The MGC returns? C11

"How the Hell is a woman expected to move in these demn' things?" Johanna Smith-Rhodes erupted.

"Well, we manage it" Joan said, mildly.

"Serves you right for being a cross-dresser." added Alice Band, from somewhere at floor-level where she was pinning up a hem.

The fourth person in the room smiled but refrained from speaking, aware that as a student, she was there under sufferance and it was something of a pleasure to watch her teachers in an informal moment. She was wearing a smart, but plain and cheap, white linen dress with fire-orange stripes and piping, and a headdress of the same material. To her, this is convict's clothing, the issue garb of a prisoner, but she is accustoming herself to wearing it ands adopting the appropriate submissive and downcast manner.

Johanna, normally accustomed to dressing in a somewhat mannish style, in boots, trousers and tunic (the universal veldt uniform of those who live and work on the frontier) was finding it hard work to get used to conventional female clothing. The skirt, compared to proper trousers, was too tight and restricting and along with the unaccustomed higher heels was forcing her to walk in a totally different manner. The verdammte corseting might have given her a very obvious and eye-catching waist, and it might be forcing some things in and some other things up in a manner she had to grudgingly concede was not unattractive, but it was bloody well uncomfortable. And as for this bum-roll bustle thing fastened to her back, ach, what was the point of that?

The trained Assassin should be able to fit in anywhere, in any company, in any situation, in any clothing, and to blend in with the situation around her. Your life may at times depend on looking as completely unlike an Assassin as you can contrive. While it is considered bad manners to inhume the client except whilst wearing full approved Assassins' garb, you will be able to garner the necessary intelligence and information beforehand far more freely by looking like something other than what you are. We will therefore teach you the skills of disguise, deception, and concealment for this purpose.

"I'm asking a lot of you, Ruth, a lot!" Johanna had said to her pupil. "I'm asking you to do this, not telling you. You will have to dress in a way you find distasteful, go into a place you would rather not enter, and perform actions you would not wish to do. But look at it like this. On successful completion, you will almost certainly be given a course pass in disguise, deception and subterfuge. With distinctions! Whet I went you to do, I do not think any Guild student has managed before. It will make your name! Now shall we go over the do's and don'ts again?"

Despite herself, Ruth N'Kweze was drawn to the challenge of the task Johanna had asked her to perform. She had to go in "naked", as Assassins interpret the word: totally unarmed with no weapons whatsoever. (Well… except for one thing, which hopefully Miss Smith-Rhodes would not find out about.) Johanna had been insistent about this. If Ruth's true identity were discovered, Johanna felt she could smooth it over as a silly student prank from people who should have known better, apologise about it, and assure them that the pupil in question will be disciplined. But if she were caught, in this garb, carrying weapons into that place, then not even Johanna could save her.

Ruth also trusted her teacher, having over the previous four years seen Miss Smith-Rhodes change and mellow under the influence of Ankh-Morpork. Having watched her make a sincere effort to treat black pupils as the equals of her white ones, watching the Boor leopard change its spots, watching her learn, in her own way, as the pupils were learning. The day she had taken the part of a Zulu pupil being attacked by two white Howondalandians, an unprecedented thing in a Boor teacher, and listening to Johanna's furious and articulate rebuke of the attackers: Back Home there are black people and white people. Back Home there are Boors and Zulus. Back home there is a border that flares up into war and fighting every so often. I was bloody well born on that border and you do not need to remind me of that! But the river running through this city is most assuredly not the Ulunghi, hmmm? This is not the Transvaal. This is the Assassins' School, where there is no such thing as black or white or race or nationality.. Only a community of pupils working towards the same goal. Here, you respect your fellow student. After all, he might be the one holding your safety rope when you go edificeering. As you will hold his. A higher rule applies here where you are all, black and white, Boor and Kwa'Zulu, regardless of race, religion, nationality, Assassins. In this place you are an Assassin first, foremost and only. Everything else is secondary.

Ruth had nodded: she could, she thought, trust this teacher, who had acquired, somehow, a servant's dress in Embassy livery for her. Miss Smith-Rhodes had also apologised, sincerely so, for the latest security measure the Staadt had taken against its black employees defecting while serving overseas. The Boor overlords now tattooed the servant's identity card number on their upper arm, to make identification of a claimed runaway easier and to facilitate their repatriation from the host city's Watch.

