I Live With You by Carol Emshwiller Page A

they’re all ours and we care about them equally, as we should. We’re not supposed to have family groups. It gets in the way of combat. But every now and then, it’s clear who the father is. I know two of my sons. I’m sure they know that I, the colonel, am their father. I think that’s why they try so hard. I know them as mine because I’m a small, ugly man. I know many must wonder how someone like me got to be a colonel.
    (We not only steal boys from either side but we copulate with either side. When I go down to the villages, I always look for Una.)
    To DIE FOR YOUR TRIBE IS TO LIVE FOREVER . That’s written over our headquarters entrance. Under it, N EVER FORGET . We know we mustn’t forget but we suspect maybe we have. Some of us feel that the real reasons for the battles have been lost. No doubt but that there’s hate, so we and they commit more atrocities in the name of the old ones, but how it all began is lost to us.
    We’ve not only forgotten the reasons for the conflict, but we’ve also forgotten our own mothers. Inside our barracks, the walls are covered with mother jokes and mother pictures. Mother bodies are soft and tempting. “Pillows,” we call them. “Nipples” and “pillows.” And we insult each other by calling ourselves the same.
    The valley floor is full of women’s villages. One every fifteen miles or so. On each side are mountains. The enemy’s, at the far side, are called The Purples. Our mountains are called The Snows. The weather is worse in our mountains than in theirs. We’re proud of that. We sometimes call ourselves The Hailstones or The Lightnings. We think the hailstones harden us up. The enemy doesn’t have as many caves over on their side. We always tell the boys they were lucky to be stolen by us and not those others.
    When I was first taken, our mothers came up to the caves to get us back. That often happens. Some had weapons. Laughable weapons. My own mother was there, in the front of course. She probably organized the whole thing, her face, red and twisted with resolve. She came straight at me. I was afraid of her. We boys fled to the back of the barracks and our squad leader stood in front of us. Other men covered the doorway. It didn’t take long for the mothers to retreat. None were hurt. We try never to do them any harm. We need them for the next crop of boys.
    Several days later my mother came again by herself—sneaked up by moonlight. Found me by the light of the night lamp. She leaned over my sleeping mat and breathed on my face. At first I didn’t know who it was. Then I felt breasts against my chest and I saw the glint of a hummingbird pin I recognized. She kissed me. I was petrified. (Had I been a little older I’d have known how to choke and kick to the throat. I might have killed her before I realized it was my mother.) What if she took me from my squad? Took away my uniform? (By then I had a red and blue jacket with gold buttons. I had already learned to shoot. Something I’d always wanted to do. I was the first of my group to get a sharpshooters medal. They said I was a natural. I was trying hard to make up for my small size.)
    The night my mother came she lifted me in her arms. There, against her breasts, I thought of all the pillow jokes. I yelled. My comrades, though no older than I and only a little larger, came to my aid. They picked up whatever weapon was handy, mostly their boots. (Thank goodness we had not received our daggers yet.) My mother wouldn’t hit out at the boys. She let them batter at her. I wanted her to hit back, to run, to save herself. After she finally did run, I found I had bitten my lower lip. In times of stress I’m inclined to do that. I have to watch out. When you’re a colonel, it’s embarrassing to be found with blood on your chin.
    So now, off to steal boys. We’re a troop of older boys and younger men. The oldest maybe twenty-two, half my age. I think of them all as boys, though I would never call them boys to