Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories

by Naomi Kritzer

  That doesn’t have to be true.

  The spirit spoke suddenly, so loudly that Sarai had to fight the urge to clamp her hands over her ears. What do you mean?

  If you want your husband’s lust, you can have it. His children—I can ensure your fertility. And that you bear only sons, if you want. Is that what you want, Sarai? I can give that to you.

  You can make him love me?

  I can make him lie with you. I can make him give you children, whether he wants to or not. The spirit’s voice was eager. Let me give this to you.

  There’s no hurry, Sarai thought. I will think about it.

  ***

  SARAI’S UNCLE HAD seventeen wives. Fourteen of his wives had sons. One had only daughters—six, one right after the other. One was completely barren. And one—Alia—lost her first pregnancy, then bore four children, all of whom died within days of their birth. Yet despite that tragedy, Alia was envied by the other wives. Alia was the favorite.

  After the fourth child died, Inka warned Alia that she should bear no more, and Sarai’s uncle regretfully ceased to bring her to his bed. Nonetheless, he treated Alia with unfailing tenderness; he never spoke sharply to her, never complained about anything she did. The odd thing was, she wasn’t even that pretty. The other wives, except for the barren one, consoled themselves in the children that Alia would never bear. Still, they were jealous: Alia was loved as they were not.

  I cannot force that, the spirit admitted. But what do you need with it? You can have sons to take care of you, or power in your own right.

  Sarai found herself shaking her head. Not that, she thought. Lust but not tenderness; sons, but no kindness from my husband. I don’t want that.

  There was a frustrated sound from the spirit, and it fell silent again.

  ***

  “SARAI, HELP ME. I think I’m dying.”

  Sarai sat up in the darkness of the tent to find Mirel kneeling at her side. “You’re not dying, Mirel.”

  “I think—oh.” Mirel’s face contorted and her hands clenched on Sarai’s forearms hard enough to leave bruises. “Sarai—”

  “Relax, Mirel,” Sarai said, helping Mirel back to her own bed. “You’re having your baby. It’s all right. I’m right here.”

  Mirel’s teeth chattered as Sarai helped her to lay back down, despite the warmth of the tent. “I think—”

  “You’re thinking too much,” Sarai said. “Women have babies every day. You’re going to be fine.” She prodded Mirel’s belly gently. The child was turned correctly, head down. Mirel’s waters hadn’t broken yet, and labor had probably only just started. Sarai woke one of the older children. “Make me hot water for tea,” she said. “I’d also like some cold water—and bring us something to eat.” Even if Mirel wasn’t hungry, Sarai would coax her to eat something, and she wanted something for herself to eat, too.

  “I’ll teach you everything I know,” Inka had promised Sarai. “But in the end, each woman has to push out the baby herself.”

  Sarai gave Mirel tea to strengthen her and her baby. She sang her the song of calming that the spirit had said was a novice spell, and bathed Mirel’s face and hands with the cool water as the day grew warm. She tried to make sure that Mirel ate some food, and slept a bit between contractions. And she had the other wives keep Kara well away. “I don’t even want her near the tent,” Sarai said. “I don’t want her having a conversation that Mirel could just ‘happen’ to overhear. If I have to go to Laran myself to ensure this, I will. Do I have to?” To her surprise, the other woman shook her head vigorously and hurried out. She didn’t know where Kara was hustled off to, but there was no sign of her.

  You could bring the child out of her like light from a candle if you wanted to, you know, the spirit said.

  She’s doing just fine. Go away.

  Inka didn’t lose any women while you were there, but sooner or later, you’ll see a really bad birth. Call on my powers, and I can make even a hemorrhage stop.

  I don’t need you to help me deliver a baby. Now be quiet, you’re distracting me.

  Don’t you feel silly, having this sort of power at your hand, and ignoring it? The spirit was yelling in her ears again, and Sarai shook her head.

  Do I have to take the necklace off to get you to leave me alone? I’m busy. I’ll let you know if I think of something I want you to do.

  There was an incoherent grumble and then silence.

