So it was we sets out to pull the biggest caper in the history of Brimmytown.
* * *
“That’s them,” said Rooster Joe. “The cowbells afore us.”
“Well, boys,” said Luke, “it’s do-or-die time.”
They gathered up their saws and sacks and ladder, and started for the stage.
* * *
Miss Millie Dee Chantpie is in the car, looking cool as a cucumber. Little Willie is at one side of the crowd, standing out like a sore thumb; he has his hand under his jacket on The Old Crowd Pleaser.
Large Jake is back, shading three or four people from the hot afternoon sun. I am at the corner of the general mercantile, one eye on Chris the Shoemaker and one on the wire coming down the back of the store.
The prize moolah is in this big glass cracker jar on the table with the judges so everybody can see it. It is in greenbacks.
I am seeing Large Jake move up behind the John Law figure, who is sucking at a jug of corn liquor—you would not think the Prohib was the rule of the land here.
I am seeing these guys climb onto the stage, and I cannot believe my peepers, because they are pulling saws and ladders out of their backs. Are these carpenters or what? There is a guy in a straw hat, and one with a bristle mustache, and one with a redchecked shirt and red hat, and one with a cap with big floppy earflaps. One is climbing on a ladder. They are having tools everywhere. What the dingdong is going on?
And they begin to play, a corny song, but it is high and sweet, and then I am thinking of birds and rivers and running water and so forth. So I shakes myself, and keeps my glims on Chris the Shoemaker.
The guys with the saws are finishing their song, and people are going ga-ga over them.
And then I see that Chris is in position.
* * *
“Thank yew, thank yew,” said Luke. “We-all is the Sawing Boys and we are pleased as butter to be here. I got a cousin over to Cornfield County what has one uh them new cat-whisker crystal raddio devices, and you should hear the things that comes right over the air from it. Well, I learned a few of them, and me and the boys talked about them, and now we’ll do a couple for yew. Here we’re gonna do one by the Molokoi Hotel Royal Hawaiian Serenaders called ‘Ule Uhi Umekoi Hwa Hwa.’ Take it away, Sawing Boys!” He tapped his foot.
He bent his saw and bowed the first high, swelling notes, then Rooster Joe came down on the harmony rhythm on the ripsaw. Felix bent down on the ladder on the handle of the bucksaw, and Cave pulled the big willow bow and they were off into a fast, swinging song that was about lagoons and fish and food. People were jumping and yelling all over town, and Luke, whose voice was nothing special, started singing:
“Ume hoi uli koi hwa hwa
Wa haweaee omi oi lui lui…”
And the applause began before Rooster Joe finished alone with a dying struck high note that held for ten or fifteen seconds. People were yelling and screaming and the Cardui people didn’t know what to do with themselves.
“Thank yew, thank yew!” said Luke Apuleus, wiping his brow with his arm while holding his big straw hat in his hand. “Now, here’s another one I heerd. We hope you-all like it. It’s from the Abe Schwartz Orchestra and it’s called ‘Beym Rebn in Palestine.’ Take it away, Sawing Boys.”
They hit halting, fluttering notes, punctuated by Rooster Joe’s hammered ripsaw, and then the bucksaw went rolling behind it, Felix pumping up and down on the handle, Cave Canem bowing away. It sounded like flutes and violins and clarinets and mandolins. It sounded a thousand years old, but not like moonshine mountain music; it was from another time and another land.
* * *
Something is wrong, for Chris is standing very still, like he is already in the old oak kimono, and I can see he is not going to be giving me the High Sign.
I see that Little Willie, who never does anything on his own, is motioning to me and Large Jake to come over. So over I trot, and the music really washes over me. I know it in my bones, for it is the music of the old neighborhood where all of us but Miss Millie grew up.
I am coming up on Chris the Shoemaker and I see he has turned on the waterworks. He is transfixed, for here, one thousand miles from home, he is being caught up in the mighty coils of memory and transfiguration.
