Feel Your Way Through the Scene
From “A Redress for Andromeda,” by Caitlín R. Kiernan:
‘They’ll ask you questions,’ and now Darren’s almost whispering, hushed words meant for her and no one else. ‘But don’t ever feel like you have to tell them anything you don’t want to tell them. They don’t mean to be pushy, Tara. They’re just impatient, that’s all.’ She starts to ask what he means by that exactly, impatient, but then she and Darren are already in the parlor again. The small and murmuring crowd opens momentarily, parting long enough to take them in, and then it closes eagerly around them.
Caitlín Kiernan doesn’t tell you what Darren means by “impatient.” Better than that, she lets you live it.
Mood: Darren speaks softly to Tara here. It immediately has the effect of making this scene feel like a secret not just between the two of them but between the three of you. You grow suspicious of the outside group because apparently there are types of sentiments they shouldn’t hear. You fear for Tara’s future encounters because although the group may not intend to be pushy, it’s clear that they will be pushy, and you figure Tara will be forced into something uncomfortable. The group is impatient and, because of its lack of self-awareness, won’t be able to escape its own momentum, and neither will you or Tara be able to escape it.
Levels of Confidence: Despite the group’s lack of awareness, Darren has a confidence that the group will be able to manage itself to a degree that Tara can sustain. Therefore, the group’s impatience, as he views it, comes across as something almost fun. It’s a foreplay of sorts; a set of leading intentions that can progress to something bigger. Darren sees this as a controlled force, but Tara doesn’t appear to share that view. She focuses on the word — impatient — and wants clarification about what it should mean. By allowing her and Darren’s entrance to the parlor to interrupt Tara's thoughts, it seems Kiernan pushes Tara more toward unease than fright. They’re just questions, after all.
Group Dynamics: Tara and Darren’s move into the parlor marks a shift in how the bodies and minds of these two characters interact with each other and the group. There’s a pulse in this scene as the group shrinks and grows. Physically, the two bodies of Tara and Darren are together and then move into the parlor, absorbed by the crowd. Mentally, Darren controls the first part of this scene with his quiet speech that singles out Tara and blocks the group. Then Tara finds control for a moment as she considers the word and feeling of her focus. And finally, the group takes over and absorbs the two of them.
When those aspects of the scene combine, many shifts take place that give you a picture of what impatience could mean to any of the actors involved.
Darren remains confident throughout the scene. He sees this as a game.
Tara teeters in her acceptance of the confidence that Darren projects. She sees this as a situation to be wary of.
The group has always been eagerly waiting to consume the both of them. Its members will act as they always do.
This pulls me in different directions as a reader.
I feel afraid that Darren is hiding something. Immediately he whispers, which means he has something to hide from one or many people. The group apparently can’t be trusted, yet he’s comfortable with how they will treat a newcomer. The situation and his unwavering confidence make me as uneasy as Tara appears to be.
As a result, I have strong feelings about Tara’s experience. I want her to be safe in this story. I want to know what impatient means as much as she does, and most important, it’s because of my trepidation toward Darren that I know why she wants clarification.
The group meanwhile remains a foreboding entity on the outskirts. They have given Darren and Tara less than enough time to voice their concerns to each other. Then they swallow the pair whole and begin to force upon them the impatience I still can’t define.
Yet I have lived this — what Kiernan has not outright stated. I get to make up my own mind about what it means that the group won’t conform to Tara’s newness and sensitivity. It’s like I was part of the whispered conversation and was consumed by the crowd alongside her and her partner. We’re in this together.