  In the late afternoon, Sarai knew it was almost time. Mirel raised herself to a squat; Sarai clasped her hands and urged her to push. Mirel nearly crushed Sarai’s wrists in her grip. “I can’t do this,” she gasped between contractions.

  “Yes you can,” Sarai said. “You’re almost there.”

  Sure enough, the child’s head was crowning. Mirel strained again, and the face emerged. Sarai realized that the cord was around the child’s neck. She eased Mirel on to her back, lifting the layers of robes over her hips. “I need you to not push for a minute,” she said.

  “What?” Mirel said, her voice squeaking in bafflement.

  “Take little breaths,” Sarai said. “Like this—” she demonstrated. “I’ll tell you when you can push again.”

  She was already slipping a finger into Mirel, under the cord, pulling it over the child’s head. And again—it was looped twice. There.

  “Push again,” she said, and with one more groan, the child was out.

  A boy, but he wasn’t breathing. Sarai put her mouth against his and sucked out the mucus, then smacked his little bottom. The baby gasped and started screaming. Mirel raised her head at the sound.

  “What did I tell you?” Sarai said, and set the baby on Mirel’s stomach while she cut the cord. “A fine, healthy boy.”

  He was pink now, screaming his head off. “Let him suckle,” Sarai said. There would be no milk yet, but for the child to suckle now would help the milk come in, and prevent bleeding. “The hard work’s done.”

  Mirel delivered the afterbirth a little while later; she bled a bit, but no more than usual. Laran came in to see his son; after he left, Mirel and the baby went to sleep. Sarai picked up her cold supper and took it outside to eat it. It was night, and the moon was up. Sarai carried her food to the very edge of the camp, settling down in the sand to stare out into the desert as she ate. Sarai had heard stories about an endless lake of water, stretching to where the land touched the sky, and in the silvery moonlight the desert could almost be that water. She took a bite of food.

  I know what you want, the spirit said. Its voice was quiet, as soothing as Sarai talking Mirel through the birth.

  What do I want, then?

  Freedom, the spirit said. You don’t want to live here, dependent on a husband who doesn’t love you—no more than you wanted to live dependent on your uncle who didn’t love you. You just don’t realize you have any other choice.

  Sarai waited.

  There is an ocean beyond the sands—I can take you there. There are places where a skilled midwife is valued in her own right—you could live beholden to no man, charging coin for your skill and supporting yourself.

  Sarai was baffled by the idea, but managed to frame one question: Alone? Who would protect me?

  There was a sigh, a rustle, a hint of a smile. Who do you need but me?

  What if the spell is broken? What if I lose the chain?

  Don’t take the spell-chain off, and no one can take it from you. The only way to break the spell would be if you shattered the spirit-stone.

  Let me think about this. But Sarai could feel her own longing, and knew that the spirit did as well.

  Like a bird in flight, Sarai. Like a wild horse. No one to command you, no one to forbid you. I can give you freedom.

  ***

  WHEN SARAI WAS four years old, she woke one morning to find that her mother was gone. “Sick,” one of her aunts told her distractedly, but Sarai knew that wasn’t true. She counted her aunts, and they were all outside; if her mother were truly sick, one of them would be inside
the tent to nurse her. Instead of keeping the camp quiet to avoid disturbing someone in a fever, there was a flurry of frantic activity. In the late afternoon, all of her older male cousins were sent out on camels, but not in a group, as if for a raid—they rode out in pairs, heading in all directions. They returned at nightfall, and in the morning, they rode out again.

  On the fourth day, they brought back her mother’s body. Luck alone had led them to her before the sands had buried her forever. Sarai didn’t understand until much later that they had brought back the body to show that there was not a mark on her—to prove that no one had murdered her.

  When Sarai was eight, one of her aunts told her that her mother had gone looking for her husband. “Your uncle wasn’t to her liking, either. She went to beg your father to take her back.” But Sarai knew that it was a lie.

