Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Five Page 20

  Benjamar explained that he was under a lot of pressure to get it right today. “Absurd as it may sound, I believe that pressure to come from Kun DJar itself,” he said. “If we don’t deal with those who hurt the planet, the planet itself will and we’ve been witness to its power more than once. We need to be careful that we don’t assume what is or can be based on DJar beliefs to the exclusion of what may be, and I have to thank Jema for calling me on my honour to stop me from doing so.”

  Aryan glanced at Jema, who had challenged Benjamar, and which was why Maike had left him waiting last night. Not knowing this, Aryan has assumed Maike had changed her mind about the meal and he’d deliberately ignored her when she’d called his name this morning, and that was no doubt the reason for her sneer just now.

  “People of honour can make their lives incredibly difficult, never mind the lives of others,” Benjamar continued. “Nevertheless, I think that we have to act on our honour, every one of us, not just between individuals, but with regard Kun DJar herself. Honour, however, doesn’t mean pushing the responsibility away to a higher power or blindly sticking to the rules others made for you, and it does not include looking for fault in others. Honour has to do with integrity for yourself. I’m looking for a solution to the problems of today based on our new sense of honour; honour for peace.”

  Aryan heard the warning more in Benjamar’s intonation than in the actual words. It said something like, “don’t play with me again during this trial” and a look accompanied the message. Ticked off by this threat, he looked at Tigor to see if the offer was still on. His whole effort of coming here to make up with Maike had failed anyway. But before he could get the farmer’s attention, Benjamar stepped toward them and began to force Leyon into spilling everything about the incident of three days ago.

  “I couldn’t help myself,” Leyon said about his attack on Frimon.

  “Unacceptable answer.”

  Under fire, Leyon told a complicated story involving the relationships between the young people of the village, in which Frimon had tried to mingle. Leyon had jumped in to protect Laytji from his anger. A bit over the top, no doubt. He could have just punched the man.

  “You were confined for the rest of the day and Kunag didn’t come home the night after the challenge until you had already gone uphill to tell Doret about the party, so how is it you knew that Rorag and Kunag had been caught swimming?”

  Leyon opened his mouth, but closed it again, apparently unable to come up with a response to this unexpected change of topic.

  “Can’t remember or don’t want to?” Without any warning Benjamar turned his interrogation to Doret. “And what were you doing where you were forbidden to go?”

  That threw the boy totally off guard and made it rather easy for Benjamar to get the answers he wanted and more. Unwillingly, Aryan envied his enormous confidence and control.

  Doret admitted that the kids often went to the Society hearth without their parents knowing, but it was to visit the girls. No, it wasn’t the first time they’d been fighting. The trefin was mentioned, as were similar incidents on SJilai both during the journey and after the storm.

  Benjamar soon concluded that the same people were always involved. “So clarify something for me: Why is Rorag the one who comes out being beaten at every incident?”

  When Doret couldn’t answer that, Benjamar asked Rorag the same question. The dark-haired boy glanced at Leyon, who instantly tensed up. Automatically, Aryan took a hold of Leyon’s shirt again. There was no way Benjamar would get through this trial without a physical scuffle.

  Aryan shook his head to alert him to the tension he’d caused.

  Benjamar acknowledged that with a nod and turned away from the boys. “I think we’ve heard all the stories. I would like to get to the part where we come up with solutions, either in the form of requests or proposals,” he said.

  Nobody responded, not even the people on the other side of the room, who were supposed to be on this council. Aryan had nothing to put in here. He was neither victim nor accused.

  “I want ideas, suitable settlements, whether in the form of punishment or not. I want them first from those who suffered from other people’s actions, then from those people themselves, and last the council will be asked for their input.”

  Benjamar didn’t seem surprised when his request was met with silence.

  “Wilam, what are we asking from Tigor?”

  Totally unprepared for this confrontation, Wilam’s face turned a darker hue as he indicated that he didn’t know, while, next to Aryan, Tigor took a quick glug from his flask.

