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I Live With You

Page 6

by Carol Emshwiller


  We scale the walls and drop into the edges of a vegetable garden. We walk carefully around tomatoes and strawberry plants, squash and beans. After that, raspberry bushes tear at our pants and untie our high-tops as we go by. There’s a row of barbed wire just beyond the raspberries. Easy to push down.

  I feel sad that the women want to keep us out so badly. I wonder, does Una want me not to come? Except they know we’re as determined as mothers. At least I am when it comes to Una.

  Una has always been nice to me. I often wonder why she likes me. I can understand somebody liking me now that I’m a colonel with silver on my epaulets, and a silver handled cane, but she liked me when I was nothing but a runty boy. She’s small, too. I always think Una and I fit together except for one thing, she’s beautiful.

  We swarm in, turn, each to our favorite place, the younger ones to what’s left over, usually other young ones. But then here we are, swarming back again, into their central square, the place with the well, and stone benches, and their one and only tree. Around the tree are the graves of babies. The benches are the mourning benches. We sit on them or on the ground. There’s nobody here, not a single woman nor girl nor baby.

  Then there’s the sound of shooting. We move from the central square—we can’t see anything from there. We hide

  BOYS behind the houses at the edges of the gardens. Our enemy stands along the top of the wall. We’re ambushed. We flop down. We have no rifles with us and only two pistols, mine and my lieutenant’s. This wasn’t supposed to be a skirmish. We have our daggers, of course.

  Those along the wall don’t seem to be very good shots. I raised my pistol. I’m thinking to show them what a good shot really is. But my lieutenant yells, “Stop! Don’t shoot. It’s mothers!”

  Women all along the wall! And with guns. Hiding under wall-colored shields. Whoever heard of such a thing.

  They shoot, but a lot are missing, I think on purpose. After all, we may be the enemy, but we’re the fathers of many of their girls and many of them. I wonder which one is Una.

  The women are angrier than we thought. Perhaps they’re tired of losing their boys to us and to the other side. I wouldn’t put it past them not to be on any side whatsoever.

  Our boys begin to yell their war cry but in a half hearted way. But then … one shot… a real shot this time. Good shot, too. One wonders how a woman could have done it. One wonders if it was a man who taught her. The boys are stunned. To think that one of their mothers or one of their sisters would shoot to kill. This is real. We hadn’t thought they’d harm us any more than we ever really harm them.

  It was my lieutenant they killed. One bloodless shot to the head. For that boy’s sake I’m glad at least no pain. He was wearing his ceremonial hat. I wasn’t wearing mine. I never liked that fancy heavy hat. I suppose they really wanted to kill me, but had to take second best since they couldn’t tell which one I was. Una would know which one was me.

  The boys scatter—back to the center square with its mourning tree. The women can’t see them back there. I stay to check on the dead lieutenant and to get his dagger and pistol. Then I limp back to where the boys are waiting for me to tell them what to do. Limp. I relax into it. I don’t care who sees. I haven’t exactly given up, though perhaps I have when it comes to my future. I’ll most likely be demoted. To be captured by women…. All twenty of us. If I can’t get out of this in an efficient and capable way, there goes my career.

  I hope they have the sense to come rescue us with a large group. They’ll have to make a serious effort. I hope they don’t try to fight and at the same time try to save the women for future use.

  But then we hear shooting again and we look out from behind the huts near the wall and see the women have turned their guns outwards. At first we think it’s us, come to rescue us, but it’s not. That’s not our battle cry, not our drum beats…. We can’t see from behind the walls so some of us go up on the roofs. There’s no danger, all the rifles are facing outwards, but our boys would have braved the roof without a word, as they always do.

  It’s not our red and blue banners. It’s their ugly green and white. It’s the enemy come to take advantage of our capture. We wish the women would get out of the way and let us go so we could fight for ourselves. Those women are breaking every rule of battle. They’re lying flat along their wall. Nobody can get a fair shot at them.

