She finds she’s telling them this story. In a gabble, in a moan. She cannot stop telling this story, as if by telling it she could go back now just a little way along the path, and put her body between Jos and the harm that found her.
Margot says, ‘How can we stop this happening?’
They tell the Senator it has already happened.
Margot says, ‘No, how can we stop it happening again?’
There is a voice in Margot’s head. It says: You can’t get there from here.
She sees it all in that instant, the shape of the tree of power. Root to tip, branching and re-branching. Of course, the old tree still stands. There is only one way, and that is to blast it entirely to pieces.
In a mailbox in rural Idaho, a package sits unclaimed for thirty-six hours. It is a yellow padded envelope, about the size of three paperback books, though it rattles a little when shaken. The man who is sent to the post office for it feels it suspiciously. It has no return address: doubly suspicious. But there’s no solid bulk that might indicate a home-made bomb. He slits it open along the side with a pocket knife, just to be certain. Into the palm of his hand tumble eight undeveloped rolls of photographic film, one by one. He peers in further. There are notebooks, and USB sticks.
He blinks. He’s not a smart man, though he is a cunning one. He hesitates for a moment, thinking this package might be just another piece of junk sent to the group by men who are more crazy than disaffected. They’ve wasted time before on meaningless trash that men claimed represented the Start of the New Order. He’s been personally berated by UrbanDox for bringing back parcels that might contain tracking devices within home-made muffins, or inexplicable gifts of jockey shorts and lube. He pulls a handful of the notes out at random and reads the even hand.
‘For the first time today on the road I was afraid.’
He sits in his pickup truck, considering it. There have been others he’s thrown away without hesitation, others he knows he must bring back.
In the end, the thought slowly crosses his mind that the camera films or the USB sticks might contain nudie pictures. Might as well see what they are, anyway.
The man in the pickup tips the rolls of film back into the envelope, and pokes the notes in after them. Might as well.
Mother Eve says, ‘When a multitude speak with one voice, that is strength and that is power.’
The crowd roars its assent.
‘We speak with one voice now,’ she says. ‘We are one mind. And we call upon America to join us in the struggle against the North!’
Mother Eve holds up her hands for silence, showing the eyes in the centre of her palms.
‘Will the greatest nation on the Earth, the land where I was born and raised, look on while innocent women are slaughtered and while freedom is destroyed? Will they watch in silence while we burn? If they abandon us, who will they not abandon? I call on women across the world to bear witness to what happens here. Bear witness and learn what you can expect to happen to you. If there are women in your government, hold them to account, call on them to act.’
Convent walls are thick, and convent women are clever, and when Mother Eve warns them that the apocalypse is near at hand and only the righteous will be saved, she can call the world to a new order.
The end of all flesh is near, because the Earth is filled with violence. Therefore, build an ark.
It will be simple. That is all they want.
There are days that follow one after the next after the next. While Jocelyn heals, and while it becomes clear that she will never fully heal, and while something hardens in Margot’s heart.
She appears on the television to talk about Jos’s injuries. She says, ‘Terrorism can strike anywhere, at home or abroad.’ She says, ‘The most important thing is that our enemies, both global and domestic, must know that we are strong and that we will retaliate.’
She looks down the camera lens and says, ‘Whoever you are, we will retaliate.’
She can’t afford to look weak, not at a time like this.
It’s not long after that when the phone call comes. They say there’s been a credible threat from an extremist group. They’ve gotten hold somehow of pictures from inside the Republic of the Women. Pasted them all over the internet, saying they were taken by a guy we all know has been dead for weeks. Terrible pictures. Probably Photoshopped, can’t be real. They’re not even making demands, just rage and fear and threats of attacks unless – God, I don’t know, Margot – unless something is done, I guess. The North is already threatening Bessapara with missiles over it.
Margot says, ‘We should do something.’
The President says, ‘I don’t know. I feel like I should extend an olive branch.’
And Margot says, ‘Believe me, at a moment like this you need to appear stronger than ever. A strong leader. If that nation has been assisting and radicalizing our home-grown terrorists, we must send them a message. The world must know that the United States is willing to escalate. If you hit us with one jolt, we will hit you with two.’
The President says, ‘I can’t tell you how much I respect you, Margot, for the way you can carry on, even with what’s happened.’
Margot says, ‘My country comes first. We need strong leadership.’
There is a bonus in her contract if NorthStar deployments around the world top fifty thousand women this year. The bonus would buy her a private island.
The President says, ‘You know there are those rumours they got hold of ex-Soviet chemical weapons.’
And Margot thinks in her heart: Burn it all down.
There is a thought in those days. It is that five thousand years is not a very long time. Something has been started now that must find its conclusion. When a person has taken a wrong turn, must she not retrace her steps, is that not wise? After all, we’ve done it before. We can do it again. Different this time, better this time. Dismantle the old house and begin again.
