Karass by Iván Brave

After piling the paper bills from his last passenger and placing the square photograph of his wife on top of the money, the ferryman lights a match. He lowers it slowly, shaking. But just then a breeze blows out the flame, leaving nothing behind but a thin waft of smoke. There are no more matches, unfortunately. Now his hut—earthy, with a cot, a bucket, and a small shrine inside—feels emptier than ever.

The ferryman steps out, mumbling, to await the next traveler.

There appears a woman on a royal litter. She has a bunny in her lap. No men carry her litter, however. She is hovering. The woman, even from afar, shines with moon-like radiance in the darkness of night. The ferryman has never seen or heard of her before, but he can tell she is immortal. When she steps off her floating transportation, the bunny hops off her lap and scurries into the woods. The goddess—lifting the bottom of her sapphire laced robe—greets the ferryman with a bow.

“You are the one I have heard so much about,” she says, in her native tongue with words so gentle that they remind the ferryman of falling leaves. “There aren’t enough clouds tonight for me to cross this river alone; would you take me in your boat?”

The ferryman nods, figuring that her falling-leaves words mean she wants to cross.

They launch.

“My name is Chang’e,” the lady says. “The goddess of the moon.”

The ferryman just rows and lets the goddess speak.

“Do you know why I travel? Oh, never mind. You don’t know what I’m saying. But I will tell you anyway, if only to remind myself.”

Reaching over her head, she draws a pair of hair sticks made of ebony, shakes her hair loose, and casts the jeweled accessories into the water. The water is darker than the sticks. They cause the tiniest ripples.

“I was born in a land far away,” she says.

The ferryman senses pain in her voice. It makes her sound honest, but distant.

“My husband once brought home an elixir of immortality, told me to hide it at all costs. We promised never to drink it. Of course, it did not play out that way.

“Long ago, the world was scorched by ten suns. No food could grow. Imagine, no wheat, no barley, no rice. So, my husband, our country’s greatest archer, shot all but one of the ten suns. The one that sets at night and rises in the morning is the one he left.”

A tear drop smears the powder under her eyes. She wipes her cheek, revealing the skin underneath.

“The gods, as a gift to my husband, presented him with the elixir, so he could rise to their level of immortality. He was grateful but dared not drink the potion alone, that is, not without me. And yet there was only enough for one person. So, we promised each other never to drink it, not until we found a second dose. But then, one day, while my husband was out fighting a war, misfortune befell us. No secret is kept long in my province—a wicked man broke in with the intention of drinking the gods’ drink. He demanded I hand it over. He hit me and beat me. I was ravaged, destroyed, but not defeated. As he ransacked the castle, I got to the bottle first and drank the liquid. Enraged, this evil man found me and thrust a sword into my belly. But I was not harmed. I was immortal. And soon the gods whisked my body into the air, up to the moon, where I became its goddess. If you look hard enough, you might even see my rabbit there, along its curved, shadowy mask.”

The opposite riverbank crunches under the bottom of the patina-colored dinghy. They land on the other side.

“I haven’t shared that story with many people,” Chang’e says, gazing over the path that lay before her. “Not since I returned to earth. I came back to apologize to my husband, for drinking the potion alone without him. But I never found him. He died during the war long ago.”

The goddess cries. The ferryman wishes he could comfort her but says nothing. She turns up and—with a sudden lightness the ferryman hasn’t seen yet—she smiles. The gray-eared bunny has reappeared on her lap.

“It’s silly, I know,” she says, petting her bunny rabbit. “My only regret is not having died with him. I should never have broken our promise. If I could, I would vomit the potion and ask for forgiveness. Do you think my husband would—Hey!”

The bunny hops onto the silt. He scurries off on this other side.

Chang’e and the ferryman exchange glances. It has been a long time since a passenger reminded the ferryman of his wife in this natural way. She is now looking back, over her shoulder.

“They were right,” she says, returning to the ferryman. “Seeing you, I feel better.”

She bows and offers him mooncakes. She pulls out a bag of them nuzzled in her bosom from the parting of her robe.

“My people offer these to me every mid-autumn. It is all I have to give.”

The ferryman accepts the bag and returns the bow.

Chang’e walks out towards her new horizon and vanishes.

∞

The water is darker now than it has been all night. The ferryman can’t see anything. Tonight is the night of the new moon. Between strokes, he pulls a mooncake from the bag, which glows in the darkness, lighting the way. He takes a bite, then pockets the rest.

He crunches five different kinds of nuts. He tastes loads of butter and gnaws at a clump of sugar. His mouth tingles, and his forehead grows light. There are enough spongy cakes to perform a proper sacrifice at the shrine. He always burns what the passengers give him. He never stores their payment anywhere.

The ferryman is back at his shanty home, tossing the bag, along with the last photograph of his wife and the pile of money. He wants to burn it completely, but he must wait until the morning, when the trading post down the river opens, and he can buy another box of matches.

