Chapter Text
Anthony still remembered the day his people were declared free.
Well, he wasn't there, of course. It was a story he had heard from birth, how wondrous it was, finally, the African had his freedom. In Philadelphia, slavery was not a thing, yet the news had everyone wondering. Was equality coming? Rights? The ability to do more than basic housework and construction, to walk down the street and enter a shop, and be treated as one would a white man, as truly equal?
Once, when Anthony was twelve, he lay down in the street to soak up the rays of the sun, thinking about emancipation again. What he truly craved was a river of water like a stream, somewhere he could douse himself in and be baptized a new man. Washing himself of the sins of the whites. He lived near the bay, but it wasn't suitable for that, so he had to make do with the sun.
Mama saw him as she walked home from the store and yanked him up by the arm, scolding him.
“You are crazy! What'll ya do if someone sees ya in the middle of the road?!”
“I'm not going to get killed,” he said back defiantly, and she stared at him for a long time before she began walking to their house again.
“Worse things in this world than bein’ killed, boy. Ya lucky ya didn't go through that,”
Their house was a pleasant townhouse near the bay in the center of town, in a neighborhood made specifically by and for people like Anthony's parents. He knew he was blessed to be able to run down the street and play with other black boys, and so he never once complained, even when Philadelphia offered little to do, and he was tired of chasing hoops all day and sitting on steps looking for clouds.
Anthony knew he was blessed, not just to live in a black neighborhood at all, but also that he was born a freeman, right at the tail end of the previous decade, which was marked by the dreadful War Between the States. His parents were not born free. They didn't speak much about where they came from. All Anthony ever knew was that both of them met on the same plantation, one thing led to another, and they escaped and ran to Pennsylvania, somehow never getting captured the whole way.
Sometimes, in the early years of his life, when Mama was cooking something savory and Papa traced random letters in the leftover flour dust, they would speak about their pasts, living on a plantation in Mississippi they only ever called ‘Hell'.
“Why? Were there demons there?” Anthony asked, young and innocent, still trying to peek over the counter. The house was small, having two rooms, and thus Anthony made his bed in the kitchen and parlor, right beside the end table, but he didn't mind it. No pictures hung on the walls, and the windows were often covered by thick sheets of black fabric so nobody could look in or out.
“Demons in the form of men.” Papa nodded. “Pale and bloodless. They woulda whipped ya for just lookin’ at them,”
“But they wanted you to look at them,”
“Yes, and they also wanted us to not look at them. They were always sayin’ one thing, meanin’ the other,”
“Also called it Hell because it was very hot,” Mama continued, stirring the pot. “So hot, all ya saw was red. Sweat stuck to your back, it would sting, bugs would bite and make ya sting more. The sky would often open up and drop barrels of rain, and every once in a while, the sky would start screamin’ and rippin’ everything apart. We had to work no matter what, day or night, rain or shine,”
“What did the white folks do?” Anthony asked.
“Stay inside and watch us work. Work ain't for white folks. Makes them burn and shrivel. Now set that table,”
That was the extent of his knowledge, even as he grew older. Anthony told himself that's all he needed to know. He didn't have to be a slave anymore, his people were free.
After his parents escaped, they got decent jobs working for white families in the city. Papa was a carpenter, and Mama worked as a seamstress. Most people barely lived on that pay, but Mama worked for an abolitionist family who pulled black people off the streets and gave them good housing and pay, so Anthony was able to attend a school for only black students, learning French and Latin alongside the typical school stuff. His school even had more advanced classes, such as more in-depth history and literature. When he turned fourteen, his parents decided he should find a trade.
“But Mama, Papa, I like going to school. Why can't that be my trade?” he asked when they suggested it while eating dinner.
“Because, learnin’ from books ain't a trade!” His mama laughed. “We want you in a job!”
“But school could get me a job,” Anthony frowned. Why else was he learning all that stuff? Just the other day, they had a project about different elements found in nature, such as carbon or gold. What would be the point if he couldn't find a job with that?
“And what are ya learnin' that people would hire ya for?” Papa asked. Anthony swallowed.
“We learn a lot of science, I could be a scientist. Or a doctor. A lawyer. Uh, we don't really study law. Oh, I could be a kind of professor!”
“Ya dream big. I like that,” Mama reached across the table and patted his arm. “But ya a black boy in America. Where ya think ya gonna work at? Ya know any black lawyers, doctors, scientists? Ya think white folks will let ya do that?”
He frowned at that, knowing deep down, she was right, but holding his tongue.
Yet, he knew the expected trades didn't appeal to him. It was all building houses or ships. He knew he was smarter than that.
So, he paid the abolitionists a visit at their house, which was a few blocks away from his black neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler,[1]whose two daughters were loudly playing with a dollhouse in the living room. Anthony kept struggling to not look over there.
