94 - I wasn't mistreated

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Chevenga Mental State Assessment Committee of the Assembly of Yeola-e, etesora 46, Y. 1556

Kusi: We are most assuredly going to call in Esora-e.

4Che: Aigh.

O: Chevenga, why shouldn’t we?

4Che: No reason. No reason.

O: Tell me what’s in your heart. Why the discomfort, at the prospect of us calling him in?

4Che: …I …

O: All right, let’s do it stepwise: what’s the emotion you feel, at the prospect of us calling him in?

4Che: It’s fine, it doesn’t matter… call him in, I can’t stop you.

O: But what’s the emotion? We’re investigating your mental state here.

4Che: … No, no, I’ll tell you… I know you can ask Surya in a moment, curse it, I can say it. Fear. It’s fear, and shame.

O: Fear of what?

4Che: I should have known that would be the next question.

La: Once the witness has answered this clearly and completely, Omonae’s time is up and Miniya’s begins.

Mi: I cede my time to Omonae.

La: Then Omonae will continue on Miniya’s time.

4Che: So much for that hope of reprieve (laughter).

O: So what are you afraid of?

4Che: I… I don’t know that I can describe it.

O: Something that Esora-e might say here? Or do? Is there something you fear might come out publicly? Or that he will get back at you somehow?

4Che: No, no, no, not that…

O: What’s the worst that could happen?

4Che: I… I know, it’s just fear.

O: And your habit is to swallow and override it, of course; but our purpose is to understand it.

4Che: I know, Surya does the same in my healing. “What’s in it…”

Su: What’s in it, Chevenga?

4Che: (laughing) That’s how it’s done.

Su: What’s in the fear?

4Che: I… well, it’s about him. I can say that much. It’s not about anything coming out publicly… I’ve already said the worst.

O: You think he might blacken your name to us?

4Che: No. I don’t think he’d do that. I think the worst he’d say was that I was a handful as a child, which I was.

O: If we asked him under oath, “Do you think Chevenga is a son unworthy of Tennunga—”

4Che: You’re not going to ask him that!?

O: We might; why shouldn’t we?

4Che: Aigh!

O: What are you afraid of?

4Che: I… All-Spirit, I…

O: You are afraid even to say what you are afraid of?

4Che: (signed chalk)

O: All right. Let me tell you, and say for the record also, what’s so striking here to me, and I think to the entire Committee, judging by their expressions. If there’s anyone, in all Yeola-e, who is known as the very epitome of fearlessness, it’s Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e. There are statues and songs and tomes commemorating your courage in the face of the deadliest dangers. But here you are, tongue-tied with fear, just at the idea of someone else undergoing the entirely peaceful experience of our questioning. And you can’t even explain why.

I will tell you what it looks like to me—particularly your inability to articulate the cause of the fear—from my psyche-healing experience, and we can follow on that. It’s how an adult who was mistreated as a child—

4Che: I wasn’t mistreated!

O: Hear me out, please, Chevenga; it’s how an adult who was mistreated—

4Che: No, no, no, I don’t just dispute that word, I object to it!

O: I’m speaking of the tendency; we’ll get to your case after that.

4Che: He had no such tendency!

La: Order. Sib witness, please let the member ask the question complete, which you must then answer.

O: In my experience, the tendency is very definite and clear: an adult who was mistreated as a child—

4Che: Aigh!

O: …when the idea is raised of the parent who treated him so being called on it, openly, by others, will immediately react with fear. Because always, in such cases, there is secrecy, and the child is abjured strictly to maintain it. If you ask him, why the fear, he has a hard time answering, because even answering is breaking that rule of secrecy. That is what I began to say; I will add to it now that if the notion is presented to him that he was indeed mistreated, he will invariably deny it, strongly.

4Che: (who here threw his hands over his face) Aiigghh!

O: I am saying, Chevenga, that that’s what it looks like to me.

4Che: He’ll never forgive me… he’ll never forgive me…

O: For what? You’ve accused him of nothing; you have only answered our questions with the truth, clear and complete to the best of your understanding, as you have sworn and are required to… yes? Have you told any lies?

4Che: No.

O: So what have you done, for which you need his forgiveness?

4Che: (who here laid his head on his arms and wept) Nothing. I’m sorry. Nothing.

La: Now seems like a good time for a rest break; do you concur, Omonae?

4Che: Please…

O: Doesn’t matter if I concur; we set the protocol so that he may call one, and he just in effect did.

La: Tenth-bead.

†

“I just want you to be happy,” Skorsas said miserably, as we went down the mountain. “That’s what I’ve always wanted, more than anything.”

“I know. Another futile hope; I’m sorry, love. I don’t know how to be happy. I never have, and I can’t imagine I ever will.”

I knew what he was thinking. No, you don’t, because you’ll never be happy with that brown harridan around, but you refuse to hear it, so I can’t say it. He stroked my back with his hand as we walked. “Let’s get you down into the hot tub again… you’re shivering, you could catch your de—something.” I hadn’t noticed I was, until he said it. “You’re learning happiness. It’ll come.” As if he were my teacher; well, he could be, when I thought about it. He’d always been happier than I.

He took me straight to the water-room, and got into the tub with me. “Put your head back, Jewel of the World, so the heat drives out the cold, that’ll warm you faster than anything. And close your eyes.” He held me there, my weight half on his arms and half carried by the water. Relaxing undid the numbness, unfortunately, and made the tears come unrestrained.

