My goodness, she's skinny. "Deerskin dresses will protect you. They will block the sun's bad rays. It won't take long to sew your new clothes. I'll help you."
"I'll watch?"
"No, you'll sew. I'll watch."
"I don't think so."
[Narrator: Kashmira had a certain way of turning down offers for her to engage in activities that didn't appeal to her. "With an incredulous tone" is perhaps the best way to describe how she rejected Granny's offer to help Kashmira sew her own clothes. Essentially she was saying that you'd have to be a fool to expect that she'd actually do the sewing. She conveyed all of that with the tone of her voice when she said, "I don't think so." Some teenage girls have similar attitudes. You probably knew that already.]
"Your choice. But all you have to wear right now are your undies. You can't walk around in your undies inside the ship. You certainly can't go into the sunlight wearing only them."
"Why not? Mathias isn't here."
"Doc is. He's a man, you know."
Kashmira nodded. "One glimpse of me in my undies and he could attack me before I could stop him," she said mostly to herself.
"You believe your undies are sexy enough to make Doc into a drooling sex maniac?"
"No. But it's a sin for any woman to show herself in such a way that a man might be unable to control himself. I wouldn't want to be the one to break up your marriage."
"That's kind of you," Granny said and made a mental note to have a certain discussion with Kashmira about men and their impulses. But not today. "What are you going to wear from now on?"
"I'll stay in my bedroom. You can bring my meals to me here."
"I don't think so." Granny mimicked Kashmira's tone of incredulity perfectly.
It was at that precise moment of stalemate that Doc walked down the corridor and stopped at the door to Kashmira's cabin. Seeing a beautiful girl (ranking eight or higher on the ten point scale of cute little fillies), his body morphed into a combination of a hunchback but with definite Frankensteinistic overtones. He staggered into the bedroom, hunchback in full force and hands clutching and grabbing the air. "Woman's underwear," he intoned. "I see woman's underwear..."
Kashmira shrieked and dove into the open closet.
"I'll save you," Granny announced and shut the closet door.
"What happened?" Doc asked in a loud enough voice to be heard through a flimsy closet door. "I was walking up to the galley... Everything is a blank. Where am I?"
Do you think you're on a Shakespearean stage or something?
Critics. The scourge of actors everywhere.
"Doc, you'll have to leave. This is a woman's bedroom."
"Oh. So it is. How'd I get here? I'm hungry. I think I'll go eat now. Must find meat."
...
"He's gone. You can come out now."
"I tempted him. I have sinned."
"If you say so."
"I must confess."
"I happen to have been the wife of a man who heard many confessions. I know the routine. Go ahead and confess if you feel you have to."
"Paterfamilias, I have sinned –"
"Enough with the confessing part. You're forgiven. Now the penance part. For your sins, you must sew you own clothes so that that poor elderly wreck of a man cannot be agitated again by the sight of you in your underwear."
I'm listening in, you know.
That wasn't part of the script. Script says that deranged man goes to the galley. Makes lunch for his wife.
I don't think so.
Doc had Kashmira's incredulous tone down pat too.
# # # # # # # #
It was now the next morning. A Saturday if you're keeping track.
"I usually take breakfast in my bedroom," Kashmira informed Doc. She had been waiting there patiently, but no breakfast had appeared. She decided to walk up to the galley to find out why.
Doc turned away from the porridge cooking on the stove to look. Kashmira was wearing the shorter of two deerskin skirts that she had sewn yesterday. Winnie had also brought an assortment of t-shirts, socks, and girls underwear from the compound. Given enough time to go barrel browsing, a determined person could find any piece of youth clothing you'd want stored away in the caves behind the compound. Kashmira was also wearing a white t-shirt, the deerskin vest she had also sewn yesterday, short white socks, and a pair of moccasins.
"Starting today, you'll have to share in the work that has to be done around the ship," Doc said. "Yesterday you were a guest and we prepared meals for you. From now on, you'll make your own breakfast and lunch and, as well, you'll help in some way with dinner."
