by Nōnen Títi
Her voice had a calming effect; Leyon turned from a rigid plank into jelly. Aryan held on just in case, but less tightly as he scanned the room. They were all staring at them.
Jema’s words turned to questions. “What did he say? I need to know. It’s okay to tell us. What was it he said to you?”
Leyon was in no condition to say anything, more confused than angry. Jema didn’t wait for answers but kept repeating the words, and then, in the same tone of voice, addressed Doret: “You need to tell.”
Doret, pale like Leyon, stared with wide eyes, but Jema didn’t wait for a response from him; she focused back on Leyon.
“Can somebody tell me what’s going on?” Benjamar demanded when Yako started to pressure Doret into saying what Jema had asked for.
Aryan knew by then. They were using the power of the room to force a truth between the kids. “You’ve got nine adults together here, Benjamar. It’s your only chance to get them to spill it all before one of them ends up dead.”
“Rorag doesn’t know. He’s just guessing. All you need to do is say ‘no’. You reacted differently, that’s all, and I think I know why. Listen to me; it’s over.” Jema kept repeating herself, insisting it wasn’t Leyon’s fault – whatever it was.
Next to them, Benjamar took over from Yako by hauling Doret to his feet. “What exactly was it that Rorag said to Laytji? Exactly!”
What had not come for Yako now came rolling out of Doret: “He said she should find a boy who likes girls.”
Leyon stiffened. For just a fraction Jema looked up to make sure Aryan was still with her and then continued her monologue. “You see, he wasn’t talking about you. She’d gone to him just then. Rorag must have known it would upset you.”
Aryan listened to the tone more than the words, aware of the boy’s physical responses. On the other side of the room, Rorag watched and listened.
“You reacted differently. Something from before, maybe from long ago, made you upset about it. Tell me, Leyon. If you tell us, nobody can hurt you anymore.”
Aryan started to get the picture. “At the trefin they fought over that. He told me the kid was born in the wrong nest.”
“There are no wrong nests!” After that short outburst, Jema returned to her amiable voice. “What they did to you when you were little, it isn’t your fault. It’s over.”
Benjamar spun around from facing Doret and sat down next to Leyon. “Are you sure that’s what it is?” he asked Jema. “Did your father violate you, Leyon, or is it what Thalo did to you?”
The answer came from the boy’s body. Jema felt it too. “What?”
“Shut up, Benjamar! Don’t do that to him.” For the second time Maike was ready to attack. She shoved Yako out of the way and almost fell on top of Benjamar, shouting at him to stop the interrogation.
Struck by the intensity, Aryan jumped up, letting go of Leyon – who landed on the floor in front of the ledge, Jema still on top of him – and managed to get a hold of Maike’s arms. He started pushing her backwards. She fought and kicked so hard it aroused the attention of every muscle in his body, even the one he’d thought had shrivelled up. Just before he could lose control over that, Yako came to his aid. Together they convinced Maike to sit down on her side of the ledge. The moment she did so, Nini joined them and knelt in front of her. “Does Aryan know what happened on Habitat Three? Does he know all of it?”
Maike tried to remove Nini’s hands from her legs without success. “It’s nobody’s business.”
“I think it is. I think he has a right to know.”
“You swore you’d never tell!” Maike shouted at her, silencing the people on the other side of the room.
“I won’t tell, but you will. Aryan needs to know,” Nini answered quietly.
“What do I need to know?” Aryan asked, sure he’d be sorry soon.
He was right. Only Nini had known what Thalo had done to Maike. She’d kept it a secret. Would have even now… “You would have killed him,” she said.
She was right. He would have, but he’d not known. He’d scorned her for belting the man. “So what I said to you on the expedition…?”
Maike nodded. It had been only too true.
“I didn’t know.” What else could he say? Had Leyon known? Was that why he’d attacked Thalo – to defend Maike? Aryan looked back at the boy, who was sitting up, still on the floor and leaning against Jema, who had her arms around him. There was no fight left in him.
