The Memory of Earth Page 8

  "Why?"

  "Don't you think it's funny, Issib? Elya can sit here and talk about Father being in danger from powerful people-and yet his solution for it isn't to denounce those dangerous people, it's to try to get Father to stop talking."

  "Nobody's being rational."

  "I actually do understand politics," said Nafai. "I study history all the time. I left my class behind years ago. I know something about how wars start and who wins them. And this is the stupidest plan I've ever heard. Potokgavan has no chance of holding this area and no compelling reason to try. All that will happen is they'll send an army, provoke the Gorayni into attacking, and then they'll realize they can't win and go home to their floodplain where the Wetheads can't touch them, leaving us to bear the brunt of the Gorayni wrath. Building war wagons for them is so obviously going to lead to disaster that only a person completely blinded by greed could possibly support it. And if the Oversoul is telling Father to oppose the building of wagons, then the Oversoul is right."

  "I'm sure the Oversoul is relieved to have your approval."

  "Anything I can do to help."

  "Nafai, you're fourteen."

  "So?"

  "Elemak doesn't want to hear that kind of thing from you."

  "Neither do you, right?"

  "I'm really tired. It's been a long day." Issib floated out of the kitchen.

  Nafai finally started to eat. To his disgust he had no appetite, even though he knew he was still hungry. Must eat, can't eat. Forget it. He flushed the food down the drain and put the plate in the cleaning rack.

  He walked out into the courtyard, heading for his room. The night air was chilly already-they were close enough to the desert to get sharp fells in temperature when the sun was down. He was still trembling. He didn't know why. It wasn't because of Father's vision of the destruction of the world, and it wasn't because of the war that would probably come to Basilica if they went ahead with the idiotic alliance with Potokgavan. Those were dangers, yes, but distant ones. And it wasn't because of Elemak's threats of violence, he'd lived with those all his life.

  It wasn't until he was lying on his mat, still shaking even though his room was not cold, that he finally realized what was bothering him. Elemak had mentioned that Gaballufix was involved in negotiating the price with the Potoku. Obviously this whole plan had Gaballufix's support-who else but the clan chief would think he could commit the Palwashantu to such a dangerous course of action without even consulting the council? And so it was reasonable to suppose that when Elya warned about the dangerous enemies Father was making, it was Gaballufix he was referring to.

  Gaballufix, whose house Elemak secretly visited today.

  Where was Elemak's loyalty? With Father? Or with his half-brother Gaballufix? Clearly Elya was involved with this war wagon plan. What else was he involved with? The dangerous people weren't making threats, he had said. So what were they making-plans? Was Elya in on a plan to do something ugly to Father, and his hints were an attempt to warn Father away?

  Just today, Mebbekew had spoken of metaphorical patricide.

  No, thought Nafai. No, I'm simply upset because all of this has happened so suddenly, in one day. Father has a vision, and suddenly he's caught up in city politics in a way he never was before, almost as if the Oversoul sent him this vision specifically because of this stupid provocative project of Gaballufix's, because action needed to be taken now.

  Why? What did the fate of Basilica matter to the Oversoul? Countless cities and nations had risen and fallen-dozens every century, thousands and thousands in all of human history. Maybe millions. The Oversoul hadn't lifted a finger. It wasn't war that the Oversoul cared about; it certainly wasn't preventing human suffering. So why was the Oversoul getting involved now? What was the urgency? Was it worth tearing their family apart? And even if maybe it was, who decided anyway? Nobody had asked the Oversoul for this, so if they really were getting bounced around as part of some master plan, it might be nice if the Oversoul let them in on what it had in mind.

  Nafai lay on his mat, trembling.

  Then he remembered. I wasn't going to sleep on a mat tonight. I was going to try to be a real man.

  He almost laughed aloud. Sleeping on the bare floor- that would make me a man? What an idiot I am. What an ass.

  Laughing at himself, now he could sleep.

  SIX - ENEMIES

  "Where did you spend all day yesterday?"

