by Anna Carey
Page 21
The sound of snoring filled the dimly lit hallway as I crept forward, running my hand along the stones in the wall. I still had so many questions. What had happened in the camps beyond the work, the hauling of bricks and stones? How did children as young as Benny and Silas get into camp? It wasn’t enough to have passing details. I was awake with the same desire that had often overtaken me at School. Headmistress once called it “the thirst for knowledge. ”
I turned a corner at the sixth doorway and he was before me, in his wrinkled shirt and ripped shorts. His legs were draped over one arm of a deep, cushioned chair, his head draped over the other.
“Caleb?” I asked. “Are you asleep?”
He startled awake, looking around quickly as if to remember where he was. Then he rubbed his face, smoothed back his hair and smiled.
“Welcome to my humble abode. ” He gestured to the bare mattress on the floor, covered only with a comforter, its feathers sprouting up from the seams. On the table beside it was a metal radio and handset like the ones I’d seen at School. Maps were tacked up on the wall, their edges curled from the moisture.
“What are you doing with all these books?” I asked, stepping toward a tall stack on the floor. I ran my fingers down the spines, recognizing a few familiar titles from School: Heart of Darkness, The Great Gatsby, and To the Lighthouse.
Caleb came beside me, his warm shoulder brushing against mine. “I do this funny thing sometimes,” he said, shooting me a mischievous grin. “I open a book, and I look at each page. It’s called reading. ”
“I know what reading is!” I laughed. Heat crept up my neck and face, settling in my cheeks. I ran my fingers through my hair. I hadn’t seen a mirror since School. “But how? Benny said no one had learned to read here. ”
“You met Benny, then?” Caleb asked. His eyes seemed to be searching my face, scanning my lips and brows and cheeks.
I nodded. “Earlier today. And Silas and some of the other boys, too. Silas was the little girl I thought I saw. He was wearing that tutu. ”
Caleb laughed. “He found that tutu in boxes we’d raided from a warehouse. Leif and some of the older boys knew what it was, but how can we tell him? He loves it too much. ”
I smiled, my nerves suddenly awake in my body. I picked up Heart of Darkness, thankful to have its weight in my hands, steadying my trembling fingers. “I started to teach them to read. You never showed them the alphabet? Their names?”
“I went into the labor camps when I was seven, so I had learned a bit before the plague. My mother had taught me some basic things before she died—smaller words and the sounds. And then after, here, I would read at night to . . . ” He stared at the ceiling. The stubble on his face was getting thicker, creating dark shadows along his chin and neck. “. . . to escape, I guess. It was never an option, teaching the boys, especially not with Leif around. As the oldest, we need to hunt, fish, survey the land, and keep watch for troops in the area. All day, every day. They need food more than they need books. Unfortunately. ” He sighed and met my eyes. “I’m glad you’re teaching them, though. ”
He held my gaze until I finally had to look away. “You read all of these?” I glanced at Anna Karenina and On the Road, which looked strange sandwiched between Art History for Dummies and The Complete Book of Swimming.
“Every word. ” Caleb laughed. “I’m not such a caveman after all, huh?”
Caleb’s long tattered gray shirt was unbuttoned, revealing the occasional glimpse of his tanned chest. “I didn’t really say that, did I?”
“You didn’t have to,” he replied.
I crossed the room to another pile and Caleb followed, his steps right behind mine, as though shadowing me in a dance. “I was wrong,” I said. Standing so close to him I could see the specks of brown in his pale green irises.
Caleb circled me, laughing, as if I were some delightful creature he’d discovered in the brush. “Oh really?” was all he said.
“Oh, this one . . . ” I picked up To the Lighthouse. Its pages were curled up at the corners. “Charles Tansley! What a nightmare. Who is he to say women can’t paint, women can’t write? And the way Mr. Ramsay just forgets about his wife after she died—he’s practically swooning over Lily at the end!”
Caleb tilted his head. “I assumed your education was skewed, but I never realized how much. ”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Caleb took a step closer and I could smell the smoke on his skin. “Mr. Ramsay is in mourning, he’s devastated. That’s why he takes James to the lighthouse—he’s still thinking of that argument he had with his wife years ago. ” I furrowed my brow, trying to process what Caleb said. “The book shows what happens without Mrs. Ramsay, how important a mother is, how quickly everything fell apart without her,” he continued. “They all loved her. ”
I remembered the lesson at School, with Teacher Agnes lecturing about men’s desire for younger women, or the inability of men to fulfill the emotional needs of the people around them. It all seemed so clear then.
“That’s just your opinion,” I tried, shaking my head.
But Caleb didn’t look away. His face was half lit by the glow of the lantern, making his features softer. “That’s what happens in the book, Eve. ” He rapped on its hard cover.
I dropped the book and sat down on the armchair, for the first time not minding the musty smell that seemed inescapable at the camp.
“It’s just—” I said, feeling the sudden swell of embarrassment. I thought of that night in the doctor’s office, right before I left School. Teacher Florence had told me the King wanted to repopulate the earth efficiently, without all the complications of families, marriage, and love. She had said the girls had done it willingly at first. It made some sick sense. They must’ve thought if we feared men we would never desire them. We would never want love, or families of our own. Then we would be more willing to do whatever they asked of us. “That’s not how I learned it. ”
I turned away, hoping Caleb didn’t see my eyes, washed over by emotion. I had worked so hard at School, taken detailed notes on each lesson, scribbling down the margins until my fingers cramped. And for what? To fill my head with lies?
“Sometimes it seems like all the things I need to know, I don’t. And all the things I do know are completely wrong. ” I dug my fingernails into my palm, suddenly frustrated. Anger swelled inside me. I started to the door but Caleb grabbed my hand, pulling me back.
“Wait. ” He curled my fingers around his, just for a moment, before dropping them. “What do you mean?”
“Twelve years in School and I . . . I don’t even know how to swim,” I managed, remembering the panic I felt that night at the river. I couldn’t hunt or fish, I didn’t even know where in the world I was. I was completely useless.
He stood, walking me to the doorway. “Here, Eve,” he said as he grabbed his copy of To the Lighthouse off the floor. “Have my book. You could read it again—for yourself. ”
We stayed in the mud threshold for a moment, his head just grazing the ceiling. I ran my fingers over the broken cover, considering what he’d said. Maybe here, in this dugout, away from Teacher and the lectures, the book would be different. Maybe I’d be different. I listened to our breaths, now in sync.