I am hearing with his ears, and what the saws are making is not the Abe Schwartz Orchestra but Itzike Kramtweiss of Philadelphia, or perhaps Naftalie Brandwein, who used to play bar mitzvahs and weddings with his back to the audience so rival clarinet players couldn’t see his hands and how he made those notes.
There is maybe ten thousand years behind that noise, and it is calling all the way across the Kentucky hills from the Land of Gaza.
And while they are still playing, we walk with Chris the Shoemaker back to the jalopy, and pile in around Miss Millie Dee Chantpie, who, when she sees Chris crying, begins herself, and I confess I, too, am a little blurry-eyed at the poignance of the moment.
And we pull out of Brimmytown, the saws still whining and screeching their jazzy ancient tune, and as it is fading and we are going up the hill, Chris the Shoemaker speaks for us all, and what he says is:
“God Damn. You cannot be going anywhere these days without you run into a bunch of half-assed klezmorim.”
For Arthur Hunnicutt and the late Sheldon Leonard.
Glossary to “The Sawing Boys” by Howard Waldrop
Balonies—tires
Bargain Day—court time set aside for sentencing plea-bargain cases
Beezer—the face, sometimes especially the nose
Bleaso!—1. an interjection—Careful! You are being overheard! Some chump is wise to the deal! 2. verb—to forgo something, change plans, etc.
The Cherry-colored Cat—an old con game
Cicero Lightning and Illinois Thunder—the muzzle flashes from machine guns and the sound of hand grenades going off
Do a minute—thirty days
Dogs are barking—feet are hurting
Fall Togs—the suit you wear going into, and coming out of, jail
Flit—prison coffee, from its resemblance to the popular fly spray of the time
Flivver—a jalopy
Frammus—a thingamajig or doohickey
Geetas—money, of any kind or amount
Glim Drop—con game involving leaving a glass eye as security for an amount of money; at least one of the con men should have a glass eye …
Glims—eyes
Goozle—mouth
Hooverize—(pre-Depression)—Hoover had been Allied Food Commissioner during the Great War, and was responsible for people getting the most use out of whatever foods they had; the standard command from parents was “Hooverize that plate!”; possibly a secondary reference to vacuum cleaners of the time.
Irish buggy (also Irish surrey)— a wheelbarrow
Jalopy—a flivver
Lizzie—a flivver
Mazuma—money, of any kind or amount
Mook—face
Motorman’s gloves—any especially large cut of meat
Nugging—porking
The Old Hydrophoby Lay—con game involving pretending to be bitten by someone’s (possibly mad) dog
Piping Some Doll’s Stems—looking at some woman’s legs
Push and Pull—gas and oil
Sammys—the Feds
Zex—Quiet (as in bleaso), cut it out, jiggies! Beat it! laying zex—keeping lookout
Rules of pig Latin: initial consonants are moved to the end of the word and -ay is added to the consonant; initial vowels are moved to the end of the word and -way is added to the vowel
THE MATTER OF SEGGRI
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin was a powerful presence in the short-fiction market this year, publishing seven stories in the genre, at least four or five of which were strong enough to have been shoo-ins for inclusion in a best-of-the-year anthology any other year. With difficulty, I managed to limit myself to two of them: “Forgiveness Day,” which appears earlier in this
anthology, and the story that follows, another brilliant Hanish novella, this one a powerful, somberly eloquent, and disturbing examination of all the terrible things that people can do to each other in the name of love …
The first recorded contact with Seggri was in year 242 of Hainish Cycle 93. A Wandership six generations out from Iao (4-Taurus) came down on the planet, and the captain entered this report in his ship’s log.
Captain Aolao-olao’s Report
We have spent near forty days on this world they call Se-ri or Ye-ha-ri, well entertained, and leave with as good an estimation of the natives as is consonant with their unregenerate state. They live in fine great buildings they call castles, with large parks all about. Outside the walls of the parks lie well-tilled fields and abundant orchards, reclaimed by diligence from the parched and arid desert of stone that makes up the greatest part of the land. Their women live in villages and towns huddled outside the walls. All the common work of farm and mill is performed by the women, of whom there is a vast superabundance. They are ordinary drudges, living in towns which belong to the lords of the castle. They live amongst the cattle and brute animals of all kinds, who are permitted into the houses, some of which are of fair size. These women go about drably clothed, always in groups and bands. They are never allowed within the walls of the park, leaving the food and necessaries with which they provide the men at the outer gate of the castle. The women evinced great fear and distrust of us, and our hosts advised us that it were best for us to keep away from their towns, which we did.
