As I play back that scene, so as to examine it, there was everything there that I needed to prevent and save me from so much puzzlement and confusion.
There was a particular smile that appeared on the man’s face, very briefly—only a flicker—of recklessness… carelessness. He had a way of suddenly letting out—and often inappropriately to what was being said or done—a short laugh, as if he were astonished at himself, and yet proposed to stand by what he found. He had a general air or manner that was familiar to me, for I had often to deal with it—yet I chose not to put a name to it then.
So much for my perspicacity—or rather, for my readiness to use it.
We were not together for long. He showed me how to get food, if I wanted it, from the floor below, which was a foodshop for the building, opened a low door into the room next door, just like this one, which I was to use as a sleeping and private place—and having made his apologies, was ready to leave.
I was tired, but stimulated, and had hoped for more talk, or in lieu of that, to go out again into the teeming streets below. But he said that before I went out I must decide what role I was to play.
“In this charming place,” said he, “there are three roles for a woman. One is to be a whore. One, the wife of a high official, or at least a trader or merchant. Or you may be a servant or working woman of some kind. You would not choose, I am sure, the first.” The way he said this had a laugh behind it that I simply did not know how to take. The second is out of your reach—for you are not here with a permit or passport and must conceal yourself. Therefore, I can only suggest that you pose as my servant. This would be entirely within the customs and mores of Koshi. What you wear indoors does not matter, though if someone arrives unexpectedly you must cover yourself up absolutely, but wear appropriate clothes underneath in case you are searched.” He nodded at a chest and left. I found in it a plain blue skirt, baggy blue trousers, and a long tunic. And that was the last I saw of Nasar for several days.
What had I expected?
That I should spend time with Klorathy, that he would instruct me, and explain… all that I could not work out for myself, but felt continually on the edge of discovering.
I did not go out, but observed the town from my high vantage point, and from windows at many levels in the building. In the foodshop below, I excited notice. It was staffed by women wearing the same clothes as I did, short skirt over trousers, and the loose tunic; their hair tied in cloth. My unbound fair hair interested them: I was from the far Northwest, they said, and assumed I was a descendant of the survivors of the “events,” which they referred to as “The Great Punishment.” Some Adalantalanders had escaped somehow, had made their way east, and had helped to settle these great cities of the far eastern plains. They had a reputation for beauty, for wisdom—they were priestesses and shamanesses; and no fair or blue-eyed child could be born anywhere without being called “child of the lost islands of the great oceans of the west.” But I was no true daughter of Adalantaland—I was too thin, my locks were too sparse, my eyes were not sea blue. But my earrings, which I wore at certain hours of certain days, announced my true lineage, so these serving women knew: and they told everybody that the merchant on the top floor had as his serving maid a slave from the Northwest fringes. This I did not want, and wrapped my head thereafter so my earrings did not show, and tried to be inconspicuous, and took at one time as much food as was practical up the stairs so as to keep my visits few, though I wanted very much to talk with these cheerful slaves. For that is what they were. The females of this culture were truly enslaved, in that they did not know they were. They had never questioned that males should run everything, make laws, decide who should marry and how, and dispose of the futures of children. The dispossession of the true role of females had taken place so long ago they did not know it had ever happened. Their reverence for the old Adalantaland was all that remained to them of a real inkling of what females could do and be. And that had become “magic,” and “witchcraft.” Their highest ambition and possibility was to marry a man in a good position: or to give birth to sons who would prove themselves. I longed to study the warps and distortions in the female psyche that this displacement of their true function had caused: I wanted to study them in depth and in such way that I could return home with a contribution to our Studies in Perverted Psychology. But first things first.
I kept myself private and retired to the windows where I could look north and see—so I fancied—the white beginnings of the icecaps, and south to great mountains where the snows lay again. It getting colder daily, and I wrapped myself in my black cloth for the sake of warmth, and sat many hours quietly, thinking of the questions I was going to ask… Klorathy? Well, then, Nasar.
There were specific and definite things I wanted to know. It seemed to me that long ages had gone into my wanting to know them, that this wanting had fed a need that now could not any longer be put off.
And I imagined what would happen, how I would frame questions, how they would be answered, in all kinds of ways. And imagined, too, how they would not be answered, for I was already set to expect checks and delays.
One evening, when I had sat a long time in a window opening gazing over the rich suburbs and wondering who were the rich and powerful ones of this culture, and able—not all that inaccurately either—to picture them because of their victims and subjects I had seen in the streets, from the windows, and in the persons of the women downstairs in the foodshops; when I had watched in myself the melancholies and sadness that went with this “season” of the rapidly darkening days, so that there was less light in any day than there was night; when I had repeated in myself over and over again what I wanted to know, so I could ask sensibly and well—in came Nasar, unexpectedly, and flung himself down on a low seat, opening a package of food he had brought from the shop below, eating rapidly and in a way that I had never seen in Klorathy. He unceremoniously thrust a lump of some sweet stuff towards me and said “Have some,” and wiped his mouth roughly and lolled back, his hands locked behind his head, staring up and out at the sky that showed through the windows high in the ceilings. It was a cool sky and clouds fled past. I was utterly overthrown again, because he was so similar to Klorathy.
I sat myself down carefully, and said to him, beginning my cross-examination: “Are you a relative of Klorathy?”
This he took as a shock, or a check. He set his eyes direct on me, and gave me his attention:
“Well, lovely lady,” said he, and stopped. I remember how he briefly shut his eyes, sighed, and seemed to fight with himself. He said, in a different voice, patient, but too patient, there was much too much effort in it and he was speaking as from out of a dream or trance: “We come from the same planet, Klorathy and I. We are all similar in appearance.” And there was, again, that flicker of restless laugh—and then a turning aside of the eyes, a sort of painful grimace, a quick shaking of the head, as if thoughts were being shaken away. Then he looked at me again.
“Am I going to see Klorathy this time?”
“One Canopean is the same as another,” he said, and it was like the ghost of a derisive quote.
“You are not like Klorathy,” I said doggedly, surprised that I said it. And knew I had not meant it kindly.
He looked surprised, then laughed—sadly, I could have sworn to that—and said gently: “No, you are right. At this moment, at this time, I am indeed not remotely like Klorathy.”
I did not know what to say.
“I want to ask questions of somebody…” and this was desperate. I was becoming amazed at myself—the tone of this interview or exchange was different from any I had ever known. I, Ambien II, age-long high official of Sirius, with all that meant of responsibility and effectiveness—I did not recognise myself.