by Janis Ian
"You’re right," he said. "It doesn’t seem so. But, Mar, we’re under a lot of pressure we hadn’t really anticipated. I want to marry you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but maybe we made a decision a little ahead of time. Maybe we should be un-engaged, we have to get through our schooling, after all. That’ll be another year. We can’t get through it like this."
He didn’t want her. Or, he wanted her, but he wanted his credentials more than he wanted her. How could he even suggest such a thing? Did he think she would abandon him just because she’d been attacked—and her friends had turned their backs on her—and the administration was harassing her—and her family wasn’t speaking to her—
"But I love you, Camm." She did. She loved his courage and his wit, his wisdom, his cheerful optimistic nature. His beautiful Sarvaw face. His beautiful Sarvaw body, that was so different from that of the people with whom she had grown up.
"Oh, I love you as well, Mar." If that was true why wouldn’t he look at her? "And we should maybe take a step back, here. Start again from the beginning. Talk to your parents, for one thing."
What kind of courage failed so readily in the face of adversity? Marnissey stepped back and away from him, horrified. He didn’t raise his head, he didn’t look at her, she backed out of his room and went back to her house, too confused and benumbed to be afraid of walking alone in the dark this time.
~~~~~
Things got quieter, they settled down. She tried her best not to see Camm, not to be too greedy for him, not to admit that she was still seeing him—that she loved him, so desperately that only her anguish at the injustice of the situation she was in could be compared. When she was with Camm she was invisible. When she kept away from Camm people would sit with her, would walk with her, talk to her, even eat with her, but she couldn’t trust them any longer.
Who knew whether her once-friend Abythia was being sweet and loving with her in order to encourage her to stay away from Camm, in order to show her that all could be forgiven—or in order to keep track of her, spy on her, report on her to some secret cabal? And it wasn’t fair to Camm. Marnissey didn’t ask what went on in his life when she wasn’t there. She could hope it wasn’t much different than before, but she knew that was probably an unrealistic wish on her part.
She was crossing the school’s quadrangle one day going from her lab meeting to class when she heard the sound of running feet behind her and tensed despite herself. It was Camm. She knew the sound of his foot-fall. He slowed as he approached her and she clutched her graphscreen-reader to her, her stomach twisting into a knot.
She didn’t know whether she wanted to see him—because she loved him, she needed him, she missed him, he was right there with her every day and he might as well have been worlds away—or wished that he would stay away from her. So long as they had no contact, it was almost possible to pretend that things hadn’t changed forever the night Abythia had emptied a bucket-full of excrement over Marnissey’s head, and called her a blood-soiler.
"Hello," Camm said; Marnissey nodded, and kept walking. "How have you been, Mar? I haven’t seen you." Of course not. He’d told her they should be discreet. She’d given up her parent’s peace of mind, the company of her friends, for him, for him; and all he’d offered her in return was to say that they’d been incautious.
She didn’t know how to respond. "As you suggested," she replied. "Taking a step back. Giving people a chance to adjust. Taking it slowly. Careful. Quiet. Prudent."
Camm nodded, looking past her to where some of her friends stood talking amongst themselves in front of the technical library. "You’re angry at me," Camm said. "My poor Mar. It’s been a lot rougher than it had to be. I’m sorry. I wish I could change it all for you."
That wasn’t what she wanted to hear; but perhaps that in itself was a message. No I love you and I miss you and I can’t wait until you are mine forever. No I dream of you, I want you, the world must be made to know how proud I am that such a beautiful—talented—admirable woman would consent to be my bride. Nothing. You’ve had a rough time, I’m sorry. That’s the way it’s going to be, though, rough.
Suddenly it seemed to Marnissey that she was not up to facing so much rough. She hadn’t understood what she’d been in for. Camm had tried to tell her, but he’d put the best face on it always. Had he been afraid of discouraging her?
How much hadn’t he told her because he’d wanted her, because he knew she’d think twice about a life that could have something as shocking as a bucket-full of excrement in it? How loving could it truly be to ask the woman who would be his wife to take the stink of shit in her nostrils, the taste of manure in her mouth, as part of the every-day price of being his?
