Lucy Read online

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  LUCY STARED UP at the moon and thought: It looks so pale and weak here. Flat, not round. The stars and planets looked as if they were being smothered in the fog that rose from the new place in which she found herself. She watched the fog rise all night long and then before morning saw the moon dissolve and heard the dogs begin to bark. The dogs frightened her.

  When Jenny had gone to sleep, Lucy had opened the window to let the air in. She removed her clothes and lay out on the bed and gazed at the sky through the trees. When the moon swung into view she felt a sadness in her stomach, an aching for home. She mused on her home, thinking that she’d likely never see it again. She felt a longing to drink in the aroma, the million scents of flower and dung, of water and life, of the exploding growth, the eternal rot. She wanted to hear the wild braying of the forest song as she went to sleep.

  Jenny was kind, and Lucy knew that she wanted only to protect her. But she felt that she might never fathom this place. She felt that she ought to be grateful for all she had, thankful to be alive. Lucy understood that Jenny could have left her for dead in the jungle. As she lay there, she tried to feel grateful, but all she could feel was loneliness, sadness, even anger.

  She had cried in bed those first few nights, watching the lonely moon. There was too much light. The forest had been dark, but here the night glowed like a phosphorescent fungus. Even after the moon went down there would be a dull glow. Lucy was aware that she could not have stayed in the forest. The soldiers would have come back. Jenny had told her that she’d get used to this place, but Lucy felt hopeless. The food was strange. The water tasted bad. She hated clothes.

  Clouds moved across the moon. She smelled the air and knew that it wouldn’t rain that night. She feared another thunderstorm. In the forest she had loved the thunderstorms. When they came, everyone danced on the top of the ridge in the flashing light and the pouring rain. She recalled Grandpa Dondi tearing branches and dragging them around and Faith and Viaje hiding in the trees, afraid. But in this place the other people lived so close. Lucy wondered what would happen if they saw her dancing.

  She put her feet over the side of the bed and stood shivering in the cold night air. Summer was almost over. Jenny said that it would grow cold, cold such as she had never known. She said that Lucy would have to return to England and go to school. Lucy crossed the room and closed the window and slipped back into bed beneath the sheets. She tried to imagine what snow was like. She had seen it in pictures. Solid water. Such an odd concept. She wondered what it felt like.

  She tried to drift off to sleep but the machines kept growling on the road beyond the end of the street. Cars. Trucks. A train crying plaintively in the distance. She heard night sounds, too, but they didn’t tell her anything that she could understand. In the forest Lucy would know if a sound was from a monkey or a bird, a cat or pig. When she heard a sound or a voice, she could tell if it was good or bad or nothing that concerned her. Jenny had told her that the far-off wail of a siren meant that something bad was happening. But what sort of bad? And who might be in trouble? Jenny said to ignore the sounds, you couldn’t tell what they meant. Lucy thought that learning such a thing in the forest might be fatal.

  The night was half over before the road quieted down. The mechanical noises faded away and Lucy drifted into sleep. In her dreams she was back in the forest and Papa was listening to her read in French from the book by Montaigne: “A mere bookish sufficiency is unpleasant.” The day was over and she felt safe in her home, but she worried because her father was weak from a bout of malaria. He’d contracted the disease long ago, before the good medicine. He’d been in bed for days.

  Then the explosions began in the distance. Her father stopped reading and held the book loosely on his lap. Lucy had never seen him so concerned. He turned to her. Like cool water in mountain terrain, his blue eyes, bloodshot from illness, looked upon her from out of his chiseled features. His shock of gray hair was in disarray, his skin pale. They listened to the advancing guns and began to smell their sharp smoke. At last her father said, “Go with Viaje and the others and hide. I can’t run. I’m too weak. You must hide in the trees.” He kissed her and said, “I love you, Lucy. Always remember that.” Lucy followed the others into the trees. As she slept, she was vaguely aware that she was in a dream, struggling to get out. She wanted to say something to her father but couldn’t speak.

