“You were with him the whole time?” Doro asked.
“The whole time—through … everything.” She was crying silently, not sobbing, only staring straight ahead as tears ran down her face and her nails dug themselves into her palms. “I don’t understand how I can be alive after all that,” she whispered.
“None of it happened to you,” Doro said.
“All of it happened to me, every bit of it!”
Doro took her hands and unclenched the long, slender fingers. There were bloody marks on her palms where the nails had punctured. Doro ran a finger across the hard, ready cut nails. “All ten,” he said, “right where they should be. None of it happened to you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I’ve been through transition, girl. In fact, I may have been the first person ever to go through it—back more years than you can imagine. I understand, all right.”
“Then you’ve forgotten! Maybe what happens doesn’t leave marks on your body, but it leaves marks. It’s real. Oh God, it’s so real!” She began sobbing now. “If someone whips a slave or a criminal, I feel it, and it’s as real to me as to the person under the lash!”
“But no matter how many times others die,” Doro said, “you won’t die.”
“Why not? People die in transition. You died!”
He grinned. “Not entirely.” Then he sobered. “Listen, the one thing you don’t have to worry about is becoming what I am. You’re going to be something special, all right, but nothing like me.”
She looked at him timidly. “I would like to be like you.”
Only the youngest of his children said such things. He pushed her head back to his shoulder. “No,” he said, “that wouldn’t be safe. I know what you’re supposed to be. It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to surprise me.”
She understood and said nothing. Like most of his people, she did not try to move away from him when he warned or threatened. “What will I be?” she asked.
“I hope, someone who will be able to do for others what your mother can do for herself. A healer. The next step in healers. But even if you inherit talent from only one of your parents, you’ll be formidable, and nothing like me. Your father, before I took him, could not only read thoughts but could see into closed places—mentally ‘see.’”
“You’re my father,” she said against him. “I don’t want to hear about anyone else.”
“Hear it!” he said harshly. “When your transition is over, you’ll see it in Isaac’s mind and Anyanwu’s. You should know from Anneke that a mind reader can’t delude herself for long.” Anneke Strycker Croon. She was the one who should have been having this talk with Nweke. She had been his best mind reader in a half-dozen generations—beautifully controlled. Once her transition was ended, she never entered another person’s mind unless she wanted to. Her only flaw was that she was barren. Anyanwu tried to help her. Doro brought her one male body after another, all in vain. Thus, finally, Anneke had half adopted Nweke. The young girl and the old woman had found a similarity in each other that pleased Doro. It was rare for someone with Anneke’s ability to take any pleasure at all in children. Doro saw the friendship as a good omen for Nweke’s immature talents. But now, Anneke was three years dead, and Nweke was alone. No doubt her next words came at least partially out of her loneliness.
“Do you love us?” she asked.
“All of you?” Doro asked, knowing very well that she did not mean everyone—all his people.
“The ones of us who change,” she said, not looking at him. “The different ones.”
“You’re all different. It’s only a matter of degree.”
She seemed to force herself to meet his eyes. “You’re laughing at me. We endure so much pain … because of you, and you’re laughing.”
“Not at your pain, girl.” He took a deep breath and stilled his amusement. “Not at your pain.”
“You don’t love us.”
“No.” He felt her start against him. “Not all of you.”
“Me?” she whispered timidly, finally. “Do you love me?”
The favorite question of his daughters—only his daughters. His sons hoped he loved them, but they did not ask. Perhaps they did not dare to. Ah, but this girl …
When she was healthy, her eyes were like her mother’s—clear whites and browns, baby’s eyes. She had finer bones than Anyanwu—slenderer wrists and ankles, more prominent cheekbones. She was the daughter of one of Isaac’s older sons—a son he had had by a wild-seed Indian woman who read thoughts and saw into distant closed places. The Indians were rich in untrapped wild seed that they tended to tolerate or even revere rather than destroy. Eventually, they would learn to be civilized and to understand as the whites understood that the hearing of voices, the seeing of visions, the moving of inanimate objects when no hand touched them, all the strange feelings, sensitivities, and abilities were evil or dangerous, or at the very least, imaginary. Then they too would weed out or grind down their different ones, thus freezing themselves in time, depriving their kind of any senses but those already familiar, depriving their children and their children’s children of any weapons with which to confront Doro’s people. And surely, in some future time, the day of confrontation would come. This girl, as rare and valuable for her father’s blood as for her mother’s, might well live to see that day. If ever he was to breed a long-lived descendant from Anyanwu, it would be this girl. He felt utterly certain of her. Over the years, he had taught himself not to assume that any new breed would be successful until transition ended and he saw the success before him. But the feelings that came to him from this girl were too powerful to doubt. He had no more certain urge than the urge that directed him toward the very best prey. Now it spoke to him as it had never spoken before, even for Isaac or Anyanwu. The girl’s talent teased and enticed him. He would not kill her, of course. He did not kill the best of his children. But he would have what he could of her now. And she would have what she wanted of him.
“I came back because of you,” he said, smiling. “Not because of any of the others, but because I could feel how near you were to your change. I wanted to see for myself that you were all right.”
