Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Five Page 24

  One glance was enough. She knew he couldn’t stop it.

  “I remind you that you’re still under obligation to answer my questions.”

  She tried once more to become the stoical pillar she’d been before. “I have agreed to accept the outcome of this trial.”

  She was letting him stand alone. “My decision is that you tell me.”

  “I can’t.”

  That challenge was the problem; nothing would ever be consented, no matter what the outcome. “You don’t think you deserve it?”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  The immediate and shrill response was enough to make him stop. This would get out of hand. He had to get the others involved. Last resort only.

  Every person in the room was silent, motionless, and looking in every direction but Jema’s – except Leni. Benjamar looked at Nini. She wouldn’t allow this. He could count on her. Her and Wilam. But three out of six?

  “There’s still something wrong with this picture,” Maike said. All the eyes which hadn’t known where to look now had a common goal. Maike used her hands to ward them off. “Tigor killed an animal, threatened Wilam, and destroyed the habitat. He set out to damage and he succeeded. He gets off with an apology. Leyon tried to kill Frimon. Had Aryan not been there, he may have succeeded, but he failed. He gets let off. Jema tried to prevent harm…”

  Thank you, Maike. This was what Benjamar had hoped for. If anything those were motivations, not cold facts. This may yet stop the kabin going under.

  “And she also failed. That’s why we shouldn’t be comparing,” Yako said.

  “But it can’t be fair that way.”

  “Fair is not important, Maike, because ‘fair’ is different for everybody. We’re dealing with a request from the victim. The goal is consensus for peace, no matter how.”

  “We can get to the explanations when it’s time to vote,” Benjamar told the man, who had so far been his first mate but was now threatening mutiny.

  “There is little use proceeding with a vote if nobody in the council will take responsibility for acting on what could be the outcome, and I do believe that if we as a council decide, we as a council should act,” Yako answered.

  “What do you want? Do it right now? The people won’t agree. They’ll want to witness it. A show, like two days ago,” Maike sneered. “They’ll say they’ve come to see justice done.”

  She didn’t want this either. She was still with him. Four to two.

  Maike and Yako argued a bit more about who had the decision and that the crowd could not justify wanting to see it without having to admit being motivated by its feral nature.

  “Do you think we can get rid of the mob, Leni, or will the Society refuse to acknowledge the council if we do?” Yako asked.

  “I don’t think it’s a question of ‘the Society’ accepting anything. The basic values of the Society never involved a public spectacle. They’ll have no choice.”

  Somewhere in this debate the new captain was trying to take charge. But not yet. “Stop, Yako. You’re moving too fast. We’re not ready to discuss details yet. I want a vote from every person separately before the words ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ are even mentioned. I said the decision was to be unanimous if it was to be made at all and so it shall be.”

  Yako backed down. He stood with Leni, but they would be alone.

  As she’d once described Nori, so Jema now felt: an animal in a cage of hopelessness. She was thankful that the sleeves of Kaspi’s dress were wide enough to hide her face in. She could no longer be here while they discussed how to prepare the ingredients of what would ultimately spell her doom. Only the voices; that was more than enough.

  Benjamar once again called for a vote. He asked Leni first.

  “It may not seem that way to Jema right now, but in the end it will be the best choice. However, I need Jema to consent.”

  “That’s ridiculous. How could anyone ever agree to this?” Aryan asked.

  “I could,” Leni answered. “It won’t work if it is forced. The idea is that you give the person you wronged your trust to do the right thing. By humbling yourself instead of being humiliated you avoid feelings of revenge in both parties.”

  Jema could feel Leni’s eyes on her, but she didn’t look up. Leni wouldn’t force it. She’d been the most hurt; she’d lost her print, her history, and her comate, but she wouldn’t force it.

  “This was an accident,” Maike said.

  “It makes no difference if it was an accident or not. Penance is the only way.”