  It goes on and on. We get tired of watching and retreat to the square. We reconnoiter food from the kitchens. We eat better than we usually do. The food is so good we wish the women would let up a bit so we can enjoy it without that racket. Where did they get all these weapons? They must have found our ammunition caves and those of our enemy, too.

  The women do a pretty good job. By nightfall our enemy has fled back into their mountains and the women are still on top of their wall. It looks as if they’re going to spend the night up there. It’s a wide wall. Not as badly built as I told the boys it was.

  We find beds for ourselves, all of them better than our usual sleeping pads. I go to Una’s hut and lie where I had

  BOYS hoped to have a copulation.

  Cats prowl and yowl. All sorts of things live with the women. Goats wander the streets and come in any house they want to. All the animals expect food everywhere. Like the women, our boys are soft hearted. They feed every creature that comes by. I don’t let on that I do too.

  This whole thing makes me sad. Worried. If I could just have Una in my arms, I might be able to sleep. I have a “day dream” of her creeping in to me in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t even care if we had a copulation or not.

  In the morning boys climb to the roofs again to see what’s up. They describe women lying under shields all along the walls and they can see some of the enemy lying dead away from the walls. I need to climb up and see for myself. Besides it’s good for the boys to see me taking the same chances they do.

  I send the boys off and I take their place. I look down on the women along the wall. I see several rifles pointed at me. I stand like a hero. I dare them to shoot. I take all the time I want. I see wall sections less crowded with women. I take out my notebook (no leader is ever without one) and draw a diagram. I take my time until I have the whole wall mapped out.

  I could take out my pistol and threaten them. I could shoot one but it wouldn’t be very manly to take advantage of my high point. Were they men I’d do it. But then they do the unmanly thing. They shoot me. My leg. My good leg. I go down, flat on the roof. At first I feel nothing but the shock… as if I’d been hit with a hammer. All I know is I can’t stand up. Then I see blood.

  Though they’re on the wall, they’re lower. They can’t see me as long as I keep down. I crawl to the edge where boys help me. They carry me back to Una’s bed. I feel I’m about to pass out or throw up and I become aware that I’ve soiled myself. I don’t want the boys to see. I’ve always been a source of strength and inspiration in spite of or because of my size.

  One of those boys is Hob, come to help me, my arm across his shoulders. I lean in pain but keep my groans to myself.

  “Sir? Colonel?”

  “I’m fine. Will be. Go.”

  I wish I could ask him if he really is my son. They say sometimes the women know and tell the boys.

  “Don’t you want us to …”

  “No. Go. Now. And shut the door.”

  They leave just in time. I throw up over the side of the bed. I lie back—Una’s pillow all sweated up not to mention what I’ve done to her quilt.

  Una can make potions for pain. I wish I knew which, of the herbs hanging from her ceiling, might help me. But I’d not be able to reach them anyway.

  I lie, half conscious, for I don’t know how long. Every time I sit up to examine my leg, I feel nausea again and have to lie back. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to lead a charge or a raid for boys or a copulation day. And I always thought, when I became a general (and lately I felt sure I’d be one) maybe I’d find out what we’re fighting for—beyond,
that is, the usual rhetoric we use to make ourselves feel superior. Now I suppose I’ll never know the real reasons.

  The boys knock. I rouse myself and say, “Come.” Try, that is. At first my voice won’t sound out at all and then it sounds more like a groan than a word. The boys tell me the women have called down from the wall. They want to send in a spokesman. The boys want to let him in and then hold him hostage so that we’ll all be let out safely.

  I tell them the women will probably send in a woman.

  That bothers the boys. They must have had torture or killing in mind but now they look worried.

  “Tell them yes,” I say.

  It must smell terrible in here. I even smell terrible to myself, and it’s uncomfortable sitting in my own mess. I prop myself up as best I can. I hope I can keep to my senses. I hope I don’t throw up in the middle of it. I put my dagger, unsheathed, under the pillow.

