Juno of Taris (21 page)

Behind her, Hilto yelled, ‘Go home and teach your children the values which have kept us alive for over two hundred years.’

‘Thirty-two years.’ Danyat moved to the podium and spoke into the microphone. ‘Thirty-two years.’

Bazin nodded and called out, ‘Thirty-two years come February.’

That halted any move to obey Hilto.

Rofan shouted from the arena, ‘Explain, please. We will have the meeting.’

Others added their voices. For a moment, nobody on the stage moved. Then Fisa gestured to Hilto and Majool, and the three of them went to their accustomed seats. I was shaking. Silvern grabbed my arm and tugged me with her to the side of the stage. We sat, all of my stratum, where we could watch the stage and the arena. Wet surfaces shone in the lights. Our bald heads glistened and the rain dripped down our faces.

Danyat gestured to Grif, the storyteller. She took over the microphone. The other three stood behind her. Grif spoke into an uneasy silence. ‘There are those amongst us who know the truth of what I am about to tell you.’ She rubbed a hand across her face. ‘I am sorry, my people, truly sorry – because what I am about to tell you will rip apart the beliefs many of you have held all your lives.’

Hilto hissed something we couldn’t hear.

Grif turned, looked him in the face, then turned back to the waiting people. ‘Hilto is right to warn me. By telling you our history, I am agreeing that I will die. That is what we agreed to, all of us, thirty-two years ago.’

Danyat raised a hand. ‘I too. I am part of the telling. I, too, agree to die.’

Leebar and Bazin held up their right hands as if taking an oath. ‘We too believe it is right to tell our story now. We, too, agree to die.’

I jumped to my feet. ‘No!’ I ran to the podium, grabbed the microphone from my grandmother. ‘No! There will be no dying because of this. No killing.
I
called this meeting. And I had no part in such a wicked pact.’ I glanced at my stratum.

Silvern shouted, ‘No dying!’

The others took up the call and the words resounded too, from around the arena.

Fisa took charge. She waited ten heartbeats before she spoke. Her dignity silenced us. ‘Times have changed. We cannot go back. We who survived the time of crisis know that only too well. The agreement we made then is cancelled.’ She glanced behind her to where the other Companions sat, then looked out at the people. ‘If anyone disagrees, let them speak now.’ Nobody in the arena moved or uttered a word. She turned and, one by one, named each of the other Companions. ‘Do you agree to cancel the death rule?’ One by one, they answered.

Lenna fluttered, ‘Oh yes. It’s time. I agree.’

Camnoon, taciturn as ever, simply nodded.

Majool spat out one word. ‘Yes.’

Hilto, his face purple, said, ‘I’m outnumbered. There’s no choice.’

Which was as good as saying he’d kill anyone he could, but Fisa turned back to my grandparents. ‘Speak freely.’ She didn’t have to say she disagreed with the telling. We knew by the way she held her body, by the tone of her voice. But she was wrong. I knew it in my heart. Leebar hugged me and I thought perhaps her face was wet with more than just the rain. I returned to my place amongst my stratum and sat down, shivering.

Grif put her hands over her face and stood still. The need for courage was over. They would not die. Then she began the story I had waited all my life to hear. ‘I speak of a time thirty-two years ago.’ We heard the sorrow in her voice. ‘It was the worst time on Taris. Because of foolishness, pride and vanity we nearly caused our island to die, and us with it. We came so close. Destruction was maybe a week away. We made many changes, but the one that was to be the constant reminder to us of what we had done was the removal of our hair.’ She stopped to let us absorb the knowledge.

‘Thirty-two years ago everyone on Taris had hair,’ Danyat said into the silence.

‘I kept mine short because it curled into tangles,’ said Leebar.

‘I grew mine long and tied it back in a ponytail,’ Bazin said. ‘It was straight and fair and I was proud of it.’

‘Lies!’ Hilto roared.

Grif looked out at the people, all of them stunned into silence. ‘Who here remembers having hair?’

Trebe raised her hand. ‘I do,’ she said briskly. ‘I was seven and I remember a huge fuss and lots of shouting. Then one day they told us we needed to do things differently. They shaved out heads and took away our pretty clothes.’ She laughed. ‘I’d forgotten! I had a bright green T-shirt and I threw a huge tantrum when they burnt it.’

