Was_a novel

by Geoff Ryman

  The author remembered orchards of cherries, crab apples and winter apples. She remembered the more uncertain crops of peaches, plums and pears. There were native plums as well, and wild grapes in tame arbors. The fruit had to be canned or dried. Jellies and pickles were made. Paper coated with white of egg would be laid over the contents. Pickles were put up in earthen jars or crocks with a large plate inverted over them and a scrubbed stone placed over each plate for weight.

  Jonathan saw woodpiles. Cottonwood, cobs, chips for a quick fire. Blackjack for a steady burn. He smelled apple-scented carbon dioxide, exhaled from fruit in barrels.

  Suddenly he was awake. Angel was at the door.

  “Oh darn, you were asleep, I’m sorry.”

  “Stay,” he croaked. He was scared. He felt very odd indeed.

  “I can read you some more.”

  “I can’t follow it,” he said. “Just stay with me.”

  She sat down again. “So why don’t you tell me why you came to Manhattan?”

  He told her he was looking for Dorothy. Dorothy of Oz, she had really lived, she had lived near here, she knew Frank Baum.

  “Really? Wow,” Angel said lightly. “I mean, everybody knows Baum came here once. That’s why they named some streets after the movie.”

  “I’m trying to find her house. I’m trying to find where she lived.”

  “Why? So you can get to Oz?” A smile.

  Jonathan paused. “It’s that dumb. Yes.” Something seemed to swell in the air between them. “I haven’t got that long,” he said.

  “Oh,” she said. “I see.”

  “I’m dying,” he said.

  “Mmmm hmmm,” she said, pressing her lips tightly inward.

  “And,” he said with a singsong sigh, “I don’t know that I’m going to find her. But I do reckon that I might stay here.”

  “In Manhattan. How come?”

  “I don’t want to go back to L.A.,” he said, and started to tell her about NPR, and a British pop group called It’s Immaterial, and how he loved their single, “Driving Away from Home.” He told her about Ira, his friend, how they had lived together for years, and then had a fight. Dimly he realized that she might guess what he was dying of, but he didn’t care suddenly. He felt like the scarf tied to a fence post, blowing in a hot wind. His words were hot.

  The scarf came untied.

  “It’s like Gilgamesh,” he said. “She goes to find the Wizard, like Gilgamesh tries to find . . . find . . . this Noah character and . . . and . . . and the Wizard is like a king because he and the land are the same thing, Oz and Oz, they have the same name and when he leaves in a balloon it’s like his big bald head, and the land dies, and . . . and . . . and Dorothy is . . . goes to the Netherworld to find life. She goes to the Land of the Dead.”

  He was raving. It felt good to rave. He finally found words. “She goes to the Land of the Dead to find Life. Isn’t that dumb? Why can’t we find it here?” It seemed to him a very reasonable question, asked in the spirit of inquiry.

  “You’re scaring me,” said Angel.

  Jonathan seemed to settle back. He touched his own forehead and it felt burning even to him. “Sorry,” he murmured.

  “Maybe if I read to you some more?”

  Angel rattled through the pages. The plain Kansas voice spoke.

  “‘My sister would never be held down. She was small and pretty, like something in a music box. People were always asking her to sing. I remember that if she liked something, she would try to give it away. She would wrap it up, sometimes even with her best hair ribbons and give it to me, or Father, or the neighborhood gals. And she’d wait and watch as we opened up her gift.

  “‘The life of a farmer’s wife would never have suited her. I know my father wanted her to be a schoolteacher. When she ran away to St. Louis, he was very unhappy. He need not have been. She became, I am informed, even more beautiful. How I wish now that I could have visited the refined places in which she performed, to see her success, to hear the fine gentlemen, the appreciative ladies, applaud.

  “‘After the Angel of Death descended, an exhalation of my sister’s perfume was sent to us, a sweet child, her daughter, Dorothy.’”

  Jonathan went still on the bed, unable to move.

  “‘This little girl became a new source of happiness to us. I learned then what I know now, that childhood is the source of all happiness. We remember joy when reminded of our lost years.’”

  “Where?” whispered Jonathan. “Where is she?”

  “Oh,” said Angel and stopped. “You think it’s her?”

  “What’s her name? The name of the author?”

  Angel turned the wad of papers over in her hand. No name on the front. There was handwriting at the end of the manuscript.

  “All it says is that this was retyped, but that most of the papers were lost in the 1903 flood. But, here, at the back it says the author was E. A. Branscomb.”

  “That’s her, that’s her.” Jonathan nodded. He looked at Angel. “I’m not making this up, am I?”

  “Don’t think so,” she said and passed him the papers.

  He flipped through them, scanning. “Do you remember her saying anything about where the farm was?”

  “She mentions the Kaw.” Angel shrugged.

  “She’s got to tell us where she lived!” he exclaimed.

  Something stopped him dead on a page before he knew consciously what he had seen. He stopped dead, and seemed to see the word “School” and then read:

  I felt as blessed as my little charge to have had Miss Ida Francis for a schoolteacher, and Sunflower School so close at hand.

  “I got her!” whispered Jonathan.

  And then there was a knock, and Bill Davison came in.

