Every Boy Should Have a Man (10 page)

“Oh lord great creator, not this!” she wailed.

To her right, the female man Gold Braid was felled by an arrow. To her left, the musical man Yellow Fellow was trampled underfoot by sandals of brass. Ahead of her, the wide oaf stepped into a nest of bursting shells and was set ablaze. As all around her oafs and mans fell, she took a blow and went down.

But the boss was first among gamblers, and he raised his sword. “After war there is much silver! Rise up! Strive on!”

The female man climbed back to her feet.

The boss clanked his sword on his shield proudly. “That’s how it is with war, my little red top! The battle is not to those who fall last, but to those who rise back up first.”

Then he
felt a sudden pain as his belly was torn by a blade thrust into it. He shouted a profane oath and cried: “Undone—and on the first day of battle!”

His belly was split in two. All that had been in it was coming out. Ideas rampaging through his brain, he struggled to come up with an adage to sum up the strange quality of his situation, but he found it difficult to organize his thoughts.
A battle raging in the belly is war? War is a belly split in twain? War is a belly with its silver spilling out?

When he went down, he scowled as the enemy who had felled him extended a hand to his little female man. He grimaced as she grabbed back. He shouted, “No, little man! That’s not how it’s done!”

He looked on helplessly as the enemy lifted her, kissed her cheek, and carried her back across the bridge, sheltered within his brass tunic of war. The boss did not know what to make of the scene. It was difficult to think with his stomach on the ground beside him. The words to describe it he struggled to find. Just before he died they came to his lips: “Compassion for one’s enemy is a most rare and beautiful thing.”

And the poet closed his eyes.

Almost as soon as he had closed them, he revised the adage: “Compassion for one’s enemy is rare, beautiful, and
almost
as wondrous as a belly full of silver.”

And the gambler opened his eyes nevermore.

7

Man at War

She knew caves, so she knew that she was in a cave, a cave lit by waxen candles, and gathered around a table studying a map were the leaders of the oafs with the tunics of a different standard.

And the different standard was a scarlet eight-pointed star on black.

In the cave there were other oafs. Many of them had deep cuts and frightful scars. All of them had swords. Many of them lay on cots. Those who had not cots were seated on the ground on rocks, and they leaned against their swords. Their eyes were closed. They were resting while waiting for the war to continue.

On the floor of the cave were the bones of mans. The bones were picked clean.

There was a fire and a spit.

There was a man roasting on the spit while an injured oaf slowly turned him by winding the handle. The man was charred already. One of his charred legs was missing. The injured oaf slowly turning the spit was nibbling on a charred leg of man. He sniffed the man on the spit to see if he was done being cooked. From her years in the mines, she knew the smell of well-cooked man. The smell turned her stomach. This man on the spit was well cooked.

The oaf turning the spit saw the red-haired female man looking and leered at her with an open mouth that was missing all but three of its teeth. “The red-haired one awakens.”

The others looked at her with bored indifference and went back to resting on their cots or against their swords, or studying the map.

Now she knew another quality of war. War was when oafs were so tired from fighting each other that they would rather rest against their swords than torment you.

* * *

She was in a cave of the east, where she had toiled for two years, and she ate from the bowl of grains they had set out for her and drank from the bowl of water beside it. She must be a favorite again, she thought.

The other mans in the cave were each bound together or caged together or roasting on the spit or littering the ground as bones and blood.

But she was left unbound, uncaged, and uneaten. Where was the boy of her childhood who had rescued her from the battlefield? Where was he?

She slept and then she awoke and then she slept again. When she awoke the second time she observed that the cave was being used as a place to care for the sick and as a place to plan the battles. All day long new oafs with new injuries came and were tended to and then went back to the war. Some came to eat from whatever meat the three-toothed oaf was roasting on the spit. Some came to rest. Some came to lay their bodies down and die. At the end of the day, the first boy of her childhood, the boy of the wealthy, came, laid his body down, and died.

