The Family Tree

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “She tried to kill him,” said Jared’s mother, from out in the hall, early the following morning. “She was responsible…that woman he married.”

  Dora, hearing this, felt anger again. She almost never got angry, and here lately it was getting to be a habit, overreacting to stuff.

  The detective said, “Dora couldn’t have, Mrs. Gerber. She and her sister were elsewhere, and we’ve checked the story. The waitress at the restaurant remembers them. It all checks out. Besides, we don’t even know how he was hurt, yet.”

  Jared’s mama made an exclamation of surprise. Dora didn’t hear her say anything else.

  The next day, when the medical tests came back, they led only to further confusion. Jared’s heart had almost failed following the injection of an herbicidal compound. He had at least a hundred different puncture wounds on his arms, face and torso. Dora cried, “The weed by the front stoop! Jared sprayed it with weed killer. And when Jared grabbed it yesterday, he said it had thorns.”

  The lab sent someone to look at the weed, but as Polly pointed out to Dora, it had no thorns. “Jared must have been stuck by something else, Dora. Maybe there were bees on the plant when he grabbed it. The plant isn’t thorny at all. It’s just…just…well, I don’t know what it is exactly. The leaves look like oak leaves, but they’re in a frond like some kind of acacia. And look at the little seed heads.”

  “I didn’t know it had seeds,” said Dora. “It’s only been there a few days.”

  “It must have bloomed some time ago,” remarked Polly. “See the little puff balls? Like tiny dandelion heads.”

  There was a frothy bubble, no bigger than a pea, an assembly of mist or spiderweb or something equally tenuous. As they watched, the wind broke the tiny sphere to send its particles flying, silken shreds glinting with an almost metallic light as they spun and twisted, borne upward and outward on the soft breeze. Now that she was looking, Dora could see other seed heads all over the vine, and the next puff of wind surrounded them with glittering floss.

  Dora sneezed. “Cut that out,” she exclaimed.

  The weed just flirted its tendrils and went on shedding seeds into the wind.

  “I’d be glad to stay with you,” said Polly, who had already extended her visit to be with Dora through all the fuss. “I don’t want you to be alone here.”

  “I’m not going to be here for long,” she said, surprising herself. “You’ve sort of focused my mind, Polly, and I’m thankful for that. Now that you’ve done it, I’m going to get a divorce.”

  Polly rubbed her head as though it hurt. “Well, I’m not going to talk you out of it. You deserve a lot more than this.”

  Dora shook her head, torn between annoyance at herself and irritation at Polly’s taking it so calmly. “Everything dropped into place when you told me about Mrs. Gerber asking if I was a reliable cook and housekeeper. I’ve really known all along that’s what Jared wanted, just someone to cook and keep house, so he could move into his own place without sacrificing any of the comforts of home. I’ve known it, but I haven’t dealt with it. I’ve been acting as though I’d been hypnotized.” She giggled helplessly. “Maybe he put some kind of spell on me.”

  “Be thankful it didn’t last. I don’t suppose there’s any possibility you’re pregnant? It could foul things up if you are.”

  She would never have confessed it to anyone but Polly. “Giving Jared CPR the other night was as close as I’ve ever come to kissing him. There’s no possibility I’m pregnant. The very idea scares me. I don’t want to end up like Mother.”

  Polly hugged her. “Well, for heaven’s sake, Dora, nobody has to have nine children, one right after the other. Mother did that because it was easier than thinking, that’s all. If Mama and Daddy had been able to think, they’d have known it was selfish and wrong and they wouldn’t have done it!”

  “I know that. Intellectually I know it. Emotionally, though, what I remember is the mess and the confusion and nothing ever getting done. The clothes piled on the floor because no one put them away. The messy beds. The dirt in the corners, the cobwebs. The dirty plates all over the house. The smell of rotten food in the refrigerator. The cat poop in the back hall. The lawn that died because nobody watered it. The dead houseplants. I used to try, when I was there, but I couldn’t do it. I remember how Mama and Dad looked at each other, that steamy look. And then the noises from the bedroom….” She laughed, embarrassed. “And then afterward, all that luxuriating, mindless lethargy.” She shook her head, amazed at herself.