“She may withdraw every bit of love for you she has in her being,” he whispered, “without diminishing the love there is for you from all the world more than a drop out of the Miyatara… you know that, don’t you?” I didn’t answer.

“You know I don’t want this, right?” he said, a little later. I opened my eyes. His perfect Arkan-blond hair falling over his graceful shoulders had soaked up water, turning darker.

“Want what—Niku gone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, don’t feed me shit, love. Sure you do. I understand, and I don’t blame you.”

He didn’t answer, just pressed his lips softly to my brow. Above the pounding of the rain on the glass faded, and the runnels turned smaller; the clouds looked to be breaking. That will make Niku feel better, I thought, by sheer habit, a thought entirely apart from what had happened.

My ears were underwater, but Esora-e shouted so loud I heard him anyway. “Chevenga! Chevengaaaah! What in the Garden Orbicular are you telling that kyashin Committee?”

“Maybe before you tear into him you might want to find out whether his wife just left him,” Skorsas said in the deadly-quiet voice he can get, just as I was coming up. Esora-e froze mid-step and mid-indrawn-breath, his mouth open and hand raised, like one of the life-like statues in the Marble Palace, if there could be a Yeoli one.

“How are you, shadow-father? I gather you read the transcript.”

“What happened?” he said, sitting down on the bench.

“One thing at a time,” I said, swimming out of Skorsas’s arms to sit on one of the bath seats. “Why don’t we get yours out of the way first?” I looked him right in the eyes and set my teeth.

“I… I guess I’m a little… angry, but… you didn’t say a single thing that wasn’t true... I’m ashamed because I was such a... never mind.”

“That’s it? You came in here with smoke coming out of your ears and now you’re saying I’ve done nothing wrong?”

“Chevenga… I want to know what happened with Niku.”

I told him, at least as much as I knew. “So, good news for you, shadow-father.” He signed a double charcoal, hard. “She’s a chocolate woman, not good enough for me, remember? I’m just trying to derive some good out of this for someone.”

“No, no, no, Chevenga. You… and she… are good… for each other.” Words I’d once thought he’d choke before he said. You should have seen us being good for each other just now, I thought.

“She’s carrying twins,” I said. “So probably we just pretended to have a fight, to give her an excuse to take them away so they don’t get stream-tested.”

“Ahh, kyash,” he said, and knelt by the edge of the bath, holding out his arms. “Forget what I think.”

“I’m fine, shadow-father.”

“No, you’re not,” said Skorsas, who was soaking in well his informal training from Surya.

“The fik I’m not.” I say I am, and therefore I am; that was always the way.

“You were just relaxing, letting me comfort you, not a moment ago,” he said tenderly. “Can’t you go back to that?”

My shadow-father touseled my hair, wet though it was, said, “I’ll leave you alone, lad,” and was gone. I didn’t know it yet, but just about then the runner from Assembly Palace was coming up with the letter from the Committee requesting him to come before them.

Would Niku go without saying goodbye? It might be best. Vriah wouldn’t, though. She soon came running in, her small face in its frame of sun-bright curls grim. “Aaaaaabaaaaaaaah!” I got out and sat up on the edge to hold her.

“I thought I was staying with you but Ama’s taking me now and she said you and she had a fight and I know it’s true because of how you feel and Aba I’m scared she won’t bring me back!” Her tiny arms around my neck turned tight as a death-grip.

“Make the wall, Vriah-riah.” Whenever parents quarrel, it’s the children who suffer worst. With any other child but her, I’d have said, “Don’t worry, she will.” No one lies to Vriah more than once. “Did you ask her how long she means to be gone?” She waggled her head no, Niah-style, so as not to let go of me even with one hand. “I don’t think she knows,” I said. It was the truth. So much power over children a grown-up can claim, who is willing to be ruthless. I told myself, it’s best for all four of them, the two within safe from the stream, Vriah and Roshten safe from the semanakraseyesin.

I gave her the most reassuring truth I could think of. “Even if Ama and I stay apart, I don’t think she’d never let you visit me.” That seemed to help, being credible to her. After a while more, she asked me gravely, “It was about the stream-test, wasn’t it?” I signed chalk. “The stream-test is bad.” No doubting where she stood on it. I’d wondered with horror since Roshten had been tested, how much she’d felt of it, even from a distance. “Aba, your Ama and Aba did it to you… why don’t you know how much it hurts?”

I took a deep breath. “It was so long ago, I don’t remember it,” I said finally.

“It hurts,” she said. “A lot.” I just held her, at a loss for words.

A while more of hugs and kisses, and she seemed to cheer enough that I could say, “Go now, birdling. I’ll see you again soon.” The clouds broke and the wind stiffened from the south, making a good updraft. They left around noon, without me getting a chance to hug Roshten goodbye. Perhaps Niku was thinking I didn’t deserve to hold a child I’d stream-tested.

I went on telling me it was for the best for all of us, but that night I could not sleep, feeling sick at heart from head to toe, no matter how much Skorsas lovingly touched me. “What bothers me most,” he said, “was that she needs you even more desperately than I do, but pretends she doesn’t. I know warriors always feign strength even when they’re feeling weakness, but she shouldn’t try to deceive you.” My brain was too palsied with emotion to answer.