Chapter 9
Helena returned to the camp up the Uluguru Mountain after one week on the shore and when she arrived on top of the foggy summit, she felt right at home. She did not miss the comfort of a hotel. Her tent was where she was happy. Besides, Helena felt that this particular way of life resembled what she was reading and translating in Laura's diaries. She was gathering tremendous information from the translation on the way of life of these people, their political system and their civilization. Some of the script was in very bad condition and she felt she was missing some of the pages. It was now summer and the mountains were oscillating between a very hot and dry climate and more cool and humid days. She reveled in the lines written by this woman such a long time ago.
"I walk around the grounds and I wonder if we will ever be able to make a decent life here. When we arrived, it seemed to be the spring. The first few weeks were chaotic, with, of course, the government doing nothing to provide the people with food and drinkable water. No surprise there. The military, thanks to Bill Adama, organized rations to be distributed among the people and the Pegasus engineers set up a water filtration system to filter water from the river. Seeds, held in storage on board of a few fleet ships, were brought down on the planet and planted on the sides of the alluvial valley, out of the potential flooding zone, where the soil was believed to be the richest. Still the weather was cold and when seedlings started to grow, we lost them due to a couple of nights below freezing. Food shortage became an every day problem and we began foraging for edible fruits and roots. We learned to stay away from certain plants, as some people got sick eating anything in sight. I do not know how we would have survived these early months without the care of Admiral Adama and his crew, constantly shuttling supplies and food down from the ships still in orbit. It was hard, but despite the hardship, more people wanted to move down on the planet, and very soon most of the ships in orbit were almost completely deserted except for skeleton crews maintaining the equipment and rotating on the planet surface. The axis of the planet was slightly more tilted than Caprica, and despite our fairly low latitude, one would expect brutal variations between winters and summers. The higher latitudes unfortunately would be unsuitable for permanent settlement, too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. These extreme variations in temperature would create massive storms, not the best choice for a planet to start civilization again. But maybe this was a respite, a break from life on the space ships, a way to learn to be human again."
"Weeks have gone by. We harvested our first crop of wheat. People have learned to use every little scrap of supplies and recycle everything. People have to use the hay and fibers of local plants for variety of uses. They have harvested plant fibers and made some linen fabrics. There are a few animals here, little rodents, which bear no resemblance to the animals we were used to on Caprica. There are little birds too. I call them birds because they fly, but they are definitely alien in appearance. I suppose some species will evolve and end up looking alike in similar environments. We are reminded every day how foreign this planet is. This is not our home. It is just a rest stop along the way. Calling this place 'New Caprica' is an offense to the memory of our destroyed planet, with its luscious fields, forests and wild life, and agreeable climate. But people needed the fresh air and needed to feel real sunshine. So did I. I had forgotten everything about real life, a life spent on living instead of surviving. For now, the people are happy, despite the hardship. They are content to be down here and more are settling here as every day passes. With wheat available, we are now eating real food, as opposed to these extracted algae nutrients, which have been sustaining us for the past months. Real bread, baked in a makeshift brick wood oven. People would just give anything for that. They are happy."
Helena took her laptop on the hill overlooking the African plain. She sat down, on a big rock over the ledge looking down at the valley. Clouds, coming from the east, were drifting rapidly by, projecting on the bright green hills a show of light spots and alternating shadows. The light was strong and it made the colors glow as in an impressionist painting. 'Cezanne would have been happy in Africa', she mused, 'he would have loved the colors'. She wondered how the planet of Laura looked like and if it had such a beautiful landscape. As Helena felt the sun warm her skin and listened to the birds around her she continued with the translation.
"It is the summer now, a revival, with renewed spirits, a new birth. School is filling up, as people bring in more and more children and we are quite busy. I have trained Maya and she is almost completely independent in her teaching. We take turns taking care of her baby Isis, who is very dear to me. I swore to protect this baby, a new life full of promises. I love her like my own child.
