She didn’t expect him to become so distressed. “Please, Mrs. Shin—you’re very kind, but . . . that’s not what I can do.”
She pursed her lips in disappointment. “Because of your father?”
Now Shem squinted. “My father?”
“He wouldn’t care for it?”
He smiled faintly. “That’s part of it. He told me I could join the army as long as I never went to Idumea. He hates the city. Really, I’m flattered, but after my two years here are up, I think I’ll be done with the army.”
Mahrree scrunched up her face. “That means I lose my baby tender and my favorite soldier, doesn’t it?”
He chuckled. “Maybe not. Mrs. Shin, it’s all too far in the future for me to worry about right now.”
“Hmm,” Mahrree said, picking at her pie. “It’s only next year so I’m worried about it now.”
Shem smiled at her and cleaned off his plate. “Uh, did the captain really say that? About me?”
Mahrree nodded. “Last week. Said even the older soldiers respect and listen to you, that you always make the best decisions, and . . .” She hesitated, but just couldn’t keep back the juiciest part: “he confessed you nearly beat him when the two of you were sparring last week. Wrestling or something?”
Shem burst into a grin, in spite of himself. “I did? Really?!”
“But you didn’t hear that from me!” She giggled. “He said you really keep him on his toes.”
Shem sat back in his chair. “No one beats the captain! I don’t know how he does it, but he always seems to be half a step ahead of everyone else, anticipates the movement right before it happens.
“But you know,” his eyes got a faraway look, “I thought I nearly had him. I finally got him into a hold and was ready to throw him to the ground, when suddenly he made this quick twist and the next thing I knew I was flat on my back looking up into his smirk.” He grimaced at the memory.
Mahrree elbowed him gently. “He claims no one’s faster than him. I guess that’s true?”
Shem nodded. “It’s true, all right. Although it’s become my goal to best him in something some day.” He looked at her worriedly. “I mean that respectfully, ma’am! I don’t mean—”
Mahrree laughed. “I know a little bit about men and competition, Shem. I think he’s made it his goal to never be bested by you! Perhaps you’ll have to stay in the army until you finally break him?”
Shem shook his head. “I don’t ever want to break him, ma’am. I just want to be as good as him, that’s all. He’s an unusual and remarkable man.”
Mahrree smiled. “Yes he is. And you know what, Shem? So are you.”
Shem turned purple. “Thank you,” he whispered and stood up abruptly. “I better let you get back to work.”
She watched him for a moment. “Why do I get the feeling that if I handed it to you, you’d be able to read and decipher it all in just minutes? When we first met, you said I knew more than the average officer’s wife. But you know much more than the average corporal, don’t you, Shem Zenos? ”
He shook his head soberly. “I don’t know what possibly gave you that impression, Mrs. Shin. I thank you for the pie, ma’am.”
Mahrree drummed her fingers in thought about the reticent corporal for several minutes after he left, then reluctantly went back to her reading.
It took her a couple of weeks, but at the “bottom” of it all was a list she made to elucidate and disambiguate—
Clarify what the Administrators were advising. Whenever she got stuck or tired while trying to decipher the intricately convoluted—
Needlessly complicated language, she asked Perrin for ideas, and also received a few more insights from Shem. She discovered that the changes in instruction were only an advisement—for now. In the nebulous “near future” it would all be compulsorily mandatory—
Unavoidable.
And in the end she wasn’t as infuriated with the findings as she thought she would be, much to her disappointment. She finished compiling the list one afternoon and had time to stare at the results. “Uncle” Shem had taken the children for a walk and she could think without interruption. Some subjects were unfortunately reduced and even eliminated, like practices in drawing and exposure to melodies. And there was a vague reference to a new civics and loyalty class she’d have to inquire about.
But she was reluctant to admit that having a progressive set of guidelines for all children to follow might even be a good idea. At least this way every child would be exposed to the multiplication tables by age nine, and would read competently by age ten. And by seventeen each young adult would be readying for a job or a university.
And yet, it seemed strange to her that the so-called authorities in education assumed all children of the same ages were at the same levels of learning. She’d never met, in all her years of teaching, two seven-year-olds—or seventeen-year-olds or adults for that matter—that were at the same level of readiness as their same age peers.
It was almost as if those in the education department knew nothing of children and their development, which Mahrree had a strong suspicion was the case. So the department telling her and children’s parents what to teach students was a ludicrous as Mahrree advising farmers on how to weed their farms. She’d never presume to tell those who actually worked in the dirt, who know each plant, and who observed the changes from day to day, what they should be doing next.
But, she had to grudgingly acknowledge, this was an experiment—although experimenting on children struck her as appalling—and only in the testing stages. Even The Writings told her all things needed to be tested. So maybe the guidelines were a good idea, even though no parents or teachers were consulted as far as she could tell, but deep down she had already drawn her own conclusions. Maybe, in just a year or so, it would be discovered that all of this was a bad idea and abandoned in something more likely to foster a thinking, creative populace.
