The Reign of the Favored Women

by Ann Chamberlin

Grim on the face of Valpo,

  Swords like pines in the wood.’

  “I remember one day in particular after such a recitation. I’d been keeping a fierce time to the meter with my ax—hearing the rhythm, not the words—just outside the door. They wouldn’t touch the wood pile, not them. The fire would go out and they’d freeze to death before they’d set iron to anything but human flesh. Rather than see my mother weary herself with it, I’d taken up chopping the moment I could swing the ax without letting it scrape the ground. I was tall for my age and strong.

  “But chopping wood was woman’s work, so my uncles would say when they’d call me away from the wood pile for target practice or wrestling. A new powder horn and musket. A sword stolen from a fallen Turk. These were my toys. And what boy of any age could resist that play? But I did.

  “My mother came out when the poem was over to carry in another load of wood and she said, just as acknowledgment of my presence. ‘Someday, Bela, you’ll revenge Valpo. I know you will.’

  “I stopped the ax and looked at her, bent under her load. ‘No Mother’ I said, ‘I’d rather stay here and chop your wood.’

  “It would have been bad enough had only she heard that, for she was an emotional woman and prone to believe anything set to the intoxicating rhythm of epic. But my grandfather heard it, too—he’d gone out to relieve himself hidden by the shed. He came up behind me as I chopped and set his hands on my shoulders. The weight broke my swing and the ax sank among the chips of wood on the dirt floor.

  “Grandfather felt my shoulders, testing their strength as he had taught me to weigh a new bow. Then he began to exert pressure, increasing it slowly, as if I were a branch he would break with his bare hands.

  “‘So you want to stay with your mother, do you, boy?’ he said between teeth gritted with the effort of causing me pain.

  “I could only gasp in reply. But then the pain made me angry and the anger made me strong. Strong enough to free myself from my assailant and to throw the ax at him with the energy I’d learned to throw at overaged cherry wood. Fortunately, much as I truly wanted to kill him. I had aimed in anger rather than with care. As soon as I could see straight, I saw my grandfather’s favorite fur hat pinned to the wall of the house behind him, but he himself was unharmed.

  “When he’d caught his breath, the old man laughed aloud. He took the ax and his hat down from the wall and laughed again until the tears came as he poked his short, powerful fingers through the rent in the fur. He dragged me into the house by the arm, showed the hat, and told the tale. Soon my uncle had added a new verse to his poem about the “bold generation that is to be,” how I would not submit under pressure, and everyone roared with new laughter.

  “But I grew sick to my stomach as the full impact of what I had done came to me. Such a black and violent thing! It had turned me against my own flesh and blood. This thing, to which my family was addicted—how could they tell, when under its influence, whether what they did was right or not? I had spoken of my concerns to the village priest and he affirmed my feelings. ‘They who live by the sword die by the sword,’ he quoted to me.

  “Yet, I realize now that when it serves them, priests are just as able to quote words about how the enemies of God should utterly perish and ‘he who is not for me is against me.’ At that time, however, our priest had Protestant leanings and preferred being subject to the Turks than to Austrian Latin heretics, and so peace is what he spoke. I believed him and set my heart on the priesthood as a vocation.”

  XL

  With his web of words, Ghazanfer Agha returned me to the world of his childhood, his dream of a monastic life. “Of course, even a whisper of this notion spoken at home brought down the wrath of heaven,” he said. “‘And have I fed that fine, strong body of yours and clothed it these ten years that it should rot in a cloister? What about your father? What about Valpo?’

  “My uncles and grandfather turned all their energies now—when they weren’t beating Turks—to beating me. To make me tough, they said. If they only knew how many times I crawled with their welts on my backside to the little icon I had hidden in my bed in the loft! It was a picture of Jesus whom the artist had rendered beardless and effeminate to suggest his meekness and gentleness. That became my ideal in all my suffering.

  “When finally he did catch me at my devotions, my grandfather tossed the image out the window, which shows you what sort of Christianity he was fighting Turks to keep. Me he dragged down by the scruff of the neck to be whipped once again in the presence of all the family.