They had stopped short at tattooing Ruth's arm: an ID number had been inked on, in indelible pen. Ruth had also been given a cover story, that she was from a small Zulu tribe which had made its peace with the Whites and now lived within the URH, prepared to accept Boor law as the price of survival. That had been as near as it had come to humiliation - being reminded that there were those of her people who had submitted – but Ruth was prepared to accept even this as part of the price for the game, of being the first free Zulu to penetrate into the Boor embassy compound. And hopefully to get out again.

And she also got to watch Miss Smith-Rhodes being dressed up as a typical Boor baas-lady. Which was amusing.

Finally, Joan and Alice declared they were satisfied. Johanna scrutinised herself in the full-length mirror. Made up, hair restyled and tied into a fashionable net, with a costume hat, and dressed in white with a white-and-gold sash proclaiming her to be a diplomat, she had to concede she carried off the pose of a big-city bimbo airhead quite unsettlingly well, as if some other Johanna had risen up to take over for an hour or two and was blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight.

Would anyone seeing me like this think even for a second that my profession is Assassin? she asked herself. Then it's working!

She walked up and down the room a few times to get better accustomed to the skirt and the heels. Alice and Joan watched her, appraisingly.

"Sex on legs, I think, Miss Band!" Joan said, nodding approvingly.

"I'm forced to agree with you, Miss Sanderson-Reeves." Alice replied, still intently watching. Johanna had an uneasy feeling that Alice was undressing her with her eyes, and coloured slightly.

"Right, m'dears! Orf you both go, and jolly good luck. Remember your training, Miss N'Kweze!"

"Yes, baas-lady!" Ruth murmured, submissively, and fell into step several paces behind Johanna, eyes suitably downcast and shoulders slightly bowed.

They left the Guild by a side-entrance, and Johanna hailed a cab.

"Howondalaand Embassy. Scoone Evenue". she directed, noting that Ruth, as befitted her new status, did not try to get in the cab but rode on the outside. She heard the driver say Come further up front, luv, where it's more comfortable. You're in Ankh-Morpork now, I don't give a flying rat's cuss what colour your skin is!

Johanna nodded: there was a lot of sympathy here for Howondalandian blacks. Or was it residual antipathy towards the Boors, even though the War was now almost outside living memory? She wouldn't put it past a Morporkian cab driver to be overly friendly towards the black servant, just as a way of lifting two fingers to the mistress. As long as he doesn't try to persuade her to defect, she thought. I'd be obliged then to give his description and cab number to those delightful people from BOSS.

But here they were, at the Embassy. There were no demonstrators today, she was pleased to note. Johanna paid the driver, Ruth fell in behind, and the duty guard saluted and opened the gate purely on the strength of the diplomatic sash, without bothering to check ID.

I'll have to mention that to Uncle Piet. Any idiot can look the part and wear the orange sash and have a convincing-looking black maidservant in tow. The next one might have less benevolent reasons for the cloak-and-dagger stuff.

Johana led the way to the Springboek Club. This was part of the agreement with Uncle Piet: I would be happier if your maid does not go anywhere near the main Embassy building.

The social club was still doing a good trade, despite lunch food service being long over. Black stewards were rushing to fulfil drinks orders.

Johanna looked round for Katerina. Collect Katti and her maid, get on board an Embassy coach, then we get out again.

"Hey, girlie!"

Johanna took her time looking round. Jakob DeBeers, leaning on the bar with cronies. Trying to look the hard man, despite a lot of obvious bruises.

"I see you bought yourself a kaffir girl, then!"

DeBeers then snapped his fingers at Ruth.

"Go fetch us beer. For four!"

Ruth nodded, and said "Yes, baas", then scurried off with a mousy walk. Johanna approved: she was unrecognisable as the proud, confident, student Assassin and was holding the part well. But one of the gravest insults in Boor society is to use somebody else's servants without first asking their mistress's permission. Johanna considered what to do about this, short of breaking her own cover and punching DeBeers through the bar. She had just a little suspicion about Ruth, and watched her intently as she set up a large pitcher of beer and four glasses on a tray. Just something about her hand movement there…

Ruth returned.

"About time, too. A man could die of thirst!" Ruth set the tray down at their table and was about to turn away.

Pour our drinks, you lazy bloody nigger!" DeBeers snapped.

