Gibbon's Decline and Fall

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Carolyn descended the steps to stand at their foot. The extreme quiet made her uneasy. It was some time before her roving eye saw a figure clad all in green standing in the door of a nearby house, one so robed and veiled as to be completely hidden, though from the attitude she could see the person was facing them, no doubt looking at them.

  There was nothing threatening in that quiet watching, but it made Carolyn shift uncomfortably nonetheless. Behind her, Bettiann came down the steps and put her hand on Carolyn’s shoulder, gripping it firmly. As though cued by this appearance, the veiled one left the house and approached them.

  “This is friend Carolyn,” the person said softly, in a warm and welcoming voice. “And with her are friends Bettiann and Agnes.”

  Agnes, so mentioned, stopped halfway out of the bus, frozen totteringly in place. Carolyn turned and reached out to her, afraid she would fall.

  “I have seen your pictures,” said the person. “I feel I have known you for many years. Come. Water has been made hot for the brewing of tea. Chairs have been placed upon the porch. We have been expecting you.”

  Afar, men’s feet thundered down the pavement of streets, traversing the cities, attracting considerable notice from those men who did not march, who were not moved to march, who regarded all this with a shudder of primitive fear, as men might once have done at the approach of a great cave bear or mammoth, or even a tribe other than their own, a tribe bent on evil business, busy with something monstrous and fell.

  “You know,” whispered one bystander to his neighbor, “it reminds me of those old newsreels, the Nazis, goose-stepping down the street.”

  “It reminds me of the nature programs on TV,” said the other. “Those ants, the ones in the jungle, the ones that eat everything!”

  “Somebody ought to stop them.”

  “Why?” He shrugged, not without some apprehension. “I guess they gotta right to march if they want to.”

  Enough of them had that right to make the pavement tremble with an avalanche of purposeful feet, causing shivers of discomfort among the watchers. From windows and doors people looked out to see feet falling in unison, legs tramping, arms swinging, eyes straight ahead as the armies marched to the beat of the drum. Some had shaven heads and some had beards. Some had armbands and insignias, others had none. Some were tall and broad, their shirtsleeves rolled high to show tattoos and bulging arms. Others were slender ascetics with hollow cheeks and piercing, angry eyes. Of whatever type, they all marched to the same drums.

  In one of those cities, on one of those streets, in the lamplit kitchen of a white clapboard house, far from the man and the fate she had escaped, Helen Jagger sat with others who had also needed a place of refuge.

  Rebecca Rainford was telling them a story.

  “So then,” said Rebecca, raising her voice a little to be heard over the tramp of the feet on the pavement outside, “the men went where Elder Sister was sleeping, and several of them held her down, for she was very strong, while the one man found the medicine bag she had hidden their sex in …”

  The sound of the marchers reached a crescendo, then passed, the pom, pom, pom of the drums diminishing into the night.

  “… and when each man’s sex came out, a tiny piece of the medicine bag stuck to it, and so they are stuck today to the tip of each man’s sex, shaming him for what he did to Elder Sister in the long ago, and some men even cut them off, so as not to be reminded of their shame.…”

  A questioning hush fell as Rebecca went on to the end of the story.

  “… and each time a woman is hurt, Elder Sister weaves a little on her medicine bag, and in time it will be all woven again.”

  “Is that why the men are marching out there?” asked Helen, talking a deep swallow of hot tea. “Because Elder Sister is weaving a new mediane bag?”

  “Has just about woven, I think,” said Rebecca, with a trembling laugh. “Has just about woven.”

  Jessamine, Ophy, and Faye came out of the bus like sleepwalkers and were shepherded with the others across the short grasses to the nearest house: a brown wooden house with a wide-planked porch set about with chairs and small tables. Ophy perched like a bird, alert and interested. Bettiann sat demurely erect, ankles crossed, hands folded, as at a formal tea. Jessamine sprawled, her mind busy cataloging what she saw. The voice that had greeted them was as quiet as the surroundings, a charming female voice, much as she remembered Sophy’s voice had been.

