The Left Hand Of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) - Ursula K. Le Guin Page 0,125

so that I realised that I must be in love with Hama, until Gehardar joined us. After that I think I began to understand that I loved them all and they all loved me and that that was the secret of the kemmerhouse.

It’s been nearly fifty years, and I have to admit I do not recall everyone from my first kemmer; only Karrid and Arrad, Hama and Gehardar, old Tubanny, the most exquisitely skillful lover as a male that I ever knew – I met him often in later kemmers – and Berre, my golden fish, with whom I ended up in drowsy, peaceful, blissful lovemaking in front of the great hearth till we both fell asleep. And when we woke we were not women. We were not men. We were not in kemmer. We were very tired young adults.

‘You’re still beautiful,’ I said to Berre.

‘So are you,’ Berre said. ‘Where do you work?’

‘Furniture shop, Third Ward.’

I tried licking Berre’s nipple, but it didn’t work; Berre flinched a little, and I said ‘Sorry,’ and we both laughed.

‘I’m in the radio trade,’ Berre said. ‘Did you ever think of trying that?’

‘Making radios?’

‘No. Broadcasting. I do the Fourth Hour news and weather.’

‘That’s you?’ I said, awed.

‘Come over to the tower some time, I’ll show you around,’ said Berre.

Which is how I found my lifelong trade and a lifelong friend. As I tried to tell Sether when I came back to the Hearth, kemmer isn’t exactly what we thought it was; it’s much more complicated.

Sether’s first kemmer was on Getheny Gor, the first day of the first month of autumn, at the dark of the moon. One of the family brought Sether into kemmer as a woman, and then Sether brought me in. That was the first time I kemmered as a man. And we stayed on the same wavelength, as Grand put it. We never conceived together, being cousins and having some modern scruples, but we made love in every combination, every dark of the moon, for years. And Sether brought my child, Tamor, into first kemmer – as a woman, like a proper Thade.

Later on Sether went into the Handdara, and became an Indweller in the old Fastness, and now is an Adept. I go over there often to join in one of the Chants or practise the Untrance or just to visit, and every few days Sether comes back to the Hearth. And we talk. The old days or the new times, somer or kemmer, love is love.

SOME KARHIDISH WORDS,

AND TWO SONGS FROM

THE DOMAIN OF ESTRE

arach or ay Rock or earth protruding through an ice sheet: a nunatak.

bessa Soft, new-fallen snow before compacting or crust-formation

esyot Granular snow: firn, névé.

dothe The voluntary and controlled use of ‘hysterical strength’, probably connected with voluntary repression of kemmer; both techniques learned in the discipline of the Handdara.

hemmen A native tree, 8–50 feet high, bearing reddish black-needles and thorny cone pods containing edible seeds. Hemmen trees consitute about four-fifths of the Gethenian forests.

hieb A heavy, sleeveless tunic or tabard with a loose belt, universally worn in Karhide and Orgoreyn over a shirt and breeches; in cold weather, leggings and an ankle-length coat are added.

kadik A non-native grain, a wheat mutant, introduced by the Hainish colonisers, along with perm and garram, both grains of Hainish origin (perm appears to be related to Terran rye.) Other introduced food plants are a tuber, propagated by cuttings and by wind pollination, a fruit-bearing vine, and three fruit-bearing trees – these are entirely dependent on human assistance to propagate and grow only in the relatively mild climate of the Sea Hemisphere.

kemmer The period of potency and fertility in the Gethenian sexual cycle, lasting three to five days, recurring every twenty-five to thirty days.

kroxet Windless weather, fair or with a light overcast, 0–20°F.

kyorremy The Karhidish council or parliament. A member (kermo) is named by a Domain, elected from a District, or selected by the king with the consent of the Lords of the Kingdom. There are usually 134 named members, 62 elected, and 13 selected, to make the full complement of 219. From them four are selected by the king and nine elected by the kyorremy to form the Inner Council (heskyorremy). The power of these councils even under a strong king is considerable, and weak kings are controlled by their kyorremy or heskyorremy.

neserem Heavy snowfall on a moderate gale – a middling blizzard.

nusuth ‘No matter’, or ‘Very likely’, or ‘What will be will be’; an agreement or acceptance, with reservations, or a slight negative coloration.

