Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic (9 page)

“Are you saying that if I accept the captaincy of the
Nightingale
you will not come with me?”

“I will not answer a question like that. I will not solve your problem for you. All I will say is that my ambitions are here, in the now, not elsewhere.”

“But if you didn’t go with me ... I could be gone half a lifetime—longer, given the time-slip . . .”

“I would be old or in my grave when you came back and your children would be fathers and mothers.” Wilberfoss stared at her, grappling with the thoughts she was drawing before him. She said, “I am trying to help you with your decision. I am trying to make it clear to you.”

“I feel you are giving me an ultimatum.”

“I am trying to make things clear for you. Life is not a series of ultimatums but a series of crossroads. There is always choice. We change, human or Talline. We change. You must sort things out for yourself. You are confused now. Soon you will know your own mind.” She opened her arms to him and Wilberfoss knelt up and came to her. He set his body between her legs and slipped his arms around her back. They kissed and then he nuzzled lower until he found her lower breasts which were already beginning to lactate. His Ups closed on the nipple and he suckled. Medoc closed her arms around him, cradling his shoulders and head. She was tender: mother and wife. And as she let him feed on her she stared, cold-eyed into the dying fire.

Moments later I saw her eyes close and her Ups part. She started to rock.

Some time later Wilberfoss rose from Medoc. The suckling had made her giddy as it does with all Talline women. Perhaps this is a universal characteristic, for I have noticed that when a man or a woman or a non-human-but-wise creature fulfills part of its nature, it feels satisfied in a bright way. Medoc was giddy and light-hearted. She stared at Jon Wilberfoss with her dark hazel eyes and told him that he had a choice to make. She told him that life could only be lived at the moment of living and then she sent him on his way.

Wilberfoss went first to the room where his children were sleeping. He kissed each of them in turn, murmuring words which even I, sharply tuned as I am, could not catch. Then he went into the bedroom which he and Medoc shared. He selected a satchel and this he filled with a few belongings.

Dawn was brightening the sky as he left the house for a second time that night. I went with him.

I remember a bright pink light spreading across the sky and making everything glow with a ruddy warmth. We cast long shadows as we moved down to the gate which led into Lily’s Garden.

Wulf is struck by two facts:

1.)    Wilberfoss’s entire account of his life is discussed in terms of his sexuality.

2.)    In his dealings with Medoc he did not trust the wisdom of his sexuality.

What is one to make of that?

This.

At the dawn of creation, your Maker, whether blind chance or a wondrous creator, gave LIFE the ability to reproduce its own kind. In addition to this ability there was granted the awesome power called DESIRE for without DESIRE, LIFE might just have been content to languish in warm shallow pools. I do not know what kind of desire moves a mollusk, but I do know what desires move women and men.

As far as Wulf is concerned, the sexual drive is the beginning and end of all knowledge that one needs to understand humanity. The men and women who are truly content and at home with their sexuality have too much on their minds to be worried about anything else. But such are very few. Bewildering to a machine is the realization that human society has rarely reflected this truth about the sexual drive in human nature and hence there has been a contradiction at the center of human affairs and hence at attempts to create civilization. This contradiction has led to misunderstandings of function and hence rivalries, jealousies, massive cruelty and guilt.

From generation to generation, the instinctive drive to well-being through sensual fulfillment has charged the human race and in each generation this drive has been thwarted and frustrated and its potential largely lost. In such a circumstance how can tolerance, appreciation of beauty and creative frenzy survive? Answer: only with extreme difficulty, and it is a tribute to the strength of the human spirit that, despite the inimical conditions that human beings have created for their own lives, cathedrals have been built, symphonies written, plays performed and some children conceived in love.

The Evolution of the Human Spirit is a book still to be written. My present involvement with Wilberfoss has led me to speculate. After the killer Achilles came the intellectual Christ and after him came St Francis who talked to brother sun and sister moon and to the wind and the trees and the flowers and the birds. St Francis taught us to see beauty in creation .. . and he was lucky in a way. Lucky because he could assume a kind and loving creator who gave meaning and order to all experience. It is after all not so hard to feel love for a sparrow if the fell of that sparrow can be seen as part of the order of an all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful Creator. But take the Creator away and now tell me why you still love that sparrow.

Not so easy, eh? Materialism is a miserable attempt to give life meaning but it is an attempt. The important thing is that materialism be not seen as an end in itself.

To the materialist, a sparrow as a sparrow is nothing but a bundle of feathers and a song, catfood perhaps or a winged flytrap. What does a sparrow mean? No answer. To the materialist the very question smacks of mysticism and induces a sneer. To explain why human kind can love a sparrow needs a more comprehensive theory. That theory must engage itself with ALL of life. Now, life is lived in the here and now and not in the elsewhere and later. That is where humankind must begin.

In the appreciation of the present moment lies the deepest awareness of life. Do you doubt me? Ask a condemned man or woman. They will tell you but they will hate you for the question. But you are all condemned women and men, men and women, and you contrive to ignore it.. . sublime hypocrites.

Coming out of the twentieth century, humankind was like a condemned man. There was no hope for the future. War behind. War in front. Lies in high places. Cheating in public places. Skulduggery of all kinds, such as appeals to patriotism, belt-tightening and thrift. The catalog goes on as it always has. But then there came a change. At last, at long last, after years of listening to Achilles, Christ and most of the other religious leaders, people gave up listening to promises because promises were all to do with the future. The future became a burden.

Enter the spirit of Dionysos. So long hidden because pagan. So long secret because persecuted ... but explosive as a fire smoldering in a closed house. Dionysos lives in the now: in the unfolding of a plant or the multiplication of a cell. Where there is no hope but only the present, there shall you find Dionysos.

But to return to sensuality.