  “That all sounds fine in theory, but it’s still a form of seeking retaliation. You talk about friendship, but this isn’t it,” Aryan said. He added that he didn’t blame Leni for feeling this way but there was little use pretending.

  “If you think that, you still don’t understand the meaning of penance even after Leni explained it a set of times to you people,” Rorag told him. “None of you knows what you’re talking about, just like you all think that Laytji spied on me because that’s what you would do, so you think this is revenge because that’s what you would want. You want to make decisions about what you don’t know. Is what we ask meant as retaliation, Jema?”

  She felt the heads turn toward her. She could feel Leyon and Doret breathing.

  “Make her answer me, Benjamar.”

  “I don’t have to take commands from you,” Benjamar fired back.

  “Could you please ask her to answer me,” Rorag repeated without changing the tone of his voice.

  A silence followed, which she tried not to hear.

  “Answer his question, Jema.”

  Oh Bue. Couldn’t he just leave it now? Why couldn’t he just rule with Leni and get it over with? They’d all be happier.

  “Jema?”

  She pulled the heavy boulder out of her arms and looked past Rorag at Leni. Please don’t do this.

  Leni answered without words.

  Benjamar stood in the entrance, in front of the lamp. Maybe he’d call for a break. Maybe there was still time to run. It wasn’t cold, but she shivered. It wasn’t retaliation Rorag was looking for, it was acknowledgement. He’d been segregated his whole life and she’d refused to see him. He’d never even had the chance to say goodbye to his dad. “No… No, it isn’t.”

  Rorag nodded. He didn’t yet ask for more but he would drive this to the end, until she gave in.

  “Can we just carry on with the voting, please? She won’t volunteer, Leni.”

  “No, Ben, we cannot.”

  Jema had no choice but to look up once Leni’s hand lifted her face. Like that day at her home, Leni was frowning. It was impossible to fight her.

  “I’m not asking you to volunteer, Jema. I’m asking for your consent. Volunteering would be like self-infliction; it augments the guilt and so becomes addictive. We have seen too many examples of that both in and out of the Society. I won’t give in, Jema, not for you. But I have a bigger problem than your consent right now. I think Rorag is correct in saying that nobody knows what they’re talking about. Everybody has seen snippets, but the meaning has been lost, though I’d hoped you would understand.”

  Jema squeezed her eyes shut. She should, but she couldn’t say yes. She’d seen enough snippets – too many: Frimon grovelling, the eager crowd…

  When Leni finally let go, Kun must have been down and up again. “Whether Jema consents or the council votes on it, Benjamar, I believe I need to make sure that both you and Jema know what exactly it is that I’m asking of her, so I request that you give me a bit of time to demonstrate. You can’t vote on what you don’t know.”

  Without seeing it, Jema knew Benjamar had granted her request and she heard him return to his seat.

  “Get up, Jema, I need your help.”

  Jema had to look up to make sure. What was she wanting? For real? A demonstration?

  Leni nodded.

  “No way!”

  “Yes way. How about you make a better job of apologizing
to Wilam than you did before?”

  What exactly snapped, Jema didn’t know, but the moment Leni reached out to her, panic struck. Leni always got her way and she couldn’t; not that, not here, not ever– “No!”

  They came all by themselves, the words that drowned Leni’s voice; they came from deep inside… words on parade, recalling Nori’s fears about Saret, the deceit on SJilai that had first lured Jema to Frimon’s penance, Roilan’s soldiers, the mass hysteria… just words, any words, as long as it kept them away.

  Somewhere between an inhalation and a heartbeat, Nini’s chest faltered for a fraction when she saw Leni raise her hand.

  Having only held it in midair, Leni slowly dropped it back down the moment Jema fell silent. She’d withstood the assault of verbal bullets which had been wielded not so much as a weapon of attack but as a shield for protection. “Are you calm now?” Leni asked.

  Jema reopened her eyes after having shut them tight as if expecting a slap. Now she just stared at Leni.

  “Care to repeat what you called me just now?”

  Almost without moving, Jema shook her head.

