Was_a novel

by Geoff Ryman

  This was very racy stuff indeed. The class was fascinated.

  “Ask me a word in Osmanli,” he whispered.

  There was a shuffling and a shrugging of shoulders and birdlike exchange of nervous giggles.

  “What’s the word for sunflower?” asked Angela, who was brave.

  “Moonflower,” said the Substitute promptly, smiling with anticipation. He didn’t have to look it up.

  The class laughed, partly in relief that this was going to be fun, and partly from the pleasant strangeness of another language. It was like a mirror that reflected things backward.

  “They pronounce it ‘aychijayee,’” he said and turned and wrote it on the blackboard:

  “It’s the Arabic alphabet,” he explained.

  They asked him the word for hen and the word for school. Dorothy Gael put up her hand.

  “What’s the word,” she asked, shyly, “for home?”

  The Substitute blinked and then his face went soft. Just answer the question, thought Dorothy.

  “Ev,” said the Substitute. “Ev means ‘home.’”

  “What’s your name in Turkish?” asked Larry Johnson, grinning.

  The Substitute smiled, spun smartly on his heel and wrote, without hesitation:

  Then he pronounced the word.

  The class laughed in unison. “Ooze?” they asked.

  He made a kind of embarrassed swallowing gesture. He pronounced it again. This time it sounded more like “Uz.” “It means ‘frank’ in Turkish. And Frank’s my name. It means a lot of other things as well. It means ‘real and genuine.’ It means ‘pure and unadulterated.’ It means ‘kernel and cream,’ and it means ‘self.’ It’s the root word for ‘yearning’ and for ‘homesickness’ and for all the things that people want. It also happens to be the original name of the Turks. They were a tribe called the Uz, or the Uzbecks. Or the Oz, and they came out of the wilderness.”

  Dorothy was suddenly hauled out of herself by a gust of childish interest. “You mean like the Indians?” she blurted out, her voice loud and lacking in grace.

  The class laughed until the Substitute, the full power of his smile trained on Dorothy, said, “Very like the Indians. They were desert nomads who lived in tents. They came out of the East and the North, they came out of the desert, and they conquered the Greeks and they conquered the Arabs. Turkey is a country where the Indians were the settlers. The Indians won.”

  He held up the book called Redhouse, like Red Indians, and he said, “And this is the Oz-English Dictionary.”

  The Substitute got bored just as quickly as the children did. The fire for Oz went out of his eyes, and he began to talk about other things. He told them the story of his play. He told them how it had run out of money, and how he was now “resting.” They chuckled at his joke. “Mind you, actors are always resting. That is the attraction of the profession.”

  The class tested him. They mocked his New York accent. “I say, I am an actor from Noo Yawk.”

  He laughed. They waited. It wasn’t a false laugh—that would have showed he was pretending to think it was funny so he wouldn’t have to do anything about it. He didn’t imitate them back, so he wasn’t sarcastic or mean. And he didn’t tell them it was wrong to make fun of people just because they were different, so he wasn’t a pompous fool. Instead, he genuinely seemed to think it was funny.

  He laughed and looked a bit mystified.

  “Why,” he asked, “is it that people laugh?” He asked it in wonder.

  Was it a trick question? It seemed to be a pretty dumb one.

  “’Cause something’s funny?” ventured one of the girls.

  “Yes, but what do we mean by funny? I mean, what is funny?”

  It was the sort of question a little kid about five would ask. Unanswerable. It was a real question, one the Substitute himself had no answer for.

  Suddenly the Substitute was looking at Dorothy. He remembered her question about Indians, about home. It was as if he had recognized a kindred spirit. The look he gave her was questioning. He wanted a mystery solved, and he wanted to know more about her. The look, confiding and sincere, alarmed Dorothy. It was not unlike the look that Uncle Henry gave her.

  “Dorothy,” the Substitute asked. “Why do people laugh?”

