The Gate to Women's Country Read Online Free Page B

abstractedly.
    â€œWho’s Ulysses?”
    â€œOdysseus,” murmured Morgot. “It’s just another name for Odysseus. Telemachus was his son.”
    â€œOh,” said Beneda. “The same Odysseus that Iphigenia talks about in our play? The one at Troy?”
    â€œThe same one.”
    The women went down the stairs, across the plaza to the street, the way they had come. Myra was walking beside them now, her arm around her mother’s waist. Both Morgot and Sylvia were weeping. Beneda ran to catch up, but Stavia dawdled, looking back over her shoulder. Chernon. She would remember the name.

S ITTING IN THE FIRELIT ROOM WITH C ORRIG AND the others, thirty-seven-year-old Stavia reflected that she might have been better off now if she had not remembered Chernon’s name then. Better for everyone if she hadn’t remembered him or seen him again. She caught Corrig’s gaze upon her and flushed. He went on staring at her and she said, “I was remembering the day we took Jerby down. It was the first time I saw Chernon. That day.” He gripped her arm for a moment, then went to get more tea as she gazed around the room. It was a combination of common room and kitchen. Everything in it had memories attached to it. The thick rag rug before the stove was where Dawid had curled up while she read him bedtime stories. When he was home at carnival time. Before he grew up. His napkin ring was still in the cupboard. Joshua had carved it for him. Every shadowed corner of the place was full of things that said Dawid, or Habby, or Byram, or Jerby.
    Corrig came back with the teapot. He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, very gently, as he filled her cup.
    Beneda looked up, saying, “What did you say, Stavvy?”
    â€œNothing, Beneda. I was just thanking Corrig for the tea.”
    â€œWell, no more for me, thanks. I’ve got to be getting back to the children. Mother has an early morning meeting with the weavers’ guild over the linen quota, so she needs to get to bed.”
    â€œHow is your mother?” asked Morgot. “And your grandchild?”
    â€œSylvia’s fine. The baby’s teething and cross as two sticks, but the girls are all well. We want you both to come over for supper sometime soon. Now, where did I put my shawl?” She was halfway to the door, still bubbling with words and short phrases.
    When she had gone, Stavia sighed. “We used to be best friends.”
    Both the twins, Kostia and Tonia, looked up, but it was Tonia who said, “So far as Beneda’s concerned, you still are, love.”
    Stavia caught her breath. “It’s true. I feel like such a hypocrite. It hurts.”
    â€œI know. Are you going to be all right now?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “I’m going to be all right.” She was going to be all right. Almost everyone went through this. Everyone was all right. But now that Dawid was really gone, now that he wouldn’t be coming home anymore, she was remembering things she hadn’t really thought of in years—not memories of Dawid so much as memories of Chernon, of Beneda, of her own family. “Things not so much lost as unremembered,” she murmured to herself. Things from childhood.

F OR SEVERAL DAYS AFTER JERBY HAD BEEN TAKEN to his warrior father, Morgot had grieved a lot. Young Stavia was very aware of it, not so much because she was alert to her mother’s moods, though she was, but because she had wanted to ask Morgot about the boy in the plaza. Chernon. Stavia didn’t want to remind Morgot of anything to do with that day while Morgot was still grieving so much. Each time Stavia had delayed asking, she had congratulated herself on being sensitive and compassionate, giving herself little love pats, contrasting her own behavior with that of Myra, who never tried to be sensitive about anything. Stavia kept assuring herself she was behaving in a properly adult manner. That