Vima’s father stood up. ‘I too remember. And I remember how my parents cried whenever I talked about it. They kept asking if I’d said anything to anyone else.’

‘That was because Elin died.’ I couldn’t work out who had spoken.

‘Who was Elin?’ Marba called.

The answer came from Leebar. ‘Elin was our son.’

‘He died,’ Bazin said, ‘because he spoke in a meeting. He was five years old and he asked when we were going to have our hair back. We had all agreed, you see, to stick to the new ways of doing things. We agreed that to speak of the old ways, to ask to go back to how we’d lived before, would mean death.’

Shock held me silent, knocked the breath from me. I’d had an uncle and he’d died. I’d had an aunt, Oran, and she’d died. And yet my grandparents, who had lost so much, were the only ones prepared to speak up. No wonder Leebar and Bazin had not wanted me to grow my hair.

Leebar looked up at Vima’s father. ‘That is why your parents cried when you talked about it. You have to understand that we were cut off from Outside. We’d nearly perished. We all knew how easy it was to slip into chaos and we believed drastic times required drastic measures. We knew we had to stick to our agreement.’

Rofan waved an arm in the air. ‘But to kill a child of five? I want answers and I want them tonight.’

People took up her cry. ‘Answers. Tonight.’

Behind us, Fisa spoke. ‘I see the time has come. I will tell you the truth.’

That would make a nice change. Her voice rolled out above us and the rain rolled down our bodies. ‘People of Taris. The time of crisis was thirty-two years ago.’ She paused for a moment, pulling her mouth down in a bitter smile. ‘My friends, if you think this is a crisis, the one then was a hundred times worse. We had brother against brother, mother against son.’

Father against daughter.

‘Our whole society was on the brink of self-destruction. It was so stupid.’ Her voice had quietened and I could almost feel the people straining to catch her words. ‘We hadn’t been able to get things from Outside for a couple of years, and what we did have we highly prized. People started fighting. Feuds broke out over who owned a plate or a bright green T-shirt. We no longer cooperated – working together became impossible. The atmospheric system began to fail but nobody would risk taking the time to fix it in case somebody else came and stole their possessions. The rice crop needed harvesting, but nobody would do it.’

In the darkness, the older people cried at memories unspoken for so long.

Fisa sighed. ‘We managed to get everyone to come to a meeting. It lasted all day, but we hammered out a plan we all agreed on.’

Lenna bustled over and took up the story. ‘We decided – all of us – to remove as many differences between us as we could. We broke the china, the ornaments. We burned our pictures and Outside clothes. We destroyed every item brought from Outside unless every household owned one. Things we could use, we stored away for all of us to share. We searched the houses to make sure nothing was hidden.’ Her smile was huge and false. ‘A week later, everything was functioning again.’

Hilto leaned forward. ‘As it has functioned ever since. Until today.’

‘What about Elin?’ Kalta called. ‘We have to know why Elin was killed.’

Fisa answered him. ‘It was an accident. He fell from a tree.’

I didn’t believe her. I glanced at my grandparents.

Bazin said, ‘That is so. But we examined the branch that had broken under him. It was cut part way through.’

The ladder. Just like the ladder.

Hilto moved in his seat. ‘Your grief has tainted your memory. That’s not how it was.’

Leebar said courteously, ‘You have your memories. We have ours.’

Rofan called out again, ‘Why did you allow it? Why has it gone unmentioned until now?’

Bazin answered her. ‘When we made the agreement not to speak of the past under pain of death, none of us had thought of a child speaking of it. Of a child asking for things that could take us back into the dissension that had so nearly destroyed us.’ He couldn’t go on.

‘We talked of it,’ Leebar said. ‘We all thought – friends and family – that it was lucky Elin was so young or he’d have had to die. Nobody worried. Not one of us dreamed, even for a second, that the death rule would apply to a child of five.’

In the arena, a toddler cried out. A parent clutching it too hard and too suddenly, I guessed.

Bazin sighed. ‘We had a choice, all of us: make a fuss and die, or keep quiet, teach our children silence, and live.’