  “I asked Kunag this question,” Benjamar told all of them. “He said, and I quote, ‘Is a person worth so much more than Kun DJar’s only intelligent creature that you won’t call this murder?’ Think about it, Wilam, please.” Next he turned to Rorag. “What do we ask of Jema?”

  “She should repent the way I had to.”

  A silence followed in which Benjamar looked at the boy, who stared at Jema, who was only interested in the floor.

  Benjamar moved on and asked Maike if she had any ideas on how to keep Leyon under control in the future.

  “Well, we can’t confine him forever, can we? I’m not even convinced that works anyway. I don’t know,” she said.

  Benjamar nodded as if it was the most normal procedure to ask a question, get a ridiculous answer or none at all, and then carry on. “Aryan, your ideas on what we should do with Tigor?”

  Not having expected to be asked, Aryan couldn’t think of anything.

  “Wilam, any ideas yet?”

  “I don’t know these things. I never learned them.”

  Benjamar must sense Wilam’s insecurity and purposely put him on the spot.

  “You see, people, I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad,” Benjamar said, contradicting Aryan’s last thought, “but I need this to be a discussion, not my questions only. Tigor, come up with a proposal. What is it that would be reasonable in your eyes as a deterrent for future destruction and violence? A solution you think Wilam, Doret, and Kunag could also live with.”

  Of course, Tigor didn’t know. Who could answer a question like that? It was like asking somebody to volunteer for Breberer.

  As before, Benjamar moved on, undeterred by his question remaining unanswered. “Jema, what do you think it is you should offer Leni and Rorag?”

  “I can’t answer that,” she answered.

  “You had better keep in mind what I said about honour,” he told her and then turned to Leyon with the same question.

  Aryan caught Jema looking at him. She’d felt that as he had. A little warning about who was in charge.

  Leyon also tried to get out of giving a straight answer.

  “Do you remember what Maike promised you that day in town when you last attacked Thalo?” Benjamar asked him.

  Now Leyon blushed. “She told me she’d belt me as she had Thalo the next time I tried.”

  Aryan’s heart rate increased. Tigor reached for his flask.

  “You attacked Frimon three days ago. You don’t have to tell me if she actually did it. What I want to know is if you think you deserved it then.”

  Leyon shifted in his seat. Maike was watching him, not showing what she thought.

  “I don’t know. Maybe… Yes,” Leyon said.

  Benjamar paced the room a few times. “You were beaten a lot when you were young, right?”

  Tigor didn’t put his flask back into his pocket.

  “That was different. My dad used me when he was angry at somebody else. I was a punching bag. It made him powerful.”

  “Did you think he was powerful?” Benjamar asked.

  “When I was small I did.”

  “Can I ask something?” Leni interrupted.

  Benjamar stepped back to let her.

  “Was you father in control when he hit you? Did you know it was coming and what for?”

  Aryan had never before really seen the woman on the other side of the entrance
. She was Society: Frimon’s comate.

  Leyon answered that he knew when it was coming, but only because it was habit. There was no reason. Just being there was enough.

  Next Leni wanted to know if Leyon’s father had ever apologized to him.

  “Yes, sometimes, but then the next day he’d start again.”

  Did Leyon love his father?

  Leyon said yes, when he was little, but later he’d seen him as pathetic, so he’d left home.

  Aryan didn’t know what to make of all these questions, nor why Leyon kept answering them. On his other side Tigor drank some more.

  “Would you think of Maike as pathetic?” Leni asked.

  Leyon started laughing. “No.”

  “Okay, last question: Do you think maybe a beating sometimes works better than locking people away like on DJar?”

  “I know what you’re doing, Leni, but this is abuse, not penance,” Benjamar interrupted.

  “I was meaning neither, Ben. I was talking about the DJar legal system. I was wondering if people wouldn’t have been better off if they could have returned to their lives after a short and direct response.”

  “We’ve discussed this before,” Benjamar said.

  “I didn’t get an answer yet,” she replied.

  “Okay, Leyon, answer her,” Benjamar said. “Could it work better?”

  “Sometimes,” Leyon answered.