odegome Black-fish: a native life form, warm-blooded, marine, oviparous, not mammalian, a carnivorous predator weighing 5–40 pounds. A food staple all over Gethen, fresh, smoked or dried.

orsh A drink brewed from roasted, ground perm.

orgrevy A drug extracted from a native plant; various forms are sedative, tranquilizing or hallucinatory; all are addictive and neurologically destructive.

ott, otta Lord. The Lord of a Domain holds title by descent. The title Lord of the Kingdom is granted by warrant of the king, and is revocable and non-hereditary.

peditia (an Orgota word taken into Karhidish) Thick snowfall at 10–25°F.

perm See kadik.

pesthry A native life form: warm-blooded, quadruped, oviparous, non-mammalian, vegetarian; adult weight 3–7 pounds; very thickly furred and with a thick fat layer under the skin. Enormous migratory herds of pesthry exist in the colder regions of the Great Continent. They are hunted for fur and meat, and raised for eggs, meat and fur, especially in Perunter, where they are a staple of diet.

russy A native life form: warm-blooded, almost legless, oviparous, non-mammalian; a carnivorous predator and scavenger; adult weight about a pound; their scales are formed of compacted fur.

seswehen Wind-formed snow waves on a snow plain: sastrugi.

serem A native tree, 15–60 feet high, bearing long drooping greyish needles, reproducing by wind-borne spore from a puff-ball-like fruit.

shifgrethor Very roughly translated as honour. The basic principle is the maintenance of one’s own pride by maintaining the other’s pride. ‘I am not admirable unless my admirer is admirable.’ This delicate balance may devolve into a contest for superior prestige rather than a mutual pact; in such degraded competitions one’s pride is maintained at the expense of the other’s pride. The rules of behaviour controlled by shifgrethor are complex, elaborate, and unspoken. The word derives from ifegre, an old word meaning ‘shadow’.

somer The period of sexual latency and infertility in the Gethenian sexual cycle, lasting 25 to 30 days.

sove Thick snowfall at 10–30° F without much wind.

thangen Deep sleep; utter relaxation; the weakness following exercise of dothe.

thore A native tree or bush, 4–12 feet high, bearing fine greyish needles and a horny pod with seeds that are edible if cooked.

vate or odevate A native tree, 15–50 feet high, with fleshy green-black needles and small pods containing edible seeds.

* * *

Two Songs sung in the domain of Estre

A Karhidish Lullaby, or Hamohey

Hamo, hamo, heshuwàdo,

amha ‘r athab ethuwàthen

enther thangen, thangen, thangen,

kyorha hamo, hamo, hey.

Therem’s Quatrain

Erestyòrhe kemmer

oskyòmmering ènverrest

kemòrhen. O bèrethen,

bèstere, begìrhen!

Approximate translation:

In the early evening, in love,

I turn around to see my love

dead. O the years past,

my brother, the promise broken!

Author’s working sketch map

Sketch map of the Planet Gethen

* Karhosh, island, the usual word for the apartment-boardinghouse buildings that house the greatest part of the urban populations of Karhide. Islands contain 20 to 200 private rooms; meals are communal; some are run as hotels, others as cooperative communes, others combine these types. They are certainly an urban adaptation of the fundamental Karhidish institution of the Hearth, though lacking, of course, the topical and genealogical stability of the Hearth.

* His transgression of the code controlling incest became a crime when seen as the cause of his brother’s suicide. (G.A.)

* The Pering Ice is the glacial sheet that covers the northernmost portion of Karhide, and is (in winter when the Guthen Bay is frozen) contiguous with the Gobrin Ice of Orgoreyn.

* Kurem, damp weather, 0° to –20°F.

* This is a mystical expression of one of the theories used to support the expanding-universe hypothesis, first proposed by the Mathematical School of Sith over four thousand years ago and generally accepted by later cosmologists, even though meteorological conditions on Gethen prevent their gathering much observational support from astronomy. The rate of expansion (Hubble’s constant; Rerherek’s constant) can in fact be estimated from the observed amount of light in the night sky; the point here involved is that, if the universe were not expanding, the night sky would not appear to be dark.

† The Handdarata.

* neserem: fine snow on a moderate gale: a light blizzard.