Such as what they had been doing for the past three hundred years.
She was also bothered by the idea that intellectual progress would now be measured by the ability to memorize and restate numbers, dates, and definitions—much of which struck Mahrree more as trivial than useful.
It seemed far more essential that students learned how to decide for themselves what was important, rather than rehearsing “accepted facts” and “ideas imperative to the good of the world” that could readily be looked up in a book. It was what was put into those books, and by whom, that required one to carefully think about it. What one couldn’t find in a book was a step-by-step procedure on how to think. And that was what schooling was supposed to do.
At least, that’s what it used to do.
Two more things still troubled her.
One was that the original document had been written so confusingly. She kept mulling over Perrin’s reasons for the garbled language: to keep the wrong sets of eyes from fully understanding.
But who would the Administrators want to confuse? She generously considered that the Administrators wrote in such a manner as to eliminate misreading. She suspected some overambitious, or perhaps lazy, legal advisors may have had a hand in it.
But wouldn’t someone somewhere realize it was now incomprehensible? It didn’t make sense. She was missing something.
The other thing that saddened her was that the Administrators didn’t see a need for debate, at any age. The sky was officially blue in Edge. Sunsets would never be the same, and storms would never be noticed. She wondered if that development bothered her so much because she was so partial to debating. It was, after all, how she met her husband.
And even though she knew she shouldn’t, she derived a great deal of satisfaction in winning an argument. She still relished the day at the university when she reduced a legal student to blustering when she proved that men really weren’t needed in society except to propagate the species. Occasionally the women’s college interacted with the men’s portion of the university, and Mahrree had enjoyed the debati
ng class that was co-educational. She intimidated every man there.
As she sat at her table, she revisited that debate from ten years earlier in Mountseen. She didn’t know why she suddenly remembered it. Maybe the idea that a legal advisor had mucked up the document she just finished was what brought back the memory.
And that memory now hit her with unexpected shame.
Had she really felt men were unnecessary? She certainly didn’t feel that way now. She closed her eyes and thought. No, she really hadn’t believed it then either, but she had just returned from yet another visit home. Her last words to her mother had been in a nasty argument about the need to find the right man. Even the long walk back to Mountseen didn’t reduce her anger. All of it had surfaced at that debate.
Mahrree sat up in her chair in alarm as a terrible realization occurred to her.
She’d argued for a point that she didn’t really believe in, and had won.
She tried to remember how many people had attended that debate where she demonstrated to a young man that he wasn’t anywhere near ready to argue before the Administrator of Law. Mahrree closed her eyes again in mortification.
Several dozens—maybe even a hundred—students had heard her manipulate information and twist definitions into a logic that no one could recognize, so no one could counter it. Their only option was to accept it or admit their ignorance.
Afterwards, the professor had suggested that she consider a career in legal issues. True, no women were in the study, but he was sure he could make allowances. She’d refused but had been flattered by the offer.
Flattered that she could argue anything, whether she believed in it or not.
Mahrree closed her eyes and groaned. That’s what debating had accomplished? Maybe destroyed a young man’s confidence ten years ago—or doomed him to write drivel for the Department of Instruction—and convinced many others that men were unnecessary? What about the debates with Perrin? Hadn’t he frequently argued for ideas he didn’t believe in, and left them both so angry they were ready to burst into flames at the sight of each other?
She looked again at the list she’d extracted from the mangled ruins of paragraphs.
Confused students.
Inefficient use of time.
Facts misunderstood.
Maybe, just maybe, the Administrators had a point.
Stupid men.
---
Perrin hadn’t been so quick to accept his wife’s conclusion about the ‘debate’ debate. After the children were put to bed that night he comforted his wife.
“You really convinced your audience men weren’t necessary?” He laughed. “Oh, I would have loved to have seen that! Actually, I’d like to take a shot at countering that right now. So what was your main premise?”
“No, you don’t understand! I was awful! The first student I was up against conceded quickly, and two other young men next in line after him refused to take the podium against me. I said horrible things and no one could out-argue me. That’s what I worry about. Is it possible to think so much that you think your way out of the truth?”
Perrin pondered that. “Yes, it is. But you were acting out of anger, not logic.”
“And that changes things?”
Perrin sighed. “No, of course not. But I think it makes it harder to see the real issues. Anger, or fear, or whatever, distorts the problem. But Mahrree, debates are not being discouraged because of the young man you humiliated! Although I must admit it would be a fascinating chain of events to find out if he is working for the Department of Instruction. Do you remember his name?”
“Perrin!” Mahrree said sharply, not at all amused.
“Another Perrin? I thought I was the only one,” he grinned. “Maybe you have a thing for taking on men named Perrin.”
When he saw she was still not smiling, and quite possibly mentally revisiting the merits of her argument, he smiled gently at her.
“Mahrree, you know as well as I do that without debating people don’t think. They simply accept what’s given to them and never question if it’s right. Even the Creator told us ‘to test all things, as we are tested’. Right?”
She nodded sadly.
