The Call of Earth: 2 (Homecoming) Read online

  Good advice? Hardly. The more they dream of you, the greater the cash value of your name on the handbills advertising the play. Until finally, if you’re lucky, if you’re good enough, the handbill doesn’t have to say the name of a show at all. Only your name, and the place, and the day, and the time . . . and when you show up they’re all there, hundreds of them, and when the music starts they don’t look at you like the last hope of a starving man, they look at you like the highest dream of an elevated soul.

  Kokor strode to her place on the stage—and there was applause when she entered. She turned to the audience and let out a thrilling high note.

  “What was that?” demanded Gulya, the actor who played the old lecher. “Are you screaming already? I haven’t even touched you yet.”

  The audience laughed—but not enough. This play was in trouble. This play had had its weaknesses from the start, she well knew, but with a mere smattering of laughter like that, it was doomed. So in a few more days she’d have to start rehearsing all over again. Another show. Another set of stupid lyrics and stupid melodies to memorize.

  Sevet got to decide her own songs. Songwriters came to her and begged her to sing what they had composed. Sevet didn’t have to misuse her voice just to make people laugh.

  “I wasn’t screaming,” Kokor sang.

  “You’re screaming now,” sang Gulya as he sidled close and started to fondle her. His gravelly bass was always good for a laugh when he used it like that, and the audience was with him. Maybe they could pull this show out of the mud after all.

  “But now you’re touching me!” And her voice rose to its highest pitch and hung there in the air—

  Like a bird, like a bird soaring, if only they were listening for beauty.

  Gulya made a terrible face and withdrew his hand from her breast. Immediately she dropped her note two octaves. She got the laugh. The best laugh of the scene so far. But she knew that half the audience was laughing because Gulya did such a fine comic turn when he removed his hand from her bosom. He was a master, he really was. Sad that his sort of clowning had fallen a bit out of fashion lately. He was only getting better as he got older, and yet the audience was slipping away. Looking for the more bitter, nasty comedy of the young physical satirists. The brutal, violent comedy that always gave at least the illusion of hurting somebody.

  The scene went on. The laughs came. The scene ended. Applause. Kokor scurried off the stage in relief— and disappointment. No one in the audience was chanting her name; no one had even shouted it once like a catcall. How long would she have to wait?

  “Too pretty,” said Tumannu, the stagekeeper, her face sour. “That note’s supposed to sound like you’re reaching sexual climax. Not like a bird.”

  “Yes yes,” said Kokor, “I’m so sorry.” She always agreed with everybody and then did what she wanted. This comedy wasn’t worth doing if she couldn’t show her voice to best advantage at least now and then. And it got the laugh when she did it her way, didn’t it? So nobody could very well say that her way was wrong. Tumannu just wanted her to be obedient, and Kokor didn’t intend to be obedient. Obedience was for children and husbands and household pets.

  “Not like a bird,” said Tumannu again.

  “How about like a bird reaching sexual climax?” asked Gulya, who had come offstage right after her.

  Kokor giggled, and even Tumannu smiled her tight sour little smile.

  “There’s someone waiting for you, Kyoka,” said Tumannu.

  It was a man. But not an aficionado of her work, or he’d have been out front, watching her perform. She had seen him before. Ah, yes—he showed up now and then when Mother’s permanent husband, Wetchik, came to visit. He was Wetchik’s chief servant, wasn’t he? Manager of the exotic flower business when Wetchik was away on caravan. What was his name?

  “I am Rashgallivak,” he said. He looked very grave.

  “Oh?” she said.

  “I am deeply sorry to inform you that your father has met with brutal violence.”

  What an extraordinary thing to tell her. She could hardly make sense of it for a moment. “Someone has injured him?”

  “Fatally, madam.”

  “Oh,” she said. There was meaning to this, and she would find it. “Oh, then that would mean that he’s . . . dead?”

  “Accosted on the street and murdered in cold blood,” said Rashgallivak.

  It wasn’t even a surprise, really, when you thought about it. Father had been making such a bully of himself lately, putting all those masked soldiers on the streets. Terrifying everybody. But Father was so strong and intense that it was hard to imagine anything actually thwarting him for long. Certainly not permanently. “There’s no hope of . . . recovery?”