  “You won’t get out of it this way, and I will not make the decision for you no matter how much bad language you use to ask for it,” Leni told her. “Now get up!”

  Nini’s breath stopped a second time.

  While Jema did as she was told, Leni spun slowly around, as if to make sure she had all the attention. This wasn’t the same woman Nini had shared the birth with. This was a Leni made of ice, who spoke of tools. She would get her demonstration and nobody, not even Aryan, jumped in to stop it.

  And no wonder! Behind Leni, Aryan had transformed into a pillar, sitting as Leyon had earlier: frozen, pale, wide-eyed and hyperventilating. Nini’s own body cut the tension in the room as she crossed the floor to put her hand over his mouth – it was all she had. She spoke into his ear. “It isn’t real. Tell it to go. Call for the woman.” She tried to send some warmth through her fingers. He heaved. “Go on, call her!”

  The first word from his mouth was more air than sound, but then he repeated it. “Kel-ot.” Nini squeezed his hands to encourage him. Twice more he uttered the word before his eyes saw her. Then he dropped his shoulders and scanned the room to get his bearings. “Is it gone?”

  He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Did I do it?” he asked her and then scanned the room again. “Do you know… what it means?”

  Nini nodded.

  “About the demon? How?”

  “You carried the message yourself, in a letter from Remko.”

  She could see him putting one and one together.

  “What’s up with you?” Maike asked, having joined them.

  But Aryan didn’t acknowledge her. He looked at Nini. “Did I conquer it? Myself? Or did you…?”

  “I can’t be sure, Aryan. You found the word yourself. I never spoke it.”

  “I must have looked like a real idiot,” he said, eyeing the flask Tigor held out to him. Aryan’s moment of truth lasted but a fraction. Then he shook his head at the farmer and looked back up. “Thank you.”

  “Can you tell me what this is all about?” Maike asked.

  “If he’s okay, I’d like to carry on first,” Leni interrupted her and summoned Jema a third time. But once again she didn’t get any further.

  “No! This has to stop.” Benjamar pushed himself up from the ledge and took a hold of Jema’s shoulders. He was trembling. His trial was falling apart.

  “What has to stop?” Leni asked.

  “This demonstration I granted you. I know you’re hurting, but this won’t help. I know I failed to recognize your existence before, but I hear and see you now. I can’t allow this. I know I promised, but I can’t. Hell, I’ve made promises before and ignored them. A promise that kept me alive when my time had come, after having sent so many to the Land Beyond before theirs, after having sent your father to his death for an act of penance, and now you ask me to allow penance for Frimon’s death and I can’t say yes. Can you understand that? Because I sure can’t!”

  The fluent stream of words had increased in both volume and speed until this final emotional exclamation which brought water to Nini’s eyes. For the second time her body moved through the breathless room. She put her hands around Benjamar’s arms, willing him to sit down. She wanted to hold him, shield him from the eyes that were witness to his fall, but he shook her off with an aggression she’d not expected. Jema was the pillar he was leaning on, his knuckles white. One step from her and he’d fall over.

  “How much of a demonstration were you expecting, Ben?” Leni asked, barely louder than a whisper. “I wasn’t going to do it and I wasn’t asking you to say yes. You were right that honour is not hiding behind a mask, but that goes for the judge as well. He who decides over people’s lives must be partial to those people, even if he’s partial to both sides, because the alternative is denying the emotions real people are made of. I told you I wanted you and Jema to know what penance means, so now you know, though I must admit that I hadn’t counted on Aryan. People are emotional at a penance. They discharge their pain and their anger rather than hide behind facts and logical explanations. No justice can be done where people are reduced to thinking machines with no feelings. There was a reason you lived beyond what Geveler decided was your time. I believe Kun DJar was that reason. Sotyar had a reason for insulting the judge; he wouldn’t have lived down the embarrassment of being a user. You see, Ben, Society people also have pride, but they try to give it up occasionally.”

