Shame of Man (47 page)

Aan was baffled. “It is only a slave, dear, not your father.”

“My brother! My brother!”

The boy! Aan faced the slave as the man stopped before them. “What have you brought?”

“I made a deal with your husband,” the man said. “You for this.” He opened the bundle to reveal the face of a small child. Aan saw immediately that the child was kin to Huu; there were bones of the face she recognized.

“That was not the deal,” she said with certainty.

“Your support for the child,” he said, as if clarifying his reference. But she knew she had backed him off; he had hoped to deceive her into paying an additional price. That was surely why he had brought the child directly to her, instead of to Huu.

“How do I know this is the one?” she asked, though she was sure it was.

“Take his hand.” The man set the child down, free of the covering.

Min stepped forward, reaching out her right hand to the boy. The boy reached out to take it with his left hand.

“Like Daddy!” Min cried, pleased.

Evidence enough. The child's mother would have known that he would have a difficult time in a normal family and a worse one with a stepfather who disliked him anyway. Here he would be allowed to use his hands as he pleased, and taught how to conceal his wrong-sidedness when that wasn't possible.

“What is he called?”

“She calls him Scev.”

Aan saw the significance. He had given a term for left-handed son. It was exactly appropriate. “Scev,” she repeated, and the boy looked at her.

“I have delivered him,” the man said. “Keep him safe.” He turned away.

The child saw that, and made as if to follow. But Min held him. “You are with us now,” she said, hugging him.

Scev had been about to cry. Now he turned into Min, accepting her embrace. Once again Min's magic was working.

Soon they got to know the boy, in their separate fashions. Aan offered him food, and he accepted it somewhat warily; he knew that she was not his
mother. He surely thought that his real mother would return for him in due course. And Aan was satisfied with that, for now, because she was not sure how she felt about him. She was adopting him because he was Huu's son; he was no blood relation to her. He was the child of a woman who had wanted to seduce Huu and replace Aan as his wife. That was not an easy thing to accept. Yet the boy himself was innocent of any such scheme; he deserved no censure. He did not know that he was the living evidence of her husband's infidelity. So how was she to approach him, emotionally?

Min had no such problem. She hugged the boy, she played with him, she helped him eat. He had not eaten the food Aan gave him until Min encouraged him. She called him brother. And, indeed, Min was no more related by blood to Aan than Scev was. And there, perhaps, was the key: Aan did love Min. Min had been the joy of her life throughout, as much a daughter to her as any birthing of her own could have been. Min had shown the way, just by existing; of course Aan could accept a child she hadn't birthed.

They made a bed for him, but Scev preferred to sleep with Min. Min was willing; she embraced him, and he slept immediately. Aan did not oppose it; the girl was evincing a side of her personality Aan hadn't seen before, because she had always been the little sister, not the big sister. She was taking care of the child, and this definitely made it easier for Aan, with her private doubts and adjustments. She realized that it could have been difficult, had she had to deal with the boy alone. Instead it was easy, because of Min.

Aan took time to sew a new outfit for the boy to wear, because he was in slave attire; that simply would not do. They would have to see about his ears, too, having them pierced for pegs. But that could wait a few days. She laid the clothing out beside Min's bed where she would find it when she woke. Then Aan retired herself, spending some time in a turmoil of racing thoughts before she was able to sleep.

She realized one thing, belatedly: she had hardly thought of Kip since Scev had arrived. That did not mean she did not love and grieve for Kip, just that Scev was a considerable distraction. And he was, perhaps, a son.

Scil returned to her house to discover that Scev was gone. She knew immediately that her brother was responsible. He was trying to make his own deal, and he was trying to deprive her of her son.

She sought him out. She left the village and followed the deep valley to the Tohua, the large ceremonial center where he was working. The Tohua area was a rectangular, flattened earthen area surrounded by stone platforms of various levels. Some platforms served as temples, and others functioned as seating for the various levels of society: “valliol,” visitors, old
men, women and children, and the priests each had their own sections. The entrance was a low cleft between two high platforms, and often one of the platforms held the long ceremonial drums. This was where the harvest ceremonies occurred, and memorials, and rites of passages for the members of high-ranking families, and formal tattooing. It had taken a lot of work to make the Tohua, and it had to be properly maintained. That was the detail Baa was on today.

