Four Ways to Forgiveness
Page 24
We went into his house, which I had seen once before, an old mansion of some owner of the Corporation days. He thanked the guards and shut the door. “Dinner,” he said. “The cook’s out. I meant to take you to a restaurant. I forgot.” He led me to the kitchen, where we found cold rice and salad and wine After we ate he looked at me across the kitchen table and looked down again. His hesitance made me hold still and say nothing. After a long time he said, “Oh, Rakam! will you let me make love to you?”
“I want to make love to you,” I said, “I never did. I never made love to anyone.”
He got up smiling and took my hand. We went upstairs together, passing what had been the entrance to the men’s side of the house. “I live in the beza,” he said, “in the harem. I live on the woman’s side. I like the view.”
We came to his room. There he stood still, looking at me, then looked away. I was so frightened, so bewildered, I thought I could not go to him or touch him. I made myself go to him. I raised my hand and touched his face, the scars by his eye and on his mouth, and put my arms around him. Then I could hold him to me, closer and closer.
Some time in that night as we lay drowsing entangled I said, “Did you sleep with Dr. Yeron?”
I felt Havzhiva laugh, a slow, soft laugh in his belly, which was against my belly. “No,” he said. “No one on Yeowe but you. And you, no one on Yeowe but me. We were virgins, Yeowan virgins…Rakam, araha…” He rested his head in the hollow of my shoulder and said something else in a foreign language and fell asleep. He slept deeply, silently.
Later that year I came up north to the University, where I was taken on the faculty as a teacher of history. By their standards at that time, I was competent. I have worked there ever since, teaching and as editor of the press.
As he had said he would be, Havzhiva was there constantly, or almost.
The Amendments to the Constitution were voted, by secret ballot, mostly, in the Yeowan Year of Liberty 18. Of the events that led to this, and what has followed, you may read in the new three volume History of Yeowe from the University Press I have told the story I was asked to tell. I have closed it, as so many stories close, with a joining of two people. What is one man’s and one woman’s love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery. So I wrote this book for my friend, with whom I have lived and will die free.
Notes on Werel and Yeowe
1. Pronunciation of Names and Words
In VOE DEAN (which is also the language of Yeowe) and GATAYAN, vowels have the usual “European values”:
a as in father (ah)
e as in hey (ay) or let (eh)
i as in machine (ee) or it (in)
o as in go (o) or off (oh)
u as in ruby (oo)
In Voe Dean the accent is normally on the next-to-last syllable. Thus:
Arkamye — ar-KAHM-yeh
Bambur — BAHM-boor
Boeba — bo-AY-bah
Dosse — DOHS-seh
Erod — EH-rod
gareot — gah-RAY-ot
Gatay — gah-TAH-ee
gede — GHEH-deh
Geu — GAY-oo
Hame — HAH-meh
Hagayot — hah-GAH-yot
Hayawa — hah-YAH-wah
Kamye — KAHM-yeh
Keo — KAY-o
makil — MAH-kihl
Nadami — nah-DAH-mee
Noeha — no-AY-hah
Ramayo — rah-MAH-yo
rega — RAY-gah
Rewe — REH-weh
San Ubattat — sahn-oo-BAHT-taht
Seugi — say-OO-ghee
Shomeke — sho-MEH-keh
Suhame — soo-HAH-meh
Tazeu — tah-ZAY-oo
Teyeo — teh-YAY-o
Tikuli — tee-KOO-lee
Toebawe — to-eh-BAH-weh
Tual — too-AHL or TWAHL
veot — VAY-ot
Voe Deo — vo-eh-DAY-o
Walsu — WAHL-soo
Werel — WEH-rehl
Yeowe — yay-O-way
Yeron — YEH-rohn
Yoke — YO-keh
Yotebber — yo-TEHB-ber
Yowa — YO-wah
Names formed with the name of the deities Kamye (Kam) and Tual tend to keep a stress on that element, thus:
Abberkam — AHB-ber-KAHM
Batikam — BAH-tih-KAHM
Rakam — RAH-KAHM
Sezi-Tual — SAY-zih-TWAHL
Tualtak — TWAHL-tahk
HAINISH
(The extremely long lineage-names common among the Hainish are cut down for daily use; thus Mattin-yehedarhed-dyura-ga-muruskets becomes Yehedarhed.)
