Suzette Elgin - Native Tongue

“No,” they said. No, he had it exactly right. And by God they would not stand for it.

“All right, we’re agreed. We can’t live with the bitches, and we can’t find any way to cure them of whatever it is they’ve come down with.”

“It’s unbearable, Chornyak,” blurted young Luke. “It’s unbearable!”

James Nathan nodded slowly, pleased. This wasn’t going to take as long as he’d expected. He’d thought there would be a lot of hedging and waffling, a lot of “perhaps I am exaggerating the situation” and “it may well be that I have only imagined this” and similar offputting. There’d been none of that.

“The question, then, is what we are going to do about it,” he stated flatly.

“Damn right.”

“Except,” Emmanuel Belview pointed out, “that there isn’t anything we can do about it. That’s precisely the problem. They’re fucking saints — how are we going to punish them for that ?”

“I don’t think we should punish them.”

“What?”

“What? What do you mean, not punish them?”

He held up both hands against the clamor, and hushed them.

“If we can’t live with them,” said James Nathan, enjoying himself very much, “let’s live without them.”

“ What? ”

The immediate racket was so completely disorganized that he could only laugh, and wait; and he was sorry he wouldn’t have anyone to listen to him talk about the disorderly way they’d behaved, after this was over. It would have been a relief to talk about it — to talk to a real woman about it.

“Gentlemen? Could I have a little quiet, please?” he tried.

“I said,” he repeated when he finally had them reasonably attentive again, “let’s live without them, since we can’t live with them. We need them for many things, I know that. Not only for breeding. We need them, and need them badly, to do their share in the interpreting and translating booths. We’re spread so thin already that we couldn’t begin to keep up with the work without them — we can’t afford to dispense with them. But, gentlemen, we do not have to live with them!”

“But — ”

“They are total wet blankets,” he continued. “They take every smallest fraction of pleasure out of life. Being with them is like being sentenced to life imprisonment with some terribly charming elderly maiden aunt that you hardly know and don’t care to know better. And I repeat, we do not have to do it!”

He leaned forward to make his point.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the solution is right under our noses. I opened this meeting by telling that there hasn’t been one like it since the day our forefathers met to work out the establishment of the first Barren House. Right here. In this room, at this table. And for almost the same reason, different only in scope — because the barren women were an intolerable pain in the ass and they had to be gotten out of the men’s hair. Without — and this is crucial! — without sacrificing any of the essential services they provided. We have only to follow the excellent example they set us!”

“By God,” said one of the Shawnesseys. “He means build them houses. By God!”

“Exactly!” James Nathan struck the table with his fist, and beside him David was laughing openly, delighted. “The precedent already has been set. The barren women have had separate houses, have lived apart from the men, all these years. It’s been no problem. It hasn’t interfered in any way with their performance of their duties. It has worked superbly, agreed? Well! We need only extend that privilege to all our women. Not move them to the Barren House, those buildings aren’t large enough or suitably equipped. But build them houses of their own, gentlemen. Women’s Houses! Every one of the Households has land enough to build a separate women’s residence, put it close by as we’ve done with the Barren Houses… where it will be convenient when we need to see a woman for some reason, sexual or otherwise, but where the women will be out of our way .”

“It could be done,” said a senior man cautiously.

“Of course it could.”

James Nathan could see the relief spreading over them, the loosening of the tension that had held them when they first came into this room. They were thinking what it would be like… to have the women out of their lives and yet close enough for those times when only a woman would do.

The objection that he was waiting for, the one about the cost, came almost immediately.

“I was waiting for that,” he said.

“Chornyak, it would cost millions. Thirteen separate residences? There are a hell of a lot of women in the Lines, man. You’re talking about an immense sum of money.”

“I don’t give one scrawny damn,” he told them.

“But, Chornyak — ”

“I don’t care what it costs,” he went on grimly. “We have the money. God knows, we’ve never spent any. We have money to build ten Women’s Houses for each of the Lines and not even dent our accounts. You know it, and I know it — that’s one of the very rare benefits of a hundred years of avoiding all conspicuous consumption. The money is there. We have always lived in ostentatious austerity to keep the public happy… we’ve done enough, and we’re entitled. Let’s spend that money, before we all go raving mad.”

“It’s the public that will go raving mad,” said one of the men, “They’ll never stand for it. There’ll be riots again, Chornyak! Remember the 25th Amendment to the Constitution? No mistreatment of women allowed. We’ll never get away with it!”

“Perceive this,” James Nathan insisted. “There won’t be any real problem. Not if we do this properly. We point to the precedent, to the Barren Houses… we go on and on about how happy our women are to go to them, which is true. And we take pains, gentlemen, we take exquisite pains, to make these Women’s Houses superb places to be. We will not leave ourselves open to even the hint of a charge that we are abusing or neglecting our women! We spend whatever it costs to build them fine houses, beautiful houses, houses furnished and equipped with all the crap women always want, everything they could possibly need within the limits of reason. Our comsets are falling apart, for example, we’ve let that go on as an ecomony measure — we’ll put brand new systems in for the women. We’ll give them gardens — they’re all crazy for gardens. Fountains. Whatever. We’ll build them residences that the public can go through, if they insist, and satisfy themselves that we are providing the women with every comfort, every convenience, every facility. Let them send teams of inspectors out if they like… they’ll find nothing to criticize. And gentlemen, the public will envy us.”

They thought about that, and he saw a few grins as they began to understand.

“The men will envy us,” he said simply, “because we get to live every man’s dream. No women in our houses to foul up our lives and interfere with us — but women in abundance just a few steps away, when we choose to enjoy their company.”

“The men will envy us,” said Dano Mbal. “The men .”

“Isn’t that what matters?”

“It brings the obvious to mind, Chornyak.”

“Explain it to me… it may not be as obvious to me as it is to you.”

“Mention the men,” said Dano, “one thinks of the women. Their women will not envy ours, shut off in separate buildings in that fashion. They will pity our poor women — you know they will. And that is a good thing in its way, since the smaller the population that envies us the less trouble there will be. But what about our women, James Nathan? They’re not going to just smile and curtsey and move next door into an upgraded harem, man! This is going to put a considerable dent in their saintly demeanor, because they are going to fight like tigresses.”