  “To show who’s boss,” said Dorothy Gael.

  The smile of the Substitute slipped. “Yes, but for what other reason?”

  Dorothy considered. “Sometimes it scares people.”

  “But your parents, why do they laugh?”

  “My parents are dead,” said Dorothy.

  The nice squirrel looked stricken. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why?” asked Dorothy. She was suddenly impatient with the Substitute. “I’m not sorry. Can’t hardly even remember them. Nobody laughs around our place anyway.”

  “Nobody laughs?”

  “Life’s too hard,” shrugged Dorothy. She wanted to shrug away her love of him. She hated his dazzle. The love hurt. “The hogs don’t laugh, why should we?”

  You stupid squirrel, Dorothy thought. You got a face like a pillow.

  “That’s a terrible thing,” said the Substitute.

  “Shut up,” said Dorothy.

  “Dorothy,” said the Substitute, “that’s very rude.”

  “Shut your squirrel’s face up,” said Dorothy. Is that rude enough for you to get my meaning?

  The Substitute looked straight at her and looked sad and wise, and he smiled. “You’re too old for this class, aren’t you, Miss Gael.”

  That made Dorothy afraid. The fear gathered strength and speed like a rockface slipping from a mountain. Dorothy was stricken with terror. No, she thought, I’m not old, I’m not old.

  The Substitute thought she was surprised at being treated with courtesy. He thought, quite rightly, that no one had ever been courteous to Dorothy before, but it was fear that made her go still. Dorothy was realizing that at nearly thirteen, she was almost an adult. At fifteen, two years from then, she would leave and go to work. As a child, she had power. She knew that as an adult, fat and ugly and slumped in dirty clothes, she would have none. Her childhood was almost over and she could not remember ever being happy.

  “Could you do something for me, Miss Gael? Would you mind leaving the class?”

  Dorothy began to grin a crooked grin. Oh, yes, you want to get rid of me that easily?

  But he held up a hand. “I’ve got an idea for an assignment that I want you to work on. I want you to go to the bookroom and just sit quietly and write something. It doesn’t have to be long. But it can be about anything you like. Anything at all.”

  Dorothy stood up, still grinning crookedly. She had been cast out before. She took pencil and paper. “I’d do anything to get out of here,” she said.

  “Thank you, Miss Gael. Take as long as you like.”

  Outside, Dorothy thought: So why on earth should I go to the bookroom? Stupid squirrel. Stupid groundhog.

  Then she thought: Where else do I have to go? Only home. And I don’t want to go home. I hate home. I’d rather stay here, but I hate it here, and everyone here hates me. I hate everybody and everything.

  She went to he bookroom. Mrs. Warren glared at her. “Teacher sent me here,” said Dorothy. There was one table and shelves of spare textbooks. Proud as they were of their schools, even the people of Kansas could not call this a library.

  But it still smelled of books and varnish and sunlight. Sunlight came through the window, fierce and hot, Kansas sunlight, parching. It was warm and airless, and Dorothy felt sleepy. She wished she had come here before, to lay down all her cares. She bowed her head, to the table. She wanted to stay just here, in this one place, and never leave it.

  Write something, he had said. Write about what? Write a
bout all the kids who hate me? Write about how stupid little Emma is and how she follows me around because I scare people? Shall I write about how I am God’s worst sinner, and how I know I am going to go to Hell and that that is the only reason I don’t kill myself, because I see the Devil when I sleep at night, and that I smell Uncle Henry around my mouth all day long, and that nobody loves me. Not even God. Should I write that God doesn’t love me? Or do I write about how beautiful you are and how I know how ugly I am and how you could never have anything to do with me?

  But she found what she wanted to write about very close to the surface. She wrote about it, weeping. And then she dried her eyes and found she wanted someone to see it, just so that someone would know there was a bit more to Dorothy Gael than blows and bad blood.

  She walked back into the classroom, hugging the paper to herself. She walked up to the Substitute’s desk.

