Juno of Taris (10 page)

‘What’s the matter? Are you sick?’ Fear raced through me.

She smiled. ‘It’s just the pregnancy. I was the same with you. I’ll feel better by tonight and I’ll be hungry.’

Dad put an arm around me. ‘It’s true, Juno. And it’s also true that you and I will be in charge of lunches for the next few weeks.’

My stomach growled and we laughed. Dad and I took our food out to the garden so that Mother wouldn’t have to watch us eat it.

I ate and wondered if Dad and Mother possessed the dangerous knowledge Danyat had spoken of. I didn’t ask. I was sure they knew nothing.

T
he next night the community met at the schoolyard to celebrate Creen and Kalta’s promising. I drank a beaker of wine, but this time I made it last the whole evening. Why
did
people like wine so much?

It was a joyous occasion. I joined in the chatter and laughter. Perhaps we were imagining the threat from Hilto and his silent henchmen.

As darkness began to fall, Creen, Kalta and their parents walked up the steps and stood in front of the building. First, their parents joined hands around them and recited the words of the promising ceremony:
We, your family, give to you our blessing
and our promise that we will stand by you and support
you for all the days of our lives.

The parents then moved back. Creen stepped forward and spoke into the microphone. ‘Vima, will you stand beside me on my wedding day and support me?’

Vima ran up and hugged her. ‘My true and always friend, I will with all my heart. From this day forward for the rest of our lives.’

They were so different, these two. Creen was an olive-skinned, stockily built chatterbox with a heart of gold, while Vima, dark and tall, would be more likely to slash at your certainties with a razor-sharp observation.

Kalta took the microphone. ‘Oban, will you stand beside me in friendship on my wedding day?’

Oban answered, ‘I will, my friend. On your wedding day and during all of your lives together I will be your support.’

The eight of them walked in a procession through the crowd, while we threw flower petals over them. One stuck on Creen’s bald head, and for a second I saw her as the woman from my favourite documentary, wearing a long, silk gown, her hair falling down her back and threaded with diamonds.

I shook my own naked head – it wasn’t going to help if I kept imagining things as I wanted them to be. Or would it? Perhaps I did need to keep my dreams alive. I could think about that later. Right now there was dancing, singing and feasting to be done.

Mother said, ‘I wonder if Oban and Vima will be next?’

Everyone would be wondering that. So often it happened – two of a stratum got married and the next thing we knew, their attendants were promised. Maybe Oban and Vima would marry.

At the close of the evening, Fisa spoke. ‘Creen and Kalta are to have Irian’s house. The working bee will be tomorrow during recreation hour.’ She turned to them. ‘And the wedding will be when?’

‘In four weeks!’ We laughed and cheered. Of course it would be in four weeks. A wedding was always four weeks after a promising. During those four weeks they would have medical check-ups and Creen would be fitted with a contraceptive device. I pulled a face – another reason never to marry. ‘Why can’t they have their own children?’

Dad hushed me. ‘They might, Juno – but it doesn’t matter if they have their own, or ones from Outside stock.’ He smiled at me. ‘You of all people should know that.’

As we packed up to go home, I whispered to Mother, ‘What happens if she changes her mind? Or he does? What happens if one day next week she wakes up and thinks:
I’m marrying him? I must
have spaghetti instead of a brain.’

Mother chuckled. ‘They’re well suited. They’ll be happy together.’

They married four weeks later. Vima stood with Creen, put the wedding cloak around her, took the lei from Creen’s mother and handed it to Kalta to place around Creen’s neck. Oban repeated the actions for Kalta.

They spoke their vows clearly and with joy in their voices.

Normally Mother would have danced the wedding dance, but she didn’t feel it was appropriate because of her pregnancy, so I did it. I walked to the clear area at the bottom of the steps. My grandfathers played their flutes, and I danced. With every step, every move, I felt Hilto’s eyes on me. I felt him willing me to deviate from the accepted pattern of the dance. I completed it and the applause rang out. Grif mouthed
well done
at me. I kept my eyes away from Hilto and no more toxic words flew into my head.

The feasting and drinking went on into the evening until the rain began to fall. ‘Come!’ Vima and Oban called. ‘The procession!’ They grabbed Creen and Kalta and ran with them through the rain down the path to Irian’s house, followed by the rest of us. Creen and Kalta’s house. We’d call it that from now on. Irian was truly gone, wiped from the island memory forever.

Their stratum joined hands and carried them into the house. There was much laughing and shouting of jokes I didn’t properly understand. Then it was over. We walked home. ‘There’ll be many sore heads tomorrow,’ Mother predicted.

And nothing more to look forward to except more sameness and more fighting to keep despair at bay.

The events worth talking about until my sister’s birth were few in my opinion. Erse and Roop’s daughter was born exactly on the day Trebe had predicted. They called her Merith. When I went to visit, I looked at her tucked up in her cot and said, ‘Ah, Merith.’

Roop gave me a sharp look. ‘We think the Governance Companions were right. Ahmerith would be too long. Merith is nice.’

I blushed and apologised. It wasn’t kind to tease her. I hoped she wouldn’t tell. I could do without gossip spinning round the island about me.

Ten days later, Woon died in her sleep. I tried to be interested in who would be allowed to have the replacement baby, but the choice would surely be Jov and Sina since they were older than Lerick and Mersat. But no announcement came and my interest grew. Why? Why was the decision taking so long? There was still no decision by the second day after Woon’s farewell ceremony on the mountain.

When we met on the pathways, we shook our heads at the questions bright in each other’s eyes. ‘No. No news yet.’

