Miranda thinks, and the skin on her little brow goes wrinkle-crinkle, then it goes smooth. “Why, it is someone who is good and helpful, isn’t it?” She touches my arm with wet dirty fingers and smiles at me. There are no knives in Miranda’s smile, only sunlight. “Like you, Caliban.”
But, but, but … if that is true, why does it itch so? Oh, it is not an itch, not really, but it is a feeling I do not have a name for—an angry not-knowing feeling, a feeling that if I did understand the thing I do not understand, I would be angry. And that is a feeling like an itch.
Twisty words for twisty thoughts. I do not want to think them, but the itch makes me. Miranda says a servant is someone who is good and helpful, but I do not think that is what Master means.
Master means it is someone who does what Master says, what Master wants. And Ariel did not want to be a servant; Ariel wanted to be free.
Like me.
But I was not trapped in a tree. I was free before Master made me come to him. And I did not make a promise to the Lord God in the sky to do what Master says for years and years and years.
So why am I a servant?
I ask Miranda this.
“Oh, Caliban! Why does it matter?” Her brow goes wrinkle-crinkle again. She touches me again, puts her hand on mine. “You’re my friend. Servant is only a word. Like Master.”
I look at her hand on mine. It is little and pale. Even with dirt under them, her fingernails are like seashells. My hand is bigger and stronger and darker, and my fingernails are raggedy jaggedy. Not as much as before, but still.
Only a word.
Words fall through my thoughts like stones through water.
Servant.
Unwholesome. That is another word, a word Ariel said about me. I do not know it, and I do not like the sound of this one either; but it does not make as strong of an itch inside me, not yet. I let it fall. I will pick it up another time.
Master.
But Master is not a word in the same way as servant because it is his name, and one person’s name is not the same as a word that is a name for every one of that thing, like boy or hare or tuber.
I say this to Miranda.
Her eyes go wide and her mouth opens and closes. “Oh! It’s not … Caliban, did you think Master was Papa’s name?”
“Yes.” I feel my own brow crinkle. Could it be untrue? It is the name Master gave me to call him. “Is it not?”
She takes her hand away, puts her hands together in front of her and looks down. “No.” Her voice is soft. “No, it’s, um … I suppose you would call it a title. A term of respect.”
I echo the word. “Respect?”
Miranda looks up and her eyes ask me silently to understand. “To show thanks and loyalty, yes. Just as I call him Papa because he is my father, and just as we say that God in His heaven is the Master of us all. Remember? I taught you as much.”
I scrub dirt from a tuber and think a great many thoughts. Servant and Master; these words are knotted together. Ariel did not say the word until he says his promise, until Master frees him from the tree. Ariel knew. I did not know. It is like Master has told me a lie.
Did he?
I cannot remember all the words from when I had no words. I remember the first knowing and that is Miranda, knowing she is Miranda even if I did not have any words but her name yet; and then the second knowing that is like when lightning comes, and that is finding a thing that was lost from long, long ago when Umm was alive. Me. A word that is my name. Caliban. I am Caliban.
What did Master say? Did he say, “I am Master”? Did he say, “Call me Master”? Or did he only touch his chest and say, “Master”?
I look at Miranda. She is peeling onions now, her hands go peel, peel, peeling away the crinkly brown skin. If I ask about the word again, it will make her sad. Maybe it is true it does not matter, it is only a word. But there is magic in words.
There is magic in knowing.
And I did not know the meaning of this word, Master. Now I do. The itch grows stronger.
I am angry.
But I think … what if I am angry and bad? Master does not need me anymore. He has Ariel; Ariel with his smile like a knife, Ariel who whooshes away like the wind. Ariel who can fetch things from every corner of the island and the deepest depths of the sea around it.
Ariel who says, Well, I shall prove myself the better.
The better servant.
It is a thought that tastes bad to me, but, but, but … I look down at Miranda’s bright golden head bent over the onions. And I think about the day that she and Master came to the island, oh, so long ago, and how little she was in his arms and lying asleep on the sand, and his cold, angry voice speaking to someone across the sea. I think how Master put his lips on her while she sleeps, and I think that he loves her, but I think maybe she is not the thing he loves best of all. I think maybe Master loves his anger more. And I think about the way Master looks at her today, and speaks of things to come.
(What things, Master?)
Oh, yes, there is a worse thing Master could do than call me his servant when I do not know what it means. He could send me away.
Away from you, Miranda.
I know in my bones that Master can do this, and I know in my bones that I do not want it.