  “That was quick, Miss Gael. Have you written something?”

  Wordlessly, she passed it to him, a whole page both sides, and she stood over him and watched him as he read.

  What he read was this:

  TOTO

  I have a little dog called Toto. He is a terrier which means that he has short wiry hair and is gray. He waits for me every day when I come home. When he sees me he comes running. He jumps up and down. He wiggles and nitters and wants me to pet him. I say to him “Good Toto, good boy.” And he nitters again because he knows his name. We walk home together. He loves chasing sticks. I throw sticks for him, and he brings them back to me and drops them at my feet. When I throw them, he runs and runs, flat out. He even runs when I don’t throw sticks. He runs all over the fields, yipping. It is like he is saying hello to everything. He chases the quail, but he never hurts them. He runs all over the hills. He runs and comes back to me and runs again. I can hear him barking.

  I get home and Aunty calls hello and tells me what’s for supper and I tell her all the things I did that day. So I fetch the water for Uncle Henry’s bath, and Aunty Em says I can go and play with Toto. So we go out into the fields, for hours and hours and I sit down and eat an apple that Aunty Em give me, and Toto and I sit down, on top of a hill where I can see all the farm. Toto sits on my lap, and I scratch his ears and his neck under the collar. He licks my hand, and he goes to sleep on my lap. He has a cold wet nose. He goes to sleep with his nose against my arm. At night, I give him his supper in a red bowl. I fix him oatmeal and egg and a bit of jerky that Aunty lets me have for him.

  I did not call him Toto. That is the name my mother gave him when she was alive. It is the same as mine.

  That was where Dorothy had to stop writing.

  The Substitute went very still and quiet. Dorothy knew he had finished reading, but he didn’t say anything. Dorothy guessed that it wasn’t very good. Nothing was very good, but that was as good as she could make it. So he had to say something.

  He coughed and still didn’t look up at her, and he said in a very rough voice, “Thank you, Dorothy.”

  Then he managed to look up and Dorothy saw that his face looked horrible and that he was trying not to cry. “I’m very glad,” he murmured, “that you have something to love as much as that little animal.”

  You stupid, stuck-up, New York freeloader. You skinny little balloon-faced squirrel.

  “I don’t have a dog!” Dorothy shouted. Her voice went thin and screeching, and she kept on shouting, as loud as she had ever shouted, shouted to bring the walls down. “I don’t have a dog because Aunty Em killed him! He was the only thing I got to take with me from home and just ’cause he barked and chased the hens, she killed him, and she didn’t even tell me, so for years and years every time I heard a dog bark I thought it was Toto, and I run and I run after him, calling out his name, and she heard me do that and she never said nothing, she just let me call, because she hates me, she makes me work, and she never feeds me ’cause there’s never any food and I’m always hungry and I don’t have nothing and she never gives me nothing, and I can’t say anything.”

  The Substitute was on his feet and the class gaped in amazement. The child had gone hysterical, just as suddenly as a roll blind when it snaps up. He tried to take her in his arms.

  He tried to take her in his arms and she screamed. It was a horrible sound, a sound like a spaniel caught in a bear trap, a horrible wrenching yelp that turned into a thin, piercing seagull wail, and she pushed the Substitute away.

  “And every day Uncle Henry does it to me, he pushed me up against a wall or down into the dirt, and takes up my dress and he does it to me, with his thing, he does it to me!”

  The other children heard. The Substitute gathered her up and tried to bundle her out of the room, but she fought. She pummeled him about the face. His glasses broke. “You stupid, stupid squirrel. Why did you have to come here? You stupid, stupid man!”

  And then the great galumphing gal curled up onto the floor and wept like a baby.

  She tried to dig a hole in the floor. Her hands were gouging at the varnished wood. She curled up smaller and tighter and tried to dig, her eyes closed, her mouth closed, like a mole, and when he tried to stop her, when he grabbed her wrist she fought and was as strong as he was. Finally he let go, and she went still. She went still, making a small, squeezed, wheedling little sound.

