"But I'd be so good to it, I have so much — oh Mara, do think about it. Look at yourself: you're better now, you could do it."
Mara certainly had breasts again, but her blood flow had not resumed. Candace had asked her to say when this happened.
"Are you going to make me have a child?" Mara asked Candace.
"You might have noticed that we don't make anyone do anything."
"But you want me to have a child?"
"You talk as if it would be easy. But yes, we'd like you to try."
Kira summoned a session. Everyone was there.
Jan spoke first. "Before you start, Kira — no, I'm not going to try again. Yours is not the first miscarriage. You forget Ida miscarried with my seed."
And his brother said, "And that goes for me. I'm not going through that again: all the expectations, and the hoping, and then — nothing. Three of the courtyard girls have lost my attempts at a child."
Kira said, "I wasn't thinking of either of you. I don't want another mis-carriage — once is enough. I am invoking the old law. It has never been repealed, has it?"
This law was that a man could have two wives, a woman two husbands, if everyone agreed. This law had been made when it first became evident that fertility was lower, there were fewer children, and many miscarriages. So morality changed to suit a necessity. For a while it had worked: there had been more babies born, but then it was evident this was only a temporary improvement. The new law had caused a lot of unhappiness, and slowly fell out of use.
The fact was, Kira had fallen in love with Juba, and by now everyone knew it.
Juba sat quietly beside his wife, Dromas, and said, "I'm not going to pretend I'm not flattered, Kira..." — here he took Dromas's hand — "but why me? I'm old enough to be your grandfather."
Kira said, "You have a son, Juba. Your son doesn't have a son. Meryx is the only young man among the Kin."
Meryx had tried to father a child with one of the courtyard girls, but had failed.
Dromas had to agree with this mating, and she was composed, dignified, but did not hide her hurt. She said, "We have been married twenty years. But Kira, you know I am not going to say no. I couldn't, could I, if there's a chance of a child? I couldn't live with myself if I said no." — and here she smiled, attempting humour in this very tense atmosphere — "I couldn't live with Juba either."
"Oh yes you could, always," said Juba, and kissed her hand.
At this Kira's eyes filled with tears, and she said, "So what are you going to lose? None of us young women will know what it is to say, 'I have been with my man for twenty years.'"
"I know," said Dromas. "And that is why I am saying yes. But I want to say something else. None of you will know what it is to be with a man all of your youth, and to have a child with him — you have no idea of what it is you are asking me to do and what it will cost me."
This was Kira's cue to withdraw, and perhaps say she would try with one of the field slaves. But she sat on, her face wet with tears, her eyes bright and defiant.
"Then you may start your month tomorrow," said Dromas, taking her hand away from Juba's.
The custom was that when a couple were trying for a child — that is when everyone had given their permission — they were given a room, well away from everyone else, and they were excused their ordinary duties for a month.
"Why a full month?" said Mara — and as she spoke, knew she was destroying Kira's dream of a month of love. "We know — don't we? — that the eggs can only reach each other for a week in the middle of the cycle."
"I'm prepared to let it be a week, Kira," said Juba, "and if it doesn't work the first time we can try another week later." To soften this, because Kira looked mortified, and angry, and miserable, all at once, "I'm so busy, Kira. For me to stop working for a month — it is a real difficulty."
"Bitch," said Kira to Mara, as they all went out, "bitch, bitch, bitch."
"But it's true," said Mara. "Someone would have said it, if I didn't."
"But it was you who said it," said Kira.
The week of love — as the women of the courtyard were calling it — began shortly after this discussion. They were all gossiping about this passion: falling in love belonged to the past, to stories and fables and history. They had liaisons with each other, sometimes with permanent partners — lovers was not a word much in use — or more often temporary ones. They did not break their hearts when someone wanted a change, and said, "I want a fling with." — whoever. In the courtyard they chattered and giggled and discussed each other's likes and dislikes, their bodies, their needs — for they varied very much. One might say, "When I've finished with you I'm going to try." — whoever it might be; and the cool answer might be, "Oh suit yourself." It was as if deep feelings, or any feelings, had left these women, as if some silent agreement had been come to: We are not going to want, or yearn, or fret, or need, or suffer over that ridiculous thing, love. They all frankly said that choosing only women meant there would be no heartbreaks over miscarriages and infant deaths or not conceiving when they tried. "I don't want to know if I'm infertile," they said. "Who cares, anyway?"