No response.
"What do you normally have for breakfast?"
"A boiled egg and a banana."
"We don't have fresh bananas, but we do have dried banana chips. The boiled egg is easy. I'll show you what to do. You'll find a small pot in the cupboard right behind you."
"What's a pot?"
# # # # # # # #
Breakfast was over. The galley had been brought back to its normal appearance through the joint efforts of both breakfasters. Kashmira was sitting at the table answering Doc's questions about the bots she had worked on yesterday. Doc was using her answers to gauge what grade level of bots he should give her. He figured she was at least two years behind her age group in language arts, three years behind in math, and she had no knowledge whatsoever of science, history, or geography.
"Normally you'll work on two or three bots in the mornings, make your lunch, do some physical exercise in the afternoon, and work on one more bot. After that, you and I will talk about what you've learned. We didn't have time to do any of that yesterday because you were sewing. Your clothes fit you well. Did you have trouble learning how to sew?"
"No," Kashmira answered. "It was easy to learn but my hands got sore."
"Let me see them."
Kashmira held out both hands. Doc held them, turned them over, and looked at the fingers and palms. She has hardly any flesh on her fingers! Then, because he knew that she wouldn't know anything about the blisters that were on her thumb and forefinger, he explained what they were and how long they would hurt.
# # # # # # # #
Lunch was a simple affair. Kashmira's usual lunch when she was at school consisted of a single piece of bread that had been folded over into a sandwich along with three slices of an apple. If she were at home instead of school, the cook would give her some raw vegetables and three slices of an apple.
"What would you like for lunch?" Doc asked.
"I can pick?"
"Yes, of course."
"Do you have a jam sandwich?"
"We have the makings for one. I've shown you where everything is stored in the kitchen already, so you can make the sandwich yourself. We'll eat at the table together and talk. I'm going to make myself some soup."
# # # # # # # #
Lunch was soon over. Kashmira ate her sandwich and three apple slices and watched as Doc created a homemade soup. He offered to share it but she said that she was already full. Afterwards they went down to the hold where Granny kept an old basketball.
"We'll play with this ball down here," he said. "No chance of losing it in the ocean."
No response.
"You've seen balls before, right?"
Kashmira nodded and looked warily at the basketball.
"We'll bounce the ball back and forth. Like this."
Doc gave her an easy bounce pass to catch.
Kashmira watched it go by. "You didn't bounce it close enough to me."
"You're supposed to move your hands to catch it."
"The ball came too fast." Kashmira looked at the ball in the corner of the hold and then back at Doc.
Doc stood there, waiting.
"One of the boys in my class would always bring the ball back when I missed it."
...
Doc called an end to P.E. class well before he had planned to. Kashmira had no eye-hand coordination whatsoever.
Put Kashmira and Wizard into a gym together and Wizard would look like a star athlete. However Kashmira was able to run into corners to retrieve lost balls. She had become tired of doing that after 10 minutes.
Granny made an appearance in the ship's hold as class was ending.
"Feeling better?" Doc asked.
"Must have been something I ate," she replied. "Thanks for letting me sleep in."
The skeptical reader will realize that this little conversation was intended to explain why Granny had been missing from the ship that morning. She had flown to a certain church in Maasin City where she looked for, and found, a copy of Paterfamilias' prayer book. This took the form of a number of printed pages stapled together. She assumed that the prayers in this document were the prayers most commonly used in the church's services. She did not recognize any of them and so she started translating them from Latin to English and that was what had kept her busy all morning.
# # # # # # # #
Doc and Kashmira were standing at the kitchen table where a big basketball was planted on the table. Doc was moving an apple around the basketball, rotating the apple as he did. Kashmira had completed the assignments in her English and Math bots, but had found science incomprehensible. Granny was listening to the conversation from the stove. Kashmira was struggling to understand how an apple could be the Earth and the basketball could be the sun when they clearly weren't. She had offered to bite into the apple to prove that it was an apple.