‘We chose to keep silent and live,’ said Leebar. ‘I don’t know if it was the right decision. But we made it and we’ve kept it all these years. Until now.’

Lenna grabbed the microphone again. ‘It’s natural you should wonder if your son had been killed. After all, we’d sworn to put the past behind us or die. But, my people, let me assure you all; we did not apply the rule to a child. His death was a tragic accident.’

I didn’t think so. I could sense the people in the arena trying to digest the information they’d been hit with. Knowledge and questions. Who to believe? I wished Vima was beside me. I huddled closer to Silvern and Paz. Somebody in the same tier as my parents moaned.

Fisa spoke again. ‘Go home, my people. This has been a grievous night for Taris.’

An old man on the lowest seats stirred and rose to his feet. It was Nixie. ‘You are wrong, Fisa. It is the end of the golden age, but a golden age comes at a cost, as those of us who were its architects well know.’ He faced the people so that his back was to us and the others on the stage. ‘I will no longer shave your heads, my people. I have broken the shears. Nobody can take over from me. We will have hair on Taris again, and with our hair we will have openness. It is time.’

Fisa stood for long moments, her head bowed, then she raised it, and sighed. ‘So, it is resolved then. We are to grow our hair.’ Applause and cheering broke out from the younger people. She managed a smile. ‘Go home, my people. If we’re going to grow our hair, we’ll need energy and sleep.’

Laughter and relief rolled out in waves. Fisa was making jokes. All was well. We no longer needed to worry. It was settled.

I did not feel relieved, unworried or settled. I wondered what Vima thought, but I was too tired to find her and ask. Leebar slipped her arm around my waist. ‘Emotion is very draining. You’ll be fine in the morning.’ She hugged me. ‘We’re proud of you, Juno – so very proud.’ She kissed me.

One by one, my other grandparents did the same. ‘Don’t trust them,’ Bazin whispered.

‘Stay vigilant,’ Danyat murmured.

‘You saved our lives tonight,’ Grif whispered.

Yes. But I’d also been the one who had put them in such danger.

They handed me over to my parents. Dad didn’t say anything. He shifted Hera so that she lay over his shoulder and with his other arm he hugged me.

We trudged home. Our wet clothes stuck to us and the paths felt cool and slick under our feet. Nobody spoke. People walked the paths to their homes, but we walked in silence. Too much to think about. Too many questions.

We reached our house and closed the door. Mother took Hera and Dad wrapped his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, Juno. You were right. I was a fool to believe them.’

I lay my head on his chest. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come back.’

They dried me and tucked me up in bed as if I was Hera’s age.

Dad was back. My family was whole again. But there was a scar where the wound had been. It would be a long time before I could forget.

Vima sent me a text:
bollocks to that being whole
story
. I was too tired to reply.

F
or days my parents walked about dazed. I would catch Dad staring at nothing and shaking his head. He’d notice me and smile – and his eyes drowned in regret.

I couldn’t forget, but I could still love him.

The island talked of the meeting for two full weeks. No other topic of news had ever lasted that long. People were wary of me – they didn’t withdraw but they weren’t at ease. Neither was I.

Justa wore the same, dazed look as my parents, but all she said was, ‘These are strange times. We’ll get through it if we concentrate on our work.’

During break at school we talked more freely than we did on the paths.

‘They killed Elin,’ Paz said. ‘No question.’

Biddo nodded. ‘I agree. Which means we can’t trust them.’

Had they killed Oran too? I was sure they had, but I couldn’t bear to speak of it.

Marba said little. He watched and listened for a couple of days, but on Friday he led us down to the tamarind trees as usual, waited till we were sitting, then said to me, ‘There’s stuff you haven’t told us, isn’t there Juno?’

I’d kind of known that was coming. I sighed. ‘Yeah. But it’s not my news to tell.’ I rubbed my skull, prickly with a fortnight’s hair. ‘And it still doesn’t explain why Hilto wants to kill me.’

‘That’s a bit overdramatic,’ said Silvern, sounding exactly like her old, snippy self.

‘No. It’s not.’ I glanced at Marba. ‘You remember the experiment? The one where you made us try to find out what Hilto was thinking?’