I waited. And then, today, I simply took my stick from its place where it leans in the corner, and set off. Not far. Walking distance, even for me. I have never used the new chairs that are lifted and carried by porters. Partly because I don’t need them and partly because among the young they have become a sport: they race each other, as if the porters are animals, whipping them along. I think this shameful, but know that in this new spirit that reigns in The Cities my objections would seem merely another example of an old man’s whimsy.
It was a fine afternoon. My way went up to the top of the hill, by the Fall, and then through the public squares and places, and then through a wood, which we, The Twelve, had planned and planted. Fine trees now, and spacious shady places where in summer you can find coolness and shade.
I had been walking in my now slow careful way for as long as it took the sun to drop a level in the sky, striking direct through the trees, when I heard the loud laughter and jeering that these days means the youth are near. A gang of seven young men appeared, running up through the trees towards me; they saw me, and then with cries of excitement, as if they had glimpsed a running animal, came towards me. I stopped and faced them. They stopped, a few paces away. Each face was distorted into that sneer which is obligatory now.
‘What have we got here?’ said the leader.
I knew him, I was sure, right from that first moment.
‘Look, an old beggar,’ said another boy. Beggars, once impossible with us, are now common.
‘I like his fwock,’ said the first. This is the new fad among them: they lisp, and put on effeminate airs.
They were wearing a fashion derived from the Barbarians: leather trousers and jerkin, showing their shoulders and chests. I was wearing, as always, my old brown robe.
‘Give me your fwock,’ said the leader.
I stared. I could not help it. Those faces, they were familiar to me anyway, because they were not the now so familiar Barbarian face, which is sharper, bolder, strongly incised, often beautiful, or handsome, where our generic face is broad, frank, open, honest, the face of a perhaps not over-subtle people, but one you trusted. On this face, one so likeable, the sneers and jeers were like a mask which did not fit, and the raucous derision of their style of speaking did not suit their voices either.
Who was he? Who could he be, this boy?
He snatched my stick away, so that I stumbled and nearly fell, and then used it to lift up the bottom of my robe far enough so they could admire my ancient sex: what they were seeing, what I saw every day in the bath, was something like a lump of dried mushrooms. They pointed and sneered and sniggered.
Then I remembered: I knew that face so well. It was part of my oldest, dearest memories: I said, ‘Are you Rollard’s son … grandson … great-grandson?’ I amended.
That face, born to be pleasant and agreeable, returned to this condition for just a moment, then he went deep scarlet, and dropped the stick.
‘Green,’ he muttered. ‘Good green, he’s got the Sight.’
They clustered around me, mouths open, awed, staring.
‘I knew your great-grandfather well,’ I said, and my voice was unsteady, and my eyes wet, seeing that loved face there, before me. He, Rollard, had been one of The Twelve.
They turned and sped off, on one impulse, like birds or fishes. I stood alone in that glade in the wood, and wept, thinking of Rollard, thinking of us all. I picked up my stick, and went on, carefully, through the leaf litter, to DeRod’s gate. There two armed men stood forward, to stop me. I said to them, ‘Stand aside, this is one of The Twelve.’ My emotion had given me an impatience with them, and the unfamiliar words did seem to link up with some chord of memory. They stepped aside, and watched me toil up the path, to the house where appeared to stand watching me a tall striking woman, obviously a Barbarian, who as I arrived in front of her said, ‘I know who you are.’
‘Tell DeRod I am here,’ I said, understanding that he had not received my message. She hesitated, then went inside. I followed her. She did turn to stop me, but there across the room, staring at me, was a very old man, who lifted his stick to point at me and said, ‘Oh, it’s you at last. Why did it take you so long?’
This knocked the stuffing out of me.
He is a jolly old thing, with puffs of white hair at his ears, a bald pate, and his eyes were full of tears, like mine.
I sat, without being asked.
‘I sent you a message,’ I said. The woman was standing close, hands folded in front of her, watching me.
‘I didn’t get it,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘They take very good care of me, you see.’