They stacked him on a heap of bodies that was piling ever higher. When the heap was piled high enough, they pushed it out of the cave in barrows and set it on fire. She was careful to conceal her tears from the oafs, but they did fall.

Some came to gather around the table with the others looking at the map. She heard one of those looking at the map say, “It is going well. It is going as well as could be expected. In a few more days it will all be over.”

Another map reader said, “Yes, everyone did a great job. Many are to be congratulated. It shouldn’t be much longer before we take the mines.”

“It is a great day, Gen’rl,” said the first.

“After we take the mines, we will have the advantage. There is no going back now.”

“We shall raise our standard and be proud.”

“We shall overrun their cities and make our demands. There shall be blood in the streets. The people shall rule the day. The wealthy shall be taught a grave lesson.”

“Blood will settle these warring philosophies.”

“War is the king of philosophies.”

“It is a great day.”

The oaf called Gen’rl yawned. “Now I can rest, as I have done my duty to the best of my abilities. I have served the people. I can rest now, because we have all of us done a great job. It is a great day. I am going to rest on my cot and no one is to awaken me unless there is very good reason. And when I awaken I will eat. Prepare one of the mans for my meal. That one there will do, the one with the red hair.”

She gasped as the oaf called Gen’rl pointed to her.

“But she is a favorite of Luf’tnt Auutet, sir,” spoke a subordinate officer of the oafs, out of turn, to the one called Gen’rl, who responded to him with a look in his eyes like a great burning fire.

The subordinate officer bowed and uttered an obsequious apology and then quickly gestured a command to the three-toothed one that roasted mans slowly on the spit.

Obediently the three-toothed one hefted a large stone club in one hand, lumbered over, and grabbed her by the neck.

Swinging her arms and kicking with her legs, she struggled to free herself from the oaf, but she was grabbed and grabbed well.

The cave stank of death and other filths, as these were the unclean oafs. The cave, though it was a place of healing, was littered with their waste and the discarded remains of the mans they had eaten.

The one called Gen’rl stretched himself out on his cot. His subordinate officer, who had spoken out of turn, removed a small singing harp from his sack and set it on the table with the map, which was now rolled into a tube.

The subordinate leaned back against the table and ran his fingers over the strings. The small singing harp sang: “Justice vision, Justice true, fair to the unfair, Justice bleed, Justice be, fairness and equality, Justice be . . .”

As the music played, the oaf with three teeth in his mouth swung the female man down to the ground when he found a good clean flat place upon which to bash her brains out. She landed on her back. He pressed her down with one hand as he raised the club. But she arched up, flipped away, landed on her feet.

Ran.

He came after her swinging the heavy stone club, which quaked the earth each time it landed.

“Get away from me!” she screamed as she ran.

The others, laughing and calling, “Pick one, pick one, pick a nice fat talking one,” rose up, as did their spirits, and joined in the chase.

She was limber and swift, and she eluded them as she ran to the mouth of the cave.

Laughing and calling and making jokes at each other’s clumsiness, they reached for her and missed, and laughed some more. The one with the club swung it down, quaking the earth beneath her feet. “Fi! Fi! Fi!” he laughed.

She ran. She was almost at the entrance to the cave, but the one who had lost an eye got up from his cot, his mouth a gaping black maw of hawing laughter, and he jumped in front of the entrance, blocking it. He crouched low with his hands out to catch her.

She stopped in midstride and abruptly changed direction. Now she was running toward the one with the small singing harp.

He saw her coming, set it down on the table, crouched low with his arms outstretched and his mouth open in hawing laughter. He waited to catch her.

Narrowly escaping his grasp, she changed her direction again and went up this time.

Up!

Now she was leaping up to the top of the low table, and as they grabbed and clutched after her, she reached for the small singing harp.

She felt them grab her, and grab her well, and lift her. She felt their stinking laughing breath in her hair. She felt the small singing harp in her hands. She felt the familiar strings against her fingers. She felt their teeth in her hair. She closed her eyes and rubbed the strings.

