What did this mean?
But I was not special. I was not important. I was only another girl, only another flower, nothing more, in her collar, in a garden.
Then I could no longer meet that gaze. I put down my head, frightened.
He then took his leave of the garden.
This left me alone with Aynur, and Tima and Tana.
In a moment of two, perhaps when she was sure he was gone, Aynur leaped, enraged, to her feet. Tima and Tana, too, rose to their feet. Aynur looked after his route of departure, apparently a quite open one, though the inner gate, leading to the house, then doubtless though our quarters, then though the other gates, sealing off our quarters, and thence to the main portions of the house, and, eventually, out the main portal. He would then be outside the house, in the street. I had been brought here hooded, so I had never seen the city, which, I gathered, was a large one, nor even the street outside, which seemed to be a busy one, particularly in the early morning. Many of the flowers, incidentally, were quite as ignorant, and sheltered, as I. We wondered what the world might be like on the other side of the wall. To be sure, we were sometimes frightened. Sometimes we heard cries of pain, of such as we, and the sound of a lash. Sometimes we heard lamentations, of such as we, and the sounds of chains, and the cracking of whips. Sometimes we heard even, to angry cries, and the cracking of whips, cries of weariness, and misery, and effort, of such as we, cries mingling with the sounds of the tightening and slackening, and tightening, of harness, the groaning of heavily laden wagons, the creaking of large wooden wheels turning slowly on pavement. At such times you may well understand how it was that we within the wall, in the garden, in our delicate, pampered beauty, our light silks, our golden collars, might exchange frightened glances. Our lives would have been quite different, it seemed clear, if we were on the other side of the wall. Sometimes even I was grateful for the guards, and for the height and sturdiness of that massive wall within which we were sheltered. Only too obviously might there be perils, and fearful severities, outside the wall. I was not insensitive to such things. Indeed, I was much afraid of them. But still, on the whole, even so, I wanted to be out of the garden. Better to squirm in a tavern, better to trudge behind an army as one of its collared camp followers, better to be harnessed to a peasant’s plow, wary of his lash, than to languish in the garden! If I were a flower, let me blossom in the fields, or among paving stones, not in the garden. I wanted to be outside, where I could see, and, yes, be seen, where I could actively and visibly be what I was, serving and loving. Better a steel collar in the street than one of gold in the garden!
“I shall call the guards!” wept Aynur. But she did not do so.
It might be mentioned that Aynur, and Tima and Tana, despite their authority, and their importance, in the garden, were less than the least of the guards. They, too, in the final analysis, you see, were only “flowers.” More importantly, they were females, and the guards were males.
I wondered why Aynur did not call the guards.
She must, I conjectured, know the man.
Suddenly Aynur pointed to the dreaded switch at her feet and Tana knelt down, quickly, and retrieved the switch, and, then, head down, humbly, with both hands, lifted it up to Aynur, who seized it away from her. Tana then rose to her feet. All three then faced me.
My silk was on the grass, by my right knee.
“Position,” said Aynur. “Head up!”
I now knelt before them, as Aynur had commanded, positioned, my head up.
I was distressed, but dared not reveal my feelings.
Surely it was not before such as they that I should be so kneeling. It was not that such postures were not suitable for me. They were eminently suitable for me. Indeed, they were quite correct for me. Indeed, I belonged in them. But not before such as they.
“It seems that Gain has been naughty,” said Aynur.
“No!” I said.
“What?” asked Aynur.
“I have not been naughty!” I said.
“Who has not been naughty?” asked Aynur.
“Gail has not been naughty!” I said.
“you may now explain what occurred,” said Aynur.
“I was in the garden,” I began.
“During the rest period?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing in the garden during the rest period?” asked Aynur. “Why were you not on your mat?”
“I was not tired!” I said. “I wanted to walk in the garden!”
“But it was the rest period,” she said.
I was silent.
It was not forbidden to be in the garden during the rest period. She would know that. But it would not do to remind her of it.
“There are ways to keep you in the vicinity of your mat, you know,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
There was, near my mat, as there were also near other mats, a heavy ring, set in the floor. It would be easy to chain me to that, presumably by an ankle ring.
“Did you expect to meet someone in the garden?” she asked.
“No!” I said.
Even objectively, of course, such meetings would be difficult and dangerous to arrange. We had no direct contact with the outside, and, for most practical purposes, those outside had no direct contact with us. And there was the wall, of course, and the knives at the top. Who, unsolicited, could simply come through the house, and enter the garden? But it seems that one had. He had said he was “known in the house.” It seemed likely. It is not the case that the gardens are without politics, nor that intrigue is not rampant within them, but these things are usually amongst the flowers themselves. As flowers, as far as outside contacts might occur, we were almost entirely at the mercy of others, guards and such. Sometimes there were attempts from outside houses to reach suspected flowers within. For example, let us suppose that a woman, not like one of us, is suspected of being held in a given garden. One might then attempt to ascertain this. Too, might she not attempt bribe guards, or such, promising rich rewards fro her release? But let her not be apprehended in such an intrigue, lest her lofty status vanish by morning, and she find herself in the garden then nor more than another such as we. Then the matter would take on another complexion. It would become, in all probability, then, not a difference between captivity and freedom, but a mere changing of collars. In all intrigues within the garden, involving the outside, a guard, or staff member, is almost always involved. They are necessary as intermediaries. But such things are terribly dangerous. Too, of course, there can be internal liaisons, and such. A flower, for example, much taken with a handsome guard, upon whom she has spied, might, risking all, place herself in his way, letting her needs and feelings be known. Too, of course, such liaisons might be initiated by a guard or staff member, for such are not as ignorant of the contents of a garden as is sometimes supposed. But, then again, there is terrible risk in such matters.
“Go on,” said Aynur.
“I was not tired,” I said. “I wanted to walk. I went into the garden.”
“You did not know anyone was there?”
“No!” I said. “I thought the garden was empty.”
“But it was not, it seems,” said Aynur.
“No!” I said.
“There was a man there?”
“Yes!” I said.
“Were you surprised?” asked Aynur.
‘Yes!” I said. “I was shocked! I was terrified! I was horrified! A man there! In the garden!”
“What did you do?”
“I did not know what to do,” I said.
“It seems that you managed to do something,” said Aynur. Tana laughed.
“I had no choice!” I protested.
“You could not help yourself,” suggested Aynur.
“I was seized!” I said. “I was helpless!”
“Perhaps you were beaten,” said Aynur, “but you do not appear to have been beaten. Perhaps you were bound, hand and foot, but there do not appear to be rope marks on your wrists or ankles, or at your belly.”
“I was overpowered!” I protested. I supposed that this was, in a sense, true. I had been overpowered by his authority, by my consternation, by my not knowing who he was, or his license to be here, by the hold he had over me, having seen me by the wall, by my own desperate, crying needs.