He did not seem to be particularly feeble, let alone ill.
‘What’s this about your being ill?’
‘I did have a bit of a turn.’
‘He must not get over-tired,’ she said.
I said to her, ‘I am sure he is capable of deciding when he is tired.’
I don’t think anyone had spoken to her like that for some time. She seemed to gather herself in a movement like a snake about to strike, then resumed her watchful pose.
I said, ‘I would like to talk to DeRod alone.’
Touch and go … Then, ‘Yes, leave us.’
I could see this was not a tone he used to her. Her look at me was pure enmity. But she turned and went.
Who was she? I knew that his wife, ‘the town girl’, had died long ago.
‘That is my new woman,’ he said. ‘She is good to me.’ And he giggled.
This was the fearsome, feared DeRod; he was a giggling old man, an old buffer, naughty, like a child.
‘I’ve come on serious business,’ I said.
‘Of course you have, dear boy. You wouldn’t come just for fun, dear old Sage.’
‘DeRod, as I walked here I saw the Fall is running low. That means the water channels are silting up. There are big cracks in the silos and the rats are getting in. The irrigation ditches need attention. The roads are going into potholes.’
He could easily have giggled, become a child, called for that woman, but he looked harassed, even annoyed, and said, ‘You know how labour is now. They are lazy and irresponsible and incompetent.’
‘But DeRod, what do you expect? They get no training, they haven’t done for a long time.’
‘That’s why we use the Barbarians, they are used to work.’
Again it seemed as if he simply wanted me to keep quiet … go away … stop bothering him. Yes, that was it, he was like someone irritated with an importunate or pestering person.
I went on. ‘DeRod, when you put an end to the instruction, to the teaching, when you ended the storytelling and the songs – obviously this was going to happen?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When your mother died she left behind her a system of education, of training … you ended it.’
Again, he stared, and, there was no doubt of it, was surprised.
‘Don’t you remember, DeRod?’
And that was the moment I understood. Oh, all kinds of enlightenment came flooding, rather late, but there it was, right in front of me. It was not that he had forgotten. Not that he had deliberately destroyed what was good. He had never known it was good. He had never understood. He had seemed to be part of it all, but he, Destra’s son, the graceful and charming and delightful DeRod, whom we had all admired, had been a blind person among us. From some spirit of emulation he had gone along with it all, as children do, but he had understood nothing at all.
Oh, yes, the scales were indeed falling from my eyes.
I sat there looking back over my long life, and thinking how we, The Twelve, had not seen the first most obvious thing. We had deluded ourselves with all kinds of imaginings and resentments and suspicions: we had seen this man here, DeRod, as a villain, a scheming, ambitious, unscrupulous scoundrel. The truth, had always been – he was stupid. That’s all. We had never seen it. But clearly, his mother had … and that was something I had to think out.
When that formidable woman, his jailor, came in, I got up and said to her, ‘Thank you. You must take good care of him.’ And to DeRod, ‘Did you know I am the last of The Twelve?’
‘Are you? No, I didn’t know. No one told me.’
‘Who are The Twelve?’ she asked, suspicious.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ And to him, ‘Eleven died a few days ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and it sounded as if he really was. ‘We had good times, didn’t we?’ he said, the tears starting. ‘Do you remember our games in the teaching room?’
‘Yes, I do remember.’
‘It was such fun.’
‘Yes, it was.’ And as I turned to go, ‘I have arranged with some youngsters to teach them how to write and read. They are my great-grandchildren.’
‘Oh, are you?’ He seemed puzzled and I saw he had forgotten about writing. Then he said, and I remember he said it in the old days, ‘What use is it, when we’ve got Memories who keep records of the past, and all that?’
‘I don’t think many people now know about our history. Or only in a distorted kind of way.’ And then I could not help adding, ‘Your mother, Destra, is remembered as a sort of clever courtesan.’
At this the woman came in with, ‘She was a bar girl. She was a singer in the bars. What’s wrong with that?’
So, I knew what her past had been.
