by Simon Rumney
A little confused by the count's embarrassment, Julii watched the tired older lady set to work on her hair. At first the changes had not been very pleasing. She felt sad watching her beautiful long blonde hair hanging wet and being cut with shiny things that made grinding noises as they opened and closed.
Julii had never thought about how she looked as being a thing that could be changed before. She had always been herself, but now herself was going to be tampered with. She had never in her life felt more vulnerable. Even her days and nights in Atlanta paled by comparison to how exposed she felt at this moment, but ‘what could she do?’ Refusing change would condemn her to the life of an outcast. There could be no logical escape so, mustering every ounce of courage, she watched her beautiful hair fall to the floor in damp, ugly clumps.
After the attack on her hair ended, the assault on her face began. There was nothing gentle about the tired older white lady. She went about her work like a hunter skinning a deer and it felt very unpleasant.
Over time, Julii noticed the older fancy white lady's touch gradually grow softer as her expression slowly changed in the glass mirror. She went from someone who could not care less, to resignation, to interest, to pride.
There was also a growing clamor in the room that came from the younger fancy ladies who came in to watch Julii’s transformation. The small gathering grew as more and more of the fancy ladies came in to watch. Like the older fancy lady, their faces also slowly changed, but theirs moved from disdain and ridicule to interest and amazement, then jealousy.
The magical powders and dyes being applied in subtle ways made Julii's skin look paler and her lips look redder and fuller. They also made her eyes look even more round than anyone else in her tribe. By the end of the beauty session, every fancy white lady in the building called “saloon” was in the room admiring Julii's new dress, new shoes, new hair and new makeup. The untidy space was eventually so crowded with Julii's admirers, they were pushing up against the older, tired, fancy lady. Fed up, she shouted at the younger fancy ladies. She told them to "Get the hell back to work!"
But they resisted because they all wanted to touch Julii's hair and admire her clear, smooth skin and beautiful makeup. The older fancy lady was left with no choice. She turned to Julii and said, "You gotta leave before I go broke!"
Leaving the building called “saloon” was a far different experience to arriving at the building called “saloon”. Outside the silly little swinging doors, Julii braced herself for the customary stares of derision, but instead men were looking at her with lust in their eyes.
Looking down at herself, Julii realized there was only one really noticeable change. She was wearing her new blue dress. 'Had all of the disapproval experienced in Atlanta been caused by her hide dress?' 'Her wonderful hide dress that all of her people admired?' 'Was it that simple and insignificant?' 'Could white people not see past clothing to the person inside?'
This seemed strange, but Julii checked herself again. 'Other than her hair and the paint on her face, the dress was the only thing that had changed.' 'There were the shoes of course, but no one could see them under the long dress.' 'She was still the same person.' She was forced to make the inevitable conclusion. 'White people are shallow.'
This was sad for them but good for her. She had never exploited her power with the men in her tribe because, like her pretty mother, she chose not to be manipulative, but now things were different. 'Now she needed money and security.' 'Now she was carrying the hurt of humiliation and abuse and fear.' 'Now she was going to use every available element of this power to her fullest advantage.'
In the time it took Count Anton to guided her to his carriage, Julii had glimpsed her potential for vengeance. Everything she was about to become, everything she was about to achieve, everything she was about to do to this corrupted Confederacy was born of the power rediscovered in this moment outside that building called “saloon”.
The Amulet
Outside the building called “saloon”, Count Anton could see that things had changed for Julii. He even felt confident enough to ask her if she felt like walking. When she said “yes”, he helped her out of the carriage and politely sent his carriage driver away.
Watching the vehicle move slowly away from her, Julii felt panic rising, but Count Anton calmed her by placed her arm proudly in his before setting off to walk the few blocks home.
It was incredible. None of the white people on the street looked at Julii with disdain. The men who walked alone even looked at her with admiration and a little hunger. The men who walked with women could not be as blatant, but they also glanced at Julii and, unlike her terrible time on the streets of Atlanta, this kind of scrutiny felt wonderfully empowering.
Julii instinctively knew with every hungry glance, these men were handing her their power. She saw their desire for her as a form of surrender that could be exploited. She now had something to negotiate with; something they badly wanted. Something they could fight against but never escape.
She had seen her Robert betray a lifetime of racist beliefs and overcome narrow deep prejudice just to get to her, and she was going to manipulate this same hunger in other men. Just a few more steps along the sidewalk and a few wary female glances told Julii that white men may be puppy dogs, but white women would not be so easy to tame.
She may be a mere 'Injun', but she was an 'Injun woman' and she knew what all women knew. Women may play passive roles, but they are far more cunning, astute and complicated than men.
She also knew that the effective control of men required the approval of their women. She knew that women, white or red, do not surrender to other women so readily. Gaining power over women was going to take more than beautiful hair and beautiful clothes and beautiful makeup. Gaining power over women was going to require a different, more subtle, strategy.