After tossing the cakes over the money and the photograph, the ferryman cocks the khadi hat on his head, leans against a wooden post, and awaits the next traveler.

A man, wrapped in a teal and auburn animal hide, held by a hemp rope, emerges from the forest. The ferryman recognizes the stranger—taller and stronger than any he has ever seen before or since—whose face radiates in the night like that of a divine king.

“Greetings,” the tall strong man announces. “I thought I might leap over this river but figured to ask you for a ride.”

The ferryman doesn’t speak his language but does admire its resonating tone, as one admires the sound of a guitar without knowing how to play it. The ferryman anticipates the man’s following question.

“May we cross? I have failed in my mission. I want to return home.”

They aren’t halfway across the river before the passenger recounts his tale.

“Remember me?” the man asks. “My name is Gilgamesh. I crossed this river not too long ago, though, you were much younger than, striking even, muscular. Now your hair is as thin as spider webs, and your arms as flimsy as ivy. Yet you row with style. This I admire. My best friend, he too had style . . . before he died.”

Gilgamesh puts a bicep to his eyes, to cover his tears.

“The gods presented him to me as an equal, we became best friends, but as quickly as he came into my life, they tore him away.”

The ferryman remembers the passenger having been particularly dreary the day they met. He still seems sad somewhat, but reformed somehow, despite his sobs and stutters. The half-naked king pops his neck and stretches his arms.

“Aye, ferryman, I must have told you, for I tell it to all who listen: I could not bear the loss of my brotherly friend, Enkidu. His death brought me closer to my own. So, I ran away in agony from the great-walled city of Uruk, at the mouth of the world’s fertile crescent, with the hope of meeting a certain outcast, a hermit whom had been granted immortality. In search of him, I traveled to the end of the world. I did meet him. He told me his story. Told me it was impossible to conquer death, that his victory had been a fluke. He challenged me to stay awake for six days and seven nights, to prove that not even I, a king, a half-god, couldn’t conquer sleep, much less death. He was right. I fell asleep on the third day.

“When I woke up, he handed me this parting gift, a magical herb. Look, it glimmers. Apparently, it turns old age to youth.”

Gilgamesh draws from inside his animal hide a plant that looks gangly, thorny, with flowers of five purple petals. The herb seems small in his hand, compared to his thick wrist and large forearms.

“I was stronger than my best friend,” Gilgamesh says. “But I was not a better man than him. Have you ever used a friend to feel better about yourself?”

Gilgamesh plucks a violet petal, then another, dropping them into the water.

Meanwhile, the ferryman keeps rowing, as Gilgamesh leaps off the vessel just before the boat rides into the pebbled mushy silt on the opposite bank.

Knee deep in water, Gilgamesh smiles.

“What I liked most about my best friend was growing old with him. Now that he’s gone . . . Ah. Fuck it. Thanks, he says, for this second, return ride.”

The ferryman figures the passenger won’t pay him, given the rags he is in, but to his surprise the giant offers him the herb of youth as compensation.

“It’s all I have,” Gilgamesh says. “Unless you want this.” He unties the knot holding up his animal hide, revealing the fullness of his massive body, but the ferryman waves his arms at the giant in a gesture of no thanks.

“Have it your way.” Gilgamesh gives the ferryman a thumbs up, then takes a glorious inhale. The two part ways.

The ferryman considers tossing the herb, worthless to him, overboard. He does like how the violet petals shine in the dark, though. It reminds him of the boxthorn plants he and his wife used to pick. The memory pleases him as it comes to mind. But pains him too. Instead of sacrificing the herb to the river, the ferryman decides to burn it at his shrine, along with the cakes, the money, and the photograph of his wife. Alas, he has to wait until the morning, when he can buy matches at the trading post.

By the time the ferryman returns to his shanty, there is a visitor is there waiting.

∞

It is almost dawn. The shanty sparks with dawn’s early light. The ferryman knows he should sleep. The days this time of year are terribly hot for him. He much prefers the still night, the gentle breeze, the light of the stars: he enjoys riding between riverbanks in darkness, helping travelers cross this obstacle. Rowing is all he has left; it is the center of his world.

Thinking these and other thoughts, the ferryman approaches his patient passenger, standing by the hut. This someone, the ferryman soon recognizes: it is the ferryman’s patron saint Yamaraja, the ultimate ferryman, the god of the underworld.

The ferryman rushes to greet the god, drops to his knees, and gropes the immortal’s bare feet with hands and kisses. They speak in a tongue reserved for sacred writings and prayer, a language they both share.

“Yamaraja, dear Yamaraja, the greatest of all ferrymen, he who carries the spirits of men to the underworld, he who took my wife’s soul from me, but never her memory—praise, praise be to you! May you take my soul if it is time!”

The ferryman lauds the god, but the god does not swell with pride. Instead, Yamaraja blushes red, despite his blue skin, and lifts the humble ferryman up to his feet. The god bows his head before the man.

“You credit me too much,” says Yamaraja, still bowed. “I did not take your wife, you know that. I only carry the souls of men who avoid death. She did not fear her end. Nor do you. Thus, I am not here for you.”

