192 - A hundred times as much pleasure as pain

So, to continue:--

Kak and more kak! I tell myself. She’s testing me too, in her very different way... “I... hmmm.”

“Chevenga has never said anything about it,” she says, “but he does not know you as well as you know yourself, and you and he haven’t been together very long.”

I take a deep breath, looking off over the lagoon for a bit. “To be entirely honest”—that’s what she wants—“I have broken things. In the Mezem once. I used to fling things into the sea when I was younger rather than turn my anger at anything living. One of my war-teachers—Shkavi-Master—suggested I take my anger and put it into that part of my style. But... I can take a lot. And then when I run to the end of my strength, I shout and do get emotional. I try.... to make the time before my strength runs out, longer each time.”

“You don’t think it’s better to object calmly to whatever you would otherwise take, before it gets to that point?”

You make it sound so fahkad easy! “It would be. The hard thing is, that what I take in... usually doesn’t truly bother me, at least it doesn’t feel as if it does. and then it’s kah, like being hit in the head, with one too many demands or requests.”

“The drop that bursts the dam,” she says.

“Yes. It would be better if I could recognize it before it gets to the sticking point. Or just say ‘no I can’t’ instead of getting angry. I am getting better at that. The problem is, I realize, that most people don’t seem to realize they are asking or demanding something of me, they just want what they want.”

“That is a matter of knowing yourself,” Karani says, and then smiles. “The one time in which your teacher is always with you. Chevenga... I wouldn’t call him demanding. But he does have a way of always thinking he is right. He has to be that way, really, doing what he is doing, and most of the time, he is right that he is right. Or at least that his way is one of those which are right. You might run into difficulty there, especially if you are both proposing ways that are reasonably right. I’m curious... have you and he ever quarrelled?”

My mind flashes back to a hissing argument in the woods of Arko, making me want to laugh. “He and I once had a disagreement over killing someone.”

“Let me guess: you were for it, and he was against it.”

Merao... am I that obvious? Or is it... it could just be how well she knows him.

“Yes. We were... making love... in the woods outside Arko.” Isn’t it funny how you never want to tell a man’s mother that? “I thought this Arkan must have overheard us and so we should kill him... we couldn’t let anyone know we were lovers. He didn’t think the man was close enough. We had an argument, all in hiss-whispers. He was right in the end. The Arkan never even knew we were there, or at least if he did, it didn’t get into the rumour mill.”

“Hmm.” Her eyes look just like his when he’s thinking, when she’s thinking. “It’s just... I see the anger in you. And the touchiness. I’m his mother... I don’t want to see that come down on him.”

Ohhh, Ama Kalandris. She just said it, just like that. Well, she’s his mother. She doesn’t know me, I tell myself. She doesn’t intend to insult me. I swallow the anger. “I can understand that. He’s in a very vulnerable place.”

“From what he’s gone through? True, but I would say this even if he hadn’t.”

I swallow the anger again but can’t help but sigh. “Karani... I love him so much,” I say. “I... will do my absolute best to see him happy, as much as it is in my power... I want to learn how to be peaceful in my life... I’m sorry I’m not explaining well. I’m so fortunate that I was the one who got to ask him to marry me. He...” I ran out of words and threw up my hands. “I will do my best.”

Her brows knit Chevenga-like again. “How do you propose to learn how to be more peaceful in your life? He cannot be your teacher.”

Fahkahd… is she trying to make me mad? “I’m not asking him to be. It not only wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t be right for me to,” I say, telling myself I need to be cooler about this. “I don’t know who I will speak to yet. I am not going to be here, to speak to my Wasteega Foa.” She asks who that is, I tell her, and say, “Until I find someone, I will have to meditate every day.”

“You’re not heading into the best place to do that... a war,” she says. “Of course... war has other relief for anger. I am doing that myself... I was asa kraiya. I’ve taken up the sword again, because of what they did to my child. I couldn’t imagine how else I would slake my anger and my pain.” He already told me she was doing that. “Perhaps you’ll have to put it off.”

“And make sure in the meantime that if I do get angry about something it doesn’t splash around on anyone else,” I say. “I can always go privately and pound things. Karani, I don’t like being bad-tempered. I realize it, and don’t want to spread it, least of all to my family. In that sense, the war will be perfect...”

She smiles at that. “Yes. I suspect the Arkans will suffer for all sorts of grievances which actually have nothing to do with them. My inclination is to ask why the temper, but that’s not for me to ask... I know one thing: there is a custom—in truth it is a military law—in Yeola-e, that anyone who has been captured sees a psyche-healer. Because, so often, they are hurt worse than they know. Maybe you should do that? There are some who travel with the army. They know how to fit it in around fighting, for one thing.”

“It’s a good idea,” I say, though, to tell the truth, the idea of seeing a Yeoli healer doesn’t exactly thrill me. “I have done some healing here. They hurt me a great deal, though not nearly as much as they tormented him.”

“It could be not nearly as much and still be a very great deal. You have my sympathy, Niku.” She pats my shoulder.

It sounded to me, Merao, like she was asking me to promise never to raise my voice in anger to her son, no matter what. Does it sound that way to you? Anyway: I asked her, and said, “I cannot, in good faith, give that oath, for I am not perfect. It would be a lie if I did.”

What’s she going to do, I am thinking, get mad? Say she’s going to advise him against marrying me? I don’t know. None of those things, it turns out. “Raise your voice in anger? Ehh...” She makes the brush-off sign again. “Spats happen. I wouldn’t expect him never to raise his voice in anger to you. But there is a line that people should not cross, and both of you should adhere to it. I expect he will; but I know him.”