  At first I think the boys were right, it’s a man, of course a man. Where would they have found him, and is he from our side or theirs? That’s important. I can’t tell by the colors. He’s all in tan and gray. He’s not wearing any stripes at all so I can’t tell his rank. He stands, at ease. More than at ease, utterly relaxed, and in front of a colonel.

  But then … I can’t believe it, it’s Una. I should have known. Dressed as a man down to the boots. I have such a sense of relief and after that joy. Everything will be all right now.

  I tell the boys to get out and shut the door.

  I reach for her, but the look on her face stops me.

  “You shot me in the leg on purpose, didn’t you! My good leg!”

  “I meant to shoot the bad one.”

  She opens all the windows, and the door again, too, and shoos the boys away.

  “Let me see.”

  She’s gentle. As I knew she’d be.

  “I’ll get the bullet out, but first I’ll clean you up.” She hands me leaves to chew for pain.

  As she leans, so close above me, her hair falls out of her cap and brushes my face, gets in my mouth as it does when we have copulation day. I reach to touch her breast but she pushes me away.

  I should kill her for the glory of it… the leader of the women. I’d not be thought a failure then. I’d be made a general in no time.

  But, as she pulls away the soiled quilts, she finds my dagger first thing. She puts it in the drawer with her kitchen knives.

  I think again how… (and we all know, only too well) how love is a dangerous thing and can spoil the best of plans. Even as I think it, I want to spoil the very plans I think of. I mean if she’s the leader then I could deal with her right now, as she leans over me—even without my dagger. They may be good shots, but can they wrestle a man? Even a wounded one?

  “I chose you because I thought, of all of them, you might listen.”

  “You know I won’t ever be let come down to copulation day again.”

  “Don’t go back then. Stay here and copulate.”

  “I have often thought to bring you up to the mountain dressed as a man. I have a place all picked out.”

  “Stay here. Let everybody stay here and be as women.”

  I can’t answer such a thing. I can’t even think about it.

  “But then what else do you know except how to be a colonel?”

  She washes me, changes the bed, and throws the bed clothes and my clothes out the door. Then she gets the bullet out. I’m half out of my head from the leaves she had me chew so the pain is dulled. She bandages me, covers me with a clean blanket, puts her lips against my cheek for a moment.

  Then stands up, legs apart. She looks like one of our boys getting ready to prove himself. “We’ll not stand for this anymore,” she says. “It has to end and we’ll end it, if not one way, then another.”

  “But this is how it’s always been.”

  “You could be our spokesman.”

  How can she even suggest such a thing. “Pillows,” I say. “Spokesman for the nipples.”

  Goodness knows what the mothers are capable of. They never stick to any rules.

  “If the answer is no, we’ll not have anymore boy babies. You can come down and copulate all you want but there’ll be no boys. We’ll kill them.”

  “You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. Not you, Una.”

  “Have you noticed how there are fewer and fewer boys? Many have already done it.”

  But I’m in too much pain and dizzy from the leaves she gave me, to think clearly. She sees that. She sits beside me, takes my hand. “Just rest,” she says. How can I rest with such ideas in my head? “But the rules.”

  “Hush. Women don’t care about rules. You know that.”

  “Come back with me.” I pull her down against me. This time she lets me. How good it feels to have us chest to chest, my arms around her. “I have a secret place. It’s not a hard climb to get there.”

  She pulls back. “Colonel, sir!”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  Then I say… what we’re not allowed to say or even think. It’s a mother/child thing, not to be said between a man and a woman. I say, “I love you.”

  She leans back and looks at me. Then wipes at my chin. “Try not to bite your lip like that.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “It does to me.”

  “I liked…. I like….” I already used the other word, why not yet again. “I love copulation day only when with you.”

  I wonder if she feels the same about me. I wish I dared ask her. I wonder if my son…. Is Hob hers and mine together? I’ve always hoped he was. She’s made no gesture towards him. She hasn’t even looked at him any more than any other boy. This would have been his first copulation day had the women not built their wall.