Yet when one of the field slaves managed to have a baby, and brought it in to show the Kin, all the women in the courtyard wept over it, competed to hold it, and were pettish and cross and tended to burst into tears for a week afterwards.
During the week Juba was with Kira, Candace told Dromas to be with Mara. Dromas was a Memory, and she had learned every word of Mara's history, and now she was to tell Mara as much as she knew of the history of Ifrik, but beginning with Hadron. Dromas of course knew she was given this task so that she wouldn't be sitting by herself, thinking of her husband with a very pretty young woman; but as she talked, her voice kept fading into silence, and she would sit, looking down, her hand irritably and anxiously smoothing back her grey hair, over and over again, as if she were trying to soothe away painful thoughts.
And then Mara would say gently, "And what happened next?"
Plenty had happened. The history of Hadron was a long one: "Hundreds of years," said Dromas; and when Mara jested, "At least it's not thousands," Dromas did not see Mara's point. How strange, Mara thought, that an ignorant thing like me should think so easily of "thousands," of long stretches of time, while a real Memory doesn't seem to hear "thousands" when I say it.
The history of Hadron had begun with the conquest of this country, when the Mahondis who ruled it were defeated. In the middle of an empty plain, the cluster of twenty-five Towers had been built, with the four great, black, shining roads running in from the horizon; and this was where the rulers, the lawmakers, and the administrators were all supposed to live and govern. Soon they were making excuses, and would fly in by skimmer for a week or a day of meetings, and then go home to the regions. Then a law was passed that everyone, including the president, must live in the Towers. Meanwhile the twenty-five black, bleak, sullen buildings were being surrounded by little outcrops of shanty towns: every kind of shed, hut, lean-to, shack, made of every imaginable material, even cloth and mud and old bits of metal. The big roads remained mostly unused, except for visiting dignitaries. Alongside the roads ran dusty tracks, easier on the feet, and everywhere around the base of the Towers, and spreading farther out, were networks of paths, then simple dirt roads, from one little annexe town to another. Soon there were no spaces between the towns, and the mess of buildings stretched outwards from the Towers, but mostly to the east, where the good water was. The shanty towns were rebuilt in brick and wood, and beyond them new houses arose, some of them fine, in large gardens. The administrators, instead of living in the Towers, built themselves houses. Within fifty years of the building of the Towers, which had been meant to stand up straight and tall and alone on the plain, a self-contained city designed to strike awe into the whole country, they were deserted, except for criminals or fugitives or as temporary housing for families taking shelter on the lowest floors until they could find accommodation in the genial and hum
an suburbs. The Towers had become a lesson in misguided town planning, and there had been a time when people came from other countries to take lessons in how not to do it.
And now Mara stood on the wide verandahs of this Mahondi house, which had once been the home of a rich Hadron, and looked across to that enormous, threatening central Tower, with the twenty-four smaller ones — small only in comparison: they were huge. Had she promised not to go there? Yes, she had, at least by implication. And how could she do anything to damage these people, her Kin, who had been so kind and who valued her? But suppose Dann was in those Towers, hiding? It must be as terrible for him as anything they had experienced together. No, more likely that he had gone North: if so, he would be back for her, she was sure of it.
