by Mike Resnick
“Then I will find some,” I said.
* * *
I went down to the village in the afternoon, for old Siboki needed ointments to keep the pain from his joints, and Koinnage had asked me to help him settle a dispute between Njoro and Sangora concerning the ownership of a calf that their jointly-owned cow had just produced.
When I had finished my business there, I placed charms on some of the scarecrows, and then, in midafternoon, I walked over to Nkobe’s shamba, where I found him herding his cattle.
“Jambo, Koriba!” he greeted me, waving his hand.
“Jambo, Nkobe,” I replied, approaching him.
“Would you like to come into my hut for some pombe?” he offered. “Mwange just brewed it yesterday.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I do not care to drink warm pombe on a hot afternoon like this.”
“It’s actually quite cool,” he said. “She buries the gourd in the ground to keep it that way.”
“Then I will have some,” I acquiesced, falling into step beside him as he drove his cattle toward his boma.
Mwange was waiting for us, and she invited us into the cool interior of the hut and poured our pombe for us, then began to leave, for manamoukis do not listen to the conversation of men.
“Stay here, Mwange,” I said.
“You’re sure?” she said.
“Yes.”
She shrugged and sat on the floor, with her back propped up against a wall of the hut.
“What brings you here, Koriba?” asked Nkobe, sitting gingerly upon his chair, and I could see that his back was troubling him. “You have not paid us a visit before.”
“The mundumugu rarely visits those who are healthy enough to visit him,” I replied.
“Then this is a special occasion,” said Nkobe.
“Yes,” I replied, sipping my pombe. “This is a special occasion.”
“What is it this time?” asked Mwange warily.
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?” said Nkobe sharply.
“There have been some minor problems,” I answered, “none of which concern you.”
“Anything that affects Mwange concerns me,” responded Nkobe. “I am not blind or deaf, Koriba. I know that the older women have refused to accept her—and I’m getting more than a little bit angry about it. She has gone out of her way to fit in here, and has met them more than halfway.”
“I did not come here to discuss Mwange with you,” I said.
“Oh?” he said suspiciously.
“Are you saying we have a problem that concerns him?” demanded Mwange.
“It concerns both of you,” I replied. “That is why I have come here.”
“All right, Koriba—what is it?” said Nkobe.
“You have made a good effort to fit into the community and to live as a Kikuyu, Nkobe,” I said. “And yet there is one more thing that you will be expected to do, and it is this that I have come to discuss with you.”
“And what is that?”
“Sooner or later, you will be expected to take another wife.”
“I knew it!” said Mwange.
“I’m very happy with the wife I have,” said Nkobe with unconcealed hostility.
“That may be,” I said, draining the last of my pombe, “but you have no children, and as Mwange gets older she will need someone to help her with her duties.”
“Now you listen to me!” snapped Nkobe. “I came here because I thought it would make Mwange happy. So far she’s been ostracized and shunned and gossiped about, and now you’re telling me that I have to take another wife into my house so that Mwange can keep being spat on by the other women? We don’t need this, Koriba! I was just as happy on my farm in Kenya. I can go back there any time I want.”
“If that is the way you feel, then perhaps you should return to Kenya,” I said.
“Tom,” said Mwange, staring at him, and he fell silent.
“It is true that you do not have to stay,” I continued. “But you are Kikuyus, living on a Kikuyu world, and if you do stay, you will be expected to act as Kikuyus.”
“There’s no law that says a Kikuyu man must take a second wife,” said Nkobe sullenly.
“No, there is no such law,” I admitted. “Nor is there a law that says a Kikuyu man must father children. But these are our traditions, and you will be expected to abide by them.”
“To hell with them!” he muttered in English.
Mwange laid a restraining hand on his arm. “There is a coterie of young warriors who live beyond the forest,” she said. “Why don’t they marry some of the young women? Why should the men of the village monopolize them all?”
“They cannot afford wives,” I said. “That is why they live alone.”
“That’s their problem,” said Nkobe.
“I’ve made many sacrifices in the name of communal harmony,” said Mwange, “but this is asking too much, Koriba. We are happy just the way we are, and we intend to stay this way.”
“You will not remain happy.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
“Next month is the circumcision ritual,” I said. “When it is over, there will be many girls eligible for marriage, and since you are barren, it is only reasonable to suppose that a number of their families will suggest that Nkobe pay the bride price for their daughters. He may refuse once, he may refuse twice, but if he continues to refuse, he will offend most of the village. They will assume that because he comes from Kenya he feels their women are not good enough for him, and they will be further offended by the fact that he refuses to have children with which to populate our empty planet.”
“Then I’ll explain my reasons to them,” said Nkobe.
“They will not understand,” I answered.
“No, they will not understand,” agreed Mwange unhappily.
“Then they will have to learn to live with it,” said Nkobe firmly.
“And you will have to learn to live with silence and animosity,” I said. “Is this the life you envisioned when you came to Kirinyaga?”
“Of course not!” snapped Nkobe. “But nothing can make me—”
“We will think about it, Koriba,” interrupted Mwange.