  Gulya had been standing near enough that now he easily inserted himself into the conversation. “It seems to be a normal case of death, madam, which means the prognosis isn’t good.” He giggled.

  Rashgallivak gave him quite a vicious shove and sent him staggering. “That wasn’t funny,” he said.

  “They’re letting critics backstage now?” said Gulya. “During the performance?”

  “Go away, Gulya,” said Kokor. It had been a mistake to sleep with the old man. Ever since then he had thought he had some claim to intimacy with her.

  “Naturally it would be best if you came with me,” said Rashgallivak.

  “But no,” said Kokor. “No, that wouldn’t be best.” Who was he? He wasn’t any kin to her at all, not that she knew of. She would have to go to Mother. Did Mother know yet? “Does Mother . . .”

  “Naturally I told her first, and she told me where to find you. This is a very dangerous time, and I promised her that I would protect you.”

  Kokor knew he was lying, of course. Why should she need this stranger to protect her? From what? Men always got this way, though, insisting that a woman who hadn’t a fear in the world needed watching out for. Ownership, that’s what men always meant when they spoke of protection. If she wanted a man to own her, she had a husband, such as he was. She hardly needed this old pizdook to look out for her.

  “Where’s Sevet?”

  “She hasn’t been found yet. I must insist that you come with me.”

  Now Tumannu had to get into the scene. “She’s going nowhere. She has three more scenes, including the climax.”

  Rashgallivak turned on her, and now there was some hint of majesty about him, instead of mere vague befuddlement. “Her father has been killed,” he said. “And you suppose she will stay to finish a play?” Or had the majesty been there all along, and she simply hadn’t noticed it until now?

  “Sevet ought to know about Father,” said Kokor.

  “She’ll be told as soon as we can find her.”

  Who is we? Never mind, thought Kokor. I know where to find her. I know all her rendezvous, where she takes her lovers to avoid giving affront to her poor husband Vas. Sevet and Vas, like Kokor and Obring, had a flexible marriage, but Vas seemed less comfortable with it than Obring was. Some men were so . . . territorial. Probably it was because Vas was a scientist, not an artist at all. Obring, on the other hand, understood the artistic life. He would never dream of holding Kokor to the letter of their marriage contract. He sometimes joked quite cheerfully about the men she was seeing.

  Though, of course, Kokor would never actually insult Obring by mentioning them herself. If he heard a rumor about a lover, that was one thing. When he mentioned it, she would simply toss her head and say, “You silly. You’re the only man I love.”

  And in an odd sort of way it was true. Obring was such a dear, even if he had no acting talent at all. He always brought her presents and told her the most wonderful gossip. No wonder she had stayed married to him through two renewals already—people often remarked on how faithful she was, to still be married to her first husband for a third year, when she was young and beautiful and could marry anyone. True, marrying him in the first place was simply to please his mother, old Dhel, who had served as her auntie and who was Mother’s dearest friend. But she had grown to like Obring, genuinely like him. Being married to him was very comfortable and sweet. As long as she could sleep with whomever she liked.

  It would be fun to find Sevet and walk in on her and see whom she was sleeping with tonight. Kokor hadn’t pounced on her that way in years. Find her with some naked, sweating man, tell her that Father was dead, and then watch that poor man’s face as he gradually realized that he was all done with love for the night!

  “I’ll tell Sevet,” said Kokor.

  “You’ll come with me,” insisted Rashgallivak.

  “You’ll stay and finish the show,” said Tumannu.

  “The show is nothing but a . . . an otsoss,” said Kokor, using the crudest term she could think of.

  Tumannu gasped and Rashgallivak reddened and Gulya chuckled his little low chuckle. “Now that’s an idea,” he said.

  Kokor patted Tumannu on the arm. “It’s all right,” she said. “I’m fired.”

  “Yes, you are!” cried Tumannu. “And if you leave here tonight your career is finished!”

  Rashgallivak sneered at her. “With her share of her father’s inheritance she’ll buy your little stage and your mother, too.”

  Tumannu looked defiant. “Oh, really? Who was her father, Gaballufix?”

  Rashgallivak looked genuinely surprised. “Didn’t you know?”

