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."
"The Merry Wives of Windsor," said Valentine. "Lots of women's parts."
"The Taming of the Shrew!" cried Alessandra, and Dorabella almost collapsed with laughter. Another reference, apparently, to Isabella. And when they stopped laughing, they insisted that Shrew was the perfect play. "I will read the part of the madwoman," said Dorabella. Valentine noticed that Alessandra seemed to be biting back some kind of comment.
So it was that the plan was conceived for a play reading in the theater three days later—days by ship's time, though the whole concept of time seemed rather absurd to Valentine, on this voyage where forty years would pass in less than two. What would her birthday be now? Would she count her age by ship's time or the elapsed calendar when she arrived? And what did Earth's calendar mean on Shakespeare?
Naturally, Dorabella and Alessandra came to Ender often during the days of preparation, asking him endless questions. Even though he made it clear that all the decisions were up to them, that he was not in charge of the event, he was never impatient with them. He seemed to enjoy their company—though Valentine suspected that it was not for the reason Dorabella had hoped. Ender wasn't falling in love with Alessandra—if he was infatuated with anyone, it was likely to be the mother. No, what Ender was falling in love with was the family-ness of them. They were close in a way that Ender and Valentine had once been close. And they were including Ender in that closeness.
Why couldn't I have done that for him? Valentine was quite jealous, but only because of her own failure, not because she wished to deprive him of the pleasure he was getting from the Toscanos.
It was inevitable, of course, that they enlisted Ender himself to read the part of Lucentio, the handsome young suitor of Bianca—played, of course, by Alessandra. Dorabella herself read Kate the Shrew, while Valentine was relegated to the part of the Widow. Valentine didn't even pretend not to want to read the part—this was the most interesting thing going on in the ship, and why not be at the heart of it? She was Ender's sister; let people hear her voice, especially in the ribald, exaggerated part of the Widow.
It was entertaining for Valentine to see how the men and boys who were cast in the many other parts focused on Dorabella. The woman had an incredible laugh, rich and throaty and contagious. To earn a laugh from her in this comedy was a fine thing, and the men all vied to please her. It made Valentine wonder if getting Ender and Alessandra together was really Dorabella's agenda? Perhaps it's what she thought she was doing, but in fact Dorabella held the center of the stage herself, and seemed to love having all eyes on her. She flirted with them all, fell in love with them all, and yet always seemed to be in a world of her own, too.
Has Kate the Shrew ever been played like this before?
Does every woman have what this Dorabella has? Valentine searched in her heart to find that kind of ebullience. I know how to have fun, Valentine insisted to herself. I know how to be playful.
But she knew there was always irony in her wit, a kind of snottiness in her banter. Alessandra's timidity covered everything she did—she was bold in what she said, but it was as if her own words surprised and embarrassed her after the fact. Dorabella, however, was neither ironic nor frightened. Here was a woman who had faced all her dragons and slain them; now she was ready for the accolades of the admiring throng. She cried out Kate's dialogue from the heart, her rage, her passion, her petulance, her frustration, and finally her love. The final monologue, in which she submits to her husband's will, was so beautiful it made Valentine cry a little, and she thought: I wonder what it would be like to love and trust a man so much that I'd be willing to abase myself as Kate did. Is there something in women that makes us long to be humbled? Or is it something in human beings, that when we are overmastered, we rejoice in our subjection? That would explain a lot of history.
Since everyone who was interested in the play was already in it, and attending the rehearsals, it wasn't as if the actual performance was going to surprise anyone. Valentine almost asked the whole group, at the last rehearsal, "Why bother to put it on? We just did it, and it was wonderful."
