Native Tongue

by Suzette Haden Elgin, Susan Squier

“Brooks,” said Beau St. Clair, “we didn’t have very good luck with those test-tube infants. Remember? They were . . . they . . . Ah, hell, I don’t know how to put it. But you remember—you were there.”

  “Yes,” said Showard, “I remember. And I agree with you, it wasn’t the greatest. But if we’ve got to go monkeying around with the brains of infants, feeding them peyote with their pablum, I for one would rather start with the tubies. We’ve got plenty of them, there are no parents to grieve over what happens to them; it’s the obvious way to go. Let’s work it out on them. The doses. How much a baby can take without it wrecking his physical system, never mind the central nervous system. We’ll start it with the test-tube babies, and we’ll learn as we go along . . . And by the time somebody volunteers us another Infant Hero, gentlemen, we’ll be ready. We’ll know what we’re doing. Don’t you see? We’ll bygod solve this problem!”

  The whole room was crackling with the new prospect that there might, there just might, be a nugget of success somewhere in the desert of failure that had extended everywhere around them as far in space or time as any of them could remember. It was champagne time, and the bubbles already popping. Even if it meant using the tubies again.

  Brooks Showard grabbed a stack of government forms lying in the middle of the table and threw them up into the air, from pure happiness, standing there and letting it rain forms on him with an expression of simple bliss.

  “Hey, let’s go!” he shouted at them. “Time’s a-wasting, and all those quaint sayings from Homeroom! Let’s go!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  REFORMULATION ONE, Göedel’s Theorem:

  For any language, there are perceptions which it cannot express because they would result in its indirect self-destruction.

  REFORMULATION ONE-PRIME, Göedel’s Theorem:

  For any culture, there are languages which it cannot use because they would result in its indirect self-destruction.

  (from an obscure pamphlet titled “Primer in Metalinguistics,” by an even more obscure group known as the Planet Ozark Offworld Auxiliary; they credit these statements to an inspiration from the great Doublas Hofstadter . . .)

  Rachel heard the words, but it was as if they were in a language she had never studied; she could not process them. He must have seen that on her face, because he said them again, slowly and clearly. And then, when she understood, the stimulus finally overriding the shock, she curled her hands tightly into fists so that they wouldn’t tremble and told herself that she must be very very careful. But it was no good, she wasn’t able to be careful.

  “Oh, no, Thomas!” It was the best and the worst she could manage. “Oh, she is too young!”

  “Nonsense.”

  “The child is only fourteen years old, Thomas! Oh, you can’t be serious—I don’t believe it.”

  “I am totally serious; this isn’t a joking matter. And the ‘child’ will be fifteen when the marriage takes place, Rachel. I’ve scheduled it for her fifteenth birthday.”

  Rachel struck her clenched fists together and pressed them to her chest; before she could stop, she had bent forward as a woman does in the sudden pain of labor, and a low mourning croon had come from her lips. It was a sound she had not known she knew how to make; it was a sound Thomas was certain to dislike.

  “My God,” he said, his voice heavy with distaste. As she was aware, he despised that sort of female noise, and the obvious fact that it had been involuntary, a reflex response to pain, did not make him any less disgusted. “You sound precisely like a bawling cow, Rachel. An elderly bawling cow.”

  The callousness was just what Rachel needed; it pulled her back instantly from her state of emotional disarray, and when she spoke again it was calmly, and in her ordinary cool tones.

  “What,” she asked him, “will you men do next? First the girls married at eighteen. Then it was sixteen. Now you are prepared to see Nazareth marry at just barely fifteen . . . thirty seconds past, if I understand you correctly. Why not just move the marriage date to puberty and be done with it, Thomas?”

  “It isn’t necessary,” he answered. “The present system, with marriage at sixteen, allows the husband to space his children three years apart and still see that the woman bears eight infants before the age of forty. Eight is quite enough, whatever the government may think about the matter, and we don’t feel that a woman much past forty should go through pregnancy. There’s no need for any such radical change as you are proposing.”