That was apparently enough for her. She caught him in a joyful stranglehold and kissed him not at all as a daughter should kiss her father.
“I do like it,” she said shyly. “What David and Melanie do. Sometimes I try to know when they’re doing it. I try to share it. But I can’t. It comes to me of itself or not at all.” And she echoed her stepfather—her grandfather. “I have to have something of my own!” Her voice had taken on a fierceness, as though Doro owed her what she was demanding.
“Why tell me?” he said, playing with her. “I’m not even handsome right now. Why not choose one of the town boys?”
She clutched at his arms, her hard little nails now digging into his flesh. “You’re laughing again!” she hissed. “Am I so ridiculous? Please … ?”
To his disgust, Doro found himself thinking about Anyanwu. He had always resisted the advances of her daughters before. It had become a habit. Nweke was the last child Doro had coerced Anyanwu into bearing, but Doro had gone on respecting Anyanwu’s superstitions—not that Anyanwu appreciated the kindness. Well, Anyanwu was about to lose her place with him to this young daughter. Whatever he had been reaching for, trying to bribe from the mother, the daughter would supply. The daughter was not wild seed with years of freedom to make her stubborn. The daughter had been his from the moment of her conception—his property as surely as though his brand were burned into her flesh. She even thought of herself as his property. His children, young and old, male and female, most often made the matter of ownership very simple for him. They accepted his authority and seemed to need his assurance that strange as they were, they still belonged to someone.
“Doro?” the girl said softly.
She had a red kerchief tied over her hair. He pushed it back to reveal her thick dark hair, straighter than her mother’s but n
ot as straight as her father’s. She had combed it back and pinned it in a large knot. Only a single heavy curl hung free to her smooth brown shoulder. He resisted the impulse to remove the pins, let the other curls free. He and the girl would not have much time together. He did not want her wasting what they had pinning up her hair. Nor did he want her appearance to announce at once to Anyanwu what had happened. Anyanwu would find out—probably very quickly—but she would not find out through any apparent brazenness on the part of her daughter. She would find out in such a way as to cause her to blame Doro. Her daughter still needed her too badly to alienate her. No one in any of Doro’s settlements was as good at helping people through transition as Anyanwu. Her body could absorb the physical punishment of restraining a violent, usually very strong young person. She did not hurt her charges or allow them to hurt themselves. They did not frighten or disgust her. She was their companion, their sister, their mother, their lover through their agony. If they could survive their own mental upheaval, they would come through to find that she had taken good care of their physical bodies. Nweke would need that looking after—whatever she needed right now.
He lifted the girl, carried her to an alcove bed in one of the children’s bedrooms. He did not know whether it was her bed, did not care. He undressed her, brushing away her hands when she tried to help, laughing softly when she commented that he seemed to know pretty well how to get a woman out of her clothes. She did not know much about undressing a man, but she fumbled and tried to help him.
And she was as lovely as he had expected. A virgin of course. Even in Wheatley, young girls usually saved themselves for husbands, or for Doro. She was ready for him. She had some pain, but it didn’t seem to matter to her.
“Better than with David and Melanie,” she whispered once, and held onto him as though fearing he might leave her.
Nweke and Doro were in the kitchen popping corn and drinking beer when Isaac and Anyanwu came in. The bed had been remade and Nweke had been properly dressed and cautioned against even the appearance of brazenness. “Let her be angry at me,” Doro had said, “not at you. Say nothing.”
“I don’t know how to think about her now,” Nweke said. “My sisters whispered that we could never have you because of her. Sometimes I hated her. I thought she kept you for herself.”
“Did she?”
“… no.” She glanced at him uncertainly. “I think she tried to protect us from you. She thought we needed it.” Nweke shuddered. “What will she feel for me now?”
Doro did not know, and he did not intend to leave until he found out. Until he could see that any anger Anyanwu felt would do her daughter no harm.
“Maybe she won’t find out,” the girl said hopefully.
That was when Doro took her into the kitchen to investigate the stew Anyanwu had left simmering and the bread untended in its bake kettle, hot and tender, unburned in the coals. They set the table, then Nweke suggested beer and popcorn. Doro agreed, humoring her, hoping she would relax and not worry about facing her mother. She seemed peaceful and content when Isaac and Anyanwu came in, yet she avoided her mother’s eyes. She stared down into her beer.
Doro saw Anyanwu frown, saw her go to Nweke and take the small chin in her fingers and raise it so that she could see Nweke’s frightened eyes.
“Are you well?” she asked Nweke in her own language. She spoke perfect English now, along with Dutch and a few words of some Indian and foreign African dialects, but at home with her children, she often spoke as though she had never left home. She would not adopt a European name or call her children by their European names—though she had condescended to give them European names at Doro’s insistence. Her children could speak and understand as well as she could. Even Isaac, after all the years, could understand and speak fairly well. No doubt, he heard as clearly as Doro and Nweke the wariness and tension in Anyanwu’s soft question.
Nweke did not answer. Frightened, she glanced at Doro. Anyanwu followed the glance and her infant-clear, bright eyes took on a look of incongruous ferocity. She said nothing. She only stared with growing comprehension. Doro met her gaze levelly until she turned back to look at her daughter.
