"We don't know whether they like the new name," said Valentine. She also thought: Does Ender have any idea how much work it is to put on a play?
"They know the name," Ender assured her.
"But do they like it?" asked Valentine.
"It doesn't matter," said Alessandra. "Not enough women ruoli, parti—how do you say it?" She turned to Valentine helplessly.
" 'Role,' " said Valentine. "Or 'part.' "
"Oh." Alessandra giggled. It was not an annoying giggle, it was a rather charming one. It didn't make her sound stupid. "The same words! Of course."
"She's right," said Valentine. "The colonists are about half and half, and Shakespeare's plays are what, five percent female parts?"
"Oh well," said Ender. "It was a thought."
"I wish we could put on a play," said Alessandra. "But maybe we can read them together?"
"In theater," said Dorabella. "The place for holografi. We all read. Me, I listen, my English is not good enough."
"It's a good idea," said Ender. "Why don't you organize it, Signora Toscano?"
"Please call me of Dorabella."
"There's no 'of' in that sentence," said Alessandra. "There isn't in Italian, either."
"English has so much 'of,' everywhere 'of,' except where I put it!" 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. ElfKing@Faerie.gov." 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, though, she could see that Dorabella knew she was being silly, but still meant it from the heart. It gave the movement, and her facial expression, a sort of irony that made it easy to forgive the silliness and affectation of it, while the sincerity turned it into something quite winning.
The woman isn't old, thought Valentine. She's still young and quite good looking. Beautiful, even, especially now, especially in this strange fairyish dance.
The song ended. Dorabella kept dancing in the silence.
"Mother, you can stop flying now," said Alessandra gently.
"But I can't," said Dorabella, and now she was openly teasing. "In this starship we fly for fifty years!"
"Forty years," said Ender.
"Two years," said Alessandra.
Apparently Ender liked the idea of doing a play, because he brought them all back to the topic. "Not Romeo and Juliet," he said. "We need a comedy, not a tragedy."