The
Gratitude of
Bones
J.A.
Pak
My
maternal grandparents once owned a piece of land deep in the
countryside. A couple of acres big enough
to farm,
surrounded by green hills and mountains.
One day, my grandmother was digging in one of the fields when
she
uncovered a cache of bones. Human
bones. This was a few years after the
war and it wasn’t unusual to stumble across bones struggling out of
shallow
graves. During the war, no one had had
time to observe proper burial rites. So
many people had died, the country in an uproar, people fleeing this way
and
that as they themselves tried to keep alive.
During war, as in any terrible time of upheaval, burials are
merely
quick words and a scattering of dirt, if the dead are lucky. After all, the rites of death mimic the rites
of life. Only when wars end and people
once again find places to live and are granted the time to dream do
they begin
to preoccupy themselves with the comfort of the dead.
My
grandmother sighed when she realized she’d dug up the cache of bones. How unlucky to disturb the dead, she
thought. Supporting herself with her
garden fork, she bent down and examined the sudden unearthing of misery.
The
bones were long and fine, probably the bones of a woman, she thought, a
woman
unusually tall. Poor daughter, poor
wife, poor mother. Taking pity, my
grandmother gathered the bones and reburied them high up in the hills
where
they’d be safe from further disturbances.
The reburial took a great deal of time and it was now near
sunset. My grandmother said a quick
prayer, wishing
the dead peace, and hurried home. There
was still so much to do before bedtime.
That night, as always, she went to bed exhausted.
And
then, when it was almost morning, before the sun had begun to rise, my
grandmother received a second shock. She
woke with a start to find a tall figure standing in her bedroom.
My
grandmother, thinking it was a burglar, was outraged.
Jumping up, she screamed “Hey! You!
Who do you think you are, walking into someone’s house like this! Get out!”
In
spite of my grandmother’s hostile exhortation, the figure did not move
but
remained still and calm. My grandmother
was now only about two feet away from the intruder and she was
surprised by
what she saw: the intruder was a woman,
an unusually tall, regal woman dressed in fine clothing.
Quite
unexpectedly, the woman began to bow, and she said to my grandmother: “I’ve come to thank you and to tell you that
for as long as you live on this land, you will be happy.”
Before
my grandmother could reply, the woman disappeared into the darkness.
Understandably
shaken, my grandmother lit a gas lamp and walked out into the courtyard. Where had the woman gone, she wondered? And how had she gotten into the house? She decided to check the large front gate,
which sealed the house and courtyard from all intruders; she was
certain that
she had locked the gate before she’d gone to bed. Even
deep in the countryside, it was unsafe
to leave your house so vulnerable as to leave the front gate unlocked. But the gate was securely locked.
No human being could have gotten into the
house. No human being. That was
when my grandmother knew she’d been visited by a ghost.
The ghost of the bones she’d found. And
the ghost had brought my grandmother a
most wondrous gift: “For as along as you
live on this land, you will be happy.”
The
next morning, in time for breakfast, my grandfather finally came home
after
several days of carousing. Excited, my
grandmother told my grandfather what had happened, how she had found
the bones,
how she had buried the bones high up in the green and peaceful hills,
how the
bones, in gratitude, had come to her in the middle of the night and had
sown
happiness into their land.
My
grandfather scoffed. It’d just been a
dream, he said dismissively, a dream of a stupid and silly woman: “Now leave me in peace and let me eat!”
Sadly,
a few years later, my grandfather, in need of some quick cash, sold the
land,
thereby throwing away all that fertile happiness, as he did with so
much
else. He’d never been much of a farmer.
J.A.
Pak's work has
appeared in a variety of
publications, from Everyday Genius to Art/Life, UpRightDown
to VerbSap. More can be seen at www.ja-pak.com.