Margaret Atwood - The Tent

Sometimes they’re friends, and they want you to know they’re all right. That kind might make a remark or two, nothing earth-shattering. It’s like the screen when you turn off the television, one of them said—it’s just a loss of contact. Another one—the setting was a woodland walk, in fall, orange and yellow leaves, that crisp smell—this one said, Isn’t it beautiful?

Some don’t say anything. They might smile, they might not; they might turn away once they know you’ve seen them. They want you to see them: that’s the point. They want you to know they’re still around and they can’t be forgotten or dismissed.

Procne turned up the other night. Got in through the window, as she always does. Right away I wished I’d taken a sleeping pill: that would have shut her out. But you can’t take pills all the time, and she waits. She waits until I’m unconscious.

You shouldn’t have let him lock me up in that shack, she said.

The location was a room; the window in question had white curtains. We’ve been through this before, I said. You weren’t locked up. You could have opened the door. Anyway, I didn’t know.

You knew, she said. You repressed it, but you must have known.

I knew you’d been his first wife, I said. Everyone knew that. But according to him you were dead.

That’s what they wanted you to think, she said. I might as well have been, but I wasn’t. Meanwhile, you were getting ready to take my place.

I had to, I said. I had to get married. He raped me. What else could I have done? Don’t tell me you were jealous.

Jealous? she said. She gave a kind of caw. Not for an instant! I knew his dirty ways, he could never leave me alone. Believe me, you were welcome to that part of it. I only wish he hadn’t cut out my tongue.

That is a lie, I said. He never did that. You made the decision not to speak, is all. The tongue part of the story is a misreading of a temple wall painting, that’s what people say now. Those things weren’t tongues, they were laurel leaves for the priestess, so she could hallucinate, and prophesy, and—

You and your archeology, said Procne. He cut out my tongue, all right. He knew I’d tell stories.

Maybe he had his reasons, I said. If he did cut out your tongue. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m not excusing his behaviour. It wasn’t good. None of us behaved very well, and I regret that now. The two of us never got along when we were young, but you were always my sister and I loved you. That’s why he kept you a secret from me.

I knew you wouldn’t excuse it. His behaviour, I mean. That’s why I sent you the message—to let you know I wasn’t dead after all. Procne is among the slaves, is all it said. I didn’t write, Set me free, I didn’t want to influence you one way or the other. I didn’t want you taking any risks on my behalf.

Then why did you send me the message?

I wanted you to avoid the mistakes I made, that’s all.

What mistakes?

In answer she lifted up her hands. They were wet, they glistened. Our son, she said. I couldn’t stop myself.

The window was open at the bottom, there was a breeze, the curtains were blowing. The air smelled of apple blossom. I wish you’d leave me alone, I say. It’s over, it’s long ago. You’re dead now, and he’s dead, and there’s nothing I can do. It’s only a story now and I’m too old to listen to it.

You’re never too old, says Procne. Her voice is so sad. Then she starts turning into a bird, the way she always does, and when I look down the same thing is happening to me. This is when I remember the two of us running, running away from him, and I know in the dream that I’m dead too, because at the end of the story he killed us both.

Then Procne flies out through the window, and so do I. It’s night, a forest, a moon. We land on a branch. It’s at this moment, in the dream, that I begin to sing. A long liquid song, a high requiem, the story of the story of the story.

Or is the voice hers? Hard to tell.

A man standing underneath our tree says, Grief.

To be a warlord—that’s a boy’s dream everywhere. Point a finger, say Bang, and thousands die. Most of these sharpshooters grow up to become dentists. But if you’re born under the rule of a warlord, you have only three futures. To be a warrior and die in the service of the warlord. To depose the warlord and become the warlord yourself. To be one who by definition cannot be a warrior—a woman, a priest, a one-legged tailor. But you are shut up inside the warlord’s territorial periphery, which at times feels like a protecting wall and at other times like a dungeon. In there, you can live what is thought of—in there—as a normal life, as long as you wave the warlord’s flag, pay the warlord’s taxes, bribe the warlord’s henchmen, grovel at the feet of the warlord’s relatives, and avoid all negative comments about the warlord himself, as he is known to be touchy.

The warlord sits at the centre of his own power, inert but potent. Sycophants spoon food and good news into him; vulture-handlers handle his pet vultures; ruby-counters count his rubies; beautiful damsels lick his toes. Concentric rings of warriors encircle him. The outermost ring is most at risk. The men there bristle with hardware; they look like many-bladed jackknives, the kind with the corkscrew, the nail file, and the awl, and it is they who take the first risks, and are ground under the giant clanking wheels of the invading warlords. The next ring is made of slippery defences, labyrinthine corridors, trenches filled with pointed stakes, ambushes involving falling boulders and red-hot coals, very deadly but after a while not enough. The warriors who work this ring obey one single command: Hold the gate!

Hand-picked worldwide warriors form the inner circle. They are mercenaries, because you can’t trust volunteers. They are the bodyguards, They guard the body. They’re supposed to guard it with their deaths, they aren’t supposed to live to tell the tale, but some do. The tale is about how, despite their best efforts or anyway their second best, the warlord’s forces were finally overcome. How his cave, his tree, his tower, his castle, his city, his weapons factories, his prisons, his billiard rooms went up in flames. How the invading army drank up all his champagne and took baths in his bathtubs. How his concubines were gang-raped on the rooftops, his wives dismembered, his children blinded, to the delighted howls of the crowd, who now claim never to have liked the warlord anyway. How he himself was roasted, skewered, blown up, beheaded, hanged upside down, forced into bankruptcy. How his statues were toppled and sold as scrap, or else as kitschy souvenirs.

What point in continuing, after that? With being a hand-picked worldwide warrior. No future in it. No prestige. Scramble out of the uniform, the trappings, the trap; run for your life, through the dank forest, across the prickly desert, up the icy mountains, leaving blood footprints. When you’ve reached neutral territory, when you’ve stashed the loot hoisted from the warlord’s mansion—well, he didn’t have much use for it any more, did he?—and when you finally have a spare moment to sit down at a café with a cool drink, you rethink your occupation.

But your occupation’s gone. You can’t get another. Once you’ve fought for a warlord, any warlord, even a warlord committee, you can’t forget. You can’t learn anything else. Nothing can replace the adrenalin, the hellish but enlivening nightmares. Nothing—let’s face it—is nearly as much fun as being a warlord’s warrior. Fun taken in the broadest sense of the word, you understand.

Look over there. See that ropy-muscled old guy raking the lawn? The other one sweeping the sidewalk, the third hauling the trash? Warlord survivors, all of them. They’re branded with invisible tattoos. Behind their eyes the embers smoulder. They’re waiting. They’re ready for the call.