Read The Necessary Beggar Online
Authors: Susan Palwick
The Necessary Beggar (16 page)
So on January 3, wearing her best new jumper and clutching ethnic Barbie, the one who looked most like her, and wearing a backpack filled with new pencils and notebooks, Zamatryna found herself in the fourth-grade homeroom of Sarah Winnemucca Elementary School. Lisa had told her that Sarah Winnemucca was an Indian lady, a Paiute. “She's ethnic too, honey. It's a good omen.” But there didn't seem to be a lot of other ethnic children in this room, and Zamatryna suddenly felt acutely out of place, far more than she ever had in the camp, where everyone else looked more or less like her. At the camp school there had been children of all different sizes. Here she was the smallest person in the room.
The teacher, Mrs. Checkham, smiled at her. Mrs. Checkham had very red hair and very blue eyelids. “Children, we have a new student. This is Zama GanâGandiffri. Did I say that right, Zama?” When Zamatryna nodded, Mrs. Checkham beamed and said, “Oh, good. Welcome to our class. Can you tell the other children where you're from?”
Lisa had coached her on this part. “I am fromâfrom Afghanistan,” she said, the lie sticking in her throat. At least it sounded a little like Gandiffri. “But I do not remember it. I am very happy to be in America.”
“Excellent!” said Mrs. Checkham, although some of the other children were staring at Zamatryna in a way she sensed to be less than friendly. “And who's your friend, there?”
Zamatryna held up her doll. “Barbie,” she said. Surely all the other children knew Barbie.
“Refugee Barbie,” came a boy's voice from the back of the room.
The other children giggled. “Wrigley!” said Mrs. Checkham. “That wasn't nice! Tell Zama you're sorry.”
Zamatryna turned. If she was the smallest person in the room, Wrigley was the tallest. He had hair so pale it was almost white; his eyebrows looked invisible against his pale face. He wore a shirt with a monster on it, one of the monsters with the green face and the pegs in its neck. “Will not. It's true, isn't it?” He looked at Zamatryna. “You're a refugee, aren't you?”
“I was a refugee. Someday I will be a citizen,” Zama said, as Lisa had taught her.
“That's exactly right,” Mrs. Checkham said. “That's excellent, Zamatryna. Children, the Constitution offers protection for everyone here.”
“Oh yes,” Zamatryna said eagerly, back on solid ground. Lisa had taught her about that, too. “This is a wonderful country. Would you like me to recite the Declaration of Independence for you?” Surely the other children would accept her, if she recited the creed of their country.
But instead they laughed. “Nerd,” someone said, and someone else said, “Freak,” and Mrs. Checkham frowned.
“Er, well, no, Zama, we don't have time to hear that. But you can tell us what your favorite thing about America is.”
She swallowed. Everything she had said so far had been wrong. And then she remembered the monster on Wrigley's shirt. “Halloween,” she said. “I was a princess for Halloween.” Zamatryna turned to look at Wrigley. “What were you for Halloween? Were you that monster on your shirt?”
She meant to be kind, but the other children laughed, and Wrigley turned red. “I was a ghost. I dragged a chain and I was dripping blood and I went Wooo-hooo-hooo!” He waved his hands in the air. “I was scary!”
“My friend says ghosts are just a story,” said Zamatryna, and Mrs. Checkham made approving noises.
“Are not,” said another little girl a few rows away. She had brown braids and freckles. “My mother saw one once. We used to live in a house where a lady had been murdered, and her ghost came oozing out of the wall and touched my mommy with its icy hands, and we moved away the very next week!”
“I'm sure she was dreaming,” Mrs. Checkham said firmly.
“Was not! The lady was murdered fifty years ago and they never caught who done it and she can't rest in peace 'cause of that. Has to haunt people and try to get them to find the murderer. That's what Mommy says.”
“But the dead can't speak to the living,” Zamatryna said.
“Can so! Ghosts come to tell people things like who murdered 'em. They want revenge, ghosts. Don't you know anything in Afghanistan?”
“Alicia!” Mrs. Checkham said. “I think that's enough. Children, time to start our spelling lesson. Open your books, please.”
Zamatryna pretended to pay attention to her spellingâalthough she already knew all the wordsâbut instead she thought furiously about what she had just learned. The dead could speak, here. There was no Great Breaking in America. The dead could give messages to the living, and they would keep trying for fifty years, if they had to. They weren't confined to flowers or birds, which would teach them wisdom. The dead floated by themselves, oozing out of walls, seeking revenge with their icy hands.
Stan would call that Satanic; perhaps it was why Lisa had told her so little about ghosts. Lisa would call it a story. But what if it were true?
