Parable of the Talents p-2

by Butler, Octavia

  "Big towns are good," a man from Salem, Oregon, had told me. "You can be anonymous. Small towns can be mean and suspicious when strangers show up. If they just had a robbery or something, they might pull you in, put a collar on you, or lock you up or even shoot you. Big cities are bad news. They chew you up and spit you out in pieces. You're nobody, and if you die in the gutter, nobody cares but the sanitation department. Maybe not even them."

  "You gotta think about there's still a war on," a man from Bakersfield, California, had said. "It could flare back up anytime, no matter how much they talk peace. Nobody knows what more war's going to mean to people walking on the highway. More guns, I guess. More crazy guys, more guys who don't know how to do anything but kill people."

  He was probably right. He had, as he put it, "been bummin' around for more than 20 years," and he was still around. That alone made his opinion worth something. He told me he had had no trouble going back and forth to Port­land, even last year during the war, and that was good news. There were fewer people on the road than there had been back in the 2020s, but more than just before the war. I re­member when I hoped that fewer travelers were a sign that things were getting better. I suppose things are getting bet­ter for some people.

  Len came to me just as I finished my purchases at George's. Without a word, she helped me carry my stuff back to Allie's room, where, in continuing silence, she watched while I packed it. She couldn't really help with that.

  "Your pack ready?" I asked her.

  She shook her head.

  "Go get it ready."

  She caught my arm and waited until she had my full at­tention. "First tell me how you knew," she said. "I've never had anyone spot me like that."

  I drew a long breath. "You're what, 19?"

  "Yes."

  "And you've never spotted anyone?"

  She shook her head again. "I had just about decided that there weren't any others. I thought the ones who let them­selves be discovered were collared or killed. I've been terri­fied that someone would notice. And then you did. I almost left without you."

  "I thought you might, but there didn't seem to be anything I could say to you that wouldn't upset you even more."

  "And you really are You really... have it too?"

  “I'm a sharer, yes." I stared past her for a moment. "One of the best days of my life was when I realized that my daughter probably wasn't. You can't be 100 percent sure with babies, but I don't believe that she was. And I had a friend who had four sharer kids. He said he didn't think she was either." And where were Gray Mora's children now? What was happening to the lost little boys? Could there be anyone more vulnerable than little male sharers at the mercy of both men and other boys?

  "Four sharer children?" Len demanded. "Four?"

  I nodded.

  "I think... I think my life would have been so different if my brother had been a sharer, too, instead of his normal, perfect self," Len said. "It was as though I had leprosy and he didn't You know what I mean? There was an idea once that people who had leprosy were unclean and God didn't much like them."

  I nodded. "Who was the Paracetco addict in your family?"

  "They both were—both of my parents."

  "Oh, my. And you were the evidence of their misbehav­ior, the constant reminder. I suppose they couldn't forgive you for that"

  She thought about that for a while. "You're right. People do blame you for the things they do to you. The men who kidnapped me blamed me because they had gone to so much trouble to get me, then there was no ransom. I don't remem­ber how many times they hit me for that—as though it were all my fault."

  "These days, projecting blame is almost an art form."

  "You still haven't told me how you knew."

  "Your body language. Everything about you. If you have a chance to meet others, you'll begin to recognize them. It just takes practice."

  "Some people think sharing is a power—like some kind of extrasensory perception."

  I shrugged. "You and I know it isn't."

  She began to look a little happier. "When do we leave?"

  "Monday morning just before dawn. Don't say anything about it to anyone."

  "Of course not!"

  "Are you all right for supplies?"

  In a different tone, she repeated, "Of course not. But I'll be all right. I can take care of myself."

  "We'll be traveling together for almost a month," I said. "The idea is that we should take care of ourselves and of one another. What do you need?"

  We sat together quiet for a while, and she wrestled in si­lence with her pride and her temper.

  "It's sometimes best to avoid towns," I said. "Some towns fear and hate travelers. If they don't arrest them or beat them, they chase them away. Sometimes at the end of the day, there are no towns within reach. And fasting and hiking don't go well together. Now let's go get you some supplies. I assume you stole the things you have now."

  "Thank you," she said, "for assuming that."

  I laughed and heard bitterness in my own laughter. "We do what we have to do to live. But don't steal while you're with me." I let my voice harden a little. "And don't steal from me."

  "You'll take my word that I won't?"

  "Will you give me your word?"

  She looked down her long, thin nose at me. "You enjoy telling people what to do, don't you?"

  I shrugged. "I like living, and I like being free. And you and I need to be able to trust one another." I watched her now, needing to see all that there was to be seen.

