Ursula Le Guin: The Birthday of the World

Tazu was having a tantrum, because he was three. After the birthday of the world, tomorrow, he would be four and would not have tantrums.

He had left off screaming and kicking and was turning blue from holding his breath. He lay on the ground stiff as a corpse, but when Haghag stepped over him as if he wasn’t there, he tried to bite her foot.

“This is an animal or a baby,” Haghag said, “not a person.” She glanced may-I-speak-to-you and I glanced yes. “Which does God’s daughter think it is,” she asked, “an animal or a baby?”

“An animal. Babies suck, animals bite,” I said. All the servants of God laughed and tittered, except the new barbarian, Ruaway, who never smiled. Haghag said, “God’s daughter must be right. Maybe somebody ought to put the animal outside. An animal shouldn’t be in the holy house.”

“I’m not an animal!” Tazu screamed, getting up, his fists clenched and his eyes as red as rubies. “I’m God’s son!”

“Maybe,” Haghag said, looking him over. “This doesn’t look so much like an animal now. Do you think this might be God’s son?” she asked the holy women and men, and they all nodded their bodies, except the wild one, who stared and said nothing.

“I am, I am God’s son!” Tazu shouted. “Not a baby! Arzi is the baby!” Then he burst into tears and ran to me, and I hugged him and began crying because he was crying. We cried till Haghag took us both on her lap and said it was time to stop crying, because God Herself was coming. So we stopped, and the bodyservants wiped the tears and snot from our faces and combed our hair, and Lady Clouds brought our gold hats, which we put on to see God Herself.

She came with her mother, who used to be God Herself a long time ago, and the new baby, Arzi, on a big pillow carried by the idiot. The idiot was a son of God too. There were seven of us: Omimo, who was fourteen and had gone to live with the army, then the idiot, who was twelve, and had a big round head and small eyes and liked to play with Tazu and the baby, then Goïz, and another Goïz, who were called that because they had died and were in the ash-house where they ate spirit food, then me and Tazu, who would get married and be God, and then Babam Arzi, Lord Seven. I was important because I was the only daughter of God. If Tazu died I could marry Arzi, but if I died everything would be bad and difficult, Haghag said. They would have to act as if Lady Clouds’ daughter Lady Sweetness was God’s daughter and marry her to Tazu, but the world would know the difference. So my mother greeted me first, and Tazu second. We knelt and clasped our hands and touched our foreheads to our thumbs. Then we stood up, and God asked me what I had learned that day.

I told her what words I had learned to read and write.

“Very good,” God said. “And what have you to ask, daughter?”

“I have nothing to ask, I thank you, Lady Mother,” I said. Then I remembered I did have a question, but it was too late.

“And you, Tazu? What have you learned this day?”

“I tried to bite Haghag.”

“Did you learn that was a good thing to do, or a bad thing?”

“Bad,” Tazu said, but he smiled, and so did God, and Haghag laughed.

“And what have you to ask, son?”

“Can I have a new bath maid because Kig washes my head too hard?”

“If you have a new bath maid where will Kig go?”

“Away.”

“This is her house. What if you asked Kig to wash your head more gently?”

Tazu looked unhappy, but God said, “Ask her, son.” Tazu mumbled something to Kig, who dropped on her knees and thumbed her forehead. But she grinned the whole time. Her fearlessness made me envious. I whispered to Haghag, “If I forgot a question to ask can I ask if I can ask it?”

“Maybe,” said Haghag, and thumbed her forehead to God for permission to speak, and when God nodded, Haghag said, “The daughter of God asks if she may ask a question.”

“Better to do a thing at the time for doing it,” God said, “but you may ask, daughter.”

I rushed into the question, forgetting to thank her. “I wanted to know why I can’t marry Tazu and Omimo both, because they’re both my brothers.”

Everybody looked at God, and seeing her smile a little, they all laughed, some of them loudly. My ears burned and my heart thumped.

“Do you want to marry all your brothers, child?”

“No, only Tazu and Omimo.”

“Is Tazu not enough?”

Again they all laughed, especially the men. I saw Ruaway staring at us as if she thought we were all crazy.

“Yes, Lady Mother, but Omimo is older and bigger.”

Now the laughter was even louder, but I had stopped caring, since God was not displeased. She looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Understand, my daughter. Our eldest son will be a soldier. That’s his road. He’ll serve God, fighting barbarians and rebels. The day he was born, a tidal wave destroyed the towns of the outer coast. So his name is Babam Omimo, Lord Drowning. Disaster serves God, but is not God.”

I knew that was the end of the answer, and thumbed my forehead. I kept thinking about it after God left. It explained many things. All the same, even if he had been born with a bad omen, Omimo was handsome, and nearly a man, and Tazu was a baby that had tantrums. I was glad it would be a long time till we were married.

I remember that birthday because of the question I asked. I remember another birthday because of Ruaway. It must have been a year or two later. I ran into the water room to piss and saw her hunched up next to the water tank, almost hidden.

“What are you doing there?” I said, loud and hard, because I was startled. Ruaway shrank and said nothing. I saw her clothes were torn and there was blood dried in her hair.

“You tore your clothes,” I said.

When she didn’t answer, I lost patience and shouted, “Answer me! Why don’t you talk?”

“Have mercy,” Ruaway whispered so low I had to guess what she said.

“You talk all wrong when you do talk. What’s wrong with you? Are they animals where you come from? You talk like an animal, brr-grr, grr-gra! Are you an idiot?”

When Ruaway said nothing, I pushed her with my foot. She looked up then and I saw not fear but killing in her eyes. That made me like her better. I hated people who were afraid of me. “Talk!” I said. “Nobody can hurt you. God the Father put his penis in you when he was conquering your country, so you’re a holy woman. Lady Clouds told me. So what are you hiding for?”

Ruaway showed her teeth and said, “Can hurt me.” She showed me places on her head where there was dried blood and fresh blood. Her arms were darkened with bruises.

“Who hurt you?”

“Holy women,” she said with a snarl.

“Kig? Omery? Lady Sweetness?”

She nodded her body at each name.

“They’re shit,” I said. “I’ll tell God Herself.”

“No tell,” Ruaway whispered. “Poison.”

I thought about it and understood. The girls hurt her because she was a stranger, powerless. But if she got them in trouble they would cripple or kill her. Most of the barbarian holy women in our house were lame, or blind, or had had root-poison put in their food so that their skin was scabbed with purplish sores.

“Why don’t you talk right, Ruaway?”

She said nothing.

“You still don’t know how to talk?”

She looked up at me and suddenly said a whole long speech I did not understand. “How I talk,” she said at the end, still looking at me, right in the eyes. That was nice; I liked it. Mostly I saw only eyelids. Ruaway’s eyes were clear and beautiful, though her face was dirty and blood-smeared.