A Time of Changes

25

Impatiently I awaited Halum’s return from her isle in the Gulf of Sumar. Neither bondsister nor bondbrother had I had for over two years, and drainers could not take their place; I ached to sit up late at night with Halum or Noim, as in the old days, opening self to self. Noim was somewhere in Salla, I supposed, but I knew not where, and Halum, though she was said to be due back imminently from holidaying, did not appear in my first week in Manneran, nor the second. During the third, I left the Justiciary office early one day, feeling ill from the humidity and the tensions of mastering my new role, and was driven to Segvord’s estate. Entering the central courtyard on my way to my room, I caught sight of a tall, slender girl at the far end, plucking from a vine a golden flower for her dark glossy hair. I could not see her face, but from her figure and bearing I had no doubt of her, and joyfully I cried, “Halum!” and rushed across the courtyard. She turned frowning to me, halting me in mid-rush. Her brow was furrowed and her lips were tight together; her gaze was chilly and remote. What did that cold glance mean? Her face was Halum’s face — dark eyes, fine slim proud nose, firm chin, bold cheekbones — and yet her face was strange to me. Could two years have changed my bondsister so greatly? The main differences between the Halum I remembered and the woman I saw were subtle ones, differences of expression, a tilt of the eyebrows, a flicker of the nostrils, a quirking of the mouth, as though the whole soul itself within her had altered. Also there were some minor differences of feature, I saw as I drew nearer, but these could be ascribed to the passing of time or to the faults of my memory. My heart sped and my fingers trembled and an odd heat of confusion spread across my shoulders and back. I would have gone to her and embraced her, but suddenly I feared her in her transformations.

“Halum?” I said uncertainly, hoarse-voiced, dry-throated.

“She is not yet here.” A voice like falling snow, deeper than Halum’s, more resonant, colder.

I was stunned. Like enough to Halum to be her twin! I knew of only one sister to Halum, then still a child, not yet sprouting her breasts. It was not possible for her to have concealed from me all her life a twin, or a sister somewhat older. But the resemblance was extraordinary and disturbing. I have read that on old Earth they had ways of making artificial beings out of chemicals, that could deceive even a mother or a lover with the likeness to some real person, and I could well have been persuaded that moment that the process had come down to us, across the centuries, across the gulf of night, and that this false Halum before me was a devilishly clever synthetic image of my true bondsister.

I said, “Forgive this foolish error. One mistook you for Halum.”

“It happens often.”

“Are you some kin of hers?”

“Daughter to the brother of the High Justice Segvord.”

She gave her name as Loimel Helalam. Never had Halum spoken to me of this cousin, or if she had, I had no recollection of it. How odd that she had hidden from me the existence of this mirror-Halum in Manneran! I told her my name, and Loimel recognized it as that of Halum’s bondbrother, of whom she had evidently heard a good deal; she softened her stance a little, and some of the chill that was about her now thawed. For my part I was over the shock of finding the supposed Halum to be another, and I was beginning to warm to Loimel, for she was beautiful and desirable, and — unlike Halum herself! — available. I could by looking at her out of one eye pretend to myself that she was indeed Halum, and I even managed to deceive myself into accepting her voice as my bondsister’s. Together we strolled the courtyard, talking. I learned that Halum would come home this evening and that Loimel was here to arrange a hearty reception for her; I learned also some things about Loimel, for, in the injudicious fashion of many Mannerangi, she guarded her privacy less sternly than a northerner would. She told me her age: a year older than Halum (and I also). She told me she was unmarried, having recently terminated an unpromising engagement to a prince of an old but unfortunately impoverished family of Mannerangi nobility. She explained her resemblance to Halum by saying that her mother and Halum’s were cousins, as well as her father being brother to Halum’s, and five minutes later, when we walked arm in arm, she hinted scandalously that in fact the High Justice had invaded his elder brother’s bridal couch long ago, so that she was properly half-sister to Halum, not cousin. And she told me much more.

I could think only of Halum, Halum, Halum, Halum. This Loimel existed for me solely as a reflection of my bondsister. An hour after we first met, Loimel and I were together in my bedroom, and when her gown had dropped from her I told myself that Halum’s skin must be creamy as this, that Halum’s breasts must be much like these, that Halum’s thighs could be no less smooth, that Halum’s nipples would also turn to turrets when a man’s thumbs brushed their tips. Then I lay naked beside Loimel and made her ready for taking with many cunning caresses; soon she gasped and pumped her hips and cried out, and I covered her with my body, but an instant before I would have thrust myself into her the thought came coldly to me, Why, this is forbidden, to have one’s bondsister, and my weapon went limp as a length of rope. It was only a momentary embarrassment: looking down at her face, I told myself brusquely that this was Loimel and not Halum who waited for my thrust, and my manhood revived, and our bodies joined. But another humiliation awaited me. In the moment of entering her my traitor mind said to me, You cleave Halum’s flesh, and my traitor body responded with an instantaneous explosion of my passions. How intricately our loins are linked to our minds, and how tricky a thing it is when we embrace a woman while pretending she is another! I sank down on Loimel in shame and disgust, hiding my face in the pillow; but she, gripped by urgent needs, thrashed about against me until I found new vigor, and this time I carried her to the ecstasy she sought.

That evening my bondsister Halum at last returned from her holiday in the Gulf of Sumar, and wept with happy surprise to see me alive and in Manneran. When she stood beside Loimel I was all the more amazed by their near twinship: Halum’s waist was more slender, Loimel’s bosom deeper, but one finds these variations even in true sisters, and in most ways of the body Halum and her cousin seemed to have been stamped from the same mold. Yet I was struck by a profound and subtle difference also, most visible in the eyes, through which, as the poem says, there shines the inner light of the soul. The radiance that came from Halum was tender and gentle and mild, like the first soft beams of sunlight drifting through a summer morning’s mist; Loimel’s eyes gave a colder, harsher glow, that of a sullen winter afternoon. As I looked from one girl to the other, I formed a quick intuitive judgment: Halum is pure love, and Loimel is pure self. But I recoiled from that verdict the instant it was born. I did not know Loimel; I had not found her thus far to be anything but open and giving; I had no right to disparage her in that way.

The two years had not aged Halum so much as burnished her, and she had come to the full radiance of her beauty. She was deeply tanned, and in her short white sheath she seemed like a bronzed statue of herself; the planes of her face were more angular than they had been, giving her a delicate look of almost boyish charm; she moved with floating grace. The house was full of strangers for this her homecoming party, and after our first embrace she was swept away from me, and I was left with Loimel. But toward the end of the evening I claimed my bondright and took Halum away to my chamber, saying, “There is two years’ talking to do.” Thoughts tumbled chaotically in my mind: how could I tell her all that had happened to me, how could I learn from her what she had done, all in the first rush of words? I could not arrange my thinking. We sat down facing one another at a prim distance, Halum on the couch where only a few hours before I had coupled with her cousin, pretending then to myself that she was Halum. A tense smile passed between us. “Where can one begin?” I said, and Halum, at the same instant, said the same words. That made us laugh and dissolved the tension. And then I heard my own voice asking, without preamble, whether Halum thought that Loimel would accept me as her husband.