The Apology & Forgiveness Song – An Excerpt From Desert Song

Image by Bruno Glätsch from Pixabay. CCO

Author’s Note: This excerpt is an example of the kind of compelling fiction we can write when we integrate the current best practices and experiments in conflict resolution. In the story, the Atta Song (Apology and Forgiveness Song) is part of Harraken culture, a way of admitting wrongs and making them right. This tradition is inspired by many sources, including Truth & Reconciliation Commissions, restorative justice, and several other Indigenous practices of reconciliation.

The Atta Song at the Crossroads
An excerpt from Desert Song, a novel by Rivera Sun.
You can get a copy through our Community Publishing Campaign.

Voices twittered like birdsong under the
arching boughs of the orchard. In the shade, rows of stalls and booths
displayed crafters’ goods and artisans’ wares. Between the summer rains and
autumn harvests, smiths and metal shapers, weavers and silk spinners, potters
and stone carvers gathered at the Crossroads to barter and trade. Harraken
journeyed from the distant corners of the desert to place orders and pick up
promised goods. Messengers hawked a lively trade, delivering and returning.

Beyond the green of the trees, the blazing
white of the Deep Sands Valley encircled the Crossroads. The dunes sparkled with
stark beauty. Every year, the prevailing wind shoved the sand’s edges closer to
the eastern flank of the vast orchard. Each year, the crafters’ apprentices
shored up the massive retaining walls that held it back. For centuries, that
had been the honor-bargain between orchardists and crafters: shade and water in
exchange for cooperation in holding back the dunes. The aqueduct that carried
the sluice of water from Turim through the Deep Sands Valley was a marvel of
engineering. It carried and protected the lifeblood of the seasonal city of
fruit and arts.

Along a spider web of footpaths, people
gathered for games and meals, gossip and story. Low stools and spread rugs
formed open air sitting rooms. A sense of repose and ease marked the banter, negotiations
halted for songs. At night, laughter rose with a festive spirit.

Today, however, a buzz
of rumors swarmed the market like the hives of bees that lined the orchard
edges. A plume of dust rose along the northwest section of the Market Road.
People claimed that an army of women approached, not the Black Ravens, but the
unarmed women who rode from village to village reinitiating the village sings. Three
days ago, the Harrak-Mettahl had ridden in and slept curled up in his cloak under
the trees. Over breakfast, he’d told the potter next to him that he envied the
strength of the potter’s wares. Harrak, he had said, was easier to lose or
break . . . and harder to repair.

“Whose harrak are
you restoring today?” she’d asked him amiably.

“All of ours . . .
starting with my own,” he’d replied, looking so mournful that wild
whispers of gossip speculated that he must have murdered someone.

All through the first
day, Tahkan Shirar went from one person to the next, asking their views on
warriors-rule versus village sings. The artisans tended to support the sings.
They weren’t warriors, after all, and what did warriors know of their trades? Last
year, the warriors had levied a goods-tax on the Crossroads to support the fighters.
The artisans resented it bitterly. In times of peace, why should they pay for
warriors who rode around eating food and swinging swords and doing nothing?

On the second day, he
gathered them together and made a request that sparked roars of outrage and indignation.
It took the Harrak-Mettahl hours to explain what he meant, why it mattered,
what he’d learned from the women who rode with his sister toward the
Crossroads, and why the artisans should honor his unusual request. He talked
long into the evening, persuading and cajoling. At last, he struck a bargain, a
daring wager to which they all agreed.

By morning, the buzz of
tension, gossip, and excitement reached a fevered pitch. One by one, the
haggling fell off. The hammering of horseshoes halted. People wandered toward
the westbound Market Road to watch the growing plume of riders’ dust.

Would
he really do it, they wondered?

Bets were placed. Nails
were bitten to the quick. Toes tapped nervously. When the company of riders
reached the edge of the Crossroads, Tahkan Shirar walked out to meet them.
Hundreds of crafters and artisans followed in his footsteps, curiosity burning
like a fever in them.

He stood beyond the
overhang of fruit trees, sleeves rolled to elbows, skin dark with summer sun.
He looked thin, his usual wolf-leanness whittled down. A quietness clung to
him, the stillness that comes from deep reflection. His face curved with
smile-creases as he saw the riders. Ari Ara jumped down from Zyrh’s back
at a run, greeting him after the week of travel. Just as she threw her arms
around him, she caught a glimpse of his sorrow darting behind his smile.

“What is it?”
she asked.