“Anthony! What brings you here?” Mr. Wheeler asked, a short and thick man with an equally chubby wife, both with hair the color of honey. He liked how they never dressed in the clothes of the town, just wearing simple and outdated fashion. Anthony bristled at the casual nature, though he knew it wasn't their fault. His parents only used their last names at work, otherwise, they had none to anyone who asked. Thus, he was just referred to by his first name.
“My parents want me to start a trade, but nothing in town is appealing to me,” He sat down across from them, stealing glances at the two girls still playing.
“Do you want siblings?” Mrs. Wheeler suddenly asked. “Oh, I just realized, I never made you tea or anything!”
“I don't want tea. I won't be here long.” Anthony reassured her. “And I don't think I could handle a sibling. I like peace and quiet,”
“So, a trade. Nothing suits you. Well, what do you want to do?” Mr. Wheeler asked, looking Anthony over. He knew he was short and scrawny, with curly hair that kept its shape no matter what happened to it.
“Education. I don't really want to do physical stuff. Education, philanthropy…that is what I want to do,”
“Hmmm…” he thought, still looking Anthony over.
“No! Bad!” Mrs. Wheeler had jumped up and chased after her daughters, who knocked their dollhouse over and were fighting with each other. Anthony tried to subtly sneak a glance over again, but Mr. Wheeler cleared his throat and made him look back over.
“Would you be interested in books? It's not a glamorous job, and you'd be the only black person there, but there's a printing shop near that produce store. They're looking for someone who can transcribe and edit the magazines they print and then print those copies. The owner is a nice man.”
“Would I get to read them?”
“If you have time to!”
So, Anthony went to work. He rode the streetcar near the back, wearing his colored blue tie and the matching ribboned hat, looking his best, feeling giddy. Not even the shakiness of the streetcar nor the sour smell of all the gathered people could dull his mood. When he got off, he hurried into the shop and introduced himself to the owner, who put him to work with two other teenagers around his age, one black-haired, the other brunet, both white. Anthony introduced himself and picked up the current stack of papers to look over, sitting at a desk and running the pencil over the text, looking for errors.
“Why do you work here?” The brunet was quick to ask, both standing in the corner.
“Because I do?” What kind of question was that?
“I don't want to be working with someone like him,” the other said, storming out of the room. Anthony did his best to ignore them and keep editing, taking the completed stack and running them through the printing press. The brunet did his work but gave Anthony a wide berth, never even looking at him. Once or twice, the owner would catch wind of that and scold the boys, who promised they would do better, and then would go back to ignoring Anthony and giving him thinly-veiled insults.
He did his best to endure, as his job required him to look at many newspapers before he copied them, and hungrily devoured any news he could find about the Reconstruction and similar movements in the south. Reconstruction was what they called it, attempting to rebuild the country after the devastating war. Extended hands, not pointed fingers. Peace.
Peace sounded nice to Anthony. And it was working! Black people were getting representation and rights. The war was bloody and killed too many. But extending a hand? That had to have been the right thing. Peace was clearly the way to go. His parents never discussed it with him, so he talked about it with his peers in school, but most didn't seem to share his sentiments despite their nods.
“Gettin’ what we need through peace. I think that's a good idea,” Anthony said.
“Yes. But will it last?” He was talking to two students that day, and both of them asked that question, one after the other.
“I hope so.”
“America is racist. They'll never keep this up,” The girl fidgeted with the violet ribbon around her neck.
“There's a catch. They don't want black people like us in power or having rights,” The boy stood straighter but didn't look at Anthony.
“Maybe the war knocked the racism outta them,” Anthony suggested.
He didn't want to admit they might've been onto something, that his parents were onto something. He was steadily closing his first year of working in the print shop, and the boys were no closer to any sort of acceptance.
Anthony spent Christmas that year at the Wheelers', wanting to thank them for the job nonetheless. He dressed nicely and smiled at their daughters, who were wearing matching dresses of cranberry and cream. Their tree was tall and stretched to the ceiling, covered in glittering flowers and lights that sparkled so unnaturally they hurt Anthony's eyes. Finally, he asked what they were.
“Silver.” Mr. Wheeler answered calmly.
It was late at night, and even the city slept. Mrs. Wheeler poured them tea, the daughters nowhere in sight for once.
“As in, the metal?”
“Yes and no. Silver is what helps keep unpleasant people in power, we’ll say. When England conquered China and India at the start of this century, they did it with the power of Silver.” He plucked a flower off the tree and Anthony watched as it quickly withered away into nothingness. “But Silver can be used for empowerment too. Have you ever wondered how your parents escaped capture so easily? The abolitionists and others in the Underground Railroad used Silver to disappear and slip away under the moon. They recalled bits and pieces of their languages. Others relied on Creole or French, especially the ones enslaved on the Gulf Coast.”
Anthony listened, enraptured.
“These bars work through translation. One word in a native tongue, the other in a more common language, usually English. The more uncommon the languages, the more powerful the magic. As you can imagine, escaped slaves had some of the most powerful bars known in America.”
“Why didn't they use this to overpower their masters?” He knew it was the wrong question to ask, but he had to ask it anyway.
