The basic unit for the biological cycle was hunger and sleep, accompanied by water and urine. Whereas the basic unit of supplies was the alarm.
The alarm equaled a long period of time, sleep a medium-long one, hunger a medium one, and water could range from medium-long to short, depending on how much was drunk. A perfectly trained body together with understanding of mathematics allowed a woman not to have to wait for the second urination to drink the second time so she did not have to be thirsty for too long to complete a unit of time.
A term, on the other hand, equaled five hungers and one sleep. Also, an alarm equaled approximately thirty-six hungers and six sleeps during abundant periods and twice that during scarce periods. A cycle could be understood as the completion of two alarms.
Ksatrya men, however, measured time by what they saw. They used the words day, night, year … and although they experienced hunger, sleep and thirst, they did not need to train their body to measure time because even if at some moment, for some reason, they could not see, they had things called clocks that allowed them to cut time into even smaller intervals such a hours, minutes and seconds.
Oh, yes: time. So tied to the body and life itself, so relative and so tangible when studied from the perspective of mathematics …
At times, Charni wondered if it might be possible to use mathematics for something other than to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Perhaps it could give consistency to the world the same way it gave consistency to time.
She talked with Deva about it a few times. Her friend, with her wide vocabulary and “conclusive” communication, above all with silly girls, quickly brought Charni back to reality.
“I’m sure it can, Charni, but first you must learn to crawl and then to walk. That’s why they teach us first to survive without help. There’ll be time to think about the smell of the world.”
True. Charni was depending less and less on her mother to do tasks efficiently, and still …
The classes for mathematics, language, male language, writing shapes, music, cooking and athletics were satisfying. But the classes for tidying up, cleaning, sewing, and clothing were insufferable tedium. The worst were sewing and clothing, special tortures.
She could understand the reason for learning to patch clothing or ease or adjust it so that it still fit while their bodies were developing cycle by cycle. She even understood why sewing well was basic for coming classes where they would be taught to embroider words and textures to make it easier to recognize each other. Yes. Fine. But what she could not figure out was if it was always the same temperature, why did she have to learn to make enormous, heavy clothing with hard and padded fabric that hurt her fingers and wrists. They weren’t even going to be worn!
“I know,” she sighed, at the edge of defeat. “I know, Deva. As my mother said, I ought to be patient. And from what I heard six alarms ago, soon we’ll have classes about the world of men that sound more interesting. We’ll learn about countryside, the language of tears, and servitue. But cleaning sounded great when the teacher explained it the first day, remember? Learning to tell clean textures from dirty ones, safe ones from infected ones … but in the end it was boring. If it isn’t smooth or similar or it makes you sneeze, you have to clean it. Always the same thing, the same old thing. So big deal.”
“You sense too much, Charni. I repeat: first you crawl, then you walk. First you sense and then you put it all together to know what it is. That’s always how we’ve done it. That’s how we defeated Latha a cycle ago. We managed to hurt her a lot of times before, but we gave her the final blow when we learned where her weakness was.”
“Yes, but it took us a lot of cycles and practice to do it.”
“Patience, Charni. What did your mother tell you? Patience. A real woman doesn’t hurry. Sense it, add everything together, and think. Then, when you know and have memorized the limits, you can move safely. If you’re going to be queen you …”
“No, no, no. Deva, I won’t be queen.”
One more her friend had diverted the conversation to that issue —an issue that made her feel as if her body was heavy, as if she was carrying a weight, and she did not know where it came from or how to get rid of it.
Always the same. She did not like it at all.
Everyone assumed this was going to be her destiny and she had come to the world for it. And after a long time she learned that this assumption had caused the conflict with Latha, who felt that since everyone thought Charni would be queen, she would never even get the chance even to try for it. Why did people decide for themselves that she wanted to be queen when she had never ever said that?
“To start with, Deva, I can’t do what my mother does. Pronounce words that sound true even though they’re false and make sure the language of her body doesn’t lie during the conversation? I can’t do that.”
“That’s not true. You can do that, it’s just that you don’t like to lie. That’s why so many girls have joined up with us now. Because they sense the truth. That’s why you’ll be queen.”
“But it’s not enough. My mother has produced a lot of men and that’s why she got the title of queen. Because she’s increased our safety in this world more than other mothers. I’ve lived for eleven cycles now and I still haven’t produced one.”
“Neither has Latha or me or the other girls. You still haven’t lost.”
Charni puffed. Why didn’t Deva listen to her? Why was she so confident? Why did she say she hadn’t lost when they weren’t competing?
“Okay, Charni. I sense that you’re angry. I won’t say anything more. But you need to know that when what has to happen finally comes to pass, I’ll be at your side. Helping you with the soft stick when I have to, okay?”
Charni caressed Deva’s palm with her finger to tell her that what she said had satisfied her. And, suddenly, she felt a pinch and then a slight but constant pain below her navel. She clenched her teeth and swore silently.