  “Thomas—”

  “Furthermore, Rachel, despite your histrionics you know I have not suggested that all girls of the Lines should marry at fifteen. Only that Nazareth must do so, and only because her circumstances are exceptional.”

  “You would be exceptional, too, if you were under guard every moment of your life!”

  “Once she’s married, there’ll be no need for night surveillance unless her husband is gone from home,” said Thomas. “And perhaps the need for daytime guards will be less as well. In time.”

  “I have never understood the need for any of it,” Rachel declared.

  “That’s very stupid of you.”

  “Thomas, Belle-Anne has been in the mental hospital for months, and you know what she’s become. If she were released tomorrow—and that won’t happen—she has no mind left at all, she’s a husk! Nazareth has been in no danger since the day they took Belle-Anne away, and it is in no way stupid for me to realize that. What possible danger could there be?”

  “I worry about the other females at Barren House,” said Thomas. “I’m not prepared to accept unequivocally the idea that only Belle-Anne was suffering from religious mania, for one thing. And for another, my dear, there are few things easier for a copycat criminal to fake than religious mania.”

  “Thomas . . . it’s absurd.”

  “Nazareth is valuable to this Household,” he told her stiffly. “Far beyond the ordinary, she is valuable. Her linguistic skills would make her a prize under any circumstances, and REM34 is one of the languages most essential to the welfare of this planet—which makes her even more valuable. Finally, her genetics are superb. I expect her to provide us with infants of equal caliber. And I am not willing to take even the slightest chance that she’ll be harmed, Rachel, not now, not ever. Your emotionalism is unbecoming in a woman who ought to know the value of her own child, and who claims to love her.”

  Rachel firmed her lips, and looked at him steadily, considering. It was just possible that he was telling her the truth, that he’d fed the data into the computers and been advised that the chance of someone following Belle-Anne’s example was sufficiently great to require protection for Nazareth. It was possible. It was certainly true that Nazareth was uniquely valuable to the Line both genetically and economically. But she knew Thomas very well, and she knew that there were ordinarily many layers of motive behind the surface one that he presented with such plausibility.

  For example, if he hadn’t assigned those two young men to keep watch over Nazareth . . . he would have had an unsolved problem. If he were to end the surveillance he would have that problem back again. Some sort of face-saving function had been needed, because those two were so completely unpromising as linguists that they were useless for anything more than the most trivial social situations. That happened sometimes . . . a linguist would acquire the languages chosen for him like any other child, but would turn out to be utterly lacking in any ability to carry out the essential functions of interpreting and translating. It had been very convenient for Thomas to be able to give out the tale that he’d released the two cousins from their important duties as linguists to fill the equally important role of guards for Nazareth; if he released them from that, he’d have to think of something else. It would be awkward . . . there was always the danger of damage to the public’s image of the linguists as infallible in all matters linguistic.

  “Rachel,” Thomas said, “that expression on your face is more than usually unpleasant. Please do not scowl at me in that way . . . at
least wait until I’ve had breakfast.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Yes, Rachel?” Oh, the overlay of weary tolerance in that voice, damn his soul!

  “Thomas,” she said urgently, “I can’t approve of this. You managed to distract me very neatly with all the trivia about the necessity for the guards—twenty points to you, my dear. But I cannot be distracted indefinitely . . . let’s return to the subject of this obscene marriage that you are suggesting.”

  “Rachel,” said Thomas, adding practical reason to the tolerance, “it doesn’t make the slightest difference whether you approve or not. It would be pleasant if you did approve, of course. I make every effort to consider your personal wishes with regard to my children whenever I can. But when you refuse to be reasonable you leave me no choice but to ignore you. And Rachel, I am not ‘suggesting’ this marriage—I am ordering it.”