As the god speaks, the sounds of his syllables are well-defined and intoned like the chiming of musical bells. The ferryman is in awe, trying hard to keep his mouth closed. He remembers growing up with images of Yamaraja everywhere, always carrying the souls of men who feared death into the underworld, always riding on a creature.

“Where is your buffalo?” asks the ferryman.

“I let him go,” says the god of the underworld. “Eventually, we all must let go.”

“How can I let go?” asks the ferryman. “It is all I desire.”

“Pretty ironic, wouldn’t you say?” Yamaraja laughs. “One cannot desire to let go, just as one cannot hold on forever. No matter how hard or loose your grip, all hands do tire, even godly hands. No need to shout or force anything. Letting go happens on its own, just as rivers flow from spring source to ocean home.”

Yamaraja says things the ferryman has thought about all his life, nothing new; and yet what the ferryman is surprised to find is just how the god darts his three-eye gaze about as he speaks, as if he wished not to bother the ferryman with his stare. In fact, he must be avoiding something, perhaps to ask the ferryman a favor. I must offer to help him cross.

The ferryman points an up-turned palm to his rowboat. Yamaraja accepts. And the two step towards the wooden pier. But before climbing aboard, however, the bud of another idea sprouts inside the ferryman’s mind. A trick he had always wanted to play on the immortal patron saint of all ferrymen. It is said that any water touched by a god turns into a potion that grants its drinker enlightenment. . . .

“Wait,” says the human ferryman, a gleam in his eye. “You must have traveled a long way to reach this river. Allow me to wash your feet. It is said around here that you broke the curse on a princess turned to stone by touching her with your feet. Now, if you enter my boat, I am afraid you will turn it into a beautiful woman. But then what would I do for a living? So, please, allow me to wash your feet.”

Yamaraja cranes his godly neck over his hobbled toes. He concedes to the wash most humbly and quietly puts his four palms together for a bow.

The ferryman draws water from the river into his previously empty bucket and invites Yama into his shanty. He offers his cot to the god to sit on while his feet are scrubbed.

Yamaraja does not speak while his feet are washed. The ferryman notices, or believes to notice, how pleased the god is with the shrine, darting his three eyes between the pile of money, the mooncakes, and the last photograph of his wife placed there. The god compliments the ferryman’s devotion; the man accepts the compliment; they share stories.

As they talk, and the ferryman scrubs, the bucket of water heats up. The rumors had been true. By the end of the scrub the water is hot enough to steep white tea.

Just then Yama asks: “What is your name, ferryman?”

“They call me Karass.”

“Karass?” repeats the god. “What does Karass mean?”

“My father used to say Karass was like a perfect net whose strings never touched. It means a group of people who work together to fulfill a divine purpose, without ever knowing one another.”

Yamaraja looks up through the crack in the shanty’s roof, at the first rays of a new day, then pulls his cleaned feet out of the bucket.

“All men are Karass,” says Yama.

“I am all men?” asks Karass.

“No,” says Yama. “You are one man. But all men are Karass.”

“How?”

Yamaraja rests a hand on Karass. “Everyone you have helped cross your river has been connected through their knowing you; just as all men who cross my river are connected through their delusions about death. Delusion takes many forms. Yours is wanting something you will receive in due time. A form of impatience.”

“You know what I want?”

“She is on your shrine, isn’t she?”

Eventually Yamaraja and Karass climb aboard his boat. They land on the crunchy silt of the other side. In the daylight, the silt shines emerald green, and the horizon shines sky blue. The smell of temple incense is in the air from a temple not too far away. Then again it always smells like temple incense around Yamaraja. They press one another’s arms in a fraternal way, as if to say farewell.

Yama says, “Karass, please tell me, what do I owe you for taking me across your river?”

“Yama, you please,” says Karass. “You are the god of the underworld. I took you across my river this time. When the time comes for me to pass, I want to cross your river with you. Take me and we will call it even.”

Yamaraja agrees. They go their separate ways. The light of a new day shines on the ripples of this seemingly never-ending stream. Karass knows the river’s distance wide, but not its length long. As far as he is concerned, there is no point where the upstream begins, or the downstream ends. For the ferryman, he never bothered to find the beginning or the end of the river, which, as he rowed back home, he starts to realize meant he had a poor picture of his own river.

Karass ties his ship to his pier and skips to the shanty, before kneeling at his shrine. He takes the bucket of warm, godly foot water, and, just as the bucket rises over his head, he decides against drinking the liquid. Perhaps he is not ready for enlightenment. He sets out, instead, for the trading post to buy matches, but when he sees it, he smiles and passes on. He wants to see just how far the river flows.

Meanwhile, Yamaraja, somewhere down the path, takes note of where the sun has risen. He snaps his fingers. Despite himself, he has been going the wrong way this whole time.

Iván Brave

Image by Inu Etc from Pixabay – Boat with a single oarsman at sunset rowing across the still water