Charlotte Kersten

I wrote a few more of what I think you could call “alternate dimension” snippets expanding on the epigraph from Chapter 5 of Memory and Curses (the one that flashes through lots of widely varying outcomes for Harlan and Iraluri’s relationship). This includes the one I posted here a bit ago, but it is now revised to include medically accurate information as my amazing nurse friend/co-worker Debbi informed me (after she stopped laughing at the insanity of the text I sent her out of the blue) that there is no such thing as a back-alley tubal ligation. The more you know!

1.

You said it to me when I was still mad and madder than ever, after the nurse got sacked and I stopped doing everything she told me to do, the writing and talking and walking and all of that. It weren’t that I was ungrateful for how she tried to help me, mind. But she left and it all went back to how it’d been before, only I knew better now and the knowing didn’t do me a bit of good. Sometimes I thought that if I could forget everything I wasn’t supposed to think, it would be all the better. I couldn’t, though, no matter how hard I tried.  

So, yes. One day you said I oughtn’t chew that ashoqlore ever again. Are you sure, I said, and that was as close to being smart as I came anymore, and you said yes, sweetness, and so I stopped it. I didn’t think much of it at first, I suppose, because I wasn’t thinking much at all then, to be honest with you. I do remember thinking well, something would happen or it wouldn’t but it didn’t make much sense for me to be fussed either way because what could I do about any of it? 

I wasn’t thinking much about nothing, but even so I could count the days, at least. I counted and after a while I was sure, and you were just that happy about it, so I thought maybe it’d be a good thing after all.  I thought of that Father Prophet as came when I hit my head in bed all that way back and how he said doing what I was meant for might be a fix for everything that was amiss with me. I remembered hating that man and the questions he asked me, but it felt all foggy when I looked back on it. You always loved to tell me how fine things would be once something or other was different, and now it was all about how fine things would be when we were a family, a proper family. 

When Miss Nirossz left, I’d stopped summoning Solaufein, too. It was a horrible, wicked thing of me to do, leaving him all alone like that. I know if I try to explain it I’ll just sound more foolish, so I won’t try. But I didn’t stop thinking about him, never, and I suppose the thoughts tipped over into my dreams sometimes. I didn’t mean them to, but I’ve never quite managed to sort my dreams. I’d dream we were talking just like we used to, or sometimes I’d dream all the marvelous things he’d shown me about Miz’rifaezar. Well, one night I dreamed about that first memory he ever showed me, back when you’d had me take the xulle to summon him so I was all funny in the head. The one with the Miz’ri ladies in their robes and the baby at his naming ceremony. That baby sat in one of the fine lady’s laps and everyone smiled and cried and the other lady called him a little glow bug and I’d thought I’d never seen someone so so loved. Then I woke up from the dream. I looked at you asleep next to me and I looked at the room around me and I thought oh by the dead, what am I to do? 

I didn’t do nothing but think at first, and it was hard enough to do that. It’s a stupid thing to suppose, I know, but sometimes I supposed that you could tell when I was thinking things I oughtn’t. And the last time I’d tried to do more than think what I oughtn’t, what had come of it? Mr. Lyness had agreed to invite you abroad as I’d begged him to, but you had declined the invitation on account of my poor health and the way my recovery depended on your care. Even when I remembered that failure along with my other failures, I didn’t stop thinking. I thought about a girl who you’d hate as much as you hated me for being weak and womanly and soft and stupid. I thought about a boy who would come to hate me as much as you did, who I’d try and fail to keep from growing up to be like you. I thought of a child growing up in a home built with the blood money we’d stolen from Solaufein. Me as a mother,  mad as I was, you as a father. I thought about my sister Immy and how she’d grown so lovely, and I thought about that smiling Miz’ri baby who were just a memory now. I thought about either of them knowing a bit of what I’d known as Iraluri Reynfried. And then I’d thought enough. 

I asked it of my maid Laele all casual. Did she happen to know of doctors as’d help women, and did she happen to know what those doctors would take for pay? She was doing my hair when I asked it, and she didn’t so much as drop a pin. I’d figured that she could tell you what I was about if she pleased, or she might refuse to do anything since whatever I did might be traced back to her if she helped me. But I’d seen how she looked at you when you wasn’t looking at her – you’d threatened to dismiss her with nary a reference enough times, shattered things as she’d had to clear up, shouted horrid at her when she failed to please. Ma’am, she said all quiet. There’s pills and such. You could try gin and a hot bath. Or there’s the staircase. I told her no, I didn’t want a baby ever. I could’ve explained that you had made up your mind about the way things were to be with us so it’d just happen again unless I found a way to make sure it couldn’t. I didn’t though, and I didn’t need to. Two days later she’d a name for me, though she said she weren’t sure he could make sure there’d never be a baby. I decided I’d take what I could get.