The men go freely about their great parks, playing at one sport or another. At night they go to certain houses which they own in the town, where they may have their pick among the women and satisfy their lust upon them as they will. The women pay them, we were told, in their money, which is copper, for a night of pleasure, and pay them yet more if they get a child on them. Their nights thus are spent in carnal satisfaction as often as they desire, and their days in a diversity of sports and games, notably a kind of wrestling, in which they throw each other through the air so that we marvelled that they seemed never to take hurt, but rose up and returned to the combat with marvelous dexterity of hand and foot. Also they fence with blunt swords, and combat with long light sticks. Also they play a game with balls on a great field, using the arms to catch or throw the ball and the legs to kick the ball and trip or catch or kick the men of the other team, so that many are bruised and lamed in the passion of the sport, which was very fine to see, the teams in their contrasted garments of bright colors much gauded out with gold and finery seething now this way, now that, up and down the field in a mass, from which the balls were flung up and caught by runners breaking free of the struggling crowd and fleeting towards the one or the other goal with all the rest in hot pursuit. There is a “battlefield” as they call it of this game lying without the walls of the castle park, near to the town, so that the women may come watch and cheer, which they do heartily, calling out the names of favorite players and urging them with many uncouth cries to victory.
Boys are taken from the women at the age of eleven and brought to the castle to be educated as befits a man. We saw such a child brought into the castle with much ceremony and rejoicing. It is said that the women find it difficult to bring a pregnancy of a boy child to term, and that of those born many die in infancy despite the care lavished upon them, so that there are far more women than men. In this we see the curse of GOD laid upon this race as upon all those who acknowledge HIM not, unrepentant heathens whose ears are stopped to true discourse and blind to the light.
These men know little of art, only a kind of leaping dance, and their science is little beyond that of savages. One great man of a castle to whom I talked, who was dressed out in cloth of gold and crimson and whom all called Prince and Grandsire with much respect and deference, yet was so ignorant he believed the stars to be worlds full of people and beasts, asking us from which star we descended. They have only vessels driven by steam along the surface of the land and water, and no notion of flight either in the air or in space, nor any curiosity about such things, saying with disdain, “That is all women’s work,” and indeed I found that if I asked these great men about matters of common knowledge such as the working of machinery, the weaving of cloth, the transmission of holovision, they would soon chide me for taking interest in womanish things as they called them, desiring me to talk as befit a man.
In the breeding of their fierce cattle within the parks they are very knowledgeable, as in the sewing up of their clothing, which they make from cloth the women weave in their factories. The men vie in the ornamentation and magnificence of their costumes to an extent which we might indeed have thought scarcely manly, were they not withal such proper men, strong and ready for any game or sport, and full of pride and a most delicate and fiery honor.
* * *
The log including Captain Aolao-olao’s entries was (after a 12-generation journey) returned to the Sacred Archives of The Universe on lao, which were dispersed during the period called The Tumult, and eventually preserved in fragmentary form on Hain. There is no record of further contact with Seggri until the First Observers were sent by the Ekumen in 93/1333: an Alterran man and a Hainish woman, Kaza Agad and Merriment. After a year in orbit mapping, photographing, recording and studying broadcasts, and analysing and learning a major regional language, the Observers landed. Acting upon a strong persuasion of the vulnerability of the planetary culture, they presented themselves as survivors of the wreck of a fishing boat, blown far off course, from a remote island. They were, as they had anticipated, separated at once, Kaza Agad being taken to the Castle and Merriment into the town. Kaza kept his name, which was plausible in the native context; Merriment called herself Yude. We have only her report, from which three excerpts follow.
