I knew them from the holovid; at least I knew their faces - those of the Jedi fighting to preserve the Republic in the Clone War (known at the time as the Civil War). Prominent among the humans was Obiwan Kenobi, always tacitly urbane and perfectly groomed, always able to say the right thing in a humorously adroit manner. But equally often the younger and more dangerous-looking Anakin Skywalker would appear - tall, broad-shouldered, and invariably dressed in unrelieved black. With his wild golden hair he was not as neat; nor was he as articulate as Master Jedi Kenobi, but he had a magnetism which penetrated the holovid and made him popular with the young female set (who were either ignorant of the Jedi lifestyle, or felt themselves safe because of it). I myself mistrusted his charisma - I suppose I found it unsuitable for a Jedi, though I conceded he helped to popularize the sect at a time when it had declined.
But I digress. My intent was to tell what these people - and the Jedi as an order - were really like in those times, at least from my limited personal experience. And as I found out, it is patently not possible to know what someone is like from watching them on the holovid.
My second son, Jharadi, had joined the order at the age of five. To set matters straight, we took our children for voluntary testing when the Jedi came through our city for recruitment. Although our younger son had some sensitivity, Jharadi's was stronger and they asked if he would join. Everything was explained, including the fact that there would be no further contact with him, though we were assured that if he failed his initial testing, he would come home (and we were given a time period beyond which we knew he had passed the test). We were certainly not forced or coerced. In fact, two families declined to send their children when they learned the terms and there was absolutely no action taken against them. I make this distinction because I have heard horror stories told and retold by the ignorant of the Jedi "stealing babies." They did not. To continue, however, we chose to let Jharadi go with them - he wanted to go, though admittedly we weren't sure whether he understood he would be leaving us forever. Still, there was an assurance that he could leave the order at any time of his own free will if he decided it wasn't for him. Events since this give me no reason to disbelieve this statement; I suspect the reason few leave is that after once learning their "craft" they find there is nowhere else they may openly practice it.
I begin my narrative on a day about a month after the ignominious demise of then-Chancellor Palpatine, who was ultimately revealed as a practitioner of the dark arts of the force. It took five Jedi to bring him down; three of them died in the process, and the other two were gravely injured. One of the survivors - the one reputed to have delivered the killing blow - was Anakin Skywalker.
It is needless to say that the Republic reeled under this scandal. Nevermind that none of us, myself included, had seen in the chancellor anything other than a kindly old gentleman, and that the senate itself had voted almost wholesale to give him unimaginable power and keep him in office far longer than should have been allowed. But once he was dead and his dark power vanished, everyone saw it, and the finger-pointing began in earnest. Two factions found themselves primarily at the receiving end of the blame: Anyone and everything from Naboo (the chancellor's home planet), and the Jedi order.
The Jedi came in for particularly harsh condemnation not only because they had failed to see the chancellor for what he was earlier, but because the two survivors of the battle, Jedi Master Windu and then-Jedi Knight Skywalker, had essentially stood over him with lightsabers drawn and argued with each other about what to do with him. A security holo, not shown on the holovid due to its graphic nature, was played several times for the senate, and analyzed not only by them, but by what seemed like every person in the galaxy who worked for the media. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as bare words do no convey expression), someone also thought to put up a text transcript on the holonet. What the debate boiled down to was that Windu, who was the senior Jedi, had wanted to execute the (apparently helpless) chancellor on the spot, and Skywalker blocked his swing, citing such an action's prohibition by the Jedi code. To add insult to injury, Windu's justification was that he had no faith or trust in the senate. Probably because of this, the senate came down hard on Windu and the order itself (Windu was the Jedi Council's second), even though (as he argued in his own defense) if he had been allowed to strike the chancellor when he'd wished, it would have saved them both considerable injury afterward and the outcome - the chancellor being killed - would have been the same. But to further their case against Windu, the senate tried to make Skywalker its darling. Clearly uncomfortable testifying against a superior in his own order (if not the order itself), he tried valiantly to humble himself by dropping a veritable bombshell: He had himself broken the Jedi code, willfully and continually, for the past three years, he said, and so was not qualified to judge others on this matter. His crime: a secret marriage - to the (very pregnant) senator from Naboo!
