The Nutcracker Coup

Janet Kagan

Marianne Tedesco had “The Nutcracker Suite” turned up full blast for inspiration, and as she whittled she now and then raised her knife to conduct Tchaikovsky. That was what she was doing when one of the locals poked his delicate snout around the corner of the door to her office. She nudged the sound down to a whisper in the background and beckoned him in.

It was Tatep, of course. After almost a year on Rejoicing (that was the literal translation of the world’s name), she still had a bit of trouble recognizing the Rejoicers by snout alone, but the three white quills in Tatep’s ruff had made him the first real “individual” to her. Helluva thing for a junior diplomat not to be able to tell one local from another-but there it was. Marianne was desperately trying to learn the snout shapes that distinguished the Rejoicers to each other.

“Good morning, Tatep. What can I do for you?”

“Share?” said Tatep.

“Of course. Shall I turn the music off?” Marianne knew that The Nutcracker Suite was as alien to him as the rattling and scraping of his music was to her. She was beginning to like pieces here and there of the Rejoicer style but she didn’t know if Tatep felt the same way about Tchaikovsky.

“Please, leave it on,” he said. “You’ve played it every day this week-am I right? And now I find you waving your knife to the beat. Will you share the reason?”

She had played it every day this week, she realized. “I’ll try to explain. It’s a little silly, really, and it shouldn’t be taken as characteristic of human. Just as characteristic of Marianne.”

“Understood.” He climbed the stepstool she’d cobbled together her first month on Rejoicing and settled himself on his haunches comfortably to listen. At rest, the wicked quills adorning his ruff and tail seemed just that: adornments. By local standards, Tatep was a handsome male.

He was also a quadruped and human chairs weren’t the least bit of use to him. The stepstool let him lounge on its broad upper platform or sit upright on the step below that-in either case, it put a

Rejoicer eye to eye with Marianne. This had been so successful an innovation in the embassy that they had hired a local artisan to make several for each office. Chornian’s stepstools were a more elaborate affair, but Chornian himself had refused to make one to replace “the very first.” A fine sense of tradition, these Rejoicers.

That was, of course, the best way to explain the Tchaikovsky. “Have you noticed, Tatep, that the further away from home you go, the more important it becomes to keep traditions?”

“Yes,” he said. He drew a small piece of sweetwood from his pouch and seemed to consider it thoughtfully. “Ah! I hadn’t thought how very strongly you must need tradition! You’re very far from home indeed. Some thirty light years, is it not?” He bit into the wood, shaving a delicate curl from it with one corner of his razor sharp front tooth. The curl he swallowed, then he said,

“Please, go on.”

The control he had always fascinated Marianne-she would have preferred to watch him carve, but she spoke instead. “My family tradition is to celebrate a holiday called Christmas.”

He swallowed another shaving and repeated, “Christmas.”

“For some humans Christmas is a religious holiday. For my family, it was more of...a turning of the seasons. Now, Esperanza and I couldn’t agree on a date-her homeworld’s calendar runs differently than mine-but we both agree on a need to celebrate Christmas once a year. So, since it’s a solstice festival, I asked Muhammed what was the shortest day of the year on Rejoicing. He says that’s Tamemb

Nap Ohd.”

Tatep bristled his ruff forward, confirming Muhammed’s date.

“So I have decided to celebrate Christmas Eve on Tamemb Nap Ohd and to celebrate Christmas Day on Tememb Nap Chorr.”

“Christmas is a revival, then? An awakening?”

“Yes, something like that. A renewal. A promise of spring to come.”

“Yes, we have an Awakening on Tememb Nap Chorr as well.”

Marianne nodded. “Many peoples do. Anyhow, I mentioned that I wanted to celebrate and a number of other people at the Embassy decided it was a good idea. So, we’re trying to put together something that resembles a Christmas celebration-mostly from local materials.”

She gestured toward the player. “That piece of music is generally associated with Christmas.

I’ve been playing it because it-gives me an anticipation of the Awakening to come.”

Tatep was doing fine finishing work now, and Marianne had to stop to watch. The bit of sweetwood was turning into a pair of tommets-the Embassy staff had dubbed them

“notrabbits” for their sexual proclivities-engaged in their mating dance. Tatep rattled his spines, amused, and passed the carving into her hands. He waited quietly while she turned it this way and that, admiring the exquisite workmanship.

“You don’t get the joke,” he said, at last.

“No, Tatep. I’m afraid I don’t. Can you share it?”

“Look closely at their teeth.”

Marianne did, and got the joke. The creatures were tommets, yes, but the teeth they had were not tommet teeth. They were the same sort of teeth that Tatep had used to carve them.

Apparently, “fucking like tommets” was a Rejoicer joke.

“It’s a gift for Hapet and Achinto. They had six children! We’re all pleased and amazed for them.”

Four to a brood was the usual, but birthings were few and far between. A couple that had more than two birthings in a lifetime was considered unusually lucky.

“Congratulate them for me, if you think it appropriate,” Marianne said. “Would it be proper for the embassy to send a gift?”

“Proper and most welcome. Hapet and Achinto will need help feeding that many.”

“Would you help me choose? Something to make children grow healthy and strong, and something as well to delight their senses.”

“I’d be glad to. Shall we go to the market or the wood?”

“Let’s go chop our own, Tatep. I’ve been sitting behind this desk too damn long. I could use the exercise.”

As Marianne rose, Tatep put his finished carving into his pouch and climbed down. “You will share more about Christmas with me while we work? You can talk and chop at the same time.”

Marianne grinned. “I’ll do better than that. You can help me choose something that we can use for a Christmas tree, as well. If it’s something that is also edible when it has seasoned for a few weeks’

time, that would be all the more to the spirit of the festival.”

