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Fiction
The Civilized Woman
a short story by
Chinelo
Onwualu
It
was Shoshane, the week of peace, when
Trajan returned to his mother. He found her on
the high bluff overlooking the Great Sea
gathering healing herbs. As he climbed the sandy
path that began at the village below and
continued up to the cliff's edge to meet her, he
admired the view of her homestead.
There was a feeling of great space on the
hillside with its view of a wide blue sky that
stretched from one end of the horizon to the
other, but a few steps on either side revealed a
sheer, terrifying drop. Located on a spit of
land jutting out of the main continent like a
defiant fist, it was a gentle grass-covered
islet where his mother and her people grazed
sheep and tended fruit trees. It had been handed
down from mother to daughter for generations and
would go to the first daughter of his
wife—should he have one—according to ancient
custom.
But
Trajan was not sure how long such custom could
continue. A new faith was blowing through the
Land like a wind-borne plague, carrying many,
Trajan's father among them. Years ago, his
mother left his father to return to her people.
She was a priestess of the Goddess and could no
longer abide with him. Trajan had gone with her,
for he was only a child at the time. As he soon
as he reached manhood, though, his mother had
sent him back to live with his father. Every
year, Trajan returned to celebrate Shoshane
with his mother, for it was no longer
practiced at his father's court.
Trajan's mother was perched precariously at the
rim of the cliff. With one hand, she held on to
a branch of a sturdy tree that grew by the
roadside while with the other, she reached down
over the lip of the cliff toward a spray of
plants growing on a rock just below her. Beyond
her, the bluff fell away into a dizzying blue
ocean where the sea roiled angrily around odd
rock formations. He slid onto his stomach over
the edge, plucked a handful of leaves from the
plant that was just beyond his mother's reach
and handed them to her.
“My
thanks, good son,” said his mother, as she
straightened. “I’m afraid I’m growing too old
for such adventure.”
“No
such thing, mother,” said Trajan. “I merely have
more reach than you.” He handed her the leaves.
“To
say the least,” she laughed and put a wrinkled
hand to his cheek.
She'd tied her ropy locks back, exposing the
blue half-moon tattooed on her forehead, and her
white robes stood in contrast to her berry-brown
skin. People said Trajan looked much like her.
The same full lips and expressive brown eyes, a
wide forehead that could cloud over in an
instant, and then just as quickly clear up
again. But where she was short and round, heavy
like the carved effigies of the Goddess while he
had his father's tall slender build and a
burnished gold tone.
“So, my son, what wind has blown you to me so
soon? I did not expect you for a few days yet.”
Trajan did not answer immediately. He ran his
hand over the tattoos on his bare chest. Trajan
hoped to join his mother as Mehen, a holy
servant of the Goddess. His own shoulder-length
hair was already being tended into rough,
rope-like locks and he had spent the better part
of the last moon under his mentor’s needle
covering most of his body in sacred markings.
“Mother, you know that father's new bride
arrived at the start of the rainy season,”
Trajan finally said.
“I
know this,” she said slowly. “As I understand,
she is a follower of the new faith, like him.”
“She is. Her name is Aysa.”
“I
hear she is very young—no older than you. How
does she fare?”
“She is well,” he answered carefully. “She is
very comely.”
“I
don't doubt that, your father always did have an
eye for beauty,” said his mother, with a fond
smile. “You know, in my day they called me 'Thenasis
the Beautiful.'”
“And she is very learned. She can read and write
in two languages. In many ways she is just like
you.”
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