“And you don’t know me. I love him, Karani. I don’t ever want to hurt him.”

She signs chalk and says, “He was raised, as best we could, not to cross that line. Were your parents careful about that too?”

Ohhh Aba Tyriah. How to answer that, Merao? This woman has a gift for questions that skin you naked, have you noticed?

“It depends on where that line is drawn in a family’s soul, I suppose,” I say finally. “My father... while we had him... was very good about that. My mother...” I trail off. I have to. “She did her best. I don’t want to say anything of my mother to you, Karani, that would have you think less of her.”

She signs chalk, her eyes thoughtful. “Your own best is all my son, and I, can ask,” she says.

We walk down the beach in silence for a bit.

He was raised… it’s hard to imagine him having been raised, you know what I mean? But she did it, or was one of the four or five who did. What could it have been like? I decided to ask her. She didn’t have to tell me any more than she wanted to. “Karani, how did you manage? Raising Chevenga, I mean. I cannot imagine how it must have been for you.”

I… sorry, Merao, I can’t send you the rest. There’s secrets. Let’s just say she told me it was tough.

My next letter will probably be from somewhere on the way to Yeola-e. I’ll send a chunk of chocolate along. I hope it helps.

Lots of love from your friend always,

Niku

--

But I want to write the rest, Merao, even if I never send it.

She didn’t say anything for a bit. We walked with the wavelets lapping our feet. She was sort of turned inward.

“Well, you know,” she says finally. “They all start out like your tiny Vriah, there. Untouched, innocent of all cares or hardships. Of course in Yeola-e... in this family... we give them a severe taste of pain very early.”

I get a feeling she’s not totally in favour of that.

“But he came through that, and he was happy as a young child. Unearthly smart, and able to see and understand things that he shouldn’t have until years later. But still happy. I must be making it sound as if he suddenly ceased being that way... he didn’t. He never has. It’s his nature. But he... I guess he’s told you, he was seven when Tennunga was assassinated. And he saw… what he saw then.” She’s not used to talking about it, any more than he is. “He didn’t tell me until a year later, and he hadn’t told anyone else. He had kept it to himself so as not to grieve me more than I was already grieving.”

I stare at her astonished. He... didn’t tell her until then? To spare her feelings? My heart clenches. I imagine his face at eight and try to imagine the words. As if Vriah came and told me... I want to weep. Was he allowed to be just a kid before then? “Oh, Karani,” I say, tripping over my tongue. “He... you... oh... He was only eight.”

“Yes. He did not see all the implications then; he was too young. I watched him gradually learn them, as he grew up. He had only one person to come to with it: me. Other mothers’ children were running up to them and saying, ‘I scraped my knee!’ or ‘my friend was mean to me!’; mine would come to me saying, ‘I will have to lie to Assembly to be approved as semanakraseye, and that’s a crime, but it’s the only thing that would make my life worth living—what do I do?’ Or, ‘my girlfriend and I talked marriage, so I had to tell her and now she’s left me and I’m afraid none will ever stay.’”

I just shook my head. I couldn’t say anything.

“You know how it is—or you will. Your kid comes with a problem that must be solved, and the first thing you think is, ‘How did my mother deal with that?’ Or maybe, in your case, your father. No such luck here. I had only myself, and All-Spirit.

“I watched him cry out to the sky, as if there were a voice there, ‘Why me?’ I asked that myself, why him? He was so beautiful—of course every mother feels that about her child—why must he be taken from us so soon? I watched him use it, to forge himself into a greater warrior. I watched him have his heart broken over it... watched him lose faith in love, or at least in timely-enough love, and find a marriage of convenience. I watched him count his years, and counted them with him. And still do.

“I did my best. But you can only do so much. There are some things from which no mother can protect her children. You can do nothing but give them strength by your love, and teach them to find strength in themselves. He has kissed my hands in thanks many many times, and if you were to ask, he would say that I was wonderful. But of course, he’s going to say that. I wish I felt so confident myself. We do the best we can, as parents. That’s all we can do.”

She wasn’t sobbing, but a tear ran down one cheek.

Merao... I have the most formidable love and the most formidable potential mother-by-marriage. I am awestruck by her strength. There is no bitterness in her, either, not like... never mind.

I reached out to touch her shoulder. She put her hand on mine, gratefully.

“But if you were to ask me, would I trade him, and this, for some other child, who does not have this, if that were possible, I would say—never. I don’t wish away any of it. I have had a hundred times as much pleasure as pain, from having him as a son. I think maybe you know what I mean.”

“I... I told him... when he told me... I’d rather have him for a short time... than not have him at all,” I tell her. I try to say it dry-eyed, but I can’t.

“That’s what I told him the people of Yeola-e would want, if they knew the truth of their choice. I think we’re about to see that playing out very true. He’s already told me that if it takes him the rest of his life to drive Arko out of Yeola-e, that will have been a life worth living. I, for one, don’t doubt he can do it.”

“Neither do I,” I say.

She looks out across the sea, as if to Arko. “That will satisfy him; so it will have to satisfy me.”

But you’d much rather he lived to sixty or seventy, having a long and illustrious career as semanakraseye, a long and happy marriage, and grandchildren at his knee.

As would I.

We just can’t say it.

We walked along the beach, our arms linked.

He just snuggled up against me, half-awake. I’m stroking his hair, and he’s smiling, just a little, his eyes still closed. Putting down my pen to hold him.

--