by Robert Reed
Toys and other distractions littered the central chamber. Every leaping ball had its unique color and size, and there were rubber figures cut into geometric shapes and thousands of simple wooden blocks. He had an army of wooden figures shaped by hand and painted by hand and played with by his father and his father’s father, time and busy fingers blurring the paint while smoothing every old wooden nose. Several mirrors supplied much fun. The boy liked to hold the largest mirror before his face, staring at the nose and eyes and mouth that were not that different from his parents’ features. A circle of heavy glass was fixed to a wooden handle. The glass was thick in the middle and thin on its edges, and it meant nothing to him until he held it to his eye and looked at the wall. What had been small became wondrously large. The wood was full of giant ridges and cavernous pits. But even more fascinating was the landscape on the back of his bare hand. Thin hairs towered above smooth young flesh that was pink and stretched across a network of purplish veins and bumpy bones. He spent a full day comparing one hand with its mate and the tops of both legs with each other and the amazing unique whorls riding the tips of every finger and thumb. In his dreams that night he was a giant, so vast that tiny people walked across him—hundreds and maybe thousands of people—and he woke in the morning smiling even more than usual.
A narrow passageway led to the most remote chamber inside his room. This was once a back entrance to the house, but the chamber’s original door was gone, the living wood pricked and prodded until the hole closed. The only furniture was an old chest built to fill a round space. The chest was full of drawers. Every drawer had its lock, but one lock had been broken and no one but Diamond knew it. That intriguing space was filled with fancy tools, some with sharp edges and pointed tips and handles designed for careful adult hands. He took what he needed and went back to the main chamber, setting the hand lens on the edge of a table and weighing down the handle with one of the old books. Then he held his left wrist under the lens while the right hand manipulated the knife. This was what the doctor had done to him many days ago. Feeling more pressure than pain, he cut into the biggest vein. Eager blood fled his body, turning a bright beautiful red in the open air. Then the edges of the cut reached across the gap, clasping one another, knitting the separated tissues back together, and the blood dried to something that was harder than any scab, and the dead blood soundlessly dissolved back inside the healed, unmarred flesh.
His parents’ skin was beautiful, decorated with wrinkles and spots and old cuts never quite healed, and he asked them why this was. They would try to laugh at the question. Time had its ways of eroding and sculpting the body, they explained. A long pale scar defined his father’s face, running from just beside the right eye down under the serious little mouth. It was a handsome mark—an intriguing remnant of some important, violent event. What could have done such lasting damage? The boy asked that question several times, and sometimes he would touch the scar or stared fondly at it for too long. But the man explained nothing. Some deep pain still had its hold, and Father would find some gentle means to deflect their conversation toward more pleasant topics.
Food and games were safe, happy subjects. Father was clever that way. He couldn’t be tricked and never spoke without thinking first. And that was one reason why the boy adored the man and wanted to be like him.
One morning Diamond sat before the biggest mirror, using the sharpest knife to cut his face. He was trying to replicate that wonderful scar. But the cut refused to remain open. On his fifth attempt, Diamond discovered that he could ignore the pain, stabbing himself to the cheekbone and jerking down. Shoving his free hand into the gore, he managed to yank at the loose tissue. If the wound were too wide, it wouldn’t heal. That was what he was hoping. But his mother happened to come along. Before he could hide the knife, the door was unbolted and open, and she saw the horrific gouge in his face and the whiteness of his naked cheekbone, the bright knife tight in his hand. In a miserable low voice she said his name, coming close and taking the knife while kissing the five fingertips of her other hand, using those blessed fingers to carefully close the hole, helping his face heal itself.
“Diamond,” she whispered. “You must not. Don’t do that. Never again, please.”
He cried. The pain was small, but the disapproving sound of her voice made him sick and ashamed.
“Where did you find this?” she asked, holding the knife carefully.
Diamond showed her the drawer and watched as she stole away the sharpest, best tools.
“Are you going to try to hurt yourself again?”
He promised he wouldn’t.
She accepted those words, vanishing with the tools and returning with a bowl of sweet nuts and warm fresh milk. By then, his face was normal again. She smiled at his face. She liked to watch her son eat. After a while she told him, “You’re perfect as you are.”
“But I’m not like you,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
“Or like Father,” he whispered.
She nodded sadly. Then she told him what she always said at moments like this: “You are my son, and you are beautiful as you are, Diamond. So beautiful you make both of us ache.”
He loved those two old people, but Diamond was leaving the days when little boys surrendered to their parents’ every wish. He didn’t feel trapped inside the room, and he still believed the old explanations and half-defined fears. But more of each day was spent with eyes closed, trying to imagine what he had never seen.
He knew the world was enormous. Enormous to him was a great room with tall walls and a distant ceiling—a volume too large to walk across in one long day. His visitors had mentioned the world, and his parents said quite a lot in passing. That was why he knew there were trees and wild animals and tame animals and many, many people, and every person wore a different name and special clothes, and everybody enjoyed busy, important lives. There was bright light to the day and deep shadow at night, and by stitching together tiny clues, Diamond understood that the great room had corners and holes where not even the bravest man would willingly go.