  She scrambled into the trees with Toby and Viaje and Faith and watched as the soldiers moved in disorderly columns, swinging their eerie lights through the darkness while the bombs fell ahead of them. She saw her father slouch into the hut, and then Leda came running out of the forest screaming and trying to reach the hut to protect him. A soldier raised his rifle and fired. A loud crack split the air. Leda jerked and staggered into the hut. Lucy’s father appeared at the door and several soldiers fired at once. He fell back into the darkness. Toby and Viaje and Faith cried out and the soldiers shot them, too. Lucy watched in horror as the bodies fell. The soldiers ransacked the camp and left.

  Lucy woke with a start. On several nights she had tried to stay awake to avoid that dream. But even when she was able to stay awake it made no difference. She’d remember and couldn’t keep herself from going over and over the attack in her mind.

  She had come out of the forest as soon as the soldiers left, but the others were frightened and stayed away. Lucy ran into the hut and saw her father lying on the floor. She fell on him and wept. Then she found Leda behind the curtain and held her and cried.

  She couldn’t remember how long she lay like that. Her mouth grew dry from crying. Her eyes hurt. Then Jenny came.

  • • •

  Lucy had dozed off. She woke to find that the moon had gone. The light was coming. She had loved the first moments of morning in the jungle, the crescendo of voices in the trees; the rising smells of life around her; the big cats flowing through the forest in the dim light; and then the drama of the sun pushing thin cylinders of light through the murk as if searching for something. As she watched the light swell behind the window, she felt sad for the sun. It had grown so weak. She feared that its fire might go out and then everything would freeze. She was aware that it was a childish thought. Her father had taught her all about the cosmos. But she was unable to control her thoughts at times.

  She lay in bed trying not to think at all. But a word rose to the surface: School. Her father, who had been her only teacher, had told her about school, but she still had no idea what it might be like. She worried that there would be too many people. It would be loud. Everything in this new place was loud. Already she could hear the roaring of the road. Sometimes men came in the day with frightful machines to cut the grass up and down the street and blow everything around with a terrible noise. Lucy hid in her room and trembled when they came.

  Now she could smell Jenny’s coffee. She had heard her rise a while ago. Jenny had tried to tiptoe to the bathroom. But Lucy could hear her. Lucy thought it no wonder that Jenny didn’t know how to be quiet. How could she when she lived in such a loud place? Lucy knew quiet. Termites, she thought. Termites are quiet even when they’re making their sounds. Quiet sounds.

  When Jenny and Lucy had arrived after their long journey, Jenny had showed her this room. By that time they had been on the move for many days. Lucy had worn clothes the entire time, but the moment she was left alone, she took them off and reveled in the feeling of freedom once more. She had stood looking around at the strange room, which was populated with things that she’d seen only in books: The framed prints of Monet’s water lilies on the wall, the vase with dried weeds in it, a decorative rug, a writing desk, lamps, the big bed with the flowered bedspread, a box of tissues, and an electric radio that told the time in lighted red digits.

  That first day, she had crossed the room naked and approached the floor lamp. She turned it on. Then she turned it off. She switched it on and off and on and off over and over, marveling at the light, feeling its heat. So much light, she thought.
The street was brightly lit all night like a stage set for a play. But no one ever came. Her father had rationed the light. They often didn’t have enough fuel for the generator. But when they did, he would make light in the evening and play music on an old machine and teach Lucy to sing arias.

  That first day in her new home, Lucy had heard a sound as she switched the lamp on and off. She stopped to listen. It was faint, coming from the floor. She moved toward it, listening: It was termites. Quiet but not silent. A pleasant and familiar sound. Something was living after all, eating the house. Lucy took a straw from the vase of dead weeds and went to the wall, smiling to herself, thinking about what her father had always said: Life will find a way. She worked the straw into a small gap where the wall met the floor. She’d had to eat such strange foods since leaving the forest. She thought that termites might be a welcome treat.

  As she squatted on the floor, listening and fishing with the straw, Jenny came to the door. “Good morning, Lucy. What are you doing?”

