Quibble, 11. Adroitness
Introducing Quibble to a forbidden mystery brings Nish face-to-face with her past — and grief she has long denied.
11. Adroitness @Definition
Out of a selfish wish to be doing other things, I’d let Quibble get hurt. I promised myself I would learn from this mistake, too.
Quotation’s appearance in her cell bothered me. Hadn’t he been shearing sheep? The work lasted sunrise to sunset, and it was well past lunchtime. There was no point in asking him. I knew his abilities well: herder, hunter, light-foot, liar. The Adroit sent him back to us for a reason. Hard work is no excuse for sneak thievery. Hearing Cate’s plan, I’d known as well as he did that Quote couldn’t become Quibble’s adroitness. He might be preternaturally adroit, but he didn’t take responsibility for anyone but his gyrfalcon, his dog, his sheep. He’d only get her hurt, if he didn’t bear tales about her to the Zeros.
But could I trust myself with being Quibble’s adroitness? Brooding on the plan, I told myself adroitness is a solemn undertaking – a promise, a pact, and above all a risk. Didn’t I know a heart could break twice?
I look in the mirror now. Yes, I knew. I just never thought the broken heart might turn out to be hers.
It was late when I tapped on Quibble’s door. Hearing no answer, I pushed it ajar and stuck my head in. She lay in bed, under the quilt, watching a moonbeam engulf the cell’s floor. I entered and sat at the foot of the bed, away from the window.
Seen in moonlight, Quibble was striking. Her willowy frailty set off fine features. The moonlight, matching her albino skin, softened it, gave it more the color of someone a while Without. Her hair was pure white, frizzy. Her nose ended in a slight cleft which wriggled a bit when she spoke. And her eyes, those large, wide, mismatched eyes—
“Don’t stare,” she said, smiling. “It’s rude.”
I looked away, chiding myself. Tugged my shawl closer around my shoulders.
“Will you make a fire?”
“Not yet,” I said. “We need the moonlight.”
She inquired with a skance.
“We’re going to practice adroitness, Quill.”
She had liked the abbreviation I gave her. When I’d asked her to write it down, she wrote, Call me Nishmael. She liked to joke.
“Be patient with me,” I went on. “I haven’t done this in a very long time. I’ll have to be patient with you, too. We’re starting earlier than usual.”
“Why?”
I kept my gaze in my lap. “I believe you’re talented, in a certain way.”
“I didn’t do well today,” she observed.
“Do you know what interests me, Quill? You conducted an experiment. People as newly Dazed as you are usually afraid to touch things and find out about them. Now you’ve learned some important facts of life Without. Your experiment was a success.”
A short silence from Quibble. “What’s adroitness?”
“In a moment. First this: what we’re about to do is a secret. You may hear some Zeros speak of adroitness, but what they mean is a Dazed or Adroit’s faithfulness, not our mysteries of touch. We’re forbidden to practice these mysteries. There’s an edict.”
“I’ve heard of an edict before. What is it?”
“Think of something forbidden by confession, something that offends Unity. An edict is a law the Zeros give us.”
Quibble now lay quiet a long moment. “You’re asking me to break the Zeros’ law with you?”
“Yes. It’s common, Quill. It’s how I became Adroit. Graph—”
I stopped short. I hadn’t meant to make the slightest mention of him. “Adroitness is mindful touch practiced with another person,” I stammered.
“We touched last night. You touched me today when you closed the cut.”
“This is different.”
“Is it sexual?”
I was embarrassed, then thankful she asked. Best to clear this up now.
“For some it’s sexual, once they become adroit as Zeros mean the word – faithful. We’re very careful about that. We can’t have children.”
“Forbidden by edict?”
“Yes. Adroitnesses are supposed to be of the same sex.”
Quibble flinched.
“Does that bother you?” I asked.
