by Nōnen Títi
“Where’s the proof that Laytji alerted Frimon?”
Kunag shrugged. Nobody was supposed to know about that place. It was hard to find.
“So why was Laytji angry at you?”
Again, Kunag said he had no idea. It may have been because he hadn’t helped her when Jema made her cry on the night of the elections.
Leyon returned with two cups: one for Kunag and one for Benjamar.
“Why did you say that Laytji followed Kunag when you couldn’t have known, since you were inside?”
Leyon answered that Hani had told him she’d seen Laytji run after Kunag.
“That doesn’t prove she told Frimon.”
“It makes sense,” Leyon said.
The ease with which he made the accusation irritated Benjamar. “She’s your girlfriend. What makes you think she would do such a thing?”
“Because she likes Kunag more than me and I blamed her for causing the fight between me and him, so she dumped me.”
That didn’t explain anything as far as Benjamar was concerned. “How did I end up in the middle of these teenage problems for the second time in my life?”
His own sons had brought home their share, Skawag especially. Like Leyon, he’d been quick to decide right from wrong and act on it. It had landed him in trouble more than once, since his father had determined that if Tjarkag, who was younger, could be sensible, then so should Skawag. These two here were opposites: Kunag quiet and sensitive, Leyon boisterous.
“Aren’t you getting a bit old for these games?” he asked Leyon.
“So I’m a late starter. I was a user, what do you expect?” He made it clear he was joking, but then added a bit more seriously that he was only playing. “We didn’t do anything that morning, honest.”
An exchange of looks between the boys told Benjamar that Kunag knew what he was on about.
“What happened to the votes?” Leyon asked.
“I dumped them outside, as you must have noticed.”
“Do you know the results then?”
Leyon wasn’t stupid. He also knew that Tigor and Frimon had been most likely to win. He’d also been present at that damned challenge.
“What I do know is that the result of these elections was chaos and destruction. That is not the way to go.”
“What else happened that I don’t know about?” Kunag asked.
“More than anyone in your condition should be worrying about.”
Maike walked in. It seemed that Benjamar’s home had turned into a public meeting place. “Are you better?” she asked Kunag.
“Seem to be.” Actually Kunag looked tired. He carefully took little bites from his food.
“We have too many people of the same kind in this place,” Maike said.
How could they have too many of the same kind if they were at each other’s throats all the time?
“There are only three kinds of people if you ask me,” Maike answered. “Those who initiate for good or for bad, those who wait to be convinced by others and then follow, and those who follow without thinking; they stand by and applaud no matter what it is they’re witnessing.”
“So we have too many initiators?”
“No, too many of the third kind. It seems that half the village was out watching that beating last night. Only one person stepped in to stop it. I don’t think it would have gotten so out of hand in the first place if there’d been no mob to cheer Frimon on. And now they want retaliation.”
“How will we stop that?”
“I don’t know, Benjamar. It’s instinct. Even animals retaliate.” She nodded at Kunag.
“People abused one of them, so they tried to make it even, just like you did with Thalo,” Leyon said.
“I didn’t abuse him, I punished him,” Maike retorted.
“There’s no ‘even’ in nature. Each is just what it is,” Kunag told them.
There was nothing to say to that. The boy needed to sleep, so Benjamar ordered Leyon to stay with him and be silent until Nini came back and left with Maike. It was time to compile some information. “Just keep these people under control, will you?”
Maike walked to the bench. She would know he meant Jema and whoever would come after her from the direction of the Society homes. He’d go there last.
He walked north, up the farmer’s hill. Though Tigor was calm, his comate was very nervous around the both of them. She was a fragile woman and had become even more so after her only child had died. Benjamar made it very clear that this was not the end of it. They’d have some kind of trial. Kunag should have the right to speak in that, as would the other farmers, but today was too soon. Tigor once again expressed his regret about Kunag.
Next Benjamar went to see Wilam and Styna, whom Nini had just left. There was no limit to Styna’s words of gratitude for the three women who’d been with her, or her sorrow for Leni about what happened last night.
Benjamar was happy for Styna and Wilam, but he was most happy for Nini. “How is it that you and Leni get along fine, but the men don’t?”
Styna repeated what Daili had once told him: Men had the instinct to compete and women had a common bond, more than anything during the birth of a baby.
Benjamar told Wilam he should have not agreed to go and face Tigor. Maybe it hadn’t been wrong to go to Kolyag to find out if Tigor had a majority, but he’d expected Wilam to be sensible enough not to challenge these men. “You don’t go risking injury to protect a law, especially not if your comate is having a baby.”
Up to that moment Wilam had been the beaming new father. Now he looked like a young boy after a scolding.
“Anyway, a good thing came of it, Wilam. You stood up for yourself. You should do that more often, like to Jema the other day.”
“I know that, but it’s just that I always think too late of what I should have said.”
“What’s with Jema?”
Wilam told Styna what had happened during the elections. “I didn’t want to tell you I’d lost your vote to Tigor,” he said.
Styna’s happiness was boundless today and she just laughed at the story.
