CHAPTER 32
百度搜索 The stolen Child 天涯 或 The stolen Child 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
Speck loved to be by moving water. My stro memory is of her animated by the currents, empathetic to the flow. I saw her once, years ago, stripped to the skin, sitting with her legs tucked beh her, as the water rolled around her waist and the sunshine caressed her shoulders. Under normal circumstances, I would have jumped and splashed in the creek with her, but struck by the grace of her ned limbs, the tours of her face, I could not move. On another occasion, wheownsfolk shot off fireworks in the night, we watched the explosions upriver, and she seemed more ented by the waterflow than by the loud fl in the sky. While the people looked up, she watched the light refleg on the ripples and the sparks as they hissed on the surface. From the beginning, I had guessed where she had gone and why, but I did not act upon that intuition because of a fundamen<q></q>tal lack of ce. The same fears that had prevented me from crossing at the riverbend also made me break off the seard e bap. I should have followed the waters.The path to the library never seemed as long and foreboding as on the night of my first return. The way had ged since arted. The forest thinned around its edge, and rusty s, bottles, and other refuse littered the brush. None of us had visited in the years since she left. Books lay where we had left them, though mice had nibbled the margins of my papers, left their scat in our old dleholders and coffee mugs. Her Shakespeare was lousy with silverfish. Stevens had swollen with dampness. By dim dlelight, I spent the night rest order, pulling down cobwebs, shooing crickets, lingering over what she had once held in her hands. I fell asleep ed in I he musty blahat had long ago lost her st.
Vibrations above annouhe arrival of m. The librarians started their day, joists creaking uheir weight and the patterns of their routines. I could picture their goings-on: cheg in, saying hello, settling at their stations. An hour or so passed before the doors opened and the humans shuffled in. When the rhythm felt normal, I began to work. A thin film of dust covered my papers, and I spent most of that first day reading the bits and pieces in order, tying the loose pages with entries in Mess journal. So much had bee behind, lost, fotten, and buried after we had been driven away the first time. Reduced to a short pile, the words doted times passage with deep gaps and yawning silences. Very little existed, for instance, from the early days of my arrival—only a few crude drawings and pathetiotes. Years had gone by without mention. After reviewing all the files, I uood the long chore ahead.
When the libraria for the evening, I popped operapdoor underh the childreion. Unlike on other forays, I had no desire to pick out a new book, but, rather, to steal new writing supplies. Behind the head librarians desk lay the treasure: five long yellow pads and enough pens to last the rest of my life. To introduce a minor intrigue, I also reshelved the Wallace Stevens that had been missing.
Words spilled from the pen and I wrote until my hand cramped and pained me. The end, the night that Speck left, became the beginning. From there, the story moved backward to the point where I realized that I had fallen in love with her. A whole swath of the inal manuscript, which is thankfully gone, was giveo the physical tensions of being a grown man in a young boys body. Right in the middle of a senten desire, I stopped. What if she wanted me to go with her? I would have pleaded for her to stay, said that I lacked the ce to run away. Yet a trary idea pulled at my sce. Perhaps she never intended for me to find out. She had run away because of me and knew all along that I loved her. I put down my pen and wished Speck were there to talk with me, to answer all the unknowables.
These obsessions curled like parasites through my brain, and I tossed and turned on the hard floor. I woke up in the night and started writing on a pad, determio rid my mind of its darkest thoughts. The hours passed and days drifted oo the other. For the six months, I divided myself between the camp and the library, trying to piece toge<samp></samp>ther the story of my life to give to Speck. Our winter hibernation slowed my progress. I grew tired in December and slept until March. Before I could go back to the book, the book came bae.
Solemn-eyed Luchóg and Smaolach approached one m as I ched a farl of oats and draihe dregs from a cup of tea. With great deliberation, they sat oher side of me, cross-legged, settling in for a long talk. Luchóg fiddled with a new shoot of rye poking through the old leaves, and Smaolach looked off, pretending to study the play of light through the branches.