  Clearly Tumannu had not known. Kokor pondered this for a moment and realized it meant that she must not ever have mentioned it to Tumannu. And that meant that Kokor had not traded on her father’s name and prestige, which meant that she had got this part on her own. How wonderful!

  “I knew she was the great Sevet’s sister,” said Tumannu. “Why else do you think I hired her? But I never dreamed they had the same father.”

  For a moment Kokor felt a flash of rage, hot as a furnace. But she contained it instantly, controlled it perfectly. It would never do to let such a flame burn freely. No telling what she would do or say if she ever let herself go at such a time as this.

  “I must find Sevet,” said Kokor.

  “No,” said Rashgallivak. He might have intended to say more, but at that moment he laid a hand on Kokor’s arm to restrain her, and so of course she brought her knee sharply up into his groin, as all the comedy actresses were taught to do when an unwelcome admirer became too importunate. It was a reflex. She really hadn’t even meant to do it. Nor had she meant to do it with such force. He wasn’t a very heavy man, and it rather lifted him off the ground.

  “I must find Sevet,” Kokor said, by way of explanation. He probably didn’t hear her. He was groaning too loudly as he lay there on the wooden floor backstage.

  “Where’s the understudy?” Tumannu was saying. “Not even three minutes’ warning, the poor little bizdoon.”

  “Does it hurt?” Gulya was asking Rashgallivak. “I mean, what is pain, when you really think about it?”

  Kokor wandered off into the darkness, heading for Dauberville. Her thigh throbbed, just above the knee, where she had pushed it so forcefully into Rashgallivak’s crotch. She’d probably end up with a bruise there, and then she’d have to use an opaque sheen on her legs. Such a bother.

  Father’s dead. I must be the one to tell Sevet. Please don’t let anyone else find her first. And murdered. People will talk about this for years. I will look rather fine in the white of mourning. Poor Sevet—her skin always looks red as a beet when she wears white. But she won’t dare stop wearing mourning until I do. I may mourn for poor Papa for years and years and years.

  Kokor laughed and laughed to herself as she walked along.

  And then she realized she wasn’t laughing at all, she was crying. Why am I crying? she wondered. Because Father is dead. That must be it, that must be what all this commotion is about. Father, poor Father. I must have loved him, because I’m crying now without having decided to, without anybody even watching. Who ever would have guessed that I loved him?

  “Wake up.” It was an urgent whisper. “Aunt Rasa wants us. “Wake up!”

  Luet could not understand why Hushidh was saying this. “I wasn’t even asleep,” she mumbled.

  “Oh, you were sleeping, all right,” said her sister Hushidh. “You were snoring.”

  Luet sat up. “Honking like a goose, I’m sure.”

  “Braying like a donkey,” said Hushidh, “but my love for you turns it into music.”

  “That’s why I do it,” said Luet. “To give you music in the night.” She reached for her housedress, pulled it over her head.

  “Aunt Rasa wants us,” Hushidh urged. “Come quickly.” She glided out of the room, moving in a kind of dance, her gown floating behind her. In shoes or sandals Hushidh always clumped along, but barefoot she moved like a woman in a dream, like a bit of cottonwood fluff in a breeze.

  Luet followed her sister out into the hall, still buttoning the front of her housedress. What could it be, that Rasa would want to speak to her and Hushidh? With all the troubles that had come lately, Luet feared the worst. Was it possible that Rasa’s son Nafai had not escaped from the city after all? Only yesterday, Luet had led him along forbidden paths, down into the lake that only women could see. For the Oversoul had told her that Nafai must see it, must float on it like a woman, like a waterseer—like Luet herself. So she took him there, and he was not slain for his blasphemy. She led him out the Private Gate then, and through the Trackless Wood. She had thought he was safe. But of course he was not safe. Because Nafai wouldn’t simply have gone back out into the desert, back to his father’s tent—not without the thing that his father had sent him to get.

  Aunt Rasa was waiting in her room, but she was not alone. There was a soldier with her. Not one of Gaballufix’s men—his mercenaries, his thugs, pretending to be Palwashantu militia. No, this soldier was one of the city guards, a gatekeeper.

