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Reed,
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write since I left the Dawn Hanger, but--from the second I set foot in the spaceport I knew it was all wrong for the task the Emperor had set me to justify my presence here and the stipend the Palace is paying me. Too many of the residents in the planet's capital speak Teixcalaanli, or a pidgin of it and one of the local languages; there is a hunger here for empire that vanishes the traces of the civilizations here prior to acquisition.
So in consultation with the resident Information office, I packed up and moved again, to a much smaller, more remote city, on a dank island much farther north from the equator. To avoid the maelstroms that plague the oceans between here and the spaceport, I had to take a train to the other end of the continent--and fly over the pole--and I imagine that any mail that arrives for me will have to follow the same route; I will have to take it myself, when I wish to explore more of the planet. There was a moment, as we were crossing the pole, when I was reminded absurdly of home: the ice beneath me like some of the mining belts, the precariousness of being in a small metal cannister in space--and then we began to descend, and I was ushered out into air that feels colder than space looks, and a sort of sleeting rain, and had to hurry into the lodging that had been arranged and put everything away except the things that were too damp, and needed drying.
I am now sitting in my habitation, staring out into the foul weather and encroaching evening, with a cup of the tea you gave me and a primer on the local language to one side. It's complicated, but it can't be any worse than what we just decoded. It certainly doesn't require strong anti-emetics to listen to for more than a few minutes. Perhaps I will also learn to enjoy a quiet and boring life, who knows?
- Mahit
Mahit!
It's a relief to finally hear from you--my last message might have gotten lost in transit--or one of the maelstroms you mentioned, how is that boring?--and it has not, I would still like to reiterate: I didn't have anything to do with the holodrama. I loathe the holodrama. Everyone loathes the holodrama--it's been roundly denounced, not just because it's artistically bad (but more than one reviewer has asked way, if the barbarian was constantly mangling Teixcalaanli grammar, was she able to decode the language of an unknown alien species?) but because of its portrayal of Twenty Cicada and the homeostatic cult was deeply offensive. There have been something scathing popular poems--I've enclosed a selection--and Nine Hibiscus, never much of a poet, decided to express her and the Weight of the Wheel's displeasure by offloading a hundred Kauraan kittens to run free in the Jewel of the World's garden. We all breathed a sigh of relief when Twenty Cicada told us the We don't care about holodramas, or all those ridiculous rubber costumes and terrible special effects might have ruined our hard-won truce. Nineteen Adze hasn't come out and said it, but someone's never going to work in this sector of space ever again.
I searched for what information I could on your new city--apparently the people there live in hives? Do confirm or laugh at my flights of fancy as it suits you.
- Reed
Reed,
I wouldn't call them hives, exactly--it's more like a shorter, squatter Teixcalaanli apartment building, holding a core of services inside like shops, schools, greenhouses, an infirmary, and, of course, a library in its center so the residents can stay warm in winter and cool in summer. Most of the apartments are along the perimeter, with a large window looking out of the main room, and a balcony or a patio to minimize the sense of claustrophobia. It's more private than I was used to on Lsel Station, almost lonely, but there are communal rooms closer to the center that I can visit.
I did see the holodrama--I can't believe they left you out entirely--but mostly I was outraged on Twenty Cicada's behalf, too. The way they portrayed me was hilarious, and that's not just the local liquor talking. I didn't know it was possible to make a set of coveralls that effectively covered nothing--but the actress has better breasts and biceps than I do, and with her hair shaved to a stubble, I suppose they needed to show something off, or what else does the holodrama have to recommend itself?
This morning I woke at 0900 local time and when I sat down in the main room the sky was so dark. I've read most of the histories and all of the pre-flight epics, but they didn't do weather justice.
- Mahit
Mahit,
Your breasts (and biceps) are much better than Six Cypress's--don't be modest, I've seen them, and besides, Six Cypress wears lifts in all her scenes and no one tries to disguise it.
I know what you mean, about weather: I spent a year outside the City as part of my training, and while my posting was rather closer to the equator than yours seems to be, the pronounced seasons took me by surprise. One day I was freezing in my tunic and trousers and the next I was sweating through them. But I was young, and a student, and, it goes without saying, a fool, so half the time I regulated my temperature by smoking things and drinking things and jumping into fountains and streams, and regretting it all in the morning. But I can't imagine you ever being that stupid or that bored.
- Reed
Oh, Reed!
Of course I could be that stupid, or that bored. I went from high court intrigue and first contact scenarios to a backwater where my neighbors, I swear, sleep twelve hours a day.
Things are very slow here in winter and I've managed to get hold of the complete run of The Perilous Frontier, and I've started, in between cracks at the language workbooks, to translate it. In addition to serving my cover story as a scholar who's interested in pre-Teixcalaanli literature and a professional translator, it's fun. I never consumed much Stationer media when I lived there, and perhaps I should start rectifying that.