  Rachel had been born a linguist, born a Shawnessey, and she had spent all her life surrounded by the men of the Lines. She did not misjudge Thomas. She knew him to be in many ways a good and kind and considerate man. She knew that his responsibilities were heavy, that his workload was brutal, and that at times he did things less than kindly only because he had no time to do them in any other way. As Head of the Lines, he had power; so far as she knew, he had never been tempted to abuse that power, and that was to his credit. She was willing to give him all the credit due him.

  But she resented him; oh, how she resented him! And she resented him most at times like this one, when his total authority over her and over those she loved forced her to debase herself to him. She would choke on what she had to do now . . . but she had no other strategy available to her. She erased the anger from her face, erased the scowl to which he had objected, and let her eyes fill with the soft puzzled tearfulness that was considered appealing in women. And she sank to the floor beside Thomas’ chair and leaned her head against his knee, and for the sake of her daughter, she disciplined herself to beg.

  “Please, my darling,” she said softly. “Please don’t do this dreadful thing.”

  “Rachel, you are ridiculous,” he said. His body was rigid under her touch, and his voice was ice.

  “Thomas, how often have I asked you for anything? How often, love, have I quarreled with your decisions or questioned your good judgment? How often have I done anything but agree that you were wise in what you were about to do? Please, Thomas . . . change your mind. Just this one time. Thomas, indulge me, just this once!”

  He reached down abruptly and hauled her upright in front of him like a parcel, or a child in tantrum, and he sat there laughing at her, shaking his head in mock astonishment.

  “Darling . . .” Rachel said, forcing the words.

  “Darling!” He let go of one of her shoulders and he tapped her on the end of her nose with his index finger. “I am not your darling . . . or anyone’s. As you know perfectly well. I am a cruel and vindictive and heartless monster who cares for nothing but his own selfish and twisted goals.”

  “Thomas, I never ask you for anything!” she pleaded.

  “My sweet,” he said, still laughing, “that is what you always say when you disagree with me. Every single time. Year after weary year. You really should talk to one of the young girls and see if they can’t suggest a new routine you could use . . . you’ve worn that one out completely.”

  Rachel’s eyes stung, and she knew that tears might help her now. She’d managed to make him laugh at her, which meant that he was more relaxed, less on his guard. Tears would be the wise next move, and she owed that move to Nazareth.

  She knew that. And she knew also that she couldn’t do it. It was too much. Women of the Lines learned early not to give in to tears except by choice, because tears destroyed negotiations. A woman who is weeping is a woman who cannot talk, and a woman who cannot talk most surely cannot interpret. The voluntary control of tears was a skill mastered for business reasons, but it proved useful in many areas of life, and it would be useful to her now. She would not cry, not even for Nazareth.

  She pulled away from him, stepped back and set her arms akimbo, her hands on her hips in a stance that she knew he detested, and in a voice that carried as much contempt as she could muster she said, “Chornyak—your daughter hates that man!”

  His eyebrows rose, briefly, and he brushed at his trousers where she had leaned against them.

  “So?”

  “You don’t feel that’s relevant?”

  “You know better, woman. It has no relevance at all. We linguists haven’t married for any reason other than the sum of politics and genetics since . . at least since Whissler was president. Nazareth’s opinions of Aaron Adiness are of no concern whatever.”

  “There is an enormous difference between marrying someone you merely feel no love for, and marrying someone you hate.”

  “Rachel,” Thomas said, sighing, “I’m trying very hard to be patient with you. But you’re doing everything you can to make that impossible. I will make just one more attempt—and we will leave Nazareth’s immature sentiments out of it. Aaron Adiness is superbly healthy, he comes of a Household with which we are anxious for closer ties at this time, he’s talented—”

  “He’s nothing of the kind!”

  “What?”

  “Everyone knows, Thomas, that he’s a mediocre linguist!”

  “Oh, come now, Rachel. . . . you women may ‘know’ something of that kind, but it has no more foundation in fact than any of the rest of your female mythology. Aaron is a native speaker of REM30-2-699, of Swahili, of English, and of Navajo; he has a respectable fluency in eleven other Terran languages and can get by socially in four dialects of Cantonese. His Ameslan is so exceptionally fluent and graceful that he has been hired to teach it to the deaf at several national institutes. And I have not even mentioned the dozens of languages that he can read with ease and translate with both skill and subtlety . . . the list goes on for half a page. Not talented! Rachel, when you go out of your way to be childish you lose all claim on courtesy from me.”

