Old Green World

by Walter Basho

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Acknowledgements

  OLD GREEN WORLD

  Walter Basho

  CRAFT FICTION

  Old Green World

  Walter Basho

  Copyright © 2013 by Jason Craft dba Walter Basho

  All Rights Reserved. Printed 2015.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-0-9961538-0-5 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-0-9961538-1-2 (paperback)

  Editor: Sandra Spicher

  Cover and Interior Design: Derek George

  http://www.walterbasho.com

  1

  Albert was responsible for the garden. He inherited it at the age of eight and never gave it up. Every year or two, he would bring a younger student under his wing, but the apprentices lost interest once they realized Albert would happily do all the work himself. Sister Alice, the old teacher, never pushed the issue, and Sister Clare, the new teacher, never had the time to care.

  The garden and Albert got along well, like old friends. He knew how to tend to it, when to leave it alone, how to harvest it, and how to take it back down to the ground when the season was done.

  He poked radish seeds into the cool dirt of early spring with his thumb and then covered them. He used to be able to do this with an effortless precision, with perfect spacing of the seeds and rows, but it was a challenge now. His movements hadn’t adjusted to the size of his hands. He had grown three feet in the past year, and stood as tall and wide as a workingman ten years older. He scratched at his beard, which was just beginning to grow in red patches. The itch got on his nerves.

  He stopped and looked at Thomas, who was surrounded with sheets of parchment covered with calligraphy and sketches and weighed down with small stones. Thomas was trying to read one of the sheets and fought it a little as it curled in the wind. Albert watched his lips move as he focused on the page. Thomas always did that. Then Thomas scratched at his own beard and Albert smiled.

  Albert looked at the seeds he had planted and pictured the radish plants they would become. He pictured the smaller boy he had been a year ago. Time passing. Sister Alice had taught them that time was an illusion. “Every moment: this moment,” she had said to them in class. “That’s it.”

  “Not the apocalypse, though?” he had asked. “That was a different moment, wasn’t it?” He had felt so clever. The apocalypse had happened four thousand years ago. They talked about it at school all the time.

  “Every moment is the apocalypse, Albert,” Sister Alice had answered.

  Albert finished the row and looked to Thomas again. “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “It’s lunch,” Thomas said. He pointed toward the pine bell tower, which jutted into the sky, ragged and sturdy, four times the height of any other structure in the square. Albert followed Thomas’s gaze and saw one of the caretakers ascending. The tower was now five years old, three of those years in the building. The bell tower rang once an hour, at the hand of one of ten volunteers who kept watch on the water clock housed in the bank next door. The Adepts had initiated the tower project to teach the people of the town the importance of precise time.

  “Why do we have to pay attention to time, if it’s an illusion?” Albert had asked Sister Alice in class.

  “Everything is an illusion,” she had said, “and that’s precisely why we have to pay attention.”

  A child burst from the schoolhouse, a tiny version of the boys, wearing the same clothes and the same close-cropped hair. He ran toward them, a little ball in loose blue wool knickers and tunic. “Albert!” he screamed.

  Albert dropped to a nimble crouch and then leapt toward the child. “Don’t run into the garden!” he said, grabbing the child with a gentle tackle. The child shrieked giddily and Albert laughed.

  “I escaped,” the child said.

  “You’re not supposed to escape,” Albert said. “You’re causing trouble for Sister Clare.”

  “Hannah,” the child said, “Hannah made a mess, and Sister Clare was talking to Hannah, and I ran out the door.” The child pointed back to the door.

  Sister Clare burst from it. She wore the same blue wool, but hers was draped as robes, with simple, sharp embroidery. Her head was covered. She looked wildly in all directions. She was five years older than Albert, at most.

  “Here, Sister Clare,” Albert called. He tucked the child under his arm and carried the kicking bundle toward her.

  She exhaled, closed her eyes, and reopened them with slightly more calm. “Harald,” she said to the child, “Harald.”