“It bothered Unity,” she said. “When I left the Large Spiral, I was promised to be given a faithfulness. Unity had One particularly in mind. Colophon. I didn’t want him, though. He was my uncle – or anyway I thought of him as my uncle. He witnessed my birth. I suppose that wasn’t a very good reason, but I had a better reason. I know Unity has Its reasons, too.”
“But you had another One in mind, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
She said no more. Sensing it was a touchy, perhaps painful subject, I pressed on with the matter at hand: “Don’t worry, Quill. We’ll practice our adroitness platonically, and that’s that. And if it goes well, tomorrow you should be ready to go outside.”
She thought about it. “All right.”
I rose from the bed. “Adroitness is really about the mind, not the body. You saw shadows before you came Without. Did you ever touch a shadow?”
“Only Quiddity’s shadow. I know her face by it.”
Quibble already knew, then, that the shadows she saw during Fear were Ones and Zeros. I was glad not to have to explain that.
“Ones say touch is trust,” I observed. “You experienced a lot of touch today, not all of it good. What was it like to look at your foot with the glass in it?”
“Sickening.” After a moment, Quibble added, “Sort of fascinating, too.”
“Did you ever have a feeling like that before?”
“No.”
“Without is abundant in new feelings, Quill. The sun’s warmth on your skin, for instance. But not only the sensation of warmth – how you feel about that sensation too, your emotions. To adapt, you must reconcile yourself to all those feelings. The hardest part is seeing as you’re touching, engaging the senses in tandem as One never does, and having emotions about that. It’s very hard for some. The strangeness of their feelings is a constant distraction. They get disoriented easily. Dazed, you see?”
I dropped my shawl to the floor and stepped into the fountain of light coursing in an unreal beam through the window. I turned to Quibble, my back to the moonlight. She sat up under the quilt, appearing to tremble a bit.
“It’s easier if you touch me first,” I said, going on intuition, since everything with Quibble so far seemed to be backwards.
She threw aside the quilt and got out of bed.
I closed my eyes. “Quibble.”
“What?”
“Platonic.”
“Yes, agreed.”
“I mean put on some clothes. We shan’t do this in the nude.”
“Sorry.”
I peeked. She was taking her shift from the bedrail and putting it on. I closed my eyes again. I heard her approach. She touched my right hand, stroked the knuckles, and lifted my left hand. She slid her fingers down the backs of mine. Touched my fingertips, rough from work. “My nails are longer than yours,” she said.
“Yours need cutting.”
“Cutting?”
“It doesn’t hurt unless you accidentally cut to the quick. Isos did it for you while you dreamed. That’s when they work.”
“Fear’s the only time I can recall having much for nails.”
“I think they neglect it during Fear.”
Quibble walked around me. Stood still. Ran a fingertip along the top of my back. Spread her hand flat against my shoulder. Lifted the strap of my nightgown. Let it drop along my arm.
I put it back in place, opened my eyes, turned around. Her eyes were shadowed, but I could tell they were shut. I imagined orbs roving behind the lids. She looked like a statue, standing still with her hand raised. I took the hand, clasped it. With my fingertip I brushed a callus on her palm below the third finger.
“Open your eyes,” I said, and she did. “Indulge neither touch nor sight by itself. You must look as you touch. If you don’t, you’ll start to believe you’re Within.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s as if the other person is less there. That’s why Dazed and Adroit practice this mystery with each other, not with objects. Never let anyone seem less real, Quibble. Go toward more reality. Don’t substitute it with something less.”
I blew a raspberry at my philosophizing, and Quibble laughed. I knew I should treat adroitness with solemnity. But, I thought, does demonstrating the mystery really disrespect it? Is what the scrivener says true – laughter kills fear and, with it, faith?
Pleased, I released Quibble and turned around. “Trace along my shoulders again, but this time look at what you’re doing.”
Both her hands roved my shoulder blades as if priming them for a more delicate touch. She gasped, and I restrained an urge to shudder.