  “The old wolf was livid, growling in his throat as if he’d missed his kill. When he made me drop my pants and saw that the wounds from his last beating were still raw, it made him furious that so much pain should have so little effect. Before he could pick up his riding whip once more, his madness drove him to leap at me with his knife drawn, like a wolf to his prey.

  “My male member contracted as it felt the cold blade against it. ‘By God, I shall unman you!’ he cried. ‘You are not fit to be numbered among us.’

  “I was shaking with fear, but somehow I managed to whisper, ‘Go ahead.’

  “‘What did you say, boy?’

  “My voice came much louder this time; it was high and thin as a woman’s. ‘Go ahead and cut,’ I said, ‘If to be a man means to be like you, I don’t want to be one.’

  “The wolf’s eyes narrowed to slits and fire spat from beneath his mustache. He turned from me as from an obscenity. And it was obscene, was it not? For him, castrating the son of his son was like castrating himself—unthinkable. The wolf strode to the corner of the hut while all my kinsfolk watched in horrified silence. Then he began to bay as if at a full moon, to growl as wolves do the minute before they leap. But in my grandfather’s case, the sound was laughter. As soon as they saw it was laughter, the rest of the household laughed, too, from relief and because their master was no longer angry.

  “‘You’ll be a man,’ he turned to me and said. ‘You’ll be a man, never fear. Which of my other sons ever had the courage to say that with a knife at his crotch?’

  “Then they laughed louder and stronger and my grandfather tousled my hair and told me to pull up my pants. I did so and they laughed even more.

  “My face was on fire and, rather than give them the pleasure of seeing the tears that must douse that heat, I fled out into the snow. My family’s laughter pursued me like the howling of a pack of wolves on the trail.

  “Two feet of snow lay in drifts where the night wind had blown it, but the air was now still and grey as iron. I hardly dared to breathe, lest the air stick to my lungs and rip them raw on the exhale. I immediately wished I had put on more clothes—another pair of mittens and a shirt or two more under the sheepskin—but I was not going back in that house, I swore, until I was dead and they carried me in.

  I picked up my ax: Exercise, I thought, might serve in place of those clothes or a fire, for I was young and had no real desire to die. So armed, I set off through the drifts towards the woods.

  “I decorated tree trunks with blobs of snow—heavy eyebrows and a white mustache—the old wolf; a tree with a crooked limb—my uncle with the bullet in his shoulder. Then I charged with fierce, tear-strangled yells until I hacked the trees to bits in a mad slaughter that lasted over an hour. The bits that were left were too little and green to be much use in the fire. I left them where they lay. Besides, I meant not to give those back at the house any more service.

  “‘God have mercy on any enemy of yours, young man.’

  “I turned to the voice with a start. I had been standing, the ax limp at the end of my exhausted arm, the cold slowly creeping in where the heat and the anger left. A wild sort of laughter (had I been listening, I would have found it all too like the wolf’s) escaped from my lungs, pushed with white steam by my excruciating panting. I had heard no one approach and when I saw the man, I was reduced to only panting—and that I kept as restrained as life could bear.

  “The man was a st
ranger. I had seen few strangers before. Everyone in our village was known to me since childhood and I had only ever been taken on one trip to the town of Szekszard in my life. There was some strangeness in the man’s dress and in his voice as well, but as far as I knew, the whole world beyond Szekszard dressed and spoke like that. I was curious, but not very anxious.

  “‘So tell me,’ the stranger said, moving closer, leaving his horse tethered to a tree behind him. ‘Who was this dangerous enemy you so bravely slew just now?’

  “I didn’t dare answer truthfully, ‘My grandfather,’ so I gave the pat answer: ‘The heathen Turk.’

  “‘I see,’ the stranger said, and his dark eyes twinkled merrily. ‘And have you ever seen a Turk before?’

  “‘No,’ I replied, ‘but my father...’ And I gave him a brief recital of my heritage, complete with snatches of my uncle’s poetry.

