CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #3
They loved with reckless abandon, untethered by the social norms to which I was accustomed.
I was struck by the beauty of their incredible hospitality and the openness with which they lived and loved.
My emotions felt raw and close to the surface.
These were the most warm, kind-hearted, generous people one could ever hope to meet and their loss of inhibition made me feel comfortable with my own insecurities and shortcomings. I felt free.
Words like family, or community, didn’t quite capture the essence of what they represented.
It was this pure, unpolluted, earthy and natural sense of belonging, and they offered it to me—uninhibited.
I grasped for the right words as I sat watching them dance.
The torches alight in the yard emitted a soft orange glow.
Jahnu found his way to me and sat. He was affected with the same energy and nudged me with his shoulder, again and again, until his weight was knocking me over, making me laugh. I playfully pushed him away.
“You are very beautiful tonight, Sid-de-nee. This color…it makes your eyes look like the ocean.”
I blushed under his compliments.
“Why do you not dance?”
“Me? Oh, no. I can’t dance like that.”
“Like what? How do they dance in America?”
“Much…slower and not so…wild,” I said, as I watched several Hundi swing their heads near the ground and back up, over and over again.
“Show me,” he rose, offering me his hand and I took it before I realized that I had agreed.
We stood facing each other, the beat of the drum and jerky tribal singing finding its way slowly to my hips. I danced, timidly, moving my hips back and forth, back and forth, until I had Jahnu laughing at my miserable demonstration.
“That is horrible!”
“I told you, I’m not very good!” I started doing the Macarena, looking every bit the white girl I was, in a sea of melanin-rich skin.
“What is that?” Jahnu’s eyebrows were a personality in themselves, and he had me laughing at his dramatic expressions.
I didn’t feel embarrassed, even though I knew I looked ridiculous.
I felt…free, caught up with the courage brought on by the boisterous environment.
Was this who I really was, away from the weight of responsibility and the wearisome monotony of life?
I liked who I was when I was around Jahnu.
When he wasn’t inciting me in an argument, that is.
I felt more comfortable in my skin when I was around him.
I wondered, a bit envious, at his ability to put everyone at ease.
I wished I could feel this way all the time, but life had demanded something else from me.
I started to do the disco dance. Jahnu just stood, hands on his hips, a humorous frown on his painted face.
“No. No, no…you are too stiff, here,” and he grasped my waist and brought me close to him and we danced, laughing, losing ourselves to the cadence of the drums, until my hair stuck to the back of my neck and temples.
He turned me around, my back to his chest, and grabbed my wrists, showing me the dance of his people. “Go up, like this, and then down like this,” he whispered softly in my ear. I was not very graceful, and we stumbled over each other’s feet, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Soon, though, the mood shifted from fun and light-hearted, to a heady state of earnestness as he wrapped his arms around me in a backward embrace. His warmth enveloped me like it had in the cave and I could feel the wild beat of his heart on my back, or was that my own heart?
We swayed like that for a while and I relished it with a sigh, closing my eyes, leaning my head back against his chest, and relaxing my body to move through the humid air against his.
I felt safe here in his arms, cared for in a way that melted my defenses.
It was never something I thought I needed.
I’d always done a good job of taking care of myself and everyone around me.
But I think, maybe, at the core of every overachieving, hyper-independent woman is a deep desire for someone else to take care of them.
Just once. And Jahnu had done it continually.
I felt the side of his face press against my temple.
His lips were right at my ear and I thought he might whisper something by the way he pushed in closer.
But instead, he stopped and gently released me, creating distance between us.
I turned to look at him, the previous light-hearted smile had vanished under his dark countenance.
“Goodnight, Sid-de-nee,” he said abruptly, turning to go.
“Wait, Jahnu,” I reached for his hand before he left me on the dance floor.
“I was wrong…about your tribe…about Hundi…about you. I know you just want what’s best for them. Now, I see why.”
He held my gaze until doing so seemed painful for him, and then turned and left me.
I felt…stunned, and a bit rejected.
As the crowd dispersed, I walked myself back toward my treehouse, feeling confused after the events of the day.
Strangely, I’d planned to play the game of cooperative captive in order to win over the chief and his people—to show them I could be trusted and gain some influence over what happened to me.
Oddly, I found I acted myself into a new way of feeling about the tribe and its leader, and I was totally and irrevocably undone.