  The child began crying.

  A wetness crept into the wool of Albert’s sleeve, at the point where he cradled the child with his arm. He scrunched his nose. He handed the child back to Clare and smiled at her. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

  Sister Clare pursed her lips. “How is the garden?”

  “It’s fine. I’m almost finished.”

  “Wonderful, so this afternoon you’ll read your . . .” She trailed off, a blank look on her face.

  Albert waited a moment, then said, “Military history. I’ll read military history and strategy this afternoon.”

  “Wonderful,” Sister Clare said. She looked at Thomas for a moment, as if she had something more to say, then reconsidered. “Thomas is fine, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. He’s reading physics,” Albert said. “No one’s watching the children, Sister Clare.”

  Sister Clare closed her eyes and furrowed her brow, as if she were trying to read something from behind her eyelids. After a moment she said, “It’s all right.” Then, a moment later, she said, “Wait, no. No, it’s not.”

  Her eyes snapped open. She hastened toward the schoolhouse, the child in her arms. He looked back to Albert and waved good-bye.

  “We’re going to lunch now,” Albert called after her.

  “Wonderful,” Sister Clare called back.

  Thomas stood, gathered his sheets of manuscript, collected them in a satchel. They began walking across the square. They passed the tower and approached a cluster of buildings just beyond: the town’s hall of government was there, and Thomas’s house sat just beside it.

  The breeze stirred the patchy grasses. Three stray cats walked in the square: one cringed against the breeze; one ignored it, staring intently at something unknown; one put its face right toward the breeze and seemed to enjoy it.

  “It’s cold,” Albert said. He huddled close to Thomas. “Do you think Mister Ewan has made soup today?”

  “Maybe. You’re right, it is cold, come in closer,” Thomas said, shouldering in as they crossed the square.

  “How’s the physics?” Albert asked.

  “It’s difficult. But it’s interesting, so that helps. It’s called causal relations.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’d explain it to you, but I don’t understand it yet.”

  “I don’t even understand why you have to learn physics.”

  Thomas shrugged.

  The Adepts taught what they taught, Albert knew. Most of the time it made sense, but not always.

  “I’m glad I don’t have to do any more math or physics,” Albert said. “I like koan study better. Just ask me a question, and I’ll say ‘Shut up! Ha-ha!’ and then you’ll smack me. And then we’ll both become enlightened.”

  “You know it’s not as simple as that. That’s one of the subjects you’re best at. You know koans are work.”

  “Or are they? Shut up! Ha-ha!”

  Thomas smiled, then kneeled down to scratch a cat behind its ears.

  Albert kneeled next to Thomas, leaned cl
ose into his ear, and whispered, “You’re supposed to smack me now.” Thomas pretended to ignore him, then stood and walked ahead. Albert shrugged. “Missed opportunity,” he said.

  They walked around the side of Thomas’s house to a back door, smooth and elm, with a bronze knocker. The door opened as they approached, and an older man in a smock greeted them. Mister Ewan led them into the kitchen. “Stay in here for a while,” he said. He stretched his arm up to ruffle Albert’s hair and pointed out some cheese and biscuits for him to eat.

  “Mother’s busy?” asked Thomas.

  “Sister Alice is here,” Mister Ewan said. “She arrived early this morning, and they have been meeting ever since. I’m not sure, but I think it’s the Baixans.”

  “Baixans, I can’t wait to fight some Baixans,” Albert said, smiling through a mouth full of crumbs and cheese.

  “I’m sure it’s serious if they’ve been talking all morning.” Thomas looked at the door a few times and picked at some food absently. “I hope they aren’t moving inland.”

  Albert chewed through the rest of his biscuits and cheese. A bell rang, and Mister Ewan went to answer after handing Albert a sandwich he’d hastily prepared. Albert swallowed when he noticed Thomas staring at him. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?” Albert asked. “It’s just a sandwich. I’ll still have room for lunch.”