  “So, when you leave Jared, where are you going? An apartment, maybe?”

  She thought about it. “I don’t want an apartment. I need more privacy than that. I think a house. I’ve worked since I was eighteen, and I’ve saved some every year. Then I’ve got my share of the money we got for the farm when we sold it. I’ve got almost enough for a house of my own.”

  “You want me to stay and help you look?”

  Dora came back to herself and considered the offer. “Polly, sweetie, I think you’ve hung around here long enough. I think you ought to go on and have your vacation; you’ve earned it. My friend Loulee’s dying for a chance to be useful. And Charlene Dermot, Phil’s wife, is a realtor. Between the two of them, they’ll find me a place.”

  Polly said she’d leave the day after next; and while she was on the phone making reservations, Helen Gerber rang the doorbell. Dora asked her in, not too politely.

  Jared’s mother flushed, then fixed her eyes on the carpet. “I know you were upset with me the other day. I didn’t mean you, you know. When I said it was that woman’s fault—”

  “Well, who the hell else did you mean?” Dora wasn’t in a mood to be forgiving. “You said the woman he married—”

  “He was married before. To that Dionne girl, the slut.”

  Dora’s mouth fell open. “Married? Jared?”

  “She wasn’t even old enough to get married, only fifteen, but he ran off with her. First I knew of it was when he called me and said he’d run off with her and gotten married. I had to tell her mother, and she cursed him up one side and down the other and me, too. She said Jared had interfered with the girl, that he’d have to pay for it someday. Then when I told her I was having the marriage annulled, she just laughed. She said what Jared had started you couldn’t annul.” She sniffed. “Well, I got it annulled anyhow.”

  “And you think she’s responsible for poisoning Jared? We can sure find out, Momma Gerber. That’s a police job, and if you suspect her…”

  Momma Gerber shook her head slowly, mouth pinched. “No. The words just popped out of my mouth before I thought. It was all a tempest in a teapot, even back then, what? Almost thirty years ago! A couple of days after he went off with her, Jared came back and told me the girl had run away from him. He didn’t seem too broken up. Her mother went off looking for her, and I haven’t seen either one of them since. It’s just when I saw Jared there, so pale…the words just popped out.”

  “I’m not really following this,” Dora said. “Who exactly are we talking about?”

  The older woman looked momentarily confused. “I’m talking about the mother of the girl Jared married.”

  “Wasn’t she Mrs. Dionne?”

  “She and her girl were some kind of cousins who came to town that summer to visit the Dionnes. And all the boys in the neighborhood, including Jared, started trailing after the girl like dogs after a bitch in heat! And the Dionne boys told Jared to stay away from her, and I guess that made Jared mad, so he took her off and married her. Anyhow, the whole thing, fire and all, was over in a few weeks. That’s water over the dam, long gone, but I wanted to apologize.”

  Dora wasn’t ready to discuss the fact she was leaving Jared, so she contented herself with saying, “Thanks, Momma Gerber. I do appreciate your clarifying that.”

  She had the day free. Jared was out of intensive care. She dithered for a while until Polly asked her why she was so antsy.

  “I’m going to go tell Jared I�
��m leaving.”

  “While he’s in the hospital?”

  She’d been thinking about it. Somehow she didn’t like the idea of telling him later, after he was home, after they were alone in the house. “Yes,” she blurted. “While he’s there.”

  Polly asked, “You want me to come with you?”

  Dora almost said yes, then decided against it. It wasn’t Polly’s problem.

  Jared was alone in the room, propped up, staring at the wall. His eyes swiveled toward her when she came in, then went back to the wall, as though he were watching the denouement of some compelling television drama. She pulled the straight chair away from the wall and sat on it, waiting. Eventually he would get tired of ignoring her. If he didn’t, she could always start making annoying sounds in her throat.

  “Where’ve you been?” he asked at last, letting his eyes swivel in her direction once more.

  “At your place, Jared. And at work.”