The small singing harp sang: “Justice vision, Justice true, fair to the unfair, Justice bleed, Justice be, fairness and equality, Justice be. Justice we, Justice share, Justice to the unjust, Justice share. Justice of my father, Justice of my land, Justice of the people, Justice be . . .”

They had set her down on the table. They were singing along in somber voices. Some were saluting. Some were shedding tears.

One was wailing mournfully, “Fi, fi, fi. Ooohhh, fi, fi, fi. Must war always be the oaf’s schoolmaster? So many comrades have fallen beside me in battle. So many noble oafs I have slain. The sun rises in gold and sets in blood. Let it be worth it, oh lord great creator. Oh, let it be worth it.”

One of them said, “She’s one of us. She plays the anthem. She was a spy for us in their tunic.”

“She may be a spy for them. How do we know she’s not spying for them?” said another.

“Because she’s playing our anthem, pinhead!” the first one growled, spitting.

“Who are you calling pinhead?” the second one said, his hand dropping dangerously to the handle of his blade.

Before it could come to blows, the oaf called Gen’rl arose from his cot. The soldiers parted down the middle to make a path for him to the table. His brow knit up in oafish thought, he peered down at the red-haired female man in the tunic of the wrong standard and with the small singing harp singing in her lap. He was silent for many moments before he spoke to them with the authority of his rank.

“She’s a man. Mans don’t spy. They’re putting these little mud mice in the war but they call us savages because we eat them. Oh, fi, fi, fi. They ran is what they did, all of them, dropped their little blades and ran. They’re not soldiers. They don’t understand war and why it is necessary to kill the other oaf and his kin and his generations and wipe him off the face of the earth forever and ever. They don’t understand that oafs can’t be changed, can’t learn to do things a new way—blood must be spilled for the oaf to learn. Indeed, blood ever be the oaf’s schoolmaster. No, she’s not a spy. She’s a talking man. And she’s a musical man too. A combination like that—why, that makes her very expensive.”

The others nodded at his wise words.

The oaf called Gen’rl said, “Give us another song, girl, if you can.”

Her fingers touched the strings again. The others drew close as she played.

The oaf called Gen’rl said, “Back away from her. She’s mine. The spoils of war. I’m taking her home to my children. And if this Luf’tnt Auutet, whoever he may be, has a problem with that, bid him come speak with me about it. Fi, fi, fi. Bid him come speak with me about it with his blade unsheathed.”

The oafs backed away, and listened enchanted as the female man played their songs.

But her heart mourned.
Auutet. Auutet. You shall unsheathe your blade nevermore.

* * *

In the early morning when it was still black, the oaf called Gen’rl would awaken and demand a song, and she would play.

She would be seated on his cot beside him, and he would feed her grains and pet her head as she played. He would nod his head, or mouth the words if it were a song he knew. “My children are going to love her,” he would say.

The other oafs would utter their agreement.

Then he would rise from the cot, and with the assistance of the obsequious, low-ranking officer, don his tunic. The standard of the scarlet star on black was larger on his tunic than it was on the tunics of all the others, for he was their leader.

And Luf’tnt Auutet,
whoever he was
, never did appear with his blade unsheathed to speak with him about it.

At the completion of his early-morning toilet, he would go to the table with the other officers to gaze at the map and discuss the war, which was not progressing as swiftly or as well as they had hoped it would.

On the fourth day he said to the other officers gathered around the table, “We didn’t see that one coming. It was quite unexpected indeed. They are scoundrels to have developed a counterattack such as that! But we proved our courage, I tell you. We took their best. They will never see a day like that again. We will seize the moment from them. We will dump them back on their haunches. We will beat them into submission, for our cause is the right and just cause and the words of great scripture our guide. Curses to the great leader!”

Then he announced that it was time to go check on the war, and he prayed: “Oh great creator, protect us as we do your will. And if we fall in battle, remember us evermore in your kingdom to come.”

And they said, “Verily in your name!”