Jango

by William Nicholson

  Then she realized the fingers of her right hand were tugging at the little finger of her left hand. She blushed for shame, even though there was no one to see.

  16 The Door in the Wall

  THERE WAS A SHARP STING IN THE AIR THAT DAY, AND the clear white sky above gave warning of a frost. Ice had not yet formed in the wheel ruts of the road, but the stony earth was hard underfoot. The old man who had called himself Jango strode down the track at a swinging pace, stabbing the ground with his stick as he went. When the road reached the high stone wall that ran alongside it, he slowed down, first to a walking pace, then to a shuffle. By the time he reached the crowd in front of the roadhouse, he was moving like the old man he was, and no one paid him any attention.

  The crowd had formed round a wagon, on which stood a short sly-looking fellow with one arm round the shoulders of a lanky youth. Jango knew them both. One was a rogue called Ease; the other was the former goatboy Filka.

  "My friends!" Ease was crying. "We live in a time of suffering. Many of you have lost your homes to the invaders. Many of you have lost loved ones."

  "And food!" cried a voice in the crowd.

  "Your hearts ache," Ease went on, throwing an irritated glance at the one who had interrupted him. "You long to see them again. The loved ones you've lost."

  "And the dinners we've lost," said the heckler. "They eat everything. They leave us nothing."

  "But this is also a time of miracles!"

  "It would be a miracle to get something to eat."

  "Do you want to hear about miracles or not?" demanded the speaker.

  "Miracles! Miracles!" cried the others in the crowd, shouting the heckler down.

  "Very well," said Ease. "You see this lad here? You know what he is?"

  The spectators looked up at the lanky youth, with his vacant, staring eyes.

  "He's a Funny," they cried.

  "And what's a Funny?"

  "Simple in the head," said one.

  "Came out feet first," said another.

  Ease nodded.

  "A Funny," he said, "is different from you and me. And different can be special. Different can be touched by the gods! Why would the gods choose to touch a poor Funny like this? Because he's simple! In his simplicity he's open to the favor of the gods. Are you open to the favor of the gods?"

  His finger pointed accusingly down into the crowd.

  "Are you? Or you?"

  They seemed unsure.

  "No! You are not! You're too clever. Too busy. Too important."

  They nodded their heads at that.

  "But this poor simple Funny isn't clever or busy or important. So the gods have touched him. And he—yes, this lad here—can do miracles! He's even brought a dead man back to life!"

  A gasp from the crowd. One among them, more affected than the rest, cried out.

  "Do a miracle for me!"

  He forced his way forward to the wagon, panting and shouting, dragging one stiff crippled leg.

  "Me! Me!" he cried. "Give me back the strength in my leg! Let me walk again on two good legs and I'll pay you all I have!"

  "No money, good sir. All you need bring is an open heart."

  "You're my last hope!" cried the cripple, and he wept aloud as he reached one hand upwards. "Let the gods touch me!"

  "Stand back, good sir," said Ease. "The Funny will call down the favor of the gods. If the gods are merciful, he'll do what he can for you."

  He murmured in Filka's ear, then moved back to give him space. Filka reached out his arms and began to spin. As he spun round and round on the wagon, he uttered a wailing cry.

  The people in the crowd watched with interest.

  "He's dancing! The Funny's dancing!"

  "Hush!" called Ease. "Watch!"

  At the height of his dance Filka suddenly stopped dead, rocking and staggering, and very nearly fell off the wagon. But he righted himself and began to wave his arms in a dreamy fashion. He smiled and babbled nonsense.

  "Come closer," said Ease to the cripple. "He's ready now. Touch him."

  The cripple dragged himself closer, evidently fearful, and reaching up his hand, touched the Funny's leg. No sooner had he made contact than he uttered a sharp cry and fell to the ground. Filka swayed and babbled as if nothing had happened. The crowd gaped.

  "Rise, good sir," said the speaker.

  The cripple hauled himself to his knees and an expression of astonishment formed on his face. He felt his bad leg. He stood up. He jumped on his bad leg. He sprang into the air. He cried out in joy.

  "I'm cured! I can walk!"

  The crowd cheered. The cured man pulled coins from his bag and held them up to Ease.

  "No, no," said Ease. "No money."

  "But you must eat—I'm so grateful—take it!"

  So Ease at last accepted the gold coins.

  "We shall treasure your gift," he said, "as an offering to the gods."

  By now the crowd was in a state of ferment. Everyone was shouting at once, everyone seemed to have an ailment, everyone wanted to be touched by the Funny. They thronged round the wagon.

  "My grippe! Cure my grippe!"

  "Touch my eyes! Touch my eyes!"

  "My hands! I can't use my hands!"

  But before anyone else could be cured, Jango, who had been watching throughout, somehow got himself up onto the wagon. There, reaching out one bony hand, he touched Filka's cheek. Filka dropped his arms at once and came out of his trance. He looked at the old man, and his eyes were no longer blank.

  "I'm so sorry, Filka," said Jango. "You've been badly used by this business."

  "What do you think you're doing?" exclaimed Ease, pulling the old man away by one arm. "You take your turn."