  Nafai didn't want this conversation, but there was no avoiding it. Mother was not one to let one of her students disappear for a day without an accounting.

  "I walked around."

  As he had expected, this was not going to be enough for Mother. "I didn't think that you flew? " she said. "Though I'm surprised you didn't curl up somewhere and sleep. Where did you go?"

  "To some very educational places," said Nafai. He had in mind Gaballufix's house and the Open Theatre, but of course Mother would interpret his words as she wished.

  "Dolltown?" she asked.

  "There's nothing much going on there in the daytime, Mother."

  "And you shouldn't be going there at all," she said. "Or do you think you already know everything about everything, so that you have no further need of schooling?"

  "There are some subjects you just don't teach here, Mother." Again, the truth-but not the truth.

  "Ah," she said. "Dhelembuvex was right about you."

  Oh, yes, wonderful. Time to get an Auntie for your little boy.

  "I should have seen it coming. Your body is growing so fast-too fast, I fear, outstripping your maturity in every other area."

  This was too much to bear. He had planned to listen calmly to everything she said, let her jump to her own conclusions, and then get back to class and have done with the whole thing. But to have her thinking that his gonads were running his life when, if anything, his mind was more mature than his body-

  "Is that as smart as you know how to be, Mother?"

  She raised an eyebrow.

  He knew he was already overstepping himself, but he had begun, and the words were there in his mind, and so he said them. "You see something inexplicable going on, and if it's a boy doing it, you're sure it has to do with his sexual desires."

  She half-smiled. "I do have some knowledge of men, Nafai, and the idea that the behavior of a fourteen-year-old might have some link to sexual desire is based on much evidence."

  "But I'm your son, and still you don't know me from a pile of bricks."

  "So you didn't go to Dolltown?"

  "Not for any reason you'd imagine."

  "Ah," she said. "I can imagine many reasons. But not one of the possible reasons for you to go to Dolltown suggests that you have very good judgment."

  "Oh, and you're the expert on good judgment, I imagine."

  His sarcasm was not playing well. "You forget, I think, that I am your mother and your schoolmistress."

  "It was you, Mother, and not I who invited those two girls to that family meeting yesterday."

  "And this showed poor judgment on my part?"

  "Extremely poor. By the time I got to the Open Theatre it was still several hours before dark, and already the word was out about Father's vision."

  "That's not surprising," said Mother. "Father went directly to the clan council. It would hardly be a secret after that."

  "Not just his vision^ Mother. There was already a satire in rehearsal-one of Drotik's, too, no less-that included a fascinating little portico scene. Since the only people present who were not family were those two witchgirls-"

  "Hold your tongue!"

  He immediately fell silent, but with an undeniable sense of victory. Yes, Mother was furious-but he had also scored a point with her, to get her this angry.

  "Your referring to them by that demeaning manw&rd is offensive in the extreme," said Mother. Her voice was quiet now; she was really angry. "Luet is a seer and Hushidh is a raveier. Furthermore, both have been completely discreet, mentioning nothing to anyone."

>   "Oh, have you watched them every second since-"

  "I said to hold your tongue." Her voice was like ice. "For your information, my bright, wise, mature little boy, the reason there was a portico scene in Drotik's satire- which, by the way, I saw, and it was very badly done, so it hardly worries me-the reason there was a portico scene was because while your father was going to the clan council, I was at the city council, and when I told the story I included the events on this portico. Why, asks my brilliant son with a deliciously stupid look on his face? Because the only thing that made the council take your father's vision seriously was the fact that Luet believed him and found his vision consonant with her own."

  Mother had told. Mother had brought down ridicule and ruin upon the family. Unbelievable. "Ah," said Nafai.

  "I thought you'd see things a little differently."

  "I see that there was nothing wrong with having Luet and Hushidh at the family meeting," said Nafai. "It was you who should have been excluded."