  “You haven’t been here.”

  “Your mother’s been here. And I’ve called, every day, to see how you’re doing.”

  “I don’t like the food.”

  “Hospital food is usually pretty bad,” she admitted. “Do you need anything from your place?”

  He made a face without saying anything.

  “I came today to tell you something,” she began. He showed no interest. “I’m getting a divorce.”

  His eyes swiveled again. His head actually turned. “What do you mean, divorce? You can’t do that. I’ve given you no reason.”

  “Well, Jared, people don’t need specific reasons these days. It’s enough if you just aren’t happy, and you know, I’m not.”

  “Well, if you’re not happy, that’s your own fault,” he challenged her. “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

  She blinked slowly, turtlelike, pulling her psychological shell around her ears. Oil, not nitro, she reminded herself. “Well, you’re probably right, Jared. My happiness has nothing to do with you. And that being the case, we ought not to be married. The fact is I want a home of my own, but your home is so much yours, I don’t feel like I belong there.”

  No response.

  “You don’t really have room for some other person in your life, Jared. All you need is a cook-housekeeper, and I’m sure your momma can hire one for you. So, I’m going to be moved out when you come home.”

  He stared at her, or right through her, such a cold stare it set up an icy shiver inside. “But I’m used to you. You serve a purpose! I won’t allow it.”

  Words left her. Who or what did the man think he was? More important, who did he think she was?

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I really feel it’s best, for both of us.” Bland, meaningless, nothing words.

  He didn’t say anything more, just turned back to his private vision on the blank wall, leaving her with a shiver in her gut that stayed with her all the way home. Polly took one look at her face and said she’d help her pack. They spent the evening and all the next day packing everything that belonged to Dora, searching out every little thing, going through every drawer, every shelf, even though almost everything she owned was in the bedroom she’d used. The way Dora felt, just gathering up her things wasn’t enough! She cleaned every room in the house from ceiling to carpet; she scrubbed the bathroom; she changed the sheets on the bed and put the used ones through the washer. She emptied the lint trap in the drier and took the garbage out, then she vacuumed everything three times and threw out the vacuum bag.

  “What are we doing this for?” Polly asked. “You think he’ll conduct an inspection?”

  Dora laughed, a little hysterically. “I don’t want anything of me left here, Pol. Does that sound crazy?”

  “No hair? No toenail clippings?” Polly laughed. “You think he’s going to make a little doll and stick pins in it?”

  Dora sobered up. “Let’s just not leave any evidence I was ever here. Right? No skin flakes. No glass with my lipstick or fingerprints. No…no nothing.”

  “You do think he’ll put a hex on you!” Polly started to laugh, but stopped when she saw the look on Dora’s face. “What, Dory?”

  Dora shrugged. “Let’s pretend it’s symbolic, like a way of erasing the past.”

  Her expression said, don’t ask; Polly didn’t. They polished everything as they left each room, leaving the keys on the kitchen counter and going out by the kitchen door. As they were driving away, Dora remembered her secret key, the one she’d hidden in the trellis as a spare. Jared didn’t know about it. Jared wouldn’t approve. People who were properly organized didn’t need spare keys.

  Never mind. Let it stay there.

  They took a motel housekeeping unit where they could spend the night, and where Dora could stay until she found a place of her own. All that night she turned and half wakened and turned again, trying to get comfortable. Thoughts of Jared were like cracker crumbs in her bed, itchy and annoying. At last, along toward dawn, she fell asleep, only to be wakened a couple of hours later to take Polly to the airport.

  2

  Opalears Tells a Tale

  “The sultan wants you,” said the eunuch.

  I looked around to see who the eunuch meant. In the pool across the courtyard a clutch of concubines was playing a desultory game of ball. Half a dozen wives reclined on their royal divans in the high, screened balconies along the wall. A slave gang was scrubbing the tiled floor under the drowsy eyes of a slave-mistress, but I, myself, was the only person near the eunuch.

  “Me?” I faltered, hearing the word come out as a squeak.