In any case, since you liked that installment I brought aboard the Weight of the Wheel, I'm sending you my translation of the chapters as I complete them. It's a small thing, but perhaps, once I've finished, I'll look into publication in Teixcalaan, if their creators agree; the world might be less inclined to see us as barbarians if they were to see the way we portray ourselves and not Six Cypress. It might be worth it, even if it would give the Councilor for Heritage fits. Or maybe especially because it would.
- Mahit
Mahit,
The translations are wonderful--the story itself is captivating--but I preferred it when you murmured the translations of these dialogue balloons into my ear as we squashed together on the lower bunk. You shuffled through terms and idioms like you were clearing jumpgate after jumpgate, and I picked up--not enough about Stationer culture and language, but it was a fascinating glimpse. I am trying to study Stationer; I envy you your winter silence.
The holodrama might have cut me out entirely--not that I mind, narratively you're much more interesting, although the idea that only a barbarian could speak to space monsters but no proper Teixcalaanlitzim could (and Twenty Cicada was fully Teixcalaanlitzim, no matter all that nasty innuendo in the holodrama) is repugnant, but enough people in the Palace know what role I played that I've been fending off invitations from patricians with more curiosity than good sense. The only one I've talked to about it is Eight Antidote, and that's because he helped save the peace, and also knows how to travel wherever he likes in the Palace via the sewers, Mahit, it borders on spooky, but he was so young, and he worked so hard, and he deserves to know. Everyone else can go space themselves.
I have accepted an invitation or two to poetry salons. Some of the younger poets are trying something called a Shard-saga-cycle where anyone can interrupt anyone else at any time, it's complete chaos and usually at least one person ends up with a broken nose. I've enclosed a collection of modern, less mad, poems, if you need a break from The Perilous Frontier and something to keep you occupied during those long winter nights.
- Reed
Reed,
I've ventured out into the communal rooms of--well, there's no point in not calling it a hive. It's not my first excursion, I've been to the shops and the library, but I haven't really spoken more than a handful of phrases, to request flatbread and eggs and books. There is a group that meets in the communal room on my floor, women an indiction or two older than I am, they gossip in this language that remains mostly unknown to me, and knit with curiously-shaped needles. One of them, upon seeing me, looked up from her socks and said, "Ah! You must be the Teixcalaanlitzim."
And it was like I'd been hit with a shock-stick. No one really wears their cloudhooks on this island, unless they're visiting a government office, or traveling outside their main residence, or are doing housework or sitting in a market stall and want to lessen the tedium with a novel or holodrama. They even have a few public access ones in the library, because so few people bring theirs with them, to help people find books or to check a map or communal calendar before heading out to an unknown floor, a half-remembered event. I was from outside their world, and wore my hair in a braid, and spoke Teixcalaanli, so--therefore I was Teixcalaanlitzim to them, but not in the heart of the empire, or its ships.
I agreed that, yes, I'd come from the city--from Teixcalaan--which was true, and leaves the question of my identity, my affiliation, to be puzzled out at another time. I said I was a literary translator, and wanted to learn their language while I was working on my current project. It didn't surprise me that none of them had heard of Lsel Station. They all agreed that it sounded very interesting and I had made a good decision in choosing to stay here and would I also like to learn how to knit? It was almost enough to keep my mind off having been confused for Teixcalaanlitzim.
I'm making better progress with the language than the knitting. By the beginning of next winter, I think I'll be able to converse easily and understand news bulletins, but I don't think I'll have managed more than half a scarf.
As for your last--Reed, I can't believe you sent me a collection of erotic poetry. Yskandr can't believe you sent me a collection of erotic poetry but did not include the one about the dancer from Odile. He says it's a classic.
- Mahit
Mahit,
Is it so odd you'd be mistaken for Teixcalaanlitzim? You're uncommonly tall, true, but you speak fluent Teixcalaanli, and your knowledge and references are impeccable. If it weren't for your clothes and your lack of a cloudhook, no one in the world would look twice at you. I know you don't want to be a citizen, but--is it so terrible to be mistaken for one?
Or is it the idea of a binary, of always ending up as on the outside half of the binary, that upsets you? First Teixcalaan treats you like a barbarian, and then these recent-citizens treat you like a full Teixcalaanlitzim? Everywhere I've traveled I've known I could go home again; and I cannot imagine it is easy, having left your home as you did, and then being treated like a foreigner everywhere you go. Your Hive sounds more welcoming than the city, at least, and I have faith in your ability to achieve an entire scarf.
Yskandr, I apologize for the oversight, and I've attached a copy of "There once was a dancer from Odile" for your and Mahit's enjoyment.
Speaking of, Mahit, you didn't say anything about what you thought about the erotic poetry. Please tell me you're not scandalized.
