by Nōnen Títi
“Look at it, Jari. It’s better than a mirror. Mirrors are possibly the worst invention people ever made. Where mirrors exist every person begins to doubt his self-worth. They’ve created a whole planet full of neurotic people. As far as I’m concerned, you can carry on breaking every mirror on Kun DJar. I’ll help you. But this picture doesn’t lie.”
“It is how Kunag sees me.”
“That’s right, but I’m sure he hasn’t always seen you like that. The difference is not that you have a line running over your face. The scar doesn’t make you ugly; the anger does.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You don’t really want me to say it more carefully, do you? You don’t want people to feel sorry for you. You want them to challenge you.”
“…I guess.”
“So go out and challenge them. Dare them to look at you. It’s them who are afraid, more than you are. They’re afraid to say the wrong thing or look the wrong way. Don’t give them the chance to pity you.” Jema took the picture back. “You can have it to keep once you’ve found a job you can do. Until then you can only borrow it.”
Jari froze when the woman reached for the scar, but nothing happened.
“Don’t worry. I won’t touch. Not yet. So do we have a deal?” Jema asked.
“What, right now?”
“No. One step at the time. I’ll visit again tomorrow and you won’t kick me out.”
“…Okay.”
Jema walked out of the room. A moment later a waft of cold air floated in from the open door. “You know what, Jari?”
“What?”
“I like you.”
The door closed. Still trembling, Jari dropped down on her mat.
A Past and a Present
Marya was just getting up when Jema returned home. Daili would have long left hers, but at least she’d kept her promise. She’d not only tried to talk to Jari, but she was going back tomorrow. Maybe she’d even gotten through a little. “You’re sleeping this whole short day away.”
“Did you try that wine at the trefin? Bue, is that ever good,” Marya answered.
“Makes you look pretty, too.”
“No more than sitting up pouting all night.”
“That’s called thinking. Some people actually do that.”
Marya threw a shoe at her. “Bue, I’m hungry. Do you feel like eating early?”
Eating early meant having some leftover breakfast food. “I’m about to go to Leni’s for meals. Do you want to come?”
“No thanks. I don’t care for being near the Society too much. Did you hear what Frimon is doing now?”
“What is he doing?”
“He’s having these penance rituals in public. They say he’ll do it every night this kor and people can watch. He’s even letting others do it if they want to join the Society. Some are actually willing.”
“You’re either still drunk or you’ve lost all common sense. It’ll be just gossip.”
“I knew you’d say that. Ask Leni if you want. You know what I also heard? They’re sending a second expedition, this time far away to explore a big chunk of the continent. I heard it from a friend who signed up, and I’m putting my name down too. Seems to me that you and Nini could do with some time together.” Still sitting on the edge of her mat, Marya was struggling to turn her shirt the right way around.
“Don’t be stupid. We don’t want you to leave,” Jema told her.
“I’m going anyway… if they’ll have me.” She finally managed to get the top sorted and pulled it over her head. Her breasts disappeared one by one before her head came out the other end. With the same effort she then tried to sort the bottom half. “Yuck,” she said as she pulled the panties away from the trousers. “I’ll have to wash this lot today.”
“I think the wine made you pretty much incapable of doing anything today,” Jema said, at which Marya threw the panties at her. Too light, they never made it.
Marya had very few inhibitions and walked around half dressed to get another pair. When she couldn’t find any, she took a pair of Nini’s. “Just give me all your washing. I’ll get it done,” she said.
Jema gathered her dirty clothing and some of Nini’s as well and dumped it on Marya’s mat. “Mind you don’t fall in and drown in the state you’re in. I’ll go then. Leni may ask me to go to the meeting with them so I could be back late.”
“Just be careful that Frimon doesn’t drag you in too. I’d hate to see you on your knees for him.”
“Anybody ever tell you you’re prejudiced?”
Marya laughed and let her go without answering back.
The people of the Society had their homes together at the far north end of town, as they’d been at the fringes of the prefabs. Leni didn’t mind that; it gave them a chance to have their ceremonies without disturbing others or being looked at. “That is, until Frimon got the silly notion that by making it accessible for everybody people won’t see us as a sect anymore,” she said.
So Marya had been correct after all. “Which in itself isn’t a bad idea. Didn’t you say before that nobody wants to listen to his views because they see him as unscientific?” Jema asked.
“Yes, and that was one of the motivations to get more people to share the meetings. However, now he’s making penance a public spectacle, which it should not be.”
“So why don’t you stop him? I mean, haven’t you been in the Society as long as he has?”
“I’ve tried, but things have changed. We used to be all equal, on SJilai still, but now Frimon speaks for all of us. I don’t quite remember how and when that happened, but it’s expected to be so. Maybe there is a need for a leader with this many new people joining, but they want him to speak and they’re demanding penance.”
“What about the original members; don’t they object?”
“No, not openly. I must admit that I don’t either, Jema. I observe the changes. They worry me a little, but I don’t want to end up standing alone.”