“This power is mainly in the hands of the oppressors. A few times, the marginalized were good at taking and using it, but those in power keep people away from it. Such as black people. Keeping them uneducated means they're less likely to know any languages outside of English, so even if they got their hands on Silver, they wouldn't be able to use it,”
There were slave riots, he knew that. Some of them even went after the Silver owned by their masters. Yet, most were unsuccessful anyway.
“Are you interested in controlling Silver? You know more than English, right?”
“Yes.” He didn't know which question he meant it for, but both of them nodded.
“Then we'll be in touch.” Mrs. Wheeler smiled at him.
The next few years were uneventful. He graduated from school and dived even further into work at the print shop, spending his weekends with Mr. Wheeler, who drilled him in Latin and French, making sure he could speak all three languages perfectly. When there was nothing else to do, Anthony would seek out the company of his old classmates because he didn't know what else to do, hanging out in a black-only bookstore, not buying anything, just sitting in the window.
“I heard Reconstruction failed.” The only girl in the group, who still wore her violet ribbon, commented. “Told ya, they're too racist,”
Anthony just frowned. “But peace is the way,”
“You're so naive!” One of the boys laughed. “Peace didn't free your parents!”
“But it could've made life better!”
When he was eighteen, he spent the first half of the year feeling as if he was waiting for something to fall out of the sky. After dinner one night, his parents told him someone was there to see him, and he visibly tensed to see an unfamiliar white man standing in front of their door, dressed very formally.
“Mr. Ribben.”
“We don't use last names,” he stared at the man.
“Why not? Where I come from, last names are something to be proud of. They are like a little flag planted on a map, showing at a glance who you are and where you came from.” If the man was offended or surprised, he didn't say it or show it. He didn't sit down or even remove his hat.
“A lot of people here don't have last names. They don't want to remember where they came from.”
“Right. Anyway. I am a scout for Oxford University. Yes, it's across the ocean in England, so it'll be an adjustment, I'm sure. We were told by a trusted source you have immaculate language skills and we'd like you to study in our language division, specifically Latin and French. Think about it.”
The world around him shattered.
Oxford? That was an extremely exclusive school, right? What in the world did they want with him?
“Will he be paid? How will he afford this?” Papa finally spoke, putting a hand on Anthony's shoulder.
“Babel, the language school, has many students who come from wildly different circumstances. As a result, we have many different methods of making sure they are provided for. Many come from wealth, and their family pays for everything. Others stay with a predetermined family for their stay, and they can pay for everything. If both of those options don't work out, we can reimburse things, within reason.” The man spoke very formally as well, with a brisk accent.
“Isn't that the name of the tower in the Bible where everyone was cursed to never understand each other for their hubris?” Anthony asked, and the man looked at him with a smile.
“Yes, it's meant to be a touch ironic. So, what do you say?”
The Wheelers must've told him about him. If he left for Oxford, he wouldn't see his parents for a long time and would be very homesick. Yet on the other hand…
“If I attend and graduate, am I guaranteed a job in this field?”
“Of course! Many Babel students remain on the grounds, teaching future generations. Many of our teachers are proud Babel graduates themselves. You can also translate literature, work as an interpreter…the possibilities are endless.”
Anthony looked at his parents and gave them tight hugs, not saying anything else.
The next morning, he was boarding a ship destined for England.
~•~
When Vimal was born, he was told there was an earthquake. Not a major one, but the people working outside instantly ran under trees to protect themselves from anything that might fall on them. His family remained safe inside their house. Some of the superstitious servants said whenever an earthquake happened, it was the land expressing displeasure for the British, but Vimal wasn't sure how much he actually believed that.
Being from a wealthy family in Madras, Vimal grew up spoiled by his family and servants. They were of the third caste, the Vaishya class, and his father owned his own land and the servants who worked it. They had wealth built up from generations of farming and landowning, though Father's actual career was the military, while Mother was a nurse. Very British careers. That's where the money came from.
“If we hate the British, why do we do all this?” Vimal asked once as a child, sitting at Father's knee. “Speaking their languages, wearing their clothes, working their careers.”
“If we play their games, we benefit. We are wealthy. They want to keep us in power to teach those lower than us. Understand?”
Vimal nodded, even though he didn't fully understand yet. He just didn't want to lose their money. That money was the reason he could run around and be a terror to the servants, stealing their shoes or what they were going to eat for dinner. That money was the reason his mother and aunt had more privileges than other women, even women in higher castes. That money was the reason the British often visited their manor in Madras and marveled at everything, drinking their spirits and praising Father for being such an ‘exemplary example of what Indians can strive for if they worked hard!’ Vimal didn't know why their tones felt like poison being shot through his veins if their words were positive.
When he was a little older, a railroad track was laid down beside his garden, very close to the fence. Vimal had never seen trains before and ran to the edge of the fence, following the train as far as he could on the property, loving the loud whistle and black smoke choked into the sky. He would stand on his tiptoes and try to look in the windows as it sped by, wondering who was in the train and where they were going. He wondered why they replaced the road outside his garden though, and wondered why his parents tolerated the noise. Once again, he asked Father.
