The land was quiet.

Barseh smiled, mocking the flaccid muscles of tradition. He wore a confident air. All around, from the green peak of Mt. Dahn to the distant rice fields, the beauty of evergreen trees among leafless ones and the brown, pale red, or half-dried foliage gently descending into the orange fields of ripe rice left him awed. Then, a long drum burst into a joyous but satanic beat, breaking the beautiful silence.

Barseh laughed. No: he uttered a high-pitched gleeful sound that surpassed the distant drum, echoing back higher than its original. This was the season - dry season. He jumped, yelled, and laughed again and again until the reverberating echoes mingled, his high-pitched laughing and yelling setting all nature ablaze. People on distant farms stopped to wonder, while the birds and squirrels joined, and it became an exultant earthly symphony.

This was life! Life was perpetual beauty to him. Now he felt relieved and patient. Zaye had said she would come. He would wait until midnight for her.

Once again the afternoon peace returned. Barseh, now back to his own self, lay calmly against a big tree, relaxed and full of confidence. For him, a lanky light-skinned youth, life was action, and this meeting would open more actions. He was patient. Zaye must be near.

Something stirred behind him.

He asked without looking, “Zaye, why have you stayed so long?” The footsteps stopped. He turned and to his surprise, there stood his younger brother, a boy of fourteen years. Tarkpor stood staring at him.

“My big brother, you must please come with me. Let us go to our mother’s kinsmen. They asked me to come beg on their behalf. You cannot go against the ways of our land. Zaye is not the only woman, I beg you my one and only big brother!”

“Torkpor, the great-great granddaughter of our mother’s late great-great-grand uncle is not my sister!” Barseh thundered, glaring at his brother. “Why do other people permit marriage of such a nature, even among us? Zaye is my wife, understand that!”

Frightened and now afraid, Torkpor spoke feebly with tears, “I doubt it. She refuses to elope, and then what will you do? A man cannot leave home for a girl! Come let’s go, please brother,” he ended, sobbing.

Barseh rose slowly to his feet and snapped, “I say no! Now go home. You lack understanding. Go now little brother, I will come later,” he promised. And Torkpor meekly left, wiping his tears.

With a frown once more, Barseh sat down. His face had hardly relaxed when a gentle creaking of breaking twigs began. Zaye wore a troubled countenance, not even returning Barseh’s welcoming smile. Her beauty was stunning. Her sandy color and long black hair beautifully plaited and falling on her shoulders, with her wrinkled neck like carved woodwork, and her finely set buttocks that gyrated at every step as her up shooting breasts titillated seductively. She does not seem ordinary, Barseh thought. People said and believed he was under a spell cast by her genie.

She walked to him, hugged him silently, and quickly sat down. They held hands, sitting in the groove of the tree trunk.

“Barseh, my heart is heavily drenched by the rains of sanctions and my bones are cold,” she spoke at long last, “I am become the trash and the tree by the trail! What can I do?” She burst into uncontrollable sobbing in his arms.

She cried while Barseh held her and gazed around unmoved. It was so still, so pitifully serene. Only the sounds of her agony filled the silence.

“Zaye,” he spoke softly with strength, “I stand in the same position and as a man I now have two alternatives: to seek life elsewhere or to torture ourselves as the tribe says. By separation! Leaving is the best, for we must live according to traditions set by our people in times past, people living under different conditions. Who am I to ask why should we not live as our ancestors did, or to require of tradition rebirth to new realities?”

His voice was passionate as he set his eyes on her face: “What one tradition forbids here, over there another permits. We do not marry cousins of any kind, but other people marry no one else but cousins. We permit the beating of wives. Others see it as less worthy of manhood.”

He was looking in the trees now. Softly, with grave emotion, his voice poured: “What diversity! But for me, I ask you to break for the unknown with me. Let us run away to Firestone where we can learn what we can of life and love.”

Zaye, long reduced to only sobbing “hum, hum, hum,” had all the while been gazing at his eyes with her flowing face. He took strength from her eyes and gushed with excitement. “Let’s go tonight! Life is beautiful, meant to be lived in harmony with love,” he urged.

“Barseh come to your senses!” Zaye’s sharp voice cut through her tears, “and what would become of my poor mother without me around to help? My mother who after ten trips to the Zoe’s bush has only me and a wandering young man to call son? Who will draw her water, cook her food, and in the end bury her? Surely we were born to nourish our parents in their old age. No, my heart-choice, we cannot run away from our duty.” Once again her tears streamed down.

Barseh’s mind was in a whirl. His hope lay in his feelings. Once more he tried. “Zaye, your step-brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts, won’t they understand and take care of her? Besides, we will only go for a time, then come back with a child or two. If we have a family, then nobody will force us apart. Come, come with me!” He held her hands.

They sat on that green hill between rows of trees with their hearts in pieces, while the mountain vibrated with the songs of gray birds. Their eyes held each other’s soul, heart and mind. Without thinking, Zaye jumped into his lap in an intimate embrace. They remained in a passionate tangle, each calling for more. Barseh’s hands shakily groped for the heaving breasts, found them and rocked both of them into more thrilling sensations. They were under their natures, exploring.

“Zaye,” his voice was husky.

“Barseh,” she tenderly cried, “my heart-choice.”

The wind was singing the song of love in the trees to the beats of their hearts, and then a joyous scream heralded the entrance questioning the bird, following by rocking. They lay in each other’s arms, no care of time, no wish to go.

Then Zaye sat up, dressed, and moved a little away from him. “My cousin, I’ve given you the crown of my love. I shall tell my children of you, my only heart-choice, who tradition exiled forever from my bosom.” The tremble in her voice told the trouble in her heart. “I cannot go with you. We must forget our love and live as relations. But if you must go, my blessings shall lighten your travels, and I pray that my memory stays fresh in your mind and give you strength as you strive in life. The same you shall be to me in all future captivities.” She was on her feet now, with her tears flowing down her breasts. She turned and ran down the path.

He was shaken. He had lost. Was it a dream? Out of him burst a cry, “Zaye, oh, Zaye, oh, don’t leave me like this! Zaye, come, Zaye, oh . . .” He cried softly. Without a look back on the place of their love, she had buried him. All he heard was, “Barseh . . . my heart-choice and cousin.”

At long last he got up, called her twice, then picked up his little bundle and began the descent towards Ganta. Harbel was his destination. Zaye has failed him. The village was barren.

Life moved on steadily. One day four months later, while coming from the farm, Zaye and her mother were drawn into great wailing from the town. Somebody was dead! Her heart jumped furiously. The cries had her trembling as they hurried home. She thought about the chilling premonitions she had felt that week.

It was Barseh. He had died in a car accident in Firestone. His uncle told them that while he was going to work on the back of the workers’ truck, as the story went, the truck brakes failed and the truck crashed into a river, killing everyone on board.

She screamed in grief and threw the food on her head away. As she cried stretched out on the ground, her decision was made. She would not heed the Zoe’s advice this time. She would go for her lover, and bring her kinsman back.