araha — ah-RAH-ha
Ekumen (from an Ancient Terran word) — EK-yoo-men
Esdardon Aya — ez-DAR-don-AH-ya
Havzhiva — HAHV-zhi-vah
Iyan Iyan — ee-YAHN-ee-YAHN
Kathhad — KAHTH-hahd
Mezhe — MEH-zheh
Stse — STSEH (like the capitalized letters in English “beST SEt”)
Tiu — TYOO
Ve — VEH
Yehedarhed — yeh-heh-DAR-hed
2. The Planets Werel and Yeowe
From A Handbook of the Known Worlds, printed in Darranda, Ham, Hainish Cycle 93, Local Year 5467.
Ecumenical Year 2102 is counted as Present when historical dates are given as years Before Present (BP).
The Werel-Yeowe solar system consists of 16 planets orbiting a yellow-white star (RK-tamo-5544-34). Life developed on the third, fourth, and fifth planets. The fifth, called Rakuli in Voe Dean, has only invertebrate life-forms tolerant of arid cold, and has not been exploited or colonised. The third and fourth planets, Yeowe and Werel, are well within the Hainish Norm of atmosphere, gravity, climate, etc. Werel was colonised by Hain late in the Expansion, within the last million years. It appears that there was no native fauna to displace, as all animal life-forms found on Werel, as well as some flora, are of Hainish derivation. Yeowe had no animal life until Werel colonised it 365 years BP.
Werel
Natural History
The fourth planet out from its sun, Werel has seven small moons. Its current climate is cool temperate, severely cold at the poles. Its flora is largely indigenous, its fauna entirely of Hainish origin, modified deliberately to obtain cobiosis with the native plants, and further modified through genetic drift and adaptation. Human adaptations include a cyanotic skin coloration (from black to pale, with a bluish cast) and eyes without visible whites, both evidently adjustments to elements in the solar radiation spectrum.
Voe Deo: Recent History: 4000-3500 years BP, aggressive, progressive black-skinned people from south of the equator on the single great continent (the region that is now the nation of Voe Deo) invaded and dominated the lighter-skinned peoples of the north. These conquerors instituted a master-slave society based on skin color.
Voe Deo is the largest, most numerous, wealthiest nation on the planet; all other nations in both hemispheres are dependencies, client states, or economically dependent on Voe Deo. Voe Dean economics have been based on capitalism and slavery for at least 3000 years. Voe Dean hegemony permits the general description of Werel as if it were all one society As the society is in rapid change, however, this account will be put in the past tense.
Social Classes under Slavery
Class: master (owner or gareot) and slave (asset). Your class was your mother’s class, without exception.
Skin color ranges from blue-black through bluish or greyish beige to an almost depigmented white. (Only albinism affects hair and eyes, which are dark). Ideally and in the abstract, class was skin color: owners black, assets white Actually, many owners were black, most were dark; some assets were black, most beige, some white.
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OWNERS were called men, women, children.
The unqualified word owner meant either the class as a whole or an individual/family owning two or more slaves.
The owner of one slave or no slaves was a staffless owner or gareot.
The veot was a member of an hereditary warrior caste of owners; the ranks were rega, zadyo, oga. Veot men almost invariably joined the Army; most veot families were landed proprietors; most were owners, some gareots.
Owner women formed a subclass or inferior caste. An owner woman was legally the property of a man (father, uncle, brother, husband, son, or guardian). Most observers hold that the gender division of Werelian society was as profound and essential as the master/slave division, but less visible, as it cut across it, owner women being considered socially superior to assets of both sexes. Since women were property, they could not own property, including human property. They could, however, manage property.
ASSETS were called bondsmen, bondswomen, pups or young. Pejorative terms: slaves, dusties, chalks, whites.
