The Gate to Women's Country Read online

  Morgot sighed. "Have you been pregnant since you've been with Jik?"

  The woman didn't answer.

  "Did your baby disappear? Did Jik kill it? Or did it die?"

  "It died," the woman said sullenly."

  "How much of what Jik collects from your... your clients do you get? Half? Less than that?"

  The woman didn't answer.

  "How many times have you had a disease? You know, you keep passing these diseases around, and they lead to cancer. We can't cure cancer. People got close to a cure once, so it's said, but that's all lost now. Since the convulsions, we can't treat a lot of things that were curable before." Morgot said it as though she didn't really care, but Stavia knew she did. "You're no better than a slave, Vonella. You've been taken captive, and you don't even know it."

  The woman threw up her hands, exclaiming angrily, "Oh I know. I do know. Likely I'll kill myself well before my three score and ten. I smoke willow, too, and that's no good for the lungs. And we all drink a bit there in camp. Jik makes good beer...."

  "From stolen grain," Morgot remarked.

  "Well, he gets it where he gets it. Smoking and drinking and fucking. One or the other will probably kill me, right enough, but who wants to live to be old, anyhow. I've never wanted to be old" Vonella waved her hands again, exorcising age and infirmity.

  "You'll probably have your wish," Morgot agreed. "Slaves mostly died young, even in ancient times. It's your life, but we can't let you infect Women's Country."

  They stopped at the quarantine gate to drop both Tally and Vonella. "Stavia, go in with her and get the names of all the warriors and Gypsies she had contact with, will you please?"

  "Oh God, lady, don't send your little girl in that pest-house just for that. There was only one, this whole week. That mad old white-headed one with just the one eye. He always comes to me."

  Stavia hesitated, waiting for the order to be rescinded. After a moment, Morgot nodded to her. "Unless you'd like to keep Tally company."

  It was one of those maternal "unlesses" which could be understood a dozen ways. Did it mean, "Unless you're curious about the quarantine house and would like to see the inside?" or "Unless you think it would be womanly to help Tally regain her equanimity?" or "Unless it would be a good idea to rub Myra's nose in this just a little more?"

  "I'll go in with Tally," Stavia said. "I have to do a report for my community medicine course, anyhow, and I can do it on the quarantine center."

  Morgot nodded and drove the wagon away in such a manner as to suggest still another unless: "Unless you think it might be a good idea for Myra and me to have a private talk."

  AFTER ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT spent grieving over Dawid, Stavia dragged herself to the hospital, to work. Morgot came out of her office, took one look at her, and told her to go home. "Stavvy, you usually look about twenty-five, but today you look fifty. I heard you tossing and turning, up all night, wandering around. Go home and get some sleep."

  Stavia, who was conscious of the imminence of her thirty-eighth birthday, was peculiarly annoyed by this repetition of Corrig's comment concerning her appearance. "I was checking the windows."

  "Against what? Ghosts?"

  "I thought it might rain in."

  "It quit raining yesterday about noon. Go on home, Stavvy. This place is almost empty. Everyone in Marthatown is disgustingly healthy, it seems. A lot healthier than you look. I'm not surprised, mind you. I don't think there's a woman in Marthatown who really believes her son will be lost to her until he reaches fifteen and repudiates her. You try to get ready for it, but you can't. It's like losing an arm or leg. Go ahead, take a little convalescent time."

  "Oh, Morgot, I did so hope...."

  "I know, love. We all told you not to, but you wouldn't be human if you hadn't. Say the ordinances over to yourself; that'll put you to sleep. If you can't sleep, at least rest. There's a Council meeting tonight."

  "I'd forgotten!" She bit her lip, annoyed with herself. What a thing to forget.

  Stavia buttoned her padded coat and left the hospital, unbuttoning the collar again as soon as she got outside into the sun. The chill rains of early spring had passed for the moment and a mock summer had come, a transient warmth to stir false optimism. Cold would return inevitably before there could be true spring, no matter what the sun and sea conspired to suggest. It was too early for lunch. There was no one at home, the girls were at school and Corrig had gone to the servitors' fraternity, where he was teaching a class in the mysteries. She would have the house to herself if she wanted to nap, but she didn't want to do that, not just yet.

  She wound her way through the market, not realizing until she came to the candle makers shops at the edge of the plaza that she had intended all along to come to the wall.

  "Stupid, sentimental sop," she told herself as she climbed the stairs. "What do you think you're going to see down there?"

