by Alyson Miers
In his last few weeks in coastal Scotland, he identified several youths in his class who were either very proficient spellers or talented artists and organized their abilities into a project for their later endeavors at literacy. After lessons every afternoon, he placed his helpers in front of large sheets of linen paper and helped them rack their brains. They were making a book to help detangle the many ambiguities of the English language for later students, and the phonetic section was the part that required the most imagination. Charlinder made a list of sounds made by particular letters and combinations thereof, and his helpers thought of words that exemplified each sound and accompanied each with an illustration. To no one's surprise, the vowels made the students cringe most often, along with certain shameless troublemaking consonants such as g, h, x and c. Some letter groups simply baffled the artists; how exactly did one illustrate any word ending in -tion, for example?
After they were satisfied that the pronunciation guide was thorough enough for a starting point, Charlinder released most of his helpers from duty and engaged the rest in creating a grammatical primer. The students helped think of sample sentences and wrote them out, while Charlinder diagrammed their punctuation and other linguistic properties and stated grammatical guidelines.
He identified a handful of students who were likely to make good teachers, and matched them up with more prospective students, such as Pauline and Francie. His work schedule became increasingly random as the days grew longer and people started streaming in from other villages with goods for shipment. The shipments meant more work for his students to do outside of lessons, and it meant the approach of his departure.
The last lesson was in the middle of May. Belinda came into the schoolhouse that morning and informed Charlinder that one of their ships had a spot for him the following day. She and her family arranged a send-off party for that night's dinner on the back of their property. It was a gentler affair, but similar in mood, to the farewell he'd received for his departure from Paleola. He said his goodbyes to his hostesses; their neighbors; his students; their families.
He stepped onto the boat the next morning after several crates of root vegetables and before several cages of fowl. He was the only person on board who didn't know what to do with a mast, a rudder, or a bilge pump, and nobody asked him to learn. The trip would take over a week, and Charlinder was asked only to stay out of the way. He tried to help the ship's cook, just to keep himself occupied, but found it difficult to be useful when the boat kept going up and down.
"Oy, Char, come up here a bit," Duncan called out to him on the third day. Charlinder tottered up to the bow end to talk to him by the wheel. "Are you seasick, or should we just take you on back along with the Icelanders' wares? It's too late to send you back in a lifeboat, you know."
"Do I really look that bad?"
"Miserable."
"Maybe just a little seasick."
"Just a little, you say," Duncan remarked. "I never saw any lad look so frayed on a trading ship."
"It's the waves getting to me," said Charlinder. "I've never traveled over water this deep before, and I'm not used to all this up-and-down business."
"You'll get used to it by the time we reach port," Duncan warned him, "and then you'll step on solid ground and you're going down-and-up all of a sudden."
"Oh, that sounds crazy."
"You're a landlubber, all right."
"I do love it when the land stays in one place."
"I don't mean it as a bad thing, you know. How was it, staying with Marietta MacPherson and her girls?"
"It was fine. I got along really well with them, and they took excellent care of me."
"I'm sure they did. I can't imagine you'd come this far if you had a family that needed you at home, so...did it feel strange to be the man of the house?"
Charlinder scoffed. "I was the only man in the house, but I don't think that's what you mean."
"No," chuckled Duncan, "I suppose it isn't. Marietta can look after herself after all this time, but are you quite sure she didn't try to match you up with one of the girls?"
At this, Charlinder burst out laughing; the thought of Pauline or Francie as his mate was about as congruous as Ruth living in domestic bliss with Kenny. "Definitely not," he managed.
"See, now, when was the last time anyone heard you laugh like that? I don't see Marietta as the scheming type, now, I'm only asking because...that Francie really should be married by now, but...folks see how she'd rather just stay home with her mum. We wonder...if we've done wrong by them."
"You know what happened with George, then?"
"You can't take a crap in our village without everyone knowing how soft it is," Duncan replied. "Yes, I know all about George MacPherson. As much as anyone outside the family does, anyway."
Charlinder nodded. "Marietta wishes I'd come earlier and taught her son how to read and write. He sounds like he would have made a good student."
"I think he would have liked to learn," Duncan offered. "Though I doubt it would have kept him with us once the lessons were done."
"Maybe not, but then he could write her letters, she figures."
"That would make doing without him a bit easier on her. I used to see other children always attacking him, and I thought, 'Why doesn't he fight back? Why can't he toughen up?' When I saw how that Dylan treated him, I started thinking George must be either the saddest little fellow or the boldest one in the world, to face what he did and keep going the way he was. I'm sorry he ran off, but I can't say it was any surprise."