“He can’t kick you out though, can he?”
“Nobody can kick people out, but people can be picky on how they react. If you hear them at the meetings it gets a little scary. They just repeat his words and turn on anybody who disagrees.”
“What you’re saying is that they force him into these demonstrations or he’d lose his place? Like always, Leni, a dictator doesn’t seize power. The very mob that supports him creates the dictatorship.”
Leni started laughing. “It isn’t that bad, Jema. Frimon is no dictator. He’s a born leader and he’s trying to bring across our values to the new people.”
“Don’t be stupid. That’s how it always starts.”
The way Leni looked at her made Jema regret her choice of words. She could say this to Marya or Nini, just as a word to emphasize, but not to Leni. Why not? Leni wasn’t that much older. It was more a respect thing. Leni would never use that word herself.
For a little while it was quiet. Jema had lost the thread of the conversation.
Leni picked it back up. “Maybe you have a point, Maybe I should caution him not to get too flattered by their support. They may leave again, anyway, once the storm is forgotten.”
Jema relaxed. “I stood alone with my opinions most of my life, Leni. It’s still better than giving in to what you can’t believe in. Those people are followers. Frimon is only a man. You don’t need him.”
Leni looked at her a moment and then stood up to get something from her chest. The calm nature of her movements brought memories of home. Leni was not big – slender, rather – but she came across so because of her strength. Everything about Leni seemed deliberate. It was unlikely that she wouldn’t be able to stand alone, yet she didn’t want to be outcast. She quietly watched the changes, thinking it wouldn’t get out of hand. Most people were like that. Frimon was charismatic: He was fascinating to watch in action and he genuinely believed in his cause, which together with his abilities as an orator drew people to him. His power was catching, but it was a power bestowed
upon him. He may or may not want that power, but what he really wanted was to be believed by those who didn’t go on their knees for him, those he needed to convince that being a member of the Society didn’t mean being an idiot. So he had found a way to entice them.
Leni came back with a little box and sat down next to Jema before opening it. Inside were photographs; DJar memories. She handed Jema one of them; two small children holding hands, no older than two and four. “That’s us. We grew up together. For as long as I can remember, Frimon was like a brother to me.”
The next photo showed the same children with two men. “Sotyar and Flantar; my father and his father.” Leni pointed to the man who looked like Frimon. “He became my guide later, while my mother was his guide. People often do that. That’s why Emi goes to Frimon and Rorag will come to me.”
Jema listened as the photographs were handed to her. The children in the pictures grew older. Leni explained that they had been expected to commit, but Frimon met an outsider when at Postlearners. “She was an intellectual snob.”
Leni had then committed to a member of the Society and had Emi shortly after. Frimon and his comate had returned after Rorag was born, but he didn’t get along with Leni’s comate. “The two got into an argument, which could not have been solved with penance, so it escalated and ended with Emi’s father taking his own life.”
Jema focused on the photographs of Emi and Rorag growing up together. Either Leni or Frimon was in every picture. “What about Rorag’s mother?”
“She left Frimon shortly after the argument. We stayed together and when the news of the journey came, I decided we’d sign on as a family. You see, Jema, I’m more his equal than anybody else, but I can’t just leave him.”
Jema understood that now. Leni and Frimon were suddenly more than two people she’d met on SJilai; they had a history, a childhood, and love lives, the kind of things you never thought about when you met people at a later age. She handed back the photographs she was still holding.
Before putting them away, Leni pulled out another one. It was one of Leni as a small child again. Next to her was another girl. “Does she remind you of somebody?”
Jema looked closer. She thought maybe it did, but she couldn’t think of who or when.
“I know it sounds silly to speak of best friends at that age, but we believed it then. Her name was Daili.”
Jema looked again, then at Leni to make sure she’d heard it right, and back at the child. She’d seen it before; it was in a collection of photos at Daili’s home, on SJilai. But Daili wasn’t Society?
“No, she isn’t,” Leni confirmed.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“I don’t think so. Daili is a leader, and everybody knows her. We are just the group of the Society. I saw her at the trefin. She knows Frimon is here, but I don’t think she’s made the connection. I don’t understand why… unless she’s forgotten her childhood. I never told him either; I don’t think he’s worked it out. Daili was a popular name when we were young.”
“So why don’t you go see her?”
“For the same reason you don’t, Jema. I don’t know what to say. Where we lived, most people were Society, and it was Daili who was the outsider. I followed Frimon when he teased her. I was six. I never realized what I was doing to her then. Only now, when I see what it does to Rorag. That’s why we have to open up the Society for others.”
Jema had wanted to ask how Leni knew about her problem with Daili, wanted to ask why she talked ‘best friends’ if Daili was bullied, but Frimon walked in.
“We were just talking about you,” Leni said and took the photographs to put away. “I’ll go get the kids.”
Frimon sat down. He was clearly as much at home here as Leni was.
“How is Anoyak?” Jema asked, to break the silence.
