“He’s religious,” said Elphaba, and made the circling palms gesture that indicated you could grind millstone against millstone all you liked, but there wasn’t any quern in the land that could produce flour if there was no grain to grind.
“It sounds very hard for you all. How did your mama die?”
“She died in childbirth, and this is the end of the personal interview.”
“Tell me about Doctor Dillamond. I hear you’re working for him.”
“Tell me about your amusing campaign for the heart of Galinda the Ice Queen.”
Boq really wanted to hear about Doctor Dillamond, but was derailed by Elphaba’s remark. “I will keep on, Elphie, I will! When I see her I’m so smitten with longing, it’s like fire in my veins. I can’t speak, and the things I think about are like visions. It’s like dreaming. It’s like floating in your dreams.”
“I don’t dream.”
“Tell me, is there any hope? What does she say? Does she ever even imagine that her feelings for me might change?”
Elphaba sat with her two elbows on the table, her hands clasped in front of her face, her two forefingers leaning against each other and against her thin, grayish lips. “You know, Boq,” she said, “the thing is I have become fond of Galinda myself. Behind her starry-eyed love of herself there is a mind struggling to work. She does think about things. When her mind is really working, she could, if led, think on you—even, I suspect, somewhat fondly. I suspect. I don’t know. But when she slides back into herself, I mean into the girl who spends two hours a day curling that beautiful hair, it’s as if the thinking Galinda goes into some internal closet and shuts the door. Or as if she’s in hysterical retreat from things that are too big for her. I love her both ways, but I find it odd. I wouldn’t mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don’t know the way out.”
“I propose you’re being hard on her, and you’re certainly too forward,” said Boq sternly. “Were she sitting here I think she’d be astounded to hear you speak so freely.”
“I’m just trying to behave as I think a friend should behave. Granted, I haven’t had much practice.”
“Well, I question your friendship with me, if you consider Miss Galinda your friend too, and if that’s how you tear a friend apart in her absence.”
Though Boq was irritated, he found that this was a more lively discussion than the conventional patter he and Galinda had so far exchanged. He didn’t want to burn Elphaba off with criticism. “I’m ordering you another mineral tea,” he said, in an authoritative voice, his father’s voice in fact, “and then you can tell me about Doctor Dillamond.”
“Skip the tea, I’m still nursing this one and you have no more money than I do, I bet,” said Elphaba, “but I’ll tell you about Doctor Dillamond. Unless you are too affronted at the slice and ang
le of my opinions.”
“Please, perhaps I am wrong,” said Boq. “Look, it’s a nice day, we’re both off the campus. How do you come to be out alone, by the way? Is your escape sanctioned by Madame Morrible?”
“Take a guess about that,” she said, grinning. “Once it was clear that you could come and go from Crage Hall by way of the vegetable garden and the roof of the adjacent stable, I decided I could too. I’m never missed.”
“That’s hard for me to believe,” said he, daringly, “for you’re not the kind who blends into the woodwork. Now tell me about Doctor Dillamond. He’s my idol.”
She sighed, and set the package down on the table at last, and settled in for a long chat. She told him about Doctor Dillamond’s work in natural essences, trying to determine by scientific method what the real differences were between animal and Animal tissue, and between Animal and human tissue. The literature on the matter, she had learned from doing the legwork herself, was all couched in unionist terms, and pagan terms before that, and they didn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. “Don’t forget Shiz University was originally a unionist monastery,” said Elphaba, “so despite the anything-goes attitude among the educated elite, there are still bedrocks of unionist bias.”
“But I’m a unionist,” said Boq, “and I don’t see the conflict. The Unnamed God is accommodating to many ranges of being, not just human. Are you talking about a subtle bias against Animals, interwoven into early unionist tracts, and still in operation today?”
“That’s certainly what Doctor Dillamond thinks. And he’s a unionist himself. Explain that paradox and I’d be glad to convert. I admire the Goat intensely. But the real interest of it to me is the political slant. If he can isolate some bit of the biological architecture to prove that there isn’t any difference, deep down in the invisible pockets of human and Animal flesh—that there’s no difference between us—or even among us, if you take in animal flesh too—well, you see the implications.”
“No,” said Boq, “I don’t think I do.”
“How can the Banns on Animal Mobility be upheld if Doctor Dillamond can prove, scientifically, that there isn’t any inherent difference between humans and Animals?”
“Oh, now that’s a blueprint for an impossibly rosy future,” said Boq.
“Think about it,” said Elphaba. “Think, Boq. On what grounds could the Wizard possibly continue to publish those Banns?”
“How could he be persuaded not to? The Wizard has dissolved the Hall of Approval indefinitely. I don’t believe, Elphie, that the Wizard is open to entertaining arguments, even by as august an Animal as Doctor Dillamond.”
“But of course he must be. He’s a man in power, it’s his job to consider changes in knowledge. When Doctor Dillamond has his proof, he’ll write to the Wizard and begin to lobby for change. No doubt he’ll do his best to let Animals the land over know what he’s intending, too. He isn’t a fool.”
“Well I didn’t say he was a fool,” said Boq. “But how close do you think he is to getting firm evidence?”
“I am a student handmaid,” said Elphaba. “I don’t even understand what he means. I’m only a secretary, an amanuensis—you know he can’t write things himself, he can’t manage a pen with his hoofs. I take dictation and I file and I dash to the Crage Hall library and look things up.”
“Briscoe Hall library would be a better place to hunt for that kind of material,” said Boq. “Even Three Queens, where I work this summer, has stacks of documents from the monks’ observations of animal and vegetable life.”
