Enders In Exile

As Dorabella laughed,
she touched Ender's arm. Probably Dorabella didn't see how he
suppressed his instinct to flinch—Ender didn't like being
touched by strangers, he never had. But Valentine saw it. He was still
Ender.
    "I've never seen a
play," said Ender. "I've read them, I've seen holos and vids of them,
but I've never actually been in a room where people actually said the
lines aloud. I could never put it together, but I'd love to be there
and listen as it happens."
    "Then you must!" said
Dorabella. "You are governor, you make it happen!"
    "I can't," said Ender.
"Truly. You do it, please."
    "No, I cannot," said
Dorabella. "My English is too bad.
Il teatro
is
for young persons. I will watch and listen. You and Alessandra do it.
You are students, you are children. Romeo and Juliet!"
    Could she possibly be
any more obvious? thought Valentine.
    "Mother thinks that if
you and I are together a lot," said Alessandra, "we'll fall in love and
get married."
    Valentine almost
laughed aloud. So the daughter wasn't a co-conspirator, she was a
draftee.
    Dorabella feigned
shock. "I have no plan like such!"
    "Oh, Mother, you've
been planning it from the start. Even back in the town we came
from—"
    "Monopoli," said Ender.
    "She was calling you a
'young man with prospects.' A likely candidate for my husband. My
personal opinion is that I'm very young, and so are you."
    Ender was busy
mollifying the mother. "Dorabella, please, I'm not offended and of
course I know you weren't planning anything. Alessandra is teasing me.
Teasing us both."
    "I'm not, but you can
say whatever it takes to make Mother happy," said Alessandra. "Our
lives together are one long play. She makes me . . . not the star of my
own autobiography. But Mother always sees the happy ending, right from
the start."
    Valentine wasn't sure
what to make of the relationship between these two. The words were
biting, almost hostile. Yet as she said them, Alessandra gave her
mother a hug and seemed to mean it. As if the words were part of a long
ritual between them, but they no longer were meant to sting.
    Whatever was going on,
between Ender and Alessandra, Dorabella seemed mollified. "I like the
happy ending."
    "We should put on a
Greek play," said Alessandra. "
Medea.
The one
where the mother kills her own children."
    Valentine was shocked
at this—what a cruel thing to say in front of her mother. But
no, from Dorabella's reaction Alessandra wasn't referring to her. For
Dorabella laughed and nodded and said, "Yes, yes, Medea, spiteful mama!"
    "Only we'll rename
her," said Alessandra. "Isabella!"
    "Isabella!" cried
Dorabella at almost the same moment. The two of them laughed so hard
they almost cried, and Ender joined with them.
    Then, to Valentine's
surprise, while the other two were still hiccuping through the end of
their laughter, Ender turned to her and explained. "Isabella is
Dorabella's mother. They had a painful parting."
    Alessandra stopped
laughing and looked at Ender searchingly—but if Dorabella was
surprised that Ender knew so much of their past, she didn't show it.
"We come on this colony to be free of my perfect mother. Santa
Isabella, we will not pray to you!"
    Then Dorabella leapt to
her feet and began to do some kind of dance, a waltz perhaps, holding
an imaginary full skirt in one hand, and with the other hand tracing
arcane patterns in the air as she danced. "Always I have a magic land
where I can be happy, and I take my daughter there with me, always
happy." Then she stopped and faced Ender. "Shakespeare Colony is
our magic land now. You are king of the . . .
folletti
?"
She looked to her daughter.
    "Elfs," said Alessandra.
    "Elves," said Valentine.
    "Gli elfi!" cried
Dorabella in delight. "Again same word! Elfo, elve!"
    "Elf," said Valentine
and Alessandra together.
    "King of the elves,"
said Ender. "I wonder what email address I'll get for that one.
[email protected]." He turned to Valentine. "Or is that the title
Peter aspires to?"
    Valentine smiled. "He's
still torn between Hegemon and God," she said.
    Dorabella didn't
understand the reference to Peter. She returned to her dancing, and
this time she sang a wordless but haunting tune with it. And Alessandra
shook her head but still joined in the song, harmonizing with it. So
she had heard it before and knew it and had sung with her mother. Their
voices blended sweetly.
    Valentine watched
Dorabella's dance, fascinated. At first it had seemed like a childish,
rather mad thing to do. Now,