Father was brave. During one of her long-ago visits, the woman with two sons held the sterile mask across her mouth, telling the strange little boy, “You should be proud of your daddy. His work is special and rare, and he’s one of the best. He might be the very best alive today.”
Work was something that carried fathers away from home. Diamond was proud of the man, honestly fiercely proud, but he knew almost nothing about what his father did. The man usually rose early, leaving the house before the day began. If he was gone for four meals, he returned happy and relaxed. But he often wasn’t home until late, six or seven meals into the day, and sometimes Diamond didn’t see him for days and nights. On those occasions he always came home exhausted, his face dark brown except for the pale circles around his reddened eyes. The house door would open and close and Diamond would listen. He heard quite a lot. His parents used private voices, and then the hot water would run, his father washing his entire body with scented soaps. Only when he was clean would he finally enter his son’s room. His face was still dark and tired, but despite his miserable mood, Father made himself smile and say happy words, and Diamond would notice the stink clinging under the perfumes—animal smells, musky and rich and very peculiar, often carrying the salty aroma of something that wasn’t blood.
Asking Father about his work was useless. The man’s only answer was a shrug and distant stare, and sometimes a little joke about sitting in a quiet place, doing as little as possible.
Mother said much more. People weren’t visiting the house anymore, and she wouldn’t leave her boy alone. That meant she was lonely. She had nobody except Diamond to speak with, and that’s when little doses of truth leaked out. She admitted that she worried about Father. Much of the world was wild, and every wild place had its monsters, and she mentioned fire spiders and chokers, man-traps and jazzings, each of those monsters happy to prey on the small and careless. Then one day she us
ed the word “papio.” Diamond didn’t know the word, but sometimes saying nothing was a good way to tease more words out of a person. He stared at his floor and odd toes, remaining quiet, and then she said that word a second time, explaining that the papio were smarter than men and they ruled the edges of the world.
He asked if the papio were monsters.
The question made her uncomfortable. Straightening her back, she said, “They aren’t, no. In fact they’re just another kind of human. But they must be handled with exceptional care.”
“Does Father handle them?” asked Diamond, his right hand grabbing a piece of empty air.
Mother seemed ready to laugh at his joke. But then she stopped herself, saying, “That was the wrong word. Sorry. But yes, he gets along with the papio quite well.”
On a later day, Diamond asked, “What is the worst monster of all?”
Mother thought for a long moment. Then she said, “He would never agree, but I think it’s the coronas.”
Diamond asked what the coronas were, and when she didn’t answer, he hastily asked again.
She regretted her words. “No, no. Forget what I said.”
Diamond forgot almost nothing. “Who wouldn’t agree? Is it Father?”
She didn’t seem to hear the questions. Her wide eyes stared into the wall, picturing the monstrous coronas. Diamond imagined something enormous and powerful but with no definite shape. Mother’s fists made him nervous despite her confident noise. “There are no monsters,” she said at last. “That’s a word we strap to what we don’t understand.”
Yet that night Diamond dreamed of an enormous mouth that ate his house and his parents before gobbling him down.
One day Mother was angry. The boy noticed and asked why, and she said, “No, it’s not because of you. It’s never you, honey.”
Diamond was playing. She was sitting on one of his big chairs, watching the floor. Without prompting, she said, “Sacrifice.”
He looked up at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means giving up your life and well-being, doing what’s right for others.” Then with a sneer, she told him, “Sacrifice used to be honored. It used to be celebrated. But those were different times.”
Father had missed three last-dinners and three nights. Diamond asked when he was coming home.
The old woman dipped her face and smiled sadly at her bunched up hands, not quite crying. “Soon,” she said. “It won’t be long.”
“I miss him.”
“And I wish he were here,” she said.
“Why does he have to work?”
Why indeed? She asked herself that same question and thought hard before falling back to a trusted answer. “People need work to live,” she said with a resigned, hopeless voice.
To the boy, that answered nothing.
Then she added another conundrum. Sighing, she told him, “Some people do impossible, important jobs. They are very good at those jobs. But that doesn’t mean they don’t hate the work with all their heart.”
Father stayed home late enough one morning to bring Diamond the second breakfast. Sitting on a big chair, he watched his son gobble down the salted meal and milk while they talked about the usual matters: dreams and toys and the boy’s plans for his gigantic day. Then with his most matter-of-fact voice, Diamond asked about the weather outside. Father considered, as he always did at such moments. “It’s a wonderful day indoors,” he said, and then he stood and asked if the chamber pot needed to be emptied. It did. “Well, I guess I’ll dump it.”
Father was the tallest person Diamond had ever seen, and despite his age, he was still quite strong. Lifting the pot by one handle, he held it as far from his face as possible. Then he set it on the floor and opened the door and went through with the pot and closed the door behind him. But he didn’t use the lock, and he didn’t wish his son a good day. Father was coming back. Diamond waited on the bed with Mister Mister. After a minute, a bell sounded. It was the bell that meant somebody was going to talk without being inside the house or at the door. Bad news often came with that bell, and the bell stopped and he listened, hearing nothing. But Father didn’t return. He had left too quickly to say good-bye, and that bothered the boy in many ways.
