117 - *Maesa Virani-e* ("house of Integrity")

Excerpt from the Proceedings of the Chevengani Mental State Assessment Committee, etesora 67, 1556

Linasika Aramichiya, Servant of Michalere: I must say, though I know I might be resented for saying it, but I must say it nonetheless: I would never have come out and stated it, but it has been my feeling, a sneaking sense, if you will, as we’ve conducted our investigation, that Fourth… pardon me, that Chevenga Aicheresa is no longer capable of performing the duties of the office. I apologize to Darosera in particular, but I cannot help but be… relieved, to see this sense of mine entirely vindicated, first by the total concurrence of those people who are closest to him and know him best, as evidenced by their bringing it to the court, and then by the court itself.

Daroseral Kinisil, Servant of Thara-e-Kalanera: No apology necessary, Linasika. I don’t think his spouses would have asked that he be impeached, if they could have avoided it and still had him ruled incompetent, and with the judge we cannot know.

Li: Still, I feel vindicated. Legally incompetent is legally impeached.

Lanai Kesila, Servant of Issolai, presiding: Of more importance to us, sib gentlefolk, is to proceed. There are many questions concerning our mandate, his state of mind, that are raised here. Let me start with a procedural point: to bring Chevenga himself back for questioning, which is something we must, in due diligence, do, since he is legally incompetent we will have to ask permission of those who are now his guardians.

Chanae Salhanil, Servant of Kaholil: If he is legally incompetent, is his testimony admissible? I mean, if he is legally incompetent, does that not make him by rights incompetent to swear in?

La: … That is a good question. I wonder if any member knows of a precedent.

Kusiya Aranin, Servant of Terera South: The thing that strikes me, and saddens me, is that even if he were by rights incompetent to swear, we know he would be truthful. All through, whatever has been happening, he has been unwaveringly truthful. He was in court, as well.

Li: I’d like to dispute that. His answer to the question of whether he’d have carried it through was very striking to me. Recall what he said: it was that he didn’t know, and then, “impending death has changed many minds, perhaps it would have changed mine.” Now consider what we know—which the judge does not, of course—of his history, full of suicide attempts and suicidal inclinations. Each time, except for two, he changed his mind. So what he should have said was, “Perhaps I’d have changed my mind again, as I have most of the previous times.” That would be stronger substantiation of his point, referring to his own history rather than a general tendency, would it not? But instead he spoke of minds generally, concealing that there have been previous times. Of course he did not lie by commission; impending death has changed many minds, of course. It’s by omission, just the same as he lied by omission to all Yeola-e by not telling us before his coming into office that he was certain he’d have only ten more years of life.

I’d really like to note for the record, since I was there, that it was more striking to witness than it is on paper, because you could see how he said it. You’d think he’d hesitate, show a momentary reluctance, uttering something like that—especially under oath—but he didn’t, absolutely none. It was utterly seamless and smooth… instinctively so. And I think that’s what I was seeing. A man who has such long practice at hiding his defects and his weaknesses that it has become instinctive to him. He has been lying so long it is effortless, as easy for him as telling the truth is to the rest of us.

Da: I was there also and I saw nothing more in it than his not wanting to speak of something embarrassing in court, when he was in a position of such utter humiliation already. It’s not as if his history is any secret. If she’s been reading our proceedings, the judge knows. And he denied absolutely nothing, and put up no argument at all.

Li: Only because if he had, he’d have been questioned thoroughly, and everything would have been aired in front of the writers! The judge was doing him a kindness, giving him a chance to concede so it wouldn’t all come out, and he leapt at it.

Da: For the record, what I saw was not leaping. Before he said he concurred and offered no contention, there was a long hesitation, which the court record does not show, and he took a deep breath, and he was quite pale. I think it was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to say in his life; that’s how it looked to me. He knew full well, he was more certain than the judge on it, because of his natural familiarity with semanakraseyeni law, that he was giving up the semanakraseyesin, and without a fight. I’d like to remind my friend and colleague Linasika that we resolved at the outset that we would approach Chevenga in a spirit of sympathy—

Li: Only when we are questioning him.

Da: And if you think the approach you take outside of questioning doesn’t influence the approach you take while you are doing it—

La: Sib gentlefolk, please let us not be infected by madness. I recognize Miniya, who has been gesturing for the crystal with some urgency.

Miniya Shae-Sima, Servant of Tinga-e-Pekola: I wonder if our work is at an end, because our entire mandate has been rendered irrelevant. Assembly appointed us to investigate Chevenga’s state of mind because, and only because, he is—was—semanakraseye. The state of Yeola-e would never so intrude into the life of a private citizen, and he has just become exactly that.