Did they teach her anything at all in that school?
For a school in the slums of a city, they did well. She can read, write, and do some math.
"Suppertime," Granny said in response. "Let's get the solar system off the table."
Since this was the second supper that Kashmira had had in the ship, she was used to passing the food around the table and dishing out what she wanted. She took a teaspoon of mashed potatoes, a teaspoon of canned salmon, and a single slice of tomato.
As you might expect, Kashmira finished supper first.
"Did you like the salmon?" Granny asked as she picked up a laden fork. Kashmira had said that they frequently had fish at supper. Granny didn't have any fresh fish, but she thought the canned salmon would be acceptable. Kashmira had picked at it at first, but had finished it off after that.
"It was good. I've never eaten that kind of fish before."
"Would you like some more?"
"I can have more?"
"Of course. We have lots left. Weren't you allowed to have second helpings at home?"
"No. The cook made up a plate for me. The maid put it outside my bedroom and that's all I was allowed to have."
"You never had a meal in the kitchen or dining room?"
"No."
"Doc, pass Kashmira that salmon, will you?"
Doc did and Kashmira filled another teaspoon.
...
"Would you like more?"
"No. I'm full. That fish was pleasing to me."
# # # # # # # #
With supper finished, that meant it was time to clean up the kitchen. Doc gave Kashmira no choice about helping to clear the table. She had to take anything needing washing to the sink; he took care of putting the food away. He did give her a choice about washing or drying. She wanted to wash the dishes since Mathias had shown her how to do that. Doc dried and tried to engage her in conversation. She said very little. When Doc announced that they were done, Kashmira turned away from the sink and disappeared down the hallway to her bedroom.
"Where are you off to, Kashmira?" Granny asked from the living room.
"Bed," the response came back.
At 7:15? Granny sent to Doc.
She looked very tired washing the dishes. Yawning. No energy.
Busy day?
Busy, yes. Exhausting, no. Did Winnie leave her drones in Kashmira's house?
Yes. Why?
I want to find out more about her life in that house. Plus I'm going to TiTr her mother. I'll ask Stu to accompany me. That way he'll have seen Kashmira before he and Momaka come for their visit.
I've asked Yollie for a reading.
Perhaps she could do some TiTr'ng with Momaka.
# # # # # # # #
Later that evening, Granny was ready to tell Doc what she had found out about Pater Familias' prayer book. "Do you remember the prayer that Kashmira was reciting in her bedroom?"
"The one intended to ward off evil spirits such as us?"
"Yes. That one. Five words over and over."
"Something to do with a horse wasn't it? Was the prayer something like - Please may I have a horse so that I can escape from these evil spirits?"
"Not exactly. She was saying the same five words repeatedly in exactly the same order. I'll spell them for you. ANSER, BES, CALCEUM, DENS, EQUUS."
"Must have been a powerful prayer – she sure was going at it."
"The translation is: Goose cow shoe teeth horse."
"You can't shoe the teeth of a horse with or without a goose and a cow in the building. That doesn't make any sense."
"None of the prayers in his booklet make any sense. They're just Latin words randomly strung together. In this prayer, they are in alphabetical order. In other prayers, they aren't in any particular order."
"So the paterfamilias doesn't understand Latin. Lots of people are in the same boat."
"If so, why perform the service in Latin? Why not let them pray in Spanish?"
"Good question," Doc said.
"I have another question for you. In one of the prayers that are used in the confessional, the person confessing says, in Latin: I forgive you for the sins you have committed. "
"That's the part the paterfamilias said, right?"
"No. Definitely not. The person who is confessing is forgiving the paterfamilias."
"He's a fraud and he's asking his parishioners to forgive him for impersonating a priest?"
"Could be."
"Are you planning to say anything to Kashmira about this?"
"This faith is very important to her. Just because her paterfamilias can't speak Latin, that doesn't mean he's not doing good work in his community."
