Here she takes us to a strange alien world for a passionate tale of cross-cultural misunderstanding, mutual suspicion, racial hatred—and love.
The story was first told to me in a bar on Nexus where people like to talk about things that happen to other people. I had gone there looking for a Starcaptain named Ikoro, who, rumor had it, had spent six months as a slave on Chabad. I didn’t find him. But I bought some drinks, and that was when I first heard about the navigator on Tanderai who fell in love with a high-caste Tanderani.
It was a grim tale, and as it turned out, the engineer who told me the story got it wrong. But I never went back to correct her.
The second time I heard it, I was at the Embassy Club in Selikka, on Tanderai. I was sitting and drinking with the first assistant secretary to the ambassador. He was buying the drinks. I had been sent to interview the new ambassador, and the f.a.s. had been assigned to keep me entertained until the ambassador could find the time to see me.
He was an excellent host. We took an aerial tour of the city, and he pointed out the principal mansions (white stone towers behind high gates), parks (many flowers, and trees like giant feathers), and bazaars. We dined at a very discreet restaurant: Eating takes place in private on Tanderai, and though there must have been other patrons, we never saw them. After dinner the f.a.s. suggested drinks at the Embassy Club. I was surprised. No embassy club in the Living Worlds presents much in the way of nightlife. But it was my first night on Tanderai and a little too soon to go out and soak up local color. I wasn’t sure I could recognize it even if I could find it.
The Embassy Club on Tanderai is an agreeable place. There is no public lounge: Patrons sit in screened booths and push a button (it rings a chime) to summon a waiter. The booths look onto an interior court that contains a fountain and a magnificently tended garden. We both wore masks. I’d bought three panohi—an unembellished mask with eye-holes—on the ship from Nexus. The one I wore was of black-and-blue-patterned silk and covered my nose and forehead. The first assistant secretary’s mask was more elaborate. It was red, with two pearls in the lower left-hand corner, near his ear, and concealed all of his nose and his cheekbones, forming a beak over his nose that shadowed his mouth. In it, with his white Tanderai robe flowing to his feet, he looked like an elegant, alien predator.
Everyone on Tanderai, I had been told, high caste to low caste, politicians to street thieves, wears a mask, except Starcaptains, who wear anything they please, and even they will not walk maskless through Selikkan streets at midday. The custom originated with the early colonists; over three hundred years it had changed from being a practical defense against the sun into a delicate social mechanism. Wealth, caste, and even political allegiances can be reflected in one’s mask. To keep myself from asking stupid questions that the f.a.s. would have heard before—thus embarrassing both of us—I said, “I once heard a story about Tanderai in a bar.”
His lips curved. “I bet I know which.”
“Do you? It was the one about the navigator and the girl.”
“Was it a Hyper bar?”
“As a matter of fact, it was.”
“They like to tell that story in Hyper bars, and they always say the man was a navigator.” He pushed the button to signal the waiter. “Another?”
“Sure.” We were drinking a frothy white liqueur called bissea. It tasted like milk, except for the kick. “Not true?” I asked, after the waiter brought the drinks and we were alone in our booth.
“Not that part of it. He was actually an embassy staff member.”
“Did you know him?”
The f.a.s. nodded. “He was first assistant secretary to the ambassador when I was a lowly com-clerk.”
I wondered how many questions he would answer. “When did it happen?”
“Seven years ago. Just after the Federation embassy was established here. As you can imagine, it was a tricky situation.”
“And did it happen the way—?” I paused hopefully.
“I’ll tell you what happened,” the f.a.s. said. “I’ll even tell you the man’s name—no, better not. Let’s call him Ned.” He smiled. He had white, very even teeth, which gave his face an even stronger look of the predator.
“Ned had been on Tanderai for a year, since the opening of the embassy. He thought it was long enough. He was young but not inexperienced in the service. He had been born on Enchanter, trained on Nexus, and had been second assistant secretary on New Jerusalem. He had a gift for languages and spoke good high-caste Tandri. He liked Tanderai food. He attended Tanderai dances because he enjoyed them. He knew enough to avert his eyes when the grandmothers, who are the true rulers of Tanderai, go through the streets in their sedan chairs.