  What Stavia saw was the empty parade ground with its tower and its monument to Telemachus, behind that the carved gables of the barracks buildings sweltering in the sun, and beyond them black specks racing about on the playing fields. The garrison was only half the size it had been when she was a child, and every member of it seemed to be either playing or watching, mostly from low bleachers along the field. Three or four men were looking on from the terrace of the officers' residence. Shaking her head at herself, she found a sheltered corner hidden from the plaza and fished in a pocket for the book. It was warm here in the sun. She would spend an hour or two reviewing Iphigenia, then buy herself some lunch at a tea shop before going home to the promised nap. By then she'd be tired enough to sleep, she told herself, leafing through the pages to find the place where she and Corrig had left off that morning.

  "THE GHOST OF ACHILLES appears upon the battlement," she read, wondering how Joshua could bear to play Achilles. One would expect some servitor with a broad sense of humor and not much dignity, not someone like Joshua.

  ACHILLES I seek my servant, Polyxena!

  IPHIGENIA (Calling from ground level) Oh, mighty warrior, she is not here.

  ACHILLES (Petulantly) She's supposed to be here. They spilt her maiden blood upon my tomb so she would be here.

  IPHIGENIA But they didn't ask her if she would serve you, Achilles. Now that the warrants of warriors no longer run, she is her own ghost.

  ACHILLES She is my slave! It's all been arranged. Spill a maiden's blood, heart's blood or maidenhead, and she's yours. Everyone knows!

  IPHIGENIA She is no one's slave, Achilles. In the place of shades, we are all equal....

  HECUBA Oh, maiden spirit, what is this mouthing?

  IPHIGENIA Achilles' shade stands on the battlement, his member turgid with the fever of his passing, calling for Polyxena.

  HECUBA Poor Polyxena.

  IPHIGENIA She may do as she likes, Priam's Queen. Nothing here constrains her.

  ANDROMACHE What will Polyxena do if nothing constrains her? Mother, what will she do?

  HECUBA I think she'll sleep. Polyxena was ever fond of sleep. Do they sup in Hades? Do they dance? Perhaps she'll eat, or dance. She liked to dance.

  If it were me, I'd sleep, thought Stavia. Not dance or eat. Just sleep. She yawned, turning the page.

  ACHILLES (Descending the stair) If Polyxena won't attend on me, I'll set myself some other likely game. Are you Iphigenia, maiden child of mighty Agamemnon?

  IPHIGENIA Well I was.

  ACHILLES Why then, we are betrothed!

  IPHIGENIA (Laughing) Don't play the fool, Achilles!

  ACHILLES Odysseus bid you come to Aulis to wed me, did he not?

  IPHIGENIA Pure trickery to get me there, Achilles. They didn't call Odysseus the fox for nothing! I curse him as I curse my father. You knew nothing of betrothal then. When my mother greeted you as my betrothed, you thought her daft!

  ACHILLES That's true, but later on I agreed it was not a bad match. You were Agamemnon's daughter, after all. I offered to defend you.

  IPHIGENIA (With sh
rill laughter, which echoes from the battlements as though from a horde of female spirits) Oh, Achilles, Achilles.... (Declaims)After I died, you said that you admired my courage, though courage it was not! Anger it was, at all you murderous men. Anger which steeled me not to shame myself! Some poet, hearing of your fatuous words composed a song about the bloody deed, and not content with truth, embroidered it with fulsome lies and patent sentiments. What really happened was, you hid yourself, and stayed in hiding until I was dead.

  ACHILLES It wasn't you who died. Artemis sent a hind to take your place. Everyone knows....

  IPHIGENIA What people know is what they want to know. That was a late-come hind, great warrior, for I was there and never saw it come! Artemis sent no hind. Artemis had more urgent business in some other place. It was my blood spurting upon the stones each time my heart's fist clenched, it was my brain afire with pain, my voice gone dumb, my eyes turned into dimming orbs of sand-worn glass, their youthful luster lost forevermore. Iphigenia, Agamemnon's child, died on that bloody stone, not some poor hind.

  ANDROMACHE Oh pity. Pity.

  IPHIGENIA And though by now all poets gloss it o'er to make it seem a different, kinder thing, there was no great Achilles at my side, no goddess-given hind to take my place. I made no offer of myself as sacrifice, though all the songs in Hellas say I did.

  HECUBA What are you saying, spirit?

  IPHIGENIA I am attempting to explain to the warrior that those who took my life murdered me, though every poet in Hellas sings it otherwise.

  "Halloo there," said a voice in Stavia's ear.

