Seeker

by William Nicholson

  The bell jangled for the start of the school day, and the cries fell silent outside, as the students made their way to their classrooms. Seeker's father did not look up from his paperwork until the last chair had scraped into silence. Then he laid down his pen and raised his blank blue eyes and spoke in his mild, implacable voice.

  "Your test paper is on your desk. Write your name at the top of each sheet of paper. Remember that a correct answer is not enough. Marks are also given for grammar, spelling, punctuation, legibility, and neatness. You may begin."

  There was a rustling all across the classroom as the test papers were turned over. Ten questions; an hour to answer them. Seeker wrote his name on the blank sheet before him: Seeker after Truth. Then he read the first question.

  A man wishes to measure the height of a tree near your home, and he asks for your help. His method is to measure the tree's shadow when it is exactly equal to the tree's height. You know that sunrise is at 5:08 A.M. and sunset is at 6:40 P.M. At what time should you tell him to take his measurement?

  Seeker stared at the paper for a long moment. He was an excellent problem solver and could see at once how to answer the question.

  He realized his hand was shaking too much to write. He put his left thumb to his mouth and bit hard, using the sudden pain to steady his nerves. Then he wrote quickly:

  This is a bad man who cuts down trees that are all different to make planks that are all the same. I will not help him.

  A long slow release of breath. It was done. No going back now. The rest was much easier.

  The second question went:

  Describe, with diagrams, the rainfall cycle.

  Seeker wrote more carefully this time, to be sure of his misspellings:

  Furst the rainfall down from the cluods and make pudles then the rainfall up from the pudles and make cluods.

  He drew a little diagram with arrows, in which the arrows all pointed in random directions. His hand had stopped trembling.

  The third question went:

  Using your own words, describe the sacred mission of the Nomana, also known as the Noble Warriors.

  Seeker wrote:

  The Nomana do biff bad fellows noses bash-squish yip whoopadoo.

  He was beginning to feel light-headed. He looked round furtively at his classmates, but they were all bent over their test papers. He looked at his father. He too was intent on his work. Seeker dipped his pen in the inkwell and, holding it over his test paper, dropped blobs of ink onto the white spaces. Each blob splattered on impact, throwing out little legs like a spider. Beside the splattered blobs he wrote Dady Spidder, Mumy Spidder, and Babey Spidder.

  After that, he answered no more questions. He spent the remainder of the session writing with his left hand so that the handwriting would be as bad as possible. He wrote:

  I have forgot evrything

  My head is emty

  I no nothing

  I am a stupid

  Each question was worth ten marks, so the highest possible mark for the test was one hundred. Seeker had never yet been given a lower mark than eighty. On this paper, with marks deducted for bad spelling and untidiness, he would be well into minus figures. In one single test he would crash from the top to the bottom of the class. And maybe then, at last, his father would listen to him.

  When the session ended, he handed in his test paper just as he always did, but inside he felt strange and giddy, as if he had no body weight and was floating a little off the ground. He couldn't imagine how his father would react to what he had done. All he knew was that everything would change.

  "Results after the break," said his father evenly, as he always did.

  Leaving the classroom, Seeker overheard Precious Boon speaking to Fray.

  "How did you do?"

  "Useless as usual," said Fray, taking her arm. "Let's go and do stupid things in the shade."

  They strolled away with their arms linked, and Seeker followed behind, alone. It was a hot day, too hot to stand out in the sun. The others threw themselves down on the dusty earth in the shadow of the plane trees. On the terrace below, a class of smaller children were playing a chasing game round the ornamental pond in the paved forecourt, uttering sharp cries and calling out one another's names. Seeker leaned his back on the warm whitewashed wall, the same wall he could see from his classroom desk, and remembered how he too had run round and round the pond when he was little, back in the days when his brother had been in the school. So long as Blaze had been there, everything had been all right. Blaze was tall and sturdy, and he had taken care of his little brother from his first day in school. But then Blaze had left, to train to be a Noma.

  Seeker looked up the terraced streets, which furrowed the steep sides of the island, to the great castle-monastery of the Nom, at the top. Blaze was there now, somewhere. Three years ago he had been accepted as a novice, and Seeker had not seen him since. He missed him very much. He thought about him every single day. It wasn't just that Blaze had protected him. Somehow, when Blaze had been there, his father had left Seeker alone. After all, Blaze was the eldest, the pride of his father's heart, the child he had pledged to the Nom the day he was born. Blaze had always been destined to be a Noble Warrior and had been named accordingly: his full name was Blaze of Justice.

  Seeker scanned the long granite wall of the monastery, which seemed to hang suspended over the sheer cliffs of the island's ocean face. That part of the Nom was closed to all except members of the Community. Sometimes he waved at its high windows, thinking that Blaze might be looking out and might see him waving, and so would remember him. When Seeker waved, he could almost see Blaze looking down at him, with his broad open features and his ready smile. He could almost hear his familiar voice saying, "Time to go home, little brother." He could almost feel that strong arm round his shoulders.

  A falcon swooped overhead, perhaps the same peregrine he had watched from his desk before the test. The bird's flight brought his gaze round and down, to the windows of his classroom. There sat his father at the table, alone in the room, marking the test papers.