Johanna forced her face to stay impassive. Was it fair to subject the girl to this? After the very slightest of pauses, Ruth submissively said "yes, Baas" and set about pouring the drinks. She didn't falter, even when DeBeers purposefully winked at his cronies and laid a hand on her bottom. Johanna caught the very merest glint of anger in the girl's eye, but it was soon dampened.

"Miscegenation in mind, Jakob?" she inquired, sweetly. "It's completely against the Race Laws, and you know it!" She paused to let the threat sink in. DeBeers wasn't so drunk that he didn't notice the danger. If Johanna dropped a word to BOSS…

"And I'd thank you not to mis-handle MY servant. Just in case you've forgotten!" It was her best classroom voice: it made him wince. Good.

Ruth finished pouring the beers.

"Now your duty to these gentlemen is over, Ruth, you may attend to my needs." Johanna said. "Please return to the bar and get me a long iced tea. Matthieu the barman will show you how to make them if you're unsure."

"Yes, baas-lady."

Katti, you unpunctual airheaded daughter of a warthog, where are you?

"Joined the staff, have you, girlie?" the swaggering DeBeers demanded, indicating the sash. She coolly moved out of his reach.

"I perform diplomatic tasks now and again, yes." she confirmed, wholly truthfully. "Unpaid, and at my uncle's request. The sash is a honorary thing. It confers certain advantages."

"I'm sorry I'm late, Johanna!"

Katerina.

"Oh. I see you got yourself a black. About time, too! I was beginning to think you'd gone native! All that nonsense yesterday about hiring white people as servants."

Johanna sipped her iced tea. She wasn't getting the pleasure from this that she was used to. In spring or summer on the veldt it was a great refresher. Here, in cold damp Ankh-Morpork, it was beginning to taste wrong. She realised, with a guilty start, that she'd have far preferred a simple lemonade shandy made with Winkles' Old Peculiar, the beer rich and satisfying and the lemonade to take the edge off it.

I really am going native. She also suspected Ruth could understand a lot more Vondalaans than she was letting on – she was trying to keep it out of her eyes, and she was succeeding in keeping her eyes averted around white people, which was a relief, as Johanna wasn't sure how she'd extricate her student if she were to be accused of "eyeballing" or other form of insolence. Johanna was also aware that dressed as she was, she was attracting a lot of male interest that she didn't feel completely at home with.

"Shall we go? Oh, and a new security thing, Johanna. As we're taking servants outside the compound, the Ambassador has ordered that two of the Embassy guard travel with us as a deterrent. This means the blecks have to ride inside the coach with us. The guards lock the coach doors and only unlock them when we get to our destination. It's like being in prison!"

"It's a sound precaution. But two of Captain Breytenbach's neckless thugs travelling with us? How utterly delightful!"

"Completely horrid, I know. But what can you do?"

They left the club together, their two black servants following meekly behind. A coach was waiting, and two of the guard straightened to attention. One was a relatively young man, perhaps nineteen, on his first overseas assignment, and the other was a grizzled thug of about forty.

"Apologies for what you see, ma'am" the older man said. "But that Stoneface Vimes will not let us carry serious weapons in town. We're allowed a whip, a cudgel and a short dagger and that's it. They have arrested us before for carrying swords or crossbows outside the Embassy."

Yes, because you fire them indiscriminately, you have killed people(1), and your diplomatic immunity means not even Vimes can hold on to you. At least my onkle sent the killer home demoted and in disgrace with a permanent posting way upcountry to the jungle beat. Where the rebel blacks shoot back.

"Didn't Commander Vimes make us an offer, to give us additional training alongside his Watchmen?" asked the younger guard. "Sammies are said to be the best Watchmen on the Disc, and you could go anywhere with that training!"

The older guard glared at the younger. "Are you planning to defect yourself, boy? Stoneface thinks the blacks are real people and he trains them as Watchmen, with full power of arrest over white people! "

He shuddered, expressively. "If you ask me, that was Vetinari talking through Stoneface. The crooked old bas… apologies, ladies… just wants to subvert us. Quite rightly, that poisoned offer was refused!"

No, if you ask my opinion, I would consider Sam Vimes was making a genuine and a generous offer to try and stop future misunderstandings. Onkle Piet was seriously considering it, but BOSS vetoed the idea. And when BOSS exercises its veto, even Ambassadors have no choice.

