Page 18 of Kiwi Sin
“Well …” I said, then faltered.
“Go on,” Aisha said. She was smiling, but not in a mocking way. In a delighted way.
“Isn’t war,” I said, “not caring what the other person’s point of view is? You try to get your way by force instead, because you’re stronger, right? And diplomacy is trying to sort out whatbothsides want, and seeing if there’s a way you can both be happy, or at least not fight. So it’s the opposite.”
“Possibly threatening themwithwar,” Harper said. “Or just with consequences. Pointing out the downside to the conflict not being resolved.”
“Like in families, Outside!” I said. “Mount Zion is more like war, and Outside is more like diplomacy.”
Ms. Roberts was sitting on her desk now, the same as that first day. She was young and always wore trousers. “How?” she asked.
“Because at Mount Zion,” I said, “women obey men because men are stronger, and they’ll be hurt if they don’t. And kids obey their parents and their teachers for the same reasons. It’s always about obedience, not about … about agreeing to follow the rules because the rules make sense. That was my name. Obedience.” My face was hot now, but somehow, I was still talking. “But Outside, families don’t work like that, and government doesn’t, either. There’s voting, instead of one person saying how things will be, and in families, there’s … well, there’s a bit of voting there, too. Men don’thaveto care what their wives think, because they’re still stronger, but it won’t be very nice at home, maybe, if their wife is unhappy.”
Harper said, “Not in the bedroom, it won’t be,” and everybody laughed, which made me flush more. “I’m not making fun of you,” she told me. “Sorry. Just making a joke. My unfortunate habit."
“And you’re not allowed to hit,” I said, “which makes it different. You’re not allowed to … to punish your wife, or your kids, by beating them or not letting them eat or locking them up or anything like that. The same thing with the … the society. You’re not allowed to just kill people if they don’t do what you say, even if you’re stronger, so Parliament has to make laws instead and write down the rules people agree to.”
The bell rang, and there was the usual rustle of papers and slamming of books. Ms. Roberts stood, put up a hand, and called out, “Wait.”
Everybody quieted down, and she said, “I want to take a moment to thank Oriana for what she’s shared today. Tomorrow, we can explore this topic more, but if you stop to think about it, she’s taken us on a deep dive to the essence of representational governance, hasn’t she? So thank you, Oriana, for your contribution and your honesty.”
“And your guts,” Aisha said. “Girl’s got guts.”
“Yes, she has,” Ms. Roberts said. “Hold your head high, Oriana. You’ve earned it.”
I cried in the toilets again, but not from misery this time. From something so much more complicated. Relief, and embarrassment, and maybe …
Hope.
8
SHIFTING SANDS
Gabriel
January had turned to February, February had turned to March, and I’d been staying with Drew and Hannah for three months. My dad, mum, and youngest sister Harmony were moving on from Gray’s caravan next week, and that wasn’t the only change. Gray was training my dad to be a foreman, for one thing, which meant more money. That was how you could tell you were getting somewhere at work. They gave you more money.
“We can’t keep imposing on his hospitality, though,” my dad had told me after work last Friday, when he’d been the one giving me a lift home. A lift, because he’d bought a car about two months in. My sister Harmony had gone out to sit in the little sedan every afternoon for the first week, and had borrowed the driving-license workbook from Mum the minute Mum passed the test for her Learner plates.
Harmony wasn’t even fifteen. She was going to be the best-prepared test-taker in the whole country by the time she got there.
“Gray’s Daisy’s partner, though,” I said, in the passenger seat of said sedan. “I thought families did that, even here. Helped each other.”
“That doesn’t mean he wants all her family members on his doorstep,” Dad said. “Also, your mum’s found a job, and she’s going to need the bus to get there. Gray’s place is so far out, she’d be on the bus an hour each way.”
“She has?” I digested that. It wasn’t that surprising, actually, when I thought about it. Women at Mount Zion worked as much as men did. I just wasn’t used to having their work seen as something you’d pay money for. “Doing what?”
“Working in a knitting shop,” Dad said, “and teaching classes about it. They were quite excited to hire her, as she knows so much. Dyeing wools, doing the more complicated patterns, and all that, but she’s got the patience to teach beginners, too, and doesn’t mind how many hours she works. She came home from her interview practically dancing on a cloud.” He sounded quite proud about all of it. My mum had been the lead for ages on the knitting rotation, and she’d also introduced hand-dyeing of the Suri alpaca knitting wool that fetched ultra-premium prices in the shops.
That was the sort of thing I knew. Ever since I’d got here, I’d been trying to remind myself of the things I did know, so I wouldn’t focus so much on the world of things I didn’t. I suspected I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, standing on these shifting sands.
“She’s already got heaps of ideas for things they could do,” Dad went on, “and she hasn’t even started yet. Reckon she’ll end up running the place.” Proud again, and not afraid to say it anymore. Mum and Dad didn’t seem to have any mixed feelings about leaving Mount Zion, at least none they’d shared with me, other than that two of my sisters and my brother Uriel were still there.
“Don’t women learn that sort of thing at home?” I asked.
“Apparently not,” Dad said. “Good news for Mum, eh.”
People thought there couldn’t be love at Mount Zion, because all the marriages were arranged by the Prophet, and you got no choice at all. But even a marriage like that could be good. Depended on the people, I reckoned. Especially on the man, in a place like that, and my dad was a good man.