  “I’m fine. Please don’t joke about the Baixans, Albert.”

  Albert stood still. He didn’t know where to look, so he looked at his sandwich. “I didn’t mean to make you upset.”

  Mister Ewan returned behind Thomas’s mother. Lady Newton was chewing on the stylus that she always chewed. She wore smooth, flowing gray wool, much finer than the schoolteacher robes and embroidered in red thread. She smiled at Albert. “Dear. I trust you and Thomas had a productive morning?”

  Albert returned the smile. “Well, we did some exercises, and then I turned and planted the school garden while Thomas studied physics. And I invited Thomas to become enlightened with me, but he declined. So that’s on him.”

  Lady Newton laughed and put her arm around Albert. “We’ll have to work on Thomas. Sister Alice is here, dear, so you’ll eat in the kitchen with Mister Ewan.”

  “May I eat in the kitchen, too?” Thomas asked.

  Lady Newton frowned at him. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Go to the table.”

  Thomas glared at his mother. He took two chicken eggs from the clay bowl on the rough-hewn sideboard and threw them onto the tiles on the floor.

  “Would you care to explain that? The process that brought you to this moment?” Lady Newton said. “Mister Ewan’s going to have to clean that up. Is that what you hoped to accomplish?”

  “What makes Sister Alice so special that Albert has to miss his lunch?” Thomas pointed at the hallway like he was criticizing it.

  “Miss his lunch?” Lady Newton replied. “It’s lovely here in this kitchen. I wish I could eat in the kitchen. And this isn’t about Albert, it’s about you and your selfish—”

  “Because you’re ashamed, you put on an act for Sister Alice, you can’t do what is right—”

  “—your behavior, every act you take brings us closer to either civilization or chaos, do you appreciate that? Does it even enter into your mind that your tantrums, your irresponsibility, could eventually ruin and destroy everyone in Eden-town?”

  Thomas slammed his hand on the sideboard and stormed out.

  Everyone was quiet for a moment. Lady Newton put her arm back around Albert and gave him a squeeze. “Enjoy your lunch, dear. We’ll all eat together tomorrow, all right?”

  “Have a good lunch,” Albert said as she walked out. The Newtons had a hallway. The Newtons had more rooms than anyone in Eden-town: rooms just to cook, rooms just to eat, rooms just to stand between other rooms.

  Mister Ewan reached toward a stack of cloths on the sideboard. The cloths were clean-edged, precisely cut from old clothes. He soaked a cloth in a basin, kneeled to the floor, and began cleaning up the eggs with the wet cloth. “It’s just you and me again,” he said from the floor.

  “I’ll do that,” Albert said. “You go ahead and finish getting ready for them.” Mister Ewan filled three bowls, put them on a flat wooden board, walked out into the hall. Albert rinsed the towel in a basin. The basin was bigger than the egg bowl, but it was similar workmanship. Geoffrey Pauli made all the pots in town and always stamped a “G” into the bottom.

  Albert sat down at the kitchen table. Mister Ewan came back in and filled two more bowls. It was barley porridge. Mister Ewan made it at least once a week, but Albert never got tired of it. It was always full and savory, with greens from the forest and a runny egg on top.

  “I miss sitting with you for lunch,” Albert said. “We haven’t eaten together since . . .” He trailed off. He had almost said since Mayor Newton died but it felt wrong to say that.

  “Lady Newton is soft-hearted,” Mister Ewan said. “It would be easier if you and I just ate in the kitchen every day. There’s a table for the people who run things, and a table for everyone else. The old days are over.

  “We used to all sit together, even the Adepts, did you know that? We used to live in longhouses and eat at the long tables together. That was how it was when I was a little boy. Then they decided we would have towns, and that there would be mayors, and separate houses, and people serving people. My father refused. He just ran off into the woods. So it was just my mother and me, and Lady Newton and her parents. Even then, we used to eat together, all of us. Then the Adepts decided there needed to be a house with a room just for eating, and just for them. Now we act like that’s how it’s always been. There’s no going back.”