His addendum, that he had now informed the order and submitted his resignation, went almost unheard in the ensuing uproar. His own charisma, so useful before, worked against him. Although the senate called a recess immediately, to collect its breath, the media bore down on him as soon as he left the chamber, and he stood blinking in their camera lights and mumbling vague replies to their staccato questions until his wife arrived and extricated him with the skill of an adept politician. I say none of this helped Jedi Master Windu's case with the senate. It did, however, alleviate the media coverage given to the investigation because sex and romance in the emotionless halls of the Jedi order sold better.
If this sounds cynical it is because I felt that way at the time all this happened. Skywalker's admission did nothing other than confirm an opinion I'd formed of him previously, and while I did think Windu was singularly unrepentant, I considered Skywalker more dangerous as a role model for my son and the other young Jedi. The only positive thing I felt he'd done was to finally resign from the order. Windu's transgression I felt would be settled by the Jedi (who had not been inactive in reviewing the incident), if not by the senate.
With this as the background, further tragedy struck: Unable to justify his actions to the senate or Jedi council and, unwilling to admit any fault, Jedi Master Windu snapped. On the evening known to history as the Jedi Massacre, he took a battalion of clones (who would follow their commander - a Jedi - without question) and marched on the Jedi temple. Most of the Jedi Masters were still absent, wrapping up their own commands on the farflung planets struck by the war. But Windu's broken mind wasn't interested in them; he was intent on destroying the Jedi children. Why is unknown and has been the subject of much debate, but in all likelihood, not for any reason a sane person would consider rational. Those in attendance, Kenobi and council head Yoda among them, fought valiantly but were delayed by the clone army, leaving the childrens' quarters to be defended by the adolescent padawans. From this, somehow, out of nowhere, even though no longer a member of the order, Anakin Skywalker appeared and fought Master Windu to the death. Their fight shook the temple's structural supports and caused parts of the ceiling to collapse. It was this collapsed ceiling that ultimately killed Windu, although Skywalker was unable to avoid it himself. They found them both crushed beneath the rubble; Skywalker, however, was still - at least nominally - breathing.
As I said, the event is called the Jedi Massacre, although only one Jedi besides Master Windu was actually killed in the incident: Padawan Jedi Jharadi Vann, my son, was the only innocent casualty. I hold the distinction of being the first parent ever notified by the Jedi of their child's death. This is not to say that no child ever before died in the Jedi service. Accidents happen, as they will in any vocation. But they were never previously reported outside of the order. I have since learned that their change in policy was due to debate sparked by the controversy surrounding the incident with the chancellor, but which had not been completely agreed upon until they were faced with the need to take action - or not take it. But once they made the decision, they followed through quickly.