  Her hand lashed out across his face. If she had been aiming for his cheek, she missed, perhaps because he reflexively drew his head back. Instead her fingernail caught him on the chin, tearing the skin. It stung and drew blood.

  "You forget yourself, sir," she said.

  "Not as badly as you have forgotten yourself, Madam," he answered. Or rather, that was how he meant to answer. He even began to answer that way, but in the middle of the sentence the enormity of her having struck him that way, the shock and hurt of it, the sheer humiliation of his mother hitting him reduced him to tears. "I'm sorry," he said. Though what he really wanted to say was How dare you, I'm too old for that, I hate you. It was impossible to say such harsh things, however, when he was crying like a baby. Nafai hated it, how tears had always come so easily to him, and it wasn't getting any better as he got older.

  "Maybe next rime you'll remember to speak to me with proper respect," she said. But she, too, was unable to maintain her sharp tone, for even as she spoke he felt her arm around him as she sat beside him, comforted him.

  She could not possibly understand that the way she nestled his head to her shoulder only added to the humiliation and confirmed him in his decision to regard her as an enemy. If she had the power to make him cry because of his love for her, then there was only one possible solution for him: to cease loving her. This was the last time she would ever be able to do this to him.

  "You're bleeding," she said.

  "It's nothing," he said.

  "Let me stanch it-here, with a clean handkerchief, not that horrible rag you carry in your pocket, you absurd little boy."

  That's all I'll ever be in this house, isn't it? An absurd little boy. He pulled away from her, refused to let the handkerchief touch his chin. But she persisted, and dabbed at the wound, and the white cloth came away surprisingly bloody-so he took it from her hand and pressed it against the wound. "Deep, I guess," he said.

  "If you hadn't moved your head back, my nails wouldn't have caught your chin like that."

  If you hadn't slapped me, your nails would have been in your lap. But he held his tongue.

  "I can see that you're taking our family's situation very much to heart, Nafai, but your values arc a little twisted. What does the ridicule of the satirists matter? Everyone knows that every great figure in the history of Basilica was darted at one time or another, and usually for the very thing that made her-or him-great. We can bear that. What matters is that Father's vision was a very clear warning from the Oversold, with immediate implications for our city's course of action over the next few days and weeks and months. The embarrassment will pass. And among the women in this city who really count, Father is viewed as quite a remarkable man-their respect for him is growing. So try to control your embarrassment at your father's having come to the center of attention. All children in their early teens are excruciatingly sensitive to embarrassment, but in time you will learn that criticism and ridicule are not always bad. To earn the enmity of evil people can speak very well of you."

  He could hardly believe she thought so little of him as to think he needed such a lecture as this one. Did she really believe that it was embarrassment he feared? If she had listened instead of lecturing, he might have told her about Elemak's warning about danger to Father, about his secret visit to Gaballufix's house. But it was clear that in her eyes he was still nothing but a child. She wouldn't take his warning seriously. Indeed, she'd probably give him another lecture about not letting fears and worries take possession of your mind, but instead to concentrate on his studies and let adults worry about the real problems in the world.

  In her mind, I'm still six years old and I always will be. "I'm sorry, Mother. I'll not speak to you that way again." In fact, I doubt that I'll ever say anything serious or important to you again as long as you live.

  "I accept your apology, Nafai, as I hope you'll accept mine for having struck you in my anger."

  "Of course, Mother." I'll accept your apology- whenyou offer it and when I believe that you mean it. However, as a matter of fact, dear beloved breadbasket out of whom I sprang, you did not actually apologize to me at any point in our conversation. You only expressed the hope that I would accept an apology which in fact was never offered.

  "I hope, Nafai, you will resume your studies and not allow these events in the city to disturb the normal routines of your life any further. You have a very keen mind, and there is no particular reason for you to let these things distract you from the honing of that mind."

  Thank you for the dollop of praise, Mother. You've told me that I'm childish, that I'm a slave of lust, and that my views are to be silenced, not listened to. You'll pay serious attention to every word drooled from the mouth of that witch girl, but you start from the assumption that anything I say is worthless.