How could it be? Three hungers had gone by. For more than three cycles she had trained her body to empty solids before the second hunger, never in the third or later. How?
“What’s happening?” Deva asked when she perceived Charni’s tension.
“Nothing, don’t worry. I’m going home.”
“Okay. Should we touch hands?”
“Yes. When?”
“I don’t know. Within one urination?”
“Mmm … better after one water.”
“Fine. But I have to be home before the fourth hunger.”
“Right. Me too. We’ll touch hands.”
“Touch!”
When Charni got home, she found her mother attending to her duties as queen. At thirty-six cycles old, her contour no longer served to help men see, so she had more time to organize, help, and advise other women.
Charni decided to wait until the meeting was over to greet her as she ought. Meanwhile she looked for her little sister, four cycles old: the last thing her mother had produced before men made her sense that the contour of her breasts and the stretch marks around her belly and thighs made it hard for their seeing organ to be satisfied.
“Speak with textures,” she heard her mother order the women who were whispering. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”
“We’d like you to talk some sense into Chaid Khasat. He keeps wanting us to help him see when it is more than textured that he never will.”
“That’s nothing new,” her mother replied with a snort. “Men are like girls who need to share information with their mother all the time to adapt to this world. Chaid Khasat is incomplete besides, and he and every man like him is furious and afraid because he’ll never sense again the way he did before. It’s our duty to ease his fear from time to time although we know that our bodies, no matter how hard we try, will never give him back his sight. So I don’t sense any urgency to talk sense into him as your tone seems to suggest.”
“But seven cycles have gone by and he doesn’t seem willing to admit that we can’t hel
p him see the way we did before he was an invalid. Other men didn’t take so long. And he still wants our attention just as often. Kesha, we can’t keep letting him spill information into us this way. If a man becomes an invalid that quickly, it means that he’s weak, and so he can’t help us make strong guardians. Old men can, but he can’t.”
“Well, that’s what the peacemakers are for. To calm them down without the fear that their information will develop inside them and make weak men.”
“Kesha …” a second woman interrupted with a cough to make her presence known, “that’s not the only problem.”
“Then texture it so I understand you and can help you as I ought.” Her mother was beginning to lose her patience.
“You can touch me, Kesha. As always, we try to have as many peacemakers in the invalids’ house as we can so that it will be hard for them to make a woman produce a weak man. But Chaid Khasat isn’t calmed down by the women we send there to ensure that the invalids don’t die of hunger or get sick from lack of cleanliness. He’s begun to enter nearby homes and force them to help him see with more and more violence.”
Complete silence filled the house. Not a breath could be heard. Charni grabbed her sister and held her even tighter against her chest to sense her better and not to feel alone in a world that could seem unlimited and terrifying to a little girl.
“Violent? How?” my mother asked in an almost icy tone. “Some men are very impetuous when it comes to satisfying their member. We’ve all experienced a painful spilling of information. So texture it. Violent in what sense?”
“Sometimes he hits them, sometimes he crushes them against a wall and twists their arm. One even showed me the mark of his teeth on her shoulder.”
The silence that followed those words felt heavy, smothering. Charni thought she felt her heart catch in her chest. What she had just heard not only seemed inconceivable, it was aberrant.
A man never hit or hurt a woman. Never. They were there to protect them, and in exchange for this protection, women helped them see so they could more effectively guard the openings that gave access to the other world. It had always been like that.
“All right.” Her mother interrupted the thick silence. “Before trying to talk sense into him, I’ll talk to Qjem and tell him what you’ve described. I don’t think he can sit back when he finds out what one of the men under his charge is doing. Meanwhile, relocate the women. Put the peacemakers in the houses that this useless invalid entered, and make sure that none of the women who help him talk about it. Men are worse than girls two cycles old. They can’t tell one woman from another if they don’t see or hear her often.”
“We shall do so, Kesha,” they all replied in unison.
My mother clapped quickly three times to show that the meeting had ended and they could go. Then she waited patiently for the women to answer by clapping three times to show that they had found the exit and were leaving the house.
Once she was alone, she called Charni to give her the greeting she had not been able to do when she had arrived.
“How was school?” she asked, caressing Charni’s shoulder to complete the hug and recognition of scents.
“Fine. As always.”
“Did you learn anything new?”
“Nothing very interesting.”
“And what would have been interesting for you?”
“I don’t know. Something that didn’t involve wrecking my fingers sewing, for example.”
“What kind of woman are you if you complain about ever little thing that hurts?” she answered as an affectionate scold.
“But, Mama, it’s not that. It’s … ugh.” She could not help herself from moaning due to the pinch she felt below her navel.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad. Show me where it hurts.”
Charni took her mother’s hand and guided it to the center of the pain.
“Have you urinated yet?” she asked with an unexpectedly serious tone while she felt her.
“I just did.”
“And did you need to?” She gently slid her hand between Charni’s legs. “You’re wet.”
