The Gate to Women's Country (8 page)

During the medical visits, there were seldom any men around—except one.

This man, who called himself Jik, met them as they pulled off the road. “Back too soon, Doctor. You women just got done with them yesterday.” He had a narrow face with a lopsided jaw. His teeth pointed in various directions, some filling in for others which were missing. One shoulder was lower than the other, and his laugh was a sneer made large. “Just yesterday I got them working.”

“You had all of them but one, Jik. A sick one.”

“Off the whole week, and not a coin out of her.”

“She's cured now, Jik. You've probably already got her flat on her back milking the warriors for their amusement money.” Though this wasn't Jik's only source of income, Morgot knew. The man dealt in beer and scarce commodities and information and rumor, as well, all of which the Council was well aware of and used for their own purposes from time to time. Morgot got down from the wagon and pulled her bag from beneath the seat. “It'll go quicker if you line them up for me.”

Jik made a rude gesture, but started his circuit through the wagons. Women climbed from the wheeled huts, lining up around the fire, hoisting their skirts, some wagging bottoms while others thrust pudendas in the general direction of Morgot's wagon, laughing and catcalling, “Want some, Doctor? Want a little puss-puss, girlies? Hey?”

Morgot stared down the row, looking at each woman
deeply and calmly, and in a moment the catcalls stopped. “Just in case you've forgotten, ladies,” she called, “I've got the seal, and there won't be another doctor out until next week. No seal, no business.”

The mockery became muted.

“Swabs,” Morgot said to Stavia. “And remember to keep the vials labeled.”

“What shall I do?” whispered Myra, her face very pale.

“Just sit there,” her mother told her. “And watch.”

Stavia kept telling herself it was never as bad as she remembered that it was. They smelled, sure, but it was mostly just dirt and smoke. Morgot took two swabs from each of them, one vaginal, one rectal, dropping them into the vial that Stavia held ready before she sealed the woman on the forehead with indelible ink. Last week's seal was still there, too, a faded circle on the left side. This week's went on the right. The date and the medical officer's initials. MRTM. Morgot Rentesdaughter Thalia Marthatown. No one else in Women's Country had those initials. No one else had Stavia's, either. SMRM. Stavia Morgotsdaughter Rentes Marthatown. Thalia was her great-grandmother's line.

Plop, the swabs went into the vial.

“Is it labeled?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Over in the wagon, Myra was looking at everything except the line of flabby buttocks and bushy vulvas on display.

Morgot had it down to a kind of chant. “Left leg up. Thank you. Bend over, please. Thank you. You're Vonella, aren't you?” she asked. “I thought so. Go climb into the wagon, Vonny. You'll have a week in the quarantine house. You can be thinking up the names of all the warriors you've fucked since your last clean seal, too. I'll need them all.” The women were supposed to keep a contact book, but few of them were accurate about it.

When they had finished, Morgot asked, “All right, Jik. Are you harboring any elopers? Any silly little girl some handsome warrior has talked out here for his pleasure?”

He shifted from foot to foot. “The warrior paid me….”

“He could have paid you and gone to bed with you,” Morgot snapped. “He might have told you she'd never
had sex with anyone but him, and him only once, I'd still need to see her.”

“In there,” he said, pointing. The wagon looked cleaner than some of the others.

“Get her out here.”

“Can't you go…?”

“You know the rules, Jik. Examination is done in public, with everybody knowing all about it. No secrets. No girly saying she didn't know old Rosy had the plup. This way everybody knows who's got what and whether they're curable or not.”

“She's only a kid.”

“Weren't they all kids once?”

Jik had some trouble getting the girl out, and when Stavia saw who it was, her mouth dropped open and she felt her face turning bright red. It was one of Myra's friends. Tally. Seventeen, just like Myra. From the wagon behind her came a muffled exclamation. Myra had seen her, too.

“You're Tally,” Morgot said, as impersonally as if she'd never seen her before. “I'll make up a page for you in my Gypsy book….”

“I'm not….” the girl protested. “I didn't….”

“Stand up straight and lift your skirts.”

“I… Morgot, please.”

“Lift
—
your
—
skirts.”

“Might as well, honey,” cried one of the Gypsies. “She'll get that swab up your ass one way or another.”

The girl started crying, her hands before her eyes and her mouth twisted up. “Do you want to go home?” Morgot asked. “You can come back to Women's Country, you know. Or you can stay here. If you stay here too long, however, we won't take you back. Once disease is chronic, we don't take people back or allow them to stay near the city.”

“Barten said he'd take me away….”

Stavia heard the sound from behind her in the wagon, the intake of breath, the creaking of that breath, like aching wood, stressed in wind.

“Oh? Really! I think he probably told my daughter Myra the same thing. Where did you think he'd take you? Into the wilds? Did he plan to join the Gypsies with you? He's already taken you as far as he intended to, girl.
What's the matter, couldn't he wait two months until carnival? Or did he have other plans for carnival and want to get some fun out of you in the meantime?”

The girl broke and ran toward the wagon, weeping.

Stavia whispered, shocked, “You were mean.”

“I was, wasn't I?”

“Did you know she was here?”

“I'd heard rumors to that effect.”

Stavia said nothing in a combination of furious embarrassment for Myra and anger for herself. Morgot had
planned
this!

“If you make it embarrassing enough, they usually don't repeat,” Morgot said in a low voice. “I really don't want to come out here next time and find Myra in that wagon. Barten has quite a history of getting girls from Women's Country out here. Dishonoring them is part of the fun for him. I think Tally is his third or fourth. It's as though the girls were some kind of spoils of battle. They keep score, you know—some of the warriors in the garrison. How many women they've taken. It's a kind of game with them.”