  “Who else thinks this may be a better solution?”

  Aryan was up before he realized it himself. “This is ridiculous. You can’t just sit there and discuss this uh… this thing as if it’s an acceptable option you’re willing to consider because you have no prison. I’ll build you one!”

  “So why does it attract so many spectators?” Maike asked.

  “Because it damn well turns them on; didn’t you hear Haslag?”

  Before Maike could respond to that, Benjamar stepped between them. “All I was trying to find out is why some of us consider it so wrong and others don’t, Aryan; why some of us get so angry about it, myself included. Maybe we should take a bit more time to listen to each other. I’m willing to. My question is: will you allow us that time?”

  Aryan shrugged and sat back down. “Sure.”

  Benjamar also returned to his place and looked at the boy next to him. “Doret, does your father ever abuse you?”

  Aryan almost jumped back up again.

  Doret looked utterly surprised. “No,” he said. “My father just hits me.”

  “Why?”

  “When I don’t do what he says.”

  “Do you think children should always do what their father says or get hit?”

  “No, but he wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t important.”

  “Do you think Rorag’s father thought it was important?”

  Doret looked at Frimon’s son. “But my father only hits once,” he said.

  “Tigor, did you ever hit your child?”

  Aryan tensed up. Did Benjamar have any idea what he was doing?

  After recovering from this sudden attack, Tigor answered that he had.

  “Why?”

  “I lost my temper sometimes. Kids can be difficult.”

  “Can kids be difficult, Wilam?” Benjamar asked.

  “I don’t know. I g-guess,” Wilam stuttered.

  “Did you ever hit your kids, Leni?” Benjamar went on.

  “Yes, but I didn’t lose my temper. I didn’t need to wait long enough for that.”

  “Did it make you feel guilty?”

  “No. They knew why.”

  “Maike, you told me that you were sorry for waiting too long on Habitat Three?”

  Maike nodded.

  “Do you feel guilty?”

  “Only for making a public display out of it.”

  “What was the result of you hitting your daughter, Tigor? Who felt worse?”

  “Her, I guess.”

  “She did? How long for?”

  Tigor was really uptight, his hand clutched around his flask: his lifeline. “Sian is dead.”

  “I know that and I’m really sorry. I just wanted to know what it did to you. Did you take to the wine?” Benjamar asked.

  Tigor said “yes”, and yes, he had on SJilai already. Everybody, of course, knew that.

  Benjamar went on relentlessly, wanting to know if it was the wine that caused Tigor to beat his comate and daughter or did he use wine to forget that he had?

  Having lost his battle with Benjamar a long time ago, Tigor admitted it was both and now openly drank from his flask.

  “Did you use tools?” Leni asked.

  Why did nobody stop this?

  “What did you use?” she insisted.

  Tigor moaned.

  “What about your father, Leyon?”

  “Stop it, the lot of you! You have no right to ask these things. If your belief allows you to beat people, then keep it to yourself. Don’t use your loss to influence an old man to force it onto the rest of us! Damn it, Benjamar, can’t you see you’re being used here? This whole trial is a charade and Maike, I know I use my hands when I should use my mouth and don’t go insinuating that I enjoy these things or whatever it is you said. Leyon is no coward, so he doesn’t deserve to be beaten. Do you people even know what it does to a person?”

  It was quiet in the room. Aryan found himself standing alone at the centre, having turned from one to the other.

  Benjamar shook his head. “That is what I was trying to find out. Maybe I’m an old man, but I haven’t lost it yet, Aryan. I told you that I was only trying to look at things from different angles. I was not proposing we use physical means to punish Leyon, nor do I believe Leyon to be a coward. What I’d like to know is why you said that. Do cowards deserve to be beaten, Aryan? Who told you that?”

  Aryan clenched his teeth. He had merely reacted to what they were doing to Leyon and Tigor. Maybe he’d mixed them up.

  “What does it do to a person, Aryan?”

  Aryan sat back down, shaking his shoulders to get rid of the thoughts. “I don’t know. Ask Leyon.”