Again Mara accompanied Juba to the water site. All the young men hated this duty, which was lonely and boring, and that was partly why Juba visited them. Six guards, who patrolled the rusty tangle of fencing, and their officer, who was the Mahondis' ally. These young Hadrons were not disgusting, like their elders. They were like the Rock People, and Juba said that the Hadrons had come from the south, and presumably some had decided to settle along the way. Poorly fed Rock People were still solid and big boned, but these, who fed well, were large, and smooth, and their yellowish skins shone. The glistening mass of pale hair, on soldiers, was shortened and looked like a silvery cap. They were proud of their military training and their weapons, which were mostly piles of sharpened sticks, and bows and arrows. Juba inspected them, solemnly. The officer had the weapon like a long stick, of metal, Mara had seen when she was taken to the Hadron house. Juba was careful to look at it, check it, hand it back with a stern nod, saying, "Very good." This was a gun: it came from somewhere in the North, it was very old, and the traders who brought them said they would terrorise any possible enemy. The trouble was, they had killed quite a few people, not enemies, by blowing up in the soldiers' faces.
Juba said to Mara, "Did you know that there were weapons once that could fire right around the world?"
"No." Mara was wrestling with the word, world. Her longing reached Juba, who patted her shoulder and said, "Don't worry, we will teach you everything we know. But as I am sure you are beginning to see, that isn't very much. And you must be prepared: it isn't easy, when you begin to learn just how little we know compared with those people — the ones who lived long ago. If they could see us they would think us savages."
They were standing looking past the great rusty fence up to the cliff where Mara and Dann had come. The scrub right at the top made Mara think of her short brush of hair — though if she used water she could plaster it down now. She was unhappy, and it was because of Kira, her week of being with this man, and of her being pregnant. All the women were restless, and sad, like Mara. Kira sat among them, with a softness about her, a sweetness, that none of them had. Because of Mara's own unhappiness she could feel Juba's. This strong man, of whom Mara had often thought, I am sure he is like my father was — a man with a grown-up son of whom Mara had caught herself thinking, If I did agree to have a baby then it would be with Meryx — this man who seemed so calm, so self-sufficient, was staring up at the cliff top but not seeing it, because his eyes were full of tears.
He said, "When Dromas was pregnant I was with her all the time, and I was part of it all. And now I spend a week with a woman who is going to have my child, but I am not supposed to want more. If I had not lived the way I have, with Dromas, then I would be the kind of man who could say to Kira, Thanks, that was very nice, goodbye. But how could I be? — after living with Dromas for twenty years."
Mara thought that "living with Dromas for twenty years" was like listening to a song, or a story, so far was it from her, or from anything she expected. She put her hand on his arm and said, "You know, Juba, there's a solution."
"What?" he said angrily. "There are things no one can change, nothing can make better — young people are like that, you think there must be a solution to everything, well there isn't. Dromas and I are — one person. And now I lie awake at night and I can't sleep because of that girl — and I don't even like her. I've never liked Kira. She's a sly, cold little piece. Dromas has taken her bed into another room because she can't bear it. I feel as if I've been cut in two."
For a while they stood silent, while in front of them the young men marched efficiently up and down, believing that Juba was watching them.
It was a hot day — but when was that not true? They were well into the dry season. Out on the plain the dust devils lazed by. Here, the stream that she and Dann had bathed in was lower and in places — Mara saw this with a feeling of foreboding — was not a stream, but had become a string of wa-terholes.
"So what is your solution, Mara?"
"You are fertile — you've proved it. If there were two, or three, or even more girls pregnant, then."
"Oh, so you see me as a sort of breeding stud?"
"You asked."
And now he gave her a glance so wary, so circumspect, that she cried out, "No, you're wrong. I know I'm ugly, I wasn't thinking." She felt that he had hit her, this kindly man. And she had been secretly thinking, I'm really not so thin and bony now, my hair is growing. Her eyes were full of tears. And he was remorseful and this was even worse for her. "Mara, give yourself time. You look so much better than you did. And don't imagine you aren't attractive. I wish you weren't — I don't want the Hadrons to notice you.Very well, what do you think I should do?"
"Some of the courtyard women are already saying they envy Kira. One or two have said they are going to ask you. Next time all the Kin are together, you should suggest it. And of course Ida is keen."
"Oh, Ida."