“Nweke, little one, are you well?” she whispered urgently.
Something happened within Nweke. She took Anyanwu’s hands between her own, held them for a moment, smiling. Finally she laughed aloud—delighted child’s laughter with no hint of falseness or gloating. “I’m well,” she said. “I didn’t know how well until this moment. It has been so long since there were no voices, nothing pulling at me or hurting me.” Relief made her forget her fear. She met Anyanwu’s eyes, her own eyes full of the wonder of her newfound peace.
Anyanwu closed her eyes for a moment, drew a long, shuddering breath.
“She’s all right,” Isaac said from where he sat at the table. “That’s enough.”
Anyanwu looked at him. Doro could not read what passed between them, but after a moment, Isaac repeated, “That’s enough.”
And it seemed to be. At that moment, the twenty-two-year-old son Peter, incongruously called Chukwuka—God is Supreme—arrived, and dinner was served.
Doro ate slowly, recalling how he had laughed at the boy’s Igbo name. He had asked Anyanwu where she had found her sudden devotion to God—any god. Chukwuka was a common enough name in her homeland, but it was not a name he would have expected from a woman who claimed she helped herself. Predictably, Anyanwu had been silent and unamused at his question. It took him a surprisingly long time to begin to wonder whether the name was supposed to be a charm—her pathetic attempt to protect the boy from him. Where had Anyanwu found her sudden devotion to God? Where else but in her fear of Doro? Doro smiled to himself.
Then he stopped smiling as Nweke’s brief peace ended. The girl screamed—a long, ragged, terrible sound that reminded Doro of cloth tearing. Then she dropped the dish of corn she had been bringing to the table and collapsed to the floor unconscious.
Chapter Eight
NWEKE LAY TWITCHING, still unconscious in the middle of Isaac and Anyanwu’s bed. Anyanwu said it was easier to care for her here in a bed merely enclosed within curtains than in one of the alcove beds. Oblivious to Doro’s presence, Anyanwu had stripped Nweke to her shift and removed the pins from her hair. The girl looked even smaller than she was now, looked lost in the deep, soft feather mattress. She looked like a child. Doro felt a moment of unease, even fear for her. He remembered her laughter minutes earlier and wondered whether he would hear it again.
“This is transition,” Anyanwu said to him, neutral-voiced.
He glanced at her. She stood beside the bed looking weary and concerned. Her earlier hostility had been set aside—and only set aside. Doro knew her too well to think it had been forgotten.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “She’s passed out before, hasn’t she?”
“Oh yes. But this is transition. I know it.”
He thought she was probably right. He sensed the girl very strongly now. If his body had been a lesser one or one had given long use, he would not have dared to stay so near her.
“Will you stay?” Anyanwu asked, as though hearing his thoughts.
“For a while.”
“Why? You have never stayed before when my children changed.”
“This one is special.”
“So I have seen.” She gave him another of her venomous looks. “Why, Doro?”
He did not pretend to misunderstand. “Do you know what she has been receiving? What thoughts she has been picking up?”
“She told me about the man last night—the torture.”
“Not that. She’s been picking up people making love—picking it up often.”
“And you thought that was not enough for an unmarried girl!”
“She’s eighteen years old. It wasn’t enough.”
Nweke made a small sound as though she were having a bad dream. No doubt she was. The worst of dreams. And she would not be permitted to wake fully until it was over.
“You have not molested my children before,” she said.
“I wondered whether you had noticed.”
“Is that it?” She turned to face him. “Were you punishing me for my … my ingratitude?”
“… no.” His eyes looked past her for a moment though he did not move. “I’m not interested in punishing you any longer.”
She turned a little too quickly and sat down beside the bed. She sat on a chair Isaac had made for her—a taller-than-normal chair so that in spite of her small size and the height of the bed, she could see and reach Nweke easily. Eventually she would move onto the bed with the girl. People in transition needed close physical contact to give them some hold on reality.
But for now, Anyanwu’s move to the chair was to conceal emotion. Fear, Doro wondered, or shame or anger or hatred. His last serious attempt to punish her had involved Nweke’s father. That attempt had stood between them all Nweke’s life. Of all the things she considered that he had done to her, that was the worst. Yet it was a struggle she had come very near winning. Perhaps she had won. Perhaps that was why the incident could still make him uneasy.
Doro shook his head, turned his attention to the girl. “Do you think she’ll come through all right?” he asked.
“I have never had any of them die in my care.”
He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. “What do you feel, Anyanwu? How can you help them so well when you cannot reach their minds in even the shadowy way that I can?”
“I bit her a little. She is strong and healthy. There is nothing, no feeling of death about her.” He had opened his mouth, but she held up a hand to stop him. “If I could tell you more clearly, I would. Perhaps I will find a way—on the day you find a way to tell me how you move from body to body.”
“Touché,” he said, and shrugged. He took a chair from beside the fireplace and brought it to the foot of the bed. There, he waited. When Nweke came to, shaking and crying wildly, he spoke to her, but she did not seem to hear him. Anyanwu went onto the bed silent, grim-faced, and held the girl until her tears had slowed, until she had stopped shaking.
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