Special Challenge 446

Give Them Wine

In Mary B. McArdle’s Give Them Wine, Nakoma’s sudden appearance and her explanation raise perplexing questions:

“The first thing we must do is to remove ourselves from this building,” Nakoma said. “The punishment for being caught here is death.”

What is Nakoma doing in the inner sanctum of the Storytellers’ Hall in the first place? Why is she waiting in the dark? How did she know that Donas was coming?
Nakoma: “And I watched those old men at their work. Their enslavement of the male population here.”

Who were those “old men”? And why were men — rather than women — working to “enslave” the male population?
“Donas was in such a state of shock she did not stop to consider how Nakoma knew about Katera.”

Is the author’s intervention necessary here? Donas has already told Barrett that Katera is her, Donas’, mother. And Donas’ origin in Katera’s commune is already a matter of common knowledge.
Donas: “I knew there was something strange about this building and that cup of wine.”

What cup of wine is Donas talking about? None is mentioned in this chapter or in chapter 19.
Nakoma: “And have you ever once seen Sebastian tell his wife to do something? Or has it always been the other way around?”

Donas reflects that Barrett is more “decisive” than Sebastian, but why should either one “tell” the other to do something? Can’t they ask politely? Is Nakoma inadvertently tipping her hand and revealing an authoritarian mentality she means to hide?
Nakoma: ““You will give your bridegroom a drink of the secret wine that Alfreda keeps at her house. And then he will be your servant forever.”

Why will the bridegroom be his bride’s servant and not the servant of women in general? The drug apparently causes imprinting by the person who administers it. Doesn’t Nakoma need to explain that crucial — and implausible — detail?
Nakoma: ““We are all ‘Kateras’ here, Donas, once we are wed. You will be just like your mother.”

In what way is the statement self-contradictory?
According to Nakoma, the women who know about the drugged wine are herself, Barrett, and Alfreda. Are they the only ones? Or might all the other women in the “City” be complicit in the plot?

If all the women are in on the plot, how could the drugged wine be kept secret? Would it not be more plausible that all males would be drugged at an early age — as they are in Katera’s commune — and thus be forced to accept their alleged subservience?
Wine apparently serves a purely ceremonial function both in Katera’s commune and among the South People; otherwise it is not in common use. The taboo is plausible in present-day cultures of the Deep South that observe an almost Koranic prohibition of alcohol. Judging by the documents Donas espies on the table in the Storytellers’ Hall, might the “wine” not be wine at all but a herbal concoction?
Is it possible that Nakoma is simply telling Donas a pack of lies in order to get Donas out of town, possibly for Nakoma to have Lionel to herself?

If so, why does Nakoma not shortcut the process and drug Lionel’s drink — “slip him a mickey,” so to speak? Might Donas reasonably surmise at this point that at least part of Nakoma’s story is a fabrication?

Responses welcome!