"Good m, lads. What’s on your minds?"
"Weve been to the library," said Smaolach.
"Havent gohere in ages," said Luchóg.
"We know what youve been up to"
"Read the story of your life."
Smaolach turned his gaze toward mine. "A huhousand apologies, but we had to know."
"Who gave you the right?" I asked.
They turheir faces away from me, and I did not know where to look.
"Youve got a few stories wrong," Luchóg said. "May I ask why you wrote this book? To whom is it addressed?"
"What did I get wrong?"
"My uanding is that an author doesnt write a book without having one or more readers in mind," Luchóg said. "One doesnt gh the time and effort to be the only reader of your own book. Even the diarist expects the lock to be picked."
Smaolach pulled at his , as if deep in thought. "It would be a big mistake, I think, to write a book that no one would ever read."
"You are quite right, old friend. I have at times wondered why the artist dares t something new into a world where everything has been done and where all the answers are quite well known."
I stood and broke the plane of their inquisition. "Would you please tell me," I hollered, "what is wrong with the book?"
"Im afraid its your father," said Luchóg.
"My father, what about him? Has something happeo him?"
"Hes not who you think he is."
"What my friend means to say is that the man you think of as your father is not your father at all. That man is another man."
"e with us," said Luchóg.
As we wound along the path, I tried to untahe many implications of their invasion into my book. First, they had always known I was Henry Day, and now they knew I khey had read of my feelings for Sped surely guessed I was writing to her. They knew how I felt about them, as well. Fortunately, they came across as generally sympathetic characters, a bit etric, true, but steadfast allies in my adveheir line of questioning posed an intriguing , however, as I had not thought ahead to how I might actually get a book to Speore to the point, about the reasons behind my desire to write it all down. Smaolad Luchóg, ahead orail, had lived in these woods for decades and sailed through eternity without the same cares or the o write down and make sense of it all. They wrote no books, painted nothing on the walls, dano new dance, yet they lived in pead harmony with the natural world. Why wasnt I like the others?
At su, we stepped out of cover and walked down past the church to a scattering <u></u>of graves in a green space adjat to the cemetery enclosed by a stone wall. I had been there once before, many years ago, thinking it a shortcut back to safety, or perhaps merely a good hiding place. We slipped between the iron bars into a tranquil, rown garden. Many of the inscriptions oones were weathered and faded, as the tenants had laih their vanishing names for many years. My friends took me on a winding path between the graves, aopped short among the memorials and weeds. Smaolach walked me to a plot and showed me the stone: WILLIAM DAY, 1917-1962. I k down on the grass, ran my finger along the grooves of letters, sidered the numbers. "What happened?"
Luchóg spoke softly. "We have no idea, Henry Day."
"I havent heard that name in a while."
Smaolach laid his hand upon my shoulder. "I still prefer Aniday. You are one of us."
"How long have you known?"
"We thought you should know for the truth of your book. You didnt see your father that night we left the old camp."
"And you uand," Luchóg said, "that the man in the new house with the baby ot be your father."
I sat down and leaned against the marker to save myself from fainting. They were right, of course. By my dar, fourteen years had passed sihe end date on that gravestone. If he had died that long ago, William Day could not be who I thought he was, and that man was not William Day but his double. I woo myself how such a thing could be possible. Luchóg opened his pouch, rolled a cigarette, and calmly smoked it amid the headstohe stars came out to defihe sky—how far away, how long ago? My friends seemed on the verge of revealing additional secrets, but they said nothing, so that I might figure it out for myself.
"Let us away then, lads," Smaolach said, "and think on this tomorrow."