It was a night that you were at the club with your set and I was to be home. I brought spare drawers and a bit of the money Laele had pawned for the silver-pearl necklace that Solaufein had untangled for me while we stole from him. To be honest the amount she’d come back with had left me agape, and I’d hidden my riches in the same place I hid my notes from Immy’s primer and Ser’s handkerchief. You had never known I’d had that necklace to begin with, so I supposed it was the safest thing to pawn and now I had a tiny fortune.

I don’t know if that man were a doctor or not but he took my money sure enough. He told me I’d need a real surgery to make sure there’d never be no baby and I said can’t you do it and he said no, ma’am, it is not possible. I can’t have a baby I said I can’t I can’t and I think he wanted me to be quiet because I was crying then so he said there is a herb ma’am it is called ashoqlore have you heard of it I may sell it to you at a reduced price. I started to laugh as I cried as you know I did sometimes and I said yes sir. So he sold me the ashoqlore and took the baby out of me. He told me to come back when I needed more ashoqlore and that I needed to look for something called sepsis, but I don’t remember what sepsis is now. The cab driver charged me extra of what I had brought because I bled on the seat. I hid the ashoqlore the same place as I hid all my other treasures and then I fell into bed.

When I woke up again it was to the same nurse as’d been there when I’d hit my head the night of that ball when everything was so terrible and I’d tried to say no to you. She was the one as’d said you looked so fine in your riding jacket. Well, this time she dropped her knitting needles when I blinked at her, and she said that I’d had a terrible misfortune happen to me. My husband was that worried and wouldn’t I do everything she told me to do to make sure I got back to perfect health? I said yes ma’am, I would, and she said I was a sweet thing. Mr. Reynfried wanted to see me soon as I woke, she said, and he’d promised to do all he could for me. I knew that you could do all you wanted but I’d done something you could never undo, so I said yes, of course, I wanted to see you.

2.

After I said yes to Solaufein, I was sure you would know of it somehow. In the lift and through the strange terrible city underground, no matter what happened, Solaufein stayed with me and we talked in my mind. It were more like I babbled pure nonsense and he tried to make some sense of it. He’s going to kill me, I said to him.  He’ll find out and he’ll kill me straight away I know he will. I still had the marks on my throat from the night I’d crept out and you caught me but I didn’t need them to remind me of what you could do. I dreamed about it and woke to it and remembered it when it wasn’t happening no more. For it was my whole life, weren’t it? Sola tried to calm me. It will happen just as I said it would, Iraluri. It will be over before you know it. I didn’t believe him one bit but I’d decided that my life wasn’t worth living the way it was now, so either you could die or I could die and either way I wouldn’t be hurting quite like this no more. 

You handed me a knife to open the way with a sacrifice and I shook so bad that I gouged the cut far deeper than I’d meant to. I didn’t even feel the pain. I just whispered the words that summoned Sola and stared right past him once he appeared, for I thought that if I looked him in the eye, one of us would give it away in some manner. I stumbled after you as you followed my friend and I barely noticed that room full of riches like I could have never imagined before. 

You were so pleased then. You picked me up and twirled about and laughed and kissed me. I felt myself start to change my mind then, and it terrified me so much that I knew all sudden that I couldn’t let Solaufein do this for me. I was the one what needed to end it right now or I’d never be free of you. You’d say sweetness I didn’t mean it I love you I don’t know what you’re talking about and I would bow my head and go back to being your good little wife who did as you said with her magic and her body and her heart and couldn’t even think a single thought that hadn’t been touched by you and I would do it until there was nothing left of me and I died. 

You hadn’t thought to take the knife away from me, you were that beside yourself with the treasure. You set me down and I curved my arms around your neck and tipped my head up like I planned on saying something pretty. Harlan, I said. And I didn’t give you a chance to say sweetness back before I stabbed you in the neck. I did it again and again and I found I couldn’t stop doing it until Solaufein caught my wrist and pulled me away from your body. I was laughing and crying all at once in the way you said made me hysterical. You would never say that about me again. Solaufein had me drop the knife and he hugged me until I stopped shaking and saying nonsense. We were both covered in your blood by then. I looked down at you and thought that it couldn’t be so easy, could it? Could I really have done it, could it really be over?

