Messenger

by Lois Lowry

Page 3

 

  He could see beyond the cornfield to where two young boys named Matty and Ramon were dangling lines into the river. Good fishing, he thought.

  He could see beyond the marketplace to the cemetery where Gatherers ruined body had been buried. Rest in peace, he thought.

  Finally he looked toward the border of Village, to the place where the path entered Forest and became shrouded in shadows. Leader could see beyond the shadows but was not certain what he saw. It was blurred, but there was something in Forest that disturbed Leaders consciousness and made him uneasy. He could not tell whether it was good or bad. Not yet.

  ***

  Deep in the thick undergrowth near the clearing, at the edge of Leaders puzzled awareness, a small green frog ate an insect it had caught with its sticky, fastdarting tongue. Squatting, it moved its protruding eyes around, trying to sense more insects to devour. Finding nothing, it hopped away. One back leg was oddly stiff but the frog barely noticed.

  3

  "If we had a Gaming Machine," Matty commented in a studied, offhand manner, "our evenings would never be boring. "

  "You think our evenings are boring, Matty? I thought you enjoyed our reading together. "

  Seer laughed, and corrected himself. "Sorry. I meant your reading to me, Matty, and my listening. Its my favorite time of day. "

  Matty shrugged. "No, I like reading to you, Seer. But I meant its not exciting. "

  "Well, we should choose a different book, perhaps. That last one—Ive forgotten its name, Matty—was a little slow-going. Moby Dick. That was the one. "

  "It was okay," Matty conceded. "But it was too long. "

  "Well, ask at the library for something that would move along more quickly. "

  "Did I explain to you how a Gaming Machine works, Seer? It moves very quickly. "

  The blind man chuckled. He had heard it all before, many times. "Run out to the garden and get a head of lettuce, Matty, while I finish cleaning the fish. Then you can make a salad while the fish cooks. "

  "And also," Matty continued in a loud voice as he headed for the garden just beyond the door, "it would be a nice end to a meal. Something sweet. Sort of a dessert. I did tell you, didnt I, how the Gaming Machine gives you a candy when you win?"

  "See if theres a nice ripe tomato while youre out there getting the lettuce. A sweet one," Seer suggested in an amused voice.

  "You might get a peppermint," Matty went on, "or a gumdrop, or maybe something they call a sourball. " Beside the back step he reached into the vegetable garden and uprooted a small head of lettuce. As an afterthought, he pinched a cucumber loose from its vine nearby, and pulled some leaves from a clump of basil. Back in the kitchen, he put the salad things in the sink and halfheartedly began to wash them.

  "Sourballs come in different colors, and each color is a flavor," he announced, "but I suppose that wouldnt interest you. "

  Matty sighed. He looked around. Even though he knew the blind man wouldnt see his gesture, he pointed to the nearby wall, which was decorated by a colorful wall-hanging, a gift from the blind mans talented daughter. Matty stood often before it, looking carefully at the intricate embroidered tapestry depicting a large thick forest separating two small villages far from each other. It was the geography of his own life, and that of the blind man, for they had both moved from that place to this other, with great difficulty.

  "The Gaming Machine could stand right there," he decided. "It would be very convenient. Extremely convenient," he added, aware that the blind man liked it when he exercised his vocabulary.

  Seer went to the sink, moved the washed lettuce to the side, and began to rinse the cleaned salmon steaks. "And so we would give up—or maybe even trade away—reading, and music, in exchange for the extreme excitement of pulling a handle and watching sourballs spit forth from a mechanical device?" he asked.

  Put that way, Matty thought, the Gaming Machine didnt actually seem such a good trade. "Well," he said, "its fun. "

  "Fun," the blind man repeated. "Is the stove ready? And the pan?"

  Matty looked at the stove. "In a minute," he said. He stirred the burning wood a bit so that the fire flared. Then he placed the oiled pan on top. "Ill do the fish," he said, "if you fix the salad.

  "I brought some basil in, too," he added, with a grin, "just because youre such a salad perfectionist. Its right there beside the lettuce. " He watched while the blind mans deft hands found the basil and tore the leaves into the wooden bowl.

  Then Matty took the fish and laid it in the pan, swirling the oil around. In a moment the aroma of the sautéing salmon filled the room.

  Outside, it was twilight. Matty adjusted the wick on an oil lamp and lighted it. "You know," he remarked, "when you win a candy, a bell rings and colored lights blink. Of course that wouldnt matter to you," he added, "but some of us would really appreciate—"

  "Matty, Matty, Matty," the blind man said. "Keep an eye on that fish. It cooks quickly. No bell rings when its done.

  "And dont forget," he added, "that they traded for that Gaming Machine. It probably came at a high cost. "

  Matty frowned. "Sometimes you get licorice," he said as a last attempt.

  "Do you know what they traded? Has Ramon told you?"