  Results after the break.

  His father believed that tests should be marked right away, while the memory of the questions was still fresh. He was a fast marker, and he was scrupulously fair. Seeker felt himself flush as he imagined his father reading his test paper. He would be angry, of course. Probably bewildered. Perhaps even hurt. But it had been done now.

  The bell rang for the end of break. This time Seeker was one of the last into the classroom. He avoided meeting his father's eye as he went to his desk. He sat there, looking down, squeezing his left thumbnail under the fingernails of his right hand, one after another. The sharp sensation this produced was not quite pain and not quite pleasure, but it stopped the shivering.

  His father paced slowly between the desks, handing back the test papers, calling out the marks achieved, adding a brief comment with each one.

  "Precious Boon, fifty-eight. Careless calculation there, Precious. Always check your answer."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Rose, seventy-one. A great improvement, Rose. Third from top."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Fray, thirty-eight. Only six questions answered, Fray. Does that satisfy you?"

  "No, sir."

  "Nor me. Better next time, please."

  Seeker felt his father's presence as he approached his desk. He saw his test paper fall onto the desktop, face-down. He went still, not raising his eyes.

  "Seeker," said his father, his voice as even as ever. "Ninety-six. Best in class."

  Seeker's head jerked up, his eyes reaching for his father's. But his father was already striding on past. Behind him he heard Fray murmur something to Precious Boon, and he heard Precious laugh. With a sensation of sickness in his stomach, he turned over his paper. No marks had been given to any of his answers. Across the top of the first page his father had written: See me after school.

  ***

  "Here is what I propose to do
about this paper."

  His father held it out before him, and slowly and methodically tore it into small pieces.

  "That was not the work of the best scholar in the school. That was not the work of my son. It would be quite unfair of me to mark it as if it represented a serious set of answers. Instead, I have averaged your last five test results and given you a mark that reflects your true ability."

  Seeker hung his head and said nothing. What could he say? His father would never understand. He stood before him in the school's assembly hall, surrounded by the trophies and the honors boards of bygone years, and waited for his punishment to be handed down.

  "Have I been fair to you?"

  Seeker nodded.

  "Then you must be fair to me. Why did you do this?"

  Seeker shrugged. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth. His mind was muddy.

  "Well? I think I deserve an answer."

  "Don't know," said Seeker.

  "You don't know?" His father's voice sharpened. Now he was going to get angry. "I'm afraid I don't believe you."

  Seeker said nothing. He hated standing before his father like this. It was no use, for either of them. He just wanted it to be over.

  "Did you want to get a low mark?"

  Seeker gave a very small nod.

  "Why? To be more like the others?"

  That was a surprise. Seeker hadn't expected his father to understand any part of his feelings.

  He nodded again.

  "I thought as much."

  His father lowered himself onto one of the hall benches and gestured to Seeker to do the same.

  "Now tell me truthfully. Are you being bullied?"

  "No..."

  "Do they say unkind things to you?"

  "Not exactly."

  "What do they say?"

  "That I'm cleverer than them."

  "Anything else?"

  "No."

  "You are cleverer than them. You do realize that?"

  "I don't want to be."

  "You want to be the same as them?"

  Seeker didn't speak.

  "Very well. I think I understand now."

  He stood up and pressed the palms of his hands together and gazed into the far distance. This was what he always did before making a speech. Seeker hated it when he made speeches.

  "I do not propose to punish you," he said. "What you have done is a deliberate act of disobedience. But I don't want obedience alone. I want understanding. You're not the same as the others in your class, Seeker. Any more than I was the same as the others in my class when I was in this school. You have a first-rate brain. Just as I have."

  He went over to the honors board and tapped it where his own name was painted in gold letters, as the top scholar of his year.

  "One day your name will be written here, as my name is written. One day, or so I dare to hope, you will hold the position I occupy now. One day you will be the headmaster of this highly respected institution. That is why I will not allow the record to show that your test results ever failed to reach the highest levels. You and I, Seeker, do not fail. We have exceptional natural ability. We work hard. We are therefore the best. This desire you have, to be the same as the others, is a denial of your true self. You are not the same as the others. You are superior to them. That, I promise you, will bring its own reward."

  "I just want to be—"

  "What's that you say? Open your mouth when you speak. I can't hear a word you're saying."

  Seeker knew he was mumbling. Whenever he tried to tell his father something important, he mumbled.

  "I want to be—I want to join—the Nom."

  "The Nom? What are you talking about? Do you mean you want to be a Noma, like Blaze?"

  Seeker nodded.

  "But you're not like Blaze. My dear boy, it's no use wanting to be something you're not. That's what dreamers do. Dreamers never get anywhere. And anyway, you would never be selected, even if you were to apply."

  Seeker wanted to say, How do you know? But there was no point.

  "You have different talents." Now his father was speaking more gently. "Fine talents. Talents I'm proud to claim as my own. Blaze will fight for justice. But you will seek after truth. What could be a nobler mission in life than that?"

  Your mission, not mine, thought Seeker. Your name for me, not mine. But still he said nothing.