When the historians talk of this moment they talk about ‘tensions’ and ‘global instability’. They posit the ‘resurgence of old structures’ and the ‘inflexibility of existing belief patterns’. Power has her ways. She acts on people, and people act on her.
When does power exist? Only in the moment it is exercised. To the woman with a skein, everything looks like a fight.
UrbanDox says: Do it.
Margot says: Do it.
Awadi-Atif says: Do it.
Mother Eve says: Do it.
And can you call back the lightning? Or does it return to your hand?
Roxy sits with her father on the balcony, looking out at the ocean. It’s nice to think that, whatever happens, the sea will always be here.
‘Well, Dad,’ says Roxy, ‘you fucked that one up, didn’t you?’
Bernie looks at his hands, palms and back. Roxy remembers when those hands were the most terrifying thing in the world to her.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Suppose so.’
Roxy says, with a smile in her voice, ‘Learned your lesson, have you? You’ll do it differently next time?’
And they’re both laughing, Bernie’s head tipped back to the sky and all his nicotine-stained teeth and fillings showing.
‘I should kill you, really,’ says Roxy.
‘Yeah. You should, really. Can’t afford to be soft, girl.’
‘That’s what they keep telling me. Maybe I’ve learned my lesson. Took me long enough.’
At the horizon, there is a flash across the skyline. Pink and brown, although it is nearly midnight.
‘Bit of nice news,’ she says. ‘I think I’ve met a bloke.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Early days,’ she says, ‘and with all this, it’s a bit complicated. But yeah, maybe. I like him. He likes me.’ She laughs her old, throaty growl. ‘I got him out of a country full of mad women trying to kill him, and I own an underground bunker, so obviously he likes me.’
‘Grandchildren?’ says Bernie, hopefully.
Darrell and Terry are gone.
Ricky’s not going to be able to do anything in that department ever again.
Roxy shrugs. ‘Might do. Someone’s got to survive these things, haven’t they?’
A thought occurs to her. She smiles. ‘Bet if I had a daughter she’d be strong as fuck.’
They have another drink before they go down.
Apocrypha excluded from the Book of Eve
Discovered in a cave in Cappadocia, c. 1,500 years old.
The shape of power is always the same: it is infinite, it is complex, it is forever branching. While it is alive like a tree, it is growing; while it contains itself, it is a multitude. Its directions are unpredictable; it obeys its own laws. No one can observe the acorn and extrapolate each vein in each leaf of the oak crown. The closer you look, the more various it becomes. However complex you think it is, it is more complex than that. Like the rivers to the ocean, like the lightning strike, it is obscene and uncontained.
A human being is made not by our own will but by that same organic, inconceivable, unpredictable, uncontrollable process that drives the unfurling leaves in season and the tiny twigs to bud and the roots to spread in tangled complications.
Even a stone is not the same as any other stone.
There is no shape to anything except the shape it has.
Every name we give ourselves is wrong.
Our dreams are more true than our waking.
Dear Neil,
Well! I must say first of all that I like your contortionist Mother Eve! I’ve seen some of those things done at the Underground Circus and I’ve been very impressed – one of those women made my hand wave at everyone in the room, and even Selim could hardly believe afterwards that I hadn’t done it myself. I suppose lots of things in the ancient scriptures can be accounted for that way. And I see what you’ve done with Tunde – I’m sure something like that has happened to thousands of men down the generations. Misattributions, anonymous work assumed to be female, men helping their wives or sisters or mothers with their work and getting no credit, and yes, simple theft.
I have some questions. The male soldiers at the start of the book. I know you’re going to tell me that ancient excavations have found male warrior figures. But really, I suppose this is the crux of the matter for me. Are we sure those weren’t just isolated civilizations? One or two amongst millions? We were taught in school about women making men fight for entertainment – I think a lot of your readers will still have that in mind when you have those scenes where men are soldiers in India or Arabia. Or those feisty men trying to provoke a war! Or gangs of men locking up women for sex … some of us have had fantasies like that! (Can I confess, shall I confess, that while thinking about this I … no, no, I can’t confess it.) It’s not just me, though, my dear. A whole battalion of men in army fatigues or police uniforms really does make most people think of some kind of sexual fetish, I’m afraid!
I’m sure you learned the same thing as I did in school. The Cataclysm happened when several different factions in the old world were unable to reach an accord, and their leaders stupidly each thought they could win a global war. I see you have that here. And you mention nuclear and chemical weapons, and of course the effect of electromagnetic battles on their data-storage devices is understood.
But does the history really support the idea that women didn’t have skeins much before the Cataclysm? I know, I know about the occasional statues we find of women without skeins from before the Cataclysm, but that could just be artistic licence. Surely it makes more sense that it was women who provoked the war. I feel instinctively – and I hope you do, too – that a world run by men would be more kind, more gentle, more loving and naturally nurturing. Have you thought about the evolutionary psychology of it? Men have evolved to be strong worker homestead-keepers, while women – with babies to protect from harm – have had to become aggressive and violent. The few partial patriarchies that have ever existed in human society have been very peaceful places.