Now she spied him. “You took Scev!” she cried. “Where is he?”

“You are better off without that boy. It leaves you free to marry.”

“Where is he?” she repeated, anger and fear sharpening her voice.

“I took him to the musician's house. We made a deal.”

“You had no right!”

“You are my sister. I can marry you to whom I choose. I have a lot to gain by this.”

“We shall see about that.” She stalked away.

She would have to get Scev back. Otherwise she would lose both her son and her freedom. Only if she made her bargain her way could she escape what Baa had in mind for her.

It continued next morning. Min took Scev to handle natural functions, and dressed him in the new clothing, and fed him breakfast. Aan stayed in the background, ready to step forward when needed.

“Maybe we should get him a toy,” Min suggested.

So they went out into the city to shop, and Scev clung tightly to Min's hand, staring around at the houses he had not seen before. They got him a rubber ball, and he was amazed and delighted with it. When they got home, he played with it endlessly, with Min and alone, fascinated by its bounciness. He was it seemed a cheerful child, ready to be entertained by things and not quick to cry. He had evidently been well cared for, and that said something about his mother. Aan understood that she was at best a well-proportioned dancer—that went with the profession—and somewhat scheming and heartless. But that could not have applied to her son, who had been neither abused nor neglected. She must have devoted a lot of caring time to him.

Yet she had given him up to further her brother's career. That was not a good signal. Aan would never have given up a child, for any reason short of death—as was the case.

Suddenly the scene before her faded, and she was lost again in grief for Kip. He had been just on the verge of manhood, trying so hard to measure up to the standard expected. And he had succeeded—at the expense of his life. Her tears flowed, blurring her vision, dripping from her chin.
Oh, my son, my son!

“Mother.” It was Min.

Aan blinked. She shouldn't have let herself go in the presence of the children; it wasn't good form. “I'm sorry, dear. What is it?”

“She comes.”

Aan looked around, but as her vision cleared she saw no one. “Who comes?”

"Her,”
Min said urgently, her eyes flicking toward Scev.

It registered. Scev's mother, Scil. She must have changed her mind. Was she coming to demand her child back?

A cloaked figure appeared at the doorway. “Mother!” Scev cried, running toward her.

Aan remained sitting, the tears still on her face. She didn't know what to do.

The woman swooped Scev up, hugging him. Min came to join Aan, similarly uncertain. They watched the reunion.

Then the woman swung her gaze around to cover them. “You took my baby!” she exclaimed.

Aan, speechless for the moment, could only nod.

Scev wriggled to be put down. Scil set him on the ground. “Do you have any idea what it is like to lose your son?” she demanded angrily.

Scev, frightened by the tone, retreated.

Aan found her voice. “Yes.” The tears began to flow again.

Scil paused. “Oh, yes. I forgot. But that doesn't mean you can take mine.”

There was so much to say, but Aan found herself unable to utter any of it. Instead it was Min who spoke. “Your brother made a deal—to get me my brother. He brought him here.”

“He had no right!” Scil flared.

Scev, frightened anew, went to Min for solace. The girl hugged him close. Min looked at Aan. Then her own tears started. “I guess he didn't,” she said. “We thought he did.”

Aan put her arm around Min.

“When I came home and found my child gone—” Scil said.

Scev began to cry. The ball fell from his hand, bounced, and rolled across the floor.

“Oh, my darling, I'm not angry at
you!
” Scil said to him, all her hardness and hurt disappearing. “You never did anything wrong. I have come to take you home. Come here.”

But the boy turned to Min, burying his face in her robe.

Scil stared at him. Then her eyes took in the group of them: Aan with her arm around Min, Min with her arms around Scev, and the boy remaining with them, clearly of his own volition. All of them crying.

Then Scil's own eyes started flowing. “So close—in one day,” she said. “And you got him a ball. What can I do?”