  "No. Nobody ever tells. "

  "Maybe he doesnt even know. Maybe his parents didnt tell him. Thats probably good. "

  Matty took the pan from the stove and slid the browned fish onto two plates, one after the other. He placed them on the table and brought the salad bowl from the sink. "Its ready," he said.

  The blind man went to the bread container and found two thick pieces of bread that smelled fresh-baked. "I got this at the marketplace this morning," he said, "from Mentors daughter. Shell make someone a good wife. Is she as pretty as her voice makes her sound?"

  But Matty was not going to be diverted by reminders of the schoolteachers pretty daughter. "Whens the next Trade Mart?" he asked, when they were both seated.

  "Youre too young. "

  "I heard that there was one coming soon. "

  "Pay no attention to what you hear. Youre too young. "

  "I wont be always. I ought to watch. "

  The blind man shook his head. "It would be painful," he said. "Eat your fish now, Matty, while its warm. "

  Matty poked at the salmon with his fork. He could tell that there was to be no more discussion of trading. The blind man had never traded, not one single time, and was proud of it. But Matty thought that someday he himself would. Maybe not for a Gaming Machine. But there were other things that Matty wanted. He ought to be allowed to know how the trading worked.

  He decided he would find out. But first he had the other thing to worry about, and the troubling awareness that he had not dared to tell the blind man of it.

  ***

  There were no secrets in Village. It was one of the rules that Leader had proposed, and all of the people had voted in favor of it. Everyone who had come to Village from elsewhere, all of those who had not been born here, had come from places with secrets. Sometimes—not very often, for inevitably it caused sadness—people described their places of origin: places with cruel governments, harsh punishments, desperate poverty, or false comforts.

  There were so many such places. Sometimes, hearing the stories, remembering his own childhood, Matty was astounded. At first, having found his way to Village, he had thought his own brutal beginnings—a fatherless hovel for a home; a grim, defeated mother who beat him and his brother bloody—were unusual. But now he knew that there were communities everywhere, sprinkled across the vast landscape of the known world, in which people suffered. Not always from beatings and hunger, the way he had. But from ignorance. From not knowing. From being kept from knowledge.

  He believed in Leader, and in Leaders insistence that all of Villages citizens, even the children, read, learn, participate, and care for one another. So Matty studied and did his best.

  But sometimes he slipped back in
to the habits of his earlier life, when he had been a sly and deceitful boy in order to survive.

  "I cant help it," he had argued glumly to the blind man, in the beginning of their life together, when he had been caught in some small transgression. "Its what I learnt. "

  "Learned. " The correction was gentle.

  "Learned," Matty had repeated.

  "Now you are relearning. You are learning honesty. Im sorry to punish you, Matty, but Village is a population of honest and decent people, and I want you to be one of us. "

  Matty had hung his head. "So youll beat me?"

  "No, your punishment will be no lessons today. You will help me in the garden instead of going to school. "

  It had seemed, to Matty then, a laughable punishment. Who wanted to go to school, anyway? Not him!

  Yet, when he was deprived of it, and could hear the other children reciting and singing in the schoolhouse, he felt woefully lost. Gradually he had learned to change his behavior and to become one of Villages happy children, and soon a good student. Now half grown and soon to finish school, he slipped only occasionally into old bad habits and almost always caught himself when he did.

  It bothered Matty greatly, now, having a secret.

  4

  Leader had summoned Matty for message-running.

  Matty enjoyed going to Leaders homeplace, because of the stairs—others had stairs, though Matty and the blind man did not, but Leaders stairs were circular, which fascinated Matty, and he liked going up and down—and because of the books. Others had books, too. Matty had a few schoolbooks, and he often borrowed other books from the library so that he could read stories to the blind man in the evenings, a time they both enjoyed.

  But Leaders homeplace, where he lived alone, had more books than Matty had ever seen in one place. The entire ground floor, except for the kitchen to one side, was lined with shelves, and the shelves were filled with volumes of every sort. Leader allowed Matty to lift down and look at any one he wanted. There were stories, of course, not unlike the ones he found in the library. There were history books as well, like those he studied at school, the best ones filled with maps that showed how the world had changed over centuries. Some books had shiny pages that showed paintings of landscapes unlike anything Matty had ever seen, or of people costumed in odd ways, or of battles, and there were many quiet painted scenes of a woman holding a newborn child. Still others were written in languages from the past and from other places.

  Leader laughed wryly when Matty had opened to a page and pointed to the unknown language. "Its called Greek," Leader said. "I can read a few words. But in the place of my childhood, we were not allowed to learn such things. So in my spare time, I have Mentor come and help me with languages. But. . . " Leader sighed. "I have so little spare time. Maybe when Im old, I will sit here and study. Id like that, I think. "

  Matty had replaced the book and run his hand gently over the leather bindings of the ones beside it.

  "If you werent allowed to learn," he asked, "why did they let you bring the books?"