I know you’re going to tell me that soft tissue doesn’t preserve well, and we can’t look for evidence of skeins in cadavers that are five thousand years old. But shouldn’t that give you pause, too? Are there any problems that your interpretation solves that the standard model of world history leaves unsolved? I mean, it’s a clever idea, I’ll grant you. And maybe worth doing for that reason alone, just as a fun exercise. But I don’t know if it advances your cause to make an assertion that just can’t be backed up or proved. You might tell me that it’s not the job of a work of history or fiction to advance a cause. Now I’m having an argument with myself. I’ll wait for your reply. I just want to challenge your thinking here before the critics do!
Much love,
Naomi
Dearest Naomi,
Thank you, first of all, for taking the time and trouble to read the manuscript. I was afraid it was practically incoherent – I’m afraid I’ve lost all sense of it.
I have to say I … don’t think much of evolutionary psychology, at least as it relates to gender. As to whether men are naturally more peaceful and nurturing than women … that will be up to the reader to decide, I suppose. But consider this: are patriarchies peaceful because men are peaceful? Or do more peaceful societies tend to allow men to rise to the top because they place less value on the capacity for violence? Just asking the question.
Let’s see, what else did you ask? Oh, the male warriors. I mean, I can send you images of hundreds of partial or full statues of male soldiers – they’ve been unearthed around the world. And we know how many movements have been devoted to completely obliterating all traces of the time before – I mean, just the ones we know about number in the thousands. We find so many smashed statues and carvings, so many obliterated marking stones. If they hadn’t been destroyed, imagine how many male soldier statues there’d be. We can interpret them however we like, but it’s actually pretty clear that around five thousand years ago there were a lot of male warriors. People don’t believe it because it doesn’t fit with what they already think.
As to whether you find it believable that men could be soldiers, or what your sexual fantasies are about battalions of uniformed men … I can’t be held responsible for that, N! I mean, I take your point, some people will just treat it as cheap porn. That’s always the tawdry inevitability if you write a rape scene. But surely serious people will see through that.
Oh yes, OK, you ask, ‘Does the history really support the idea women didn’t have skeins much before the Cataclysm?’ The answer is: yes. It does. At least, you have to ignore a huge raft of archaeological evidence to believe otherwise. This is what I’ve tried to communicate in my previous history books but, as you know, I don’t think anyone wanted to hear it.
I know you probably didn’t mean it to come across as patronizing, but it’s not just ‘a fun idea’ to me. The way we think about our past informs what we think is possible today. If we keep on repeating the same old lines about the past when there’s clear evidence that not all civilizations had the same ideas as us … we’re denying that anything can change.
Oh God, I don’t know. Now I’ve written that, I feel more uncertain than I did before. Were there particular things that you’ve read elsewhere that made you feel uncertain about this book? I might be able to work them in somewhere.
Much love. And thanks again for reading it. I really do appreciate it. When yours is done – another masterpiece, I’m sure! – I owe you a practical criticism essay on every chapter!
Love,
Neil
Dear Neil,
Yes, of course I didn’t mean ‘fun’ in the sense of ‘trivial’ or stupid. I hope you know I’d never think that about your work. I have a lot of respect for you. I always have had.
But all right, as you’ve asked … there’s an obvious question for me. What you’ve written here contradicts so many of the history books we all read as children; and they’re based on traditional accounts going back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. What is it that you think happened? A
re you really suggesting that everyone lied on a monumental scale about the past?
All love,
Naomi
Dear Naomi,
Thanks for getting back so quickly! So, in answer to your question: I don’t know if I have to be suggesting that everyone lied.
For one thing, of course, we don’t have original manuscripts dating back more than a thousand years. All the books we have from before the Cataclysm have been re-copied hundreds of times. That’s a lot of occasions for errors to be introduced. And not just errors. All of the copyists would have had their own agendas. For more than two thousand years, the only people re-copying were nuns in convents. I don’t think it’s at all a stretch to suggest that they picked works to copy that supported their viewpoint and just let the rest moulder into flakes of parchment. I mean, why would they re-copy works that said that men used to be stronger and women weaker? That would be heresy, and they’d be damned for it.
This is the trouble with history. You can’t see what’s not there. You can look at an empty space and see that something’s missing, but there’s no way to know what it was. I’m just … drawing in the blank spaces. It’s not an attack.
Love,
Neil
Dearest Neil,
I don’t think it’s an attack. It’s hard for me to see women portrayed as they are at times in this book. We’ve talked about this often. How much ‘what it means to be a woman’ is bound up with strength and not feeling fear or pain. I’ve been grateful for our honest conversations. I know you’ve sometimes found it difficult to form relationships with women; and I understand why. I’m so grateful that we’ve preserved a friendship out of what we had, though. It was so important to me that you listened when I said things that I’d never have been able to tell Selim or the children. The scene of the skein-removal was very hard to read.
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