  “‘Bravo,’ the stranger said. Then: ‘Does your doctrine include rendering aid to strangers?’

  “I didn’t remember it doing so, but my religious bent assured me it ought to, so I said, ‘Yes.’

  “The man told me he had lost his way and would be obliged if I could point him on the road to Szekszard.

  “‘Are you from Szekszard?’ I asked.

  “‘From a little village just south of the town,’ he said with a smile and added, as an afterthought, ‘If you can just tell me the way to Szekszard, I can manage the rest by myself.’

  “I told him the way, proud of my knowledge, but ‘It will take you until sunset or more to get there.’ He confessed his obligation to me nonetheless. Then we stood there looking at one another in silence. I do not know what was crossing his mind, but mine was forming the question, ‘Tell me, in your village south of Szekszard, would you have any use for a boy? Strong, willing—just watch me with an ax...’

  “But before I had courage to express my thoughts, his made him laugh and slap his knee with pleasure. ‘Look here, boy. Just to show you how grateful I am, what do you say we build ourselves a fire with your wood and sit down together and have some lunch? I just shot a deer. You see, I spent all night lost in the woods without any supper, so early this morning I decided even if I was lost I didn’t have to starve. Now that I am found, there’s no need to let the meat go to waste.’

  “I accepted his invitation gratefully. In other circumstances, I might have invited him to our house, but I was in no mood to return there, to show a new friend my disgraceful origins.

  “The stranger knew all sorts of tricks. He got the green wood to burn as if by magic. We set our wet clothes out to dry, and never have I tasted venison so good. He knew how to make a boy talk, too. I had soon spilled all my troubles to him, every detail I could think of about my relatives’ fights with the Turks, their personal quirks and habits. Where they stored their ammunition. Even the priest had never shown so much concern over what a boy had to say. Finally, I even confessed to him what particular and humiliating family episode had driven me into the woods.

  “The stranger laughed, but not like they had laughed. His chuckle was gentle and, it seemed, inspired by compassion.

  “‘Next time your grandfather tries that trick on you,’ he said, ‘you just tell him how the emperors of Byzantium used to have their own sons castrated because they knew there was no better way for second-and third-born boys to come to power than to remain forever just behind the throne. If your grandfather knew any better, he would not laugh at the sexless ones as he has done.’

  “And then he told me that, though he had been born in the little village somewhat south of Szekszard, he had seen much of the world, including Constantinople of the Turks. He was full of tales to make a boy’s heart glow. He gave me hope that the world need not begin and end with one’s kinsmen and the mud of the village road. In particular, he spoke of the khuddam not as freaks and subhuman, but as honorable opponents in a complicated game for very high stakes. What the game was eluded me in my youth and naïveté.

  “He said, ‘I do like to come to Hungary, if only because the women do not have khuddam on their side and here my side wins, as easily as taking sweetmeats from a sleeping infant. But then I always like to return to the land of the Turks again. I find the game insipid without the mystery and the challenge! Like a war without an enemy.’ And he laughed out loud again and slapped his knee.

  “It grew late and we both knew our time together was at an end. We kicked snow over the last of the coals and I walked with him to retrieve his horse. Then, because I felt myself too dangerously close to tears, I said good-bye and turned at once.

  “I had not gone four steps before I heard my name shouted. But it did not come from my stranger. It was in front of me: My grandfather had come into the woods to find me before dark. I had no sooner seen this than a cloud of smoke shrouded the old grey wolf and the crack of a pistol shattered the air like a wall of icicles crashing from the roof in an early thaw.”

  XLI

  Ghazanfer continued, “‘Grandfather! Grandfather!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t shoot. He is my friend.’

  “But it was already too late to speak. My friend had been knocked to the ground by the shot and his horse behind him reared and screamed in fear.

  “‘Your friend? You little fool!’ Grandfather shouted back at me. ‘The man’s a Turk. A Turkish spy.’