  “Hello, I saw the note in the office,” Bill began, to Angel.

  “Bill!” Jonathan shouted, not at all surprised to see him. “Bill, I got her!” He shook the papers at him.

  Bill stood stunned for a moment.

  “I found Dorothy!” Jonathan said.

  Bill answered him. “That’s why I’m here,” he said.

  After they had talked for a while, Bill gave Jonathan something to help him sleep. Jonathan crept back to bed in a darkened room, and found Karl waiting for him there. Karl’s body was smooth and cold. He kissed the tip of Jonathan’s nose and asked the question that everyone asked.

  “What,” Karl asked Jonathan, “do you want to do?”

  “I want to stay here in Kansas,” said Jonathan. “With you.”

  Manhattan, Kansas

  September 1989

  “öz Ev”

  “Real Home”—a motto on many trucks in Turkey, usually accom-panied by a painting of a white house in green fields by a river

  In the morning, Jonathan wasn’t in his room.

  Bill walked out into the parking lot. There was a low, golden light pouring across Highway 24, the trucks tirelessly rumbling past. On the other side of the road there was a warehouse made of aluminum sheeting with an orange sign—REX’S TIRE C. Above that there was a rise of large trees, like clouds, up a slope to a deliberate clearing. MANHATTAN, said giant white letters. On the top of the hill there was a water tower, like a white upside-down test tube. There was an apple painted on it. MANHATTAN, said the water tower, THE LITTLE APPLE.

  Bill saw Jonathan walking out of the shrubbery. Jonathan was walking backward. A newspaper was curled up and held firmly under his arm.

  “There you are,” said Bill. “I was getting worried.”

  Jonathan answered with his back toward Bill. “The river moved. I was trying to find it.”

  “By walking backward? Come on, Jonathan.” Bill tugged Jonathan around to face him. Jonathan was grinning. As soon as Bill let him go
, like a door on a spring, Jonathan spun back around.

  “Jonathan, turn around, please.”

  “I could walk into the river backward,” he said.

  “We’re going to have breakfast. Are you up for breakfast?”

  “Oh, yeah, I could eat a horse.”

  “Good, then let me look at you.” He pulled Jonathan back around. Jonathan was still grinning. Bill held him in place and peered into his eyes, which had gone yellow.

  “What color is your pee?” Bill asked.

  “Bet you say that to all the girls.”

  “Come on, just tell me what color it is.”

  “How should I know? I’m color-blind!” Jonathan replied.

  “Open wide.” Jonathan stared back at him like Groucho Marx. “Your mouth, not your eyes.”

  Beginning at the back of Jonathan’s throat there were ulcers, patches of yellow in pink swellings.

  “Can you hold anything down?”

  “Not even a job.” Released, Jonathan spun around again. “If I walk backward, I’ll go backward. Maybe I’ll disappear.”

  “Jonathan,” said Bill, to his back. “Do you want to find Dorothy?”

  Silence.

  “If you keep acting up, I’ll have to take you straight to the nearest hospital. So turn around. You can turn around.”

  “Nope. Can’t,” said Jonathan, and turned around to face him.

  “You’re jaundiced, Jonathan. You may have something wrong with your liver. And you’ve got something very nasty down your gullet. You should be in the hospital. Now. I can give you today, Jonathan, but by evening, I want you in the hospital.”

  “Sure, Ira,” said Jonathan.

  There was a steakhouse next door to the Best Western, next door being about a fifth of a mile away. They walked across dirt to a breeze-block bungalow. The floor was made of tiles designed to look like blocks of wood. The Formica tables looked like wood. The food looked like wood. The hash browns looked like sawdust, the egg like putty. Breaded mushrooms steamed in tin basins like wooden knobs. Caterers had finally found a way to bottom-line breakfast.

  Jonathan stared at the buffet, looking ill.

  “You could try some bacon,” said Bill. It looked purple and soggy. Jonathan firmly shook his head, no.

  “Jonathan, you’ve got to take something. How about some coffee? Tea?” Jonathan kept shaking his head.

  Bill’s heart sank. The physical symptoms were bad enough, but it was the presenting behavior that was really worrying him. “Okay, let’s sit down. Do you think you could swallow some soup?”

  Jonathan’s eyes moved sideways, terrorized by the prospect of food. He nodded yes. Bill took him by the arm and let him to a table.

  A waitress came up to their table. “Coffee?” she asked. She had brown circles under her eyes and slightly hunched shoulders, but she seemed cheerful.

  Bill said yes, and she poured coffee, not from the spout, but from the side, over the edge of the black-rimmed glass container.

  “Did you catch my awesome backhand?” she asked.

  Jonathan was staring up at the lights overhead. They were imitation oil lamps, with pink roses printed on them. Bill could see the dots.

  “Are those old?” Jonathan asked the waitress.

  “I don’t know, we just got them in last week.” The waitress giggled. “I’ll come back for your order in just a sec.” She waddled up to the next table and gave a gladsome cry. “Hi, Horace, how are you?”

  An officer of the law in a brown uniform placed his cowboy hat on the table. “Well how you doing, boss lady?” he boomed.