“Thalo got to him too. He used Haslag for power,” Maike said.
Haslag, who had spoken nothing but praise about Maike’s act on SJilai? Was this why? Had he been used to overpower Maike as well?
Maike said yes.
“And to think I considered him my friend!” Aryan felt the hairs on his neck jump up. If town wasn’t as far away, he’d go to Haslag right now–
“So now you know. I was only trying to protect Leyon,” Maike told him.
“Some things are better talked about, Maike,” Nini said. “Not only because they can no longer be used against you, but also because they lose their power as a weapon to be used by you.”
“I know, Nini. I know Leyon was using it to get his revenge. Maybe I even let him.” She looked up at Aryan. “I was afraid to tell you. I was afraid you’d kill them. I never meant to play the hero, Aryan. I just didn’t want you to get in trouble.”
“You’re right. If I’d known, I would have killed him and I would have preferred being imprisoned for that over your not telling me.”
“I’m sorry,” Maike said.
Once everybody started getting up, Aryan returned to his side of the shelter, where Jema had resumed talking to Leyon. “You see, it wasn’t your fault and he didn’t get you in the end, because you are here and he’s not. He’s gone, poof, into the ocean, nothing left, but you are here. He hurt your body, but you are not just your body; you are what’s inside it. You are your ideas and your inventions and your jokes and that’s the person we like around here.”
Aryan felt both curious and sorry for Leyon, who had been abused his whole life – not only as a boy, but on SJilai and even here by a kid a kor younger than he was. “How did he know?” he asked Jema, nodding at Rorag.
She answered the question, addressing Leyon. “Because you told him so yourself, without words, the very first time he hinted at it. You were afraid of the words and Rorag used them to get you angry. But the words didn’t mean the same to him as they did to you. He didn’t know what memories they caused in you, because to him those same words mean something different.”
“Is that why Laytji said they were going to a party when she knew they would beat him?” Wilam asked.
Yako said no; in that case the word had been used as a code so they wouldn’t be forbidden to go.
“Or maybe it was a party to Rorag,” Jema said, still holding Leyon, but looking at Frimon’s son. “Did you invite Laytji and Leyon?”
Between them the air filled with a charge no immobilizer would be able to match, lighting up the answer in front of Aryan. But how had she worked that out? It didn’t make sense. And the boy was only fourteen… Benjamar had asked why Rorag came out beaten in every quarrel, but he had not; he’d been physically beaten, but he had hit back with words and won… until just now. Jema had taken the weapon from him.
“The only thing I fear anymore…”
In the surprised silence, Leyon answered himself: “Benjamar’s tongue.”
For a moment the room was filled with nervous laughter. Leyon was looking around, checking for a reaction, grinning again. Benjamar let the moment be. This release of tension was desperately needed and the boy had done it with one sentence. Yet there was no possible way that this was still a trial nor could it continue. His eyes found Leni. She shook her head ever so slightly.
“How?” he asked. “Don’t you think something has changed?”
“Indeed it has. Now more than ever do I want Jema and Rorag talking.”
“They can talk here.
Everybody else seems to be managing fine.”
Leni turned to Jema without acknowledging him. “How about it? We could have this meeting end right now.”
“It won’t help,” Jema answered.
Something had changed in her. Once he’d understood what she was doing, Benjamar had looked on, amazed by her affectionate involvement with the boy, which had allowed Leyon to express what he never had before. But now that Leyon was back to being his cheeky self, Jema had lost all her warmth and was once again playing the impassive onlooker.
Benjamar took a long, deep breath when he stepped out for a moment to take the lamp in. Why couldn’t Leni give them a break? But then again, had he given Sotyar a break? And how many people like Wilam had not lost their children for one mistake? He put the lamp in the entrance so it wouldn’t be in the way and returned to his seat, nodding for Leni to go ahead.