  “Looking for termites.”

  “Termites? Really? Termites?”

  “They’re in the floor. They’re good to eat. Do you want some?”

  “Well, are they the same as the ones we had in Congo? Those were good when I tried them once. But who knows what sort of chemicals our local termites might have. I’d be afraid to eat them here.”

  Lucy stopped. She withdrew the straw, looking disappointed.

  “I didn’t know the house had termites.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Lucy said. “I just felt happy when I realized that there were termites. The food here is so strange.”

  “I know. Speaking of chemicals. Who knows what’s in our food for that matter? But we’ll have to make do. So about your clothes …” Jenny gathered them up and put them on the bed. “I know you don’t like clothes. Actually, I don’t either. I often went without in the forest. It’s okay with me if you want to go around the house naked. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to clothes. Come on. I’ll find something that you’ll like to eat. I promise.”

  Lucy admired Jenny, such a good and caring person. She allowed herself a momentary vision of the two of them racing through the forest together enjoying the bounty and the beauty. Then Lucy realized that Jenny would never be able to keep up. And that made her think: I have no one else in the world now. Lucy wanted Jenny to know her but she didn’t know how.

  But now it was a new day. She could hear Jenny clanking dishes in the kitchen. I’m here, Lucy thought, and I’ll just have to make the best of it. She sighed and rose and began to dress, thinking, I guess I’d better get used to clothes, as Jenny says.

  She went down the hall to the bathroom and turned on the water in the sink. She let it run over her hands. She splashed it on her face. She bent down to drink from the spigot. Such a miracle, she thought. Water is life, as her father used to say. And here it just gushed endlessly out of a silver spout as if all the rivers of all the world had magically flowed to this one spot for no purpose other than to please Lucy.

  She dried her hands and face and descended the stairs to find Jenny standing at the counter reading a newspaper. Lucy watched as Jenny calmly pored over the endless tales of catastrophe and meanness while sipping coffee from a mug decorated with paintings of yellow pears tinged with pink. Jenny was pretty in a sturdy sinewy way, tall and thin with sandy-red hair curling past her shoulders. She had long delicate fingers, but her hands were calloused from working in the forest, the fingernails battered. Her hands looked as if they had an intelligence all their own.

  On the table where Jenny rested a hand, Lucy saw a shiny silver toaster, a pepper mill, coarse salt in a small ceramic bowl, a wicker basket of paper napkins, all these things that she’d seen only in photographs from the books and catalogs and encyclopedias that her father had sent upriver. Those books were tiny windows that connected the dark jungle to a bright and alien world, and Lucy had spent hours on end just peering through, trying to imagine what it might be like to be there in the flesh. Now here she was, and she saw that it was real, so real and bright that it almost hurt her eyes to look. She watched as the light fell through the window and crept over those magical objects, illuminating them as if each one had a living heart within it.

  Jenny sighed, wearied by something she’d read. Then she put on a bright smile and turned to Lucy. “Well, Lucy, what would you like for breakfast? I can make you just about anything you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How about fruit and yogurt?”

  “That would be fine.”

  Jenny busied herself slicing peaches and laying out bowls of berries and nuts and yogurt. She poured orange juice into a ceramic pitcher that matched the coffee mug. Lucy admired the kitchen. It was all very pretty. But somehow it struck her as almost too pretty. She tried to reconcile the bright prettiness with the ominous sounds of the place. She felt as if all the prettiness concealed some truer, deeper, and more menacing world that lay just beneath the surface.

  Jenny spooned Greek yogurt into bowls, and they sat together at the small table. Lucy regarded the fruit with curiosity. It seemed not quite real. She tasted a strawberry. It tasted only faintly like fruit. She missed the fruit of the forest, dark and sweet and musky. And she told herself, Stop your whining. You’re homesick. Snap out of it.

  To distract herself, she asked, “What will we do today?”

  Jenny bit her lip and thought for a moment, scooping berries into her bowl. “Well, what would you like to do? There are so many things to do in the city.”

