The Caryatids

"Well, I love them all so very dearly, but…they're so fierce and dedicated and selfless and good! They frankly tire me! Biserka considers herself a cauldron of criminal genius, but since she's so completely self-absorbed, and so devoid of any interest and empathy for others-motivated entirely by her resentment and always on the make-well, Biserka's certainly the easiest to manage. There's something abject about Biserka. I don't have to negotiate that relationship all the time. Biserka is the one that I fully understand. And she needs me the most. Left alone in a room, Biserka would sting herself to death like a scorpion. She will always need her rescuer. She'll always need a white knight to save her, she'll always be in trouble, and she will always depend on me. That's why I love her the best."

"To love an evil woman means that you are evil."

Montalban shrugged. "I like to think of myself as a deeply fallible man who is healthily in touch with his dark side."

Biserka cast a shovelful of dirt over Radmila's beautiful shoes. Radmila resolutely ignored her.

"Hey, I think I'm getting a blister!" Biserka whined, straightening and sucking at her fingers. "Why don't we stop all this hard work and let the servants do it?"

"Get out of the way," said Vera.

Biserka stabbed her shovel into a loose mound of dirt and departed the grave in a huff.

"You shouldn't have said that to her," said George mildly.

"Oh, so she

has a hard life?" snarled Vera. "I've been digging up this island for ten years! Do you smell that fresh air from the hills? I built that fresh air."

"You thought that was work?" Sonja demanded, incredulous. "Your ten-year vacation on a tropical island? I fought and I suffered! The air was black! The air killed people!"

Radmila was silky. "I hope you don't expect us to praise you for worming your way into the bowels of a totalitarian regime."

"Listen to you, " shouted Vera. "You're famous and rich! Even your daughter is famous and rich."

"Vera, is it my fault that you missed out on life by dressing up like a skeleton?"

"At least I'm not like her, " shouted Vera, "a soldier's whore who lifts her skirt for any man with a gun!"

Sonja scowled. "Like a Hollywood actress is the pillar of chastity? I don't think our dirty skirts are any of your dirty business, Vera."

"They're going to kill each other now," Inke told Montalban. "Those spades can be turned into weapons."

"Any technology is a weapon. Go and stop them now, Inke."

"What, me? I'm a nobody."

"That's what I treasure about you. You're a normal human being, and you've even got normal kids. Go and stop them, Inke. You must. We've got only a few seconds left. Go intervene, make them more normal. Hurry."

"You do it."

"I can't. Don't argue with me. Do it, go." Montalban squeezed her shoulder, gave her a little push.

Inke somehow tottered into the midst of the sisterhood. They'd stopped heaving dirt into the grave and were hefting their shovels to batter and slash.

Everyone in the crowd was silently watching the tableau. Even George was staring at her intervention. Yet George seemed unsurprised to see her jumping into the quarrel. He was even daring to hope for the best.

AFTERWORD

THE CARYATIDS: AN INTERVIEW WITH

AUTEUR DIRECTOR MARY MONTALBAN

…

MARY MONTALBAN: So, yes, clearly, the funeral was a great cathartic moment. My grandmother died twenty-six years ago. The death of that oldest clone freed the Caryatids to take on different lives.

ENTERTAINMENT INSIDER: We do know a lot about the Caryatids, but we rarely hear much about your aunt Inke.

MM: Well, no, of course not. Inke's family, but she's not in the Family-Firm.

EI:

So: What on Earth did Inke do for them?

MM: Inke did something they could never do for themselves. Those of us who know them and love them best-we all know that they're not individuals. The Caryatids are a matched set-a broken, damaged set. Inke knew that, she sensed it. So-there at the funeral, in public-Inke convinced them that they should exchange their burdens. They could choose to abandon their own roles, and play the roles of the others instead.

EI: Because Radmila was heartbroken. Sonja was defeated. Vera was hiding in some forest…

MM: Yes, they were miserable, but since they weren't quite human, they did have other options. If they could see beyond despair, they could hold up one another's burdens instead of breaking under their own.

EI: Cooperating. Like caryatids changing positions as they hold up some building. «Caryatids» being female sculptures that support buildings on their heads. From ancient Greek architecture.

MM: I can see you've been studying.

EI: Caryatids, that's not exactly a common title for an artwork.

MM: I know-but it all goes back to the ancient Greeks, doesn't it? The Greeks were the first to write "history."

EI: Ancient history seems to mean a great deal to your Family-Firm.