Johanna noted that the younger guard was looking wistful, as if at a lost opportunity. She also remembered hearing that Kwa'Zululand had recently sent its first batch of police recruits to Ankh-Morpork for training. Very carefully, Commander Vimes was not – yet – deploying them anywhere near Scoone Avenue as probationary lance-constables undergoing street training. The Bureau Of State Security's local office was still going ballistic at the idea, however, and a possibly ill-advised diplomatic protest was poised to go to the Patrician.

"Let's get aboard, shall we?" Katerina decided.

It was a short ride to Pelicool Steps. Katerina and Johanna discussed old school friends and mutual acquaintances, Johanna noting the suitably passive, downcast, black faces sitting opposite them. It was universal among the servant-employing classes that you could talk about almost anything in front of servants, who were considered part of the furniture. Johanna had noticed the great households of Ankh-Morpork had this attitude too, in front of their white servants. She suspected the Venturis and the Selachiis and the Rusts also shared the mentality that their servants, although white of skin, were not completely human either. Indeed, Lord Rust had recently bought a holiday home in Howondalaand, declaring it to be a home from home and a place to go to in winter every year as he got older. And I bet Vetinari was all in favour of that.

But they were here. They waited inside the coach for the guards to unlock both side doors, then got out, Johanna took care getting out of the coach in the unfamiliar clothing – it certainly wasn't as easy as if she were wearing familiar garb. The guards were told to wait outside, and two Howondalandian baas-ladies, and their maids, walked lightly into Bellamy's florists. Johanna glanced very slightly to left and right as she entered.

A total absence of seven-foot tall maneating plants. But then, Sally had suggested they were on wheels, or otherwise easily portable around the shop. If they were nocturnal killers, they were probably sleeping a meal off somewhere, in a shady corner. And this is Davinia Bellamy? A shorter woman than either of us, slightly dumpy, maternally rounded. Plump homely face, mouse-blonde hair, glasses. Red rosy cheeks and a sun-browned face. An air of ability and intelligence.

"Miss de Mauritz! How nice to see you again! And this is?"

"Johanna van der Kaiboetje" Johanna said, firmly. "Elso from the Embessy.."

They shook hands. It was a firm, warm, welcoming handshake. The two black servants were disregarded, but this was normality and not worth remarking on. Johanna approved of this: the disregarded Ruth was free to discreetly make her own observations and report back later. And she was a bright student who'd been taught how to observe and what to look for.

The next half-hour passed easily and quickly. Despite herself, Johanna found herself liking Davinia Bellamy. She was bright, intelligent and personable, and she had a real enthusiasm for her subject. She certainly seemed too well-adjusted to be a mass murderer, although Johanna knew three equally bright, personable, well-adjusted women who'd all killed more than once. And as for herself…Appearances deceive, she told herself.

And then she saw it. In a sealed glass case on its own. A Howondalandian death lily.

"Whet cen you tell me ebout this one?" she asked, and then pitched the reason at Katerina-level. "it is very pretty!"

"Ah." said Mrs Belllamy. " That one is there pretty much for decoration and show, I'm afraid. I can provide it dried or pressed, but I must warn you that the living bloom is in a sealed case for the protection of visitors. Even I have to take precautions when I feed and water it. The reason is that it's one of a group of flowers which look pretty and certainly do brighten up a room, but they have drawbacks. People have been known to have a serious allergic reaction to this plant because of certain secretions it gives off. To illustrate what I mean, let me show you a less drastic example."

She led Johanna away from the Death Lily and showed her another flowering plant. This was also in a sealed glass cage.

"This is , in its way, a beautiful flowering plant, you agree? And would form the centrepiece of a table display at a formal dinner?

However… I invite you to smell its perfume, but try not to get too close."

Johanna took a very cautious sniff, as did Katerina. They both coughed and recoiled from the corpse-stench of decaying meat that rose from the flower. Katerina squealed in disgust. Mrs Bellamy closed the box, her point made.

"This is the Dorian plant of Bhangbhangduc. The ripe fruit is perfectly edible and quite tasty, but most people don't care to get close enough to find out. The smell arises because it relies on corpse-flies and bluebottles and similar carrion flies to fertilise its flowers. Therefore it puts out a smell which is attractive to them. You can appreciate that it could rather kill the appetite if used to decorate a table-setting!"