News of the battle in the Jedi temple - minus the names of the casualties except for Windu and Skywalker, but including the information that all of the younglings (Jedi students less than 10 years of age) were safe - had barely been reported when the knock on the door came. I was home by myself at the time; the children who still lived at home were gone to their friends' houses. My husband had passed away two years before. I opened the door and saw Obiwan Kenobi. I blinked, probably twice. He looked almost exactly as he did on the holovid, though a bit taller than I expected, and in person his hair and beard were much redder. His arms were folded, as they usually were when he spoke, but once he asked if I was Mrs. Vann, was told yes, and introduced himself, he did not speak with eloquence. In fact, he seemed unable to speak at all. I knew he was there to tell me something bad about Jharadi, and I told him so. He took a deep breath, sighed, and asked if I had heard about the attack on the temple. I said yes. He hesitated a moment, and finally told me bluntly that Jharadi had been killed. He said more, that he was sorry, I suppose, as that is the standard thing one says, but I didn't hear it. Instead, my mind went back over the news footage, over and over and over. I finally asked if Jharadi had been crushed. I meant to say "crushed to death" but couldn't. He understood and said that no, he'd been killed in a lightsaber duel, and that they believed Jharadi had held out long enough to allow the younger children to escape (although the ceiling had later collapsed). He also said the standard thing - that I should be proud of him (as if I could be otherwise). I went back in the house - or rather, I found myself standing back inside. He followed me in. When I turned around and looked at him, he told me there would be a memorial service held when the injured children had healed enough to attend; he thought in three or four weeks, and told me he would escort me if I wished to attend. I thanked him. He hesitated again, and then asked if I wanted him to call someone to come stay with me. I shook my head. He nodded and started to leave, then stopped and closed his eyes for several moments. When he opened them, he told me that it would be some time before anyone came home on their own and then asked if I minded if he call someone. I felt the same, so I shook my head again. I didn't care what he did or didn't do. He got the listing from me and somehow got me to call my daughter. When she got there, he gave me a plastisheet with the memorial information on it, bowed, and left.
Three weeks later they held the service. My children didn't want to go - even a free trip to Coruscant wouldn't sway them - they wanted to stay with their friends. And they barely remembered Jharadi anyway, if at all. The youngest was born after he'd already left. So they stayed with my oldest, a daughter who certainly remembered him, but had her own family and couldn't leave. And as he promised, Master Kenobi came to get me himself.
On the way back, he asked me if I had any questions. I did have one which I was uncertain of how to phrase, so didn't ask it until we were nearly there: I wanted to know what Anakin Skywalker was doing at the Jedi Temple if he were no longer a member, but more than that, I wanted to know why, if he was there, he couldn't save my son. I had never liked his holovid persona; during the three weeks before the memorial service, I had convinced myself that his flamboyance had cost my son his life. But I didn't say this. I only asked why he was there if he wasn't a member. This question had never been addressed to my satisfaction in the media.
Master Kenobi's reply took me by surprise. He said that Anakin (he called him by his given name) had not, in fact, been at the temple, but had been "at home" when he'd realized the children were in danger. I must have looked incredulous, because he stopped then and explained to me how the Jedi ability worked: among other things, he said, the Jedi are able to "see" things before they happen. This gives them the reflexes necessary to use their lightsabers as shields and reflectors of energy beams such as blaster bolts. Those with an especially strong ability, such as (he said) Master Yoda and Anakin, have the ability to see farther ahead. But he hadn't been able to get there before the fighting started. He was only able to get through at all because of a fluke; the clone troops had been ordered to kill all the Jedi at the temple, but since it had been widely reported that Anakin was no longer a Jedi (and he no longer wore a lightsaber), he wasn't attacked. I know I must have expressed some doubt, if only by expression, because he gazed at me levelly and said that they knew this for a fact as some surviving clones had told them so. And in answer to my unasked question, he told me that Jharadi was already dead before Anakin got there and that it was my son's lightsaber he'd used to fight Master Windu. I had to concede to myself that the clones' account (and the inferred verification that Anakin had come from outside the temple) couldn't be questioned. But it didn't satisfy me entirely (how did he know Jharadi was already dead, for instance). In the three weeks since Master Kenobi first appeared on my doorstep, I had gone from shocked numbness to raging anger. And my anger was directed almost entirely at Anakin Skywalker, as much because I'd always disapproved of his holovid image as because he'd been the only sane adult present.
