Back to Culture Clash - Chapter 07
Chapter 8: The Gift for The Siminov Family
Nine thirty in the morning, the first case on the court docket,
Wednesday, is a Mitigation Hearing in the case of Ivanka Simonov.
Beth-Anne Takinva, the Spokeswoman for the Criminal, Professor
Wilhelmina Novotna, and Lt. Mykel Drakov stood before the Judge in the
Criminal courts, each expressing the same story from a different
perspective.
The Professor stated the act of false swearing that she submitted the
wrong theme paper in her hands. Ivanka might better serve to accept this
matter as a case of carelessness to deal with on university terms.
Rather than as a criminal matter. Hindsight being her perspective, she
explained to the judge that she did not take the totality of
circumstance into account.
"Your Honor," Professor Novotna continued," When I was a junior
instructor, I carelessly reviewed a paper and graded it without assuring
myself it was indeed the student's work. The following semester I read
the same paperwork for a word handed in by another student. I brought
the matter to the attention of my Department Chairman. After reviewing
the paper, he told me this same paper had been circulating among
students for several years.
"It was then, Your Honor, that I instituted the pledge as part of my
classes. With that oath to me in my official capacity, if a student
swore the work as it proved. I had the duty to pursue the falsehood and
prosecute it to the fullest. No Danubian likes being lied to,
particularly not one in a position of authority. I have to hold a very
tight rein on the students in my classes. Despite this, at least one
student a year tries to get away with passing another person's work as
own.
"In the matter of Ivanka Siminov, I believe I may have misplaced my
reason and substituted my legalistic application of the rule and the law
in its stead. A reasonable woman would have taken the proper theme and
graded it, not the draft. I admit I was unreasonable in this matter with
Ivanka Siminov not to receive further punishment born of that
unreasonableness."
Beth-Anne Takinva, acting as her client's voice, noted that her client
had accepted the consequences set by Professor Novotna. Despite knowing
she had the correct paper in hand and had taken the suspension from the
university, lost exchange student status, and the criminal penalty as an
obedient child of Danubian society. Her right to protest the false
swearing charge had been limited to the plea-bargaining gained at her
original sentencing.
Mykel Drakov acted as a character witness. He cited the many visits to
the Siminov home with his American lady friend Marcia Shevat, during
which he discussed with the extended family and Ivanka the events of the
day leading to her arrest and the family entering public penance. He
offered that the young woman was not criminally minded and had no
duplicity in her life whatsoever. He asked that she be returned to full
citizen status and allowed to return to school in the January term," If
Your Honor so decides. ``
All three of the plaintiffs asked for the same thing: Ivanka's sentence
was commuted to time served and she was returned to full citizen status
the morning following the Day of the Dead celebration. The judge, swayed
by the honesty of the Professor, the effectiveness of the Spokeswoman,
and the testimony of the military officials, agreed to end Ivanka's
sentence immediately following the ritual cleansing the morning after
the Day of the Dead.
Following the court case, Mykel Drakov met Marcia Shevat for lunch in an
outdoor café in the central square of Danubia City. His reason for
appearing in court was not a secret between the couple and was not open
for discussion. Marcia knew that until Mykel had the appeals court
document in his hand's petition for leniency might yet fail in the
appeals court. Therefore, waiting before even openly discussing the
matter seemed a wise choice.
They discussed the participation of Marcia in the annual Day of the Dead
ceremony. All penitents and criminals were required to march the
ritualistic route around the city. Mykel explained to Marcia that many
who did so feel a profound spiritual presence and gained insight from
the spirits of the ancestors as to the participant's life path.
"Some lead to see old hurts in the past that have caused their present
to be imperfect; others see glimpses into a future that might be, if
they set their feet on a particular life path in this present, while,
sadly, others see nothing at all."
"So, at the end of the day, I might see nothing but learn much about
myself?" Marcia rephrased Mykel's statement. The young military officer
nodded and smiled.
Twenty days later, penitents and criminals, numbering 2300 in all.
Everyone formed in the central square of the capital city. To receive a
coating of white body paint and then daubs of black. Over to represent
the rotting physical body. On death to free the soul on its eternal
journey. All were issued torches and torch holders sent to walk around
the city perimeter clockwise while the other half marched
counter-clockwise. All would pause for food and rest at daybreak and the
halfway point and would complete their journey the following night as
the sun set, ending in front of the temple at sunrise.
The groups would march in silence, each keeping eyes on the buttocks of
the person in front of them. Thoughts to clear their minds sufficiently
to catch a glimpse of what the spirits of the ancestors might wish to
share with them. Marcia was walking with the Simonov family. Ivan and
his wife led the family, then Ivanka, then Marcia, with Kivar just
behind her.
Seven hours into the first night's march, Marcia heard a voice she
recognized. After determining it could not be anyone in the line of
marchers, Marcia listened intently. Then I heard the voice joined by a
vision. Visions of a family picnicking along the Danube River, a toddler
wandering in the streamside, slipping in the mud, and being swept away
in the current. She saw her stripping off her military caftan and
sandals, plunging into the water, and clutching onto the little arm of
the frightened babe.