"That's just about how his mother looks at it," said Charlinder. "I mean, how it wasn't a surprise."
"Sometimes I thought, if she and Dylan had another son, then Dylan would have eased up on George," Duncan suggested. "Either that or he would have always been comparing the lad to his brother."
"Yeah, that can happen, too. Listen, I had a couple of boys in my class; Justin and Billy. Are they your sons?"
"Yes, they are. I wanted them to take your lessons as soon as I heard what you were doing. How were they?"
"Justin was a good student; Billy was...energetic."
"Oh, dear," laughed Duncan, "sounds like he gave you a hard time."
"He's a good artist, though. He did some really helpful illustrations for the book."
"Yes, he told me how much fun it was to work on that. I would have liked to learn, too, but at least my boys got their chance."
"Well, I had room in my class for grown-ups, so where were you?"
"You've never lived in a seafaring village, have you?" Duncan remarked. "I was always at work, Char. The few adults you had in your lessons could make their arrangements to move their chores around, but I was needed at the boatyard when we had light. I helped set up your blackboard and arrange your classroom, but I could never dream of taking enough time to learn how to read."
"I really liked that blackboard, so, thanks."
"I'm glad it worked for you," he replied with a little laugh. "I'm still sorry I didn't get to see what you wrote on it."
"But, you know, I can think of worse reasons not to go to school."
"Work is a harsh mistress. My father had the same job until he suffered a mishap in the boatyard and lost a leg."
"And then he couldn't work on the boats anymore, I take it?"
"Of course not. He lost his livelihood, and he needed his family to take care of him after decades of it being the other way around. He died a broken, miserable man because of one moment when he didn't watch his step. It's a good living and a fine line of work if you're up to it, but I want my boys to have more choices than that."
Charlinder was about to say that he really admired that attitude in a parent, but also considered that, as a non-family man, it would sound condescending and presumptuous. "That's great," he said. Duncan looked at him quizzically. "That you want that for them, I mean. I should warn you, though, literacy only goes so far. It's no guarantee they'll be able to make a safe living."
"Nothing ever
guarantees a safe living, but," Duncan began, with a manic edge creeping into his voice, "now we can find out what’s stored in those books we’ve been holding onto since we crawled out from under the Plague, and then we’ll find out what certain other villages have been hiding from us while they could read and we couldn’t. And once we find out that much, the possibilities are endless."
"Yeah. If you look far enough into the future, I guess the possibilities are endless."
"Right. I like that we're important to the coast, but I want my boys to be worth more than how many trees they can haul."
Charlinder had never heard it described that way, and as he looked out over the North Sea, he realized that there were a lot of conversations he had failed to have during his time on the Scottish coast, and this would be to his detriment far more than theirs. "I hope they meet with success," he said. "Did I hear correctly from the boys that your family's expecting another baby soon?"
"My wife is ready to burst, and it didn't make me feel good about leaving on this voyage, but you heard what I said about work."
"But, this can't be the first time you've left home while your wife was pregnant, can it?"
"It may be the first time I'm away when my wife gives birth," Duncan clarified.
"Yeah, that's something else. I wish her a safe delivery, in any case."
"Thank you. You can go now; make sure Cook hasn't skinned your rabbit."
"There's hardly any meat on him," said Charlinder as he turned back for the cabin where he'd stashed Smoky.
"But you don't know if Cook knows that," he warned. "And, Char?"
"Yes?"
"Lighten up, will you? You'll be around women again before you know it, and you won't suffocate from being surrounded by blokes."
"I do not care about that," he muttered. At the same time he thought, Although this arrangement is unnatural.
The ninth day of sailing brought them to Iceland. Michael and Duncan took him to a family who would host him until the following day. They warned him that the northern part of the population didn't speak English.
"I can deal with that," he responded easily.
After more than five months at Cape Wrath, he started marking the map again with his Icelandic hosts. He made admirable time, he thought, in traversing that country which was not nearly as chilly as its name. His hosts were very helpful in showing him over the rivers and other geographical obstacles he would encounter, which helped to keep the trip flowing smoothly. Although they raised a lot of sheep, Charlinder was relieved to see that they were used mostly for wool.
After he left the boat and said goodbye to the Scotsmen, he thought more about the months he'd just spent as their community's schoolteacher. He also thought more about his time spent with Gentiola, and some of the last talks he'd had with her. He appreciated--and somehow, relished--the ironic appropriateness in how he'd set out to cut the Faithful off at the pass, and found out how the Plague was the biggest thing a believer had ever done on behalf of her chosen god. She was uniquely capable of achieving her ends, but despite her madness was not uniquely devout. Perhaps the Faithful would say Gentiola was an instrument of their God. Charlinder couldn't stop them, but there was something tremendously entertaining in imagining that the monotheists' God would choose as His instrument of holy retribution a woman who maintained that He didn't exist.