- Reed
Reed,
You're right, I think it is about the binary, although it's not about me being on the outside. It's--I grew up with the binary of empire and not-empire, of Station and Teixcalaan, and I suppose now I have to confront the idea that in parts of the empire there are those who don't (yet) think of themselves as Teixcalaanlitzim, even if their planet joined several generations ago for the economic and technological benefits. And part of it is that I do feel closer to Teixcalaan, with its hydroponic gardens and space travel and dense but well-regulated cities, than I do to the wide-open plains and the seas with their maelstroms, to the hives with the miniature sheep that spend half the year wandering around indoors until it's safe to go outside again.
And then I think of Twenty Cicada, and how his home world has survived in the empire, but different, for centuries; how he could retain a sense of self even after joining a fungal neuronetwork, and I know Teixcalaan has curated a version of itself that might only exist in the Jewel of the Center of the World to export, and that is what I learned, and that there is more out there, much more I have yet to learn.
To answer your question: I liked some of the erotic poetry, but it all seems amateurish. Some of the imagery doesn't seem to work, like when Eight Shawl compares her genitalia to a hot noodle dish with cream. And so many of the poets stumble in meter and rhythm and while they seem to be attempting to mimic desperation and need, it just comes across as sloppy--Eleven Chambers' "my neck, my back" doesn't need to sacrifice form to be sexy, so it can be done. I'm sorry, Reed, I don't want to criticize it, but it doesn't feel like Teixcalaanli poetry to me; I've certainly never read anything like it before.
That said, Yskandr does love 'There once was a dancer from Odile.'
- Mahit
Mahit,
I think you're onto something--not that I'd know much myself, having been raised in the city, having spent most of my life here. That version of Teixcalaan is the only one I know, a mirror reflecting us. And perhaps I should have been a little more curious about what was outside.
Don't apologize. You're right, erotic poetry is amateurish, and you wouldn't have read anything like it before. It's barely an accepted genre even now. For most of Teixcalaanli history, romantic--or erotic--poetry was kept to private messages between lovers, or doggerel scrawled on university bathroom stalls, and it's only in the last few indictions that it's started to be posted on the information network, and recited in more experimental salons. So there isn't a body of literature for poets to model their works on, or to reference; it's something rough and raw and still being defined as an art form.
And in defense of Eight Shawl's imagery--who doesn't like eating hot noodle dishes?
- Reed
Reed,
How can it be a new genre? Even with our Councilor for Heritage's entire imago line devoted to keeping all things Teixcalaanli out, even with a good half of our population unable to read or speak much of the language, Teixcalaanli erotic novels and holodramas were extremely popular on Lsel Station. We had bootleg translations of pornography from the beginning of Twelve Solar Flare's reign. It was faded and sticky, but it was Teixcalaanli and it was extremely pornographic, and while the imagery was often--frequently--overdone, none of it seems to have been used in the poetry you sent me. I've borrowed a public access cloudhook and gone looking for more. But now that I know it's new, it's almost endearing.
Your faith in my knitting is misplaced, Reed. My hand-eye coordination aptitudes made it clear I was never going to be a pilot. I've started to let Yskandr take over, and he seems to be making a bit more progress on the scarf. The rest of the knitting circle doesn't mind--they don't have to pay attention to their hands and are more interested in teaching a "real" Teixcalaanlitzim their language. They're very nice, even if they do drink tea with so much sugar I'm surprised they can taste the tea. I managed not to spit any of my first cup out, which amused rather than offended them, thank the stars.
- Mahit
Mahit,
Poetry reference prose or, worse, holodramas? Perish the thought. Our poetry is supposed to be more serious, more sacred--and yet more universal, more accessible--something all Teixcalaanlitzim can refer to, can sing together. That's one of the reasons why love poetry wasn't even considered poetry for so long.
But the other reason is that--well, you know all the classics, and what they're written about: buildings, and battles, conquests and coups; the tranquility of the palace gardens or the excitement of the exploration of the cosmos. Reflections on the political moment. Ships slicing through darkness, horses fording rivers and falling upon Teixcalaan's enemies. We are so late to the idea of love poetry and resilient to legitimizing it, because for centuries all our poems have been love poetry, but to the empire. Our poets obsess over it like a lover--its beauty, its favors, its flirtations with other courtiers. And I haven't been able to write poetry since you left the city, haven't composed anything since I sat, hand in hand, with you, composing yet another paean to Teixcalaan. And now I know why, because all I'd wanted to say since that day, Mahit, was that I missed you and I hoped you'd forgive me.
You don't have to reply to this, Mahit; and I would not ask you to return to the city with me, when you've made your feelings clear about that, but I'm due quite a lot of vacation time and would like to spend some of it with you in that small, cold city, learning how to write poetry again. Will you have me, Mahit?
Yours,
Reed
Reed,
Yes.
But bring gloves, because even with Yskandr's help, I won't be able to knit you mittens for at least a year.
Love,
Mahit