‘Nothing wrong. But she would have been very surprised to hear that she was a bar girl. Destra was a great woman,’ I said, knowing this woman would have no conception of greatness. Then to DeRod, ‘She was a great woman and a fine ruler and there is nothing left of what she created.’
I turned and left, not wanting to see his face, though I expect it didn’t show any real comprehension.
And I walked home slowly through the wood, almost dark now, and dangerous, but I did not see anyone there.
That was last night. I did not sleep. The old are familiar with how memories can shift and change their meanings. A scene from childhood that you have often visited can suddenly say to you, ‘No, you’ve been wrong. This is what was going on.’ But now it is not a question of a scene, a day, but a lifetime, and it will need more than a night or two of sleeplessness to understand it all.
It is Destra, first of all, who commands my attention. When she first came to us all those years ago we knew no more about her people than a few rumours could tell us, so far away did everything seem that was not The Cities. But since then the other cities of the peninsula have come close to us, because of DeRod’s raids, and we know a great deal about peoples and places, and Destra’s story is well known. Her father was a minor chieftain of the Roddite tribe, with several wives. Destra did not marry as the other daughters did, obedient to custom, going to a husband’s clan as early as ten or eleven. Destra was eighteen when she came to us, old, according to her people’s ideas. She refused many suitors. She was headstrong, wilful, and very beautiful. Why did she at last agree to marry? She must have known something of The Cruel Whip’s reputation, but the fame of EnRod’s reforms had travelled everywhere: Destra wanted to live where women were as free as men. Not everyone admired these reforms! Through all the cities of the peninsula and further, where the Roddite tribes live, people were saying that women given their own way must bring ruin on everyone. Or perhaps it was that she saw The Cruel Whip as a last chance for a husband. Whatever she expected, what she got was a drunken, brutal man who beat her – and worse. Free she was not. And then – fortuitously, he died. Let us give her the benefit of the doubt. I know what I believe; and The Cities were well rid of him.
From being a nuisance of a girl in a minor tribe, she had become ruler of a powerful state. I think that we all of us know, even if it is only an inkling, what we could be capable of: I am sure Destra exulted. She knew her capacities. She at once set about putting right what The Cruel Whip had done wrong and making plans for prosperity, success, achievement. She planned not only for her time but for the future. And here she found her difficulty and it was one that could ruin everything. She had had no children. To whom could she entrust what she was creating? She adopted two children from among the Cruel Whip’s illegitimate progeny. There was plenty of choice: DeRod was a delightful baby: he was always a charmer: that was his quality. And my Shusha was always sweet, kind, loving, smiling at everyone. I think I fell in love with Susha when we were both not much more than infants. Destra watched the two, watched and waited. Remember that Destra had been brought up surrounded by children and infants, had learned early to judge, knew that a child shows its nature from the first breath. Shusha could never be a ruler, she did not have the iron that it takes. And DeRod – well, Destra must have watched, and waited, and hoped – he was the most attractive little child: I remember him. He did not have the sweetness of his sister, her warmth, but he did have a brilliance of good looks. One year, two years, three, four … An empty brilliance. One had only to compare him with his sister. Well then, Destra must have hoped, if not lovable and kind, then clever, quick, intelligent.
She must have seen pretty early that DeRod was – he was feebleminded. I have come out with it though it hurts even to think it. We have many words for this condition and most are unkind. He was an idiot. But there are degrees of the condition. Put him in the army as a soldier, obeying orders, it would not matter. He reminds me of a certain idiot to be seen around the streets, good-looking, and smiling, so that you do not at once realise he has little intelligence.