“So we debate all ideas, even if we believe in them, to be sure of their truth. Just as The Writings say, ‘In testing the truth is revealed, the weaknesses are recognized, and the falsehoods are exposed’.”
“So why did no one discover my falsehoods?” she fretted. “And why did I want to punch you in the stomach on our second debate? Why couldn’t we come to a resolution?”
Her face was so earnest Perrin was a little startled. He didn’t have a ready answer, but he tried anyway.
“Don’t you think that after your ‘Victory Over Men,’ students eventually dissected your arguments enough to see where you’d deceived them? Or that I would have run out of ideas to hit you with on the second debate?” He chuckled softly. “Actually, I was quite relieved for the abrupt ending Hogal staged. I didn’t have much left to say, and I simply couldn’t imagine accepting defeat.”
She managed a feeble smile and her eyes brightened slightly. “Do you really think I didn’t do any permanent damage?”
Perrin shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe that man you defeated left that class full of resolve to never be caught off guard again. In that case, he most likely was named Perrin.”
That made Mahrree smile. “We still need the debates, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do. Some things we take on faith. Other things we study to find the correct answers. How else do we find the truth?”
“But people can still be misled.”
“Yes they can. So tell me, what was your first point in the debate? Let’s see how my sweet wife set about to destroy Menkind.”
“I wasn’t out to destroy men,” Mahrree sighed impatiently. “I was trying to prove we would be better off without them in charge.”
She looked at her husband and hoped his sense of humor would remain. She took a deep breath.
“Now remember, I was young and also very emotional at the time—”
“Not too much has changed.”
She glared at him playfully. “And I was still reeling from my visit home. I began with something like, our world would be better off if men weren’t in charge because they cause all the battles.” She breathed out and hoped the captain still loved her.
He pressed his lips together until they contorted, then his face began to quiver, and he burst into a big grin.
“Seriously? You came back from a fight with your own dear mother to claim that men are the source of armed conflict? And people believed that?!”
“No one knew I just came from a fight,” Mahrree defended, a bit embarrassed. “No one knew I was fighting another battle elsewhere.”
“Interesting,” Perrin mused. “You were fighting something else entirely, but put the burden of it on innocent bystanders. And so your opponent responded . . . how?”
“I’m trying to remember. I know he was surprised—I think he stammered for a bit before asking how women would resolve a prolonged conflict.”
Again Perrin grinned. “I know how—they’d gossip about with their friends and bring it up again and again to prolong it even further. I’ve listened to you and your little friends enough!” he said in response to her insulted look. “I think I know that poor man’s problem. He probably didn’t have a sister or female friends. He actually trusted your assertion that women wouldn’t go to a battle.”
The light hit both of them at the same time.
“He trusted me!” Mahrree marveled. “He didn’t even challenge what I said, but accepted it blindly and asked what a different solution would be!”
Perrin nodded. “You surprised him, and he missed the very issue he should have argued. Women do battle! In different ways, but just as frequently as men, I dare say. Did he know you before this? Have any reason to trust you?”
Mahrree shook her head. “No, not really.”
“That’s it, Mahrree
. He trusted when he shouldn’t have. Maybe if he were a friend or knew about your tactics, he wouldn’t have been caught off guard.” His voice softened. “If you’d known me better, and the way I think, you would have been able to discover my deceits far more quickly as well. I could never pull on you now what I did three years ago.”
“The Creator said there are some things we need to take on faith,” Mahrree said slowly, “but everything else we can test though questioning and examination.”
He nodded.
“So Perrin,” she said pointedly, “why do the Administrators not want us to teach our children how to test for the truth?”
He exhaled. “I’m not sure,” he said heavily. “But I don’t think that’s something you should ask them in a letter. It might even reach the Main Skimmer. And,” he added with a slightly different tone to his voice, “I’m going to pretend the Captain of Edge didn’t hear you ask that.”
She bit her lip as thoughts of her father suddenly filled her mind, along with another idea. She could feel Cephas Peto so closely as if he was standing right next to her, and his message nearly overwhelmed her.
“Then the captain better not hear this, either. Perrin, the Administrators and Department of Instruction have done this,” she held up the thick document, “on purpose.”
Perrin squinted. “What do you mean?”
“They deliberately wrote this to be confusing and difficult. Any parent who happens to read it will feel stupid. Too stupid to be smart enough to teach their own children. They’ll think that obviously the Administrators know more than they do, in order to write such a highly intelligent document with so many big words and such long sentences. So the Administrators better be in charge of teaching it!”
Perrin released a low whistle. “Good thing the captain’s out on a very long walk so he can’t hear you accusing the Administrators of manipulation. And you said Hegek hadn’t read this yet?”
“This isn’t for him or the teachers!” Mahrree shook the document in fury. “They get something much smaller, about a fourth the size, probably written with words and sentences as small as their minds! But I can see the truth, and I’m not afraid to reveal it. I will not let Idumea get away with this!”
Soldier at the Door (Forest at the Edge) Page 21