Nobody asked why – not in public, anyway. Marba made it the question we had to think about as we did our afternoon work – scrubbing down the walls of the Governance Office under Lenna’s supervision. ‘Think about why it’s taking them so long. But no talk. We’ll do that tomorrow during break time.’

Silvern widened her eyes and fluttered her lashes. ‘Oooh, Marba! Don’t you want Lenna to hear? Dopey old Lenna. She probably wouldn’t even understand what we’re talking about.’

Marba grinned at her. ‘True, but what if she tells Hilto?’

I shivered. I hoped he wouldn’t be around.

We turned up in an orderly group at the Governance Office. Lenna greeted us, smiling. She wasn’t dopey at organising us. She called our names and divided the tasks. ‘Dreeda and Juno – you two are the smallest and lightest so you can use the ladders.’ She handed us brushes, cloths and old metal buckets.

The ladders were heavy. Lenna watched Dreeda and me struggle with them, but she simply stood and smiled at us. Huh! Perhaps Silvern was right after all. She was dopey.

Marba glanced at her and took matters into his own hands. ‘Fortun – give Dreeda a hand with her ladder.’ He took mine from me, picking it up easily. He slapped it against the building, frowned, pulled it back and thumped it down again. Then he lowered it.

‘Do get on with it, Marba,’ said Lenna. ‘This has to be finished today.’

Marba smiled at her, but instead of putting the ladder back, he examined it. I crouched beside him. ‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘Shh. Don’t say anything.’ He let his hand drift across the side of the ladder, then stood up and said to Lenna. ‘I’m afraid this ladder is broken, Lenna. Is there another one we can use?’

She scuttled over, fluffed about, exclaimed, flapped her hands and finally decided we’d better have a different one. She sent Marba and Fortun off to get one from the tool shed. Wenda muttered under her breath, ‘She’s like a broody hen.’

We were late finishing. I was hungry and in no mood for Marba’s questions when he caught me up and jogged home beside me. ‘I didn’t even think about the baby question so don’t ask.’

He ignored that. ‘Juno, didn’t you notice? Your ladder was sabotaged.’

That caught my attention. ‘What? How? Are you sure?’

‘Keep running. Yes, I’m sure. Didn’t you see? That support had been cut three quarters through.’

‘Oh.’ I kept running, trying to breathe and not doing so well with the in and out business of it.

‘Fascinating,’ he muttered. ‘The question is, did Lenna know about it, or was she just a dupe?’

‘Deeply fascinating!’ I yelled, forgetting to keep my voice down. ‘You try being on the receiving end and see how fascinating it feels.’

I put on a burst of speed and ran ahead of him. He caught me up just as I reached my house. ‘Sorry, Juno. I’ve done it again, haven’t I?’

‘You’re an idiot,’ I snarled. Then I considered the fact that he’d saved me from having an accident or worse. ‘Thanks for saving me.’

I ran into the house and shouted for food. I didn’t mention the ladder to my parents, but I went to Grif and Danyat for recreation hour the next day and told them. ‘Be vigilant,’ they said. They hugged me and promised that all four of them were watching over me. ‘Never go anywhere alone.’

No. The island’s walls were closing in on me.

I wondered if Marba would mention the ladder when we gathered under the tamarind trees at school, but he didn’t. He simply asked for our thoughts on who would be allowed to have the baby.

Yin said, ‘I think the choice will be for Lerick and Mersat simply because it’s taking so long.’

‘And will they be allowed a child of their own genes, do you think?’ Dreeda asked. ‘I say they won’t be.’

‘Why?’ Marba asked, his eyes bright with interest. ‘They’re both model citizens.’

Dreeda grinned. ‘It’s obvious – they’re only letting people involved in technical or scientific research breed. Those of us who do the practical work –’ she glanced at me, ‘like your parents, Juno – get to have babies from the superior Outside material.’

Marba nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the conclusion I came to, too. It fits with Roop and Erse.’ Roop worked in the gardens under Dad’s direction, and Erse was a carpenter and woodworker.

Maybe that was right, or maybe the choices had to do with the secrets my grandparents knew.

We had to wait another day before the decision was announced.

We talked of it at home. I put our theory to my parents. Mother gasped, and put her hands over her heart. ‘Juno! That’s unworthy of you. They would tell us if that was so. This island only survives because we trust each other.’

Dad said, ‘You lot would be better employed thinking about your studies. Marba will lead you into trouble one of these days.’

We didn’t discuss it further.

Dad said, ‘Jov isn’t going to be happy.’

The news began circulating the island almost immediately.

That news hit us with the force of an electric current. Nobody ever questioned the decisions of the Governance Companions. It had never been done, in my memory anyway. Those of us who could dream up an excuse for being near the pathway lurked about, waiting to hear what happened. 

We had to wait a whole hour before word went round about what had happened.

‘Many factors go into such a decision,’ Majool had told him.

‘What factors?’ Jov asked.

‘One of them is the ability to be compliant. To accept decisions made with the good of the community in mind,’ said Lenna.

‘I’m a scientist,’ Jov said. ‘I accept reasons.’

At that point, Fisa had interrupted. ‘Jov, I make you this promise. You and Sina will be given permission to have the next baby.’

The island buzzed. We dissected the incident. We analysed it. Marba bounced around as if he had a secret stash of wine he kept drinking, but it was the excitement of something different happening that had caused his high spirits.

W
e talked of the decision about the baby for an entire week, until other news replaced it. Lerick and Mersat chose the parents for their new son. Life went on with no outward ripples.