by Gene Wolfe
“Too far. Going to hitchhike. All ready now? It’s right in the middle.” Little Tib felt the thick paper, still cool from the night before, laid upon his thighs. There was weight in the center; he moved his fingers to it and found a yam. The skin was still on it, but it had been cut in two. “Baked that in the fire last night,” Nitty said. “There’s a piece of ham there too that we saved for you. Don’t miss that.”
Little Tib held the half yam like an ice cream cone in one hand, and peeled back the skin with the other. It was loose from having been in the coals, and crackly and hard. It broke away in flakes and chips like the bark of an old sycamore. He bit into the yam and it was soft but stringy, and its goodness made him want a drink of water.
“Went to a poor woman’s house,” Nitty said. “That’s where you go if you want something to eat for sure. A rich person is afraid of you. Mr. Parker and I, we can’t buy anything. We haven’t got credit for September yet—we were figuring we’d have that in Macon.”
“They won’t give anything for me,” Little Tib said. “Mama had to feed me out of hers.”
“That’s only because they can’t get no pattern. Anyway, what difference does it make? That credit’s so little-bitty that you almost might not have anything. Mr. Parker gets a better draw than I do because he was making more when we were working, but that’s not very much, and you wouldn’t get but the minimum.”
“Where is Mr. Parker?”
“Down a way, washing. See, hitchhiking is hard if you don’t look clean. Nobody will pick you up. We got one of those disposable razor things last night, and he’s using it now.”
“Should I wash?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Nitty said. “You got tear-streaks on your face from cryin’ last night.” He took Little Tib’s hand and led him along a cool, winding path with high weeds on the sides. The weeds were wet with dew, and the dew was icy cold. They met Mr. Parker at the edge of the water. Little Tib took off his shoes and clothes and waded in. It was cold, but not as cold as the dew had been. Nitty waded in after him and splashed him, and poured water from his cupped hands over his head, and at last ducked him under—telling him first—to get his hair clean. Then the two of them washed their clothes in the water and hung them on bushes to dry.
“Going to be hard, hitchhiking this morning,” Nitty said.
Little Tib asked why.
“Too many of us. The more there is, the harder to get rides.”
“We could separate,” Mr. Parker suggested. “I’ll draw straws with you to see who gets George.”
“No.”
“I’m all right. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine now.”
Mr. Parker leaned forward. Little Tib knew because he could hear his clothes rustle, and his voice got closer as well as louder. “Nitty, who’s the boss here?”
“You are, Mr. Parker. Only if you went off by yourself like that, I’d worry so I’d about go crazy. What have I ever done to you that you would want to worry me like that?”
Mr. Parker laughed. “All right, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll try until ten o’clock together. If we haven’t gotten a ride by then, I’ll walk half a mile down the road and give the two of you the first shot at anything that comes along.” Little Tib heard him get to his feet. “You think George’s clothes are dry by now?”
“Still a little damp.”
“I can wear them,” Little Tib said. He had worn wet clothing before, when he had been drenched by rain.
“That’s a good boy. Help him put them on, Nitty.”
When they were walking out to the road, and he could tell that Mr. Parker was some distance ahead of them, Little Tib asked Nitty if he thought they would get a ride before ten.
“I know we will,” Nitty said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve been praying for it hard, and what I pray hard for I always get.”
Little Tib thought about that. “You could pray for a job,” he said. He remembered that Nitty had told him he wanted a job.
“I did that, right after I lost my old one. Then I saw Mr. Parker again and how he had got to be, and I started going around with him to look after him. So then I had a job—I’ve got it now. Mr. Parker’s the one that doesn’t have a job.”
“You don’t get paid,” Little Tib said practically.
“We get our draws, and I use that—both of them together—for whatever we need; and if he kept his and I kept mine, he would have more than me. You be quiet now—we’re coming to the road.”