  Jango looked at him.

  "I know you," he said. "We met long ago. Just as I know you." This was addressed to the cured cripple on the ground below. "You were partners then, as you are now."

  "Lies!" cried Ease. "I never saw him before in my life!"

  "Your name is Ease," said Jango. "And yours is Solace."

  At this the two exchanged a rapid furtive glance. Ease came up close to Jango and whispered to him.

  "Who the devil are you?"

  "They call me Jango."

  "Well, Mr. Jango, I've never seen you before in my life. But it seems we need to have a private talk."

  He jumped down from the wagon and gave his hand to assist the old man down after him. Then he led Jango away from the crowd. The former cripple followed after them.

  "You just walk on down the road, Mr. Jango," hissed Ease, pressing some coins into his hand, "and be glad nothing worse happens to you."

  "I'm sorry," said Jango. "I can't let you abuse that poor boy."

  "Abuse him? We're like family to him!"

  "We look after his money for him," said Solace.

  "He's no use for money, Sol," said Ease.

  "But we look after it all the same."

  "Out of kindness."

  "Too much kindness. That's our weakness."

  "Soft hearts, Sol. That's our weakness."

  "So don't you concern yourself over us, Mr. Jango."

  Ease wrapped one arm round the old man. At the same time, he drew a blade with the other hand, then touched the sharp tip to Jango's throat. "Or I shall have to concern myself with you."

  Jango sighed.

  "Stupidity," he murmured. "How little you see."

  With that he gave a small shake of his head, and both men, who had been huddling round him, shot backwards as if punched by an axer, then fell sprawling to the ground.

  Jango returned to Filka on the wagon, and while the crowd looked on in bewilderment, he knelt before him.

  "Forgive me," he said. "You've suffered more than you deserved."

  Filka wrinkled his brow in puzzlement. Then he too went down on his knees—not to ask forgiveness, but so that he could clasp the old man's hands.

  "I got special friends," he said. "Only they went away."

  "I know," sai
d Jango. "But I've come now."

  "That's good," said Filka.

  The crowd began to be angry.

  "It's our turn now! We want to be cured, too!"

  Jango rose and spoke to them.

  "This boy can't cure you. What you saw was a trick to get your money."

  "That was no trick," came a woman's shout. "Didn't I see him cure that cripple with my own eyes?"

  "They never asked for money," cried another. "Look," said Jango, pointing to where Ease and Solace now stood, rubbing their bruises and conferring in low voices. "They work as a team."

  "You don't know that," said the woman in the crowd. "You just want to spoil it for the rest of us."

  "He's just envious," said another. "He's an old man. He wants us all as crippled as he is."

  "I saw that cripple. He was pulling his leg like a log of wood."

  "And he never asked for money! He said we weren't to give him money. The old man's a liar if he says he did."

  Jango gave up trying to convince them. He smiled at Filka and nodded at the road ahead.

  "Shall we go?" he said.

  The old man and the Funny climbed down from the wagon and set off together, leaving an angry and dissatisfied crowd.

  "He just wants the Funny for himself," they grumbled.

  Ease heard this. He beckoned to Solace to follow him back onto the wagon.

  "My friends," he said to the murmuring people, "don't be dismayed because the Funny has left us. The favor of the gods falls on those who are deserving."

  He put his arm round Solace's shoulders.

  "The cripple has been cured. The gods are with him now."

  Solace looked surprised. Ease whispered to him, "Dance."

  "Dance?"

  Ease reached out his arms in demonstration, copying the way the Funny had danced. Solace understood. He reached out his arms and began to dance.

  Jango and Filka walked down the road together, through the bleak winter fields. After a mile or so, the road ran alongside a section of the old stone wall. Jango planted his stick before him with each stride.

  "Never seen a stick like that before," said Filka.

  "It's for sitting on," said Jango.

  He opened out the handle into the small seat for Filka to see. Filka was entranced.

  "Can I sit on it?"

  "If you like."

  So they stopped and Filka sat on the sitting-stick, as proud as a king on a throne.

  "We must go on our way," said Jango.

  "I don't have a way," said Filka.

  "Then you can come on mine."

  "All right. I'd like that."

  On they went, following the long wall that ran ahead as far as the eye could see. The old man let Filka carry his stick. A flock of seagulls appeared, borne inland by the north wind, and circled in the air above them.

  "You know how I'm a Funny," said Filka.

  "Yes."

  "Are you a Funny, too?"

  "I suppose I am," said the old man.

  "Do you like being a Funny? Because I don't."

  "No, I don't like it so much, either. But, you see, the others need us."

  "Do they? For what?"

  "It's different for each of us. But we each of us have something important to do."

  "Well," said Filka, "I don't know what mine is."

  "No, mostly we never know. But we do it all the same."

  "Once I had a herd of goats," said Filka. "I had to look after them. Then I had special friends. I had to do what they told me. But that's all gone now."

  "Shall I tell you a story?" said the old man.

  "All right."

