She said, 'I gave it to Zatoye.' She had another and gave it to Rani. Then another for Zatoye. This went on for some time, and Rani worried. Why should she stay at his house if she had his golden brother, Zatoye? Sooner or later she would leave him for good. Zatoye's children would have a mother and his children wouldn't. He said to Rania, 'Ask Zatoye to come and see me.' When he came, Rani said, 'My wife is sure to leave me for you some day.'"

"Zatoye said, 'Why are you complaining? You have a wife. My children and I are alone, but I always send her back to you.'

He studied the children's faces. "So it was Zatoye who sent her back. She wanted to leave him, but Zatoye sent her back. Rani couldn't stand it. He followed Zatoye home, and killed him and all his children."

The children sat quiet. Finally, one asked, "Was that the end of the Golden People?"

"No, because that same night Rania had another child, one of Zatoye's. She went to bring it to him, but she saw what had happened, so she ran away into the forest. So Rani lost both his brother and his wife."

"And the Golden People?"

"Well, the little son that Rania carried away grew up and came back. One of Rani's daughters went away to be his wife. And half their children were golden, and some of their grandchildren."

"Are there Golden People now?"

"Every once in a while a child is born golden. They come and take the child in its seventh year, or thereabouts. It happened once in this village, long ago." He looked up into the leaves of the fan-nut tree. "The Golden People live in the forest. They don't work, they walk among the trees all day, singing. They wear flowers in their hair and dress all in white. In summertime, the birds flitter around them, just amazed at things so beautiful. And in the wintertime they live in big castles, stone houses, in the mountains. They fly on wings so fine you can't see them, far above us. If you look very close in the sky, you might see one. People take them for birds."

"There goes one!" a boy shouted.

All day while Berthe scrubbed the house, blankets, clothing, pot and dishes and tools, she pondered Rania, the spirit caught between two beauties. Days in the field with her husband, nights in the forest with the Golden One. So was she caught, Berthe reflected, except that instead of a golden demigod, she had a fat old herbalist and the memory of Akiva.

At noon, Hovenun brought her a pot of gruel and beer to wash it down, then went back to the shrine where the old folks still sat in the shade of the house and surrounding trees, cooking the evening's feast and talking about the old days while the babies crawled among them. Older children staggered to and fro outside Berthe's house with ever more water. Spring grit was washed away, then winter mold and dust from autumn. Finally everything was clean and the utensils and grannies were restored to the houses, the tools and animals to the barns. The men were sent home while the women and children bathed in the stream.

The children's bathing was accomplished with noise and splashing as they tried to sink each other. Sometimes one went out too far and had to be rescued by a mother wading in deep. Berthe and Meta splashed their babies, patted them dry and left them with Morgen's eldest, who had had her head held under too long and climbed up on the bank to recover. When they were all tired, the older women came from upstream where they had been washing, singing and looking out of the corners of their eyes at one another's breasts and stretch marks. Everyone was de-loused with sour mash liquor and they rinsed and went home reeking of cleanliness, while the men came to bathe.

When the children had been put to bed, people gathered at the shrine, where the food awaited them. Berthe went with some other women to the brewmaster's house while others arranged the roast fish and fowl, loaves of bread, wild fruits and nuts. A shout greeted the first keg of beer. Morgen and Ube followed Berthe with the second keg between them, chanting, "Midsummer! Midsummer!"

The men came up from the stream, chanting the names of crops and sprites and Fatayad to the great drum's beat. The drummer's daughters, the flutists, ran to eat and assemble for the dance.

Half the people fell straightaway on the feast. Men and women capered in the grass to their own singing. The flutists siezed handfuls of barley cooked with chunks of meat, mugs of beer and slices of bread, crammed their mouths full, gulped and began to play. Morsels clung to their cheeks and hair, but in the wealth of food there no one noticed. They piped furiously. Berthe got up to dance while the others sat down to eat.

"Here's to the fat-assed priests!" a man shouted.

"Oh, have some shame. Never seen one in your life," a woman told him.

"I pay taxes, don't I? But what I can get in my stomach between now and then is mine!"

"That's my boy!" Hex called out. "Don't let a bit go to waste."

Berthe sat a little apart from them, eating to her heart's content. She stopped to ladle out a bowl of soup for Hovenun.

"Thanks, daughter. Fetch me some rye. Put a little water in it." Receiving her cup, she went back to the fire.

Hovenun had never called her "daughter" before. Berthe lay back and watched the small bright clouds scurry to the west horizon while wide sheetlike ones spread slowly out behind them, and listened to Meta giggling over a joke with her husband's brother. Soon the dancing would begin. Gelukish would dance to her, mother of his children, in front of the whole village. She watched him set into the meat, the bread, pudding, beer and then the meat again, serious, packing his stomach. When someone spoke to him, he would stop and grin, blush a little and go back to eating.

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CONTINUE.....................

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INDEX