“Jema, I need you to answer me something.” Leni said. “The children you worked with on DJar, the ones Nini told us about, did they ever get better?”
“No.”
“So they self-inflicted over and over again. Could it be that the guilt of the act itself made a cycle?”
“No, they were past all social stigmata.”
“Did they do it for attention?”
“No, more from a desperate act to block out their fears and pain, the loneliness.”
“What would have made them better, provided there was a chance?”
“Something real. More than the daily practicalities,” Jema answered.
“Like a physical beating? What they were trying to do themselves?”
“Or cuddles, being held. …Only it backfires if you can’t be there every day.” With that last sentence she sighed and relaxed her thus far rigid posture a little.
“Are you saying it didn’t matter too much which, as long as it was intimate either way?” Leni asked quietly.
In the moment of silence, Benjamar caught Jema’s pleading look. She needed his help.
“Now do you see why penance could work? You still see it as humiliation, but Jema, it is pride that’s the problem. Embarrassment is hurt pride. My mother used to say that pride was deadly; I think she was right. Frimon should be proof of that.”
Benjamar knew where that expression came from. “I agree with you, Leni, but however deadly pride can be, I’m not yet convinced that humility can solve problems. I know you consider penance a blessing, but I cannot see how it can help people. Frimon should be proof of that as well.”
Even when sad, Leni managed to smile. She did not lose that calm determination, which was slowly getting on his nerves. She dried her eyes while answering him. “What Frimon did was replace the humility of penance with pride for being able to be humble. That doesn’t work either. I’m not asking for penance out of a need to humiliate people, Ben; I’m asking because I know it will help all of us. I know where you come from and I understand you’d never do it, but I’m not asking you. I’m asking Jema.”
“No, I wouldn’t, Leni. That’s why I can’t ask it of anybody else either. What I’m asking you is to give us all a bit more time to consider.”
She shook her head again.
Stubborn woman. He’d have to get on with it or they’d never get out. “I want a vote from the council on whether we accept Rorag and Leni’s request for penance from Jema in order to repay Frimon’s death. Yes or no.”
“I never asked for payback, just penance. Jema knows why,” Rorag responded.
“Maybe you should explain that to us,” Yako said.
“No. We don’t talk about it before. Never before. Just between the people who are invited.”
“And that will be you and Leni?”
“Yes, and my family and whoever comes for Jema, but not all the others. Most come only to see the beating–” Rorag paused and glared at Jema. “–and that’s why I invited them that night.”
Benjamar felt a surge of anger go through him. “Don’t be ridiculous! Nobody was invited. Somebody spied on you and Kunag, and ran to tell Frimon!”
“How would you know?”
Taking a deep breath, Benjamar controlled his impulse to silence the child. So far he’d been lenient in view of the loss Rorag had suffered, but he couldn’t deal with these provocations any longer.
“Because the facts add up,” Maike said to Rorag, and began listing the evidence: if neither Jema nor Kunag had told anybody, the only possible answer was that the person who knew about the penance must have been spying.
“But they still came to watch, didn’t they? Do you know why they did that?”
“Why would that be?” Benjamar asked, trying to mock the boy’s slow and scornful manner. Right now he wouldn’t in the least mind if Leni gave him one.
“Because they all wanted to be in my place, but they’re not allowed to feel that, so they come to pretend. I gave them what they wanted – you can’t deny that. Just like the Land Beyond was DJar’s way of killing the person who made you feel the feelings you pretended not to have.”
Leni finally silenced him.
“I think that’s going a bit far,” Yako said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Aryan replied. “Rorag has a point. We’ve seen what happened at the beach. People have an instinctive need to hurt or to see hurt done to someone.”