  "Hah!" Stavia grunted, jolted out of a half doze. "Who... what... what's it?"

  "Joshua, Stavvy. What are you doing up here, falling asleep, getting yourself sunburned?"

  "Josh? I didn't mean to fall asleep, though every poet in Hellas says I did.... " Her voice trailed away, not yet awake. "When did you get back?"

  "An hour or so ago. Nobody was home. I went to the hospital and your mother said you were having lunch or a nap, but I thought I'd find you here. Though, from the looks of you, you ought to be in bed." He sat down on the parapet and gave her a hard stare, the light behind him making his gray braid shine like a silver rope across his shoulder. The lines around his eyes were squeezed deep in concentration. "It was really bad, Stavvy?"

  "Well, I knew how it would feel, but then I lied to myself a lot," she confessed, as she would have confessed to no one except Joshua or Corrig. "I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about Dawid, wondering what I might have done differently. Remembering when I was a kid, when things started. You know. How did you find me? You couldn't see me from down there." The words were out before she thought, then she flushed. Of course he had known where she would be.

  Joshua took the book from her lap, scanning the section of the play she had been marking with her finger. "Stavvy, you knew there wasn't a chance in hell that boy would do anything but what he did. Think of Achilles. That's Dawid. 'I can't offend my friends, but you won't really die, mommy. Athena will send a hind.' Warriors all think like that or they wouldn't stay in the garrison. The trouble is with you, you've been creating playmates in your head. 'Dawid's change of heart.' 'Dawid overcoming his heritage and environment.' 'Dawid being blinded by the holy light.' Come on, Stavvy." He turned away from her, and she, seeing the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching, realized that he was trying to keep her from seeing the broken expression on his face. So. Despite his harsh words, he had loved Dawid, too, just as he had loved Jerby and Habby and Byram. He had hoped, too.

  "I wish you'd been here to talk some sense into me before I went down there," she said softly. "Or after."

  "I wasn't here for very good reason, as you know. Now quit breaking yourself up over Dawid. He may be half yours, girl, but it's the wrong half. Come on, I'll take you to lunch."

  He half dragged her to the sausage shop, settling his face into a cheerful expression, giving evidence of enjoyment at a plate of mutton links heavy with basil and garlic and a dish of rare, wonderful rice. Around mouthfuls of sausage he told her stories, making her almost laugh. When he had eaten half of what was before him, he asked, "Why are you studying old Iphi?"

  Stavia, who was only playing with a salad of early lettuce, looked down at the dog-eared book. "I'm doing the lead this summer. Morgot has refused to do it again, and they're all very flattering. They tell me I'm the only Council member who can look convincingly girlish. Don't laugh. I know what I look like today. Morgot told me."

  "Summer's quite a time away. I'm doing Achilles, but I don't intend to look at it for weeks yet."

  "I'd be surprised if you had to look at it at all! You've been playing the part for ages. I thought if I read it over every week or so, I'd pretty much learn it again without having to labor over it." Sudden tears filled her eyes and she gasped at a remembered pain so intimate it was like childbirth.

  "Stavvy?"

  "I'm all right, Josh. It's just... I was really reading it to distract myself, but I keep finding things in it that apply to me. Like Iphigenia being tricked to come down to Aulis. To get married, they said, when all they wanted to do was use her. You know that, you know all about it, and yet you let yourself...."

  "They wouldn't be acting it out every year in every city of Women's Country if it weren't applicable to something."

  Stavia picked at her salad, the tears drying in the corners of her eyes, wondering at herself once more. "Things happen to you when you're young. And you think you know what it was that happened, but you really don't. Then later, sometimes years later, you suddenly understand what was really going on. And you feel such a fool because it's too late to do anything about the mistakes you made. I keep thinking of examples. Like the day Beneda and I were on the wall, and Chernon came up on the armory roof to see us. I was so excited. I thought he liked me. It seemed so casual, so fortuitous. I hadn't any idea what was really happening."

  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.

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

  IPHIGENIA (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.

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

  IPHIGENIA 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.

  HECUBA (Horrified) Which he would never do!

  ANDROMACHE No father would do that!

  IPHIGENIA Well, so they thought. They thought that Agamemnon would refuse, then they could all go home.
r />   HECUBA Surely he offered other sacrifice.

  IPHIGENIA Which did not suit their purposes at all.

  HECUBA And when they would not take a substitute....

  IPHIGENIA 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.

  HECUBA And none of what the poets say is true?

  IPHIGENIA 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?!