  “How was Ira?” Jonathan asked.

  At last, a sensible question. Bill almost sighed with relief.

  “He’s hysterical,” said Bill. “He blames himself, he’s full of worry. He thinks you can’t cope on your own. I told him how you’d used the credit card to buy a ticket and rent a car and said it didn’t sound exactly helpless to me. I—um—told him it would probably be better if he didn’t come along.”

  “He told me to go away.”

  “He may not have meant that.”

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  “Okay. But do you think you could write him a card or something?”

  Without looking at him, without saying anything, Jonathan took the newspaper out from under his arm and gave it to Bill. It was a local newspaper, and the edge was ringed around and around with Jonathan’s handwriting. It was a letter to Ira.

  The waitress was back with them, breathing good cheer, perfume and sweat. “Right, gentlemen, what will it be?”

  “Do you cook any breakfast fresh?” Bill asked.

  They found the car. Jonathan had the keys, and they had a plastic tag that said the license number, model, color.

  They drove it to the Registry Office. Jonathan’s knees jiggled with nerves, and he hummed to himself. In the office, Sally greeted them.

  “Sally, Sally,” he said, bobbing up and down. “I found the school!”

  “Great!” she said. “Which one is it?”

  “Sunflower School?” he asked.

  “We’ll find it for you. Who’s your good-looking friend?”

  “This is Bill,” said Jonathan, rather proudly. “He’s my psychiatrist.”

  Sally shook hands properly. “You think he could be my psychiatrist, too?”

  “Sure,” said Jonathan in a faraway voice. “But you have to be sick like me.”

  Her smile faltered for a second. “Right,” she said. “Let’s check out that school.”

  In the safe room, the big book was taken out, and Sally’s metallic pink fingernails raced across the pages. “We need its number,” she said. “Here we are. Sunflower School, number forty-three. It’s Zeandale Township but where exactly . . .” Scowling slightly, she went to another book. “Uh. Okay. I’ll show you where that is.”

  She led them out of the main records room to the map on the wall and pointed. “That’s it, there, Zeandale Township, smack dab where Sectors 23, 24, 25 and 26 all meet.” She stood back and with a hooked finger delicately rubbed the tip of her nose.

  Both Bill and Jonathan crowded around the map. Beside the main road was a tiny square with a number. It was near the Kaw, not far from the main road.

  “So we’ve got about eight big pages to look through. What were those names again?”

  “Branscomb or Gael,” said Bill.

  “That’s right, or another name if there was a marriage.”

  Another huge book thumped down on the sloping desk, and Sector 25, Township 10, Range 8, was found, northwest and southwest.

  “Pillsbury, Lewis, Long and . . . Monroe Scranton,” she murmured.

  “Monroe Scranton?” said Jonathan, leaping forward, slightly frog-like. “He was hung for stealing Ed Pillsbury’s horses!”

  Sally looked up. “Really? How do you know that?”

  “I read it last night.”

  “Well I’ll trade you. This guy Lewis here was jailed for theft. And this guy Long lost the property because he didn’t pay his taxes. SO this was kind of the bad corner of Zeandale. But . . .” she scanned the page. “No Branscomb or Gael.”

  She turned the page. “Look at this. This is why we have so much trouble. You got L. H. Pillsbury deeding this quarter to Minerva Wiley in April ’82, and then it goes in reverse in the same month—well, she mortgages to him. But then in September ’82, you got George Pillsbury giving it to L. H. Pillsbury by relation—but it just doesn’t show how George got it. Then in ’83 the District Court is giving it to Minerva. Oh, I get it! They’ve divided the quarters into halves. And I bet that court deed is a divorce.”

  Jonathan was making a rapid hissing noise through his nostrils.

  “Jonathan,�
�� asked Bill, “are the tips of your fingers buzzing?”

  Jonathan looked around at him in woozy surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Because you’re hyperventilating. Just breathe slowly, calmly.” Bill’s hands and chest moved outward, slowly, showing him how to breathe. “Relax. We have all day.”

  “We only have today!” said Jonathan, in sharp dismay. His face crumpled up.

  Sally ignored it. “Right, next page,” she said lightly, and looked up and around, still smiling. “Sorry, I just find all of this so much fun, I get distracted.”

  And her glance caught Bill’s as she looked back to the pages.

  I wonder how far you’ve gotten, Bill thought. He watched her scanning the pages. I would say you’ve probably decided that Jonathan is not exactly a mental patient. You’ve probably decided there is a physiological element. You’re used to puzzles. I wonder if you’ve worked this one out.

  “Here we go,” said Sally. “Branscomb.” She stepped back and tapped the place with a fingernail.

  “You’ve found it?” Jonathan’s voice rose high and thin.

  The farm was listed in Sector 26, southeast quarter. It passed from J. Pillsbury to E. Pillsbury to Branscomb, all in 1857. They were listed out of date order, widely separated by other sales or mortgages, mostly in the early 1900s. The next entry by date was in 1890—a deed to J. Pillsbury from the government.

  “That will just be a late copy entry,” said Sally. “I bet when we look at it, the deed will be typed, with a typed signature of Abraham Lincoln.”