"She wants me to get pregnant for her, when my flow begins." And then at his enquiring look, "Oh no, no, no. I'm afraid. There's nothing more terrible, children dying, the babies."
And she thought, surprised at herself, It is true, back in the Rock Village, the children and the babies dying; but it was so terrible I wouldn't let myself feel it, and so when that child died on the journey here I felt nothing. I don't want to feel, I don't want that again — never. And she felt now the anguish of seeing the dying babies in the Rock Village, babies being born, then dying, or surviving for a while, so that everyone watched, hoping, and then another bad dry season — and they died. The mothers' stony faces, the fathers' angry faces as they dug little graves in the hard earth, or put the corpses out for the scavengers.
Juba put his arm around Mara, and she leaned against him and most bitterly sobbed, to make up for all the tears she had held back then. And he stood, full of sorrow, and thought that this girl could never understand his grief over Dromas.
Now Kira sent a message: she demanded a full meeting of the Kin, and when they were assembled she rushed into the room propelled by furious emotion, and was checked by Candace who said, "Sit down, there are still some others to come."
Kira was pouting and exclaiming, and did not sit.
"We have problems," said Candace, "serious ones."
"Oh, mine isn't serious, I see," said Kira.
Then Meryx came in, with Mara: they had been inspecting the food warehouses. Ida arrived, and sat and sighed, fanning herself, and at once everyone had to look. That fan of hers, made of the feathers of a bird Mara thought must be extinct, or had gone North long ago, was like her sighs, her exclamations, her sorrow: the quick flutter near her face, the dramatic turn of the elegant, plump wrist, the click of the fan opening and shutting, the blur of colours as she fanned — she had not said a word, but everyone knew she felt betrayed because Kira was saying that she was going to keep the baby.
"Sit down," said Juba to Kira, who was still marching about, ironically watching Ida.
She did sit now, because it was he who had said so — she made this plain by her manner.
"I demand," she said, "to be allowed to marry Juba." She saw the shocked and astonished faces around her and burst into tears. Candace said, "Don't be so absurd. Of course Juba isn't go
ing to marry you."
Juba was sitting next to Dromas, who was looking strained, but she smiled.
Now Candace said to Kira, "You think only of yourself, Kira. Now listen." And she outlined a plan for Juba to try to impregnate the four girls from the courtyard who had agreed to it — not merely agreed, they were now desperate to try.
Kira began to wail and shout and fling herself about. Orphne supported her up out of her chair and said, "Don't worry, I'll calm you down." And Larissa joined the two, saying, "I think Kira should come and stay with me for a while. I'll look after you, Kira, you'll see."
Ida said, "Why does Kira hate me so much?" And Candace said, "Obviously, because you aren't Juba. Be quiet, Ida. We have serious problems." And almost as an afterthought added, "The women who want to try with Juba can arrange between themselves when and how."
Candace's tone was such that Ida was quiet, and even her fan lay still across her knees. And Mara thought that she had never suspected that behind Candace's gentleness and kindness lay this iron will.
Meanwhile Meryx was outlining the new difficulties. When he had finished he got up to leave and beckoned Mara to go with him. Normally Mara would have just left, but now looked to Candace for permission. Candace nodded, and Mara felt the shrewd — cold? — gaze on her back.
Meryx said, "I'm going to ask you something — don't be angry. But please will you wear my clothes — well, any of the men's clothes when you are out? And this?" It was a little cap like those worn by the slaves. Mara turned away so he could not see her face — her hair was just beginning to be nice to look at, and she loved the pretty frocks, pink and white and green, that she wore. Meryx caught her arm and turned her around. "Mara," he said, "I don't want... we don't want the Hadrons to notice you. Please. You are out and about all the time, everyone can see you..." She nodded, knowing he was right. He let his hand fall off her arm, took her hand and led her to his room. There he turned his back while she took off her pink dress and put on the brown top and loose trousers the men wore. Meryx turned, laughed and said, "Well, I would know you because — I know you." There was no doubt he liked what he saw. "And the next thing will be, you'll be sending a message to my father."
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