“Nazareth will come here afterward,” she said. “You know she will.”
“I hope so. Where else could she go?”
“Don’t tell her I was here before her, wailing and moaning. Please.”
“Of course not. She’ll be far better off if she thinks this isn’t bothering you at all. We know that… we’ve all had a turn in Nazareth’s shoes.”
Rachel stared at them.
“No, you haven’t,” she said bitterly. “Not one of you has had to marry a man she hated.”
That silenced them, and they nodded. It was rare, because actual discord between husband and wife was not an efficient arrangement for communal living. There tended to be fewer children from such marriages, and it was hard for everyone in the Household where the couple was living. Thomas must have had genuinely compelling reasons for this match, to have gone against so much experience and tradition — or else he was counting on Nazareth’s youth and innocence to be overcome by Adiness’ magnificent face and body. Nazareth had not yet caught her dose of Romantic Love; he might well be counting on it overtaking her in Adiness’ arms. For Nazareth’s sake, they hoped that he was right and that it would take a good long time to wear off.
“We know a little something about it, then,” soothed Grace. “A little something; enough to be careful, Rachel. You go ahead now, and tell her. And we’ll be expecting her.”
“Oh… Rachel?” Caroline shoved her fingers deep into her hair and looked at the other woman. “Rachel, before you go… have you heard the rumors about Government Work?”
“Rumors…”
“Rachel, do think! I realize that Nazareth is the main thing on your mind now, and rightly so, but think just for a moment. Have you heard anything about experiments with test-tube babies?”
Rachel frowned, “I don’t think so,” she said. “What are they saying?”
“That they’re feeding the little things hallucinogens… and then Interfacing them with non-humanoids.”
“Dear God in heaven.” Even in her state of exhaustion and self-disgust, Rachel could appreciate what that meant.
“It may be only rumor,” said Susannah. “It’s usually rumor. It’s just the kind of thing the government would love to convince the Lines they had going.”
“It’s… unspeakable. If it’s true.”
“Yes, it is,” said Caroline. “Rachel, see if you can find out anything about it, will you? From Thomas? He may very well know.”
Rachel nodded, absently, her hand on the door. She could not mourn for test-tube babies this morning. She was too entirely used up with mourning for the daughter she’d failed so shamefully.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“If anyone can find out, it’s you,” said Caroline.
“Oh, yes. I’m so skilled in my… marital relations.”
“Rachel — just try.”
“Why? What could we do?”
“It would be good,” said Susannah, “to know that it was not true. It would be easier for us all to sleep at night, child.”
When Nazareth came to them later in the day, the women were ready. In a circle of small rockers, in the common room, each with her embroidery or a quilt block or one more intricate lacy shawl to be knitted or crocheted. And their hearts resolutely hardened against the temptation to do the coddling of Nazareth that they had forbidden to her mother. Even so, the girl’s despair and revulsion were hard to watch with the necessary appearance of tranquil unconcern.
She kept saying, “I can’t do this.”
And they kept saying, “You can, Nazareth. You will.”
“I can’t.”
“You have no choice.”
“I do” she said. “I do have a choice.”
“What choice?”
“I will kill myself,” she said. “Before I spend a lifetime with that disgusting parody of a man and his ego that is far bigger than he ever could be, I will kill myself. I will.”
Something in her voice, some narrow edge, caught their attention. It was an easy threat, easily made, very common and frequent in young girls suddenly confronted with the unpleasant decisions of the males who controlled them. But there was a note of resolution in her words they didn’t care for.
“How would you do that?” scoffed Nile, drawing up a length of emerald silk. “Perceive, Natha… there stand your two dear little guards, waiting for you on our doorstep. You can’t even go to the toilet without those two, standing outside the door and counting off the seconds.”
“They can’t follow me in,” said Nazareth. “They can go everywhere else, but they can’t follow me in there. And I know ways… oh, I know ways that will put an end to this long before they get tired of counting seconds.”
No doubt she did. Every woman did.
They looked at one another, and at the trembling girl, and the same thought was on all their faces: we can’t have this.
“Nazareth… dear child…” Susannah spoke carefully, making certain that there was time for the others to stop her if she was misjudging the situation, “there’s something you should know.”
“I’m not interested in your fairy tales!”
“Not a fairy tale. A truth.”
“I’m not interested — whatever it is, I do not care.”
“Nazareth Chornyak,” said Susannah sternly, “you hear me! Do you remember, long ago, telling Aquina about your Encodings notebook? Do you?”
Nazareth looked up at that, and her lips parted slightly; it had caught her interest after all.
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Because, child, Aquina came back and told us. And she did more than that. She found your hidingplace in the orchards, dearlove, and she’s been going there every month and copying your work out for us to use.”
The outrage was stamped plain and fierce on the girl’s face, and they were very glad to see it there. If she could be distracted by something like this, she was still safe.
“How dare you!” she hissed at them. “You sneaks… you contemptible old sneaks! My notebook — my private notebook…”
She was so angry she could not even go on talking, the sense of violation choking her. And they agreed with her with all due solemnity, and granted her that every single one of them would have felt just the same way. Exactly the same way.
“But what matters,” Susannah went on when the storm had calmed a little, “is that among those Encodings we have found seven valid ones. Seven, Nazareth Joanna. And every last one of them major.”
Susannah was aware of the stillness around her, the stillness of a collective breath being held. It was a terrible risk she was taking — did she have to take it twice? Had Nazareth even heard her, caught as she was in anger?
But when Nazareth finally spoke, she said none of the things they might have expected her to say. She said, “I don’t want to know.”
“What?”
“I do not want to know. I am not listening to you. I will not hear you. I will not be bed and brood for Aaron Adiness, who is only filth, do you perceive that, filth! I will not listen to you witches and your spells and your foolish incantations… I will not know!”
Ah. That was much better. That was ordinary young girl’s panic and anger. None of that deadly dull seriousness, but ordinary frantic babble. This, they could handle, and without endangering the Encoding Project any further. But when it is necessary to be cruel, you don’t drag it out; you are swift with the blow. It was over to Grace, whose laughter would hurt Nazareth far more because Grace was one of the tender ones; and Grace did not miss her cue. At the first flickers of Susannah’s signing fingers, seen from the corner of her eye, Grace’s clear laughter rang out and split the silence. And the others joined in.