The Gate to Women's Country (10 page)

He put his hand over hers. “Do you want me to come home with you?”

“No. I'll just cry, and I don't need anyone to help me do that.”

“You're sure? Just for company?”

“I'm sure. Go help Corrig. He's teaching a class in the mysteries. At breakfast yesterday he said he needed you to keep up with things. I'll be better by suppertime.” She kissed him and left him in the shop, still polishing the plate the sausages had been on, staring after her with a reflection of her own pain.

At home in the quiet of her own room she lay on her bed, propped on pillows, the book facedown on her lap. She didn't need to read it. She remembered it.

A
NDROMACHE
If it is not as poets say it was, why did they kill you, maiden?

I
PHIGENIA
(Sighing with impatience)

Upon the shore the hosts of Hellas stood, ranked by their thousands near their bird-winged ships, come full of martial fervor to the aid of Menelaus whose wife was raped away.

A
NDROMACHE
So much we know. Helen was here. We did not want her, but she was here.

I
PHIGENIA
Don't interrupt. If I lose the rhythm, I forget what I'm saying. Upon the shore, etc., etc., whose wife was raped away. Ah, let's see—They stayed in Aulis where contending winds gave them no passage forth to Ilium and waiting, felt their blood begin to cool.

Some spoke of Helen as a stolen cow, unwilling to risk lives for such a cow.

Some thought of harvests waiting them at home.
Some thought of wives and babes, though but a few.

Until at last the host was discontent, no longer single-mindedly intent upon the course of warlike righteousness. Yet still, each man was shamed he should appear a laggard 'fore his peers. So some of them conspiring to the benefit of all, gave Calchas minted gold to act as seer and prophesy that there would be no wind to bear them forth to topless Ilium until the hour my father kept a vow he'd made long since—a vow to kill his child, as sacrifice to maiden Artemis.

H
ECUBA
(Horrified)
Which he would never do!

A
NDROMACHE
No father would do that!

I
PHIGENIA
Well, so they thought. They thought that Agamemnon would refuse, then they could all go home.

H
ECUBA
Surely he offered other sacrifice.

I
PHIGENIA
Which did not suit their purposes at all.

H
ECUBA
And when they would not take a substitute….

I
PHIGENIA
He sent Odysseus, full of trickery, to bid my mother bring me to be wed—to Achilles, if you can believe that—then gave me to the priests, who cut my throat.

H
ECUBA
And none of what the poets say is true?

I
PHIGENIA
Oh, Hecuba, Hecuba! You're a woman! Can a woman believe such nonsense? Think! I was a maiden girl! Scarce more than a child! My head was full of new gowns and festivals and wondering whether I should ever have a lover or not. The words the poets poured into my mouth were the prideful boasts of Argive battalions! They say I offered to die for Hellas! What did I know of Hellas?!

H
ECUBA
It's true. When I was thirteen, I wouldn't have died for Troy.

A
CHILLES
(Irritably scratching his crotch)
I don't understand why they said all those things if they weren't true. I thought you were my betrothed whom I defended.

I
PHIGENIA
My father used me as he would a slave or a sheep from his flock. I think that many fathers do the same. Then, having done, he claimed I'd wanted it.
Perhaps it made him feel less vile. Men like to think well of themselves, and poets help them do it.

A
CHILLES
(Petulantly)
Apollo save me from a clever woman.
(He looks her over, head to toe)
Still, it is
said
we were betrothed.

I
PHIGENIA
You may as well forget it, Achilles. There is no fucking in Hades.

“T
HERE IS NO FUCKING IN HADES,” ELEVEN-YEAR
old Stavia had declaimed, striking a dramatic pose for Beneda as she did so. The two girls had been sitting in the sun on top of the city wall. Stavia had agreed to help Beneda with her math—though Beneda was almost totally impervious to math—if Beneda would cue Stavia in Iphigenia's part. The test on the play was to be given the following week. “I like that line. It has a ring to it.”

“I watched rehearsal yesterday,” Beneda commented. “Michy won't say ‘fucking.' She says it isn't womanly.”

“Michy's mother is a very strange person. Morgot says she almost never takes part in carnival. She doesn't like sex at all!”

“Some women are like that. You know what I heard? I heard some men are like that, too. Do you believe that?”

“Not like sex?”

“Can't do it or something.”

“Oh well, sure. That's physiological. Or sometimes psychological. There's stuff about it in one of my medical books.”

“Can I read it?”

“If you want to. It's kind of dull, though. All about hormones and the prostate gland.”

“Oh. I thought it was about penises.”

“Well it is. Except the penis is just a protrusion of everything else, you know. It doesn't exist independently.”

“Except to warriors.”

“What do you mean?”

“They must think it exists independently.” Beneda
pointed at the barren field below them. “Look at that great thing they have out at the end of the parade ground. It's four times as high as the Warrior and Son statues. It's like a tower!”

“They call it a victory monument,” objected Stavia, really looking at the pillar for the first time. It did look rather like a phallus.

“Oh for heaven's sake, Stavvy. It's even got a prepuce.”

Stavia yawned. “I don't care if it's got an epididymis or what it is. All I care is that studies will be over for a whole month and we get to have carnival, and the boys will be home. I miss Jerby.”