  She could hardly notice him, though, beyond recognizing his insignia, because Rasa herself looked so . . . no, not frightened, really. It was no emotion Luet had ever seen in her before. Her eyes wide and glazed with tears, her face not firmly set, but slack, exhausted, as if things were happening in her heart that her face could not express.

  “Gaballufix is dead,” said Rasa.

  That explained much. Gaballufix was the enemy in recent months, his paid tolchoks terrorizing people on the streets, and then his soldiers, masked and anonymous, terrifying people even more as they ostensibly made the streets of Basilica “safe” for its citizens. Yet, enemy though he was, Gaballufix had also been Rasa’s husband, the father of her two daughters, Sevet and Kokor. There had been love there once, and the bonds of family are not easily broken, not for a serious woman like Rasa. Luet was no raveler like her sister Hushidh, but she knew that Rasa was still bound to Gaballufix, even though she detested all his recent actions.

  “I grieve for his widow,” said Luet, “but I rejoice for the city.”

  Hushidh, though, gazed with a calculating eye on the soldier. “This man didn’t bring you that news, I think.”

  “No,” said Rasa. “No, I learned of Gaballufix’s death from Rashgallivak. It seems Rashgallivak was appointed . . . the new Wetchik.”

  Luet knew that this was a devastating blow. It meant that Rasa’s husband, Volemak, who had been the Wetchik, now had no property, no rights, no standing in the Palwashantu clan at all. And Rashgallivak, who had been his trusted steward, now stood in his place. Was there no honor in the world? “When did Rashgallivak ascend to this honor?”

  “Before Gaballufix died—Gab appointed him, of course, and I’m sure he loved doing it. So there’s a kind of justice in the fact that Rash has now taken leadership of the Palwashantu clan, taking Gab’s place as well. So yes, you’re right, Rash is rising rather quickly in the world. While others fall. Roptat is also dead tonight.”

  “No,” whispered Hushidh.

  Roptat had been the leader of the pro-Gorayni party, the group trying to keep the city of Basilica out of the coming war between the Gorayni and Potokgavan. With him gone, what chance was there of peace?

  “Yes, both dead tonight,” said Rasa. “The leaders of both the parties that have torn our city apart. But here is the worst of it. The rumor is that my son Nafai is the slayer of them both.”

  “Not true,” said Luet. “Not possible.”

  “So I thought,” said Rasa. “I didn’t wake you for the rumor.”

  Now Luet understood fully the turmoil in Aunt Rasa’s face. Nafai was Aunt Rasa’s pride, a brilliant young man: And more—for Luet knew well that Nafai also was close to the Oversoul. What happened to him was not just important to those who loved him, it was also important to the city, perhaps to the world. “This soldier has word of Nafai, then?”

  Rasa nodded at the soldier, who had sat in silence until now.

  “My name is Smelost,” he said, rising to his feet to speak to them. “I was tending the gate. I saw two men approach. One of them pressed his thumb on the screen and the computer of Basilica knew him to be Zdorab, the treasurer of Gaballufix’s house.”

  “And the other?” asked Hushidh.

  “Masked, but dressed in Gaballufix’s manner, and Zdorab called him Gaballufix and tried to persuade me not to make him press his thumb on the screen. But I had to make him do it, because Roptat was murdered, and we were trying to prevent the killer from escaping. We’d been told that Lady Rasa’s youngest son, Nafai, was the murderer. It was Gaballufix who had reported this.”

  “So did you make Gaballufix put his thumb on the screen?” said Luet.

  “He leaned close to me and spoke in my ear, and said, ’And what if the one who made this false accusation was the murderer himself? Well, that’s what some of us already thought—that Gaballufix was accusing Nafai of killing Roptat to cover up his own guilt. And then this soldier—the one that Zdorab was calling Gaballufix—put his thumb on the screen and the name the computer displayed for me was Nafai.“

  “What did you do?” Luet demanded.

  “I violated my oath and my orders. I erased his name immediately and let him pass. I believed him . . . that he was innocent. Of killing Roptat. But his passage from the city was recorded, and the fact that I let him go, knowing who he was. I thought nothing of it—the original complaint came from Gaballufix, and here was Gaballufix’s own treasurer with the boy. I thought Gaballufix couldn’t protest if his man was along. The worst that would happen is that I’d lose my post.”