“He understood the masks and how important they are on Tanderai. He wore one; everyone he knew wore one, at the embassy, at parties, in the streets, everywhere, even in bed.
“One evening Ned went, in his capacity as first assistant secretary, to pay a call on a high-caste Tanderahi. Old Rakakurri—even his fellow Tanderahis admitted it—was a problem. He was the titular head of his family, respected for his name, which was ancient, and for his wealth, which was considerable. But he was ultraconservative and believed that all embassy staff members, the ambassador included, were cultureless, rootless barbarians. The Federation did not want to encourage such views, and so Ned—instead of the ambassador himself or his secretary, Ned’s boss, who was, everyone knew, a Very Important Man—was sent to make the visit.
“Ned arrived at the home of this Tanderai aristocrat at the arranged time, wearing an unassuming blue panohi and carrying the traditional visitor’s gift, a flower. He was welcomed by the thukri, the official household greeter, and shown to the inside court.
“He strolled through the garden. It was winter, the lushest time of the Tanderai year, and the plants were rich with blossoms. He admired the graceful storied tower of the house and the pure lines of the fountain. The tower’s six balconies overlooked the garden. They were stone, covered with trimmed ivy. The ground-floor chambers were, Ned knew, the common rooms: kitchens, dining chambers, and ballroom. The second floor held libraries and music rooms, and the top four floors were the living quarters. Magnificently ferocious gargoyles leered from the corners of the topmost story, to warn the casual glance away from the Women’s Court. But Ned did not know that.
“He was gazing at the topmost story of the house when he saw her. She was leaning on the balcony railing. Her youthful skin was smooth amber, her hair was as black as night, her black eyes gleamed like pearls, her lips were like rose petals, her nose—” The first assistant secretary smiled slyly. “Suffice it to say that Ned stood in the inner court staring like a fool and talking to himself in reams of very bad poetry. Remember, he had never before seen a Tanderai woman’s face. For a moment he could not look away from the stunning perfection of her profile.”
The f.a.s. drank. I waited what seemed like a reasonable amount of time and then said, “Did she see him?”
The f.a.s. nodded. “She looked directly at him; he saw her panicked start and heard her quick steps on the stone. Even then Ned did not realize what he had done. He actually opened his mouth to call to her. But old Rakakurri entered the garden, and Ned perforce turned from a man consumed by passion into a diplomat.
“He said all the right things and left as soon as he could. It was still light, though evening, and normally he would have gone home to eat. He did not. He returned to the embassy, where a com-clerk he knew happened to be working late. Ned asked him to locate a file. It was one he had skimmed earlier. Now Ned read it through, and when he had finished he knew who his amber-skinned beauty was.
“She was Suniya Rakakurri, old Rakakurri’s sixteen-year-old daughter. Ned thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was thirty and had been in love before, but it didn’t matter. He was smitten. He wanted to throw Tanderai custom to the winds, to storm into her father’s house and demand to meet her. But he knew—he was not a fool—that
such behavior would immediately get him passage to Nexus and probably dismissal from the service.
“So he did nothing, except to hint to his Tanderai friends that he was finding his work dull and that if it did not seem forward of him to ask, he wouldn’t mind the opportunity to attend a few parties.
“For all their love of privacy, Tanderai aristocrats are high-spirited folk. They like to give parties. Since Ned was known to enjoy Tanderai music—he could even play respectably on the simlei, a flute—and could dance, he was of course invited to them. At each gathering he inquired politely as to the presence of any of the children of old Rakakurri, suggesting, without saying so, that he had diplomatic reasons for his questions.
“He met old Rakakurri’s heir, an engaging young Tanderahi named Inani, with whom he formed a friendship, and several of Inani’s younger siblings.
“Eventually at a large ball given by one of the city’s most prominent high-caste families, Inani said casually to him, with a gesture toward the women’s side of the ballroom, ‘Ned, come meet my youngest sister! This is her first ball. Her name is Suniya, and she’s never met an offworlder.’