It would be boring and trivial to detail my arrival on Coruscant or the stay in the hotel there, so I will skip now to my arrival at the temple ahead of the ceremony the next day. Again, I was escorted by Master Kenobi and we were met by Master Yoda upon our arrival. That ancient head of the Jedi Council had always managed to stay out of the public's eye, so I was a bit taken aback (I am ashamed to say) when we were introduced. The reputedly most powerful of the Masters has a physical appearance which appears less than harmless; in fact, he appears to be completely inconsequential. I had never seen one of his species, and unfortunately said so. He replied, with what I can only describe as a philosophic fatalism, that there were no longer any others of his kind. Needless to say, this went a long way in helping me curb any angry words about my son I might otherwise have uttered. Losing my son was heartbreaking; I could not even begin to imagine the loneliness I would feel if I were the only one left of my kind. But he very politely ignored both my rude bluntness and my subsequent embarrassed discomfort, and as we walked into the temple (Master Kenobi and I walked; the wizened Master Yoda floated beside us, his cane laid across his knees, on a backless hoverchair), he asked Master Kenobi if I had been told. I barely had time to wonder what that meant - surely he would know I'd been told about Jharadi dying - when Master Kenobi said no. He then added that he thought it would best wait until I had seen Jharadi's quarters.
His room was quite small; all the more so since it was shared with another padawan (who was not present). I saw Jharadi's neatly dressed sleeping mat, his small desk and chair, and some hooks on the wall where presumably he'd hung his cloak or robe or other article of clothing. Nothing hung there now. I stared at the empty mat, wondering if it was exactly the way he'd left it, the folds of the sheet creased by his own hands. As a consequence, I missed the first part of what Master Kenobi was saying and he had to repeat it for me. "I said," he told me gently, "that when we went through his belongings, we found something unexpected." He'd removed the top desk drawer and pointed inside the empty cavity. "In there," he said. When he was supposed to be studying lessons of battle-tactics, my son had written music. A lot of music. Very good music, they said. And they said that a selection of his music would be performed by the Coruscant Symphonic Orchestra at the memorial service.
The hall in the temple was immense, capable of holding many times the number of people who were actually present. I don't mean to imply that there wasn't a large crowd, because there was, only to underscore the disparity there must have been between the Jedi Order at that time and what it must have been like in its ascendency. This was especially brought home to me when I realized that many dignitaries from the Republic were also in attendance, not just members of the order.
They had me sit at the back, as we (the parents of the Jedi children who had been injured) were to go in as a procession, but they allowed me in the hall in advance so I would be able to hear my son's music in its entirety. I was to be the last in the procession. We were to go up to the front, one by one, as our child's name was called, and accept the Republic's Medal of Valor. It was explained to us that because the Jedi Code forbade possessions, the medals were for us, the parents, to keep. Of course, I already knew mine would be in any case. The older padawan who was handling the processional arrangements, a young man in his early twenties, then told us that it would be Anakin Skywalker who would be presenting the medals. I don't mean to say he drew attention to this fact; he simply told us to walk up to "Master Skywalker" who would be waiting on the dias, and wait quietly while the medal was presented. But the words struck me as if I had walked into a wall. I had not thought I would have to contend with Skywalker; he was no longer in the Jedi Order, nor was he in any respect a dignitary from the Republic. In my view, he had less right to be on that platform handing out awards than a stranger grabbed off the street (which at least would have the advantage of being a completely random choice). Further, Skywalker had been initially reported as "not expected to survive," and while it was true that in three weeks he had yet failed to die (which I was sure would have been mentioned in the news), I thought that if he was healthy enough to be handing out awards, he surely must have been less bad off than was given out - unlike my son, whom he had let die. These are not rational thoughts, and I knew this, even at the time, but they still came to me in my anger. I managed to stifle the worst of them, but was unable to stop myself from asking why Skywalker would hand out awards when he was no longer a Jedi. The padawan was taken aback; it's very possible there was more venom in my tone than I meant to allow, but he quickly recovered and replied that the injured padawans had asked for him to be there; that they had wanted him to receive a medal with them, and when told he was not permitted one (even though no longer a Jedi, he had trained as one and already passed the trials), they had asked if he could present them. By that time I realized that the other parents were staring at me, and suspected I had gone much farther with expressing my hate than I'd intended, so I nodded quickly in acquiescence and looked away. But he didn't stop - instead, he continued on, in a voice of commanding respect (without any apparent judgement on my lack of it, I should add), that the date for the ceremony had already been set and couldn't be changed when the padawans made the request, and even though Master Skywalker would still be in the hospital, he had agreed to come anyway to honor the padawans who fought beside him.