They couldn't answer her. They just waited.

Scil shook her head. “I wanted to be with him, so he would not be mistreated. But I think he is better off here than where I am going. Only—”

They still waited. It was her decision to make, and they could not oppose her.

“Only, may I visit him sometimes?”

“Oh, yes!” Min exclaimed, and Aan nodded.

Thus simply was it settled. Scil turned away.

“Mother!” Scev cried, disengaging. Min let him go. He ran to Scil and hugged her tearfully. Then she turned him around to face the others. “Fetch your ball,” she said, and withdrew. By the time he had the ball, she was gone.

“She is still very angry,” Min said wisely, “but not at us.”

“At her brother, perhaps,” Aan said. “Because he is marrying her to a man who doesn't want her child.”

“So Scev will be happier with us,” Min said.

“Yes. Scil may be a cynical, calculating woman, but she loves him. When she saw that we could love him too, she had to let him go.”

“But what will she do to her brother?” Min asked.

Aan shook her head. “We don't want to know.”

Huu was glad it was almost over. They had finally walked the real Hotu statue to its stone platform, and set its white stone eyes with their round dark pupils into its eye sockets. They had placed the huge red topknot on its flat head. It was a singularly impressive monument, awing all who gazed upon it. Now all that remained was the ceremony of invocation, and then it would be done and Huu could go home to his wife and daughter. And son.

It began at sunset. A great fire was made before the statue, and a captured seabird was sacrificed on a stone altar. Then the elder long-ear men marched around it in their feather bonnets, and young short-ear women stepped out of their clothing and danced naked in the firelight, their arms uplifted over their heads. The rest sat around, the long ears in one crescent, the short ears in another, watching. The priests performed their rituals, dedicating the statue and invoking the spirit of Hotu Matua as a god who would hereafter look out for the welfare of the entire island.

“Hello,” someone murmured beside him. Huu looked, and found the dancer Scil standing naked. It was an intermission for the dancers, and she must have sought him out.

“Your son is with us,” he said. “Your brother brought him.”

“I know. My new husband prefers it that way.”

“You aren't angry?”

“;I am angry,” she said. “But not at you. You value your son. I saw Scev there. Now he has a sister.”

“Min. She is adopted too. We love her.”

“Yes. I saw.”

“You saw?” he asked, startled, belatedly realizing what this meant. “You saw my family?”

“I went there to take back my child. But in one day they had already won him over. Your daughter is not your blood, but you treat her as your own. She will be a dancer.”

“Yes. Min is special.” Huu was nervous in retrospect about this woman meeting his family; she could have done much harm. But it seemed she hadn't.

“So I left him there. My anger is not toward your family.”

“I am glad of that. I could not expel my wife.”

“I understand that, now. She is a good woman. She will love my son as her own.”

“Yes.” But he wasn't sure that the matter was done. “What is your situation?”

“I showed my new husband two ways I could be,” she said grimly. “One he liked very well. The other he liked not at all. I told him the price of the way he liked. He agreed to do my bidding.”

Huu could imagine how different she could be, when she chose. She was a beautiful woman, but she had a hard edge. She no longer had to fear the possible abuse of her son, so there was little hold on her. He was still nervous about what she might do. “We honored our deal. Our man will support your brother.”

“So my man will cast the deciding vote,” she said. “Which I now control.” Yet there was an odd stress on her statement. Then her tone shifted. “Your wife gave my boy a ball. She said I could visit him.”

That surprised him again. He did not think that Aan would want any contact with Scil, or any chance that the woman might steal back her child. He was sorry again that he had not been able to be there. But the task of moving the statue had been steady, and his part vital.

Then it was time to name the new short-ear chief. The three judges stepped up to the altar and named their choices. The first, who was speaking for the long-ear preference, named Baa. The second named another candidate. The third, who had just married Scil, named—the other candidate.

There was a hush of amazement, for the people knew about the marriage and the reason for it. Had the man reneged? Baa looked stunned, then furious. But then Scil stepped up, still as gloriously naked as the other dancers, and linked her arm through her husband's. She was supporting his choice.