Like all women who had been raised in a loving and stable environment, Julii understood that women who were secure in themselves would openly admire her. Having been one for most of her life, Julii knew secure women did not fear beauty, confidence and intelligence in others.
She also understood that the women who looked at her with envy, or feigned disinterest or even blatant jealousy, would have to be placated by subtle forms of modesty and flattery and submission. Using this opportunity to practice, Julii returned the supercilious smile of a passing woman who was both attractive and insecure.
That first smile failed. The woman seemed threatened. Julii tried another, more humble, smile on another woman, but this one seemed to antagonize its target. Julii's third smile hit the mark. Its victim seemed just a little surprised such a beautiful competitor was not more combative, but Julii's overly modest, humble and respectful smile seemed to flatter her and make her less guarded.
Julii understood this was the winning smile that would gain her an exploitable advantage, so this was the winning smile that was going to be practiced over and over in her glass mirror as soon as she returned to Count Anton's home.
Count Anton sounded proud as he said, "This is a far better experience all together. Don't you agree, my dear?"
His encouraging words brought Julii back from her plotting. As she agreed with him, she remembered something the tired, older fancy lady had said to her back in the building called “saloon”. Turning to the good man who held her arm proudly in his own, she asked in a genuinely sincere, innocent and respectful tone, "What did the lady in the saloon building mean?"
Count Anton looked blankly back, clearly unable to remember what she meant, so Julii added, "Do you have an asking price for making me look like a sexy white girl?"
Count Anton's expression turned from one of total pride to one of deep shame. "Oh, my dear girl. Please forgive me. I desire absolutely nothing of you but your time."
Stopping, Count Anton fumbled for something in his jacket pocket. Red-faced he said, "I have been searching the world for you. I have something that belongs to you."
The thing he pulled from his pocket shon
e gold. Still sounding apologetic, he added, "My grandfather and my father spent years of their lives, and much of our fortune, recovering this from a shipwreck in the ocean that touches my city of Rome."
Julii's eyes locked onto the shiny thing held out in Count Anton's hand. It fascinated and captivated her. 'She had never seen it before in this life, but she knew it as well as she knew her mother's face.'
Its shape, its color, its patterns, its feel, even its smell, she knew them all. 'How could that be?' Then she wondered, 'Why had her thoughts made reference to “this life”?' 'What did “this life” mean?'
Julii could see that Count Anton meant to slide the thing onto her wrist, and panic, pleasure, excitement and the fire of expectation coursed through her body. Surprised by her own responses, Julii was even more surprised to hear herself say the words: "My lions".
The amulet slipped over her hand and onto her wrist. It fitted her birthmark so perfectly there should have been a click. Time stopped for Julii. The sounds of people and horses were still coming from the street, but she no longer heard them. She had become someone and somewhere else. Her mind was taking her to strange yet familiar places and she understood the meaning of the term “this life”.
All at once she stood in many different streets with many different people and many different horses and many different carriages. Somehow these were her memories, painful memories, brought up from deep within her. There were memories of many great cities; memories of many familiar people and many bloody battles.
Then Robert was there and they were standing together on the deck of the ship as it crossed the great ocean. It was her dream and it felt real. Then she was standing atop a high wall watching a violent battle unfold on a vast plane below at the edge of the great ocean. Count Anton was there on the wall with her, as was Robert and her mother and her father and Ringwind and another woman that she had never seen before.
The unknown woman seemed caring and friendly and loving and somehow crucial to Julii. The unknown woman held Julii's hand warmly as they both looked sadly down to the plane below.
Julii recognized so many of the nasty people in Atlanta down on that plane. They were fighting with a viciousness that she had never seen before. They were the same glimpsed faces of the men who fought on both sides of the street riot in Atlanta but, in this memory, they were all dressed in strange leather armor.
While looking down, she could see her own strange dress and the amulet on her wrist, but it wasn't her dress or her wrist. She could feel a hand suddenly grasp the amulet on the wrist that wasn't hers. The hand was tight and aggressive and angry. She looked up to see who was grasping her wrist so hard, so painfully.
It was a woman. She recognized the face. A different person in different clothes in a different time and place, but she was unmistakably Robert's mother and everything started fitting into place.
She suddenly knew why the men staring at her in Robert's parents' house had seemed do familiar because they were all here in this strange memory staring at her in exactly the same disapproving way. They were not the man with the bag called Doctor or Robert's father or General Hardee, but they were the same men in a different time.
She was so close to understanding everything. She could feel it. Something extremely important was an instant from being made clear, when shaking returned her to the busy Savannah street and the vision, or fantasy, or dream, or whatever it was simply vanished.
The thing that had prematurely broken the spell was Count Anton's shaking. Just like last night in the carriage, he had a firm grip of her arms and an extremely worried expression as he asked, "Are you all right, my dear?"
Count Anton sounded truly alarmed and it felt as though hours had passed, but Julii was surprised to realize that the visions that filled so many lifetimes had passed in a moment. Whatever had just happened had clearly been something extremely important. It felt like something that defined Julii's whole existence, but it had slipped away just moments before clarity.