  “Rest,” she says. “We’ll discuss later.”

  “Is it just us? Or are you saying the same thing to the enemy? They could win the war like that. It would be your fault.”

  “Stop thinking.”

  “What if no more boys on either side, ever?”

  “What if?”

  She gives me more of those leaves to chew. They’re bitter. I was in too much pain to notice that the first time. I feel even sleepier right away.

  I dream I’m the last of all the boys. Ever. I have to get somewhere in a hurry, but there’s a wall so high I’ll never get over it. Beside, my legs are not there at all. I’m nothing but a torso. Women watch me. Women, off across the valley floor as far as I can see and none will help. There’s nothing to do but lie there and give the war cry.

  I wake shouting and with Una holding me down. Hob is there, helping her. Other boys are in the doorway looking worried.

  I’ve thrown the blanket and the pillow to the floor and now I seem to be trying to throw myself out of bed. Una has a long scratch across her cheek. I must have done that.

  “Sorry. Sorry.”

  I’m still as if in a dream. I pull Una down against me. Hold her hard and then I reach out for Hob, too. My poor ugly boy. I ask the unaskable. “Tell me, is Hob mine and yours together?”

  Hob looks shocked that I would ask such a thing, as well he should. Una pulls away and gets up. She answers as if she was one of the boys. “Colonel, sir, how can you, of all people, ask a thing like that.” Then she throws my own words back at me. “This is how it’s always been.”

  “Sorry. Sorry.”

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake stop being so sorry!”

  She shoos the boys from the doorway but she lets Hob stay. Together they rearrange the bed. Together she and Hob make broth for me and food for themselves. Hob seems at home here. It’s true, I’m sure. This is our son.

  But I suppose all this yearning, all this wondering, is due to the leaves Una had me chew. It’s not the real me. I’ll not pay any attention to myself.

  But there’s something else. I didn’t get a good look at my leg yet, but it feels like a serious wound. If I can’t climb up to our stronghold, I’ll not ever be able to go home. I shouldn’t, even so, a
nd though my career is in a shambles…. I shouldn’t let myself be lured into staying here as a copulator for the rest of my life. I can’t think of anything more dishonorable. I should send Hob back to the citadel to report on what’s happened and to get help. If he was found trying to escape, would Una let the women kill him?

  I try to get Hob alone so I can whisper his orders to him. Only when Una goes out to the privy do I get the chance. “Get back to the citadel. Cross the wall tonight. There’s no moon.” I show him my map and where I think there are fewer women. I want to tell him to take care, but we don’t ever say such things.

  In the morning I tell Una to tell my leaders to come in to me. I’m in pain, in a sweat, my beard is itchy. I ask Una to clean me up. She treats me as a mother would. Back when my mother did it, I pulled away. I wouldn’t let her get close to me. I especially wouldn’t let her hug or kiss me. I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted nothing to do with mother things.

  All the boys are looking scruffy. We take pride in our cleanliness, in shaving everyday, in our brush cuts, and our enemy is as spic and span as we are. I hope they don’t launch an offensive today and see us so untidy.

  I’m glad to see Hob isn’t with them.

  I find it hard to rouse myself to my usual humor. I say, “Pillows, nipples,” but I’m too uncomfortable to play at being one of the boys.

  I’d prefer to recuperate some, but the boys are restless already. I can’t be thinking of myself. We’ll storm the wall. I show them the map. I point out the less guarded spots. I grab Una. Both her wrists. “Men, we’ll need a battering ram.”

  Wood isn’t easy to get out here on the valley floor. This is a desert except along the streams, but every village has one tree in the center square that they’ve nurtured along. As here, baby’s graves are always around it. In other villages, most are cottonwood, but this one is oak. It’s so old I wouldn’t be surprised if it hadn’t been here since before the village. I think the village was built up around it later.

 

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