The Country That Had No Name

There was once a country whose inhabitants had never agreed upon its name.

This was not because they lacked names for its mountains, rivers, forests and towns. Every feature of the landscape had been carefully named, and many had been named more than once. But nobody had discovered a name that seemed to encompass the whole.

The Surveyors believed that this was a temporary difficulty. They had spent generations measuring the country, drawing maps and marking its boundaries. They were convinced that, given sufficient time, they would produce a map on which everything would have its proper place.

The Keepers of the Wells were less certain. They said that a country could not be known merely by measuring it. One had to drink its water, walk its paths, listen to its birds and remember the places where one had once been happy. They kept records of dreams and collected stories from travellers, believing that these revealed things no map could contain.

The Builders, meanwhile, concerned themselves with what lay beneath the surface. They excavated the hills, explored the caves and examined the foundations of the oldest buildings. They maintained that the country could not be understood until its hidden structures had been discovered.

And the Listeners went wherever the others would not go. They followed sounds that came from empty valleys, watched for lights beyond the mountains and waited beside paths that sometimes appeared where no paths had been before.

Each group considered the others mistaken.

Then, one autumn, a traveller arrived at the capital.

He was exhausted, his clothes were torn, and he carried no map. He said that he had travelled beyond the country's furthest boundary and had returned from a place that none of its inhabitants had ever seen.

Naturally, the Surveyors questioned him.

Where had he gone? How far had he travelled? What direction had he taken? Could he describe the terrain?

The Keepers of the Wells asked what he had felt, what he had remembered and whether he had heard anything familiar.

The Builders wanted to know what had supported the ground beneath his feet.

The Listeners asked whether he had heard voices.

The traveller answered as best he could, but his answers satisfied nobody. He described a landscape that seemed to change whenever he tried to remember it. He spoke of a river that flowed towards its source, a mountain that cast no shadow, and a road that continued long after the land had disappeared.

Some believed him. Others thought he had become confused during his travels. A few suggested that he had never left the country at all.

The Surveyors demanded that he lead them to the boundary. The Builders offered to construct an expedition. The Keepers of the Wells invited him to stay and tell his story again. The Listeners simply watched him.

But an old woman who tended a small garden near the city wall approached him one evening.

She had not attended any of the meetings. She had asked no questions and had made no record of his answers.

“Tell me,” she said, “when you returned, did the country look the same?”

The traveller considered this.

“No,” he said. “It seemed different.”

“Different in what way?”

He looked towards the mountains.

“I cannot tell you. The rivers were where I remembered them. The forests had not moved. The roads were unchanged. But I could no longer see the country as I had seen it before.”

The old woman nodded, as though this were an answer she had been expecting.

The following morning, the traveller disappeared.

The Surveyors searched for him, but found no trace. The Builders examined the ground around his lodging. The Keepers of the Wells searched their records for accounts of similar journeys. The Listeners returned to their distant paths.

The old woman continued tending her garden.

Years passed. The Surveyors completed another map. The Builders discovered a vast chamber beneath the mountains. The Keepers of the Wells collected stories from a hundred new travellers. The Listeners heard something moving beyond the northern forest.

And still nobody had agreed upon a name for the country.

One morning, a young girl came to the old woman's garden.

“Is it true,” she asked, “that a traveller once went beyond the country and returned?”

The old woman put down her watering can.

“So they say.”

“Do you believe him?”

The old woman looked towards the mountains, where the morning mist was beginning to lift.

“I believe,” she said, “that he came back.”

The girl considered this.

“And what did he find?”

The old woman smiled.

“That,” she said, “is what we have not yet discovered.”