In the case of our man Wilberfoss, he saw half a truth and thought it was the whole truth. True to his nature he broke the mold and married an alien woman and found all his sensual needs more than catered for. The Tallines place their sensuality at the center of their lives. That is why they do not fight wars.

But this silly man was not content with the here and now. He wanted more. He heeded the calling to a “higher” destiny. And that meant he started to think about the future.

Why?

Why?

What did he lack?

For those who are about it, true education is hard.

So at dawn, the door to Lily’s Garden closed behind Jon Wilberfoss and he began his forty-day retreat.

At his home all seemed to be well but then, three days after Jon Wilberfoss entered Lily’s Garden, Medoc emerged from the house and pinned a note to the door. The note was a simple announcement. It stated that she had satisfied all requirements placed upon a
Talline
woman with regard to the termination of her marriage and that henceforth she was divorced from Jon Wilberfoss and free and willing to take up a new marriage.

Wulf was astounded. More than ever, I realized that I did not understand the human or the Talline.

Word of Medoc’s announcement spread quickly and many men, mainly Tallines, gathered to read. I will explain as well as I can.

Within hours of Medoc pinning up her announcement, I was summoned by Magister Tancredi to leave the garden where I was attending on Jon Wilberfoss. I flew up to him. The Magister instructed me to find out what was happening with Medoc. He was very disturbed. He had not imagined that Medoc would take matters into her own hands in such a direct manner. Thus Magister Tancredi, for all his experience and years of contact with alien life-forms and alien mores, showed that he had neglected to study the Tallines. And is not this a common thing.. . that we neglect the truth that stands on our doorstep while we guess at meanings in the stars?

Immediately upon receiving my orders I swooped down on Medoc’s house and tapped at her door. She welcomed me and when I explained my business, invited me in.

The house was very clean and I guessed that Medoc had been scrubbing and washing during the three days since Jon Wilberfoss had departed. New baking had been done too and the place smelled of warm bread. In the back of the house the children were playing and they came tumbling into the room when they heard me arrive. I have some small reputation as a story teller and they would not leave until I had promised to tell them a story from the olden times of Earth. Note that they identify me with Earth.

When they had gone, Medoc sat at her writing desk and faced me. “So what would you ask of me, Monsieur autoscribe? What can I tell Magister Tancredi?” We were speaking in Talline.

“Magister Tancredi wonders why, so quickly, so without consultation, you have chosen to divorce Jon Wilberfoss. That man, Jon Wilberfoss, knows nothing of your action. Do you not think it would have been wise, kind even, to have consulted him? Distressed by the news he may not think clearly. No decision is yet made. No final decision. All awaits.”

Medoc replied. “Your Magister Tancredi knows little of Talline customs. When Jon Wilberfoss married me he agreed to abide by our customs. These are gender and altogether less strict than your own, but they are nevertheless very clear. Divorce is in the hands of the wife. The deserted wife just as much as the abused wife can claim divorce.”

“But Jon Wilberfoss has not deserted you.”

“I laid the issues before him. In my mind I decided to give him three days. I regard that as generous. Any man who needs more than three days to decide whether he wants to stay with a woman or not has already made his decision.”

“I do not understand.” (And I did not.)

“I set the issues before him, I could do no more. The moment he entered Lily’s Garden he was a dead man to me. He had chosen his future, or one of his futures. And that was.more important to him than the joy he might find in the here and the now with me. Many Talline women have divorced a man for less though few for the same reason. That is a penalty I must pay for marrying and loving a non-Talline.”

“Do you still love him?”

“Of course.”

“Then why—”

“Because he does not love me.”

Suddenly I saw with a sharp clarity what she meant. The intention is nothing, the act and deed is now and all-important.

“And you would be very unwise, Monsieur Wulf, to tell Jon Wilberfoss of my decision. Let him have his forty days. He will emerge the stronger for it. If he chooses the
Nightingale
then he would have had to abandon me in any case. If he rejects the
Nightingale
he will still have his house and access to his children and time to contemplate the passing moment. A one such as him will not remain lonely for long.”

I had to admire the clarity of her decision. “Tell me about the note you have pinned to your door,” I said.

She smiled. “Oh. That is an old custom with us. Some women no longer follow it but because I am the woman I am and because I know that what I am doing might have certain implications and consequences, I decided to be very precise with our customs. I did not want anyone to think I was confused or acting from pique. The divorce is formal and final and I want a new husband. In my note I outline my terms. For instance, I don’t want to bear any more children, so any Talline male who is looking to build his bloodline must look elsewhere. But I am happy to take charge of any children which may already be in the house. This means that I am looking for a man whose wife has died rather than one who has declared divorce. I want to marry a man whose house is a long way from here. Remember that with us, the houses where we live are in the keep of the males. We women can move where we want for wherever we move we are at home or if we find ourselves at a loss we can enter any of the gardens. I have also said that I want to marry a Talline male and not a human male for I have finished with experiments. I guarantee that I know medicine. I state that I want to work outdoors and that I am in good health with most of my teeth. And now I am waiting.”

“And have any callers come knocking?”

“Some.”

“Any that you like the look of?”

“Not so far. But the severance bread is not yet stale and word of my declaration is still being carried abroad. I doubt if my mother will have heard yet and she lives only a few hundred miles away.”

“You did not tell her of your separation'
¹
”

“No. Why should I? If I encounter problems I may go to her. But I might also go to my father who has a farm on Warmstone Island far out in the North Sea. I am not making plans at the moment. I am waiting.”

And at that moment there came a knocking on the front door. “Excuse me,” said Medoc as she rose. I noted with interest that she spoke to me as though to a human. She answered the door and I heard a cry of surprise and delight. This was followed by a rapid exchange in a Talline dialect which I could only partly understand.