  “May I please watch your television? I caught only glimpses of it at the airports. I’ve not really tried to watch.”

  Jenny shrugged. “Sure. Okay. But daytime television is pretty stupid. Come to think of it, nighttime television is, too.”

  “Yes, I know. Papa told me. But I’m curious to see what it is.” To Lucy the idea of television sounded very powerful. If she could learn television, then she might understand this culture better.

  After breakfast Jenny led Lucy to the den and showed her how the remote control worked. Lucy pushed the button to turn it on. But when the image came to life and the sound began to blare, she dropped the remote and put her hands over her ears, a look of pain creasing her face. Jenny couldn’t help but laugh. She picked up the remote and pressed the mute button.

  “Sorry. I don’t know why it’s turned up so loud. Oh, Nydia. The house sitter. She likes to watch.” She handed Lucy the remote. “Play with it. You’ll get the idea.” Then Jenny retired to her study to work. Lucy pushed a button. The screen showed an advertisement for something called Scalpicin. It showed a woman scratching her head with a worried expression on her face. A disembodied voice said, “The clear solution to a healthier scalp.” Lucy thought that odd. Scratching? She thought scratching was good.

  She pushed a button and some sort of drama began. People were arguing. Lucy recognized one of them as an old dominant female, but something had been done to her to make her face look younger. Lucy was puzzled that someone would wish to look younger and give up the status that age conferred. She found the story hard to follow. It seemed that a baby had been born and someone had stolen it and there was a murder plot like in a play by Shakespeare and someone’s wife was mating with someone else’s husband. Someone was in the hospital, though it wasn’t clear why. Everyone seemed mean and angry. It was very confusing. Then it switched to an urgent-sounding message about a new kind of sponge on a stick to mop the floor with, and then a doctor was telling Lucy that her joints hurt. A big boat appeared and someone who Lucy couldn’t see was shouting about it, telling her that the boat was going to take her to the Caribbean. But she didn’t want to go to the Caribbean. She wanted to be with Jenny. She worried that all of these invisible people might kidnap her and take her away. They all talked so loud and fast. Lucy had never met anyone who shouted in that rapid-fire way. She wondered, Who are these people? Where are these people? Do they really exist?

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nbsp; Lucy began to feel dizzy and had to stop. She couldn’t keep up. She pressed a button and the screen went blank. As she put down the remote control and crossed the room to look at the books on a bookshelf, she felt somehow deficient for being unable to understand television. She ran her finger across the spines of the books and stopped at a familiar one: The Old Curiosity Shop. She read, “Night is generally my time for walking,” and felt her shoulders drop, her mind clear. Books are so much simpler than television, she thought. A book goes logically from one thing to the next.

  Lucy lay on the rug reading and feeling a sense of relief that she didn’t have to go anywhere. When they’d first arrived, Jenny had taken her to buy clothes, and the experience had been terrifying. The speed of driving had been disorienting and nearly made Lucy ill. She felt that her eyes couldn’t focus on anything for more than a second. Lucy considered it a very bad sign that they had to be strapped into the car before they could begin. It had been one of the things that had frightened her about airplanes: She’d never been tied up before.

  When they arrived in the town, the buildings had seemed to reach to the heavens. It was both frightening and oddly beautiful, little villages in the clouds. She had read about all of those things in books, of course, but seeing them was a shock nevertheless.

  The noise inside the mall was deafening. Loud music played everywhere. Lucy couldn’t seem to get away from it. She couldn’t avoid the television screens with people screaming incessantly. When she had read Orwell’s novel 1984, Lucy couldn’t imagine a place such as the one he described. She thought it a mere fantasy. Now she saw that he’d been right: His Telescreen was everywhere, and you couldn’t turn it off.

  The mall smelled like flowers and sugar. People were swarming everywhere, but Lucy could detect no signals from them, no light of recognition. The older ones seemed as if they were walking in a trance and the younger ones had plugs in their ears. Lucy asked Jenny about them.