  Like her mother, Sarai would stand at the edge of her uncle’s camp in the evening, staring out to the darkening desert with a keening pain she couldn’t describe. She had wished she could fly away like a bird, or even run like a jackal across the desert hills, seeking out water with an animal’s instincts. That, of course, was why her mother had died; she had run out of water. No one could cross the desert alone, on foot. Certainly not a woman alone, who could hardly force her way in to take water from known wells. So Sarai had closed her eyes and held out her arms to the wind, and when it failed to carry her away, had returned to her bed.

  I can carry you away, the spirit whispered.

  Sarai’s mother was not the only person ever to run away. Sarai also had an older girl cousin who ran away when Sarai was nine years old—Dalia. Like Sarai’s mother, Dalia ran away at night; unlike Sarai’s mother, she did not run alone.

  Sarai saw her go, and could have stopped her. She had been sitting at the edge of the camp, staring into the dark desert, when she heard a footstep behind her and turned around. Dalia gasped when she saw Sarai. “Sarai, you shouldn’t be up.”

  Sarai blinked at her. Dalia had always been reasonably nice to her, so she wasn’t frightened. “Neither should you,” she said.

  “Sarai, if you’ll go inside to bed right now, I’ll give you a silver bracelet.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  For a minute, Sarai thought Dalia was going to slap her, but then she reconsidered her tactics. “Please go inside, Sarai,” she said. “It’s important.”

  “I’ll go inside if you’ll tell me why you want me to so badly,” Sarai said.

  “You have to promise that you’ll go inside, and that you’ll be quiet and not tell anybody what I’m doing,” Dalia said.

  “I promise,” Sarai said. “On my honor.”

  “All right, then. Davin of Kilar’s clan is going to kidnap me tonight. I need to go out into the desert to wait for him.”

  Kilar’s clan was one of their rival clans. “Why do you want to be kidnapped?” Sarai asked.

  “Oh, you’re too young to understand. But—Davin and I love each other very much, and Father would never let him marry me. So he’ll kidnap me, and then Father will have no choice. He’ll be angry, but I don’t care—I’ll be with Davin. Now go inside. You promised.”

  So Sarai went inside. She did not break her promise to Dalia, and she did not volunteer the information the next day. People figured out quickly enough where Dalia had gone. Sarai’s uncle was furious. Davin sent a bride-gift, as was customary for a kidnapper, but it was much less than the bride-price her uncle could have gotten from another man. Mostly, though, he was angry at Dalia for defying him, and worse, for marrying a member of a rival clan. On his orders, the camp mourned Dalia, and pretended that she was dead.

  Since Dalia was supposed to be dead, they weren’t supposed to repeat gossip they heard about her, though of course everyone did, when Sarai’s uncle wasn’t listening. Unfortunately, the news wasn’t good. Davin treated her badly, then even more badly when she failed to bear a child. The clans ended their feud for trade reasons, and Sarai glimpsed Dalia one day a few years later. Dalia bore no fresh bruises—at least, none that Sarai could see—but Davin’s beatings had permanently scarred her face. And although Sarai’s uncle had reconciled with Kilar, Dalia could never go home to her father or one of her brothers. She had sought freedom, but instead traded one master for another.

  Sarai stared down at the crystals of her necklace, glittering in the moonlight; at the spirit-stone, and the glint of water inside.

  Behind her, the camp was quiet; everyone was asleep. Beyond her, the desert beckoned.

  Let me give you freedom, the spirit whispered.

  “No,” Sarai said aloud. “It wouldn’t be freedom. I would be free of my husband, free of my uncle—but I would be utterly dependent on you.” She began to unwind the necklace from her neck.

  Wait, the spirit said, its voice rising.

  “I am a midwife,” Sarai said. “Inka doesn’t live with her husband—she doesn’t even live with her son. Any clan is glad to have a midwife. I don’t need to depend on pity, even if I have no sons.”

  The spirit was still clamoring in her head. She dropped the necklace to the ground; the voice abruptly ceased.

  “And,” she said, hoping that the spirit could hear her, “My freedom would be bought at the cost of your slavery.”

