Inventing Memory - Softcover

Harris, Anne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765311348 ISBN 13: 9780765311344

Verlag: Tor Books, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

A one-of-a-kind novel, like nothing you've ever read, Inventing Memory is a stunning blend of fantasy and reality, exposing the secret links between the mythic, the mundane, and the timeless mysteries of the human heart.

Shula is a slave in fabled Sumer--until Inanna, Queen of Heaven, appears before her. Chosen by the Goddess for reasons she cannot begin to fathom, Shula is freed from bondage and set upon an uncertain path toward a new and mysterious destiny. But the attention of the gods is a dangerous thing, and Shula may have cause to regret the day she first laid eyes on the Queen of Dawn . . .

Wendy Chrenko, former high school misfit, is now an overworked graduate student, researching her dissertation on "Remnants of Matriarchy in the Ancient Sumerian Inanna Cycle." Still smarting from the painful wounds of a long relationship that ended abruptly, Wendy is bound and determined to prove that men and women once lived together in perfect equality, even if it means volunteering for a bizarre and dangerous scientific experiment . . .

Separated by millennia, Shula and Wendy appear to be two very different women, leading completely separate lives.

Or maybe not.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ANNE HARRIS won the 1999 Spectrum Award for her novel Accidental Creatures. She lives in Royal Oak, Michigan.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

INVENTING MEMORY

BOOK 1

THE SERPENT THAT KNOWS NO CHARM

CHAPTER 1

Shula sat on the wall of Erech, gutting fish and watching the world be born. Beyond the city, the mudflats were hazy with dawn. Like dreams awakening, they shimmered in the fading mist and became real. Grain fields and reed beds emerged from nothingness the way the world must have, when the waters of the great flood receded.

Every morning she came here, to Inanna's gate, to clean fish and stare at the forming land. And every morning it was a different land. The flats were always changing, because the rivers that carved them like silver knives were forever flooding and changing their courses.

Erech was made out of that chaotic mud. Layer upon layer the city rose upon itself as houses were built, torn down, or washed away. Like the flats, the city was always changing, but the city had people, and no matter how many times their homes were destroyed, people would always build again, leaving their names inscribed in tablets in the walls. And so Erech grew, accreting upon itself; a tower rising in time.

Shula pushed aside the long black braid at the top of her forehead and glanced over her shoulder at the tower in the center of the city: the Temple of Inanna, which housed the goddess's holy throne. As the sun broke over its square edifice, she returned her gaze to the flats. The light stole across the rivers to hide among the reeds like a shining serpent.

In the day's first light a prayer slipped from her and flew away into the broad new sky, a wordless thing which, once flown, could not be remembered. Sighing, Shula hopped off the wall and took the basket of fish, smelling of blood and the river, to the cistern by the stairs. She ladledout water to rinse her hands and the fish, then hoisted the basket to her shoulder and went down to the street.

Farmers and shepherds flooded in through Inanna's gate, each oblivious to the others, wholly bent on the pursuit of livelihood. Oxcarts and livestock clogged the streets, and confusion reigned in the intersections, where flocks collided and intermingled. In the doorways of houses weavers wove and spinners spun. A cookshop offered up the glorious smell of frying batter to the limitless blue sky above.

Shula imagined herself up in the sky, looking down at the city. A herd of white goats came up Utu Street, a herd of black down Ninlil Street. When they met at the intersection, they got mixed up. Each shepherd came away with a speckled flock.

The ground disappeared from beneath her right foot, and for a moment Shula thought she truly was flying. Then her foot hit the bottom of the rut in the road and mud splashed up her leg. The fish jiggled and she steadied herself, looking up into the face of an oncoming donkey hauling an enormous load of hay. Shula backed out of its way and bumped into a vegetable stand. A squash, dislodged from the top of the pile, fell to the ground.

"Morning makes the day."

She turned to see an old woman winding a skein of wool in the shadowed doorway. "I'm sorry," said Shula, "the donkey ..." Balancing her basket on her hip, she bent down and retrieved the squash, replacing it on the pile.