We leapt the gate at the er and trekked home, our versation turning to smaller mistakes in my own story. Most of their suggestions escaped scrutiny because my mind wandered down long-ed lanes. Speck had told me what she remembered, but much remained mysterious. My mother faded in and out of view, though I could now see quite clearly the facet of twin baby sisters. My father was a nearly total void. Life existed before this life, and I had not suffitly dragged the river of my subscious. Late that night, while the others slept, I sat awake in my burrow. The image of Oscar Love crystallized before me. ent months iigating that boy, finding out in excruciatiail the nature and shape of his life, his family history, his habits of mind—all to assist Igel in the ge. If we knew Oscar so well, thehers must have known my history, infinitely better than I k myself. Now that I knew my true here was no longer any reason for them to hide the truth. They had spired to help me fet, and now they could help me remember. I crawled out of my hole and walked over to Luchógs spot, only to find it vat. In the adjat burrow, he was ed in Chavisorys arms, and for a moment I hesitated to disturb their peace.
"Luch," I whispered. He blinked. "Wake up, and tell me a story."
"Aniday, for the love of—t you see Im sleeping?"
"I o know."
By this time, she was stirring as well. I waited until they disentahemselves, and he rose to eye level. "What is it?" he demanded.
"You have to tell me everything you remember about Henry Day."
He yawned and looked at Chavisory curled into the fetal posit ion &quht now, Im going back to bed. Ask me again in the m, and Ill help with your book-writing. But now, to my pillow and to my dreams."
I woke Smaolad Béka and Onions with the same request and ut off by ea much the same way. Despite my excitement, I drew nothing but tired glares at breakfast the m, and only after the whole had their fill did I dare ask again.
"I am .9９ｌiｂ.ing a book," I announced, "about Henry Day I know the broad story that Speck gave me before she left, and now I need you to fill iails. Pretend Im about to make the ge, and give me the report on Henry Day."
"Oh, I remember you," Onions began. "You were a baby foundling in the woods. Your mother ed you in swaddling clothes and laid you at the greyhounds shrine."
"No, no, no," said Béka. "You are mistaken. The inal Henry Day was not a Henry at all, but one of two identical twin girls, Elspeth and Maribel."
"You are both wrong," said Chavisory. "He was a boy, a cute, smart boy who lived in a house at the tip of the forest with his mother and father and two baby twin sisters."
"Thats right," said Luchóg. "Mary and Elizabeth. Two little curly-tops, fat as lambchops."
"You couldnt have been more tha or nine," said Chavisory.
"Seven," said Smaolach. "He was seven when we nabbed him."
"Are you sure?" asked Onions. "Coulda swore he was just a baby."
The versation tinued in this fashion for the rest of the day, in tested bites of information, and the truth at the end of the discussion was the distant cousin of the truth at the beginning. All through the summer and into the fall, I peppered them separately and together with my queries. Sometimes an answer, when bined with my prodigal memory or the visual cue of a drawing or a piece of writing, ted a fa my brain. Slowly, over time, a pattern emerged, and my childhood returo me. But ohing remained a mystery.
Before the long sleep of winter, I went off, i upon climbing the highest peak in the hills surrounding the valley. The trees had shed their leaves and raised naked arms to the gray sky. To the east, the city looked like toy building blocks. Off to the south lay the pact village cut in two by the river. In the west, the riverbend and the big try beyond. To the north, ragged forest, a farm or two hacked out from the trees and stone. I sat on the mountaintop and read, dreamt at night of two Specks, two Days, what we are, what we would be. Save for a flask of water, I fasted and reflected upon the puzzle of existence. Ohird day, my mind cleared a in the answer. If the man eared as my father was not my father, who was he? Whom did I meet in the mist? Who was the man by the creek on the night we lost both Igel and Oscar Love? The one who chased us through the kit door? He looked like my father. A deer, startled by the snap of my head, bolted through the fallen leaves. A bird cried ohe note lihen disappeared. The clouds rolled on and revealed the pale sun. Who had taken my place wheole me away?
I khat man had what had been intended for me. The robber of my ealer of my story, thief of my life: Henry Day.
百度搜索 The stolen Child 天涯 或 The stolen Child 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.