“Anyhow, it doesn’t matter anymore,” Benjamar said. He explained about the pebbles and then asked Wilam what he’d come for. How exactly was it he had found Kunag, and when?
Wilam told him he’d gone home with Kolyag after the fight. Elsa had been furious. Wilam had stayed with Kolyag, preferring to wait until the baby was born. Elsa had eventually gone over to see, but had returned with the news that Kunag was hurt, so they’d run back to the site and found the boy collapsed on top of one of those plamal creatures. He and Kolyag had assisted Nini and carried him down.
Benjamar left them saying he’d need Wilam in a trial later this kor. He found Kolyag in the Hearth of the same group of homes – another person who seemed to be involved every time there was trouble, yet he’d also been the first to run and help Kunag. Benjamar asked Kolyag for his version of both events. The answers confirmed what Wilam had told him: They’d left Kunag with Nini in Benjamar’s home and rushed back to see the new baby. Elsa and he had stayed there most of the evening to help out with Kristag, since the kids had gone to a party with Laytji.
Did Kolyag know anything about what happened at Frimon’s hearth last night?
Only that shortly after the children left for their party, Leni had been called away by her daughter. The rest he only knew from his children.
“Can I talk to your son?” Doret had been present at both events. He had also helped Aryan bring Tigor down. Like father like son?
Doret was only thirteen and happy enough to answer questions. Yes, he’d found Kunag. He’d been with Leyon when they heard the screaming.
“Were the two of you the only ones there at the time?”
No, Aryan had been there already.
“And you and Leyon were going where before you heard the screams? To the Society hearth?”
Doret blushed and exchanged looks with his sisters first, before admitting that they somet
imes did, but not then or Maike would have killed Leyon.
But they did go two days ago. Was that the last time?
Yes, Doret had been with Leyon that time as well. Kisya was his girlfriend so it was okay. She liked him coming.
“But Kisya wasn’t there, just Rorag?”
Doret didn’t deny it and described how Rorag and Laytji had approached each other, possibly to tease Leyon and maybe Frimon as well. He also said “yes” when asked if Laytji had been shouting at Frimon. She had called his atonement a perversity and she’d been rude and Doret didn’t think that Frimon had been wrong when he slapped her.
“And Leyon?”
He had only threatened Rorag, but Rorag had asked for it.
“How?”
Doret evaded the question and when Benjamar insisted he started stuttering.
“So why didn’t you jump in to stop Leyon killing Frimon?”
No clear answer came to that either. Aryan had been there by then. He was stronger.
Benjamar didn’t push it. “I may need you as a witness in that trial tomorrow,” he told Doret.
Over the east path Benjamar walked to the Society homes, now less confident of what he would find. He expected anger and demands, but was met with sadness and some confusion about what to do next. Maike’s words were confirmed: The crowd had been no help. There had been no physical fight. Frimon had not been pushed. Nevertheless there was a fair bit of resentment toward Jema.
Benjamar met Rorag at Leni’s home. The boy showed little sign of emotional upset. He didn’t ask about Kunag, so Benjamar told him. “What happened between the two of you two nights ago?”
Whether Rorag was in shock or just refusing to answer, Benjamar couldn’t tell, but he got no response to his questions. He talked with Leni a little. She was visibly hurting. She said she regretted not having stepped in earlier, mentioning, as Maike had, the mass hysteria of these meetings. Last night she’d not been there. She had still been at Styna’s. When Wilam and Kolyag returned from bringing Kunag to the central hearth, they had all shared a drink to the new baby. At Kundown Kristag had been brought back, at which the men had left and Leni had sent Flori home, but she had stayed behind herself to advise Elsa on what to be alert for. Then Emi had appeared insisting she’d come home. “Until that moment I believed it actually possible that the young people were having a party to which Rorag was also invited. I guess, as a parent, you keep hoping… against better judgment…” She paused to recompose herself, during which Rorag showed no emotional response. “And by the time we arrived home, it was too late.”
Did she know about the night before?
She knew that Rorag had walked off after a quarrel with his father over the atonement. Frimon had gone looking for him and had not yet been back when she’d left for Styna’s early in the morning. The rest she only knew from the kids.
Could he talk to them?
Leni sent Rorag out to find them.
How would they get on now?
Leni figured somebody else would stand up to lead the meetings. People wanted hierarchy and somebody who’d listen to them.
For a moment Benjamar considered mentioning the past. He had talked to Daili and to Frimon but never to Leni. However, that might be adding insult to injury in this case.
“Could you talk to your people, Leni? What is it they expect now? From me, from the village, from Jema? We can’t live as two separate groups. We need to be together in this; the kids as well.”
“I don’t know what my people, as you call them, want, Benjamar. I think it’s none of their business if they did nothing to help. Frimon’s life concerns me and the children, as does the burning of my print and I do know what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“I want Jema to repent for us.”
Benjamar was not totally surprised by this request, but what did Leni expect him to say to that? “I can’t allow that, Leni.”
“I’m not asking you to impose it, Benjamar. I want Jema to consent to it. This needs to be talked about.”