The unavoidable reality was that his time in Scotland had reminded him that he loved teaching. He took great pleasure in watching students clamor for their turn to speak up. He enjoyed preparing lessons the night before, maintaining a classroom space over time, and writing tests. He loved tracking children's progress; he even took a certain perverse pleasure in asking an ill-behaved child, "What will happen when I talk to your mother?" Mainly, he loved the gift of education itself, and no matter how unimpressed his neighbors were with the merits of esoteric knowledge, he thought that was a battle worth fighting in its own right. At the same time, Gentiola had alerted him to another complicated reality, but it wasn't that teaching children was beneath his dignity. He valued his occupation more than ever, but he could not simply go back to Paleola for business as usual. He needed to offer more than he had at his disposal. He had undertaken his journey in order to do his job as a teacher, and he would return as such, but the job he’d been doing before wasn’t enough.
Walking between settlements gave him a lot of time to think, but the perpetual motion didn't lend itself to writing. He had some paper in his bags on which he'd written out a lot of lessons for his Scottish class. Once he was on a boat headed to Greenland, he broke out his quill and ink and started writing in the margins.
--Long term plan for Paleola: open learning center. Bring youths together from surrounding villages, post several teachers, divide students into groups by age; teach them all.
--What subjects to teach?, he asked himself.
--World history: cover time periods from ancient world up to Plague, as many countries as possible.
--Psychology, sociology, philosophy.
--Biology: learn about microbes, all phyla of animals and plants.
--Religion: various belief systems, their role in history, their influence on societies, effects of cultures on religion. Debates on religion between older students.
--Chemistry: roles in biology and technology.
--Physics: Eileen had little to say on this, but necessary for development.
--Mathematics: more advanced than division and multiplications, more diverse than geometry. Necessary for physics and chemistry.
--Environmental science: air quality, water, climate, soil, species diversity, animal habitats, forest coverage, population.
--Technology: how much do we need to recreate? How much more do we need to invent? Light, heat, transportation, cooling, cooking, washing, communication, information, medicine. How do we produce energy? How to harvest raw materials? (metals) How to do this without environmental damage?
--Economics: socialism, capitalism, communism. Wealth, poverty, work, housing, food, energy. Regulation, international trade, growth, income inequality, taxation. Effect on religion, environment, sociology.
--Geography: continents, countries. (Learn boundaries pre-Plague.) Oceans, rivers, lakes; saltwater, fresh. Coastlines, islands, mountains, deserts, valleys, forests, plains.
--Sociology: urban/rural, youth/age, gender, sexuality, race, religion, economics, education, family values, structure, population density, technology, method of government.
--How to access knowledge?, he asked himself.
--Find remains of old libraries--the cities are not dangerous after all, and we need to know the urban remains won’t harm us--gather books on necessary subjects, copy out information, store in safe place.
--Other methods of information storage?
He remembered the tiny skein of yarn from Gentiola. More important, he remembered how no amount of obliviousness to the reality of her powers had shielded his community--or any other survivor descendants--from their consequences. The world looked the way it did because of that delusional woman in southern Europe who could access a type of energy that most people thought was strictly myth. There would always be some people who could do magic, and, he asked, what would be better: to suppress that knowledge, or understand it?
--Eileen's range of knowledge was limited. Find people in other communities; experts in other areas. Explore neighboring villages further for specialized knowledge. Travel farther away, find other expert people. Find other literate communities. Need more technical expertise. More labor specialization.
--Build printing press, bind books. Need metal for that.
--Literature: gathered from libraries.
--Music: develop new instruments, learn old songs, write new ones.
--Art: drawing, painting, sculpture. Need metal for sculpture tools, knowledge of chemistry for paints.
--Medicine: redevelop antibiotics, antiseptics, diagnostic methods, contraceptives (more advanced than condoms), blood transfusi
on, surgery (with anesthesia, especially with antiseptics, better knowledge of physiology), anti-cancer drugs (better than old chemotherapy methods), anti-viral drugs (did they ever really work?), hormones (insulin for diabetes, but how do we synthesize it?)
--Resources for learning center:
--Space for classes. Building with rooms, fireplaces, storage space for supplies.
--Supplies: lots of paper, pens, ink, boards for teachers (not clay on the floor), books.
--To furnish books, need a printing press.
--Need to make paper and ink more efficiently.
--What about time? How will the students do their chores? The teachers--their work?
--Where will students and teachers live outside of class time?