“That's the price we pay for the privileges we have. Collaboration with the British will keep us safe from their wrath,” Father said, and Vimal nodded once more, despite understanding that comment even less.
Did the British leave them alone? He was nearing twelve and still had fresh memories, fresh nightmares, of a famine[2]in his childhood. Their servants fled to the countryside and his mother and aunt screamed and sobbed, cursing the Brits for their cruelty. His aunt would pull on her hair and wail, swearing the Brits would die and fall for what they did. Vimal would lie in the corner, curled up in a ball, too weak to move anything except for his eyes. Did the British leave them alone then, when he was turning skeletal and Father sold whatever he could think of for an almost empty bag of rice that Vimal threw up all over the place? Was that what being wealthy did? How did they treat the poor, the lower castes, then? Vimal shuddered to think of it.
“How is your garden going?” One of the servants asked him after his talk with Father, and he shrugged.
“It's going okay.” It was the summer, so he never tended to it; he just let it grow wild. It was filled with herbs and spices, so anyone who visited was greeted with a spicy and fresh smell from the mixing scents. Most of the ground near the manor was ironically terrible for farming, and what was, was given to Vimal as a present for one of his birthdays, fenced in and fully his property.
“You should sell some of that,” the servant suggested, but Vimal shrugged again.
“I don't think anyone would want it.” He kicked the fence.
He was always a bright boy, and Tamil Nadu was a bright place, filled with numerous universities and schools, primarily for liberal arts. Vimal loved the idea of an arts education, though Father insisted he attend a British school with British peers instead of other Indians.
“Why?” Vimal asked, still at his father's knee despite being twelve.
“England is your future. Why should you spend time around Indians? Learn English, move to England, or get a British job here. That's what we do. We play their games, remember?” Father grabbed his chin and looked right into his eyes, making Vimal wince.
“But isn't this giving them more reason to keep us down?”
Father had no answer for that question. He just let go of him, and Vimal collapsed to the floor.
Vimal was a bright boy, anyway. He was Tamil and spoke the language alongside Telugu, as many Telugu people lived in Madras. When he got a bit older, he was also allowed to study the sacred Sanskrit, and also used English as well. He picked things up very quickly and used Tamil and Telugu interchangeably after only a few months. Despite that, he dressed in the same shirt and striped pants and a black long trenchcoat as anyone else, with white gloves and a top hat obscuring more of his identity. He tied his hair back and walked with his head down, often carrying a stack of books in his arms as he navigated the chaotic streets to where he needed to go, always unsteady on his legs. He barely looked up and couldn't even look his classmates in the eye.
It was a curse, something odd about him. He sometimes felt female and would dress as such. It was improper, but he kept his hair really long, brushing it over his eyes and then tying it back. Even when he dressed in male clothes, from a distance, his silky black hair, dark smooth skin, and very lithe body made him look more female, so he couldn't blame his mind for the confusion some days.
One of their servants told him once that he was born with two souls by happenstance, a male and a female soul. Perhaps reincarnation was strange like that. Many Hindu avatars were the same, with features of both male and female. Vimal felt he wasn't so strange, then, if even the gods were the same. Perhaps he was just divine.
Either way, he tried to be feminine only in the privacy of his own home, never around his peers or the other British people he saw. They already didn't understand traditional Indian clothes as it was. At home, he draped himself in colorful robes of silk, his hair free and untethered. He had his nose pierced with a silver ring, and the first time his classmates noticed, they all swarmed him, asking questions about it.
“Why?”
“It's a cultural thing.” Their teacher wasn't there yet. Vimal placed his books on his desk.
“Well, I like it. It makes you look exotic!”
“Exotic?” He looked at the student who said that, who had blond hair and watery eyes.
“Yeah! Only Indians would do something like that, and it's so cool! Brits, we'd never do that. We respect ourselves too much!”
As Vimal grew older and encountered more of the world outside his manor’s walls, he couldn't understand how his father played them so easily. Another memory he recalled was spending a holiday off school and taking one of his classmates to a traditional dance performance, as the boy said he was interested in Indian dances.
“This is Tamil, which I am. Other groups have their own,” Vimal specified as they took their seats.
“Oh, I know. India has such a rich and vibrant culture!”
The dance was one where the girls wore bright dresses that exposed their midriffs, and they danced while balancing huge pots of flowers and water on top of their heads. Their arms tapped the pots, and their legs did all the motion, twirling and swirling. Vimal watched, entranced. He was always envious of girls and lamented the fact he had no sister to watch dancing.
After the performance, they stopped at a small snack stand that was selling a few desserts and saltier snacks. Vimal got a simple cup of frozen yogurt, frowning at the options. Too many meat choices.
His classmate got roasted sausage on a stick and took a big bite, eating silently. Vimal ate some yogurt off his spoon, tasting the mango syrup flavoring.