  Rachel was ashamed now, deeply ashamed, and she knew that she had lost. There was no hope of salvaging this. She had succeeded in turning it into a fight, and one of their better fights at that. She went on only because she no longer had anything to lose.

  “It’s an open secret, Thomas, that Aaron Adiness has a violent temper and an insurmountable conviction that the universe was created for his personal benefit! And that he allows both of those factors to interfere with the performance of his duties! You know it, I know it, everyone knows it . . . If he had fifty languages native and five hundred more fluent, it would not cancel out the fact that he cannot control his personal feelings even when he is on duty. If Nazareth hadn’t been the Jeelod interpreter when the negotiations for the Sigma-9 frontier colony leases were under way, there’d be no colonies on Sigma-9 . . . she had to do everything but belly dance to salvage the messes Aaron made every time he fancied someone doubted his divinity. He is cruel, and stupid, and vindictive, and petty—he’s worse than any woman! And if you tie Nazareth to him for life, then you are worse than he is!”

  Thomas had gone white; for some reason, although he could easily tolerate almost any sort of confrontation with others, having Rachel forget her place in this way always enraged him so that he had to fight for control . . . and she knew it, too, damn the bitch. He regretted now having even told her of his plans for Nazareth. He should have shipped her off somewhere and had the marriage performed in her absence, as Adam had suggested; for once, he agreed with Adam that he spoiled Rachel and that it was foolish of him to do so. Certainly he got nothing from her in return for his indulgence.

  “Rachel,” he said, clenching his teeth to keep his voice from betraying that he was shaking with rage, “that’s a common pattern when youth is combined with genius. Aaron will outgrow both his temper and his arrogance, as does any man of that sort. And Nazareth will be well advised not to remind him of her alleged rescues of his diplomatic shipwrecks—I
suggest that you tell her so. Because very soon he will make her, with all her spectacular scores on the linguistics tests, look like a chimp using Ameslan. The more primitive the organism, woman, the more swiftly it matures—of course Nazareth was a bit further along emotionally than Aaron during the Sigma-9 contracts! The advantage is a temporary one, milady, and she’d better remember it.”

  “You’re determined then, Thomas? You want this show horse for the Line so badly that you’re willing to bind your own daughter to him for life when the very sight of him is repulsive to her? That’s your idea of fair return on the value she represents to your treasuries? What’s the problem, dear? Is somebody else after him?”

  Thomas turned away in one swift movement, and Rachel knew she had him—he wouldn’t have done that if he hadn’t been afraid she’d see that in his face. But body-parl betrays, always; his abrupt move, graceless and entirely unlike him, was as revealing as any statement could have been. And it was her turn to laugh.

  “Ah,” she cried, “that is it, isn’t it? You’re about to lose him, a prize stallion with a spectacularly curly tail, to one of the other Lines! And that can’t be allowed to happen!”

  “It certainly cannot,” he said, his back still turned to her.

  “Well . . . if that’s all it is, why not one of the other girls? You’ve got a houseful of brood mares, Thomas . . . why not Philippa? God knows your brother would be delighted to get rid of her, he can’t stand any of his daughters, and she’s a strapping seventeen. Marry her off to Adiness!”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I wish to see what the genetic combination of Nazareth’s and Aaron’s abilities will produce,” he said coldly. “Philippa is entirely run of the mill.” His brief moment without mastery of himself had passed, and he turned to face her easily, his voice heavy now only with the message that she turned his stomach.

  “Get on with you,” he told her roughly. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. Tell Nazareth she’s to be ready for the wedding on her fifteenth birthday, and let me hear no more about it. No—not one word, woman! Get! And he left their room, not waiting to see her obey.