  "Yes, Mother," said Nafai. "But Pd rather not go back to class right now, if you don't mind."

  "Of course not," she said. "I understand completely."

  Dear Oversoul, keep me from laughing.

  "I can't have you out wandering the streets again, Nafai, I'm sure you can understand that. Father's vision has attracted enough attention that someone will say something that will make you angry, and I don't want you fighting."

  So you're worried about me fighting, Mother? Kindly remember who struck whom here on your portico today.

  "Why not spend the day in the library, with Issib? He'll be a good influence on you, I think-he's always so calm."

  Issib, always calm? Poor Mother-she knows nothing at all about her own sons. Women never do understand men. Of course, men don't understand women any better-but at least we don't suffer from the delusion that we do.

  "Yes, Mother. The library's fine."

  She arose. Then you must go there now. Keep the handkerchief, of course."

  She left the portico, not waiting to see if he obeyed.

  He immediately got to his feet and walked around the screen, straight to the balustrade, and looked out over the Rift Valley.

  There was no sign of the lake. A thick cloud filled the lower reaches of the valley, and since the valley walls seemed to grow steeper just before the fog began, for all he knew the lake might be invisible from this spot even without the fog.

  All he could see from here was the white cloud and the deep, lush greens of the forest that lined the valley. Here and there he could see smoke rising from a chimney, for there were women who lived on the valley slopes. Father's housekeeper, Truzhnisha, was one of them. She kept a house in the district called West Shelf, one of the twelve districts of Basilica where only women were allowed to live or even enter. The Women's Districts were far less populated than any of the twenty-four districts where men were allowed to live (though not own property, of course), yet on the City Council they wielded enormous power, since their representatives always voted as a bloc. Conservative, religious-no doubt those were the councilors who were most impressed by the fact that Luet had confirmed Father's vision. If they agreed with Father on the war wagon iss
ue, then it would take the votes of only six other councilors to create stalemate, and of seven councilors to take positive action against Gaballufix's plans.

  It was these same councilors from the Women's Districts who, for thousands of years, had refused to allow any subdivision of the thickly populated Open Districts, or to give a council vote to any of the districts outside the walls, or to allow men to own property within the wall, or anything else that might tend to dilute or weaken the absolute rate of women in Basilica. Now, looking out over the secret valley, filled with rage against his mother, Nafai could hardly see how beautiful this place was, how rich with mystery and life; all he could see was how unbelievably few the houses were.

  How do they divide this into a dozen districts? There must be some districts where the three women who live there take turns being the councilor.

  And outside the city, in the tiny but expensive cubicles where unmated men without households were forced to live, there was no legal recourse to demand fairer treatment, to insist on laws protecting bachelors from their landlords, or from women whose promises disappeared when they lost interest in a man, or even from each other's violence. For a moment, standing there looking out over the untamed greenery of the Rift, Nafai understood how a man like Gaballufix might easily gather men around him, struggling to gain some power in this city where men were unmanned by women every day and every hour of their lives.

  Then, as the wind gusted a little over the valley, the cloud moved, and there was a shimmer of reflected light. The surface of a lake, not at the center of the deepest part of the rift, but higher, farther away. Without thinking, Nafai reflexively looked away. It was one thing to come to7 the balustrade in defiance of his Mother, it was another thing to look on the holy lake where women went for their worship. If there was one thing becoming clear in all this business, it was that the Oversoul might very well be real. There was no point in earning its wrath over something as stupid as looking at some lake over the edge of Mother's portico.

  Nafai turned away from the view and hurried back around the screen, feeling foolish all the while. What if I'm caught? Well, so what if I am? No, no, the defiance wasn't worth the risk. He had more practical work to do. If Mother wasn't going to listen to his fears about the danger to Father, then Nafai would have to do something himself. But first he had to know more-about Gaballufix, about the Oversoul, about everything.