As soon as she got home that afternoon, she went into her room. She told Lisa and her parents that she was tired, that school had been fine, thank you, and she would tell them all about it later, but now she wanted to take a nap. She went into her room and shut the door, and then she opened her closet and took out the peanut butter jar with Mim-Bim in it, and put it on her desk.
“You,” she said in the language of Lémabantunk, very quietly lest anyone overhear. “You came with me from Gandiffri, where beetles can hold the spirits of the dead but cannot speak. You came here, where the dead can speak, and when we got here you began making your X. Are you giving me a message, Spirit? How can silence be a message?”
X.
“Are you Darroti, beetle? You grew upset when Darroti died, I remember that. But you had made your X even before that. Whatever spirit is in you was there first, before the fence. Who are you, beetle?”
X.
Zamatryna shivered. What spirit would have wanted to come with the family into exile? What spirit would want revenge? “You are the Mendicant woman, beetle, aren't you? You contain the spirit of Gallicina, and you are trying to give me a message. But your message says nothing, and I do not know how to help you. Gallicina, Darroti is dead. If you want revenge, you already have it. We are in exile, and he is dead. I cannot help you.”
She was sure now that she was right, as sure as she was of the desk under the beetle's jar, or the sunlight outside, or of her own skin. The beetle who refused to die was Gallicina's ghost. But the beetle answered only as it had always answered, with its slow, stubborn sign for secrecy.
Darroti
He spends most of his time in the bookcase now, the one in the living room next to his father's sleeping pallet. He huddles there and weeps into Timbor's towel, a small sodden spot of misery. When the family left the camp he was yanked after them; he rode along helplessly in the air above the van, looking back at the devastation of the fire. At any moment, surely, he would be joined by hundreds of other spirits, the souls of the slaughtered: but if indeed that happened, he was unable to perceive it. Perhaps the van pulled him away from them too quickly, or perhaps here the dead are forbidden to speak to one another, as at home they are forbidden to speak to the living.
He has not met any other souls here. There is no one to speak to. He has tried to communicate with his family; he has entered their dreams and seen them wake, screaming or weeping. He no longer tries to speak to the children at all, because it sickens him to frighten them so, and because they cannot know or remember enough of Gandiffri to understand the tale he needs to tell. But his brothers and their wives, who do remember, will not hear. His dream-visits bring them only horror, not comfort; and their sleeping minds have, in defense, begun to push him utterly away. Only Timbor still lets him in.
Always Darroti tries to bring relief; always he tries to tell the story he nowâtoo lateâwants his family to know. But Timbor's sleeping mind, while it permits him as a guest, will not listen to the tale, which is long and winding. Timbor's thought flits off among the events of the day, pondering cars and pumpkins and small men with canes wearing bowler hats and mustaches; it recalls Darroti's mother Frella; it remembers the old man's years of selling fine carpets in the Great Market of Lémabantunk, the warp and woof of jewel-like wool. Into these things it mixes fragments of Darroti's
tale, but it will not heed the whole. Why should it? It does not think the dead tell tales at all; it thinks these fragments only dreams.
tale, but it will not heed the whole. Why should it? It does not think the dead tell tales at all; it thinks these fragments only dreams.
It was, in fact, in the carpet stalls of the Great Market of Lémabantunk that the tale began, two years before the family's exile, two years before that dreadful dawn when the City Guard found Darroti, clutching a bloody knife, sobbing over the body of the woman he loves.
For he loves her still. He has never stopped loving her, never will: never can, for then he would cease to be himself.
He does not love her yet, on that hot summer morning in the Great Market, for he has not yet met her. He is twenty-two, foolish and careless; he spends his days helping his father sell carpets in the market, and his evenings drinking wine with his friends, and his nights, quite often, coupling with whores purchased with his share of the carpet sales. He is kind to the whores, and fair: he rotates among them to share his endowmentsâwhich are considerable, and always skillfully employedâand his money, and often he shares his wine, too. They are fond of him.
He is fond of them. He is fond of his father, fond of his brothers and their wives, fond of his little nieces and nephews, for whom he makes toys and plays the jester. He is, perhaps, fondest of his dead mother, whom he truly misses; but all his love is dutiful, not fiery. Darroti knows much about affection, lust, and carpets, but he has not yet discovered passion. To his married brothers' queries about when he will take a bride, he simply laughs. Marriage seems a dull and dreary thing, a thing for older brothers.