She’d read of Dasidar and Dyraine in literature studies; she’d been taught from childhood to admire Dyraine as the type of heroic endurance—suffering years of abandonment, ill-use, hardship and want, true ever and always to Dasidar who would come for her one day in the end and vindicate her patience in triumph. It was the great romance of the Dolgorukij-speaking peoples, even Sarvaw.
Now in a moment of sickening self-realization Marnissey realized that although she’d cherished a fantasy of herself as Dyraine and Camm her Dasidar, she didn’t have the strength of a Dyraine. She was not a heroine. She was only an ordinary young woman from a well-to-do Telchik family who’d lost herself in a delusion of romantic heroism that she could not sustain.
If she’d been Dyraine she’d have been able to smile at Camm bravely and tell him he was loved, and that no hardship was too great if only it meant she could be by his side. She wasn’t Dyraine of the Weavers. So she said something else instead.
"It’s been rough enough to show me my mistake." She couldn’t fault him for not having the soul of a Dasidar. Dasidar was a mythic hero, a perfect type; and not Sarvaw. Camm was as ordinary as she was, with almost as few resources at hand to deal with the ferocious pressures that oppressed them.
He’d been right, those weeks ago, when he’d suggested they step back a bit. More right than he’d known, perhaps. "I’ve wronged you, Camm, I’m sorry, but this has been a mistake. No. I won’t marry you. And we already know we can’t be friends. They won’t let us."
They were almost clear to the other side of the quadrangle, where she had her class—the class that she might yet pass, that she had no hope of passing as Camm’s fiancée or his sweetheart. That class. One of several of those classes. Camm stopped to stare down at her; his face was ugly with hurt.
"You don’t mean that," he said. It was the wrong thing; it made her angry—didn’t she know whether she meant it or not? "You can’t mean that, Marnissey, I know it’s been horrible for you but we love each other. I love you, Mar, I want you to be part of my life forever, please don’t let the prejudice of these—Telchik—stand in our way."
She was Telchik. She, herself. Pointing that out would do no good and only increase the stress of this already unhappy conversation, however. Marnissey suddenly sensed a feeling in her heart that she hadn’t known for weeks, something she didn’t want to let go: relief. Joy. Happiness. It was so easy. It had been a mistake. Yes, she was fond of him and he was beautiful, but how could she ever have been so immature as to imagine that they had any chance of happiness together, any chance at all? Hadn’t she known all her life what people thought about Telchik women who went with Sarvaw men, whether or not they came right out and said it?
She needed the giddy sense of freedom, that intoxicating feeling of awakening at the last possible moment from a horrible nightmare and realizing that it was just a dream. An error. She had misjudged. No. She was not going to marry Camm. She would beg her parent’s forgiveness. She’d gained knowledge and wisdom from the ordeal, but she didn’t have to compound her juvenile error by following through on it just because she’d said that she was going to. She didn’t have to marry him. She could have her life back, not the same, but not irrevocably ruined either.
"I do mean it, Camm." She sounded very calm
to herself, admirably firm. "I’m quite clear. And I’m sorry. Uncle Birsle will give me penance for a false promise, but we should both be glad that I figured it out before it was too late. Good-bye, Camm. Marry someone who loves you better than I can. I won’t."
She started to move forward toward the building—she didn’t want to be late to class—but Camm reached out suddenly and grabbed her arm. She dropped her reader; the display screen cracked. It would have to be repaired, and her notes were there, as well as the assignment log and the text selections.
"Mar, don’t do this, you’re discouraged, I don’t believe you weren’t as sure of yourself as I was—as I am—"
Too many people had seen them having an argument, too many people saw her reader fall. Five or six of her classmates were coming, hurrying across the quadrangle toward them. To her defense, Marnissey realized, and the idea gave her a sudden rush of warm feeling even while it made her anxious for Camm’s sake—and her own—that an incident be avoided.