“That was his beloved. Ned trembled. Inani brought Suniya to him. He bowed. She wore a gauzy, green mask like the wings of a butterfly, through which her dark eyes gleamed. She was tiny, a sylph, and her voice was soft and delicate as the chiming of bells. Ned danced with her twice. At the end of the second dance he risked everything and said to her, ‘May I see you again?’ As he said it, his voice broke like a boy’s.
“Suniya knew a handsome stranger when she saw one. She considered her father’s reaction, but after all, her brother had introduced them. She tipped her masked face to him and said. ‘Yes.’
“The next day Ned appeared at the embassy to find a package waiting for him. It contained a brief note suggesting that he walk in the Pavilion of a Thousand Flowers that afternoon at a certain time. It also contained a blue panohi, ordinary enough, except that two diamonds had been set at the outer corner of the left eye.
“Ned touched the mask to his lips. He worked like a madman all morning, and at the time named in the note he walked, wearing the diamond-studded mask, through the arched gate of the Pavilion of a Thousand Flowers.
“Suniya was there. They ambled through the pavilion with her hand on his arm, and whatever they said to each other seemed good to them both. After an hour, which seemed like minutes to poor Ned, Suniya murmured that she had to leave but that she would be at the home of a certain Tanderai family that night, a small gathering; could he come? Ned recognized the name as that of someone he knew, a liberal aristocrat who would not mind a surprise guest from the embassy. He promised her that he would.
“He did go to the gathering, and he wore the diamond-studded mask. Suniya was delighted: She thought Ned was the most wonderful person she had ever met. They met every day for a month, they strolled in the parks, they danced, they talked. He told her tales of other worlds. Suniya, who had never been past the gates of the city she had been born in, drank them in. She told him of her family, her brothers and sisters, her father, who was, she said sadly, quite strict, and her grandmother, the family’s true head, the puissant, inaccessible Chiyasathi Rakakurri. Inani, who thought his father’s attitude toward offworlders too parochial, saw no harm in this. Perhaps he was wrong. But he saw his little sister bloom like a rose when Ned entered the room, and he could not say to her, ‘You should not see so much of him.’
“No one knows how old Rakakurri came to hear of their romance. Perhaps a servant let something slip. Perhaps Inani was careless. Suniya herself may have been indiscreet. But one day Ned arrived at the Pavilion of a Thousand Flowers to find, instead of Suniya, a formal messenger from the Rakakurri household, who handed him a letter. Thinking it a note from Suniya, Ned tore it open.
“It was a stiff missive from Papa Rakakurri, informing him that Suniya would not be walking in the park with him now or anytime. She was not, the letter said, interested in continuing her acquaintance with a dishra kukri.
“Ned realized at once what had happened. Old Rakakurri had been misinformed. Someone had gossiped. With the letter in his fist, Ned marched to the Rakakurri mansion, determined to explain to Suniya’s father that his intentions were entirely honorable. He loved Suniya; he wanted to marry her. He arrived at the house and asked the thukri to inform old Rakakurri that the first assistant secretary from the Federation embassy desired to speak with him. The thukri did not bother to enter the house. He merely explained that Rakakurri had already commanded that Ned not be admitted.
“Undaunted, Ned went to the embassy and wrote a letter to old Rakakurri. It was returned to him, unopened. He tried again to gain entrance to the house. This time Inani came to the door.
“‘I am sorry,’ he said, laughing, as Tanderai do when they are embarrassed, ‘but my father does not want you here.’
“‘If I could just speak to him—’ said Ned. Inani shook his head. ‘Then let me see Suniya, just for a moment.’ He did not want Suniya to think that he had abandoned her or ceased to love her.
“But Inani simply stepped back and began to close the door. Ned put his foot in the crack. ‘Is she all right?’ he demanded, suddenly frightened. The colonists on Tanderai had been isolated for three hundred years, and though they seemed decent enough, he had heard stories … . He could tell nothing from Inani’s face, because he could not see it.