I get paid in clothes, supplies and food. Life is getting easier now that we can harvest crops and the weather is nicer. Some people have moved farther inland, where the game is more abundant and the tents are sheltered by taller trees. I have lots of time to myself. I cannot remember the last time I had so much free time, certainly not when I was president. Still I have to take care of myself, make sure that I have roots and plants to make myself something to eat. Often parents bring me some fresh baked bread and those who hunt bring in meat. I have set my private space in the tent with a stove to cook, a place to eat and sleep, a mere mattress on top of a rather small cot, a leather chair salvaged from colonial one, many rugs and a place to wash. We obviously do not have running water and I gather clean water from the pump each morning in a big jug that weights a ton. I keep some to drink and some to wash. There are no showers or bathrooms here. People wash in the river and bring their clothes there. The men have dug a hole away from the camp, where people dump their latrine buckets, which they cover up when it gets filled up. It reminds me of those old paintings I have seen of ancient times on Caprica, before our civilization had acquired technology that would bring comfort to everyone. Engineers of Pegasus are building showers, because they want to make sure that we would be comfortable when the weather turns cold and nobody can bathe in the river anymore. Some are manufacturing soap from animal fat and lime water, they have extracted from ashes. I got myself a block of soap. It is more precious than gold to me. Someone purified it and put fragrances extracted from flowers in it. It is delightful. It was a gift from one parent to take care of her child's who could not learn to read: Our very first educational success. There is so much joy in seeing the light in the eyes when a child finally read his first sentence. Some persons have set farms on the slopes, cultivating the land. Others have found a nice big forest on the east and got some wood to build more permanent dwellings. For months, we never stopped fighting and despite all of the hard work, it feels like a vacation. We never stopped trying to survive and now it is the summer and the weather is warmer, the wind is soft and the water on the shore refreshing. I started enjoy life again, like a human being, like the woman I once was before everything happened, before the cancer, before the attacks, before the death of my family. That woman, I thought, had stopped existing and I had kept her buried deep inside me, unreachable, because life just became too tough. But now, with the sun and the breeze, with the warm bread and honey, with the cool water of the river splashing on my body, tanned by the sun, I felt that I was coming back to life. After school, in the afternoon, I often retreat to my tent and read over and over again the same two books, which Bill gave me. I have started to write more too. At night, I often sit outside and look at the stars, trying to find the little point of light that is the Galactica, wandering across the sky on its orbit among the fleet ships. I have made a habit to come out and look for it when the weather allows it. Each night they pass across the sky north to south right after dusk and later again in the night. I miss Bill, our long conversations, our friendship, this affection developing. I am not the president anymore. It has been months since we saw the cylons. We have lived on this planet now longer than on those ships after the attacks. Maybe it is time. I would like to live a normal life as a woman."
"Yesterday, the weather was particularly nice and I took a walk up the hills, away from the camp. I have missed the nature so much, being trapped on those ships like inside tin cans. I took a book with me, and some food to eat. Up the hills, behind the tallest one, a good thirty minutes' walk from here, I found a mountain lake fed by a very pure spring. The water was as clear as glass and delicious to drink. I sat on a flat stone by the edge by the spring listening to the gurgle of the stream on the rocks as it was emptying in the little lake. I let my feet hang in the cold water and the stream was like a caress on my skin. The water was so refreshing and tempting. The afternoon had been hot and I was sweaty from the hike. Since no one was there and I was completely alone, I took off my clothes and went swimming. I cannot remember the last time I swam before that. It was absolutely delightful, a re-awakening of my senses, dulled by the life on the space ships, where water had been rationed.
The water gliding over my body was cooling it off, but it was more than that. It was as if my soul was getting purified by it, as if the past was washed away, the bad deeds I had done, the anxiety, the negativity, the pain, the horror, the terror, the hurt and death of war. I had been stained by it. I had been marked by the decisions that I had made as president under the pressure of survival and the necessities of war. It had been with me, almost like tattooed on my skin, I could see it in the mirror in my eyes. But now, the water was washing it all away. And naked, I let myself being taken by the stream, purified of my sins, cleaned and alive again.
I used to swim on Caprica, a lot, mostly in the evenings after work. The water always was soothing to me, taking away my pain or my worries. The pool was always chlorinated to an extreme and while the exercise was relaxing, it never had such an effect on me. But here, the water was pure and I let myself float and looked at the blue sky, which was turning yellow in the sunset. It was beautiful. Gone the presidential responsibilities, gone the cancer, gone the mask of authority, I used to put on my face, I was Laura again. Just Laura. I did not need to pretend anymore, I came out of the water and the air was still very warm. I laid down on the flat rock and let the sun already low dry my skin. I closed my eyes and felt my body alive, the warm breeze on my skin like an intimate caress, the smooth rock under my back, the blades of grass tickling my legs, the odd singing of these funny birds, the sun behind my closed eyelids, all of those evoked sensations, which I had forgotten. When the sun did set, I put my clothes back on, ate a little, and started downhill. I would keep in my mind often that wonderful afternoon."
Helena closed the laptop as the sun was setting behind Mount Kilimanjaro far out on the horizon, its peak glowing in the setting sun. The valley was full of mist, as the heat of the day was rising from the grounds, creating a landscape of a breathtaking beauty. She let her gaze wander on the plains, listening to the birds chirping in the dusk and the distant cry of animals, which she could not identify. When it was almost completely dark, Helena made her way back to her tent and the wind started to blow, as it did almost every night as the cool humid air rose from the Eastern slopes of the mountains. She thought of Laura and her peaceful retreat by the lake. She thought of this woman, who after months of war, was starting to live again. She settled on her bed, wrapped in blankets and opened up her laptop to continue the translation.
To be continued... Keep on reviewing! Due to a glitch in the system, the reviews do not seem to post publicly, but I do get email notifications. The issue has been taken with the site administrator and hopefully will be resolved soon. Sorry for any inconvenience.