“That is something I’m having trouble understanding,” I said. “What were the reasons? And where is the beer?”
“The usual place,” said Derek. “Get one for me and Agopian.”
When I came back out Ivanova said, “You will understand when you hear the messages. Socialism does not mean a reduction of everything to the lowest common denominator. It means giving people the freedom to achieve their full potential. It means a lifting of humanity. An ennobling.” She paused. “How long did it take us? Four centuries? Two hundred years of struggle to end that horrible system and two hundred years of hard work to clean up the mess that it left behind. How many people died of hunger or were poisoned by all the different kinds of pollution? Have you ever looked at the statistics on starvation and disease?
“How many people were murdered because they wanted a union or a free election? Or something very simple. The right to decide whom they were going to love. The right to decide how many children they were going to bear.
“All that suffering—those generations of struggle.” She had been looking down. Now she lifted her head. There were lines in her face that I didn’t remember.
“We thought we had won. When we left Earth, when we began this journey, it seemed that humanity was about to achieve a golden age. A true socialist society.
“We woke at the edge of this system and found—I don’t know how to describe it.”
“Garbage,” said Agopian. “It’s as if the lowest and worst human thinking had become predominant. It really is awful, Lixia.”
“You rewrote the messages because you didn’t like them,” I said. “History hadn’t turned out the way you wanted it to. So you tried to remake it. Undo it.”
“No,” said Ivanova.
Agopian said, “Maybe.”
Ivanova frowned at him, then looked at me. “What is going to happen next?”
“We’ll go back to camp, and you and Agopian will tell your story.”
She looked at Eddie. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“No. But I can’t see any way to shut up Lixia and Derek and Agopian.”
“There isn’t any way,” I said. “I won’t go along with a lie of this magnitude.”
Agopian looked at me. He seemed a little drunk. “You are tougher than I am, Lixia, and more in love with abstractions. Truth. Beauty. Integrity. You’ll destroy us all for those words.”
“You are in no position to criticize,” Ivanova said.
I looked at Eddie. “When are we leaving?”
“Tomorrow. Early. You and Derek ought to go up to the village and say good-bye formally.”
Derek made the gesture of disagreement. “Angai said no more men. I think she’s serious.”
“The oracle is up there.”
“He’s holy. I’m not. I’m taking Angai at her word.”
“I’ll go up,” I said. “After lunch and after a swim. Does anyone want to come with me?”
“Swimming?” asked Derek.
“To the village.”
“I will,” said Ivanova. “If Eddie thinks it’s all right.”
“I think we’ll put off arresting anyone until we’re back in camp. I don’t know the procedure, and I don’t really want to call and ask. It’d lead to a lot of questions.” Eddie looked around. “Do the rest of you agree?”
Derek and I nodded.
Ivanova said, “I think I’ll refrain from voting on this question.”
Agopian nodded. “I’m abstaining, too.”
“You might as well go,” Eddie said to Ivanova.
“Thank you.”
Derek and I made sandwiches. We ate, and I went for a swim. The water was cool. The river washed away a lot of my tension. I felt like floating down it, away from the village and the boats, away from all these people and their arguments. Of course, if I went far enough, I’d float into the middle of the lizard migration. I swam back and climbed onboard, grabbed a towel and tucked it around me.
Tatiana was back, sitting on the rear deck with Ivanova and Agopian. There was a bowl of fruit on the folding table next to her. Oranges, bananas, and bright green apples. A heap of orange peelings lay next to the bowl. The air was full of the aroma of orange.
Tatiana spoke in Russian, quickly and eagerly.
“What happened to the oracle?” I asked.
She glanced at me. “He stayed in the village. He was with someone. A large person with reddish fur in plain clothes.”
Nia.
I went into the cabin and got dressed.
When I came out, Ivanova stood up. We climbed the bluff together.
There were children outside the village. They were standing facing the wind, holding their hands out, the palms forward.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You told us you could feel the wind. Our palms have no hair. We are feeling the wind and trying to understand what it would be like to feel that way all over.”
I translated for Ivanova. She laughed. “They will have no trouble. It is the adults who’ll be afraid and fight change.”
The children stayed at the edge of the village, playing their game of pretending to be hairless. Ivanova and I walked to the main square. Angai was there, sitting under her awning. Nia and the oracle were with her.
I made the gesture of greeting.
Angai made the gesture that meant “sit down and stay awhile.”
We seated ourselves in the shadow of the awning. The wind blew dust around the square.
“We are leaving in the morning,” I said.
“Good,” said Angai. “When you are gone, people will stop worrying. After a while this visit will seem like a dream to them or like a story told by an old woman about something that happened a long time ago. Then you will be able to return. They will be less frightened the second time. But remember—when you come, bring only women and make sure they are clever and sensible.”
I translated for Ivanova.
She said, “Give Angai our thanks. Tell her, we will do as she asks. Tell her, when we come again we will bring many gifts and stories and no men.”
I told Angai.
She made the gesture of acknowledgment. “I think this will turn out well, though I should not have gotten angry last night. Now I will have to find a way to make Anhar happy.