The poor idiot often sits near a little pool fed from a crack in the dilapidating wall of the Fall. He plays with leaves and bits of rubbish. He puts a leaf on a stick, or a stick through a leaf, until he has a little army of – to him – people, and he makes speeches at them, his audience. He sounds like DeRod, and that means he is at two removes from Destra who would begin a speech, ‘I am going to explain what we are doing …’ DeRod, sounding like Destra (though people who never heard her wouldn’t know this) will begin, ‘I am going to tell you …’ He does not continue as you might expect, but goes off with,’ Have you seen the new army? Have you seen the new bit of wall … they say five thousand bits of stone, now that’s a fine thing, five thousand, Wow. Oh, yes, we are something to be proud of, I can tell you, there isn’t a city in the peninsula that doesn’t fear DeRod …’ And so he rambles on, sometimes for half a day, to anyone who will listen. And they do listen, that is the astonishing thing. Yet he doesn’t make any more sense than the poor idiot playing with his bits of straw and sticks and leaves. ‘I’m going to explain to you, yes, hear me, it is Fenga talking. I’m going to make an army out of you and we’ll go across the mountain and capture some slaves …’
I am seeing again something from that long ago meeting with DeRod by the Fall. How he kept looking up to the top as we walked, and how his face went slack with relief when the woman appeared, and how he ran up to her – exactly as a child runs to its mother, for safety.
Somebody has been advising DeRod, guiding him. His town girl? Other women, when she died? His present one is his jailor. It is possible that all these years he had not been getting our messages.
Imagine that poor idiot who amuses himself in the puddle made by the leak from the Fall, in DeRod’s place. He would play with his armies, make up simple songs, and speeches beginning, ‘And now I am going to tell you …’
We have been getting information for some time now from the other peninsular cities, and very eagerly did The Twelve listen to accounts of their rulers. I would say that the word for most of them is – incompetent. We have the comparison with Destra: we know what competence is. You would easily think some of them were idiots, so stupid are their decisions. A stupid person, or an idiot, in a place of power provided he (she only in The Cities, no one else has our laws honouring women) has an attractive personality, can compel eyes, make people smile, may easily not be seen for what he is. DeRod has always had that. There were times when you simply had to watch DeRod, the child, the boy, the youth, so winsome, up to a hundred charming
tricks, charming us – and knowing that he did. But not his mother, no.
The idiot by the pool is nice-looking, and a lot of people don’t seem to see that he is simple. ‘He’s a bit eccentric, you know’
Destra must have been frantic with despair. She would not marry again, not after her experience with her first husband. Of course not. She might have considered adopting another cleverer child. But we have all seen what a chancy thing that can turn out to be. She quietly made her plan: the Council of Twelve. She would choose children from the ruling families, which could be expected to try and oust her if she ever showed weakness. This would disarm them. She made it known from the first that these children would administer The Cities, and one of them, not necessarily her daughter, or son, would become Ruler. It was Destra who introduced the word, and the idea, of Democracy, building on what her father-in-law EnRod had done. There would be thirteen children, brought up and taught by her, in her home, and at the right time they would choose the one most suited to be Ruler. Who better than those who had known each other all their lives, to choose right? She must have thought her plan foolproof, but it was not. I look back now on those days, in Destra’s house, and at us all there. What a delightful lot of children we were. And among them two, both so pretty, Destra’s children. I remember DeRod, a bit of a show-off, but so charmingly eager to please, to be liked: yes, and even then it was easy to contrast him with his sister. Well, we did, of course. But the fact was we were always a bit dazzled by DeRod. Beauty is a terrible thing. When it is matched with a fine nature, a mind, then certainly it is something to bow before, to hold out one’s hands to, in supplication. But that beautiful empty boy, so pleased with himself, his charm was a poison. And surely Destra must have laid awake at nights, fearful for him and for us. But among us, as it were supported by us, his emptiness did not show. I remember we were hurt on his behalf if he did not do well in some lesson, or did not understand: we all rushed to help him, explain, make him one of us. I remember so well that smile of his, wondering, a little embarrassed, his always-on-the-watch eyes, trying to understand, to be as good as we were. And so it went on, that charmed childhood of ours, which was presided over by Destra, whom we loved. We did not ever see her as anything but something like our Sun, unfailingly bathing us with light and warmth. We took that effulgence for granted, never questioning, or making judgements for ourselves. In a sense, we were Destra, as we do become what we admire.
The Grandmothers Page 18