“Nothing to worry
about,” he said, gently touching her cheek. He had missed her this week.
It seemed she had grown taller since they last parted, and the speed of passing
time struck him strongly. He’d lost her for most of her life and mourned every
moment they had to spend apart.

As Mahteni dismounted
and walked across the open space between riders and waiting crafters, swirls of
dust chased her heels like tiny dogs. Tahkan stepped out to meet her. The first
words of his song struck the space between them and she paused. Her face fell
open like a book. Surprise and shock wrote volumes across the pages of her
features. The Harrak-Mettahl was singing the Atta Song, the ritual chant of
apology and forgiveness. He held out his hands in supplication, palms up. He
dropped to one knee, then two, then sat back on his heels with his palms on his
thighs and his head bent.

I am sorry, he sang,
for all the wrongs done,
for every slight and every silencing,
for every bruise and tear,
for the honor lost by men and warriors,
for all my faults and failures.

The Harrak-Mettahl had
a responsibility to uphold the honor of his people. If they lost their way, he
had failed his duties. Tahkan Shirar offered his apologies for his part in the
problems and for the ways his actions had made the situation worse. It was
wrong to silence anyone, he sang.

We are born equally of our mothers,
our feet rest equally on the sands,
the Ancestor Wind flows equally
through each person’s song,
the rain bestows its blessing,
equally upon all our heads.

Ari Ara sensed the
crafters behind him tightening like a bowstring, as if the outcome of this
moment decided their fates and futures. From the look of shock on their faces, Ari Ara
guessed that the Harrak-Mettahl didn’t often get down on his knees. She had
once seen her father gather power like lightning to his chest and stride into a
hall full of enemies like a tiger showering white sparks. He pulled that same
power to him now; she felt it crackling in the air. His words sang of what it
meant to be a man, a Harraken man. The Ancestor Wind stirred above them,
bringing a sense of time and culture, antiquity and ancestors, to the ritual.
Gestures of greeting fluttered from one Harraken to the next as the Ancestor
Wind spiraled into a whirlwind, reaching down between the Shirar siblings,
whipping their clothes and hair with its spinning winds.

If it is time for you, Tahkan sang to Mahteni-Mirrin,
to be our harrak-mettahl,
I release the wind to you.

The gasps of the
Harraken made the wind spout waver, swaying on their in-drawn breaths.

Forgive
me? Tahkan
asked his sister.

Mahteni bent her head
as if listening to the hushed whispers of the swirling wind that Tahkan held
out like a flower on the palm of his hand. Ari Ara made herself breathe
mechanically, frozen as the rest as her heart galloped madly in her chest.

At last, Mahteni spoke.

“Keep the Ancestor
Wind, brother. We need you to call the spirits of the ancient grandfathers to speak
to their grandsons and descendants.”

She made a small
gesture. The wind spout dropped to touch the earth at their feet, stirring the
dust. Everyone flinched and covered their eyes, waving the plumes away as they
coughed. When the dust cleared, Mahteni clasped her brother’s hands and lifted
him to his feet, the reply of the Forgiveness Song on her lips.

Ari Ara joined in
with the rest of the women, moved to tears. In the second refrain, she heard
the men’s voices joining from among the crafters. She thought she’d never heard
anything so beautiful as the full spectrum of voices, low and high, honoring
their honor keeper as his sister lifted him to his feet. When he rose, the
heads of his people rose with him and the weight of shame and anger lifted from
their backs. Tahkan Shirar, thin from fasting, trembling with power, stood both
humble and proud, a man of his desert culture, a keeper of honor once more.

Ari Ara couldn’t
keep it back: the Honor Cry broke loose from her throat, high as a piercing
hawk’s scream, sharp and clear. It unlocked the throats of others and like a
storm, the sound charged into the air. Tahkan’s eyes shot to his daughter, and
he nodded his thanks to her. When the cry quieted, Tahkan turned to the
crafters still hidden in the shade of the trees.

“My part of the
bargain has been met,” he announced. “Now you must honor your end of
our deal.”

With that, Tahkan
gestured and the crafters filed out from under the trees. The astonished women
parted to let them pass, out of the market and into the dust of the road.

“There are as many
Atta Songs to sing as there are people,” he told Mahteni, “and we
hope you will do us the kindness of hearing them. The Crossroads is yours. Each
person must reconcile before entering again.”

Ari Ara watched
the crafters step out into the road with resigned and determined looks. It was
as if they had placed and lost a wager. Only later, when the moon rose high
across the sky and the fire embers burned low, did she hear the whole story
from her father.