The door was still unlocked. This had happened before, on rare occasions, and nothing else had happened. Diamond was safe inside his room; safety was the finest possession to have in your life. How many times had he been told that? But he was still bothered because his father hadn’t wished him well on his day, and that changed his mood, his nature. He listened for his mother and heard nothing. She could be in some distant room or chamber, and she had no reason to think about him. Anything could be waiting beyond these walls, and without locks and bolts that heavy old door was no barrier at all, and that’s why Diamond pulled it open and slowly, slowly stepped into the hallway.
What startled him first was how normal everything was. The walls and ceiling were the same living wood, the floor smoothed by generations of feet, and the air itself was no fresher or sweeter or brighter than the air he knew. A familiar green glow fell from round lights fixed to the walls and ceiling. He felt as if he belonged inside this short straight hallway. Another ten steps put him beside a second door that used to be sealed but now was held opened with a slice of thick golden rope. Beyond was a second hallway, wider and running perpendicular to his hallway. That’s where Diamond stopped. He touched the open door and breathed before turning, looking back at his bed and happy Mister Mister, marveling at the distance he had covered.
And Mother found him.
The empty chamber pot dropped and rolled, and she hollered in surprise and then let out a nervous, brittle laugh.
Diamond jumped back and wished he hadn’t.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, which happened to be a little bit true.
She stared at him. Surprise became reflexive anger, and the anger was quickly swallowed up by deep old pities. “We know this is difficult,” she said at last. Then she reached for his face, leaving her long hand in the air as he backed away. “For you and for us, this is such a burden. But it won’t be forever, Diamond.”
His life felt like forever.
“When you grow up,” she said. “I promise. When you’re big enough and know how to act . . . when you aren’t a little boy who cuts his face for no good reason . . . you’ll walk out of here. And if you wish, you’ll never have to return to that room again.”
She wanted him to feel thankful.
The rule, the tradition, was to dip his head as people did toward their superiors, and he would say, “Yes, Mother. Thank you, Mother.”
But Father had left without warning, and Diamond’s anger wasn’t going away. Squaring up the little shoulders, putting his odd feet apart, he shook his head and said, “I won’t. No, I won’t ever do that.”
Her blackish-brown eyes grew huge. “You won’t do what?”
“Leave my room,” he said. Then to prove his words, he retreated up the little hallway. “The world sounds awful. I won’t go. I want to stay here forever.”
His parents were very different from one another. Mother wasn’t able to secure every thought, parsing out her sentences with clear authority. She was the parent who suffered doubts and second-guesses. Nothing her son could have said would have struck harder. Did he really not want to leave this room, this prison cell? Had their warnings been given too many times and too well, and now the child didn’t have any curiosity left? That was an awful, unbearable prospect. And that’s why she didn’t hesitate, grabbing up one of his thin arms, dragging her barefoot son back to the second door and then into the long hallway.
Looking over her shoulder, she told him, “A quick glance then. Have a glimpse.”
Diamond was stunned and very scared. This would be momentous, and he wasn’t prepared. Never leaving his tiny familiar place was only words, only noise, and when the hallway curved before both of them, he muttered, “No.”
He meant to shout, “No.”
But the hallway had come to an end. A tall pane of clear glass stood before them, and beyond the window was a great reach of air filled with green light and flickering shadows and objects moving too quickly to be seen clearly.
Diamond jerked his hand away.
Mother looked down at him. Didn’t he understand? Couldn’t he appreciate what she was doing? She was breaking the most important rule, and he was spoiling the moment with a toddler’s stubborn idiocy.
She grabbed his little shoulders.
And Diamond swung—a reflexive hard sweeping motion with his right fist.
Mother shouted and stumbled and fell.
Now their faces were at the same level. Both faces were crying. With her right hand, the injured woman touched her ribs gingerly, and she winced, and she tried twice to stand before giving up. The pain was too awful. But with her other arm, she managed to pull her son close and hold him until her misery subsided part way, and he gradually fell back into quiet, exhausted sobs.
“We’ve always told you that you’re weak,” she said. “But that’s a lie mostly meant for others. You’re just small and not built for trees.”
People were climbers. But Diamond wasn’t a climber.
“For your size, you’re really very strong. Amazingly strong. And now you know.”
But what did he know?
She rose slowly and breathed as if nothing could hurt worse. But she managed to guide him back to his hallway and into his room. “Please, shut the door for me. Would you?” she asked. Then as it closed, she added, “And don’t tell your father. For today, for always, this has to be our secret.”
One secret led to others, building a conspiracy that brought mother and son closer. Children weren’t supposed to begin reading and writing until they were a thousand days old. That was the rule and had been the rule forever, which made it only sweeter when she brought in the big-worded books intended for school children and simple people. While his father worked, Mother taught Diamond about letters and the very important marks that went between the letters, creating meaningful words that could be strung together in endless sentences. And she gave him black markers and bare pages, pleased with his successes and quiet when he failed. But he made few mistakes, particularly on matters of memory. Everything inside his head seemed eager to be found, and every day he amazed the old woman with what he had learned and how he found the patterns inside each of these secret lessons.