  “‘No, no. He’s Hungarian. He was born—’

  “‘It doesn’t matter where he was born. That horse, those trappings, that turban, that scimitar. He’s a God-cursed janissary. And a dead one, thank God.’

  “No, the stranger was not dead. He moved, struggled to rise from the snow stained with his own blood. My grandfather saw the movement, too, and began to reload his gun.

  “‘Get out of the way, boy, and let me finish him off.’

  “I didn’t move except to shift my weight from foot to foot and finger the ax handle nervously. Grandfather raised the pistol to sight, found me still in the way, and scowled. But then he thought of something that made him smile as he lowered the gun again.

  “‘All right, boy,’ he said. ‘This is your time to prove yourself a man. You finish him off. Yes, you. With that famous ax of yours. Go on. One quick blow between the brows and you’ll be a man. Easiest thing in the world.’

  “I turned from him and faced the stranger. I brought the ax automatically to my shoulder. It would look good from behind. But under this cover I bade my friend, ‘Run!’ with voiceless lips.

  “When I actually caught the horse’s reins to steady it while my friend mounted, his wounded arm useless to help him, the pretense was over.

  “‘Get out of the way, you damned little coward!’ my grandfather cried.

  “But, ‘Ride, ride!’ I shouted to my friend and did not move from between them until the trees folded in on him and he was out of range.

  “The abuse I received was first verbal but then very, very physical. It was so severe that I more than once wished my grandfather had not been so cautious of my life earlier, but put me quickly out of my misery with a bullet through the head. Nevertheless, when at last I was allowed to crawl off to my loft without supper, I did not mind as much as before. There was the stranger’s good venison in my belly and I was no longer alone with only a wooden picture for a friend. Besides that, I felt for the first time in my life I had won a victory from the old wolf. And I had won it not by being meaner and stronger than he, but by mercy and friendship. It was just as the very effeminate Jesus had said.”

  “Was the stranger a janissary?” I interrupted Ghazanfer’s tale for the first time since he’d begun.

  “Of course,” he replied. “I know of no other man who could ride four hours through the snow with a wound like that in his arm and come alive to his garrison.”

  “So he survived?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’d told him all about your family’s anti-Turkish activities?”

  “I had indeed.”

  “And he returned your favor to him by not telling his sup
eriors what he had learned?”

  “No, he told them. Two weeks later our village was raided and all my uncles and grandfather were killed.”

  “That must have been a hard lesson for a boy to learn: that people are generally ungrateful, even to those who save their lives.”

  “No, I cannot say he did not return the favor. For when the sword, drunk with killing and carried on by its own momentum, was just above my head, he called out and stayed it.

  “‘Stop, sir. That’s the boy. Spare him.’ Of course I couldn’t understand Turkish at the time, but I’m sure they were words something like that.

  “My friend spoke to his superiors and then to me, describing how I should be taken to Constantinople and trained in the Enclosed School to become a janissary—just like he had been. I felt as if St. George himself had delivered me from my awful family. I did not say no.

  “But then, that night, after other likely boys were rounded up and the prettiest girls spared their virginity for a better price on the slave block, the soldiers celebrated their victory with general violation.”

  “It is the way of war,” I said. “Every army does it.”

  “Yes,” Ghazanfer Agha agreed. “But I had never imagined that men and women come together in that way before, and it was a rude, violent, ugly awakening.

  “My mother was among them. I heard her screams over the crusted snow. They were as pitiful as if she had been a helpless child, not one whose hot hand and sharp scorn I had felt so, so many times. I had to plug my fingers in my ears and still could not escape it.

  “They stopped short after a while and I thought ‘Peace at last.’

  “But I was wrong.

  “My friend came and quietly told me that she was dead. She had plunged a sword into her own belly rather than have to accept another man that night, bury all her men in the morning, and then live with herself afterwards. My friend came to tell me I might say a few words of devotion over her if I wanted to. I had no words to say to the bloodied, mangled corpse. But I did speak to the man, my friend, who stood, clumsy with sudden sobriety, over her.