Count Anton spoke in the tone of a shared secret. "The shape. Have you noticed the shape?”
Count Anton then pointed to the amulet and said, "My grandfather said your lions would fit your birthmark perfectly and it does."
Understanding and clarity may have been prematurely snatched away, but at least the identity of “he” had been cleared up. Then it hit Julii, 'How could Count Anton's grandfather have known about her birthmark?'
Cecilia
While continuing their journey home from the building called “saloon”, Julii had hundreds, even thousands, of questions to ask, but Count Anton wanted her to save them until they arrived home and he had access to something he called a "pen and paper” to write her words down.
Even his need for a thing called “pen and paper” generated more questions. 'What was a “pen and paper”?' 'What did he mean?' 'Write her words down?'
Clearly sensing her confusion, Count Anton pointed to a number of long white bird's feathers standing up behind the glass window of a shop and said: "Those are pens".
Julii had seen a man in Robert's court martial waving a long white feather such as the one in the window. She remembered him dipping it into a little pot from time to time. She had not given it a great deal of thought because there were more pressing things going on at that moment, but now she was extremely curious. 'Every single question led to more questions.' She was dying to get home and get started on them, but Count Anton stopped outside a building just a few doors away from his own.
This was frustrating because Julii was close enough to see his red door. She wanted to pull at Count Anton's arm but, to be polite, she looked from the beckoning red door to the window of the building and became instantly fascinated. It was filled with lots and lots of still people that looked just like General Hardee on the front of the thing Count Anton called a “newspaper”.
Altogether confused by what she was seeing, Julii looked closer and concentrated harder, but her mind could not grasp how these people could be standing where they were. 'They could not be real people.' 'They were small, still, flat, uncolored people standing in front of things like trees, tents. One was even standing in front of a tipi wearing a war bonnet.'
'Many of the people were only faces without bodies, and none of them had their true skin color or even the correct color of the objects on them.' 'What could this be?'
Seeing Julii's confusion, Count Anton spoke as he pushed on the glass door full of uncolored people. "This is a photographer's studio."
He spoke slowly so that Julii would understand, but he could see that she did not, so he added, "The man in this shop takes photographs."
Pointing to the uncolored people behind the glass window, he said, "These are called photographs."
Inside the building called “photographer's studio”, there were many more uncolored people on the walls and on a long, fixed table that ran the length of the shop.
Picking up one of the uncolored people from the long table, Count Anton offered it to Julii with the words: "This is called a likeness."
Julii held the “likeness”. She was surprised to see that it was flat. Turning the likeness she expected to see the back of the uncolored person's head, but it had nothing on the reverse. The reverse was just a white square; only the front of the likeness showed the uncolored person.
Julii looked up from the likeness, her expression filled with wonder and confusion. She was preparing another long list of questions to ask Count Anton when a man walked from a darkened room at the back of the building holding a dripping likeness in his hands.
Julii took a terrified step backwards because the man was wearing one of those hide things that covered his front. It looked like the hide thing that covered the man in Atlanta's front - the man who had threatened to hurt her with the heavy wood and metal things simply for giving the striped brown man water. 'Did this man mean to hurt her too?'
Count Anton steadied Julii as the man looked up from the likeness in his hand and smiled. He spoke
to Count Anton with great enthusiasm. "Good day to you, sir. Welcome to my studio. Do you wish to have a picture taken with your beautiful companion?"
Hanging the dripping likeness on a line, he added, "Will you be sitting together or separately?"
Julii did not understand what the man was saying. 'He had called someone “beautiful”.' 'Did he mean her?'
Count Anton surprised her with his reply. "We are not here for your services, sir. We are here to see your wife. She is the woman who teaches people to write English words, does she not?"
"She does indeed teach people how to write English words."
Smiling, the man called Photographer added, "By your accent I can tell that you and your wife are from Italy. Am I correct?"
Count Anton smiled before replying to the man's question. "Indeed you are completely correct. I am from Italia."
Julii was altogether wrong-footed by Count Anton's reply. She had been getting to grips with the idea of “photography” and “likenesses” and “beautiful” and wondering what “sitting together or separately” meant when the man changed everything with his question.
Her Robert had told her the meaning of the word “wife”. 'She knew what being a “wife” meant.' She had paid particular attention to that lesson. 'But what did it mean here in this strange photographer's studio?'
Julii cast her mind rapidly back over the day and a half since meeting Count Anton. 'Had some kind of ceremony taken place?' 'In the kitchen room at the tall building called “hotel” perhaps?' 'Is that why he laughed as he boiled the eggs?' 'In eating his boiled eggs had she somehow accepted him as, what her Robert called, a “husband”?' 'Had he tricked her?' 'Had she been snared?'
Julii looked down at the amulet wondering if it was some kind of wedding gift when the man in the hide thing departed through a second doorway at the back of his photographer's studio.