“‘Tell me she’s all right!’ But Inani would not answer. They wrestled for a moment over the doorknob, then Ned realized that he was behaving like an idiot, and he left peaceably.
“He wrote letters to old Rakakurri, to Inani, to Suniya. They were returned. He went to parties: Suniya was never there. Inani and the other Rakakurri children avoided him. He did not know what to do. He tried to bribe Rakakurri’s servants to let him in the house, and though they cheerfully took his dakras, he did not get into the house. He began to drink more than was good for him and to laugh too loudly at balls. After a while he stopped receiving party invitations from his high-caste Tanderai friends.
“Word came to the ambassador that his first assistant secretary was in trouble over a Tanderai girl. Normally he would have left such a situation to his secretary, but he was on Nexus, enjoying a rare vacation. So the ambassador tried. He called Ned into his office and Spoke To Him. Ned stopped going out and spent most of his waking hours at the embassy, and when he went home, he did not drink. But he lost weight steadily.
“One day Ned arrived home to find Skumijee, his servant, gone. Ned was annoyed but not surprised; he knew that his luck had turned bad and that sooner or later something would happen to him—his house would burn, or he would fall sick and be ordered to leave Tanderai—and he assumed that Skumijee had recognized the ill luck and had decided not to be around it. He called a few times, and then he walked into his bedroom to do what he did every day when he got home, which was to lie on his bed for hours and stare blankly at the ceiling.
“There was a woman in his bedroom. She was sitting on his bed with her back to him, and he assumed that she was a thief. But her robe was high-caste silk, with flowers embroidered on the sleeves. He thought then that she was a duvrani, a woman from the Court of Joy, hired for him by some well-meaning, insensitive acquaintance.
“He started to order her out of the bedroom, when she turned her face toward him. She had Suniya’s glowing eyes and streaming blue-black hair. But across her delicate features, like a barbaric ornament, lay two diamond-shaped scars, one on each cheek. Ned had seen such scars before. They were made by the heated blade of a ritual knife and are the mark of complete dishonor.
“Horrified, he drew back as the woman said his name and stretched her arms to him.” The first assistant secretary paused to drink.
“Another one?” he said, gesturing to my empty glass. He smiled when I shook my head no.
“The woman was Suniya, of course. Old Rakakurri was more conservative than even his children had thought. Scarring is a no
t uncommon punishment among the lower castes, but an aristocrat should not take the dulti to his youngest and most naive daughter. It must be done by a shaman. Those who have been branded are forbidden to wear masks. They are called ekukri, the faceless ones, and they live—they must—in the outermost circles of the city nearest the walls, and work in butcher shops and sewage plants and mortuaries, handling offal and the dead.”
His voice was somber. I sighed. That was how I had heard it, less well told, except in the version I had heard, the poor lover had walked into his bedroom to find the girl’s still-warm corpse.
“So what happened to him?” I asked. “You said that he was first assistant secretary; I assume that he resigned or was transferred elsewhere.”
The f.a.s.’s smile broadened. He shook his head. “Neither. Ned was impulsive but not a fool, and he was a diplomat. He comforted Suniya in all the ways he knew, and then he went to the secretary, his boss, who, although he was a Very Important Man, was not a fool either.
“He told the secretary Everything. The secretary listened, and when he had finished, commented that though Ned was not a fool he had been doing his almighty best to behave like one. ‘Why didn’t you come to me sooner?’ he said. ‘Bring your girl to me.’ Ned brought Suniya through the city night to his house. She walked proudly, spine straight, scorning tears. The secretary bowed deeply.
“They talked through the night. The next morning Ned presented himself at old Rakakurri’s house with a request written on the ambassador’s personal and private stationery, bearing the ambassador’s seal. It was elaborately couched in diplomatic language, and it said that the ambassador wished Ned to be admitted to the presence of the one person in the house whose word was law even to Rakakurri: his mother, Chiyasathi Rakakurri.
Year's Best Science Fiction 02 # 1985 Page 38