Nkobe turned to his wife, stunned. “What are you saying?”
“I am saying that we will think about it,” repeated Mwange.
“That is all that I ask,” I said, getting to my feet and walking to the door of the hut.
“You demand a lot, Koriba,” said Mwange bitterly.
“I demand nothing,” I replied. “I merely suggest.”
“Coming from the mundumugu, is there a difference?”
I did not answer her, because in truth there was no difference whatsoever.
* * *
“You seem unhappy, Koriba,” said Ndemi.
He had just finished feeding my chickens and my goats, and now he sat down beside me in the shade of my acacia tree.
“I am,” I said.
“Mwange,” he said, nodding his head.
“Mwange,” I agreed.
Two weeks had passed since I had visited her and Nkobe.
“I saw her this morning, when I went to the river to fill your gourds,” said Ndemi. “She, too, seems unhappy.”
“She is,” I said. “And there is nothing that I can do about it.”
“But you are the mundumugu.”
“I know.”
“You are the most powerful of men,” continued Ndemi. “Surely you can put an end to her sorrow.”
I sighed. “The mundumugu is both the most powerful and the weakest of men. In Mwange’s case, I am the weakest.”
“I do not understand.”
“The mundumugu is the most powerful of men when it comes to interpreting the law,” I said. “But he is also the weakest of men, for it is he, of all men, who must be bound by that law, no matter what else happens.” I paused. “I should allow her to be what she can be, instead of being merely a manamouki. And failing that, I should make her
leave Kirinyaga and return to Kenya.” I sighed again. “But she must behave like a manamouki if she is to have a life here, and she has broken no law that would allow me to force her to leave.”
Ndemi frowned. “Being a mundumugu can be more difficult that I thought.”
I smiled at him and placed a hand upon his head. “Tomorrow I will begin to teach you to make the ointments that cure the sick.”
“Really?” he said, his face brightening.
I nodded. “Your last statement tells me that you are no longer a child.”
“I have not been a child for many rains,” he protested.
“Do not say any more,” I told him with a wry smile, “or we will do more harvest prayers instead.”
He immediately fell silent, and I looked out across the distant savannah, where a swirling tower of dust raced across the arid plain, and wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time, what to do about Mwange.
How long I sat thus, motionless, I do not know, but eventually I felt Ndemi tugging at the blanket I had wrapped around my shoulders.
“Women,” he whispered.
“What?” I said, not comprehending.
“From the village,” he said, gesturing toward the path that led to my boma.
I looked where he indicated and saw four of the village women approaching. There was Wambu, and Sabo, and Bori, and with them this time was Morina, the second wife of Kimoda.
“Should I leave?” asked Ndemi.
I shook my head. “If you are to become a mundumugu, it is time you started listening to a mundumugu’s problems.”
The four women stopped perhaps ten feet away from me.
“Jambo,” I said, staring at them.
“The Kenyan witch must leave!” said Wambu.
“We have been through this before,” I said.
“But now she has broken the law,” said Wambu.
“Oh?” I said. “In what way?”
Wambu grabbed Morina by the arm and shoved her even closer to me. “Tell him,” she said triumphantly.
“She has bewitched my daughter,” said Morina, obviously uneasy in my presence.
“How has Mwange bewitched your daughter?” I asked.
“My Muri was a good, obedient child,” said Muri. “She always helped me grind the grain, and she dutifully cared for her two younger brothers when I was working in the fields, and she never left the thorn gate open at night so that hyenas could enter our boma and kill our goats and cattle.” She paused, and I could see that she was trying very hard not to cry. “All she could talk about since the last long rains was her forthcoming circumcision ceremony, and who she hoped would pay the bride price for her. She was a perfect daughter, a daughter any mother would be proud of.” Now a tear trickled down her cheek. “And then the Kenyan woman came, and Muri spent her time with her, and now”—suddenly the single tear became a veritable flood—“now she tells me that she refuses to be circumcised. She will never marry and she will die an old, barren woman!”
Morina could speak no more, and began beating her breasts with her clenched fists.
“That is not all,” added Wambu. “The reason Muri does not wish to be circumcised is because the Kenyan woman herself has not been circumcised. And yet the Kenyan woman has married a Kikuyu man, and has tried to live among us as his manamouki.” She glared at me. “She has broken the law, Koriba! We must cast her out!”
“I am the mundumugu,” I replied sternly. “I will decide what must be done.”
“You know what must be done!” said Wambu furiously.
“That is all,” I said. “I will hear no more.”
Wambu glared at me, but did not dare to disobey me, and finally, turning on her heel, she stalked back down the path to the village, followed by Sabo and the still-wailing Morina.
Bori stood where she was for an extra moment, then turned to me.
“It is as I told you before, Koriba,” she said, almost apologetically. “She really is a witch.”
Then she, too, began walking back to the village.
“What will you do, Koriba?” asked Ndemi.
“The law is clear,” I said wearily. “No uncircumcised woman may live with a Kikuyu man as his wife.”
“Then you will make her leave Kirinyaga?”
