Dabeeb had caught it and nodded.
‘Perhaps it is a woman’s song?’
‘All manner of people sing it, my lady.’
‘Perhaps it has a tune that different words are set to, at different times,’ said Al·Ith casually.
‘I think that sometimes is so, with us,’ said Dabeeb.
Meanwhile, Ben Ata was as awake as he had never been in his life.
He knew quite well that this encounter between the two women was accommodating levels of understanding he did not, at the moment, in the least grasp. But he had every intention of doing so. But strongest in him, raging among thoughts and intuitions of a quite different character, was suspicion. And he was as forlorn and excluded as. a small child that has had a door shut in his face.
‘Is it something to do with light?’ suggested Al·Ith.
‘Light? Oh, I don’t think so. I haven’t heard that one.’
But her eyes had said yes, and begged and pleaded for Al·Ith not to betray them. Al·Ith was seeing that her idea about the women was not only correct — but had been far from adequate. She saw that here was something like an underground movement.
‘Shall I sing one of the versions for you? It is very popular.’
‘I wish you would.’
‘It is a very old song, my lady.’ And Dabeeb cleared her throat, and stood up behind the chair, holding on to it with one hand. She had a clear strong voice, and evidently used it often.
‘Look at me, soldier! He’s looking!
It’s at me he is looking!
Soon I shall smile, not quite at him,
That’ll catch him!’
And now both women heard Ben Ata’s breathing, thick, angry.
Neither looked at him: they knew they would see a man in frenzies of jealousy. Everything was now perfectly clear to Al·Ith. She marvelled at her own clumsiness; and also at the aptness of events, which always pleased her, so inevitably and satisfyingly proceeding from one thing to another, turning facets of truth, the possibilities of development, to the light one after another.
She knew that Ben Ata had wanted to have this woman, and that she had not wanted to be had. She knew that Ben Ata’s mind was inflamed with jealousies and suspicions. There was nothing for it but to go along with whatever was happening and — and wait and see.
Dabeeb was singing:
‘Eyes shine—
His, mine …
I know how to please him.
Simple and tease him.
I’ll make him hunger.
And languish and anger.
And give me his pay,
A corporal’s pay.’
Her strong voice left a strong silence, supported by the hushing rain.
‘We sing that at the women’s festivals — you know, when women are together.’
Seeing that Al·Ith was smiling and pleased, she said, obviously daring and delighted with herself — and even looking at Ben Ata and allowing herself a half-humorous shudder at the black rage on his face — ‘There is another version, but of course it isn’t fit for your ears, my lady.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Ben Ata. ‘Don’t run away with that idea. If you knew what they get up to in that Zone of theirs …’
Dabeeb had winked at Al·Ith, then blushed at her audacity, and had begun the song.
‘Come husband! Smooth out my — cushion … ’
‘You are not to sing that,’ said Ben Ata. He was now sustained by a calm, moral loftiness.
‘Perhaps the lady Al·Ith would like to know the worst of us as well as the best, my lord,’ said Dabeeb, in a cosy comfortable voice, motherlike. As Ben Ata did not persist, but merely strode about, snorting, she began again:
‘Come husband, smooth out my — cushion.
Quick, get a push-on …’
Dabeeb interrupted herself, and drummed rapidly on the table’s edge.
‘I’m hungry as — winter.
No sin to …’
She drummed again:
‘Warm me up Fill my cup …’
She drummed.
‘Now—go. Quick. Slow.’
She drummed. She winked at Al·Ith again and, animated with the song, winked at Ben Ata, too, who could not suppress a brief appreciative smile.
‘Hard as a board this Good old bed is …’
She drummed.
‘One two three four One two three four …’
She drummed, smiling, alive with challenge and invitation.
‘That’s how we do it. That’s how we do it.
That is our way. That is our way.’
A long sustained drumming, while all her white teeth showed.
‘A fine idea you’ll have of us, my lady.’
Ben Ata was standing with arms folded, feet planted, smiling. As a result of this song, the current was running strong between him and Dabeeb, whose looks at him were confident, inviting.