They stood there a long time. Occasionally a car or a truck went by. Little Tib began to wonder if Mr. Parker and Nitty were holding out their thumbs. He remembered seeing people holding out their thumbs when he and his parents were moving from the old place. He thought of what Nitty had said about praying and began to pray himself, thinking about God and asking that the next car stop.
For a long time more no cars stopped. Little Tib thought about a cattle truck stopping and told God he would ride with the cattle. He thought about a garbage truck stopping, and told God he would ride on top of the garbage. Then he heard something old coming down the road. It rattled, and the engine made a strange, high-pitched noise an engine should not make. “Looks like a old school bus,” Nitty said. “But look at those pictures on the side.”
“It’s stopping,” Mr. Parker said, and then Little Tib could hear the sound the doors made opening.
A new voice, high for a man’s voice and talking fast, said, “You seek to go this way? You may come in. All are welcome in the temple of Deva.”
Mr. Parker got in, and Nitty lifted Little Tib up the steps. The doors closed behind them. There was a peculiar smell in the air.
“You have a small boy. That is well. The god is most fond of small children and the aged. Small boys and girls have innocence. Old persons have tranquillity and wisdom. These are the things that are pleasing to the god. We should strive without effort to retain innocence, and to attain tranquillity and wisdom as soon as we can.”
Nitty said, “Right on.”
“He is a handsome boy.” Little Tib felt the driver’s breath, warm and sweet, on his face, and something dangling struck him lightly on the chest. He caught it, and found that it was a piece of wood with three crossbars, suspended from a thong. “Ah,” the new voice said, “you have discovered my amulet.”
“George can’t see,” Mr. Parker explained. “You’ll have to excuse him.”
“I am aware of this, having observed it earlier; but perhaps it is painful for him to hear it spoken of. And now I must go forward again before the police come to inquire why I have stopped. There are no seats—I have removed all the seats but this one. It is better that people take seats on the floor before Deva. But you may stand behind me if you wish. Is that agreeable?”
“We’ll be happy to stand,” Mr. Parker said.
The bus lurched into motion. Little Tib held onto Nitty with one hand and onto a pole he found with the other. “We are in motion again. That is fitting. It would be most fitting if we might move always, never stopping. I had thought to build my temple on a boat—a boat moves always because of the rocking of the waves. I may still do this.”
“Are you going through Martinsburg?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the driver said. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am Dr. Prithivi.”
Mr. Parker shook hands with Dr. Prithivi, and Little Tib felt the bus swerve from its lane. Mr. Parker yelled, and when the bus was straight again, he introduced Nitty and Little Tib.
“If you’re a doctor,” Nitty said, “you could maybe look at George sometime. He hasn’t been well.”
“I am not this sort of doctor,” Dr. Prithivi explained. “Rather instead I am a doctor for the soul. I am a Doctor of Divinity of the University of Bombay. If someone is sick a physician should be summoned. Should they be evil they should summon me.”
Nitty said, “Usually the family don’t do that because they’re so glad to see them finally ma
king some money.”
Dr. Prithivi laughed, a little high laugh like music. It seemed to Little Tib that it went skipping around the roof of the old bus, playing on a whistle. “But we are all evil,” Dr. Prithivi said, “and so few of us make money. How do you explain that? That is the joke. I am a doctor for evil, and everyone in the world should be calling me even myself all the time. But I cannot come. Office hours nine to five, that is what my sign should say. No house calls. But instead I bring my house, the house of the god, to everyone. Here I collect my fares, and I tell all who come to step to the back of my bus.”
“We didn’t know you had to pay,” Little Tib said. He was worried because Nitty had told him that he and Mr. Parker had no money in their accounts.
“No one must pay—that is the beauty. Those who desire to buy near-diesel for the god may imprint their cards here, but all is voluntary and other things we accept too.”
“Sure is dark back there,” Nitty said.
“Let me show you. You see we are approaching a roadside park? So well is the universe regulated. There we will stop and recreate ourselves, and I will show you the god before proceeding again.”