The rest was simple. A glass of the strongest liquor my friend had saved all those years. A bath where I sat feeling nothing until the water were cold. Clean clothes, clothes that had not touched a living elf’s body for hundreds of years. By the time I was clean, Solaufein had wiped away the blood and covered your body. I thought it was wrong of him to clean up my mess but he said he did not mind. That was Solaufein for you. We burned your body. Then we lay curled somewhere soft and we didn’t move from there until I started to feel hungry though I’d thought I would never feel hungry again. That was when I knew I had to leave.

Solaufein pressed the balse-withe into my hand and told me that we were now both free in a way we had not been an hour ago. He said that I must take back what I needed to make a new life for myself, and I was still not thinking right so I didn’t argue back about that. He picked what he thought was best and I watched him, clutching the balse-withe and trying to pretend that I did not still feel the dagger in my hands. I hugged Solaufein before I left, kissed his cheek and said you know I will be back. Yes, he said, I know it. I can stay with you until you are settled or you can summon me when you please. I didn’t want to be alone just yet so I carried him with me back up into the light. 

Harlan. You were the one who first said that I was a murderess when I told you about that terrible night of the robbery where so much went wrong. You said it again and again, whispered and shouted it into me. Maybe in the end I only became what you believed me to be all along. I won’t say I don’t feel no guilt because I’m not like you. But I find guilt to be a better companion than you ever were.

3. 

We have a canary in our room and he has learned to wake us up right before the nurse comes in at six o’ clock. That way we wake up to something nice. We scrub ourselves clean with very cold water and sometimes we’ve got to break the ice. The nurse looks us over and touches us goosebumps and all to make sure we are clean. I hated this at first but now I don’t mind it so much. 

It is porridge and cocoa for breakfast after morning prayers and we must make polite conversation. Well Mrs. Reynfried how are you today? Quite well and yourself? I am very busy with social calls and shopping all day. And then the opera. Oh I detest the opera. Nurses do not like it if you laugh with cocoa in your mouth.

We go out into the ailing yards to make a living for the hospital. Even madwomen are delicate so we do the weeding and hoeing and sorting of vegetables while the men do the hard labor.  We all talk and tell stories and sing songs while we work and sometimes I share the stories Solaufein tells me. I talk to Solaufein all the time now and he is my best of friends. We have grown very close indeed though I may never save Miz’rifaezar now. 

We must then bake and clean our rooms and do our laundry and sew and sometimes we are inspected by doctors not just nurses. One of them said I needed surgery in the very beginning on account of it would reduce my hysteria. The other effect was that I could never have babies and I wouldn’t bleed no more each month. He never asked my opinion about it but I find it a great relief to know that I will not ever have a baby by you though I suppose there are other reasons that won’t happen now.

Evening prayers and then supper which is usually bread and stew with real meat. Then we have a nighttime service as they have found religion before bed soothes our minds. We’ve an hour of free time where we may read or draw or play games or do whatever we please. I practice my writing most often and I write down everything Solaufein tells me about Miz’rifaezar still. I had to start over once I came here of course. I also made a new copy of my notes from Immy’s primer and I have written down everything good about my life that I do not want to forget. Maybe it is mad of me but I have it all memorized by heart now in case they take my writing away someday. I practice it when I can’t sleep. 

We go to bed at nine and we are supposed to sleep right away but we rarely do. We say the things that are too impolite to say around nurses and we huddle together because it gets very cold. We tell secrets and we laugh and cry. 

There are women here who pick all the hair from their bodies and women who do not eat and women who think impossible things are happening. Some wash their hands until they crack and bleed and some talk to themselves and some try to do terrible things to themselves with our needles and hoes and knives and resort to scratching themselves and hitting their heads against the walls when all of those things are taken away from them. Some wake screaming and have strange episodes where they cannot say anything or breathe or move and I am one of the ones who does this. Some throw great terrible fits. I do not mind for we are all hysterical in our own ways and many of them are my friends after all.

I have never told them about Solaufein but I have told them all about Immy and even Ser. My friend Madeleine slipped to my bed and took my hand the night after I told them about kissing Ser. She said Luri I didn’t know you were mad in that way and she asked if I wanted to be mad together with her. I did think about it but after a moment I said no for you see I still do not want to be touched so. She squeezed my hand and said I could change my mind any time. Maybe I will say yes to her someday. 