“Go now and take the oracle. I will ask the spirits to take care of you.”
I made the gesture of gratitude. “That’s it,” I said to Ivanova. “She wants us out of the village.”
We stood. So did the oracle. He had a big lumpy leather bag: his food.
I looked at Nia. “What about you?”
“I will stay here for another day or so. Then I plan to go north and visit Tanajin.”
“After that?” I asked.
She made the gesture of uncertainty, stood up and hugged me. A tight hard hug that left me breathless.
“Come to our village,” I said.
She made the gesture that meant “maybe.”
“Go,” said Angai.
The oracle started off. Ivanova and I followed.
When we reached the children again, they were playing with a ball. So much for the game of hairlessness.
I said, “We’re leaving in the morning. Close to dawn, I think. Come down then if you want to see our boats.”
“We will,” one of the children said.
We walked to the edge of the bluff. Ivanova stopped and looked back at the village and the plain.
“Come on,” the oracle said.
“The oracle is impatient,” I said.
“I want to remember this.”
She stood for another minute or two. The oracle fidgeted. I waved him on. Finally she looked at me. “I have not been especially clever in the last year. But I am not stupid. I have a good idea of what is going to happen to Mesrop and me.”
She went down the bluff, following the oracle.
They would be tried for crimes against democracy and for endangering the lives of the people they had froze
n. Maybe for murder. We had no provision for rehabilitation and no place to send people who had committed serious crimes. The only thing we could do was freeze them until we returned to Earth or until our colony had evolved far enough to have a really advanced psychotherapeutic facility or a prison.
This might be the last time that Ivanova saw a native village or a landscape like this one. I took another look at the windy plain and the children chasing their ball. Then I followed Ivanova down the bluff.
Nia
The hairless people left in the morning. The people of the village began packing in the afternoon. Nia helped Angai, but only with the things in the front room of the tent. The back room was the place where Angai kept her magic. Everything there was hidden by a curtain of red cloth embroidered with animals and spirits. The curtain went across the tent from top to bottom and side to side. Nothing came through it except the aroma of dry herbs and the feeling of magic. The feeling made Nia’s skin itch and prickle.
She stayed as far from the curtain as possible, kneeling by the front door in the afternoon sunlight, folding clothing, and putting it in a chest made of leather.
On the other side of the room Hua knelt. She was right next to the curtain, below a picture of a spirit: an old man, naked, with his sexual member clearly visible. His back was hunched, and he leaned on a cane. The Dark One, thought Nia, in one of her many disguises.
Hua had laid out tools and was counting them before she packed them: knives of many sizes, needles, spoons made of polished wood and horn.
Angai was behind the curtain, packing up whatever she kept there, objects that Nia did not want to see.
“How can you bear to stay here?” Nia asked.
Hua looked up and made the gesture of inquiry.
“By the curtain. In this tent.”
Hua repeated the gesture of inquiry.
“Nia has never liked magic,” Angai said.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Hua said.
“A good thing,” said Nia. “If you are going to be the next shamaness.”
“Of course I am,” said Hua. “Who else is there?” She was counting combs now. She laid them out, big ones and little ones, made of wood and horn and metal.
Nia realized her entire skin was itching. The feeling was especially bad between her shoulder blades and along her spine. “Keep some of those out. It’s a long time since I’ve had a grooming done the proper way—by a friend or a female relative.”
“All right,” said Hua. She put two of the combs aside: one of ordinary size and a big one with wide gaps between the teeth.
Nia made a satisfied noise. “It will be something to remember when I am out on the plain.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” asked Hua. Her voice sounded sharp and high.
“No.”
“Why not? Has someone been giving you trouble? You aren’t worried about Anhar, are you? Hasn’t Angai told you that you can stay?”
Nia laid a tunic on the floor. It had long sleeves. She folded them in over the body of the tunic, smoothing the fabric. It was fine and soft, a gift from people living in the distant south.
“When I lived in the Iron Hills, I was with you and Anasu and Enshi. When I lived in the east, I was at the edge of the village, as far out as a man. I’m not used to being with a lot of people. I no longer know how to live in a village.”
“You never really knew,” said Angai through the curtain. “You always acted as if you were alone.”
Nia felt surprised. She made the gesture that asked “is that really true?” But Angai couldn’t see, of course.
Hua said, “My mother wants to know if you are certain.”
“Yes.” The curtain fluttered. Angai must have brushed against it. “I know you better than anyone, Nia. You are like a rock! You are like an arrow! You are what you are, and nothing can change you. You go where you go, and nothing can make you turn. You have never been an ordinary person.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Nia.
Hua said, “I wanted you to stay with us. I wanted to hear your stories.”
“I’m not going away forever. But I need time alone.”
Angai said, “This is the right decision. I’d like Nia to stay. But I’ve seen the way the people of the village look at her. She makes them uneasy. If she goes, they will settle down after a while. Then—I think—she will be able to come back. But if she stays now, they will get angry. Too much has happened. They have seen too much that is new. If she stays now, they will drive her off.”
Hua made the gesture of regret.