  “Opalears, daughter of Halfnose.” The eunuch didn’t actually yawn from boredom, but he very nearly did, keeping his lips barely closed, so the longer teeth at the corners of his mouth showed, very white and sharp.

  “Now?” I said, squeaking again.

  “Now.” He turned and slunk away, leaving me tottering behind him, not sure what to do next.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Come on, girl. Don’t dither.”

  “But, I’m not…not…” I gestured hopelessly at my untidy self, halfway between fixing snacks in the kitchens and sorting linens in the laundry.

  “He doesn’t want you for that!” His furry eyebrows went up in astonishment as he grinned fiercely. “Why would he?”

  Which was a good question. Here in the Palace of Delights lived seventeen young wives of Sultan Tummyfat, all of them beautiful and voluptuous and politically useful. Here were also over two hundred young concubines, mostly nice looking, mostly politically useful, mostly selected to gain the support of this faction or that. Elsewhere, in the Autumn Garden, Sultan Tummyfat housed an unknown number of retired wives and concubines, his own or his father’s or uncle’s, and between the Autumn Garden and Palace of Delights, he had hundreds of female slaves, each attractive enough of her type, none of them heretics or members of an opposition family, and not particularly distinguishable one from another. I myself was a slave called Opalears, and I was among the youngest and least distinguishable. I was surprised that the eunuch even knew who I was.

  Which, it seemed, he wasn’t all that sure of himself.

  “You’re the storyteller, right?” the eunuch asked, looking me up and down as though tallying points against a description. So high, so thin, such and such color hair.

  “I tell stories,” I murmured. “But lots of us do.” And what else was there to do, shut up the way we all were?

  “You’re the one they like, though. Sultana Eyebright. Sultana Ivory-arms. Sultana Winetongue. They say you tell good ones.” He slitted his eyes at me, then turned and went on.

  “Very kind of them,” I murmured, trying to keep up with him. He was the one named Soaz. “Very kind.”

  “Got stories from your father, I suppose,” he said, leaping four or five steps at a time up the long flight of marble stairs while I scrambled to keep up. “I remember old Halfnose. He was a good storyteller, and a good quartermaster. Better than the idiot we’ve got now.”


  I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. I felt the tears start and couldn’t stop them.

  “Oh, mustard and growr,” said the eunuch, turning with a horrid scowl that made me cry all the harder. “I shouldn’t have mentioned him, should I. Stop here. We can’t go up with you sniffling.”

  I wiped my face on my sleeves, sniveling, “I was there,” which brought on another blubber.

  “At the execution? Yes, I suppose you were. Typical. The regent could be a cruel old bastard. Some of us tried to tell him Halfnose wouldn’t steal anything, but he wouldn’t listen. After the execution, then he listened. He always used to calm down after an execution. That’s when he took you in, was it?”

  I was wiping my face with my wadded up veil, trying to soak up the tears. “I don’t think he had much to do with it. I think it was Bluethumb.”

  “Well, whoever. You’ve had a home, at least.” He wiped at my cheeks with the backs of his hands, gave me a close looking over and then continued the climb. “That’s something.”

  I suppose it was something. A ten-year-old commoner orphan has small chance of survival out on the streets, except through degradation, so palace slavery had its good points. It wasn’t like being a mine slave or a field slave or a brickyard kiln slave or a sex slave in the brothels. I always had plenty to eat, good quality clothing to wear, even some amusements. And no one fooled with me. Add to that the fact the regent had died shortly after I came to the Palace of Delights, and my life wasn’t all bad. When they burned the horrible beastly creature, I was there, watching, relishing the smell, for when father died, I’d made an oath to avenge him, though I’d probably have been caught at it because I had no idea how to kill anyone. Since then, of course, I’d become well versed in killing. Half the harim occupied itself either putting curses on the other half, or warding off the curses that were put in return. The wives and concubines were secretive with one another, but they’d say anything in our hearing, as though slaves weren’t even people. I’d learned all about poisons, which many of the concubines preferred, and hired assassins, which only the sultanas had sufficient treasure to procure. Every female in the harim was constantly jockeying for position, if not for herself, then for her children or friends.