  "I know," she said. "It's just that... I've always had things. I used to give clothing, shoes, food, things like that to the families of our servants at Christmas. About five years ago, my mother stopped seeing anyone except mem­bers of the family, and my father got into the habit of leav­ing the house servants to me. Now I'm poorer than our servants were. And, yes, everything I have, I've stolen. I was so idealistic when I was at home. I wouldn't steal any­thing. Now I feel moral because I'm a thief instead of a prostitute."

  "While we're together, you won't be either."

  "... all right."

  And I let myself relax a little. She seemed to mean it. "Let's go get what you need, then. Come on."

  wednesday, june 13, 2035

  We're on our way and we've had no trouble. Len asked me whether I had anything to read when we stopped last night, and I handed her one of my two remaining copies of The First Book of the Living. We're not rushing and the days are long, so we don't have to push on until it's too dark to read.

  We've traveled south to a state highway that will take us inland to I-5. Len gave no trouble about this. She did ask, "Why not walk right up the coast?"

  "I want to avoid Eureka," I told her. “I was mugged last time I was there."

  She made a grim face, then nodded. "God, I hope we can avoid that kind of thing."

  "The best way to avoid it is to be ready for it," I said. "Ac­cept the reality that it might happen, and keep your eyes and ears open."

  “I know."

  She's a good traveler. She complains, but she's willing to keep her share of the watches. One of the scary things about being alone is having no one to watch while you sleep. You have to sleep on your belongings, using them as a pillow or at least keeping them in your sleepsack with you, or some­one will make off with them. The violent thieves are the ones who present the most obvious and immediate danger, but sneak thieves can hurt you. For one thing, they can force you to join them. If they steal your money or if you don't have enough money to replace the essentials they've stolen, then you have to steal to survive. My experience with col­lars has made me a very reluctant thief—not that I was ever an eager one.

  Anyway, Len is a good traveling companion. And she's an avid reader with an active mind. She says one of the things she misses most about home is computer access to the libraries of the world. She's well read. She rushed through Earthseed: The First Book of the Living in one evening. Problem is, it wasn't intended to be rushed t
hrough.

  1 know you wrote this book," she said when she'd fin­ished it—a couple of hours ago. "Allie told me you wrote a book about something called Earthseed. Is this your real name? Lauren Oya Olamina?"

  I nodded. It didn't matter that she knew. We've bedded down off the road, between of a pair of hills where we can have some privacy. We're still in country that I know—hills, scattered ranches, small communities, stands of young trees, open ground. Nice country. We walked through it many times from Acorn. It's less populated than it should be be­cause during the worst years of the 2020s, a lot of people were burned out, robbed, abducted, or just killed. The small communities were vulnerable and the gangs swept over them like locusts. Many of the survivors looked for less crime-ridden places to live—places Like Canada, Alaska, and Russia. That's why so much was abandoned to the likes of us when we hunted building materials, useful plants, and old tools. Now, though, the land's familiarity doesn't com­fort me. Then Len asks me a familiar question, and that is comforting, somehow.

  "Why did you write this?"

  "Because it's true," I answered, and from then until the time she lay down to sleep, we talked about Earthseed and what it meant, what it could mean and how anyone could ever accept it even if they happened to hear about it. She doesn't sneer, but she doesn't understand yet either. I find that I look forward to teaching her.

  sunday, june 17, 2035

  We're taking the day off. We're in Redding—a little west of Redding in a park, really. Redding is a sizable city. We've made camp, for once in a place where people are supposed to camp, and we're eating heavy, tasty food bought in town. We've also had a chance to bathe and do our laundry. It always puts me in a better mood not to stink and not to have to endure the body odor of my companion. Somehow, no matter how awful I smell, I can still smell other people.

  We've had a hot stew of potatoes, vegetables, and jerked beef with a topping of lovely Cheddar cheese. It turns out that Len can't cook. She says her mother could but never did. Never had to. Servants did the cooking, the cleaning, repairing things. Teachers were hired for Len and her brother—mostly to guide their use of the computer courses and to be sure they did the work they were supposed to do. Their father, their computer connections, and their older ser­vants provided them with most of what they knew about the world. Ordinary living skills like cooking and sewing were never on the agenda.

  "What did your mother do?" I asked.

  Len shrugged. "Nothing, really. She lived in her virtual room—her own private fantasy universe. That room could take her anywhere, so why should she ever come out? She was getting fat and losing her physical and mental health, but her v-room was all she cared about"

  I frowned. "I've heard of that kind of thing—people being hooked on Dreamasks or on virtual-world fantasies. I don't know anything about it, though."