Al·Ith watched with interest. Rather as she would have done the mating approaches of a couple of horses.
‘There’s a song we have …’ she began casually, and Dabeeb allowed the tension between her and Ben Ata to slacken, and she became attentive to Al·Ith.
Who was thinking that this lie she was telling would not have been possible in Zone Three at all. Occasions for lies did not arise.
Now she was saying: ‘There’s a song we have …’ when they did not, nor anything like it.
‘How shall we reach where the light is.
Come where delight is …’
‘Oh, no,’ Dabeeb broke in, ‘we have nothing like that. We don’t go in for that kind of thing.’ She was obviously afraid.
‘You don’t think it might be a good idea if you had a song festival here?’ said Al·Ith.
‘Oh, a very good idea. A very good idea indeed,’ said Dabeeb enthusiastically. And her eyes pleaded with Al·Ith.
‘Perhaps we’ll talk about it, Ben Ata,’ said Al·Ith, and at once went on, speaking to him. ‘Dabeeb was kind enough to agree to give me one of her dresses. I’d like to give her one of mine.’
‘But she has dozens of dresses. She had all those that weren’t good enough for you. What did you do with them, Dabeeb? Flog them?’
‘I sold some of them, my lord. They didn’t all fit me.’ And to Al·Ith, ‘I’d be so grateful. If we could — I mean, I could, have one of your dresses …’
‘Then come with me,’ said Al·Ith, on her way to her rooms.
‘My lady, if I could have the one you have on now? I’ve never seen anything like it …’
The two women went into Al·Ith’s rooms and Ben Ata bounded across and leaned to listen. He could hear the two women, talking about clothes, weaving, sewing. Al·Ith was taking off her dress and Dabeeb was exclaiming over it.
‘Oh, this is too fine for me, oh, it is so beautiful, oh, oh, what a beautiful …’
‘When you make dresses for ordinary wear, do you always make copies for special occasions?’
A brief pause.
‘Nearly always. Al·Ith.’
‘It must be nice wearing a plain dress and thinking of the one that you’ll wear on a special occasion.’
‘Yes, it is. But, of course, we don’t have all that many special occasions. We are poor people here.’
Oh, we are, are we? Ben Ata was thinking. And he returned rapidly to sit down at the table, where Dabeeb had been. He was tapping out rhythms on the table. He had not been fooled. He did not know what was going on, though he knew something was. He would get it all out of Dabeeb. If he had not got it out of Al·Ith by then.
The two women returned to find him sitting and smiling, the picture of good nature.
He was stung into admiration by both of them. Dabeeb’s swarthy and energetic beauty was well accommodated by the tawny silky dress Al·Ith had just taken off. Al·Ith had on her bright yellow dress that seemed to take in all the light there was in the great softly lit room — and to give it out again. Her loose black hair shone, her eyes shone, she was full of mischief
and gaiety. Ben Ata was thinking, frankly, to himself, of the pleasures there would be in having them both at once — a possibility that had not entered his head until recent instructions with Elys. He remembered Al·Ith’s scorn of the word have. He sat head slightly lowered, looking up from under his brows at the two — and his mind was full of a painful struggle suddenly, as if it were trying to enlarge beyond its boundaries. He was having a flash of understanding —into the way Al·Ith scorned him for using the language he did. But it did not last. A gloomy suspicion came back, while he watched Al·Ith go with Dabeeb to the arch, and Dabeeb wrap herself tightly in the old dark cloak, and then with a smile at him and something intimate and quick with Al·Ith, run off to be enclosed in the pelting grey of the rain.
Al·Ith watched her go, and smiled. And turned to him, and smiled. In her sunny yellow, she was lovelier than he believed — at that moment—he deserved. He could see that she was a quick, volatile, flamelike thing, and understood how he subdued and dimmed her. But jealousy was undoing him.