Luls were work-slaves, owned by a person or a family. All slaves on Werel were luls, except makils and asset-soldiers.
Makils were sold to and owned by the Entertainment Corporation.
Asset-soldiers were sold to and owned by the Army.
“Cutfrees” or eunuchs were male slaves castrated (more or less voluntarily, depending on age, etc.) to gain status and privilege. Werelian histories describe a number of cutfrees who rose to great power in various governments; many held posts of influence throughout the bureaucracy. The Bosses of the bondswomen’s side of the compound were invariably cutfrees.
Manumission was extremely rare up until the last century, restricted to a few famous historical/ legendary cases of slaves whose supernal loyalty and virtue induced their masters to give them freedom. About the time the War of Liberation began on Yeowe, the practice of manumission became more frequent on Werel, led by the owner group The Community, which advocated the abolition of slavery. A manumitted asset ranked legally, though seldom socially, as a gareot.
In Voe Deo at the time of the Liberation the proportion of assets to owners was 7:1. (About half these owners were gareots, owners of one or no assets.) In poorer countries the proportion dropped lower or reversed; in the Equatorial States the proportion of assets to owners was 1:5. In Werel as a whole, the proportion was estimated to be about three assets to one owner.
The House and the Compound
Historically and in the country, on the estates, farms, and plantations, the assets lived in a fenced or walled compound with a single gate. The compound was divided in halves by a ditch running parallel to the gate wall. The gateside was the men’s quarters, the inside was the women’s. Children lived on the inside, until boys reaching working age (8 to 10) were sent over to the longhouse. Women lived in huts, mothers and daughters, sisters or friends usually sharing a hut, two to four women with their children. The men and boys lived in gateside barracks called longhouses. Kitchen gardens were maintained by the old people and small children who did not go out to work; the old people generally cooked for the working people. The grandmothers ruled the compound.
Cutfrees (eunuchs) lived in separate houses built against the outside wall, with a surveillance station on the wall; they served as Compound Bosses, intermediaries between the grandmothers and the Work Bosses (members of the owner family, or hired gareots, in charge of the working assets). Work Bosses lived in houses outside the compound.
The owning family and their owner-class dependents occupied the House. The term House included any number of outbuildings, the Work Bosses’ quarters, and animal barns, but specifically meant the family’s large house. In conventional Houses the men’s side (azade) and the women’s side (beza) were strictly divided. The degree of restriction on the women reflected the wealth, power, and social pretension of the family. Gareot women might have considerable freedom of movement and occupation, but women of wealthy or distinguished family were kept indoors or in the walled gardens, never going out without numerous male escorts.
A number of female assets lived on the women’s side as domestics and for use of the male owners. Some Houses kept male domestics, usually boys or old men; some kept cutfrees as servants.
In factories, mills, mines, etc., the compound system was maintained with some modifications. Where there was division of labor, all-male compounds were controlled entirely by hired gareots; in all-female compounds the grandmothers were allowed to keep order as in country compounds. Men rented to the all-male compounds had a life expectancy of about 28 years. During the shortage of assets caused by the slave trade to Yeowe in the early years of the Colony, some owners formed cooperative breeding compounds, where bondswomen were kept and bred annually, doing light work; some of these “breeders” bore a baby annually for twenty or more years.
Rentspeople: On Werel, all assets were individually owned. (The Corporations of Yeowe changed this practice; the Corporations owned the slaves, who had no private masters.)
In Werelian cities, assets traditionally lived in their owners’ households as domestics. During the last millennium it became increasingly common for owners of superfluous assets to rent them to businesses and factories as skilled or unskilled labor. The owners or shareholders of a company bought and owned individual assets individually; the company rented the assets, controlled their use, and shared the profits. An owner could live on the rental of two skilled assets. Thus rentsmen and rentswomen became the largest group of assets in all cities and many towns. Rentspeople lived in “union compounds”—apartment houses supervised by hired gareot Bosses. They were required to keep curfew and check in and out.