“It’s not the physical hurt they’re after. It’s even more basic than that,” Maike added. “It’s rape they want, even if not sexual. Guards and soldiers call it ‘doing their duty’, but the only motivation that drives them is the pleasure it gives them, no exceptions. Believe me, I know. What I did on SJilai was my rape of Thalo; of his pride, not of his body – that wasn’t his vulnerable part.”
“Actually it isn’t pleasure that drives them but simple survival instinct. All of life is no more than a vibration of a note in a cosmic song called ‘procreation’,” Nini said.
Benjamar hushed all of them. This was not the subject for this meeting. He had admitted that there may be a place for emotions as a motivation for people’s actions, but this was getting ridiculous and it wouldn’t bring them to a solution.
Leni objected. “Don’t silence the truth. That doesn’t help. We’re not blaming anybody, but you have to admit that it’s presumptuous to believe that justice can be spoken without considering that people have lives outside of the courtroom.”
“Lives yes, but not some secret pact with the devil they want to get rid of!”
“Whose devil, Ben?” Leni asked. “Who is it that claims evolution but denies instincts? Who judges by impartial laws written for rational, moral and altruistic creatures that are hypothetical? You worship a life form that cannot exist and use your courtrooms to condemn to the Land Beyond the real life that frightens you.”
Benjamar wished for a moment he still had the certainty of DJar, not having to consider right from wrong, because the law was right and everybody else was wrong, but this wasn’t DJar. “I never claimed to have all the answers, Leni, but I was brought up to believe there was honour in the job. I studied hard and yes, I believed I deserved to be there. That may be presumptuous, but it was meant to prevent arbitrary judgements, which can become uncontrolled and dangerous. The prevention of that came with laws aimed at all people, laws of facts.”
“I’ll be the first to admit there’s a risk involved, Ben, but you cannot in good conscience tell me that the Geveler courtrooms dealt with true justice.”
“…I was young then, Leni.”
“Don’t make excuses. Sotyar was the exact same age.”
She looked at him, the life outside of the courtroom he’d not seen in Sotyar. No longer the little child, no longer like Jitsi. Leni had survived and he owed her.
He took a deep breath, aware he was about to give up his dignity in front of this assembly. “By Bue, Leni, I’m just so damn incapable of saying I was wrong, but I was and so was DJar. I had to come here to learn that. I still might not have seen it if Jema and Yako hadn’t insisted I look. I accepted the s
ystem without thinking about it. I did you wrong and I wronged endless more people. Even here. I should have come to you the moment Daili alerted me, but I didn’t because I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to say sorry.”
“What I understand is that you acted to the best of your knowledge, Ben,” Leni said, changing her attitude completely. “It’s too long ago to feel guilty about it now. That won’t help any of us, least of all the new system. I talked to Daili before she died; we talked about everything that happened. About you. Thank Bue somebody decided to give up her pride and confess to me that she’d told Daili. I was just hoping you’d do this once more, Jema. I feel we have a friendship to protect.”
“Nice way you have of showing friendship,” Aryan scorned.
Leni ignored that. She wouldn’t give in. It was useless to postpone this anymore. Once more Benjamar would rely on the crew along with him on this journey. Were they still with him? Was he still on course or was he the one drowning in the waves of emotions he had stirred up to carry his kabin home?
“Jema?”
She looked up, her eyes blank, showing no trace of her thoughts, yet what was behind there must be working overtime.
“I won’t make you wait any longer. The request for penance stands. It’s a request which would never be considered on DJar. We will have to think Kun DJar here. The council decides, each on their own merit. Being the judicator here puts me in an impossible situation. I am not and never will be in favour of penance or corporal punishment, not even as the means to an end. Despite all my mistakes, Leni, I can’t make a decision here.” Trying to sound calm, he explained that he could not alienate the Society again. “We’re only a small village, Jema. We have to live together.”
She looked at him without making eye contact.
“I cannot and will not make this decision alone. I just told you where I stand. I will need the rest of this council to decide in unison on something as drastic as this before I will allow it. I have to ask you first, Jema.”