“He’s a good kid. You can ask him yourself. He’ll be over shortly.”
It seemed they’d all have meals together. Maybe Leni and Frimon didn’t just have a past together; they had a present as well.
“So no more problems?”
“He has no need for problems anymore. He has his physical needs in his own hands now and I don’t mean that literally,” Frimon answered. He was leaning back, hands together over his midriff and he smiled, amused by her need to figure that out – by her embarrassment, maybe.
If nothing else, she admired his intellect. “Anyhow, I’m grateful for you taking him. I couldn’t help him then.”
“Because no matter how open minded you’re trying to be, you still can’t accept that every bird sings to the tune of spring and that is all it does,” he answered.
That was what Nini had also said, but it was a strange statement coming from a man who believed the Land Beyond to be more than just a phrase. “If that is true, why would there be a need for more than the basic notes?”
“Don’t you know, Jema, that all music is made up of only eight notes?”
It was the arrogance in his intonation more than his words that made it so difficult to have a conversation with him. “So why is it so hard for people to just sing the simple tune? Why do they have to create music that damages their body?” she asked.
“Are you referring to Anoyak or to my penance?”
Jema had not really meant anybody in particular; more general conflicts like war and violence, but since he asked… “Both, maybe.”
“Because as much as each bird is bound to sing, so it yearns for liberation from the need for it. Penance is liberating. In the Sjusa, Bueror speaks of the freedom he found in paying penance and I believe he was right.”
“Because he was feeling guilty for having caused his sister’s death.”
Frimon shook his head. “It was never clear if there was a sister. They may have been one and the same person. You have to see it in the context of the time: People were suppressed and poor. A man’s worth was measured by the amount of sons he could produce. Divorce and polygamy were forbidden, but a man could recommit after the death of a comate. Three girls born before Bueror didn’t live. His mother needed to bear a son in order to save her own life.”
“Which explains where the visions came from?” Jema asked.
“Possibly.”
“So what about the rest? Is it just a story?”
“It’s never just a story. It is a story that helps people. Whether all of it really happened or came from someone’s imagination is not important. There was a need for it as there is a need for penance. The whole idea of penance is that people express what they can’t otherwise.”
“So why do it every day?”
He squeezed his eyes tight for a moment. “You did hear about it then? Okay, if it would save you making all kinds of assumptions…”
He was testing her, assessing her willingness to accept his ritual, maybe because outsiders had assumed and judged him far too often. So she listened when he explained that he’d made this promise to repent for eight days every year – “Every DJar year.” It was a manner of proving his conviction and to remember that he was thankful for having Rorag returned to him when the child was two, after having been taken by his mother a year earlier. Frimon was bound to keep his promise. “Leni thinks there is no need but it’s my choice. I do it to prove to Rorag how important he is to me.”
He waited for Jema to comment, but she wasn’t going to fall into the trap of making a prejudiced remark. “Why did she take him first and then bring him back?” she asked, wondering what kind of a mother would walk away from a child after two years.
He took his time before deciding she was worthy of an answer. “She took him because she couldn’t live with a marked man and brought him back because her new mate didn’t want anybody else’s child. She knew I could never commit again, you see?”
Jema didn’t see and his eyes were willing her to ask what he meant, so she gave in. He was sharing a bit of private life; the least she could do was be interested.
He started by repeating what Leni had told her earli
er about the argument between the two men in her life; Leni’s comate had been twelve years older than she was.
“He took her only for his own protection. He was no real man – no songbird, if you know what I mean. Nobody knew, not even Leni, but I did, so I confronted him. We had a huge fight. He was afraid he’d be found out if made to repent, so he took his life. That left Leni without a comate and Emi without a father. My own father, who was Leni’s guide, decided I should have not interfered and made it so I would be bound to serve them for life. Leni could have recommitted, but she never did.”
“Is that what you meant by being marked?” Jema asked, now genuinely interested.
“Yes, but I won’t go into detail and I would appreciate it if you kept this information to yourself.”
“Yes, of course.”
For the very first time, she felt some sympathy for him. As with Leni, she was left with a mas more questions than she’d started with, but she didn’t ask. No need to pry. They sat in silence until Emi and Anoyak walked in with the food. Anoyak gave Jema a kiss, a gesture she’d not expected from him. He did look good: mature and at ease.
During the meal, Kisya shared everything she’d done lately; Leni had to tell her three times to eat.
“She never stops talking,” Emi told Jema, but she said it affectionately.
In contrast, Rorag ate without a word. He still had the bruises on his face and he kept looking at Jema. Nobody ate much.
“People’s need for food is diminishing,” Frimon said.
“How is that possible?” Leni asked.
“I don’t know. I just observe it.”
“People don’t use the excretorials much anymore either,” Kisya added, which caused Leni to tell her that was hardly the subject for a meal. But Kisya was right and so was Frimon: Jema had noticed the change, first on returning to SJilai and then again once back on the planet. Down here they needed less food. Why had she never realized?