* * *
From Mobile Gerindu’uttahayudetwe’menrade Merriment’s Notes for a Report to the Ekumen, 93 / 1334.
* * *
34 / 223. Their network of trade and information, hence their awareness of what goes on elsewhere in their world, is too sophisticated for me to maintain my Stupid Foreign Castaway act any longer. Ekhaw called me in today and said, “If we had a sire here who was worth buying or if our teams were winning their games, I’d think you were a spy. Who are you, anyhow?”
I said, “Would you let me go to the College at Hagka?”
She said, “Why?”
“There are scientists there, I think? I need to talk with them.”
This made sense to her; she made their “Mh” noise of assent.
“Could my friend go there with me?”
“Shask, you mean?”
We were both puzzled for a moment. She didn’t expect a woman to call a man ‘friend,’ and I hadn’t thought of Shask as a friend. She’s very young, and I haven’t taken her very seriously.
“I mean Kaza, the man I came with.”
“A man—to the college?” she said, incredulous. She looked at me and said, “Where do you come from?”
It was a fair question, not asked in enmity or challenge. I wish I could have answered it, but I am increasingly convinced that we can do great damage to these people; we are facing Resehavanar’s Choice here, I fear.
Ekhaw paid for my journey to Hagka, and Shask came along with me. As I thought about it I saw that of course Shask was my friend. It was she who brought me into the motherhouse, persuading Ekhaw and Azman of their duty to be hospitable; it was she who had looked out for me all along. Only she was so conventional in everything she did and said that I hadn’t realised how radical her compassion was. When I tried to thank her, as our little jitney-bus purred along the road to Hagka, she said things like she always says—“Oh, we’re all family,” and “People have to help each other” and “Nobody can live alone.”
“Don’t women ever live alone?” I asked her, for all the ones I’ve met belong to a motherhouse or a daughterhouse, whether a couple or a big family like Ekhaw’s, which is three generations: five older wom
en, three of their daughters living at home, and four children—the boy they all coddle and spoil so, and three girls.
“Oh yes,” Shask said. “If they don’t want wives, they can be single-women. And old women, when their wives die, sometimes they just live alone till they die. Usually they go live at a daughterhouse. In the colleges, the vev always have a place to be alone.” Conventional she may be, but Shask always tries to answer a question seriously and completely; she thinks about her answer. She has been an invaluable informant. She has also made life easy for me by not asking questions about where I come from. I took this for the incuriosity of a person securely embedded in an unquestioned way of life, and for the self-centeredness of the young. Now I see it as delicacy.
“A vev is a teacher?”
“Mh.”
“And the teachers at the college are very respected?”
“That’s what vev means. That’s why we call Eckaw’s mother Vev Kakaw. She didn’t go to college, but she’s a thoughtful person, she’s learned from life, she has a lot to teach us.”
So respect and teaching are the same thing, and the only term of respect I’ve heard women use for women means teacher. And so in teaching me, young Shask respects herself? And / or earns my respect? This casts a different light on what I’ve been seeing as a society in which wealth is the important thing. Zadedr, the current mayor of Reha, is certainly admired for her very ostentatious display of possessions; but they don’t call her Vev.
I said to Shask, “You have taught me so much, may I call you Vev Shask?”
She was equally embarrassed and pleased, and squirmed and said, “Oh no no no no.” Then she said, “If you ever come back to Reha I would like very much to have love with you, Yude.”
“I thought you were in love with Sire Zadr!” I blurted out.
“Oh, I am,” she said, with that eye-roll and melted look they have when they speak of the Sires, “aren’t you? Just think of him fucking you, oh! Oh, I get all wet thinking about it!” She smiled and wriggled. I felt embarrassed in my turn and probably showed it. “Don’t you like him?” she inquired with a naivety I found hard to bear. She was acting like a silly adolescent, and I know she’s not a silly adolescent. “But I’ll never be able to afford him,” she said, and sighed.
The Year's Best SF 12 # 1994 Page 73