"I can’t see you any more, Camm," she said, plainly and firmly, so that her once-friends would know she’d made her decision. "I don’t want to see you any more. That’s all there is to it. And I have nothing more to say to you."
One of her classmates picked up her reader, handing it to her with a somber respectful expression on his face. Camm backed away a step, and then another; turned his back and walked away with his shoulders slumped and his hands in his pockets—but as Marnissey hurried into the building to go to class her heart was singing. It had been a mistake, that was all. How could she ever have imagined she could turn her back on her family, her friends, her whole community, to be Camm’s lover?
A mistake. She was so lucky she had seen it for what it was in time. She could hardly wait for the period to be over so that she could go home and explain to her parents, and beg to be accepted back as their filial and loving daughter once again.
~~~~~
"It’s not so easy as that, is it, young lady?" her mother asked, sharp reproach in her words. "You’ve changed your mind, you’ve come to your senses, all to the good. But you’ve made ill-considered decisions before, that’s how we got into this mess, after all. No. Your father and I will be happy to embrace you as our daughter, but not until you’ve spoken to the priest and done your penance. It will give us time to open our hearts to the Holy Mother, and pray for understanding."
It was a set-back and it lay heavily upon the joy of freedom in Marnissey’s heart, but she couldn’t blame her mother. Her mother was right. Her mother had been right all along. She couldn’t protest, not really; she knew that she owed penance for the error she’d committed—for making a sacred promise that she couldn’t keep, for exposing her family to so much ugliness.
"I’ll go first thing," she promised, and her mother accepted a dutiful daughter’s filial kiss for the first time in weeks. It was a start. Marnissey went up the stairs to her room to close herself in and think about how she could explain to Uncle Birsle. The priest would understand; he would approve. He would not exact too heavy a penance from her, surely.
Camm came to the house and stood outside her bedroom window and called out to her, but her father called the police, and Camm ran away. She was angry with Camm for trying to see her. It called the sincerity of her decision into question, it increased the anguish in her heart over what she owed for going back on her promise, it sharpened her desire to open up her soul before the Holy Mother and receive the blessing of penance with reconciliation at its end.
She couldn’t sleep. Her whole family was up much later than usual—her father had to give a report to the police, she heard him saying that the prowler was a stranger—but even when the house was quiet at last she stayed awake, kneeling at her bedside with her face buried in the bed-clothes, desperate for morning to come so that she could go and see the priest.
She couldn’t wait for mid-morning, when Uncle Birsle would be on duty. She could not. It had already been an eternity since yesterday afternoon, when she’d had her final talk with Camm. Uncle Danitsch would give her more strict a penance, perhaps, but that would be all to the good, it would emphasize the sincerity of her repentance if she went to Danitsch knowing that he would be more severe with her.
As soon as the sun began to lighten the horizon she changed her clothes and rinsed her mouth and ran into the city, onto campus, to the chapel; found Uncle Danitsch at prayer and told him everything, her mistake, her awakening, her profound regret, her thirst to be forgiven and reconciled, her determination to maintain the separation she’d begun to make between herself and Camm. Everything.
He questioned her strictly—whether they had been intimate, how intimate had they been, how often had they been intimate, who had initiated the relationship in the beginning, which one of them had suggested that they marry—but in the end he seemed to be satisfied that her repentance was genuine. He assessed a basic set of penance-exercises and told her to go home and come back the following day to learn what her complete penance was to be.
She took her assignment into her heart willingly and gratefully and carried the promise of penance home with joy. Her mother met her at the door; when Marnissey explained what she had done, her mother kissed her on the forehead and sent her into the kitchen for breakfast.
She went to class with prayerful repentance in her heart. She worked on her lab exercises with keen interest and attention, full of gratitude to Danitsch for his understanding. She went to chapel at mid-day to pray, her mind too full to stop and speak to Uncle Birsle, whose expression when he looked at her on her way past seemed to be one of curiosity; surely Danitsch had spoken to him—but she’d make an appointment and explain herself in full once Danitsch had given her full penance. That would be good. She’d see whether Birsle had anything to add to whatever set of religious exercises she was to perform to gain forgiveness.