Johanna nodded. Could this have confused Sally and Angua?

No. A vampire would pick up not just the smell of old human b-vord. She'd also register the psychic miasma, the lingering pain and terror and fear of a dying man being torn apart by carnivorous plants. And a werewolf nose could tell the difference between human blood and gore, and animal remains, and must surely be able to tell an imitation produced by a plant?Which is, anyway, inside a sealed glass box?

And notice how cleverly she steered attention away from the Death Lily, and hopes that I don't remember she never told me its name. Allergies. Hah! She will know full well what it really does!

Johanna forced herself to be carefully attentive to the sights and sounds all around her, allowing herself an inner smile at Katerina's exclamations of "Oh, they are all so pretty!" and "Look at this arrangement, Johanna! Isn't it nice?" It was quite restful to be in the company of somebody with a mind on a level with a performing seal.

In the background was the muted, careful, chatter of the two maids, who also seemed to be enjoying a day out surrounded by things of beauty. Johanna didn't begrudge them.

"Excuse me a moment," Davinia said, and stepped past them to the two maids.

"Have you found something that interests you?" she said, kindly.

"If they're a bother, Mrs Bellamy, I can send them outside…" Katerina offered. Davinia shook her head.

Katerina's maid mumbled something, almost inaudibly, and lowered her eyes. Ruth spoke for both of them.

"Many pardons, baas-lady. My friend here was almost certain that she recognised the aloe vera plant. It is used at home as a medicine to clean minor wounds and promote healing."

"She'd be right, too! You can use it as a salve, you can crush a leaf directly over a wound or a burn, you can put it into a steamer and breathe the essential oil diffused in the steam. Do you have any in your, er, residence block at the embassy? It grows well enough in this climate, although not as quickly as it would at home.I tell you what, I'll give you a plant! You know how to take cuttings and propagate new ones? In a year or so, this one plant could be many."

"Thank you for your kindness, baas-lady!"

Johanna watched Ruth's fingers, down by her thigh, discreetly tapping out a message in Assassin finger-code. She read it, and replied with received.

Ruth had said There is more here. Speak later.

"That won't go on your bill, ladies". Davinia assured them. " The Embassy contract is a valuable one and I can afford a little generosity. I'm told the Embassy sets aside a little ground for the staff to cultivate and make green in their spare time."

"Ell our gardeners are blecks". Katerina said. "I hev no objection to their setting eside a little space in the greenhouses for growing plents to use in tribal medications. If it raises the morale of our servents then it is a good thing."

Johanna noted a doorway at the rear of the shop marked Private.

She put on her best genteel-bimbo persona, and lowered her voice.

"This is an emberresing thing to esk. But hev you a plece where I could enswer the cell of nature?"

"Of course! Through the door and at the bottom on the right, past the storeroom and workrooms."

"Thenk you".

Johanna rushed gratefully through the door marked "Private", close it behind her, and took her bearings. She could hear somebody moving around in a room to her right. Assassins' senses kicked in.

Shop assistant. Female. Slightly worn right heel. Maybe eighteen to twenty?

She decided she had better be a slightly confused customer looking for the toilet. And it wasn't just play-acting, either: that bloody corseting followed by a large drink appeared to have more than halved her bladder capacity.

On the left, a locked door with a black-and-yellow pictogram on it. She recognized it at once: Alchemists' Guild sign for Biological Hazard. Do Not Enter. She though she could hear something moving inside, a rustling, dry slithering, sound. This must be where her security plants live in the daytime. There's a faint tinge of rank meat to the air.

On the right, she could see a brown-coated girl, her back turned to Johanna, making up bouquets in a workroom. She began humming a song as she worked. Johanna moved on. Another locked room with the biohazard rune on the outside. And here? Oh joy of joys. Nature is now screaming.

She arranged herself and did what she had to do, her mind racing. Ruth had discovered something, she was sure. But what? And the verdammte woman is so sure of herself that she keeps the murder weapon out in front, on open display, where everyone can see it – and of course nobody does. You have to admire that sort of brazen cheek.

She thought about the locked doors and recalled the lockpicks hidden in and around her hat, pretending to be hat-pins. I could walk through either of those doors. But not with her staff working back here. It could be hard to explain. And with the sort of things likely to be behind those doors, would I walk out again? And ach, dressing like a girlie constricts the bladder awfully. The clothes dictate that I may only have girly drinks in tiny glasses.