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 31
Sunday, August 25. Doc left the ship after breakfast and met with Stu to do some time-travelling research. Doc wanted to see what Kashmira's mother looked like. He chose to go back to May, 2072 because he was certain that they'd find Kashmira's pregnant mother in the house at that time. His first glimpse of Kierra gave Doc the answer he was seeking. That first glimpse was followed by the extremely disturbing sight of El Patrón beating and raping his wife. They TiTr'd further back to learn why he had been so brutal. Eventually they arrived at the day that Kierra arrived in the house and they observed her wedding, such as it was. Doc wanted to go back one more day, so they got to watch Ramón trading two chickens for her in her home village.
Mathias had told Doc that Kierra's mom had been sent back to her home village after her birth, so they stayed in the village and TiTr'd forward. The found no sign of Kierra's return to the village. That prompted another trip to El Patrón's home. They witnessed the midwife sneaking into the house, the signing of the birth certificate, and the bribe paid to the paterfamilias. The next day they saw Ramon coptering to Manila and abandoning Kierra in the slums of the city.
"Do we want to see the end of this?" Doc asked.
"We have to, don't we?" Stu replied. Both men were struggling to hold back their anger.
Skip TiTr'ng quickly through Kierra's life in the alleys of Manila led them to the day that she died.
"We cannot reveal this to anybody in the family," Doc said.
"Do you want to look at what Kashmira's life is like inside the home now?"
"I can't look at her father right now," Doc replied. "I'll get that information directly from Kashmira."
Neither uttered a word as they returned to present time and went food shopping in Cebu City. Neither knew how to make an invisible
food pallet from William's filaments, so they both stuffed food inside their slings and flew home slowly. Doc messaged Granny when they were coming in and she made sure that Kashmira was in her room studying a bot when they landed.
Stu helped Doc restock the fridge and pantry before leaving the ship, but not without wiping the crushed tomato residue off the soul of his shoe first. It had slipped underneath his shoe while he was flying and he had only found out about it when he landed and put his foot down on the deck. Such are the perils of flying with nothing holding you up except thin wires.
Doc had the following mind-message discussion with Stu as he headed back to the Philippines where he was helping Momaka in her role as a Japanese crime boss.
Stu: You won't be able to keep the secret of the slings from her much longer.
Doc: I know. We have to keep fresh fruit and vegetables in the ship from now on and that will be impossible to explain.
Stu: Once you explain one secret...
Doc: A-huh. The fresh food is hard enough to explain to Kashmira. How do we explain visitors coming and going with no signs of a copter anywhere in sight? She already has a Wilizy brain-plug, but Mathias only used that to pretend to whisper to her. Adding a sling would be easy.
Stu: It would be easy if we wanted to adopt her. Yollie took a reading of her this morning while we were out. Did you hear her report?
Doc: Yes. When Yollie and Momaka TiTr'd back and watched her interact with people in real time, Yollie said Kashmira was a very nasty person. But Reese saw nothing but bright white. Pure. Sinless, if you like.
Stu: The two readings aren't compatible.
Doc: I know.
Stu: We could find a home for her somewhere. She doesn't have to be part of the family.
Doc: And Mathias? Do we tell him to stay clear of her?
Stu: You're having a meeting with Hank and Yolanda tonight. Whose reading will you support? Yollie's or Reese's?
Doc: That's a good question.
# # # # # # # #
Doc and Kashmira were in the galley, thinking about lunch. "Will you have a jam sandwich again?" Doc asked.
"Yes. I always have that for lunch. With three slices of an apple or an orange."
"Would you like to share my soup? I'm putting green beans in it this time."
"No."
"Kashmira, I've noticed that you never say please or thank you. For example, when I offered you some soup, you said No. Granny would have replied, No, thank you. Did you not learn to use those words at your home?"
"The servants say such words. Señorita, por favor. Gracias, Señorita. A mistress must never say those words. They are a sign of weakness. Servants will take advantage of you if they believe that you are weak."