I have told them about you, too, and Harlan I am sorry to say that they rather hate you. Some of my friends have husbands somewhat like you and some of them had fathers who were not good fathers and we have all decided that it can be a terrible burden to have husbands and fathers. I try not to think of you but sometimes I can’t help it and sometimes the nurse tells me that you are going to visit. I am very quiet and good most of the time but on those days my hysteria gets ever so much worse and that is when I scream and fling myself about so that I must be tied to a chair in the isolation room. It is unfortunate but that is hysteria for you ain’t it? I think they will catch on soon enough and then they’ll make me see you without any warning first. I don’t suppose I know what I will do then.

I don’t think I would be mad if it were not for you but I am mad now and there isn’t nothing to be done about it. As I have said I try not to think about you and I try not to think about the things I’m missing. I won’t find out if Ser wins her story day each year and I won’t ever dance with her again. I won’t never get to see Immy grown to a lady nor even learn if she ever wrote back to me a second time. I will never have tea with Aurore or see Solaufein’s face and as I have said I will never save Miz’rifaezar. Sometimes it makes me madder than ever to think on it all and I can’t do nothing but curl up tiny and breathe and breathe. The canary knows when we are upset and sometimes he sings to cheer us up. Sometimes it works.

4. 

My words are very simple compared to yours and sometimes I think I won’t never learn to say how you make me feel. So here is a memory that I hope says it all: Lucy was three and she was chewing on the head of the cloth pup you had bought her but she took it from her mouth as soon as the door opened. She started yelling. Papa is home she cried and I pretended I were that surprised to see you even though you came home the same time each day. I didn’t even tell her to hush because I knew you’d shout too when you saw her and you did. You lifted her up to swing her round and round. Oh my darling Lu, you said, how was your day? She told you about the rabbit in the garden and the bread she punched down after it’d risen and you kissed her on both cheeks. And then you put her down and kissed me. Sweetness, you said. 

Here is another memory if that didn’t suit: the first time you touched my body your hands shook. You said it didn’t seem like any of this could be real. I kissed you, touched you just so, and I said do you reckon that is real, then? You laughed and said you supposed the proof was incontrovertible. I didn’t know what that meant but I only asked you about it later as there were other things to occupy my attention then. You didn’t shake after that and it was so sweet and good, Harlan. You held me and your breath deepened against my neck and I knew you were happy too. 

There were many, many times that you were not happy, and I always knew that you thought of the past then. You’d told me about Aurore and how you had realized and repented of your all of your sins when you nearly died of fever after your family’d cast you out. Sometimes you said that Ydur had saved your soul and sometimes you said that your soul couldn’t never be saved. Sometimes you said that you didn’t deserve me and Lu and I didn’t know how to tell you that you were wrong because I didn’t know if you were wrong. Sometimes you couldn’t touch me because you remembered all you had done and it made you properly sick. You said you fought your nature every day and sometimes it almost won. That was when you’d get a strange look in your eyes. Your movements would turn all tense and stiff and you would barely look at me or talk. Then you would go out for a walk no matter the hour or weather and you would not return until you had prayed and prayed and wrestled with yourself. That was how you said it. 

I thought about Aurore too. I reckoned it weren’t fair that she’d only known the Harlan from before, but when I told you that you shook your head. There is no other Harlan, you said. I can’t pretend I’m a different person. All I can do is try to live in Ydur’s light now. You wrote her a letter once, but she never responded to it. 

You helped me with my learning until I could write letters too, and then I wrote to my sister. Here is a memory from after that: she begged a holiday from work after receiving my letter and took the train and carriage to see us. I fretted that our house would seem low to her because she was a governess in a fine manor and we just managed to scrape by, but you told me that she would not care for such a thing. You were right. We talked and cried and talked more until Lucy fell asleep, and then you put her to bed so I would not have to stop talking with Immy. There are many other memories with Immy to choose from.

Sometimes I look at the blessings that surround me and wonder how things would be for us if just one bit of it all had been different. What if you had not stopped to help me when I sat in the dirt outside that bakery? What if you hadn’t almost died of that fever or hadn’t decided to change then, if your family had not cast you out? I tell you often that thinking of the past can drive you mad, and when I start these wonderings you remind me of my own words. It is just as it should be now. That is all we can know. This is what I say to you and what you say to me, and indeed it is true.

(#2 is for everyone who asked me “CAN HARLAN PLEASE JUST FUCKING DIE ALREADY?!?“ Your wish is my command as long as it happens in an alternate universe!)