  "Today is your birthday. Your sixteenth birthday. A suitable day, I think, to reflect on your coming responsibilities as an adult. I'm glad we've had this little talk."

  There came a tap at the door. It was the school meek, a sweet old man called Gift.

  "Visitor to see you, Headmaster."

  "Just coming."

  He turned back to Seeker and extended a hand for his son to shake.

  "So we'll put this little incident behind us, shall we? No need to tell your mother. It shall be as if it never happened."

  "Yes, Father."

  His father dropped the torn scraps of paper into the wastepaper basket. They fluttered from his hand like falling blossom. Seeker's rebellion was at an end.

  Outside, a silent Noma was waiting.

  4. The Open Door

  SLOWLY, MISERABLY, SEEKER CLIMBED THE TWO HUNdred and twelve steps from the school to the summit of the island. At each turn in the steep flights of steps he paused and looked down the terraces to the little port at the bottom, and the surrounding sea; then he looked up to the high walls and domes of the great castle-monastery, at the heart of which lived the one god with the many names: the Wise Father, the Loving Mother, the Lost Child, the Quiet Watcher, the All and Only. Seeker felt sick in his heart, a sickness deeper than hunger, deeper than tiredness. It was as if all color had gone out of the world, and all smell, and all taste, and the very air he breathed had turned stale. He felt as if he were already old, and his life had passed him by without surprise or joy. He had nothing to complain of, he was safe and healthy in a world where so many were in danger or in pain; but nor had he anything to make him rejoice. His life would unfold in the same familiar fashion, dull lonely day after dull lonely day, and one day he would see his name inscribed on the school's roll of honor, as his father's was; and one day he would point to it, and tell the sad little boy who was his own son to work harder, to achieve the same distinction.

  How could he bear it?

  He reached the top of the steps, where there grew the avenue of old pines. He stopped again, to catch his breath, and looked out to sea. There was a fishing boat passing far below, beating its slow way up the coast, trawling a long net. The little vessel seemed to him to be so brave, its sails spread to the wind, its net straining behind. A lonely life, the fisherman's, but at least the loneliness was part of the job. It was different at school. If you were lonely at school it was your own fault, and everyone knew it.

  A peregrine came swooping up from the cliff, high into the air, cruising for prey. There were doves nesting in the pines, and the great falcons hunted them, especially at dusk, hovering silently above the trees before dropping like bolts for the killer blow. Blaze had shown him once how to stand still and watch. You didn't have to hide, just to stay still. "They only see you if you move." Once, standing motionless by Blaze's side, he had seen a kill. The peregrine's dive was noiseless, breathtaking, irresistible. "Now the eggs will go cold," Blaze had told Seeker. Such a strange yoking of thrill and pity.

  He and Blaze used to skim flat pebbles over the water, down by the harbor where the barges and the riverboats moored. Back then Seeker couldn't skim pebbles, not really, though when Blaze wasn't looking he would pretend, crying out, "One! Two! Three! Three jumps!" Now he could do it, and suddenly, with a fierce ache, he wanted Blaze to be there to see. He wanted to go down to the harbor once more with him and show him how well he could skim stones. He wanted to tell him how much he missed him, how he had thought of him every single day for the last three years, how life was hard for him but he could bear it, because he had no choice.

  He felt his eye
s sting, and blinked to hold back tears. Only one place to go now, only one refuge. He hurried down the avenue of trees towards the Nom and the high arch of the Pilgrim Gate. This was the part of the monastery that was open to islanders and, on certain days, to pilgrims. This was the way to the holy of holies, the place where the god lived. And it was here Seeker always came when he was sad, to whisper the truth, and to find peace.

  Two Nomana stood by the gate, but Seeker was familiar to them, and they nodded him through. He entered the first hall, a wide and dusky atrium called the Shadow Court. This and the two halls into which it led were designed to calm the spirit and prepare for the nearness of the All and Only. There was no one else here. On the far side, three sets of double doors stood open to the second hall, called the Night Court. This was a large, circular, windowless chamber, with a domed roof pierced with hundreds of tiny holes. The bright sunlight above pushed through these holes like stars and fell in pencil-thin rays of light to cast a pattern of bright spots all across the floor. Again, there was no one here.

  Beyond the Night Court, through a further set of double doors, was the Cloister Court, the innermost chamber of the Nom apart from the Garden itself Here, in striking contrast to the Night Court, was a cool, light, pillared space, luminous with the glow of the white marble out of which the floor and the columns were made. The ceiling high above was formed of pearlstone, a translucent, milky stone that turned bright sunlight into tranquil day. The gleaming pillars stood close together, rank upon rank, so that many people could be present and yet remain unaware of one another's nearness. And at the far end, where the pillars ceased and the ceiling lay open to the blazing sun, was the Garden.

  Seeker stopped here for a moment and prayed the entrance prayer. His eyes reached between the forest of pillars to the gleam of the silver screen that surrounded the Garden. Beyond those delicate and beautiful panels of pierced silver, within that sunlit glade, dwelt the Always and Everywhere.

  "Wise Father, you are the Clear Light, you are the Reason and the Goal. Guide me in the true way."