Suzette Elgin - Native Tongue

“Oh, damn,” said Nazareth, “I’m in no mood to hear about the next contract, or whatever complaints there are on this one, or whatever else Father has to talk about!”

“Really.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m worn out.”

“Nazareth, your father didn’t ask me to come find out if you were willing to go to the office. You know that. He sent me to tell you he was waiting for you there. Please don’t trouble me with your nonsense.”

“I’m sorry, Mother. It was rude of me… I guess I really am tired.”

“No doubt you are,” said Rachel calmly, and went on about her business, saying only, “Don’t keep Thomas waiting now, dear; he doesn’t like that.”

No, he didn’t; that was true. Whatever he wanted, the longer she put off hearing about it the more unpleasant it would be, and so she hurried.

When she opened the door of the room set aside for the Head of the Household, her father was at his desk, as she had anticipated. But she had not been expecting to see Aaron there with him, sitting in the armchair, nor was she expecting the bottle of wine open and already half-empty on the desk. She stopped in the doorway, surprised, and Thomas motioned to her to let the door close and join them.

“Sit down, my dear,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Nazareth was wary instantly; they both had that satisfied expression that went with some new and delightful project that would mean endless annoyance for her but carried some advantage for them. What had they scheduled her for now? Aaron wore an expression that could only be described as a smirk; it had to be something he was really confident she would detest.

“Nice to see you, Natha,” he said, all cordiality and cooing welcome. “You do look lovely.”

There was a time when Nazareth would have explained to him that the reason she was so grubby was because she’d been out working in the gardens when Rachel came to get her, but she no longer bothered. She kept still, and waited to see what they had for her. Work on a frontier colony, maybe? Someplace that would involve a dozen frantic transfers from one means of transport to another? She detested travel, and they both knew that.

She expected something dreadful, but she did not expect what it turned out to be.

“Nazareth,” her father said, “we had a visitor this afternoon.”

“Nice man,” Aaron put in.

“Indeed he is,” said Thomas. “And a gentleman.”

“Well?” asked Nazareth. “Does it concern me, this gentleman? Or is this just a game and I don’t know the opening move?”

“Nazareth, it was Jordan Shannontry.”

Nazareth went very still. What was this?

“Nazareth? Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you, Father.”

“Have you anything to say?”

“As you said,” she began, cautiously, so cautiously, “he is a nice man. He’s been very helpful. Not like having a real backup, of course, but still it gives me a break now and then. A hard worker.”

“He had a rather disturbing story to tell me, Nazareth,” Thomas said.

“Oh? He did? Did something go wrong? Nobody spoke to me about it, Father — I didn’t know.”

“It had nothing to do with your professional functions.”

“Oh?”

“Nothing at all.” Thomas poured himself some wine and looked at her over the top of the glass, handing the bottle on to Aaron. “According to Shannontry, you ended your working day today by accosting him in the hall — in public! — and blurting into his ear that you ‘loved him very very much’. And then bolting like a badly trained horse.”

“Oh,” she said again. “Oh.”

“ ‘Oh?’ Is that all you have to say? I assume Shannontry would not make up such a wild hairy tale — but you are my daughter. I’ll listen to you if you care to deny it.”

He watched her, and when she said nothing, stunned into total silence and as unable to move as if she’d been fast-frozen, he went on.

“I thought as much. He was completely at a loss, inasmuch as he is a respectable married man with numerous children, and you are alleged to be a respectable married woman, etc. And inasmuch as he cannot conceive of what made you take such a bizarre notion.”

Finally Nazareth could speak, although the hoarse words were not in a voice she recognized as hers.

“He told you… He actually came here, to this house, and he told you!”

Thomas raised his eyebrows, and Aaron looked even more delighted.

“Certainly,” said Thomas. “What would you have expected the poor man to do?”

“I believe, Thomas,” her husband suggested, “that she thought he’d come climbing up a ladder to her window — figuratively speaking, of course, since what he’d have to do is come down through a tunnel — perhaps with a band of strolling musicians warbling lovesongs. Or send a messenger with a note begging her to flee with him to… oh, to Massachusetts at least.”

“Is that what you expected, Nazareth?” asked Thomas gravely. “Are you that much of a fool?”

She bit her lip and hoped she would die, and he kept on.

“ Certainly he came here and told me, and I would have been most surprised if he hadn’t! He is well aware of his obligations as a gentleman — and when something as idiotic as this happens, it is a gentleman’s duty to go tell the female’s father of her ridiculous behavior. In his place, any man of breeding would have done precisely what he did. Did you think he would just ignore it, you utter ninny?”

“I didn’t think he would… tattle!”

Thomas sighed, and exchanged a long look with his son-in-law.

“My dear child,” he said, “that is not a very well-chosen word.”

“It seems to me to be exactly the right word.”

“Well, that’s not bright of you. When a young woman misbehaves in the manner that you took it upon yourself to misbehave this afternoon — and I must tell you, Nazareth that I was very surprised — some responsible person witnessing the incident has to inform the family, so that they can decide what to do about the situation. Since Shannontry was, thank God, the only person who knew precisely what you had done, he had no choice but to tell us himself. And I’m certain it wasn’t pleasant for him.”

“He came here,” Nazareth repeated dully, through the fog of his words, “and he told you, and he told Aaron — ”

“Of course not! God, girl, you leap from one stupidity to another like a goat! He came here and he told me , because I am your father, and the Head of this Household. He did not tell your husband; as is quite proper, he left that unpleasant duty to me.”

Thomas had told Aaron! Her own father! The room wavered and twitched before her eyes like a comset screen with interference; things took on the look of flat cardboard cutouts; she stared fixedly at a point behind Thomas’ head. In her ears a single high tone keened unbearably on and on… This world, she thought. This world. Only a male god could have created this repulsive, abominable world.

“Nazareth!”

She didn’t answer, but the vicious slap of the word caught her attention sufficiently that she raised her head a little and looked at her father; it seemed to her that Aaron’s grin had spread all around her like spilled syrup on a steep floor. It came at her from everywhere.

“Nazareth, Jordan gave me his word, as a gentleman and as a man of the Lines, that he had never given you any reason to assume that he was interested in you other than to the extremely limited extent necessary to allow you to function together in the course of your professional duties. He was shocked, and very saddened to find that a woman of your heritage and alleged good breeding would read improper advances into simple courtesy.”