This morning in the Market, he is unpacking a new shipment of carpets from Barrina, the great sheep-herding region to the south. These are fine goods, the wool dense and finely woven, the colors true. They will fetch high prices; he will be able to purchase many whores. He is by himself today. His father has taken some of their best wares to the home of a wealthy and querulous widow, who demands a private showing because the press of the Market overwhelms her. The spice merchant across the way is unloading new goods of his own, and the air smells of cinnamon; it tickles Darroti's nose. He whistles as he deftly sorts the carpets into piles, first by use and then by size and color: carpets to sleep on (thickest, and woven with soothing spiral designs to inspire sleep), carpets to walk on (of two types: tough outdoor ones and softer indoor ones), carpets to pray on (both lightest and thinnest, that they may be carried easily to Temple, and that they not remove the worshipper from knowledge of the good hard ground).
The prayer carpets are the most intricately patterned, for they are used in meditation. In the Temple, those who have served their year as Mendicantsâwho have learned to depend on generosity and abundance, and
not upon their own skillâgather to contemplate the Elements and their everchanging dance, in which the same four steps lead always to new and renewed life. The Elements are the warp and woof of the cosmos, and creation is the carpet they weave, and prayer carpets are the symbol of that great joy and mystery. They are woven in the colors of the Elements: creams and whites for air, blues and purples for water, blacks and browns for earth, reds and oranges for fire. No two are alike. In some, the colors are evenly distributed; in others, one color predominates, although all prayer carpets contain all four groups. The weaving of prayer carpets is a high and holy calling in Gandiffri.
not upon their own skillâgather to contemplate the Elements and their everchanging dance, in which the same four steps lead always to new and renewed life. The Elements are the warp and woof of the cosmos, and creation is the carpet they weave, and prayer carpets are the symbol of that great joy and mystery. They are woven in the colors of the Elements: creams and whites for air, blues and purples for water, blacks and browns for earth, reds and oranges for fire. No two are alike. In some, the colors are evenly distributed; in others, one color predominates, although all prayer carpets contain all four groups. The weaving of prayer carpets is a high and holy calling in Gandiffri.
For the custom in Gandiffri, as long as there have been Templesâand no one remembers a time when there were notâhas been this: the person who wishes to enter the Temple, preparing to spend the necessary year as a Mendicant, meditates upon the Elements of which all people are made, and seeks to discern his own mixture. Is he mostly earth or air, fire or water, or are they balanced evenly in him? How are they combined? What is his pattern?
When he thinks he has glimpsed the answer, he goes to find a prayer carpet that will match his vision of himself. He must seek one ready-made, rather than paying weavers to produce the pattern he thinks that he has seen; for people can be wrong about themselves, and sometimes, browsing through the piles of woven wool, the seeker sees a pattern utterly unlike what he expected, but that nonetheless sends his heart leaping and his soul thrumming within him. Sometimes such a carpet represents what he already is. Sometimes it represents what he must seek to become, to grow a balanced soul. The ecstasy of beauty will lead him truly, for all prayer carpets are beautifulâas all people areâbut each is lovely in a different way.
The seeker buys the carpet that has spoken to him. He meditates upon it for a day, a week, a month; he memorizes it. And then he rolls it up and puts it aside and dons the plain homespun robe and sandals of the Mendicant, and spends his year begging in the streets: a year when he must live by generosity and grace, when he cannot work. As he begs he keeps the pattern of his carpet before him, and prays that what he receives from strangers will help the pattern grow and deepen in him. And when his year is done, he goes home, and puts his normal clothing on again, and takes the prayer carpet to Temple, and unrolls it. And always, when he does this, he sees things in it he did not see before, for always his year as a Mendicant has made him more sensitive to the richness of the universe. The cosmos showers humankind with bounty as beautiful as diamonds in a humble begging bowl.
Men are Mendicants, and go to Temple; women, who themselves weaveâboth in wool and their wombsâand who maintain the pattern of the home, have less need of such discipline. Or so say men, who wish to come from Temple home to soup and bread and mended clothing. Some women have begun to claim that they, too, deserve more time for meditation in the company of those outside their families. They say that Temple is not a discipline for minds that need it, but a luxury, a privilege they wish to share.
“Aye,” Darroti's father Timbor has said, when the family has discussed the matter. “If Temple is a discipline, then so is cleaning. Let men and women trade places for a while. Should not disciplines be balanced, like the Elements themselves?”
“And if I go begging as a Mendicant, you will cook?” Harani asks tartly, and everyone laughs.
“If we lose you as a cook, we will all go begging,” Macsofo says, “for I would rather eat anything but father's burned eggs and meat.”
“I would practice,” Timbor says, looking pained. “I would improve.”
“And the children would starve in the meantime,” Harani says. “You notice that the women who want this are all wealthy, from households with cooks and other servants. It takes leisure to demand the luxury of Temple. No, I will seek the patterns in my roasts and salads, and feed my family.”