“I will offer her a choice,” I said, “and I will hope that she chooses to leave.”
“It is too bad,” said Ndemi. “She has tried very hard to be a good manamouki.”
“I know,” I said.
“Then why is Ngai visiting her with such unhappiness?”
“Because sometimes trying is not enough.”
* * *
We stood at Haven—Mwange, Nkobe, and I—awaiting the Maintenance ship’s arrival.
“I am truly sorry that things did not work out,” I said sincerely.
Nkobe glared at me, but said nothing.
“It didn’t have to end this way,” said Mwange bitterly.
“We had no choice,” I said. “If we are to create our Utopia here on Kirinyaga, we must be bound by its rules.”
“The fact that a rule exists does not make it right, Koriba,” she said. “I gave up almost everything to live here, but I will not let them mutilate me in the name of some foolish custom.”
“Without our traditions, we are not Kikuyu, but only Kenyans who live on another world,” I pointed out.
“There is a difference between tradition and stagnation, Koriba,” she said. “If you stifle every variation in taste and behavior in the name of the former, you achieve only the latter.” She paused. “I would have been a good member of the community.”
“But a poor manamouki,” I said. “The leopard may be a stealthy hunter and fearsome killer, but he does not belong among a pride of lions.”
“Lions and leopards have been extinct for a long time, Koriba,” she said. “We are talking about human beings, not animals, and no matter how many rules you make and no matter how many traditions you invoke, you cannot make all human beings think and feel and act alike.”
“It’s coming,” announced Nkobe as the Maintenance ship broke through the thin cloud cover.
“Kwaheri, Nkobe,” I said, extending my hand.
He looked contemptuously at my hand for a moment, then turned his back and continued watching the Maintenance ship.
I turned to Mwange.
“I tried, Koriba,” she said. “I really did.”
“No one ever tried harder,” I said. “Kwaheri, Mwange.”
She stared at me, her face suddenly an emotionless mask.
“Good-bye, Koriba,” she said in English. “And my name is Wanda.”
* * *
The next morning Shima came to me to complain that Shumi had rejected the suitor that had been arranged for her.
Two days later Wambu complained to me that Kibo, Koinnage’s youngest wife, had decorated her hut with colorful ribbons, and was beginning to let her hair grow.
And the morning after that, Kimi, who had only one son, announced that she wanted no more children.
“I thought it had ended,” I said with a sigh as I watched Sangora, Kimi’s distressed husband, walk back down the path to the village.
“That is because you have made a mistake, Koriba.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you believed the wrong story,” answered Ndemi with the confidence of youth.
“Oh?”
He nodded. “You believed the story about the Ugly Buffalo.”
“And which story should I have believed?”
“The story of the mundumugu and the serpent.”
“Why do you think one story is more worthy of belief than the other?” I asked him.
“Does not the story of the mundumugu and the serpent tell us that we cannot be rid of that which Ngai created simply because we find it repugnant or unsettling?”
“That is true,” I said.
Ndemi smiled and held up three fingers. “Shumi, Kibo, Kimi,” he said, counting them off.
“Three serpents have returned already. There are 97 yet to come.”
And suddenly I had the awful premonition that he was right.
INTRODUCTION TO “WINTER SOLSTICE”
Laura Resnick
Winter solstice, the longest night, marks the turning point between the death of the waning year and the birth of the coming one, the point where the encroaching darkness is conquered once again by the radiant sun, and life is renewed. And the ancient mythologies of cultures all over the world reveal our universal fear that someday the longest night might instead conquer the light and imprison us in eternal darkness.
My father wrote this story upon learning that my maternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s Disease, which was the eternal night that conquered her own radiant light and gradually led her into the undiscovered country of dementia and death.
Although Merlin the wizard’s singular circumstance of living backwards through time is portrayed as charmingly eccentric in T. H. White’s lyrical The Once and Future King, my dad used this unusual metaphor in “Winter Solstice” to explore the confusion and sorrow of losing memories and knowledge, day by day, on an unwilling descent into the prison of eternal night.
I had an assignment to write a story for an anthology about wizards, and I was stuck for an idea, since I hate writing generic stories. Then I learned that my mother-in-law was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. I wondered what it must be like, not in the later stages, but right at the beginning, when you go to bed each night knowing you’ll wake up a little less intelligent each morning.
And then I remembered that in T. H. White’s great fantasy novel, The Once and Future King, Merlin lived backward in time. White never made much of it, but it struck me as a perfect metaphor for what my mother-in-law was facing, and I wrote “Winter Solstice” in a single sitting that night. It was a 1992 Hugo nominee for Best Short Story.
WINTER SOLSTICE
IT IS NOT EASY TO live backwards in time, even when you are Merlin the Magnificent. You would think it would be otherwise, that you would remember all the wonders of the future, but those memories grow dim and fade more quickly than you might suppose. I know that Galahad will win his duel tomorrow, but already the name of his son has left me. In fact, does he even have a son? Will he live long enough to pass on his noble blood? I think perhaps he may, I think that I have held his grandchild upon my knee, but I am not sure. It is all slipping away from me.