Ali Smith - Girl Meets Boy

I can’t remember their names. Anyway, the husband came to the wife –

Who was pregnant, I said.

Uh huh, and he said, listen, I’m really praying for two things, and one of them is that this baby gives you no pain in the giving birth.

Hmm, right, his wife said. That’s likely, isn’t it?

Ha ha! I said.

No, well, no she didn’t, Robin said. I’m imposing far too modern a reading on it. No, she acted correctly for her time, thanked him for even considering, so graciously, from his man’s world where women didn’t really count, that there’d be any pain at all involved for her. And what’s the other thing you’re praying for? she asked. When she said this, the man, who was a good man, looked very sad. The woman was immediately suspicious. Her husband said, look, you know what I’m going to say. The thing is. When you give birth, if you have a boy, that’ll be fine, we can keep it, of course, and that’s what I’m praying for.

Uh huh? the woman said. And?

And if you have a girl, we can’t, he said. We’ll have to put it to death if it’s a girl. A girl’s a burden. You know it is. I can’t afford a girl. You know I can’t. A girl’s no use to me. So that’s that. I’m so sorry to have to say this, I wish it wasn’t so, and I don’t want to do this, but it’s the way of the world.

The way of the world, I said. Great. Thank God we’re modern.

Still the way of the world in lots of places all over the world, Robin said, red ink for a girl, blue for a boy, on the bottom of doctors’ certificates, letting parents know, in the places it’s not legal to allow people just to abort girls, what to abort and what to keep. So. The woman went off to do some praying of her own. And as she knelt down in the temple, and prayed to the nothing that was there, the goddess Isis appeared right in front of her.

Like the Virgin Mary at Lourdes, I said.

Except much, much earlier, culturally and historically, than the Virgin Mary, Robin said, and also the woman wasn’t sick, though certainly there was something pretty rotten in the state of Knossos, what with the whole kill-the-girl thing. And the goddess Isis had brought a lot of her god-friends and family with her, including that god whose head is like a jackal. What’s his name? Damn. I really like — he’s got, like, these jackal ears, and a long snout — a kind of dog-god — he guards the underworld –

I don’t know. Is it a crucial part of the story? I said.

No. So Isis thanked the woman for the constant faith she had in things, and told her not to worry. Just give birth as per usual, and bring the child up, she said.

As per usual? I said. A goddess used the phrase as per usual ?

The gods can be down-to-earth when they want, Robin said. And then she and all her god-friends disappeared, like they’d never been there, like the woman had just made them up. But the woman was very happy. She went and stood under the night sky and held her arms out open to the stars. And the time came for the baby to be born. And out it came.

You can’t stay in the womb all your life, I said.

And it was a girl, Robin said.

Of course, I said.

So the woman called her Iphis, which was the child’s grandfather’s name –

I like that, I said.

— and was also, by chance, a name used both for girls and boys, which the woman thought was a good omen.

I like that too, I said.

And to keep her child safe she brought her up as a boy, Robin said. Lucky for Iphis, she looked rather good as a boy, though she’d also have looked very handsome as a girl. She was certainly every bit as handsome as her friend, Ianthe, the beautiful fair-haired daughter of one of the finest families on the island.

Aha, I said. I think I see where this is going.

And Iphis and Ianthe, since they were exactly the same age, went to school together, learned to read together, learned about the world together, grew up together, and as soon as they were both of marrying age their fathers did some bargaining, swapped some livestock, and the village got ready for the wedding. But not just that. The thing is, Iphis and Ianthe had actually, for real, very really, fallen in love.

Did their hearts hurt? I said. Did they think they were underwater all the time? Did they feel scoured by light? Did they wander about not knowing what to do with themselves?

Yes, Robin said. All of that. And more.

There’s more? I said. Man!

So to speak, Robin said. And the wedding day was set. And the whole village was coming. Not just the village, but all the fine families of the island were coming. And some people off faraway other islands. And off the mainland. Several gods had been invited and many had actually said they’d come. And Iphis was in quite a bad way, because she couldn’t imagine.

She couldn’t imagine what? I said.

She couldn’t imagine how she was going to do it, Robin said.

How do you mean? I said.

She stood in a field far enough away from the village so nobody would hear except maybe a few goats, a few cows, and she shouted at the sky, she shouted at nothing, at Isis, at all the gods. Why have you done this to me? You fuckers. You jokers. Look what’s happened now. I mean, look at that cow there. What’d be the point in giving her a cow instead of a bull? I can’t be a boy to my girl! I don’t know how! I wish I’d never been born! You’ve made me wrong! I wish I’d been killed at birth! Nothing can help me!

But maybe her girl, what’s her name, Ianthe, wants a girl, I said. Clearly Iphis is exactly the kind of boy-girl or girl-boy she loves.

Well, yes. I agree, Robin said. That’s debatable. But it’s not in the original story. In the original, Iphis stands there shouting at the gods. Even if Daedalus was here, Iphis shouted, and he’s the greatest inventor in the world, who can fly across the sea like a bird though he’s just a man! But even he wouldn’t know what to invent to make this okay for Ianthe and me. I mean, you were kind, Isis, and you told my mother it’d be fine, but now what? Now I’ve got to get married, and it’s tomorrow, and I’ll be the laughing stock of the whole village, because of you. And Juno and Hymen are coming. We’ll be the laughing stock of the heavens too. And how can I get married to my girl in front of them, in front of my father, in front of everyone? And not just that. Not just that. I’m never, ever, ever going to be able to please my girl. And she’ll be mine, but never really mine. It’ll be like standing right in the middle of a stream, dying of thirst, with my hand full of water, but I won’t be able to drink it!

Why won’t she be able to drink it? I said.

Robin shrugged.

It’s just what she thinks at this point in the story, she said. She’s young. She’s scared. She doesn’t know yet that it’ll be okay. She’s only about twelve. That was the marriageable age, then, twelve. I was terrified, too, when I was twelve and wanted to marry another girl. (Who did you want to marry? I said. Janice McLean, Robin said, who lived in Kinmylies. She was very glamorous. And she had a pony.) Twelve, or thirteen, terrified. It’s easy to think it’s a mistake, or you’re a mistake. It’s easy, when everything and everyone you know tells you you’re the wrong shape, to believe you’re the wrong shape. And also, don’t forget, the story of Iphis was being made up by a man. Well, I say man, but Ovid’s very fluid, as writers go, much more than most. He knows, more than most, that the imagination doesn’t have a gender. He’s really good. He honours all sorts of love. He honours all sorts of story. But with this story, well, he can’t help being the Roman he is, he can’t help fixating on what it is that girls don’t have under their togas, and it’s him who can’t imagine what girls would ever do without one.