“What's Myra going to do?”

“Oh, she'll probably go ahead and have a liaison with Barten,” Stavia said in a disapproving voice. “She's decided all that business between Barten and Tally was probably Tally's fault, if you can believe that. According to Myra, Tally seduced Barten and offered to come out to the Gypsy camp. Every time Barten does something dishonorable, Myra puts frosting on it and eats it. She is so dumb. Morgot just shakes her head and hopes a liaison will help Myra get him out of her system.”

“You make it sound like an infection!”

“I was quoting Morgot. Well, it is how Myra acts, all feverish and delirious. She's talking about having a baby by him, just because he's so good-looking.”

“There's nothing wrong with that,” said Beneda, doubtfully. “Is there?”

“She's physically mature enough, so I guess not. There ought to be something wrong with it, though, you know what I mean?”

“Because he's the way he is?”

“Well, don't you think so? I mean, some of the warriors are perfectly honorable, aren't they? Some of them are smart, too. But Barten isn't. So, it doesn't seem right he should get to father a baby when he's that way.”

“Except he's so good-looking. If you're going to raise a child, wouldn't you rather it was good-looking?”

“I guess. But suppose it's a daughter, and it grows up to be like him?”

“Yech. A crowing hen! Cock-a-doodle-doo!” Beneda spread her right hand above her head like a comb and flapped the left arm like a wing.

“That's what I thought. Since Myra's thinking of it, though, Morgot's got her on all kinds of dietary supplements.” She twiddled her fingers, then stretched, like a cat. “Myra will do what she wants, regardless.”

Beneda put down the book she had been pretending to study and said, “Stavvy, talking about chickens reminded me. Mom asked me to go to market to pick up some eggs for the house.”

“Go ahead,” Stavia said idly. “I'll wait for you here.”

“Come on with me.”

“I don't want to. You go on. You always get to talking and take an hour when it should only take ten minutes. If I wait for you here, I won't be impatient.”

“What will you do here by yourself?”

“Read.” She looked at the scattered books around them. “Preconvulsion societies. I'll read your anthropology book, then quiz you on it.”

“It's dull. All about islands and tropical places and Laplanders.”

“What are Laplanders?”

“You want to read it, you find out.” Beneda stood up and brushed herself off. “I'll be back.”

She went off, looking not too displeased to be going alone. Beneda liked to talk to people in the market and Stavia didn't. But then Beneda's mother wasn't on the Council and Stavia's was. Beneda could say anything that came into her head—and usually did—and no one thought anything of it, but if Stavia said, “It looks like rain,” everyone wondered if it had significance because of something Morgot had said at home. As though Morgot ever said anything at home! She was as closemouthed as a vinegar shaker.

Left behind, Stavia picked up the red book Beneda had been reading. Preconvulsion societies. Tropical island tribes. Tribes based on trade. Migratory tribes—the Laplanders.

Stavia read, entering the world of the Laplanders in their padded coats and tall boots (not unlike the winter wear in Women's Country), picking the most docile reindeer to breed so they could lead their great herds from pasture to pasture without losing them. She could almost smell the huge rivers of animals moving north and south with the seasons, almost hear the lowing of the beasts,
feel the bite of the snow, the weight of felted coats and boots, the tug of the leashed bull being led along so that all that river of beasts would follow. She lost herself in the words, becoming one of the migrants, feeling it….

When Beneda came back, Stavia was sitting on the wall, the book open in her lap, tears running down her face.

“Stavvy! What happened?”

“Reindeer,” she said, half strangled by her own teary laughter,

“What do you mean ‘reindeer'?”

“Just… we don't have them anymore.”

Beneda's mouth dropped open. “Stavvy, honestly. There's lots of things we don't have anymore. We don't have… clothes-drying machines and mechanical transportation and furnaces that heat your whole house, and cotton and silk and… and cows and horses and… and all kinds of other animals and birds and—oh, lots of things.”

“I miss them.”

“You've never
had
them!”

“Yes, but I know about them. That makes it different.”

“You're weird.” Beneda threw her arms around Stavia and squeezed tight, half laughing. “I love you best, Stavvy, because you're weird! Will you always be my best friend?”

Stavia laughed at herself, drying her eyes on the hem of her shirt. “I'll always be your best friend, Beneda. Forever. And I know I'm weird. That's what Morgot says, too.”

“I wish we were sisters.”

“Why? Sisters aren't so much.” Stavia made a face, thinking of Myra.

“Oh, it's just I wish you were my own family. I wish you belonged to me.” Beneda flushed, embarrassed at this declaration. “That sounds silly.”

“No, it doesn't. It sounds nice. But I don't have to be your sister to belong to you, Beneda. We'll belong to each other, all right?” She put the book she had been reading down and hugged Beneda back, suddenly full of joyous warmth to replace the vacancy the book had evoked. “I wasn't really grieving, I guess. I just hate those people who made the desolations, that's all. They robbed us.”

“Which is why we must obey the ordinances, so we don't rob our own descendants,” quoted Beneda primly, waiting for Stavia to recover herself. “Do you want to quiz me about the Laplanders?”