“Well, what did you think, Robert?”
“It was inappropriate.” Robert said, and suddenly Vimal choked slightly on his metal spoon.
“Inappropriate? It was traditional!”
“Why are their bellies exposed? Well, I guess I already know the answer to that. Indians don't have qualms about showing their bodies off.”
He threw the yogurt away, not having an appetite anymore.
Another memory seemed to come whenever he played his beloved nadaswaram. It was revered at weddings, but Vimal liked to just sit outside in the city square and play it, often attracting a crowd. One day, after the crowd dispersed, a British soldier, clad entirely in uniform, stayed behind and watched Vimal so intensely that he stopped playing.
“May I help you, sir?” he asked formally in English, swallowing his accent.
“Oh, no. I just enjoy your music. It sounds so very…Indian, you know?”
He didn't talk back, knowing from Father you don't do that to Brits. Just nod and let them say whatever they want. That's how you played the system.
“It's usually accompanied by dancing, yeah?”
Vimal nodded. “Yes sir. I always longed for a sister, one who I could watch dance beautifully to this instrument.”
“I can see it now. Are you a snake-charmer? Because that sounds like snake-charmer music! I can imagine a little snake bobbing around to the music you're playing.”
Vimal stayed in bed the next day, happy she was a girl because she cried and wept like the other women in her family.
In Tamil Nadu, summer was the monsoon season, and when it was that time, Vimal would lean out the window and let the cold water wash over her. Mud flooded the traintracks and the conductor would groan and swear every time, getting out and using a big shovel to dig the wheels out. Vimal watched, trying to contain her giggles.
Before monsoon season, however, was the new year, and Vimal was excited to wear a silk saree and ring in the new year with her family, as her birthday was directly after Puthandu. Her saree was a bright green and pink, matching jewels in the shape of flowers braided through her hair. Father woke everyone up in the morning, and Vimal closed her eyes, wandered into the parlor, kneeled, and gasped at her image in the mirror, reflecting back in a bowl of fruit, jewelry, and money.
“May we eat now?” Mother asked, but Vimal needed no permission. She grabbed a banana off the top of the pile, peeled it, and started eating it.
The day following his eighteenth birthday, a heavy rainstorm pushed through the land. A British man in a suit and coat arrived in the afternoon, dripping rain all over their floor.
“Welcome to our home. Please, sit. I'll make you food.” Mother said, taking Aunt with her into the kitchen. Father remained sitting on the cushions, staring at the man, and Vimal had just entered the room from his bedroom after reading all night and had only just then woken up.
“I won't be here for long. I don't need food.” The man explained in an awkward tone as the women and Vimal kneeled in front of him, offering a banana leaf plate filled with rice dishes, fruit, and various vegetables. “Oh, uh, is this Indian cuisine? Where's the curry?”
“Curry?” Vimal furrowed his brow at the unfamiliar pronunciation.
“Yeah, it was this rice and beef dish I had in Calcutta. It was really good. You have any of that here? That's the only thing I really trust.”
The women looked confused, but Vimal named their offerings. “It's not curry, but this is a rice dish made with vegetables and spices that might be similar. It's roasted and smells good,” He picked up a few bites with his fingers and offered them to the man, who turned pale.
“No thank you! I don't eat with my hands. And I'm not eating from your hands. Uh, I'm here for an important reason! You, Mr. Srinivasan, are very intelligent. You've been monitored by a trusted source and we believe you would fit in perfectly at Oxford. I'm a scout for their language division. You are a rare prize, knowing Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu. We have Indian students already, but you would be one of the few who know Sanskrit and Telugu.”
“Slow down. Oxford? England?” Father stood and walked over, towering over the man. “And who is paying for this? You? You think you can come into my house and take my child away from me?”
The man swallowed nervously. “Well, Sir, most Oxford students are privileged, so most of the time, their families cover the cost. If not, they can be sponsored at the school, or we can support them if there are no other options…” He took a deep breath. “I can't say who the source is, but it's someone in your city, I can assure you. You can say no, but what future does your son have in this village? Take over your family? Work on a farm? At Babel, the language division, he has a future and a promised career at our school. He can travel the world as an interpreter, translate old texts, collect languages from around the world…the possibilities are endless, really, when it comes to languages.”
It was tempting. What was there in Madras? True, he had more of a life than this man claimed, but it was just to take over for Father when he died, and being a landowner for decades didn't appeal to Vimal. He could return whenever he grew tired of working in England, right? And what better way to play their game than to be on their home turf? He nodded.
“Are you sure?” Father asked after the man left, and Vimal nodded.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my whole life.”
“There, you can't be….female.” Mother whispered. “The British don't like that. They say everyone is male or female, not both, not nothing.”
That was something new to worry about, but Vimal knew it would be dealt with. He was more concerned about all the Brits he would have to be around every day for the foreseeable future.