“But you’re not intending to just talk, Leni. Jema doesn’t share your beliefs.”
“Penance can help anybody. You don’t need to pray or to believe in the Divine Star for it.”
“But–”
“Penance, in the true sense of the word, deals with inner justice, Benjamar. You are used to working with facts and moral concepts, which are open to interpretation. But moral judgment is not justice, since most acts of evil are done in its name. It causes hatred. We go for emotions and motivations, which are less vulnerable to misunderstanding and cannot be right or wrong. I’m not asking for reasons or excuses and I’m not seeking punishment; I want the real person to address the real experience.”
Benjamar didn’t carry on about it. This wasn’t the time.
The four children came in together. Anoyak, no longer a boy, looked more upset than Rorag did about the loss. He confirmed that there had been an argument between Frimon and Rorag for the second night in a row. Rorag had stayed away all night, which worried Frimon, who’d gone looking for him and both had returned at around Kunup, very upset.
“What about last night, where were you?”
Anoyak had left the area on purpose. He’d spent the night with Bas, charting stars. He, too, was sorry now.
The girls agreed with his story. Emi had panicked, talked to Jema and then gone looking for Leni. She hadn’t seen the accident. Kisya had. She’d been waiting for her friends.
“Which friends?”
“Doret, Laytji, and Ilse.”
Benjamar let them go, little wiser about the underlying issues between all these people. He apologized for what happened. Apologized for Jema, since she wasn’t there. It wouldn’t help their loss, but it was all he could do. He left Leni with the unhappy task of organizing a ceremony and a cremation for Frimon – which was a hard word to use in the light of what had happened – and returned home to find Nini and Leyon just about to help Kunag to his own shelter.
Benjamar followed them. The effort of the short walk left Kunag exhausted.
“There are alternatives to the latrines,” Nini said, and put a jar on the ledge.
“No way. Never,” Kunag replied.
“I need to know. It’s important.”
“What if I honestly tell you?”
Nini shook her head and handed him a cup of water. “Better start drinking. I’m not joking, Kunag. The latrines are too far. You’ll be glad for it.”
Leyon was ordered to stay. “I’ll baby-sit,” he joked.
Kun was high above his head when Benjamar stepped outside. The day was half over and he still had people to talk to. He told Nini, who hadn’t had any sleep since being called out before Kunup yesterday, to go and rest, and summoned Laytji to his now-abandoned home. He had briefly spoken with all of them earlier, but too many contradictory stories surrounded her.
“I need to know where you went after leaving the Hearth two nights ago.”
She twisted every which way and came up with a story of having wandered around alone in distress for a long time. It didn’t sound impossible. It matched what Hani had said, but the outbursts of emotion that were meant to emphasize her hurt and loneliness seemed overdramatized, even for Laytji. He mentioned it.
“So now I’m not even allowed to have feelings anymore? As soon as I say something they all act as if I did something wrong!” she cried, though he’d not mentioned any wrongdoing.
“Did you go to that penance last night?”
“No, of course not. I had Kristag.”
“And after Kristag went home?”
“It was finished by then,” she said.
“But you knew about it?”
“So did everybody else!”
He pushed her a bit more. She didn’t mind going to the Society, did she? Even if Maike had said no. Even if she ridiculed Frimon’s beliefs, she still went to watch it all the time.
Her distress increased. She yelled that if everybod
y was allowed to go, then why couldn’t she? Hani went to see Emi all the time. Doret went for Kisya. Leyon and Ilse went. They were just hanging out.
“And that day when Leyon tried to kill Frimon?”
She’d gone because Leyon had gone. She did admit they’d been fighting. “I’m good enough to be with him when he wants company and then Kunag comes back and I’m no longer needed.” So she’d talked to Rorag.
“What did you say to Frimon?”
“Nothing! He hit me because he had a fight with Rorag.”
“What words did you use to him?”
Between the shrieks of anger and the tears, caused by him holding her arms, Benjamar thought he understood that she’d come to realize that Rorag had only approached her to spite his father and she felt betrayed and then had said something about the ritual.
“But you went to Rorag to spite Leyon?”
She tried to pull free.
“Did you alert Frimon to spite Rorag or were you angry at Kunag as well?”
She no longer tried to answer. She indulged in the moment, screaming at Benjamar for calling her a liar. The emotions might have been real, but the way she put it on was show and it started to get on his nerves. He couldn’t call her to order the way he could Leyon. He might have to confront her at the trial, but she’d be like Sinti and turn it into a water ballet.
“What did Rorag say to Leyon to upset him?” he asked, letting go of her arms in the hope it would calm her enough to spill the truth.
“I don’t KNOW!”
He’d heard enough. She could leave. He was tired of talking, but sleeping wasn’t an option yet, even now that he had his mat back. Now he’d have to deal with Jema… somehow. Her and that challenge, which he’d never thought would go beyond words. She must have been just as confident when she accepted his counter. She’d never become anybody’s servant. Could she live with the consequences? But then again, could she live now? He stopped at her shelter. “Jema, are you in there?” He tried not to be too loud in case Nini had just gone to sleep.