  “I’m asking you. Was Maike a coward for beating Thalo or was Thalo the coward? Is that why you two fight?”

  Aryan eyed the entrance. This was none of Benjamar’s business.

  But Benjamar always had a knack for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. “Do you use your hands when you should talk? Do you hit when somebody corners you?”

  “Give him a break, Benjamar. He’s not on trial here,” Maike said.

  Benjamar once again took centre stage, turning his back to Maike.

  “I’m not going to make this easy, Aryan. We may as well talk about it now. People need to speak in honour or we’ll continue hurting each other. What happened between you and Maike?”

  Aryan suddenly saw what Benjamar was doing: the treyak. He was coaxing Aryan into publicly making up with Maike.

  “I think Aryan and I can talk this out together, Benjamar. I see no need to do this in front of an audience. It so happens that when two people fight, two are to blame. You’re right: some people lash out when they feel cornered, but words can do the cornering. Aryan and I can talk without guidance.”

  Hail Maike!

  “I hoped one of you would say that,” Benjamar answered. “However, I’m trying to solve all problems here today, so we can start our second Kun DJar year with a clean slate. That includes problems of failures and beach parties as well as those of cowards and I cannot do that unless you talk now.”

  Well, that didn’t leave anything to be misunderstood. Benjamar wouldn’t let it go. He’d set no time limit then, but he was setting it for right here and now. The rules said that Aryan would have to go first or he’d fail the challenge.

  Benjamar, in the meantime, reminded the others that nobody would be allowed to talk about what was said here today. That was decent of him.

  “Aryan?”

  Aryan nodded more for the general understanding of the situation he found himself in than to answer Benjamar
. Maike’s words just now were a help, as was Tigor’s presence here. Aryan didn’t want to get back to being like him, with his hand on the flask in his pocket. Maike may feel as she liked, but there was no postponing it anymore. It might be Benjamar who was once again calling the shots, but this time they were fair.

  Everybody waited. The whole room was impatient. For just a whimper of a moment did Aryan feel like walking out, but then he straightened up, failing to match Benjamar’s height. “Okay, you asked for it. I guess it’s no secret anyhow that I used wine to get around in town.”

  He talked to Benjamar only. He had used wine to overcome his fear of animals. “I never liked them, but on this planet they rain down, crawl onto your mat and jump from the sand.” He told them he’d been sober since they all left town; told them what he’d done to the powershop and how he’d broken his leg. He also told them what really happened when he’d found Kunag. The words just came by themselves. He could have saved Kunag minutes of agony. The boy could have died and it would have been because of Aryan, because of his fear. “You blame it on Tigor, but it was me. Leyon knew that, that’s why he didn’t tell earlier, so don’t go beating him when he was brave enough to save Kunag’s life. I needed wine to be brave, but with the wine Maike wouldn’t have me, so I stopped. That’s why I came here.” His eyes found Maike. “I know it’s too late. You’re still young, you should move on, but I’m sober now and I need one more chance from you – a chance to say sorry.”

  Aryan had never realized how heavy words could weigh. Having spat them out, he suddenly felt light. He turned back to Benjamar. “There, does that satisfy your treyak?”

  “I never knew this. You never told me,” Maike said.

  What had she expected, that he’d publicly announce being afraid of creatures the size of his hand?

  “Kunag didn’t die, Aryan,” Benjamar answered. “He’ll be fine. I’m not so sure if I wouldn’t have reacted exactly the same way you did to those creatures. I would say that more than satisfies your mastering my challenge and as for my part I will do my best to make it short.”

  He didn’t make it short. He started by saying that he had failed to see the obvious needs of people. People were imprinted with a need to work; most didn’t feel good enough if they didn’t spend two thirds of their days in the service of others. Tigor had mentioned that too; he felt useless here. The problem was that there were no alternatives to work on this planet: No prints, no study-material, no paper, no music, no culture. “I ignored the need for people to be physically involved even when it was brought to my attention. You not only recognized this need, Aryan, but you did something about it in town.”