“I didn't know,” Stavia mumbled, abashed. She still felt angry but she couldn't be angry at Morgot. This wasn't one of the things she had learned in women's studies. It wasn't one of the things Habby had talked about, or Byram.

“Not all of them do it, Stavvy. I don't think Habby would. Or Byram.”

“How did you know I was thinking about them?”

“I think about them. All the time.”

I
N THE WAGON
, Myra rode with her scarlet face straight forward, her mouth clamped in a grim, voiceless line. Tally lay in the back of the wagon, crying noisily, with many gulps and sniffles. The other woman, Vonella, chatted as though a week in quarantine was a treat for her.

“It probably is,” Stavia thought. “Showers and a clean bed and cooked food and too much of our precious antibiotics.”

“I've got a daughter in Marthatown somewhere,” Vonella said. “And a son in the garrison at Susan.”

“Then what are you doing out there?” Stavia demanded,
forgetting for the moment that she was a child and not supposed to ask personal questions.

“Stavia!” Morgot warned.

“Oh, it's all right, Doctor,” the woman said. “I don't mind the kid askin' and I don't mind sayin'. I just wasn't suited for town, you know? Too clean. Too neat. Too much expected of you all the time. Studies and work and crafty things—no more time to yourself than a dog with the itch. Somebody after you all the time to cook better or weave better or be responsible for somethin'. I'd rather be out here, travelin' around. Jik's an old villain, but he's not bad to us, really. Some of the men are all right. We have some times.”

Morgot sighed. “Have you been pregnant since you've been with Jik?”

The woman didn't answer.

“Did your baby disappear? Did Jik kill it? Or did it die?”

“It died,” the woman said sullenly.”

“How much of what Jik collects from your… your clients do you get? Half? Less than that?”

The woman didn't answer.

“How many times have you had a disease? You know, you keep passing these diseases around, and they lead to cancer. We can't cure cancer. People got close to a cure once, so it's said, but that's all lost now. Since the convulsions, we can't treat a lot of things that were curable before.” Morgot said it as though she didn't really care, but Stavia knew she did. “You're no better than a slave, Vonella. You've been taken captive, and you don't even know it.”

The woman threw up her hands, exclaiming angrily, “Oh I know. I do know. Likely I'll kill myself well before my three score and ten. I smoke willow, too, and that's no good for the lungs. And we all drink a bit there in camp. Jik makes good beer….”

“From stolen grain,” Morgot remarked.

“Well, he gets it where he gets it. Smoking and drinking and fucking. One or the other will probably kill me, right enough, but who wants to live to be old, anyhow? I've never wanted to be old.” Vonella waved her hands again, exorcising age and infirmity.

“You'll probably have your wish,” Morgot agreed.
“Slaves mostly died young, even in ancient times. It's your life, but we can't let you infect Women's Country.”

They stopped at the quarantine gate to drop both Tally and Vonella. “Stavia, go in with her and get the names of all the warriors and Gypsies she had contact with, will you please?”

“Oh God, lady, don't send your little girl in that pest-house just for that. There was only one, this whole week. That mad old white-headed one with just the one eye. He always comes to me.”

Stavia hesitated, waiting for the order to be rescinded. After a moment, Morgot nodded to her. “Unless you'd like to keep Tally company.”

It was one of those maternal “unlesses” which could be understood a dozen ways. Did it mean, “Unless you're curious about the quarantine house and would like to see the inside?” or “Unless you think it would be womanly to help Tally regain her equanimity?” or “Unless it would be a good idea to rub Myra's nose in this just a little more?”

“I'll go in with Tally,” Stavia said. “I have to do a report for my community medicine course, anyhow, and I can do it on the quarantine center.”

Morgot nodded and drove the wagon away in such a manner as to suggest still another unless: “Unless you think it might be a good idea for Myra and me to have a private talk.”

A
FTER ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT SPENT GRIEV
ing over Dawid, Stavia dragged herself to the hospital, to work. Morgot came out of her office, took one look at her, and told her to go home. “Stavvy, you usually look about twenty-five, but today you look fifty. I heard you tossing and turning, up all night, wandering around. Go home and get some sleep.”

Stavia, who was conscious of the imminence of her thirty-eighth birthday, was peculiarly annoyed by this repetition of Corrig's comment concerning her appearance. “I was checking the windows.”

“Against what? Ghosts?”

“I thought it might rain in.”

“It quit raining yesterday about noon. Go on home, Stavvy. This place is almost empty. Everyone in Marthatown is disgustingly healthy, it seems. A lot healthier than you look. I'm not surprised, mind you. I don't think there's a woman in Marthatown who really believes her son will be lost to her until he reaches fifteen and repudiates her. You try to get ready for it, but you can't. It's like losing an arm or leg. Go ahead—take a little convalescent time.”

“Oh, Morgot, I did so hope….”

“I know, love. We all told you not to, but you wouldn't be human if you hadn't. Say the ordinances over to yourself; that'll put you to sleep. If you can't sleep, at least rest. There's a Council meeting tonight.”

“I'd forgotten!” She bit her lip, annoyed with herself. What a thing to forget.

Stavia buttoned her padded coat and left the hospital, unbuttoning the collar again as soon as she got outside into the sun. The chill rains of early spring had passed for the moment and a mock summer had come, a transient warmth to stir false optimism. Cold would return inevitably before there could be true spring, no matter what the sun and sea conspired to suggest. It was too early for lunch. There was no one at home—the girls were at school and Corrig had gone to the servitors' fraternity, where he was teaching a class in the mysteries. She would have the house to herself if she wanted to nap, but she didn't want to do that, not just yet.