  He stood nodding, looking old suddenly. This time he allowed Nini’s hands to guide him back to his seat. She felt for him, having bared his soul. She took his hand just so he’d know. He allowed that as well.

  “Turn around, Jema, look at me,” Leni said.

  For a brief moment it had appeared that the oven was less hot, but Leni wouldn’t turn it off. She would have the food ask to be eaten.

  “You didn’t fight much, Jema. I’d expected more than a few swear words. Would you have let me do it? Did you want me to? Is that why you called me a fanatic witch? Is it easier to be the victim than to cooperate? And that doesn’t only apply to penance, of course.”

  Jema tried not to breathe and not to see Leni’s eyes, but it was hard to ignore the words.

  “What were you thinking then? Were you happy it was finally out of your hands or did you feel sorry for yourself? Or maybe you were contemplating how best to kill a witch?”

  Please stop asking all these questions. Her legs wouldn’t last. Just do it, make the decision. Couldn’t she just forget the consent? Jema would like to scream it by now. Just do it! Don’t you get it yet?

  “Well, which one of the three was it: joy, self-pity, or revenge? Or was it all three? Maybe you can all imagine what you would have thought in Jema’s place. You all knew this wasn’t voluntary. I just wonder how many of you figured this was consent. Did you notice how the word ‘demonstration’ was enough of a veil to have you all wait and see? I’m just saying it so you all think a bit before you judge the bystanders from two nights ago. You all assume you would not be like that because of the moral slogans you believe in, but those are only words. I could not have explained with words what I have just now without them. Do you think you can handle another confrontation, Jema, just one more for now?”

  Inside her head Jema’s answer screamed “no!”, but she made no outward reply.

  Leni poked her in the back to sit back down and explained what she wanted. To properly demonstrate, with Rorag’s help, that part of the penance ritual that dealt with consent. To show it in action.

  She turned to Rorag. “I’ve heard enough to make this a reasonable request. If not, you cannot honestly ask Jema to do it. You can take the new reed.”

  Rorag obliged, showing that part of the lecture that would teach the council what Jema already knew: That the first act of consent came with the penitent bringing their own tool, that the straps were handmade and received as a gift. J
ema closed her eyes when Leni directed the second part of the demonstration so she didn’t have to see Rorag’s face when he put his hands on her knees. “Hold his wrists, Jema.”

  This didn’t help. She’d never, ever be able to do this.

  “The third act of consent is the willingness to talk to those present, an exchange of motivations and questions until all is spoken. For example, if this were real, my first question would be to ask Rorag why he was doing penance,” Leni explained.

  “For the same reason your comate had to,” he answered. “Only I’m not going to die for what isn’t wrong even if it would be more convenient to get somebody marked to keep him for yourself.”

  When Leni fell silent, Jema had to look at the eyes in front of her. She suddenly knew what he was doing. What had not worked with Leyon was happening now. He needed this penance. He needed Jema there to explain who he was to his family. Was Leni being played here as well?

  Rorag smiled.

  In the background Leni’s voice resumed, mentioning the verbal request for the transference of emotions through the reed. “Then we used to pray together, but here we could do something different to close the bond, which is intended as a declaration of honour to keep what is spoken between those who were present,” she finished. “It won’t change the meaning.”

  She sent Rorag back to his seat. “So now you all know what penance and consent mean to us. On DJar they never got to the bottom of what played between people, but here today, Benjamar, your kennin is working. Whether Jema consents or not and regardless of what the council thinks of that, the real issues are already surfacing. So I’m asking Jema to consent – not to merely say yes – to paying penance to me and the children. Because we have things we need to talk about. It isn’t just Jema who needs to talk; Rorag will also have to explain his part, and Emi and Anoyak will have to answer for why they didn’t step in when things got out of hand. I told you before that I also bear blame. It’s not an act of revenge to humiliate or even just to punish Jema, but she is the one carrying the bulk of the guilt, which puts her in the position Rorag demonstrated.”