Grazing The Long Acre by Gwyneth Jones Page A

air, like the fall of the rain, or the turn of a leaf. If that was true, then Gusti Ketut was safe. But I felt oppressed. The air of this town didn’t suit me; it was making me ill.
    The long wait was hard for Derveet and Annet as well. Their relationshlp was showing signs of strain. Annet did not come often to the inn, and when she did it was only to jeer at Derveet’s efforts with her bandits. When conversation failed she sat staring at her friend with angry eyes. An election like this is always “unanimous.” Whatever kind of pressure the Dapur used to achieve this, it was telling on the Aneh delegate now. We were on opposite sides, but I sympathised. If only it could be over.
    A bandit called me a Koperasi-whore and Tjakil, my former admirer, knifed him. The question was only whose whore ought I to be. Why should I be expected to care which bully was my master? On the same day, I was alone in a waiting room with a chair-boy, a Jagdanan about fifteen years old. He lifted his sarong to show me he had been excised: given a false womanhood. Boys do this to each other at puberty-age; they are proud of it. His eyes looked nowhere—expecting nothing, desiring nothing but further violation. I went back and shut myself in my windowless shack. I tried to picture the shining Domes, the pure life of our Rulers, but nothing would come. I kept thinking, unwillingly, of the dying Aneh instead.
    This was the first quarter of the tenth month. The Koperasi patrols were uneasy too. They stood in knots on street corners, handling their weapons. We took care, if we had to pass them, not to brush against their space. Back at the inn Snake had fallen ill. He lay on the verandah, wrapped in shawls, shivering and weak.
    “Why are you so sad?” whispered Derveet, holding his hand.
    He reached up and touched her cheeks, making lines for tears. “Yes, it’s true we are all sad. Poor Snake, I wish I could keep it from you. It’s too much for you.”
    In the streets people were saying that the debate was nearly over, and it was ending badly. I tried to pretend I didn’t know what they meant, but it was hard to resist the feeling that something was coming out of those closed courtyards: invisible, intangible, giving the town bad dreams. Who is to be the one then?, I wondered. But I knew.
    On the tenth of the month I got up and everything was quiet. The kitchen house was shut. No sign of the family, no sign of any guests. A town with empty streets is an ominous sight, but there were a few people about—besides the Koperasi—so I dared to go into the centre. I went into a little garden, a place where I often used to sit after trailing around the waiting rooms: a refuge. There was a round tank carved with monsters of some kind. I sat on the rim, under a frangipani tree, its white and gold tinged petals at my feet. I looked into the pool, but the water seemed to be black. It was not reflecting anything. I wrapped my arms round myself and sobbed.
    Why was I crying? I didn’t know. The grief flowed through me like a current, but it seemed to be coming from somewhere deep inside. Gradually I realised someone was actually asking me the question. There was a woman, sitting on the stone bench by the pool. She was dressed in blue, deep, dark blue; every line of her long binding sash, every floating fold of her robes was composed and perfect. In one bare hand she held the silver links of the rahula, the ankle chain. “Why are you crying child?” she asked again.
    “There is so much injustice in the world…”
    The spasm passed. Slowly, the tree and the sky returned to the water. I lifted my head. “Have you been here all along?” I asked hoarsely. It seemed entirely possible, at that moment, that she had been invisible when I walked in.
    “No. I saw you from my window, so I came down.” She smiled, the wrinkles of her aged face rippling smoothly. ” I am from Jagdana, where we value beauty.”
    They had defeated me. I could not resist any