When he woke up the next morning, he packed everything he knew was important and got on a ship owned by one of his family's servants, deliberately keeping him away from more sophisticated British lines. He walked out on the deck when they set sail and felt the ocean breeze hit his face.
He was going to England.
~•~
Cathy sometimes wondered how she was even alive. Her parents grew up as travelers,[3] never staying in one place, until they realized that was no way to raise a family, purposefully forgot their language, and began working on a farm to make money. That wasn't what should've killed her, though. What should've killed her was everything else. She was Irish. That was enough.
They didn't own their land, though Papa often wished it were so. They harvested crops, took care of cattle, and lived in a tiny shack for their troubles. Cathy shared a bed with five sisters, both younger and older, while her youngest brother slept with their parents in his own bed. Privacy was a luxury they did not get. Cathy knew many people would shudder in horror to know how many times she was vomiting or releasing diarrhea into a bucket next to her cooking mother, but to her, that's just how life was.
Dawn to dusk, Cathy was expected to be outside tending the crops and cattle with her parents and elder sister, Síoda. The younger siblings all played with each other, keeping an eye on the twins, Máirtín and Máire. The daughter of the family who owned the land, Elizabeth, would step outside on the porch and watch Cathy and Síoda, and as Cathy grew older, she always wondered what her story was. Why did she stare at them so intensely?
Mama was good at sewing and mending, and even for their class, linen was not hard to find. Their beds had blankets and sheets, their wooden rickety table was covered by a pale tablecloth, and their two windows were covered by blue curtains Síoda made. Cathy never wanted for clothing despite her poverty. Mama observed the fashionable dresses of girls and modified dresses for Cathy, easily changing the designs with the trends each decade. Cathy preferred light pastels even as she grew older, pale and light blues and greens and purples and yellows, with splashes of cream and white in little patterns. For most of her life, her dresses had a lifted back called a bustle.
A lot of patterns and fabrics came from Síoda or even Elizabeth. Elizabeth had even more dresses than Cathy could ever hope to have and would throw a good chunk of them out every season, so Mama rescued them and refitted them for Cathy.
Even when Cathy was nursing bruises and sleeping in the field after being too tired to head home, looking at her handcrafted dress and little gloves she also managed to procure made her feel like a human. Even for a tiny bit.
One day, when both girls were twelve, Elizabeth noticed Cathy wearing a striped pink dress she had thrown out the previous summer when Cathy was carrying a basket back to the cottage and promptly screamed. Cathy dropped the basket and screamed too, looking around in a panic.
“That's my dress!” Elizabeth cried and pointed, marching out onto the field.
“Well, you didn't want it!” Cathy tried to shout back even as Elizabeth advanced on her.
“It's still better than you! It's trash! You're lower than trash, you filthy Irish!”
Before Cathy could fully process what had happened, Elizabeth pulled and tugged, ripping a huge portion of the front and side of the dress off Cathy, leaving her standing there exposed. Her face burned and tears fell down her cheeks.
“Elizabeth! You stop that right this instant!” Her father pulled her away without looking at Cathy, and Cathy picked the basket up and cried hard, sobbing inconsolably when she headed back to the cottage. Mama felt bad and turned the dress into another blanket, ‘that way she'll never see it’, but to Cathy, the damage was already done.
She had a very rudimentary education, barely knowing numbers, reading, and writing. Her school was a Catholic-run institution where only English was allowed, and at home, the family wanted them to speak English also. Mama knew Irish Gaelic, as did Papa, and in the late nights the two would keep her quick with the language, making sure she spoke it well.
Cathy found the language beautiful and grew to hate the British more and more the older she got. Why was she to know this life? No true privacy, a weak roof that guaranteed they would be battered with hail and ice, and the threat of getting hit with a bottle the few times she dared to walk to the market? Even when her mother pulled her close and whispered a lullaby in Gaelic, Cathy kept wondering, is this all life is? Constant fear and disruption?
Alright, that wasn't wholly the truth. One of the times Cathy felt like herself was when she danced. Most girls her age sewed, but it was found early on that she couldn't sit still for it; but dancing, she always had enough energy for. Papa used to teach a small group dancing before mass emigration forced him to shutter his business and quickly marry to get money another way. Whenever there was little work to do, Papa would take her to an empty area in the grass and pose her, positioning her arms and legs until she resembled a fashion doll, then he would rapidly clap his hands, and that would be her cue to dance. And dance, she did.
Her feet hammered out a loud rhythm on the grass, and she increased her speed, dancing faster and faster. Her arms twirled and stretched around her body, dipping low to the ground. When she danced, she felt close to her home. Same with her Gaelic. It was part of her family.
Less interesting than dancing was playing the tin whistle. Her parents knew how; that was the only reason she also knew how. It was boring to her otherwise. The family they worked for enjoyed hearing the flute, though, with Elizabeth saying it made her sound like a proper Irish lass.
Time went on, despite the monotony of her life. She knew she grew older because Síoda was practically an adult and needed to marry, but Mama and Papa were afraid.