###

At Tatep’s suggestion they paused at Killim the glass-blower’s, where Tatep helped Marianne describe and order a dozen ornamental balls for the tree. Unaccustomed to the idea of purely ornamental glass objects, Killim was fascinated. “She says,” reported Tatep when Marianne missed a few crucial words of her reply, “she’ll make a number of samples and you’ll return on Debem Op Chorr to choose the most proper.”

Marianne nodded. Before she could thank Killim, however, she heard the door behind her open, heard a muffled squeak of surprise, and turned. Halemtat had ordered yet another of his subjects clipped-Marianne saw that much before the local beat a hasty retreat from the door and vanished.

“Oh, god,” she said aloud. “Another one.” That, she admitted to herself for the first time, was
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why she was making such an effort to recognize the individual Rejoicers by facial shape alone.

She’d seen no less than fifty clipped in the year she’d been on Rejoicing. There was no doubt in her mind that this was a new one-the blunted tips of its quills had been bright and crisp. “Who is it this time, Tatep?”

Tatep ducked his head in shame. “Chornian,” he said.

For once, Marianne couldn’t restrain herself. “Why?” she asked, and she heard the unprofessional belligerence in her own voice.

“For saying something I dare not repeat, not even in your language,” Tatep said, “unless I wish to have my quills clipped.”

Marianne took a deep breath. “I apologize for asking, Tatep. It was stupid of me.” Best thing to do would be to get the hell out and let Chornian complete his errand without being shamed in front of the two of them. “Though,” she said aloud, not caring if it was professional or not, “it’s Halemtat who should be shamed, not Chornian.”

Tatep’s eyes widened, and Marianne knew she’d gone too far. She thanked the glassblower politely in Rejoicer and promised to return on Debem Opp Chorr to examine the samples.

As they left Killim’s, Marianne heard the scurry behind them-Chornian entering the shop as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. She set her mouth-her silence raging-and followed Tatep without a backward glance.

At last they reached the communal wood. Trying for some semblance of normalcy, Marianne asked Tatep for the particulars of an unfamiliar tree.

“Huep,” he said. “Very good for carving, but not very good for eating.” He paused a moment, thoughtfully. “I think I’ve put that wrong. The flavor is very good, but it’s very low in food value. It grows prodigiously, though, so a lot of people eat too much of it when they shouldn’t.”

“Junk food,” said Marianne, nodding. She explained the term to Tatep and he concurred.

“Youngsters are particularly fond of it-but it wouldn’t be a good gift for Hapet and Achinto.”

“Then let’s concentrate on good healthy food for Hapet and Achinto,” said Marianne.

Deeper in the wood, they found a stand of the trees the embassy staff had dubbed gnomewood for its gnarly, stunted appearance. Tatep proclaimed this perfect, and Marianne set about to chop the proper branches. Gathering food was more a matter of pruning than chopping down, she’d learned, and she followed Tatep’s careful instructions so she did not damage the tree’s productive capabilities in the process.

“Now this one-just here,” he said. “See, Marianne? Above the boll, for new growth will spring from the boll soon after your Awakening. If you damage the boll, however, there will be no new growth on this branch again.”

Marianne chopped with care. The chopping took some of the edge off her anger. Then she inspected the gnomewood and found a second possibility. “Here,” she said. “Would this be the proper place?”

“Yes,” said Tatep, obviously pleased that she’d caught on so quickly. “That’s right.” He waited until she had lopped off the second branch and properly chosen a third and then he said,

“Chornian said

Halemtat had the twining tricks of a talemtat. One of his children liked the rhyme and repeated it.”

“Talemtat is the vine that strangles the tree it climbs, am I right?” She kept her voice very low.

Instead of answering aloud, Tatep nodded.

“Did Halemtat-did Halemtat order the child clipped as well?”

Tatep’s eyelids shaded his pupils darkly. “The entire family. He ordered the entire family clipped.”

So that was why Chornian was running the errands. He would risk his own shame to protect his family from the awful embarrassment-for a Rejoicer-of appearing in public with their quills
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clipped.

She took out her anger on yet another branch of the gnomewood. When the branch fell-on her foot, as luck would have it-she sat down of a heap, thinking to examine the bruise, then looked Tatep straight in the eye. “How long? How long does it take for the quills to grow out again?”

After much of a year, she hadn’t yet seen evidence that an adult’s quills regenerated at all. “They do regrow?”

“After several Awakenings,” he said. “The regrowth can be quickened by eating welspeth but...”

But welspeth was a hot-house plant in this country. Too expensive for somebody like Chornian.

“I see,” she said. “Thank you, Tatep.”

“Be careful where you repeat what I’ve told you. Best you not repeat it at all.” He cocked his head at her and added, with a rattle of quills, “I’m not sure where Halemtat would clip a human, or even if you’d feel shamed by a clipping, but I wouldn’t like to be responsible for finding out.”

Marianne couldn’t help but grin. She ran a hand through her pale white hair. “I’ve had my head shaved-that was long ago and far away-and it was intended to shame me.”

“Intended to?”

“I painted my naked scalp bright red and went about my business as usual. I set something of a new fashion and, in the end, it was the shaver who was-quite properly-shamed.”

Tatep’s eyelids once again shaded his eyes. “I must think about that,” he said, at last. “We have enough branches for a proper gift now, Marianne. Shall we consider the question of your Christmas tree?”

“Yes,” she said. She rose to her feet and gathered up the branches. “And another thing as well.... I’ll need some more wood for carving. I’d like to carve some gifts for my friends, as well.

That’s another tradition of Christmas.”

“Carving gifts? Marianne, you make Christmas sound as if it were a Rejoicing holiday!”

Marianne laughed. “It is, Tatep. I’ll gladly share my Christmas with you.”