She was inviting him. Everything about her, as she stood smiling, enticed him. He got up clumsily and heavily and rushed at her. She evaded him, not out of coquetry, but from real dismay. ‘No, no, Ben Ata, don’t spoil it …’ And she was trying to meet him lightly, and gaily, as they had not long ago, during hours which now to Ben Ata seemed so far above anything he had thought and been since that he would not believe in them, any more than he was able easily to lift his gaze to the vast mountainous region that filled all the western skies. He grabbed her, and she withheld him. ‘Wait, wait, Ben Ata. Don’t you want to be as we were then?’ Oh, yes, he did, he did very much, desperately, he was all inflamed with wanting just that and nothing else — but he could not help it, or himself, or her — he had to be, just then, all grab and grind, and he extinguished all the possibilities of sweetness and the playfulness, and the slow mounting of the exchanges. He had her. And then, all the light gone out of her, she had him. It was not a new experience for him, since Elys, but all the time he was remembering that other time and he made this one obstinate and heavy because, simply, that other time had gone and was not here. This time Al·Ith did not weep, or allow herself to be pulverized into submission. She gave as good as she got, words which she chose, carefully, out of many, and handed to him, with a smiling air of indifference, scorn even.
They ended some hours of this kind of obdurate interchange unfriendly to each other, and inwardly depressed.
When they rose to bathe and dress and arrange themselves, the lovely airy room seemed denuded of its sparkle, and the drum had stopped beating.
This time, all was efficient and considered. She wrapped herself in a cloak, she remembered her shield, and stepped out into the gardens from the opposite door Dabeeb had run down into the rain from. There the fountains played coldly under a cold low blue sky.
Ben Ata came after her, similarly cloaked and ready. She called, and the two horses, black and white, came cantering up, and they leapt onto their backs and rode off, soberly, down towards the road west. They used the time of the journey to discuss what was seen along the road — the crops, the canals, the fields.
Nothing more sensible and connubial could be imagined. But Al·Ith was so far inwardly from Ben Ata that he could get from her not one little moment of real recognition. It was clear to him that she did not want anything from him — only to be rid of him. He knew perfectly well he was to blame.
At the frontier, they reined in their two horses, and Al·Ith was about to shoot forward into the sunny immensities of that plain below the mountains when he called to her hoarsely, ‘Al·Ith, wait.’
She turned and gave him the coolest of mocking smiles.
‘I suppose now you are going to Kunzor,’ he shouted, enraged.
‘And others,’ she called back, and rode off.
He muttered to himself that he would order Dabeeb back, but in fact, knew he would not. He was thinking. He had realized that while jealousy and resentment and suspicion worked in him, poisoning everything, there were other things he could be understanding. And he was determined that he would.
The people on the roads who saw him returning to the camps, remarked to each other that the king seemed subdued. That foreign one was not cheering him up, not much, that was for certain, whatever else she might be doing!
Exactly as had happened before, both Al·Ith and Ben Ata, separated from each other, one riding on into Zone Three, one riding back into Zone Four, felt that the burden of their emotions for one another was not lightened, as they had wanted, but was heavier. Together, they provoked each other into unwanted feelings, apart, thoughts of the other tormented and stung. Ben Ata felt that he was carrying around with him a curse, or a demon, who prevented him from being with Al·Ith in a way that would lead to an incredible happiness. Al·Ith felt a most painful bond with her husband — a word she was examining, turning over and over, as if it were a new ring of a complicated design or a new metal made in the workshops of the northern regions where the mines were. Ben Ata was a weight in her side, no, in her belly, where the new child was, but that was still no more than a speck or a dab of new flesh, so it could not be that which made her so heavy. Riding forward, she was in mind with Ben Ata, whose face was set towards the low, damp fields … She could have asked him this, found out that … if she had done this instead of that … for, away from him, she could not truly believe that her behaviour had been as she remembered it was. When she had come back into the tall light central room she was vibrant and strong because of the exchange with Dabeeb, which had made her alive and confident, so that she had felt far from the gloomy moods of Ben Ata. Her yellow dress had fitted her like happiness. And yet nothing had come of it but the punishments Ben Ata called love.