Little Tib felt the bus swerve with breathtaking suddenness. During the last year that they had lived at the old place, he had ridden a bus to school. He remembered how hot it had been, and how ordinary it had seemed after the first week; now he was dreaming of riding this strange-smelling old bus in the dark, but soon he would wake and be on that other bus again; then, when the doors opened, he would run through the hot, bright sunshine to the school.
The doors opened, clattering and grinding. “Let us go out,” Dr. Prithivi said. “Let us recreate ourselves and see what is to be seen here.”
“It’s a lookout point,” Mr. Parker told him. “You can see parts of seven counties from here.” Little Tib felt himself lifted down the steps. There were other people around; he could hear their voices, though they were not close.
“It is so very beautiful,” Dr. Prithivi said. “We have also beautiful mountains in India—the Himalayas, they are called. This fine view makes me think of them. When I was just a little boy, my father rented a house for summer in the Himalayas. Rhododendrons grew wild there, and once I saw a leopard in our garden.”
A strange voice said: “You see mountain lions here. Early in the morning is the time for it—look up on the big rocks as you drive along.”
“Exactly so!” Dr. Prithivi sounded excited. “It was very early when I saw the leopard.”
Little Tib tried to remember what a leopard looked like, and found that he could not. Then he tried a cat, but it was not a very good cat. He felt hot and tired, and reminded himself that it had only been a little while ago that Nitty had washed his clothes. The seam at the front of his shirt, where the buttons went, was still damp. When he had been able to see, he had known precisely what a cat looked like. He felt now that if only he could hold a cat in his arms he would know again. He imagined such a cat, large and long-haired. It was there, unexpectedly, standing in front of him. Not a cat, but a lion, standing on its hind feet. It had a long tail with a tuft at the end, and a red ribbon knotted in its mane. Its face was a kindly blur and it was dancing—dancing to the remembered flute-music of Dr. Prithivi’s laughter—just out of reach.
Little Tib took a step toward it and found his way barred by two metal pipes. He slipped between them. The lion danced, hopping and skipping, striking poses without stopping; it bowed and jigged away, and Little Tib danced too, after it. It would be cheating to run or walk—he would lose the game, even if he caught the lion. It high-stepped, far away then back again almost close enough to touch, and he followed it.
Behind him he heard the gasp of the people, but it seemed dim and distant compared to the piping to which he danced. The lion jigged nearer and he caught its paws and the two of them romped up and down, its face growing clearer and clearer as they whirled and turned—it was a funny, friendly, frightening face.
It was as though he had backed into a bush whose leaves were hands. They clasped him everywhere, drawing him backward against hard metal bars. He could hear Nitty’s voice, but Nitty was crying so that he could not tell what he said. A woman was crying too—no, several women; and a man whose voice he did not know was shouting: “We’ve got him! We’ve got him!” Little Tib was not sure who he was shouting to; perhaps to nobody.
A voice he did recognize, it was Dr. Prithivi’s, was saying: “I have him. You must let go of him so that I may lift him over.”
Little Tib’s left foot reached out as if it were moving itself and felt in front of him. There was nothing there, nothing at all. The lion was gone, and he knew, now, where he was, on the edge of a mountain, and it went down and down for a long way. Fear came.
“Let go and I will lift him over,” Dr. Prithivi told someone else. Little Tib thought of how small and boneless Dr. Prithivi’s hands had felt. Then Nitty’s big ones took him on one side, an arm and a leg, and the medium-sized hands of Mr. Parker (or someone like him) on the other. Then he was lifted up and back, and put down on the ground.
“He walked …” a woman said. “Danced.”
“This boy must come with me,” Dr. Prithivi piped. “Get out of the way, please.” He had Little Tib’s left hand. Nitty was lifting him up again, and he felt Nitty’s big head come up between his legs and he settled on his shoulders. He plunged his hands into Nitty’s thick hair and held on. Other hands were reaching for him; when they found him, they only touched, as though they did not want to do anything more.