I should have listened to the tone of voice of the young man who told me this story, but his words only caused me to sneer inwardly and envision Master Skywalker as some sort of languishing hypochondriac who only agreed to get his backside out of bed if he could be in the spotlight. I knew this view was completely unwarranted - whatever my low opinion of Skywalker had been up until that point, I had never considered him either a coward or the type that would lay in bed and feign illness for attention. But I was completely irrational by then. My only consolation is that at least, from then on, I managed to keep my mouth shut.
Then the ceremony began, with the first notes of my son's music. I have no idea what I was expecting - something amateurish and possibly sweet, perhaps - but it wasn't the militaristic processional march which rang out of the orchestra (which I later learned he had titled the Jedi Processional). For a moment, my mind even refused to accept that what I was hearing was my son's work - the booming horns which segued into strings sounded as if they had come from the hand of a master composer. As I looked around, however, and saw several of the Padawans nearest to me smile in my direction, I realized that this was Jharadi's work, and that he was, in fact, such a master. Some odd combination of their smiles and Jharadi's presence in the music he had written worked on me to sap away my hostility, and for awhile I was able to sit quietly, as if I were in some sort of bubble, and simply watch everything that went on without judgement.
Many of the Padawans whose seats lined the aisles still bore signs of their injuries, even from a distance. The most obvious of these were the ones confined to hover-chairs, who were still unable to walk. The acting chancellor, a man named Janus from a system I can't recall (he was not subsequently elected), read out the names of the children as their parents walked forward to accept the awards. Skywalker - I presumed it was Skywalker; he was too far away at the time for me to positively identify him - presented them from his own hover-chair.
But it was finally my turn. The young man in charge motioned for me to take my place at the head of the aisle and wait there for my son's name to be called. I expected it to proceed as the others' had, with maybe a different type of medal because he had died, or that I would also be given a flag of the Republic or some such thing to distinguish Jharadi, if they made any distinction at all. Ahead, I saw Skywalker lean slightly in the acting chancellor's direction. A moment passed, then the acting chancellor spoke, clearly displeased with the lack of formality in his words, advising the "Padawans in hover-chairs to please remain seated for the duration of the ceremony, as Master Yoda will not be assisting you to stand." I had only enough time to be confused and slightly insulted by the break in continuity the statement presented, while someone on the platform handed Skywalker what looked like a long black stick. He took it in his right hand and pounded the end of it on the floor, twice, in rapid succession, and the chancellor then said, "All rise." Everyone in the great hall stood (except the Padawans who had been told not to, which I now thought I understood), and then I saw Skywalker set the end of the stick on the floor once more and rise - slowly - from his seat. The chancellor said, "Jedi Padawan Jharadi Vann," and the orchestra launched into a different piece of music - one which began with a high triumphal fanfare of horns and strings combined (the "New Jedi Order"). I literally could not move, and the young coordinator finally had to take my hand and start me walking down the aisle. As I went, I felt rather than saw all the Jedi present stand at attention as I passed.
I made it to the bottom of the platform without lifting my eyes, and found myself staring at his black-gloved hand, still clenched around the black staff. At close range, I saw that the glove extended up almost to his elbow, secured in several places by shiny metal clips and concealing what could have been some sort of tubes or wires in the fabric. Then he held out his free hand to me - which was bare - no doubt to help me up the three short stairs since I had virtually frozen in place at the bottom, and although I didn't really want to, I looked up at him.