La: It’s a point well taken, Miniya. My feeling is that we should seek the guidance of Assembly on this question, but let’s discuss first.

Li: I will reiterate what I said before; Chevenga is hugely influential even if he is not semanakraseye. I think because of that, the people of Yeola-e will still wish the thorough truth about his state of mind, and are still entitled to it.

Da: I wonder, now that he is a private citizen, how much we, how much Assembly, can give him his choice in the matter. We speak of ending our investigation, but perhaps he wants to continue it because he hopes and expects for us to vindicate him, and wants that public.

Cha: We must consider whether that would be proper use of the people’s funds.

Ikrena Shae-Sansera, Servant of Tassumai: Here’s another thing: he’s come back before. He could come back again. If he should finish this healing process and become solid in himself, and Assembly vote to accept him back…

Li: Then he might get poor Artira thrown out twice, as well.

La: I think Ikrena’s is a point well-taken. Still, we are dividing on something which, in truth, it is outside our purview to decide; I was, in truth, opening discussion on the question of requesting guidance of Assembly. We can argue these points there.

Li: Fair enough.

La: That we request guidance of Assembly with regard to continuing our investigation, now that Fourth Chevenga—Chevenga Aicheresa, I should say, has become a private citizen, deferring all further work of the Committee until we receive such guidance, all chalk, all charcoal, carried unanimously, thank you. Let’s adjourn for now.

†

The first thing I must do, Surya said, was recount everything to my spouses who were in town: what I’d dreamed, what I’d felt, what I’d done, all in detail.

As he stepped out to send for them all, I found myself staring at the ceiling and thinking, I was doing so well. I fingered my senaherani crystal circle. What happened?

They were dismayed as one, when I’d poured it all out to all of them. “But, Chevenga,” Shaina said. “The custom is fifteen hundred years old. We knew it was what the semanakraseyeni line does, so we’d have to do it. It’s hardly your fault. Why are you taking it all on yourself?” Neither she nor Etana, incidentally, had been stream-tested themselves, and they didn’t do it to the children they had between them.

Skorsas asked Surya, “What can we do?” He gave them three answers: what they were already doing—love me—remind me of what I was clearly forgetting, even if it were as simple as breathing deeply, and be confident that I would come out of it. When Etana asked when that would be, Surya promised he’d tell them all his estimate, but out of my earshot.

“If you tell Chevenga, say, three months, he makes it into a deadline,” he explained. (When you’ve been ruled incompetent, I’ve noticed, you get talked about in third person right in front of your face a fair amount.) “‘I must do such-and-such in three months,’ he’ll think, just by habit. The last thing he needs is to feel he must do anything by a certain time. He needs to be free of that long enough to recover from it. So I’ll tell you all, later; but don’t tell him. Chevenga: it’s not three months.” He saw good in that way in my incompetence too; now there was no half-year medical leave. When I thought about it, I had made that into a deadline.

The plan, I gathered, was to keep me secluded from all except Surya, Kaninjer for check-ups and my spouses, who’d take shifts being with me at all times except when Surya was. They’d found a gentle spot of land on Haranin, a little way up the slope towards the cave of Sukala the sage, and tomorrow they would have a tiny house thrown up among the trees. Same thing Kaninjer had done when I’d collapsed from exhaustion, getting me away from everyone; I remembered how good it had been for me. Maesa Virani-e, “house of Integrity,” seemed the obvious name for the place.

Surya would work with me every day, for as long as needed, starting in the morning. He also let me know that I wasn’t done with the bonds; during the day I’d wear padded ankle-shackles that I could not untie, and at night my arms would be bound as well. How long this would all go on, he wouldn’t say, at least to me.

I bared my heart to him, once we were alone and I was part-trussed again. “I thought I was doing so well; what happened?”

“You are doing well—extremely well.”

“Ah. Same as when I lay just this side of death with Idiesas’s sword in me. Right.” I flicked my eyes down meaningfully at my shackled ankles.

“I know it doesn’t feel or seem like it, Chevenga, but everything is—”

“Aigh, aigh, aigh, going as it should, aaiiiggghh!”

“You had to go through this, as part of the journey, same as you had to go through becoming senahera. It’s all part. I told you at the start it would be hard.”

“You did,” I admitted. “My own fault for not believing just how hard it would be. Ehh… it’s all my own fault, pardon my pathetic crabbing. But something I have to ask you: sometimes it seems as if you say that these things have happened as they ought to based on nothing more than their having happened at all. As if you are thinking, ‘Oh, Chevenga’s gone this way, so it must be right.’ Am I imagining it?”

“Of course not, and that’s exactly what I’m going on,” he said. “How else would I know for sure?”

I turned my face to go Aaaaaiiiiiggghh into my pillow, so as to spare his ears.

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