“Got to set you down,” Nitty said, “or you’ll hit your head.” The steps of the bus were under his feet, and Dr. Prithivi was helping him up.
“You must be presented to the god,” said Dr. Prithivi. The inside of the bus was stuffy and hot, with a strange, spicy, oppressive smell. “Here. Now you must pray. Have you anything with which to make an offering?”
“No,” Little Tib said. People had followed them into the bus.
“Then only pray.” Dr. Prithivi must have had a cigarette lighter—Little Tib heard the scratching sound it made. There was a soft, “oooah” sound from the people.
“Now you see Deva,” Dr. Prithivi told them. “Because you are not accustomed to such things, the first thing you have noticed is that he has six arms. It is for that reason that I wear this cross, which has six arms also. You see I wish to relate Deva to Christianity here. You will note that one of Deva’s hands holds a two-armed cross. The others—I will begin here and go around—hold the crescent of Islam, the star of David, a figure of the Buddha, a phallus, and a katana sword, which I have chosen to represent the faith of Shintoism.”
Little Tib tried to pray, as Dr. Prithivi had directed. In one way he knew what he had been doing when he had been dancing with the lion, and in another he did not. Why hadn’t he fallen? He thought of how the stones at the bottom would feel when they hit his face, and shivered.
Stones he remembered very well. Potato-shaped but much larger, hard and gray. He was lost in a rocky land where frowning walls of stone were everywhere, and no plant grew. He stood in the shadow of one of these walls to escape the heat; he could see the opposite wall, and the rubble of jumbled stones between, but this time the knowledge that he could see again gave him no pleasure. He was thirsty, and pressed farther back into the shadow, and found that there was no wall there. The shadow went back and back, farther and farther into the mountain. He followed it and, turning, saw the little wedge of daylight disappear behind him, and was blind again.
The cave—for he knew it was a cave now—went on and on into the rock. Despite the lack of sunlight, it seemed to Little Tib that it grew hotter and hotter. Then from somewhere far ahead he heard a tapping and rapping, as though an entire bag of marbles had been poured onto a stone floor and were bouncing up and down. The noise was so odd, and Little Tib was so tired, that he sat down to listen to it.
As if his sitting had been a signal, torches kindled—first one on one sid
e of the cave, then another on the opposite side. Behind him a gate of close-set bars banged down, and toward him, like spiders, came two grotesque figures. Their bodies were small, yet fat; their arms and legs were long and thin; their faces were the faces of mad old men, popeyed and choleric and adorned with towering peaks of fantastic hair, and spreading mustaches like the feelers of night-crawling insects, and curling three-pointed beards that seemed to have a life of their own so that they twisted and twined like snakes. These men carried long-handled axes, and wore red clothes and the widest leather belts Little Tib had ever seen. “Halt,” they cried. “Cease, hold, stop, and arrest yourself You are trespassing in the realm of the Gnome King!”
“I have stopped,” Little Tib said. “And I can’t arrest myself because I’m not a policeman.”
“That wasn’t why we asked you to do it,” one of the angry-faced men pointed out.
“But it is an offense,” added the other. “We’re a Police State, you know, and it’s up to you to join the force.”
“In your case,” continued the first gnome, “it will be the labor force.”
“Come with us,” both of them exclaimed, and they seized him by the arms and began to drag him across the pile of rocks.
“Stop,” Little Tib demanded, “you don’t know who I am.”
“We don’t care who you am, either.”
“If Nitty were here, he’d fix you. Or Mr. Parker.”
“Then he’d better fix Mr. Parker, because we’re not broken, and we’re taking you to see the Gnome King.”
They went down twisted sidewise caves with no lights but the eyes of the gnomes. And through big, echoing caves with mud floors, and streams of steaming water in the middle. Little Tib thought, at first, that it was rather fun, but it became realer and realer as they went along, as though the gnomes drew strength and realness from the heat, and at last he forgot that there had ever been anyplace else, and the things the gnomes said were no longer funny.