About to sink beneath the water and swim to the bank. Too tired to pull
herself from the water. Felt the strong hands of other Danubian police
and military hauling the child onto dry land. The vision ended as Marcia
entered the rest camp. A Priestess took Marcia's torch and directed her
to the kitchen tent, where a traditional meal awaited the marchers. She
thought to ask Mykel about the currents in the river where the public
park and beaches are and whether any swimmers' buoys if someone fell in.
A short walk to the sleep tents found an empty bed awaiting her beside
Ivanka Kivar; on the other side slept a dreamless sleep until awakened
by the priests to continue the march. A period of repainting the body
make-up followed torches the marchers set out again as the sunset.
It was midnight when the voice came to her again, father, "The little
girl, remember your training, remember your discipline, and follow your
heart." Voice ended was replaced by a horrible roaring of engines and
the sound of small arms fire. Marcia looked about and realized this was
all in her mind's eye. There was no perceived threat nearby. Yet she
could not shake the feeling that what she was now seeing was about to
play itself out somewhere in the Danubian countryside shortly.
The march ended in the courtyard of the main Temple just as day broke
above the eastern wall of that great imposing building. Blessing
followed by the washing off of the body paint in the waters of the river
ended the religious portion of the ceremony. The legal was where
criminals received their capes and boots for the winter. Be held in
front of the Ministry of Justice building in downtown Danubia City.
For penitents ending their period of obligation, the priests and
priestesses came to remove the temple collars on the steps of the
Temple, then presented the absolved penitent with a simple heavy cotton
hooded robe to wear home. Ivanka went to Danubia City to see her
Spokeswoman. Marcia and the Siminov family knelt on the Temple steps
awaiting release by the priests.
"What did you see, my child," The Priestess who came to unlock and
remove Marcia's collar asked," from the look on your face has been
revealed to you."
"It was more a feeling, Ma'am," Marcia replied, "and I heard a voice,
clearly, in my head."
"Did that voice tell you anything?"
Marcia looked up at the priestess and nodded. He said, "Little Girl,
remember your training, remember your discipline, and follow your
heart."
"Who was he?" The priestess kept drawing out Marcia's story.
"Both the words and the voice were my father's, but he died when I was
much younger," Marcia let her voice trail off, then said, "Oh, I have
had a visitation from my ancestors, haven't I?"
By now the collar had come off and Marcia, still kneeling, awaited a
hooded robe, which the priestess held but had not relinquished. "Tell me
the rest, please," she asked looking deeply into Marcia's eyes.
"The first night of the march, toward daybreak, I had a vision that was
so real it shook me to the point I could not tell anyone. I saw a small
child being swept up into the rapids of the river. I jumped in to save
the child and barely was able to fight the current, so strongly it
pulled against me. I was able to bring the child to the edge of the
riverbank where several soldiers and policemen reached out to take her
from me.
Then I was trapped in the current, swimming as strongly as I could but
not moving at all. Nor could any of the hands reaching for me grab me to
lift me out of the current. The trance broke as we reached camp and I
did not get the same vision the second night. The second night the voice
of my father came to me and then, oddly, the sound of roaring engines
and gunfire." Marcia was relieved to have blurted it all out to the
priestess who responded only by handing Marcia the hooded cloak.
"Keep your head covered in the hood until you reach your home," the
priestess instructed, "and come tomorrow at 11 a.m. to visit me. We
shall sit by the area of contemplation and reflection and talk further."
With that she was gone, to assist other penitents being released from
their collars or listening to others who felt they needed to remain so.
The three Siminov and Marcia heads covered and bowed, retreated from the
Temple area and walked to the Ministry of Justice building. Their
interesting sight awaited Marcia. A fully clothed Ivanka Siminov, in the
traditional Danubian ceremonial costume of a long-pleated skirt, white
mutton-leg sleeve blouse, and shorts waited for her family with open
arms and a smile on her face. As seriously as she could muster, Marcia
deadpanned, "Ivanka, I didn't recognize you with clothes on," which drew
laughter from the rest of the Simonov family.
"Marcia must tell you that Spokeswoman Takinva revealed a condition of
my remission of sentence to me today. I had not known before," Ivanka
sighed, "I need you to act as my proxy for this as I do not feel I can
do it. Yet someone in the family must. On the day at the end of this
semester, when scheduled to receive my next twenty-five strokes with the
switch, Doctor Novotna is to present herself to receive fifty strokes.
To make up for the fifty I had already received unjustly. As you hold
the authority to switch as an Army Officer Instructor, I ask you to be
my proxy."
How does someone respond to this? Marcia thought to herself, then she
remembered the words her father had spoken that first night: follow your
training, follow your discipline, follow your heart. By accepting this
duty, she would be attesting to all three of her father's conditions.
"Ivanka, I shall dutifully perform this act as your proxy," Marcia
accepted.