They kept working until the sky began to darken. Angai came out from behind the curtain. They ate dinner. Angai combed Nia’s fur. Aiya! It felt good! Especially when Angai combed the thick fur on her back. She leaned against the comb—the big one—and groaned with pleasure.
When that was done, they talked for a while. Nothing important was said. Angai described the trail that she wanted to follow going south and the place she wanted to spend the winter. Nia asked a question now and then. Hua listened in silence.
At last they went to sleep. Nia kept waking. The tent door was open. But there was little wind. The air in the tent was motionless and warm. She looked out the door. There were stars above the tents of her former neighbors. So many! So thick and bright!
They got up at dawn and began to load the wagon. Anasu brought the wagon-pullers in: six fine bowhorn geldings. They hitched them up. The sky was clear. The day was going to be hot. Nia could feel it.
Angai said, “I’d like you to go back out and get an animal for Nia. White Spot or Sturdy or Broken Horn, whichever you find.”
“Why does she need one?” asked Anasu. “I thought she was going to ride in the wagon.”
“She is leaving us,” Hua said.
“Why?”
“She wants to be alone.”
“Aiya! What a family I have!” He turned his bowhorn and rode away.
Nia asked, “Is he angry?”
“Maybe a little,” Hua said. “It has not been easy having you for a mother, even though Angai has protected us.”
Nia made the gesture of apology.
“It could have been worse,” Hua said. “We could have had Anhar for a mother. Or Ti-antai. A malicious woman. A woman who is a coward.”
“Is that what you think about Ti-antai?”
“Maybe she isn’t a coward,” Hua said. “Maybe she has a little mind. She never thinks about anything except her children and their children and the neighbors.”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Not for me,” said Hua. “I am going to be a shamaness.”
“Then you can help me now,” said Angai. “I have many boxes full of magical objects, and they have to go into the wagon. Nia isn’t going to touch them. I know that.”
Hua grimaced and made the gesture of assent.
After the magic was loaded, they took down the tent. Nia helped. They loaded it into the wagon. By noon they were ready to go, and so was the rest of the village. Nia looked around. There wasn’t a tent anywhere in sight. Instead there were wagons and bowhorns, women lifting boxes, children running. A few wagons had begun to move. A cloud of dust hung in midair to the west of the village.
Anasu came back, leading a bowhorn: a large young gelding. There was a large white mark in the middle of its chest. The mark was curved like a bow. The grip was at the bottom. The two arms of the bow rose up on either side. The mark reminded Nia of other things as well: the emblem for “pot,” the emblem for “boat,” and the Great Moon when it was thin. If Angai had the animal, it must be lucky—though it worried Nia to look at the mark and see so many things.
“It’s five years old,” said Angai. “There is no better traveler in the herd. Be careful, though. Sometimes, not often, it gets a little edgy.”
“I have nothing to give in return,” said Nia.
“You told me about the hairless people. You gave me good advice.”
Nia made the gesture that meant �
��it was nothing.”
“It is enough,” said Angai.
Hua held out a pair of saddlebags. “This is for you. I’ve put in everything you ought to have. My mother—the friend of the shamaness—cannot go out onto the plain with nothing.”
Nia took the bags and fastened them to her animal. There was a peculiar feeling in her chest.
Anasu twisted around and unfastened the cloak that lay behind his saddle. “This is for you also. A parting gift, though I have never heard of a boy giving one to his mother.”
“The gift the boy gives is his life on the plain,” said Angai. “He watches the herd. He guides it and guards it. That is enough. That balances the gifts his kinfolk give.”
A true shamaness! thought Nia. She always had an answer. She was always ready to teach and explain.
She took the cloak. It was made of gray wool tufted on one side, so that it seemed like the pelt of an animal. Two brooches were fastened to it, large and made of silver. One was in the shape of a bowhorn lying down, its legs folded. The other was in the shape of a killer of the plain. A silver chain went between the brooches.
Anasu said, “It’s a good cloak. You won’t have to worry about rain as long as you have it. And you won’t be cold even in the winter.”
She fastened the cloak on top of the saddlebags, then mounted and looked at the three of them: the boy on his bowhorn, Angai and Hua standing in the middle of a patch of vegetation. Her hand felt numb. She could not move it. There were no words in her throat or mind.
“Always the same!” her friend told her. “There are things that you have never been able to say.”
“I have never liked the moment of parting.” She made the gesture of gratitude and the gesture of farewell, then turned her animal and rode away.
The entire village was in motion now, heading west. She guided her animal among the wagons, going in the opposite direction. The air was full of dust. Women shouted. Children yelled. Bowhorns made the grunting noise that meant they were working hard and not liking it.
“Huh-nuh! Huh-nuh!
Why are we doing this?
We ought to be running
free on the plain.”
She reached the end of the village. There was nothing ahead except the rutted trail and the droppings of bowhorns. The droppings were fresh and shiny black. She reined White Spot for a moment. There was something else that she had not told Angai. When the parting was over, when the people were gone, she began—always—to feel happy. Aiya! To be traveling! Aiya! To be alone!
A Woman of the Iron People Page 50