And now, as she rode through the plain with the grasses shimmering on both sides of her, and the sky a soft blue over her, she felt as if this land of hers was foreign to her, or she foreign to it. This was so unexpected that she got off her horse and stood by his head, her cheek against his, murmuring, Yori, Yori, what are we to do? But it seemed as if even this dear friend her kind horse was impatient with her.
She walked forward along the soft dust of the road, Yori following behind. This was her home, she was this land, she was its heart and soul — and yet she felt like a ghost in it, without substance.
When she came to the road that crossed this one, running north and south, she turned northwards, still walking, and slowly walking, like one who does not want to reach a destination. She walked all day, her horse following her, and sometimes touching her cheek with his nose, as if questioning her. But she did not want to get on his back. She was feeling something like: if I walk, one foot after another, on this soil of mine, then perhaps I can will that it take me back, accept me into itself …
Towards evening she saw a man on horseback coming to her and soon saw it was Kunzor. He jumped down, took her hands, and looked into her face.
The two horses stood nose to nose, telling each other their news.
‘I felt you were in trouble. Al·Ith.’
‘Yes, I am, but I don’t know what it is.’
They moved off the road, and after searching, found a small stream, with some low bushes marking its passage, and they sat there, hand in hand.
Al·Ith was trying with all of herself to reach out to Kunzor, to feel what he was, how he was … she observed herself doing this, with some dismay. For this was not how she usually had to be. Encountering anyone, but particularly those she was most close to, what she or he was, their real selves, impressed themselves on her — sharp, clear, and unmistakably, uniquely, him, her … She had always taken it for granted — the moment of recognition. Kunzor’s own self, his individual and unique self, had a flavour that she could never have confused with anyone else’s. It was a strong, quick, dry, male force. Tangy and energetic, like the winds coming down off the snows at a certain season, just before fresh snowfalls were expected.
Bot she had not had to think a
bout it before, to make efforts, to reach out — and to fail. Unable to make a match with him inwardly, she examined him, carefully, as if this outward appraising could be a substitute.
Kunzor was, of all the men she was with, the nearest to her. In appearance, too. His body build was the same, light and slender, his way of moving lithe and quick, and his eyes, like hers, were dark, deep, reflective. Together they had always known what each other thought. Their feelings passed always through their linked hands like shared blood. They might spend days, or weeks, and hardly need to talk. Now even the sound of the running water seemed a barrier to their being together, and when she began to weep, he simply nodded.
‘You are different,’ he said. ‘You do not hear what I am. And all I can hear of you is that you are troubled and heavy.’
‘The worst is that I don’t want to go on up into my own home, my own realm. It’s as if it were nor mine. Do I seem a stranger to you, Kunzor?’
‘Yes. It is as if you, Al·Ith, the shell of you, had taken in a new substance. And yet I can talk to you, and you can understand.’
‘There are moments when I don’t. Your voice seems to come and go, sometimes I know it all through me, just as I feel your thoughts in me when I am myself. But then I look at you and you are outside myself and not in.’
He said in a low difficult voice, ‘But you are now host to a child from there.’
‘Yes. When it is delivered, then I shall be delivered, too? Do you think that?’
‘You cannot host a soul from a land as far from us as that place is, and not lose yourself to it. Al·Ith.’
‘What am I to do?’
‘Al·Ith, you know there is nothing you can do.’
Soon the sky lost its light, and became a soft grape colour, and the winds from the east began rustling the grasses. The two horses stepped down carefully till they were close to the stream and sheltered from it. And the girl and the man sat close, holding hands, deep in trouble, sustaining each other.
When this scene is portrayed, the two are always shown sitting apart from each other, not touching: Al·Ith with her head bowed, in sorrow, and Kunzor watching her in brotherly concern. And I think that this is the truth of how it was. For if she felt remote from him, this man who had been ever since she could remember part of her, for they had known each other as children, he was thinking that until she came out from under the dark shadow of Zone Four — for that is how he was experiencing being near her — he would not be able to do more than go through the motions of being close. Yet he held her hand through that long night, and tried to reassure her when she wept.