“Gebre,” I said, touching my fingers to my shoulder in the gesture of thanks and gratitude, “thank you for a wonderful day.”
Ter lips thinned; there was a disapproval there, though whether of my bumbling manners or the passage of time, I couldn’t entirely tell. Te looked from me to Hadja and back again, then stood at once, the scraps of meal at our feet ignored, and blurted: “Are you interested in sharing skin with me?”
“I… What?”
“Are you interested in sharing skin?” te repeated. “It is a simple question.”
“This is not a phrase I—”
Hadja hissed behind me, and – in a rare act of rudeness that just this once I was grateful for – translated ter meaning into neither Normspeak nor Xiha but Mdo-sa, the first language of my birth. “It is a sexual advance,” qe explained, “which we covered in your Adjumiri language course section 7.2; clearly you were not paying attention.”
“Oh.”
“The polite form of the decline is ‘My voice must rest, though I shall often speak of you.’”
“I see.”
“Do you require further help with the translation?”
“I’m wondering… what is the polite way in which people say yes?”
We rode back to theEmniin almost total silence.
Me, Hadja, and next to the quan – who seemed to have interspersed qimself like a chaperone – Gebre.
Outside the window, the sun was setting, orange to crimson, crimson to purple, the stars beginning to emerge from the dusk. I looked for Lhonoja, but on the winding road I could not orientate myself, and it felt unclean to seek it out.
In soft Mdo-sa, a language for my ears alone, Hadja said: “On a scale of one to ten in terms of its emotional investment, sharing skin is a two. It invites physicality without emotional engagement; a common practice on Adjumir. Sharing song is a more formalinvite towards committed emotional engagement following sexual intercourse; sharing light is what you would consider a marriage declaration.”
“I see.”
“Because of the casual nature of the overture, you do not have to observe any rituals, such as the cleansing of each other’s bodily cavities with appropriately scented items. You are, however, expected to treat the matter as entirely insignificant unless by mutual consent, which may be gained through further intercourse and discussion begun through the phrase ‘Will you speak to me of the springtime forest?’”
“Adjumir really loves its protocol, doesn’t it?”
“Protocol,” replied Hadja primly, “is how these people survive.”
And then, a little while later, as we slowed down for our journey through the camp, Hadja addressed Gebre.
Qe spoke Adjumiri – not the Assembly Adjumiri I knew, but ter local dialect, full of sounds that I struggled to tune my ear to. It was soft, gentle even, a tone of warning, a suggestion, perhaps, of choices not yet locked in stone, decisions that could be undone.
“He is an alien,” I heard qe say, and qe did not use the polite “off-worlder” when qe spoke. Qe very deliberately, very carefully chose the word that was steeped in darkness, a nameless, dangerous thing. “He is human/not human. An anomaly of the dark. Do not turn out the light.”
Gebre listened; Gebre appeared to understand.
“Thank you,” te said at last, “for your clarity.”
I felt my heart beating in my throat as we got off the glider before the waiting mouth of theEmni.
“This is me,” I mumbled, lips dumb and stupid as they tried to shape the words.
“I know,” te replied.
“Well. There’s no… I mean. We could. If what Hadja said…If you have changed your mind—”
“Pilot,” te blurted, cutting me off – the single rudest thing any Adjumiri could possibly do, though I did not think te meant it rudely. “I was born knowing precisely how long I had to live if my number was not called. The day of my death, pending an accident, was set at the exact moment of my birth, and I have always known it. I have had many lovers, but I have always been diligent never to love. Love, you see, is for the living. I… will not have it. It is a price that is higher than any I am willing to pay. In its absence, I enjoy intimacy. I enjoy physical tenderness, pleasure, even courtship to a degree. I have found your company enjoyable; I believe I would enjoy intimacy with you. Is that acceptable? Do you understand?”
“Yes. I think I do.”