She retraced her steps out, feeling the sort of claustrophobic nerve-tingling oppression she had last felt in the deep jungle, and for much the same reason. Put a foot wrong or step through the wrong door, and it could kill her. She smiled. She hadn't felt this alive for weeks. She wondered why the singing girl in the workroom didn't feel it. Because she isn't involved. Davinia only employs her as shop-help and she's perfectly happy being that.

And eventually they left, with boxes and arm-loads of flowers to take back to the Embassy. As befitted their station, they watched as he two maids loaded the coach, although Johanna, practically, realised it would take half as long if she and Katerina joined in. It wouldn't do to suggest it, though.

"Come on, you lazy kaffirs! We haven't got all day!" the older guard growled, resting a hand on the butt of his whip. Johanna suppressed a shudder of distaste.

Was there a time, was there ever a time, when I thought and acted like that? It's demeaning. And not just to the servants.

"Take it easy, Konstabel. They're doing their best. And some of those flowers are delicate. You cannot rush those." she said. The guard flushed angry red at this mild rebuke – the strongest one Johanna dared utter.

And then, in a sweet-smelling coach, back to the Embassy, where they unloaded at a rear staff door and other servants shared the load.

"If we hadn't had to take those smelly guards with us, Johanna, we could have stayed out longer and made an afternoon of it. I don't know about you, but you couldn't relax with them being nearby hearing every word we spoke!"

Maybe that was deliberate, Johanna thought.

"Another time, Katti? I'd better collect Ruth and take her back to the Guild."

"Johanna, your…trade involves so many weapons. Is it wise to have black servants so near them? They might get ideas!"

"I've never thought twice about it, to be honest. Ruth is loyal and can be trusted near the working tools."

She scored 85% in a practical swordsmanship test. Of course she can be trusted.

"Your funeral."

"Not for a good seventy years yet. We live long!"

"You hope."

Johanna absently noted here was a commotion of some sort in the Embassy. It involved the resident doctor. There were distant voices.

Possibly the glasses or the pitcher had been imperfectly washed, but they drained all the beer. Keep them on bed-rest for three or four days. Isolation, of course. The deBeer fellow. He's only just arrived from Home, hasn't he? I'll get the Lady Sybil to check the samples too, since at present we can't rule out cholera or tropical dysentery… no fun for the servants who'll have to keep him and the room scrupulously clean, of course. AND themselves.

Johanna remembered the suspicion of a hand movement above a pitcher of beer, and frowned.

She walked Ruth out into Scoone Avenue, and they took a cab back to the Guild. Travelling together on the inside, this time.

"You know, you'd spare a lot of time and trouble if you tell me now what you put into Jakob deBeer's drink!" Johanna invited her.

The girl student lowered her head demurely.

"We did Incapacitants with Mr Mericet last week, miss. He explained that you can Incapacitate With Extreme Prejudice too, using strong laxatives."

"So you saved some for when it might come in handy." Johanna mused. "And when DeBeers was throwing his weight about and laid his hand where you didn't want it, he and his cronies were the obvious target."

"Are you angry, Miss?"

"Amused, perhaps. Angry, no. Fortunately the Embassy is blaming it on his being fresh off the boat and having brought the bugs of Home with him. So no servants will be disciplined. Did you consider that when you were playing catch-up?"

Ruth lowered her eyes. Johanna relented.

"We haven't had this conversation, Miss N'Kweze."

"What conversation, miss?"

"Let's start a new one. What else did you see in the florists' shop?"

"She had aloe vera, the healing plant. She also had Tot Siens Vera."(2)

"Goodbye Vera!" Johanna breathed. "I've heard of that. Try crushing one of those leaves over an open wound. Death within thirty seconds!"

They returned to the Guild in silence to find the others and debrief them.

(1) Reference the incident where security guards at the Libyan Embassy in London, panicked by an anti-Ghadaffi demonstration, indiscriminately opened fire from inside the Embassy, murdering a policewoman. Although the killer could be clearly identified, he could not be arrested and had to be allowed to leave the country.

(2) The Discworld is a logical place where everything has its opposite. Goodbye Vera is the total opposite of Aloe Vera.