“If she marries, she'll go far away,” Papa said.
“And where will we find a suitable husband anyway?”
Síoda heard it all and kept her head up. One day, she didn't return from the market square for several hours, and when she did return, she had on a new golden dress with a man on her arm.
“You can't marry! I'll lose a laborer!” Elizabeth's father yelled at the two and her parents.
“I still have my other children-”
“They're too young to be useful! I know you Irish breed like rabbits, but your children still grow like humans!” He cut Mama off to scream. Síoda kept her head up high throughout the whole conversation, and after a while, walked out with her man.
Cathy never saw her again, but every so often she would receive an embroidered cross from a sampler sent in the mail, and she knew that was Síoda letting her know she was alright.
Another part of growing older was paying more attention to her appearance. It was unfashionable, but Cathy kept her almost black hair in tight, rolled curls, visible even under her bonnet. She had dark eyes as well and squinted a lot, struggling to see things that were too far away. She still wore her bright pastels and bustled dresses.
When she was eighteen, a marriage was in the works for her, though she had no interest in marrying a man. She had no interest in continuing to toil away for a bratty, selfish family. She left school years ago and had no interest in pursuing something she felt was useless. Yet the choice was made for her nonetheless.
When she was harvesting potatoes on a muggy, foggy day, a representative arrived, somehow managing to find her all the way out there. Her curls were in full view, and she wore her simple blue work dress with a muddy apron and boots, hair sticking to her sweaty cheeks.
“Miss O’Nell.” The man spoke with such bitterness that she had to look up to see if she was being targeted. “Somehow, you have managed to learn a rare tongue that is in demand at Babel, the name given to the language-studying facility at Oxford. We do very important translation work with Silver, a magic that can do anything. You were chosen because of your Irish Gaelic.”
“Me, go to Oxford?” It sounded like a joke. She threw the last of the potatoes into the basket and stood at her full height, close to the man's shoulders, and adjusted her dress. “It's a joke.”
“I wish it were, but you have a unique language ability. I assume you do not have the means to pay for a scholarship, so the school will provide for you if we can't find a willing sponsor,” He rushed through his words and kept staring at her boots and apron, his lips pursed. “You do not have to accept, but translators who graduate from Oxford have the whole world open to them.”
Why did they want her, a poor Irish girl? They could not be that desperate, right? Yet, why should she reject it? Her only other option was marriage, and she most certainly did not want that. Would going to school for languages really be so bad? It was British, but if it was too much, she could just leave, right?
As they reached her cottage, she finally nodded. “Alright.”
That night, her family held a small celebration, both to honor the fact that she got chosen and to mourn her leaving. Packing was the hardest, as she didn't know what to bring to an elite school, especially because her bag was a modified old fruit bag that still smelled faintly of apples.
She was on a local taxi carriage that same night, told not to stop until they reached the port and she could sail to London.
~•~
Ilse's life was completely reshaped before she was even born. She repeatedly had dreams of the black ships that opened her country. She appreciated them in secret for changing the trajectory of her choices. Ichigo was no fool. She knew life for women prior to the current era was short and miserable. Men could divorce a wife if she so much as laughed! Children were taken away to be raised by the father; women never knew their own children. It was a pitiful and miserable life Ichigo had never wanted, so she thanked the West for allowing her a different option.
Ilse was the daughter of a famous Dutch physician who moved to Japan to teach the locals medicine as well, and had her with a famed Nagasaki courtesan named Ichiko. Both gave her different names. Otoosan officially recorded her as Elisabeth de Vos, with Ilse being a cute diminutive her English cousins came up with.
“It works because everything is cute in Japan!”
Ilse had no heart to tell them they were completely wrong, and to her mortification, Ilse stuck and was used more often than Elisabeth. Her mother, on the other hand, named her Ichigo, just a character off from her own name. Despite her distaste for Ilse, Ichigo genuinely wasn't sure which name she liked more. Both were a part of her, half-Dutch and half-Japanese. Choosing one or the other would be like asking a bird to choose between walking or flying for the rest of its life.
Regardless of how she felt, Japan was no place for a mixed child. Children in general were rare in Nagasaki, more specifically, Dejima Island, an artificial trading island shaped like a fan. It was only for merchants, and they almost never brought their families. Kids were kept away from her, as for the first few years of her life, she had vibrantly red hair. People called her a witch or a demon, saying their society would crumble because Okaasan had sex with a foreigner.
Thus, books were Ichigo’s only companions from a young age. She was a gifted child and ate up everything she learned, impressing Otoosan. He wanted her to start learning languages early, but she struggled, with most being too boring or difficult for her. Japanese was a given, and Dutch she instantly clicked with. She knew smatterings of English, and the Chinese and Portuguese that still occasionally floated around in Nagasaki, untethered to anyone. Dutch and Japanese were her strengths and the ones she spent the most time studying.