“I cleaned myself with the urinating cloth. I swear, Mama,” she said ashamedly.
But her mother did not seem to hear her. She lowered her head, put her nose near her crotch and sniffed.
“Honestly, Mama. I don’t know what happened to me. I drank when it was time and calculated the same amount. Don’t yell at me like I was a two-cycle-old girl, please.”
“No, Charni. You’re not a girl anymore. Your internal time has arrived early.”
Her internal time had arrived early, but according to her mother this was not bad. Unexpected, but not unusual. It could even be a good sign.
Perhaps within a half a cycle, when her body had adapted to the change, Charni could incorporate a new unit of measure, the bleeding, a biological cycle common to all women, but personal and unique. That is, although a cycle could be divided into bleeds, the start of each one did not have to coincide with the start of any other woman’s bleeding. It was her internal time and no one else’s. Still, it should not be taken as an exact time. Although a bleeding generally occurred every twenty-eight terms, the same as times of abundance and shortage, it could come earlier or later.
Earlier was not especially bad. Puzzling, perhaps inconvenient, but not bad. To come later needed special attention to the number of terms or alarms that had passed since a man had spilled information.
Because Charni could no longer be called a girl but a young woman. And after the rite of initiation took place, she would earn the right to be considered a Ksatrya because she would finally be a fully complete woman at the service of the world and the women who inhabited it.
Although it was too soon for that. Her body was not sufficiently developed for the ritual, so it could be fatal for her. Yet her mother had great hope. She had produced her first man when she was thirteen cycles old. If Charni did it when she was only twelve cycles old, without a doubt that would be a clear, almost indisputable sign that she deserved to succeed her as queen.
That obsession again. An invisible but tremendously heavy weight hung over her body. Why was her mother so interested in her being queen? What was so good about it, besides having a separate house and assistants to do tedious tasks like cleaning, washing or cooking? Everything else was just responsibilities and more responsibilities. A constant weight on her shoulders and constant worries about other people’s problems on her mind.
But Charni never said that to her mother. Somehow she knew that it would disappoint her so much that her heart would break. So, as always, she did what she was told and got ready and tried to convince herself in the process that everything was for her own good. It always had been.
So Charni attended extra classes with five other young women like her whose internal time had also arrived early.
Without a doubt it was a special class where, to begin with, there were no chairs or desks. Instead they sat or lay on small mattresses, sheets, or cushions on the floor. The teacher, who always sat in the middle, spoke to them calmly and in a soft, relaxing tone. She never became angry when a young woman failed to understand something, and she had infinite patience, which Charni admired. Because, according to the teacher, there was no hurry even though their bodies were hurrying. What mattered was that they understand the reason behind things.
So, during the first alarms, she spent waters and waters explaining to them what it meant for them to have an internal time, how to recognize the symptoms before a bleeding, the troubles they could feel the first few days, the emotional changes they could feel and how to face them, how to feel clean in spite of the inconveniences, and she even managed to keep them from worrying when she explained that their urinating could become irregular.
In the most recent alarm they had begun to combine theory with practice: how, for example, to know when to change the blood cloth or what the holder for the cloths should be made of to avoid bad odors, be comfortable around the
waist, but not make too much noise if it hit the container for urine.
For the next alarm, after they had each made their holder, lessons about their own bodies would begin, teaching them to explore them and to recognize changes and the especially sensitive areas.
Oh! She was dying to tell all these things to Deva, but the teacher had frequently insisted that it was not a good idea to share this information with girls since their bodies were not ready to receive the lessons, and in the long run it would be even worse because when the moment came, it could cause self-rejection and trauma. And although Charni did not understand that last word very well, she perceived that its connotations were not good, so she had no other choice but to be patient and quiet.
It was hard, especially considering that with all the time that the extra classes took, she and Deva had hardly had any time to meet and share feelings. When they could, they were so happy to be together again that they could not stop talking and talking. Although she was a young lady and her friend was a girl … she was still Deva, and until a few alarms ago she could tell her anything.
And during the fourth hunger of that day, when Latha blocked her path as she was returning home, Charni missed terribly the comforting and … conclusive presence of Deva.
“Well, well, look who’s here … it’s the young woman Charni.”
Charni, after the surprise of the encounter, tried to relax her body so as not to appear as alert as she really was.
Latha was dangerous and, above all, very hurtful when she had more girls with her. Something that, in fact, happened often enough. Although her following had been reduced during the last cycle, she only needed to have one girl with her in order to say whatever she wanted. And Latha always avoided texturing her words whenever she could, in spite of the difficulties that she had shown in learning new vocabulary sounds over the passing of the cycles.
This time, however, it was confusing not to feel the presence of other girls. What was happening? Was it related to the fact that Charni was a young woman while Latha was still a girl? Was it possible that, due to this difference, she did not want to be perceived as harassing an older person? Interesting …
Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction Page 3