The old woman spat on the ground between her feet. "Traffic. It's not safe to go about your business. You're likely to get trampled by some shepherd's flock. And at night! The thieves, and murderers, too. Of course they'll get you at home as well." The old woman grimaced, her eyes nearly disappearing among her wrinkles. "Sneak right into your house and strangle you in your bed just to rob you. It's appalling. In my time they would have taken them all out to the charnel houses and slit their throats. The new king is too lenient at home, always going off to war or to kill monsters. How can he rule the city if he's never here? Does he think the grain grows by itself? Does he think the sheep tend themselves? The bread his soldiers eat comes out of our mouths, they feast on our mutton and takethe hides from our beds. We used to have bountiful harvests, and the sheep fed on wild grass. It gives them a different taste. The mutton now has no flavor."

Shula's mouth watered at the mention of mutton. She'd had only a piece of bread this morning. Wild grass or no, she relished mutton when she could get it.

"Not that the congress is any better," the old woman went on. "They don't listen to us either."

Shula turned away from the woman and her dissatisfactions and braved the streets once more. If she did not get these fish back before their eyes turned cloudy, Abpahar would have her flogged. Dodging peddlers' carts and slaves hauling sledges of bricks, she wound her way to Ur-Neattu's house. She took the alley to the back gate, slipping through the outer wall and into the warm frenzy of the kitchen. The fire melted the morning from her, and for a sudden moment, she wanted to run back out, to save that chill, watery consciousness.

"Shula." Lugalla, orchestrating the clamor of cook pots, still managed to spot her. "The fish, bring them here. Did you clean them?"

Shula nodded and handed her the basket. Lugalla eyed them critically and deposited them on the counter.

"You're late," the cook said. "Abpahar awakes."

Shula ran to the cistern at the center of the court and drew a basin of water, which she carried to Abpahar's room. Abpahar reclined on her sheepskin padded platform, already throwing off the fine woolen blanket. Shula set the basin on a low platform beside her bed. As Abpahar washed, Shula combed her mistress's long black hair, plaiting it in braids close to the scalp.

"I dreamt I was making barley cakes," said Abpahar. "The grain was speckled and soft-hulled."

Shula smiled and tucked a stray hair into the plaits. "Your next child will be a daughter, and easily born."

Abpahar sighed and shooed her away from her hair. "After Ilshubur, I had hoped it would be some time before I returned to childbed. A girl you say?"

"Yes, because the grain was speckled."

Abpahar shook her head. "Another boy would be a close brother to Ilshubur, he's so much younger than Pada-Sin. A third girl will be out of place in the household."

"Marat will be happy, she tires of being the younger daughter. And you will be glad of another girl when Kalaghiri marries and goes to live in the house of her husband."

Abpahar grunted and tilted her chin. Shula leaned forward, carefully outlining her mistress's eyes with kohl. "Yes, it will be soon," murmured Abpahar. "Already she trades glances with boys in the marketplace. A mother loses her daughters to their husbands, but sons she keeps all her life. My grandmother once told me that in her mother's time women remained with their families after they married. It was the husband who took up residence in his wife's home." She stood, and Shula helped her put on her skirt and shawl. "She said some young women even served as divine prostitutes for a year, learning Inanna's sacred rites. These women were most prized as wives, but now every child must have a father, and a bride who is no longer a maiden is useless to a man." She slipped brass bracelets over her wrists as Shula fastened the silver and lapis marriage beads around her neck.

 

 

Later that day, Abpahar sent Shula down to the riverbank with the washing. She knelt on the bank, pounding clothes and bedding against a broad flat rock to loosen the dirt, then pushing them into the water to be sluiced clean by the current. Once washed, she laid each article out across the reeds, to dry in the sun and air, and then she sat down on the bank once more, and watched the river roll by through the drowsy afternoon.

The sun was beginning...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Tor Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0765311348
• ISBN 13: 9780765311344
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Procter & Gamble Service GmbH, Braun; https://in.pg.com/contact-us/; ; Sulzbacher Str. 40-50; Schwalbach/Ts.; 65824; Deutschland