Stone Seeds by Jo; Ely Page A

spitting through the vents in the windows. Warm air. Mamma Zeina turns toward Zorry, “The general’s wife … She had these wide, amazing dark violet eyes. Don’t you see? It’s a mixture of all Bavarnica’s colours, Zorry.”
    She opens her own eyes wide as though to demonstrate. “A luminous complexion. Which looked like she could be any tribe, all or none, and changed depending on who was looking at her and on the quality of the light. A great … Public speaker. Although of course all in mime.” Mamma Zeina thinks for a moment. Eyes swivel left and up, she seems to be seeing the past open up in her mind’s eye.
    â€œShe had long hair which she kept curled and dark rust coloured, hennaed like a Sinta some weeks.” She sighs. “Most Sinta no longer believe she was ever one of us,” Mamma Zeina blinks and stares wide eyed at Zorry. As if she’s looking for an answer in the girl’s face. Her voice becomes hard. “A true Sinta woman never caves, the way the general’s wife has. A true Sinta woman would never give up, the way she has … Take the pollen.” She sighs.
    â€œAt other times she wore bright knotted head scarves like the edge farm women and once even a helmet-like hat, which the Sinta called her Egg Boy hat. We thought, by these small changes in costume, she was still doing her mime act. Doingit from the heart of government. In our naïveté we believed …” Sighs again, heavily.
    â€œYou believed the general’s wife was for you all. All the tribes.” Zorry peers at Mamma Zeina. Takes and folds a napkin neatly. Adds it to the pile. Mamma Zeina is gazing softly at her, “Zorry …”
    She can’t finish. In a moment Zorry seems to see this. “What happened?”
    Mamma Zeina seems to need to steel herself just to answer the girl’s question. Holds on to the serving counter with both hands. Zorry notices her knuckles softly darken. “And then the Sinta mountain excavations on The Reach were ended, all the Sinta’s … Improving projects. Our dreams. The Sinta were rounded up.” She coughs, takes a moment to clear her throat. “The Diggers rose up when they realised what was happening, being an ancient warrior tribe, but the Diggers led with courage not planning, and then … The tanks came, Zorry. It happened fast.” Mamma Zeina stops talking for a long time. “They were the best of us. In the aftermath, while we licked our wounds and tried to gather, Zorry, the killing forests were replanted, changed.”
    â€œSo the revolution failed and the tribes were divided then.”
    â€œThat’s when she changed.” They both look back at the general’s wife, head drooping over her empty plate. Flower girls fill up her plate but she won’t eat. “She sickened with the times.”
    And then Mamma Zeina turning sadly toward Zorry, “We had high hopes of her, like I said Zorry.” Breathes out heavily. “But that was a long time ago. Another time. We were all of us different then.” Mamma Zeina examines a small nail in the wall.
    â€œYou think she tricked you?”
    â€œMaybe.” She appears to think about this. “No, I don’t think so. One thing is certain … she was used, Zorry. The general …” She sighs. “Oh, I just stopped knowing at a certain point, Child. Your questions are undoing me.”
    Zorry appears to ignore this. “So if she’s not a Sinta and not a OneFolk then what tribe is she?”
    â€œNo one knows, Zorry. There were rumours among us at one time that the general’s wife wasn’t from Bavarnica at all, but dropped like a bomb or a food parcel from clean out of the sky. That was thirty years ago. More.”
    â€œYou think she’s a foreign agent? You think she was a foreign weapon of some kind?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    Mamma Zeina looks over toward the