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The overseer leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes and rocking his head back as if he were looking for something on the ceiling. “She snores,” he said at last.
Rigg did not laugh. The man’s misery was so sincere that Rigg did not want to make light of it. And this much he knew was true: He was getting no sleep at night.
“Tell me about her snoring.”
“Great ronking snores, sir. As if she were calling to geese to come back from their migration. As if she were sawing through great trees. And then in mid-snore, she stops. Stops breathing. And I wait. Because if she doesn’t start soon I have to waken her. Then she starts, and the noise is horrible. If she’s breathing I can’t sleep, if she’s not breathing I can’t sleep.”
“Yet you’ve said nothing to anyone.”
“Because I know how my master will solve the problem,” the man said. “I’m not complaining, he’s a fair master, but he goes straight to the obvious solution.”
“Separate bedrooms so you can sleep?”
“That would be such a bad example!” he said. “If he gives me a separate bedroom because of snoring, every woman he owns will be asking for a separate bedroom because her husband snores. Too expensive.”
“And I think you don’t want to tell anyone about your wife for fear of shaming her.”
“I love her,” said the man. “My master would split us up if he knew.”
“Split you up?”
“She already has three children, which my master thinks is enough for any of his women. But not for his best men. He’ll give me to another woman who doesn’t snore, and put her in my wife’s place. Everyone will be taken care of, but he can’t have me become . . . an unproductive male. His policy is that his best men should make six babies.”
“That seems a little imbalanced,” said Rigg.
Ram Odin touched his arm.
“Not said as a criticism, just as an observation,” said Rigg.
“It’s actually very sensible,” said the overseer. “Women put their lives at risk with every baby they have. Each one weakens them. But a man puts nothing at risk. It’s good to have a father to help with the little ones, good to have a marriage where people care for each other. But when a woman wants to stop, any time after three, he lets them move out right away. Just like that.”
“Divorce at the wife’s option,” said Rigg.
“Most women that love their husband, they stay out the six,” said the overseer. “But some die, just as the master fears. His policy is a wise one.”
“So if you complain to him about the snoring, he’ll assume that you want a divorce.”
“He won’t care what I want, sir,” said the overseer. “Why should he?”
Rigg curbed his anger at this foolish system. “Why doesn’t her snoring keep the children awake?”
“The doors are good and solid, sir,” said the overseer. “And they sleep like babies, because they are. They had that snoring the whole time they were in the womb, sir.”
“And you don’t really want to sleep in a separate room because of the times she stops breathing.”
“I don’t want her to die, sir,” and he burst into tears again.
“My first decision,” said Rigg, “is that you must go immediately into the room where that spinner is waiting.”
“But she’ll see me like this,” he said.
“I want her to,” said Rigg. “Don’t you see that she’ll think I must have rebuked you severely, to reduce you to tears? That may satisfy her completely, don’t you think? Don’t show her your tears. Try to conceal them. She’ll see. Now go.”
The man got up at once and went through the door that led to the room where the woman was waiting.
“So you start with the illusion of having punished him,” said Ram Odin.
“I don’t have any idea what to do.”