  Albert stared at his bowl and kept eating. “Maybe it just takes time. Maybe we’ll all eat together again once we’re finished building civilization.”

  “When’s that going to happen? When will it be finished?” Mister Ewan said. Albert didn’t say anything. They ate quietly for a while before Mister Ewan said, “It’s all right, though. It’s good for you to eat with them. You’re good for Thomas.”

  Albert and Thomas were quiet when they walked back to school, until Thomas began bumping into Albert on purpose and stepping on his feet. Albert bumped him back. Thomas dropped his satchel, grabbed Albert around his shoulders, and started wrestling him.

  “You’re going to lose. You know you’re going to lose,” Albert said.

  “I’m going to win this time,” Thomas said. He tried to mimic a wolf call.

  Albert wrestled him down into the grass, sat on him, held Thomas’s arms down with his hands. “I give up, I give up,” Thomas laughed. Albert let his arms go but stayed straddled on him. Thomas kept his eyes locked with Albert’s and very gradually put his hands onto Albert’s thighs, as if his hands were operating secretly as he held Albert’s attention. They were still for a while, catching their breath.

  “Mother and Sister Alice are worried about the Baixans. They talked about it all morning. They wouldn’t tell me much, though.”

  “We’ll fight them eventually, right?” Albert said. “It’s what I’ve trained for.”

  Thomas turned his head to the side, looked away from Albert, toward his house. “I’m getting married to Cynthia,” Thomas said. “We talked about it at lunch.”

  “I know,” Albert said. Thomas was engaged to Cynthia Kelvin, whose father was the mayor of Over-town. They had been engaged since they were babies. When they married, they would unify the north. It was for civilization.

  “I mean soon, though,” Thomas said. “In a few weeks. We’re going to Over-town to meet them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I have to do it. I don’t have a choice.”

  “I know.”

  + + +

  After school each day, Albert practiced fighting. He shot things with arrows and struck them with swords. Four days a week he practiced with the militia, a group of older boys and men who knew less about fighting than Albert did. The other days,
Albert practiced archery at home with Mama Mura. They practiced the bow in a space they had set aside for it. It was a mulched row with a hay target, near where the forest bounded their farmland.

  The east side of the farm approached the village. Between them sat the Plancks’ farm and some low trees and clearings. The west side of the farm touched the old forest. It took a full day of travel through ancient trees to reach Over-town. To the north of them was the channel, and to the south it was trees for leagues and leagues, all the way to the Old City of the Island.

  Albert drew, fired, and struck the bull’s-eye slightly to the left. “Good,” Mura said.

  Albert winced. “I’m pulling to the left and I’m not sure why.” He fired two more in close succession, each of which struck closer to the center. He looked back at Mura and smiled. “I think I got it,” he said, and approached the target to free his arrows.

  “Good.” Mura said. The setting sun cast itself right across her face, and Albert could see the variegation in her color that only came out in full light. There were small flecks of gold in her dark brown eyes. Her hair was close to the scalp, but he could still see the reds that mottled the dark brown. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. I’m just thinking, I guess.” He paused. “I won’t be shooting targets for much longer. I’ll be a soldier, like you were.”

  Mura shrugged. “I guess you could call it ‘soldier’? We didn’t have a word like that. It’s different from what we have here. We were just a group of people with weapons and a goal.”

  “You met Mama and Papa then,” Albert said. He plucked at the bowstring absently, firing nothing into the ground.

  “We fought near the village where Mama and Papa grew up,” Mura said. “There were raiders there, making chaos, and we were trying to stop them. But we failed. Some of us escaped, but the village was razed. I think you already know about that. It was tough. A lot of people were killed.”

  “So you saved Mama and Papa when you all escaped,” Albert said.