At ten, her mother became very ill with a sickness not even Otoosan could figure out. He hovered over Okaasan’s pallet for days and nights, thumbing through books, checking her temperature, and fretting over her whenever one of her symptoms grew worse. Ichigo also remained by her side, holding her hand and keeping a brave face to the best of her ability.
“Please don't die, Okaasan!” she pleaded, gripping her hand.
“I might soon. But before I do, I want you to start going to school. You would be starting later than most kids, but I sat on the decision for a long time. You would be around boys, and I don't want you to be around boys, but education will be good for you and open many doors.”
Ichigo didn't want to be around boys either, but she was always curious about a formal education. Reading the books from her father was no longer cutting it. She wanted more.
So, when her mother's eyes closed for the last time, Ichigo started attending elementary school, Otoosan preferring her to attend a missionary school for other mixed kids so she would fit in better. Her uniform was very cute, a pink kimono top and very dark purple hakama that flowed around her legs. She also had laced-up boots and a pink ribbon in her ponytail.
Despite the colors, townspeople stared at her on her way to school, whispering that she was masculine and dressed like a man, and how disgraceful it was. Ichigo felt weird in hakama, but she knew they were required if she went to school.
As she got older, she saw Otoosan more and more. She lived all alone in Okaasan's house, tending to the Butsudan, being a dutiful daughter. Otoosan never paid his respects or looked at the Butsudan, but he sent Ichigo more books and told her he was monitoring her education. She was destined for great things.
Once, shortly before a spring festival, Otoosan invited her to look at something on his ship. He led her to the private captain's quarters and locked the door, sitting at the desk. “You're extremely intelligent. Still studying languages, I presume?”
Ichigo nodded.
Otoosan unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out a Silver bar. She stared at it in fascination. “This is Silver. An extremely powerful piece of magic. Speak similar words into each end from other languages and see what happens. Even when Japan closed off to the world, they allowed Silver to come in, but never taken. Go on, try something.”
Ichigo stepped closer to the bar that thrummed with power. She held it in her hands and spoke some words. “Samui. Koud.”
The bar turned frigid and froze, and she dropped it in shock, her hands cold.
“That's the power of languages, my dear! When I was younger, I studied at the languages division in Oxford. They will take anyone who knows multiple languages, especially rare ones. I've been monitoring you,”
“You think I'm good enough for England?” Ichigo asked in surprise.
“I know you are. You know Japanese, a very rare language. Do you think anyone at Oxford knows it? When I attended, I was the only person who knew it, and I could barely string a sentence together!”
Oxford and England were so far away, but Ichigo knew if she had the chance, she would go. She was nearly done with school in Japan and didn't see any other opportunities for her to keep going. Women's universities didn't exist in Japan yet. [4]
She returned home, made her boat, and then set it afloat in the ocean, watching all the other boats float and sail around it. After the Dragon Boat Festival, she gathered up her things and moved away to Yokohama, continuing her education at the foreign settlement there, where she perfected her English, though developed a thick accent she couldn't get rid of. She also added Russian to her repertoire. By the time she was sixteen, she had blossomed into a beautiful teenage girl with hair that flowed down to her knees, long enough to sit on. She never cut it and was very proud of it. It wasn't even red anymore but rather a gorgeous raven.
Another event that happened when she was sixteen and about to graduate was Otoosan finding out about one of her classmates, a nondescript girl named Mary-Margaret. There was absolutely nothing special about Mary-Margaret but Ilse found her very beautiful, mainly because she had never seen blonde hair with a Japanese face before. She kissed her, and Otoosan found out and pulled her out of school entirely and sent her to live with her aunt in Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam, Ilse was given colorful handmade dresses and learned to dress her hair like an English girl, and decided she kinda liked it. Amsterdam was sunny so it was similar to her birthplace of Dejima Island. Because she didn't have an official Japanese last name, her mother being a courtesan who never told anyone if she even had one or not, she was referred to as Dejima. Ichigo Dejima had a ring to it, she supposed. When she wasn't busy with school or embroidery, she enjoyed dancing, having taken her fan with her from home as well.
In the winter, eighteen and still alone, not finding solace in books anymore, a representative of Oxford found her.
“Yoroshiku onegaishimasu. Hajimemashita," Ilse bowed to be polite.
“Anata wa Orandago ga hanasuka?"
“Hai.” What an awfully rude way to speak to her!
“Eigo ga hanasuka?”
“Hai. Roshiago to Chuugokugo to, Porutogarugo ga hanashimasu. Demo, chotto.”
The man looked her over, taking in her sweeping bustle in an evergreen dress and stuffed dove hat with a ribbon around her neck. She looked perfectly English, except for the facial features. She stared back.
“I received a tip from a relative that you are a perfect fit to study at the language division of Oxford, Babel. He was correct. We'll leave in the morning,” He left then, saying nothing else.
Ilse's aunt also said nothing as she packed, taking anything she could think of. Ilse didn't say goodbye or send anything to her father. She headed for the dock, preparing for the short boat trip to England.
Whatever happened next, happened. She lifted her face to the wind.