Now, three hundred months later, he felt his bitterness fade away. His memory had reawakened his resolve to keep the duties his grandfather assigned him. The man was wise and compassionate, and he would not have given this charge to Okyek Meh Thih unless there was a grave reason. So the Caretaker continued to speak his Plea of Enlightenment to the god who would not hear him.
The gift inside the pouch was a clutch of two eggs, which Okyek Meh Thih tended constantly.
One of them was spoiled but one of them hatched finally, and for weeks he cared for the chick, mashed up larvae and nuts for it to eat, held its quivering body next to him for warmth. The People were delighted with the present. Surely, they said, they had not lost their wise old Caretaker at all.
Okyek Meh Thih smiled at this, but he wasn’t ready to believe that his grandfather was alive and well inside the chick.
It had robust health and became strong, and the People called him Chak with much affection, and so his name was Chak. He became full grown in twenty months, bigger and more vibrant than any of his brothers who flew among the treetops.
Chak would go to the swarms of purple giants who winged among the upper canopy. Sometimes he would join them for days at a time, but always he returned to the Caretaker, and then he would be on the Caretaker’s shoulder hour after hour. Okyek Meh Thih wore shoulder pads of layered hide to protect his flesh from Chak’s giant claws.
He was reminded of the inscription every so often, as he cared for his People and attended to their problems, physical and emotional. Sometimes they would come to him with sleeplessness from bad dreams. As his grandfather, long deceased, had explained to him, this came when Chuh Mboi Aku’s own powerful sleeping mind sent wisps of itself into the minds of those who were sensitive to him.
Okyek Meh Thih had a tool that his grandfather never had. It was a book on psychotherapy. An anthropologist had gifted him with it decades ago. The anthropologist had been a friend, and had perceived the intelligence in Okyek Meh Thih. “You would be a professor if you were to come to America with me.”
“I’m quite happy here and my People need me. Would I and my People be happier if I were to go to America?” Okyek Meh Thih asked the anthropologist.
“No, of course not.”
That settled that. Okyek Meh Thih loved his book and he used his smattering of reading skills to absorb it, until he knew the entire book and his reading skills were much improved.
The book had almost been lost once. It was two years after the anthropologist had visited.
“We saw the film on public television and our hearts went out to you,” said the missionary. She was a stem woman with her hair pulled back and knotted so tightly that her mouth was taut and her tongue snaked out like a lizard’s. The mouth was good for nothing. She couldn’t catch flies with it for all her tongue flicking, and she couldn’t speak any sort of common sense.
“Please explain again what you are here to do for my People,” Okyek Meh Thih asked. “I do not mean to offend, but I cannot understand.”
The missionary took his hand. “We’re here to help you with your plight.”
Okyek Meh Thih thought he knew the English word
“We’re here to raise you up from your misery and filth and to give you the gift of civilization.”
Okyek Meh Thih was rarely so confused. “We have no filth and no misery. Perhaps you have found the wrong People. I understand there are sometimes many Peoples featured on public television.”
“This filth! This misery!” She was becoming exasperated as she pointed to a cooking pot and a sleeping hut. Then she shot an accusing finger at a young woman who was bringing a gourd of water. “This immorality.”
“Ah!” Okyek Meh Thih said. Now he remembered the warnings of the anthropologist. The missionaries would come with visions of what was moral and what was not. Altering the Peoples to meet their own definition of morality was what they strove for. Somehow, a great deal of their efforts revolved around the hiding of the breasts of the women. The People, the missionary pointed out with much indignation, wore no clothes at all.
Indeed, the missionary and her husband and her four young adult helpers went to great lengths to impress upon the Peoples that the human body was a sin. Seeing it was a sin. Allowing it to be seen was a sin.
When the chief missionary became exasperated by the People’s inability to understand her edicts, Okyek Meh Thih stepped in and offered her a compromise as a gesture of politeness. The People would agree to don clothing for one day if the missionaries would go naked for one day. In this way, both Peoples would share their experience and develop greater respect for one another.