  Picking up a rock, she smashed the spirit-stone.

  There was a whirling around her like a windstorm, but without dust. The air around her grew bright, like a dancing blue flame; her eyes watered, and she closed them.

  — She saw a woman like herself, but with her hair loose and her face unveiled, forging the spell of the necklace. Destroy, the woman whispered as she worked. Burn. —

  — She saw the spirit of the spell-chain like a child with eyes of flame, buried alive in the scalding sand. No way out; no way to escape but to unleash the power bound into the spell. Sarai realized with horror that the spirit had lied to her, in its desperation to escape; its power couldn’t heal, couldn’t protect. All it could do was destroy—it had tempted her with power in the hope that its power would break the stone, as well, and set it free.

  There was tremor in the earth, and a cracking sound directly under her feet; Sarai went cold with fear, thinking that she had set the spell in motion after all, and would destroy everything around her. Then she heard the spirit speaking, but in her ears this time:

  As you gave me a gift, so I give you a gift. Water will find you, wherever you are. This power is yours. Nothing can take it away from you. Cross the desert, if you like, or stay here, but never fear that you will die like your mother if you leave.

  The ground trembled again, and Sarai smelled water. Then the spirit was gone, the earth was still, and the quiet desert was alive with panicked camels and screaming children. Everyone stumbled out of the tent, Mirel clasping her baby. Sarai started towards her; Mirel belonged in bed.

  “Sarai!” Mirel cried. “The ground moved!”

  Kara reached the spot where Sarai had been standing and stared. “There’s a huge hole here,” she shouted. “What have you done, Spider?”

  Laran reached the spot. He knelt to peer into the hole, sniffed the air, and finally dropped a stone down into the darkness. “It’s a well,” he said.

  Kara looked at Sarai again, and fell back a step. Nobody but Kara would believe tonight that this well was Sarai’s doing—but they would believe, eventually. Sarai slipped her arm around Mirel. “The ground is calm again,” she said. “Let me help you back to bed.”

  I will give my clan healthy babies and living mothers, Sarai thought—and water, now, wherever we go. And if they fail to appreciate what I bring them, I will find a clan who will. Or I will find the ocean that the spirit spoke of.

  But she didn’t have to run away to be free, Sarai knew. She was free now.

  THE GOOD SON

  MY MOTHER-IN-LAW DIED in 2005. She was only in her mid-60s but she’d been in poor health for a long time. My husband was at her bedside when she died.

  When he came home, he said, “Are y
ou going to do this to me?”

  “I was planning to outlive you, actually,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Good. Let’s go with that.”

  ***

  I DON’T JUST want to be with you. I want to live with you. In the kingdom under the hill, we could have been together forever. I didn’t want that. I wanted you—all of you. But that was before I understood what that meant.

  ***

  MAGGIE WAS AN American tourist when I first saw her, hiking across the Irish hills with a group of other college students. It was raining. Maggie had no umbrella, and when the drizzle turned to a downpour, the water plastered her hair to her cheeks in black curls. The other students ran back to the bus, but Maggie lingered, her camera dangling at her hip, and when everyone else had gone, she pulled a pennywhistle out of her pocket and played it for ten minutes before she turned and trudged back up to the road.

  I made a door, so that I could slip out of the hill and follow her. My elder brother caught my hand and said, “Don’t do it, Gaidian. Bring her here, if you must have her.” When I didn’t answer, he shook his head. “You get nothing but grief when you follow a mortal.”

  “I just want to see where she goes,” I said, and went out into the rain.

  I caught up with her in Dublin. I put on a young face, and clothes to match the ones I saw around me. My first thought was to tell her I was an Irish student the same age as she was, but when I realized she would return to Chicago in less than two weeks, I decided to be an American student, instead—heading back myself at the same time, though to a different city.

  There were fiddlers at the pub and Maggie danced with me, her black curls wild in the humid air. “Where did you say you were from, again?” she asked after last call as I walked her to the bus stop.

  I named a city I’d heard one of the other students say earlier that evening: “Minneapolis.”