“Your skin is glowing,” she said.
“White? Like the moonlight?”
“Yes, but brighter.”
“Use just a fingertip, as you did before.”
She obeyed. “Kindness!”
“Brighter still? More blue than white now?”
“Yes! And there’s a pattern!”
“Selenery. Lunar script. Some call it luneiform. I’ve heard moon-digits, too.”
Quibble retraced her path a little lower on my shoulders. I felt her breath on the back of my neck. “It’s amazing! Is it actually text?”
“Looks to be, doesn’t it? It reminded Bibliography of Sanskrit, but upside down. I’d say some type of Arabic.”
Again, Quibble’s touch. “I wish I could read it,” she said.
“Never mind reading it, Quill. No one can. The important thing is that it’s there. It’s a sure sign of what I suspected: you’re an Adroit, or you will be soon.”
I stepped away from her, snatched my shawl from the floor, wrapped it around me. When I turned back, she was standing in place stiffly, silhouetted by moonlight.
“Time for bed, Quill.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. I’m cold. And we’ve gone far enough tonight. Much further than many do, their first time.”
Quibble returned to bed, pulling off her shift. I grabbed the tinderbox from the mantle, knelt at the hearth with my back to her, and began laying the night’s fire.
“Cate said you were born with no Passage. Is that true?”
A snort from Quibble. “Of course there was a Passage, just no dream,” she said. “Not then, anyway. Soon after.”
I turned on my haunches. Quibble lay on her side watching me at the hearth, the quilt covering her only up to her belly. I returned her stare.
“But how do you know?” I pressed.
“I remember,” she answered. “My mind lets go of nothing.”
“What was it like, being born without dreaming?”
For a moment she seemed to stiffen and her eyes wandered away from mine, and I thought I’d get no answer. But then she met my gaze again and sighed softly. “It was a betrayal,” she told me. “I gained everything – consensus and family. Then I lost it all.”
That was not what I really wanted to know, but I dropped the subject. It clearly pained Quibble, and her feelings were too much like my own. I took out flint and steel, struck a spark and then a second on the straw in the fireplace. It smoldered. I pursed lips, blew. At once a flame blazed up. I fed it handfuls of twigs and bark.
“Here’s kindling and firewood,” I said. “Keep the fire low. Give it wood one log at a time.” I put a log on the fire to demonstrate, then rose and replaced the tinderbox. I thought a moment and added, “And if you have to relight the fire, for kindness’ sake, don’t strike sparks anywhere but here on the hearth.”
“I see that,” Quibble said.
“Of course you do.”
I gathered my furs from the floor and hurried out of the cell. She didn’t ask me to stay, as most newly Dazed would. She stared into the fire and let me leave in peace.
I slowed in the corridor, fighting back an urge to sink against the wall and sob. None of that! Why had I been so jittery? Had Quibble’s forwardness upset me? Or had it only been the intimacy of what we were doing? And why did I mention Graph?
I hadn’t seen him in eight years. His Adroit consensus was industrious, I heard. Graph had always been a natural leader. He led me, and all too eagerly I followed. But when that came to a crisis, suddenly he was helpless. It was Cate who invented the lie that I was already pregnant with Index when I became Dazed. It was I who ventured to tell that very obvious lie to the Zeros. Of course, as far as Index was concerned, it didn’t help in the least. The lord of control Alioth had the letter of edict on his side: he claimed the monstrous child and would not give him up even to the honest persuasion Aladfar tried. The lie I told saved Graph’s life, though. In repayment for that, he abandoned me, fleeing the monastery to start an Adroit madhouse.
Have I not said, Numberless, that adroitness is a veritable hell? My adroitness with Bibliography resolved a pittance of contradictions only to introduce a mountain of new ones. How can you love someone you also abhor? How can love wither away and die, only to be recalled and brought back to life by a single touch – not even that, just by the memory of a touch? Why is control so impossible in the face of love?