  "It's a story about a wall, much like this one. This wall went all the way across the land, from sea to sea. There was a door in the wall, and it was locked. Beside the door was a little house. In the house lived a little man, who kept the key to the door. He kept it in a bag that hung round his neck. His job was to open the door if anyone came by who wanted to go through to the other side of the wall. And people did come from time to time, and looked at the door, and rattled it to see how solid it was. But they never asked to go through."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, no one knew what there was on the other side. And I suppose you can't want something that you know nothing about."

  "No. I suppose not."

  "So the little man felt as if he wasn't much use to anybody. There he was, the keeper of the key to the door, and no one ever asked him for his key. He wished he was like the other people he saw, going about their busy lives with so many busy things to do."

  "That's just like me," said Filka, greatly surprised. "That's how I feel."

  "He thought of giving up being the key-keeper and going away. But what if someone came to the door after he'd left, and wanted to go through?"

  "He could leave the key in the door," said Filka.

  "He did even better than that. He unlocked the door, and he opened it."

  "He opened it!"

  "And then he went through."

  "He went through!"

  "And he was never seen again."

  "So what happened to him?"

  "No one knows."

  "Oh." Filka was disappointed. "I thought the story was going to have a happy ending."

  "It does," said Jango. "He left the door open."

  At this point Filka realized that there was a door in the wall ahead.

  "Look! There's a door here, too!"

  "So there is."

  Filka ran on, filled with excitement, and reached the door before the slower old man. He turned the handle. The door opened.

  "It's open!"

  "So it is."

  "I could go through!"

  "So you could."

  "Shall I?"

  He looked at Jango with apprehension.

  "If you like," said Jango.

  "I do."

  So Filka went through the door. The old man did not follow him. Instead he unfolded his sitting-stick and settled himself down with a sigh to wait. The gulls that had been wheeling and calling in the air all round now flew down to land and settled on the top of the wall and on the ground by his feet. One of them came to rest on his shoulder.

  "Back again," said Jango, closing his eyes.

  17 Bedtime

  SEEKER WALKED FAST. AS LONG AS HE WAS ON THE OPEN plain in the clear light of the chill winter day, he felt no fear. The land cloud lay ahead of him, heaving slowly in the wind. It formed a clearly defined mass, as wide as a valley but no higher at its highest point than the taller trees in the Glimmen. It was grayish white in color and seemed to be made of roll upon roll of vapor, not at all like the hazy mist that hangs over water meadows on an autumn morning. The land cloud was heavy and brooding and silent.

  He thought as he went about the danger that faced him in the cloud and about how he would meet it. He was confident of his own strength, less so of his resolve. His mission was to kill. He had never killed before and was not sure he would be able to do it. These enemies, these savanters, these lords of wisdom, were old and weak; and yet somehow they were more powerful than the Nomana themselves and threatened the very survival of the Nom. So he must have no pity.

  Leave one alive and it will all begin again.

  As he came closer to the land cloud, it disappeared. The heaving gray-white mass was no longer before him. There behind was the open scrub leading back to the Glimmen. Above, the winter sun, white in a dappled sky. Ahead—nothing.

  I must be in it, thought Seeker.

  It was almost a disappointment. The feared shadow had not fallen over him. There were no waiting monsters. Just more of this stony weed-riven ground and a light haze.

  He walked on. After a while he looked back, and behind him was the same haze that lay before him and to either side. Above he could still make out the white disc of the sun, and daylight illuminated the land round him. But farther away, in the far distance, the mist shut him in. As he walked, he carried a region of clear vision with him. After he ha
d passed, the cloud closed in once more.

  All this time he had been following a road—the continuation of the same road that passed through the forest. There were no wheel ruts to mark the way, but many boots had clearly tramped along it, and the beaten ground was easy to follow.

  But where was the danger? Where were the enemies?

  Seeker walked on into the nothingness, and the farther he went the less sure he became. What if nothing was as he had been told? Narrow Path might have been lying to him, for some secret reason of his own. And the strange old man called Jango was clearly half mad. Yet here he was, obedient to the instructions of a liar and a madman, losing all grip on normality.

  Movement ahead. A blur of shadow. A figure in the mist.

  It was a person standing by the road, waving. Indistinct as a ghost. Uttering a faint cry.

  "Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!"

  Seeker approached cautiously. Shortly he made out the form of a woman: a strange-shaped head, a broad body, a raised waving arm.

  "Over here! Yoo-hoo!"

  Not a strange-shaped head, but a head-scarf. He was closer now and could make out more details. She wore an apron over an ankle-length wool work dress. She wore sheepskin boots. She was tubby. She was pink-cheeked and smiling.

  She had no eyes.

  "Yoo-hoo!" she sang out, still waving, although he was now quite near. "Over here!"

  "I see you," said Seeker.

  "There you are!" she exclaimed, evidently pleased. "You can never tell, in this nasty mist. People do get lost. But you must have kept to the road."

  "Who are you?"

  "Oh, I'm just here to show you the way. How many are there in your party? It seems to me it's very small."

  "Just me."

  "Only one? That's most unusual. But never mind. I mustn't keep you waiting—you'll catch cold. The beds are made up. Follow me, please."

  She set off into the mist.