It would not really be fair to say that he looked nothing like his public image. Certainly, he was recognizable, if one had met him on the street: he had the same wild, unkempt golden hair, the cleft chin, the high cheekbones, and of course the rakish scar over his right eye. And if I had met him in the full bloom of health, which I did not, he would likely have appeared even more the way I had expected. But he was somewhat shorter than I thought he would be - of no more than average height, and his shoulders did not have quite the breadth I'd thought they had, though he was perfectly in proportion. But more striking to me than that - even more striking than his almost horrifyingly obvious ill health - was simply how young he was. The face I looked up into, though battle-scarred several times over, and with cuts and bruises still fresh from this last fight, was younger than that of the Padawan who had coordinated the ceremony. And, with that, I realized that he was not all that much older than Jharadi had been.
When I took the hand he offered and climbed to stand level with him, I suddenly realized that the stories about his having been near death were true. His complexion was completely colorless, except for a sickly sallow hue imparted from the bruise that hadn't yet faded, which covered the left side of his face; beads of sweat stood out on his brow and lip, his hand trembled slightly as it let mine go, and worst of all, he wheezed faintly each time he inhaled. For a moment I wondered if he was going to collapse. Then I looked in his eyes.
Up until that point, though I had felt numbness and raging anger, I had not yet been able to cry over Jharadi's death. I knew I should have, and wondered why not; wondered if it was because he'd left home so long ago that I didn't remember him enough to cry over him anymore, or if there was simply something else wrong with me - that the anger I felt so wholly replaced the grief that I would never be able to shed a tear over him. The Jedi, of course, made no remark over this; they certainly did not cry - it was, so I understood, against the tenets of their order to indulge in self-pity, which is what mourning essentially is. The memorial service was given for the sake of the parents, who were not Jedi and not expected to hold themselves to its beliefs. This was, in fact, made quite clear on several occasions. But when I looked into Anakin Skywalker's eyes, I saw tears there. In fact, his eyes, which were far too old for his face, were brimming with tears, and as I watched, one broke free and trickled freely down his pale cheek.
He was already holding up the medal in both hands, opening the ribbon to place it around my neck. As I bent my head to accept it and he let it down over my head, I heard him utter a sharp intake of breath, like a soft sob, and thought I saw - whether or not I really did - a tear fall between us. I looked up again at the puffy red eyes in the too-white face, and it seemed they were beseeching me to forgive him for not having been there in time. Something inside me tore loose in that moment and my tears were freed. Once free, they flowed in a torrent, and it was I, more than the frail young man before me, who was in danger of collapse. He held out a hand to steady me, and I found myself sobbing in the arms of the man I had hated with a passion only moments before. He held me quietly as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do, there on that platform in front of the entire Jedi order and much of the senate, until I had collected myself enough to hear his tortured breathing, feel him trembling with strain, and smell the antiseptic scent of the hospital in his clothes. I let go, ashamed and embarrassed that I had clung so to this man who could barely hold himself upright. Yet he held my hand a moment longer and looked into my eyes as if to be sure I was sufficiently recovered before picking him his staff from where he'd laid it and turning to the assembly.
He nodded once, silently, and two lines of small children - the Jedi younglings - marched forward and lined up across the front of the platform, facing me. The smallest was in the center, and he clutched a package tightly in his hands. With large eyes, he looked up at me, then over at Anakin as if he'd just remembered that was what he was supposed to do. Receiving what I supposed must have been silent approval, he mounted the steps and handed the package to me with both hands. I took it. He bowed his head, then returned to the line of children. I opened the package, which was tied loosely with string and plastene. Inside were the manuscripts of the music my son had written. I looked back up and the children all bowed as one and filed back to their places in the assembly. The acting chancellor began the applause and the population of the hall followed.
I have read the account that Anakin Skywalker's oldest daughter wrote about his life just prior to and during this time, including the version of what might have happened had he made a single, very different and difficult choice, and although I have no trouble seeing the man I met though his daughter's eyes, I can and will not accept that his choice could ever have gone other than the way it did.