Dan Simmons - Black Hills

Paha Sapa tries to imagine this—a wasichu wičasa wakan marrying a Lakota woman in 1870 or so. It is very hard to imagine. Perhaps, he thinks, the Natural Free Human Beings are—or were—very different in Nebraska. Then he thinks— What are Natural Free Human Beings doing in Nebraska? Are they lost?

He says aloud—

— And after you left, you lived in Boston and Washington and France?

— Yes, and elsewhere… and, Paha Sapa, I’m ashamed to say that I know much more of the French language than I do my mother’s tongue. When Father and I have visited Mr. Cody’s Wild West Show, I’ve tried to use my few words and phrases to talk to the Lakota there, but the men just smile at me. I’m sure I have everything wrong.

— I won’t just smile at you, Miss de Plachette. Try out one of your phrases.

— Well, as I say, I only barely remember them, since Mother spoke English almost exclusively in the house when I was tiny, before she… before we moved… most probably at Father’s request. But I do remember some of the Lakota men talking to her at church and asking her how she was…. I’m pretty sure I remember “Hello” and “How are you?”

— Say it. I will be your audience and noncritical coach. We still have ten minutes or more of this ride left. But let’s don’t forget to enjoy the scenery.

— Oh, I assure you, Paha Sapa, I haven’t quit watching for a second. Even when I look your way, I am also looking beyond you to the south, or looking out at the prairie to the west. All right, “Hello, how are you?” in the Lakota I remember from the agency when I was four years old… Hau, Tanyan yaun he?

Paha Sapa just smiles. He can’t help it.

Miss de Plachette curls her hand into a tiny fist and hits him hard on the shoulder. Paha Sapa’s eyes widen—he’s not been struck by a woman since he was a young boy—and then he laughs, showing his strong white teeth. Luckily—his world would end then if it were not so—she is also smiling and laughing.

— What was wrong with that, Paha Sapa? I have even heard your Wild West Sioux say that to one another!

— Nothing’s wrong with it, Miss de Plachette… if you’re a man.

— Oh, dear.

— I’m afraid so. Did your mother not tell you that the Natural Free Human Beings have separate vocabularies and language rules for men and women?

— No, she didn’t. I mean, I don’t remember if she… I don’t remember so much about Mother. Too much. I don’t even know who the Natural Free Human Beings are… the Sioux?

— Yes.

The young woman seems suddenly, strangely near tears, and Paha Sapa, without thinking, tenderly touches her shoulder.

— The Lakota’s name for ourselves is Ikče Wičaśa— which more or less translates to Natural Free Human Beings, although it means more than that.

She smiles again. They have passed through the loading area and are rising in the east on the beginning of their second, faster, more exciting revolution. Other passengers squeal. Paha Sapa and Miss de Plachette grin at each other again, proud of their seasoned-Ferris-Wheel-traveler status.

— I certainly understand about feminine, masculine, and neuter nouns and verbs and such from my French and little bit of German and Italian, although the idea of an entire separate language for men and women is almost shocking to me.

Paha Sapa smiles again.

— Oh, we tend to understand each other, the Ikče Wičaśa men and women, when we talk to one another. As well as the two sexes do in any language or culture is my uneducated guess.

— So how would I, a woman, say “Hello, Paha Sapa. How are you today?”

Paha Sapa actually clears his throat. He’s very nervous and almost sorry this particular discussion began. He knows almost nothing about courting, but does know that one does not impress or ingratiate oneself with a beautiful woman by laughing at her or giving her primitive language lessons. “ Courting? Is that what you think you’re doing here, you moron?” asks a voice in his head that sounds strongly and suspiciously like that of George Armstrong Custer.

He says softly—

— Well, first of all, the Hau greeting is used only by men. And the he at the end of the sentence…

He desperately thinks back to Father John Bertrand, the fattest and smartest and gentlest friar at the Deadwood tent school, and the Latin and Greek he tried to drive into 12-year-old Paha Sapa’s thick skull… but all he can call back is the heat inside the tent in the summer, the strong smell of sun-warmed canvas and the straw that Father Pierre Marie used to lay down on the floor, as if the five boys there, two Mexican, one Negro, one white, and Paha Sapa, were barn animals rather than… no, wait…

— the interrogative form, as it were, is also used by women and men informally, but if it were an official situation, talking in council, for instance, I’d… that is a male Lakota… would have to end the question with hwo… or hunwo… or so . Oh, yes , Han means “hello” for men but “yes” for women.

Miss de Plachette sighs, but not, it seems, out of impatience, only at the first glimpse of the complexity of her mother’s people’s language. She is still smiling.

— So you’re saying that if a Lakota man says hello to me and I reply in kind, with the same word, I’m simply saying yes to anything the man has suggested?

— Well… ah… um… that is…

She rescues him before his blush darkens his already dark skin too much further.

— So how would I say “Hello, Paha Sapa”?

—Paha Sapa, Han.

— And how would a woman say “Hello, it is really good to see you” to a man? To you?

—Paha Sapa, han! Lila tanyan wacin yanke. Only you couldn’t… wouldn’t… come up and say that.

Her smile seems almost teasing.

— Really? Why not?

Paha Sapa clears his throat again. His only salvation is that, true to her promise, she has not turned to look fully at him. She keeps watching the lake and the White City as the car rises quickly—too quickly—toward the top of its arc this second and final (forever for them together! he is sure) and too-fast-for-his-taste revolution of Mr. Ferris’s amazing Wheel.

— Because, Miss de Plachette, in the Ikče Wičaśa culture, women do not initiate conversations with men. They are never the first to say hello.

— Not even with their husbands?

She is definitely teasing him. He opens his mouth to answer, realizes that his mouth stays open during the entire time it takes them to pass over the top of the arc of the wheel, and then manages…

— I’ve never been married.

Now she laughs out loud. The sound is so soft that it is almost lost in the loud exclamations and excited talk in the crowded car, but Paha Sapa will remember the pure tones of that easy, friendly laugh for the rest of his life.

She touches his forearm again.

— All right, I surrender. I won’t learn the Ikče Wičaśa’s women’s language during two turns of Mr. Ferris’s Wheel. But is there a special term that Lakota women use to say hello to someone they really like… a special friend?

Now Paha Sapa’s throat feels so constricted he can barely get the syllables out.

She leans closer to him, her eyes finally turning from the scenery outside, and says very softly—

— Maske, Paha Sapa, lila tanyan wacin yanke…