Darroti himself has little opinion on the matter. If women wish to beg, let them; whom will it hurt? He has already dutifully served his own year as a Mendicant, after picking out an earthy, airy prayer carpet in browns and whites, with hints of other colors around the edges. The carpet suited him, for he is grounded and dreamy at the same time, fond both of the things of the senses and of the reveries into which they sometimes lead him. So he served his year as a Mendicant, holding out his hands for bread and wine and coins; it was pleasant enough, but he found it difficult to think about the pattern of his carpet, the pattern of himself. He preferred to think about the whores who gave him favors without payment, that year, or the wine he needed no coins to buy. He would cheerfully have been a Mendicant forever. When he returned home, sorry only that he had not been chosen as a Necessary Beggarâan honor all Mendicants desireâhe had nearly forgotten what his carpet looked like, save that it was mostly brown and white.
And so he took it to Temple and unrolled it, curious to see it again: and indeed it was mostly brown and white, but now he saw, encircling those colors, a ring of flame and water, passion and mutability; and it seemed to him that this ring would devour or strangle him, and he was afraid, and knelt trembling on the carpet, praying for strength and balance. But soon that fear
and vision faded, and Darroti felt the same as he always had, both solid and slight, a kind and ordinary man who would never be remarkable.
and vision faded, and Darroti felt the same as he always had, both solid and slight, a kind and ordinary man who would never be remarkable.
And so now, on this fine morning in the Great Market of Lémabantunk, he sorts the prayer carpets, wondering what kinds of people will come to buy them. Here is a gorgeous one, flaming in reds and purples and oranges and blues, shot throughout with white and brown, slender threads of air and earth containing the brillant pattern of fire, which is cooled only slightly by branching waters. Ah, that is a noble carpet, thinks Darroti, arrested now by admiration. Never has he seen one so alien to his own nature, and yet so beautiful. He could wish to be more like that, or to meet such a one. He carefully covers the carpet with others, to protect its colors from the sun, and turns to the sturdier pile of tough, muted outdoor mats.
Here is a customer, asking for an indoor carpet in white and rose. Here is another, who haggles over the price of a sleeping mat already marked down almost to nothing; one corner is slightly frayed, gnawed by moths before it reached the Market. It is nothing an artfully tossed pillow will not hide. Darroti bargains, annoyed and wishing that the fool would take his business somewhere else, and at last the fool tosses a few coins onto the table, sweeps up the sleeping mat as if he is doing Darroti a favor, rather than the other way around, and leaves.
Another customer approaches the booth, now: a slight figure in a plain hooded robe. Darroti automatically assesses the quality of the fabric. It is heavy silk, silver-gray, worth as much as all the carpets in the booth combined. Darroti feels his eyebrows rising. Only the nobility wear such, and the nobility do not come to the Great Market. They send their servants.
“May I help you?” he asks, and looks at the face beneath the hood. A woman's face, delicate, with high cheekbones and large eyes, but the nose is straight and proud, the mouth a resolute line. A woman? Say rather a girl. She cannot be out of her teens, and she has come alone to the Market in a robe worth as much as a house. No servants are with her. Something in Darroti's chest tightens. He wants to tell her to wear coarse linen, if she is going to venture out by herself, but he holds his tongue. It would not do for a common merchant to say such things to someone wearing silk.
She stares at him now, her face fierce and desperate. She swallows. Her hands are clasped in front of her; she looks like someone who is struggling for her life, not like someone who wishes to buy a piece of cloth to put on the floor. “Lady,” Darroti asks her gently, “are you well?”
He should not have said that. He has been impertinent, and will lose her business. But she relaxes slightly, the lines in her forehead smoothing,
and says, in a voice like music, all piping flutes and throaty violins, “I wish to buy a prayer carpet.”
and says, in a voice like music, all piping flutes and throaty violins, “I wish to buy a prayer carpet.”
And then she glares at him, as if daring contradiction.
“Of course,” Darroti says quietly. “We have a new shipment from Barrina, just in this morning.” He gestures at the covered pile and says, “May you find the pattern of your soul here.” It is the standard blessing, but she gives him a glance of such gratitude that he feels as if he has invented the phrase for the first time.
It is standard also to give the seeker privacy, but Darroti watches her out of the corner of his eye as she works her way neatly through the pile. A very young woman, very noble, who wishes to be a Mendicant: her family must not approve, or she would not have come here alone. And she is afraid. Her people have been harsh with her. And yet still she has come. She must be brave, although it may be that she is also foolish.
He bends to tally some accounts on a piece of paper, acutely aware of her concentration a few feet away. She flips past some of the carpets with hardly a second glance, frowns at others, pondering, her lips pursed; goes back to study one, goes on, goes back again. She stands there, her fingers drumming against the wool.
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