  “You’re female,” said Jessamine, ticking off a category.

  “That is a truth,” said the person in a voice that smiled. “I am Tess, aTessuraea Pausiuane [ah-TAY-soo-rah-AY-ah pa-OO-see-oo-AH-nay], which means, in our language, Pausi’s daughter, the balanced one. It is a beautiful name when spoken lovingly, but Tess will do admirably. My mother is Pausiliafe Flomuinsuane [pah-OO-sil-ee-AH-fay flow-MOO-in-sue-AH-nay], Flomuin’s daughter, the long-sighted. She is called Pausi. She brings tea.”

  Pausi came onto the porch, robed and veiled in blue, bowed her head to each of them, then seated herself. The person next out of the house, carrying a tray set with cups, was in purple.

  “This is my grandmother: Flomuin. We are Tess, Pausi, and Flo.”

  The robes they wore were like Japanese kimonos, with long, loose sleeves that covered their hands. The veils covered even their eyes, though with a fine net through which they could evidently see without trouble, for they did not fumble or peer. Cups were distributed and tea was poured without their hands coming into view. Carolyn fought a hysterical giggle that welled at the back of her throat; Faye and Jessamine were relaxed but concentrated, one seeking appearance, the other substance. Ophy seemed watchfully at ease, while Bettiann was politely eager. Agnes, however, could as well have been dreaming. She could have been at home, at the abbey, in meditation for all the attention she paid the strangers. Though a visitor in their land, she had shut them out.

  Fragrant steam rose into Carolyn’s nose, a pleasant scent in an unfamiliar context. She had smelled it before, but not as tea.

  She gestured toward the bus. “The old man? He’s not … not one of you.”

  Tess replied, “Padre Josephus is one of our connections with the outside world. He sees things through eyes unlike ours, tells us things he sees that we do not. We provide for him, he provides for us.”

  “Are you my grandma’s sisters?” called Lolly from the bus door. “Are you?”

  “Who was your grandmother?” called Tess.

  “Her name was Immaculata Corazon.”

  “We are some of her sisters.”

  Lolly approached, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, stared at them as at a carnival show or a zoo exhibit. “What’re you all covered up for?”

  “When showing reverence or meeting strangers, we consider it appropriate. We are not blood sisters to your grandma. We are her foster sisters.” She patted the low railing beside which she sat, drawing Lolly down to perch upon it.

  “You adopted her grandmother?” grated Agnes in an accusative tone. “You took the child?”

  “Only in a sense. When Josephus was only a young man, he found Immaculata lost or abandoned not far from here, a mere child, barely able to tell us her name. We raised her for a few years, and when she was old enough to need company of her own people, he took her out.”

  “How long have you been here?” Carolyn asked.

  “Oh, some thousands of years.”

  “You, personally,” cried Ophy. “You?”

  Tess laughed, the laughter echoed by the others, a soft sound, like the windblown scuff of dried leaves across a stone. “No, la. I would feel bored, living so long! I speak of our people. Our ancestors. In earlier—much earlier—times, they were as your people are now, widespread across the world. When your people began to press upon us, long, long ago, we moved into remote enclaves. To us, numbers are not strength; wisdom is strength. What profiteth a race to be numerous and stupid, la? Behold how great we are, saith the lemming!” She laughed.

  “Where did
you live before?” Lolly asked.

  “We lived for a time where is now Tibet, dressing ourselves in furs and walking the heights. We lived for a time where is now Ireland, where we lived in barrows among the hills and along the shore. Not long ago we lived where is now Mesa Verde and Hoven weep. All high places or far places. Your people came closer. They saw us, made stories about us, crowded us, named us: we are the Yeti, the Sidhe, the Kachinas.…”

  “Devils,” said Agnes.