(Note the difference between Werelian rentspeople, rented out by their owner, and the far more autonomous Yeowan freedpeople, slaves who paid their owner a tithe or tax on freely chosen work, called “freedom rental.” One of the early objectives of the Hame, the Voe Dean underground asset liberation group, was to institute “freedom rental” on Werel.)
Most union compounds and all city households were gender-divided into azade and beza, but some private owners and some companies allowed their assets or rentspeople to live as couples, though not to marry. Their owners could separate them for any reason at any time. The mother’s owner owned the children of any such asset couple.
In the conventional compound, heterosexual access was controlled by the owners, the Bosses, and the grandmothers. People who “jumped the ditch” did so at their peril. The owner myth-ideal was of total separation of male and female assets, with the Bosses managing selective breeding, chosen stud asset males servicing the females at optimal intervals to produce the desired number of young. Female assets were mainly concerned, on exploitive farms, to avoid undesired breeding and yearly pregnancy. In the hands of benevolent owners, the grandmothers and cutfrees often could protect girls and women from rape, and even allow some affectional pairing. But bonding was discouraged both by the owners and the grandmothers; and no form of slave marriage was admitted by law or custom on Werel.
Religions
The worship of Tual, a Kwan Yin-like maternal deity of peace and forgiveness, was the state religion of Voe Deo. Philosophically, Tual is seen as the most important incarnation of Ama the Increate or Creator Spirit. Historically, she is an amalgam of many local and nature deities, and locally often refragments into multiplicity. Nationally, enforcement of the national religion tended to accompany Voe Dean hegemony in other countries, although the religion is not inherently a proselytizing or aggressive one. Tualite priests can and do hold high office in the government. Class: Tualite images and worship were maintained by the owners in all slave compounds, both on Werel and Yeowe. Tualism was the owners’ religion. The assets’ practice of it was enforced, and while including aspects of Tualite myth and worship in their rituals, most assets were Kamyites. By considering Kamye as “the Bondsman” and a lesser aspect of Ama, the Tualite priesthood included and tolerated Kamyite practice (which had no offici
al clergy) among slaves and soldiers (most veots were Kamyites).
The Arkamye or Life of Kamye the Swordsman (Kamye is also the Herdsman, a beastmaster deity, and the Bondsman, having been long in service to Lord Nightfall): a warrior epic, adopted about 3,000 years ago by the assets, pretty much worldwide, as the sourcebook of their own religion. It cultivates such warrior/slave virtues as obedience, courage, patience, and selflessness, as well as spiritual independence, a stoical indifference to the things of this world, and a passionate mysticism: reality is to be won only by letting the seeming-real go. Assets and veots include Tual in their worship as an incarnation of Kamye, himself an incarnation of Ama the Increate. The “stages of life” and “going into silence” are among the mystical ideas and practices shared by Kamyites and Tualites.
Relations with the Ekumen
The First Envoy (EY 1724) was met with extreme suspicion. After a closely guarded deputation was allowed to land from the ship Hugum, alliance was rejected. Aliens were forbidden to enter the solar system by the Government of Voe Deo and its allies. Werel, led by Voe Deo, then entered on a rapid, competitive development of space technology and intensification of all techno-industrial development For many decades, Voe Dean government, industry, and military were driven by a paranoid expectation of the armed return of conquering Aliens. It was this development that led within only thirteen years to the colonisation of Yeowe.
During the next three centuries the Ekumen made contact at intervals with Werel. An exchange of information was initiated at the insistence of the University of Bambur, joined by a consortium of universities and research institutions. Finally, after over three hundred years, the Ekumen was permitted to send a few Observers. During the War of Liberation on Yeowe, the Ekumen was invited to send Ambassadors to Voe Deo and Bambur, and later Envoys to Gatay, the Forty States, and other nations. For some time non-observance of the Arms Convention kept Werel from joining the Ekumen, despite pressure from Voe Deo on the other states, which insisted on retaining their weaponry. After the abrogation of the Arms Convention, Werel joined the Ekumen, 359 years after first contact and 14 years after the end of the War of Liberation.