Marnissey went home and ate her dinner with a good appetite, not wanting to say too much to her family, knowing that she had much to atone for. Then in the early morning, two scant hours past midnight, the police came.
~~~~~
"You know this man, then," the Malcontent said, and Marnissey shrank away from the promise in his voice with dread. The Malcontent—Cousin Jirev, he’d told her to call him—wasn’t a priest; religious professionals who were devoted to the Order of Saint Andrej Malcontent could never be elevated to that dignity. They were disgraced and disgusting, the secret service of the Dolgorukij church, and they did the Autocrat’s dirty work for the Holy Mother outside the boundaries of decent society.
In the chill of the morgue the stink of the lefrol that Cousin Jirev was smoking was even more nauseating than it would otherwise have been. "Yes, step up close, child, you are required to identify the corpse, I am told you knew him better than anyone else here."
He pulled the simple shroud off of the body as he spoke, holding his lefrol in one hand, uncovering the body with the other. How could that be respectful of the dead? Reluctantly Marnissey came closer, fearful of what she would discover. She’d seen Camm just yesterday, no, just day before yesterday, and he’d been beautiful Camm even if she’d realized that she wasn’t going to marry him. The police had to be mistaken.
She raised her eyes reluctantly to look at what was lying there, and for a moment her relief was almost boundless; no, that couldn’t be Camm. Nodding with conviction Marnissey started to speak to Cousin Jirev—there’d been a mistake, she was so glad—but even as she opened her mouth she realized she was the one who’d made the mistake; because it was Camm after all, even if he’d been so badly beaten that she wanted more than anything not to recognize him.
Camm. The police forensics team had cleaned up the body and done something to his face to draw down the swelling associated with gross trauma. There were places where the skin had been split to the bone; she’d never seen anything that could approach this horror. She recoiled by instinct, putting her hand out to ward off the terrible image; but Jirev stuck his lefrol between his teeth and put h
is hand to the small of her back, pushing her forward again. Marnissey had to reach out to the cold-slab to steady herself, to keep her legs from collapsing out from underneath her. Camm. They’d broken his face, they’d beaten his body, they’d beaten his hands and his feet; why?
Apparently confident that she wouldn’t be moving Jirev left her side and walked around to the other side of the body where he could face her. "Somebody did not like this fellow," Jirev said, cheerfully. "Notice especially the way he has been beaten across the loins, that was done before he died so that he would be sure to suffer from it. Characteristic. It explains an otherwise unmotivated killing, though, wouldn’t you say? Blood soil."
"No," Marnissey said, and heard the abject plea in the tone of her voice. "It doesn’t make sense. It can’t be. We had broken off our engagement. There wasn’t any."
Jirev’s lefrol was smoked down to a stub that he was apparently not interested in pursuing any longer. He lay it in the blood-gutter of the cold-slab to go out, and shrugged. "You aren’t thinking clearly, it is perhaps because you have been doing penitence-exercises I understand. You had a long discussion with Uncle Danitsch yesterday, by report. It might have been a good idea to have warned this young Sarvaw that you were going to do that, and given him a chance to escape."
Now not even her grip on the edge of the cold-slab could save her. Marnissey sat down suddenly and hard on the cold floor; two of the Malcontent’s cohorts were by her side in an instant, to raise her up and support her. She had no strength to lift her head; and there was Camm’s body, poor Camm’s body, right in front of her.
She had talked with Danitsch. She had. After what she knew about Danitsch and Abythia, she had, but a bucket-full of excrement was a completely different thing than beating a man to death for the crime of being Sarvaw. She couldn’t comprehend it; she closed her eyes in horror.
"I require you to look upon this evidence," Jirev warned; Marnissey opened her eyes again, startled, and all but overwhelmed by nausea that seized her when she understood what he meant. He wanted her to look, because he blamed her for it. "A man’s life has been cruelly taken from him. There will be reparations to be made, the Holy Mother herself demands no less."