  “Aggie!” cried Ophy. “Please …”

  “It is all right,” said Tess. “Strangers have always been called devils. We understand the tendency. Agnes is overwrought. When she sees we mean no harm, perhaps she will think differently.”

  “You were saying?” said Carolyn stiffly, with a glare at Aggie.

  “When your people pressed in upon our old places, we learned how to make the wall; then we came here and built it, for no place is really empty of your people anymore.” She brought the cup up under her veil, to her lips, then brought it out again. “We regret each move. We become attached to our homes. This has been our home.”

  Carolyn fixed her eyes on Aggie and asked, “You’re not … from somewhere else, then? You’re not … supernatural? Extraterrestrial?”

  “Supernatural? No. Is there any reason to think so?”

  Carolyn kept her eyes on Aggie, who flushed. “The bus. The wall. The fact you’re not on the map.”

  “As for the bus and the wall, they are only technical tricks. Once they are understood, they are no more wonderful than electricity or television. If you showed electricity to a tenth-century man, he would think you a devil. The bus is not actually a bus, of course, but as a bus it may travel almost anywhere, unremarked, and it is often useful to travel unremarked. The walls are there to keep us away from you, to keep us quiet and unseen. We are of this earth, not from some other place. We are, so to speak, native Americans. Some might say more native than the Indians, for we have been here longer than they. Before the last ice age made a bridge to Alaska, we had come to these continents. This is our home as it has become yours.”

  Aggie flushed. Her mouth worked. “You are … Sophy’s people?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many of you are there?” asked Ophy.

  “Not many.” Tess turned and spoke to her kinswomen in a quick, sibilant tongue, then turned back to the others. “This small village, and two others, other places.”

  “So few!”

  “So few. We cannot be fewer and sustain our people. We cannot be many more and avoid discovery by your people, whom we have had great difficulty both avoiding and understanding. Sophy told us you do not understand yourselves?”

  Carolyn laughed without humor. “I guess that’s true.”

  “La. How difficult for you. How difficult for us! With us the inner nature accords with the outer expectation. The body follows the mind, and the mind seeks the soul, which it strives toward but has not yet won. With you it is otherwise. The mind follows the body in pursuit of the soul you have been told you already have. Because you cannot find it, you assume you have lost it somewhere in your past, and this keeps you from achieving it in your future.”

  “But we do have souls.…” cried Agnes.

  “I know you are taught so,” said Tess. She sipped again before continuing. “We are so few and you are so many, you have driven us into such tiny corners that whether you understood yourselves or not, we had to understand you. Our study of you has been grave and troublesome.”

  “Troublesome?” asked Jessamine.

  “Yes. Since you were in the trees, your people have contended, one with the other, making battles and then making peace, and then battles, and then peace again. You have been proliferate and violent and have demanded dominion over all things. You have fought language against language, culture against culture, convulsion after convulsion. Still, even very early in your history, we saw some of you following the path intelligence must follow as it evolves, the path all thinking races follow: You were gradually learning ways that would lead to wisdom. Ways of respect for nature, ways of peace, ways of quiet cooperation.

  “It was then that something happened we did not understand.” She fell silent, sipped once more.

  “What was it?” asked Faye.

  “A persecution began. Here and there around the world, certain of your societies began the persecution of females. There had always been some violence between your sexes, there had always been misunderstanding and pain, as well as great joy, but this was a new thing, a considered thing: an orderly, prescribed persecution of females.”

  “But that’s always happened,” laughed Faye. “That’s the way it’s always been.”

  Tess shook her veiled head. “You think so, now, for you have no memories of its being otherwise, but some thousands of years ago there were female things and male things, female gods and male gods, respect toward each by each. Then rulers died for the good of their people rather than as now, when people die for the pleasure of their rulers. Though individual men and women may have had stress between them—as what people do not?—at one time there was no organized persecution.