  “If she gets up, keep her here!” he told the class. He turned and ran. He heard his flat feet clatter in the corridor, and he felt his bad heart beat. At first the Principal didn’t believe him.

  “Collapse? Dorothy Gael? That girl has the constitution of an ox.”

  “Even an ox can die of heartbreak,” said the Substitute. “There’s been something terrible going on. She shouted it out, and all the children heard.”

  “Did they indeed? What’s she been doing, stealing peaches? All right, Mr. Baum, I’ll come and see.”

  She was still there on the floor, no longer wailing, but shivering and she had stuck her thumb in her mouth. Professor Lantz walked in and one of the children giggled. They were all biting their nails

  “DeEtta,” the Principal said to his assistant, “take the children out into the yard, please.”

  “Come on, children, there’s nothing more to see here,” said Mrs. Warren as the children gaped in wonder.

  “What she said!” breathed out one of the girls.

  The Principal looked up and waited until the children had left. He was taking Dorothy’s pulse rate. It was a scientific thing to do.

  “All right, Mr. Baum. What did she say?”

  The Substitute found he couldn’t say it. He had had a delicate upbringing. The Substitute could feel his cheeks roasting with embarrassment. He sighed and hissed with the difficulty of even finding words for it.

  “Out with it, Mr. Baum, there are only us men here.”

  “She says that her Uncle has relations with her.”

  For just a flicker, as if time had blinked, Professor Lantz went still.

  “I mean, what she actually said was that he pushed his thing up her.” Frank Baum felt his voice suddenly shudder and go weak. He was nearly in tears.

  “Buck up, man,” said Professor Lantz. “It doesn’t surprise me. Dorothy Gael is quite capable of imagining anything. She said this in front of the other children?”

  “Yes,” said the Substitute, overwhelmed by the horror of it.

  “Dorothy Gael,” said the Principal, as if the child were not curled up under his hands, “is a very wicked creature. At times she almost convinces me of the truth of demonic possession. She has said before, herself, that she lies about everything. She is capable of uttering any untruth and, I’m afraid to say, of thinking up all manner of foulness by herself. You do not know the girl, Mr. Baum.” The Principal was fat and had to grunt as he stood up. Without realizing it, he made a gesture of wiping his hands.

  “We’ll get your
relative, Dr. Lyman, in to have a look at her. And then we will bundle her up and send her home and ask her never to come back to this school.”

  The Substitute followed him out of the room glancing back and forth between him and the girl. “Are you sure? Are you sure you should send her home?

  “Where else does she belong, Mr. Baum?”

  “Whatever else may be true, she is desperately unhappy there, Professor Lantz. Please! Look at her! What would make a child try to dig her way into the floor?”

  “I don’t know,” said Professor Lantz, looking back with a half smile. “Perhaps a handsome young actor from New York.”

  The Substitute found that dismay was turning to anger. You are going to blame me for that in there? “What,” the Substitute asked, drawing himself up, “what if what she said is the truth?”

  Professor Lantz stopped smiling and his gaze when steely.

  “There must be a reason for it!” exclaimed the Substitute.

  “The only reason,” said the Principal, “is fantasy. Fantasy is pretty unhealthy as a general rule. I will remind you, Sir, that you are an itinerant actor invited here to teach a class for a few days at the suggestion of Dr. Lyman. You do not know Dorothy Gael, nor her guardians, the Gulches. You could not hope to meet more God-fearing or civic-minded people. Her uncle takes her to and from Manhattan every day, the distance of four miles each way, simply to bring her here since her last school failed to effect any improvement. She gets the best care her people can afford. Particularly since she must be a very great trial to them. And I am afraid, Sir, that we will not be requiring your services tomorrow. After creating that incident in there I think you can see why. Cigar smoke and all.”