“I did make a
wager with them,” he told her, practically translucent with the energy of
the day’s events shimmering in his exhausted body. “I wagered everything I
had: my honor, integrity, dignity, even my position as harrak-mettahl.”

“On what?” Ari Ara
asked breathlessly.

Tahkan smiled wearily.

“I told them that
if we offered these women a sincere apology for ignoring this situation too
long, that if we apologized deeply and truly, and committed to being part of
the solution, the women would forgive us.”

When he said the word, atta – to forgive – it shivered in the
air. Ari Ara sensed meanings beyond her Marianan translation. The
Harrak-Tala word for forgiveness had no sense of forgetting to it, no returning
to what was before, no action-less remorse. The Harrak-Tala word was
inseparable from change, from doing differently, from repairing harm. It
reverberated with the willingness to be a different person and to live a different
way. And because it was Desert Speech, the word for forgiveness bound the giver
and receiver like an oath.

“They were afraid
– or resistant – to try,” Tahkan confided, “so, I told them I would
go first. It is my duty as Harrak-Mettahl, after all, to go first where others
fear to walk . . . even into the Atta Song, which frightens men more
than charging into battle.”

If he was forgiven, he
wagered, all of the crafters had to leave the Crossroads marketplace, giving it
over to the women, and enter only after singing the Atta Song.

“But what if you
were not forgiven?” Ari Ara asked in awestruck horror at the stakes.

Tahkan shrugged, a wry
smile on his face.

“Then I would not
be fit to lead my people, anyway, and Mahteni would be a better harrak-mettahl
for these times.”

Tahkan had spent days
listening to the Ancestor Wind, fasting, thinking. The women had just
grievances. In the desert, everyone held up the Harraken Song. Everyone earned
praise when things went right; everyone shared blame when things went wrong. If
two brothers quarreled, the whole village took responsibility for their part in
the argument. If a disagreement came to blows, everyone acknowledged how they
either aggravated the dispute, or did nothing to try to help find a resolution.
If they had turned one brother against the other, they admitted it. If they had
ignored a chance to help the brothers reconcile, they acknowledged it. It was
not just the person who flung a punch who was at fault for an injury, but those
who cheered on a fight, or did not reach out to stop it.

Because of this, the
Harrak-Mettahl needed to find a path forward that restored the harrak of all
his people. No blood debts or honor challenges could solve this dispute. No act
of violence could heal this rift. So, Tahkan sat and listened for a long time, staring
out into the shimmering horizon. At last, the answer had come. In a flash of a
memory, he saw his daughter practicing the Way Between. An old song about
Alaren leapt to mind, reminding him of the root of the word, atta.

“Atta,”
Tahkan told Ari Ara, “is the word for reconciliation. It is not a Harraken
word. It is a Fanten word from times long forgotten. Alaren brought it to our
people in the days of healing from the pain of the first war.”

Atta meant apology,
forgiveness, and reconciliation. It was the same word backwards and forwards.
The Atta Song was a call-and-response, a question seeking an answer, a cry
awaiting its echo. So, the answer to Tahkan’s question was the very question he
had posed: atta for his people, starting with the man who must lead where
others feared to go.

The Atta Song at the
Crossroads went on for days. Tahkan had shown that anyone could sing it; that
everyone played a role in letting the injustice fester, and everyone could help
resolve it. Some had more to apologize for than others. A few sang the song but
were not forgiven on their first try. These people – men and women both – had
ignored complaints from relatives or supported the unjust decisions of
warriors. Tahkan sat with them outside the gate and spoke with them. Mahteni
sat with the women inside the market and talked with them. The Atta Song rose
again, and sometimes a third time, until the people’s willingness to change
rang honest and clear in the notes.

There were some who
refused to sing and rode off to other places. There were many who felt they had
done no wrong. To them, Tahkan was firm and clear: if the Harrak-Mettahl could get
down on his knees and sing Atta for his people, so could they.

“It will build
your harrak,” he pointed out, and no one could deny that Tahkan Shirar had
shown great courage, walked through the fire of the Atta Song, and emerged
stronger than ever before.

The season turned swiftly toward autumn. A touch of coolness hung on the night air. Soon, the Harraken would gather to bring in the crops. When all were reconciled at the Crossroads, the Harrak-Mettahl rode out again, this time toward Turim City to make the same request of those who dwelled within those walls. It was time to apologize, forgive, and change.

__________________

This is an excerpt from Desert Song, a novel by Rivera Sun. You can get a copy through our Community Publishing Campaign.