  “But such persecution began. First was disrespect of female persons, the violation of the female temples, and the denying of female gods. Then was the disrespect also of other men’s gods and the teaching that only one god was true, and he male. Then was the teaching about the devil, also male, and to his jurisdiction were assigned all enemies, all strangers, just as Aggie has assigned us that role. One’s own people were of God; other persons were of the devil; both were male. Then we saw the making of rules by old, powerful men to assure they would have many females to serve them or to bear their sons; from these occasions the habit ramified, and it was said to be the will of the male god. Women were enslaved, shut up in harems or cloisters, prostituted, raped, and this was said to be the will of the male god. Women’s names were taken from them and they were named for their male owners. Women were considered possessions to be thrown away, burned, killed, battered, mutilated, and this, too, was said to be the will of the male god, and those who objected were said to belong to the devil. In every nation man might cry, ‘Behold, we are godly and our women are kept pure, but those others are the great Satan and their women are whores.’ ”

  She stood up and moved about restlessly, moved to action by her own words.

  “This was not the pattern we had observed in the beginning. We found it troublesome and terrible. We began to listen to the voices of men, we paid attention to what they said and did, both subtle and overt. We watched the religions they invented, the scriptures they wrote down and claimed their male god had dictated. We listened to the disrespectful words they used for women, in all the various languages. When women longed for communion with the center of their own nature, when they reached for connection with the female principle, men sneered and spoke of the Goddess with contempt and told women to worship the Father God or die. When women turned toward their own ancient wisdom, men accused them of being witches, servants of the devil, and sent them to be burned.

  “It seemed a strange and unprofitable thing to happen by chance, not in accordance with nature. After a time we realized it had not happened by chance. We realized it had been planned.”

  Aggie’s eyes were very wide, and she stared at the robed figure in horror.

  “You’re saying sexism is being controlled by someone?” Faye raised her eyebrows. “Promulgated?”

  “Does it surprise you? When racism is promulgated, someone is usually responsible. A death camp, an ethnic cleansing, a marching of skinheads does not happen by itself; there is always a leader, maybe several layers of them. When religious hatred takes place, someone causes it. An inquisition, a crusade, a reformation does not simply occur out of nothing; someone always kicks the first pebble down the cliff, or breaks the first rift in the dike. The persecution of women was also caused, planned, intended. How could we have thought otherwise? How can you?”

 
“I guess because we can’t imagine how it could be done, or why,” said Jessamine after a silence. “At least I can’t.”

  “As to how, it was very simple. The planner, the persecutor, simply turned evolution around and defined human females in ape terms. As, for example, in matters relating to reproduction: Women would prefer to be healthy and have healthy children, so the wise woman would choose when to bear and when not to bear. The enemy of woman, however, does not care whether women and children are well and healthy. Your enemy makes men look at females as male apes look at them, as a source of fuck. He focuses all eyes on what is natural to the proliferate ape.”

  Jessamine murmured, “You’re saying … chimps do not control their numbers? So …”

  “So you were told not to control your reproduction because control is unnatural—which, of course, it is. Wise, but unnatural. All wisdom is unnatural. Microscopes are unnatural. Dialysis machines are unnatural. The internal-combustion engine is unnatural. Heart-lung machines are unnatural. Aspirin and antibiotics are unnatural. Thought is unnatural, or at least highly unusual, and many of your religions limit it as much as possible! Do not think, they say. Simply believe. But gracious me, in your world fucking is natural, everything does that, so your enemy defines it not as an animal trait to be dealt with but as a natural law that can’t be interfered with.”

  “So if chimps have the natural capacity for violence …” Ophy offered.

  “If chimps have that capacity, then the tendency of an ape to pick up a stick must be built into custom and religion, not as an animal trait to be overcome but as a divine right! Listen to your countrymen proclaim the right to bear arms. Look at the work of paranoid militias and fanatical terrorists. Listen to your national rifle group, listen to rapists and wife beaters and men in the sex trade. The mind behind the persecution of women simply takes man’s chimp nature and reflects it back to him, putting the imprimatur of natural law on bestial behavior.”