  "What is there to know? Dreamasks are nothing—cheap kid's toys. Really limited. In that room she could go any­where, be anyone, be with anyone. It was like a womb with an imagination. She could visit fourteenth-century China, present-day Argentina, Greenland in any imagined distant future, or one of the distant worlds circling Alpha Centauri. You name it, she could create some version of it. Or she could visit her friends, real and imaginary. Her real friends were other wealthy, idle people—mostly women and children. They were as addicted to their v-rooms as she was to hers. If her real friends didn't indulge her as much as she wanted them to, she just created more obliging ver­sions of them. By the time I was abducted, I didn't know whether she really had contact with any flesh-and-blood people anymore. She couldn't stand real people with real egos of their own."

  I thought about this. It was worse than anything I had heard about this particular addiction. "What about food?" I asked. "What about bathing or just going to the bathroom?"

  "She used to come out for meals. She had her own bath­room. All by itself, it was big as my bedroom. Then she began to have all her meals sent in. After that, there were whole months when I didn't see her. Even when I took her meals in myself, I had to just leave them. She was in the v-bubble inside the room, and I couldn't even see her. If I went into the bubble—you could just walk into it—she would scream at me. I wasn't part of her perfect fantasy life. My brother, on the other hand, was. He got to visit her once or twice a week and share in her fantasies. Nice, isn't it"

  I sighed. "Didn't your father mind any of this? Didn't he try to help her—or you?"

  "He was busy making money and screwing the maids and their children—some of whom were also his children. He wasn't cut off from the outside, but he had his own fantasy life." She hesitated. "Do I seem normal to you?"

  I couldn't help seeing where she was going with that "We're survivors, Len. You are. I am. Most of Georgetown is. All of Acorn was. We've been slammed around in all kinds of ways. We're all wounded. We're healing as best we can. And, no, we're not normal. Normal people wouldn't have survived what we've survived. If we were normal we'd be dead."

  That made her cry. I just held her. No doubt she had been repressing far too much in recent years. When had anyone last held her and let her cry? I held her. After a while, she lay down, and I thought she was falling asleep. Then she spoke.

  "If God is Change, then... then who loves us? Who cares about us? Who cares for us?"

  "We care for one another," I said. "We care for ourselves and one another." And I quoted,

  "Kindness eases Change.

  Love quiets fear."

  At that, she surprised me. She said, "Yes, I liked that one." And she finished the quote:

  "And a sweet and powerful

  Positive obsession

  Blunts pain,

  Diverts rage,

  And engages each of us

  In the greatest,

  The most intense

  Of our chosen struggles."

  "But I have no obsession, positive or otherwise. I have nothing."

  "Alaska?" I said.

  "I don't know what else to do, where else to go."

  “If you get there, what will you do? Go back to being your parents' housekeeper?"

  She glanced at me. "I don't know whether they would let me. I might never make it over the borders anyway, espe­cially with the war. Border guards will probably shoot me." She said this with no fear, no passion, no feeling at all. She was telling me that she was committing a kind of suicide. She wasn't out to kill herself, but she was going to arrange for others to kill her—because she didn't know what else to do. Because no one loved her or needed her for anything at all. From her parents to her abductors, people were willing to use her and discard her, but she mattered to no one. Not even to herself. Yet she had kept herself alive through hell. Did she struggle for life only out of habit, or because some part of her still hoped that there was something worth living for?

  She can't be allowed to go off to be shot by thugs, border guards, or soldiers. I can't let her do that. And, I think, she wants to be stopped. She won't ask to be, and she will fight for her own self-destructive way. People are like that. But I must think about what she can do instead of dying—what she should be doing. I must think about what she can do for Earthseed, and what it can do for her.

  Chapter 20

  □ □ □

  From EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING

  Are you Earthseed?

  Do you believe?

  Belief will not save you.

  Only actions

  Guided and shaped

  By belief and knowledge

  Will save you.

  Belief

  Initiates and guides action—

  Or it does nothing.

  WHEN I WAS 19,1 met my Uncle Marc.

  He was, by then, the Reverend Marcos Duran, a slight, still-beautiful middle-aged man who had become in English and in Spanish the best-known minister of the Church of Christian America. There was even some talk of his running for president, although he seemed uncomfortable about this. By then, though, the Church was just one mo
re Protestant denomination. Andrew Steele Jarret had been dead for years, and the Church had gone from being an institution that everyone knew about and either loved or feared to being a smaller, somewhat defensive organization with much to answer for and few answers.

  I had left home. Even though a girl who left home unmar­ried was seen by church members as almost a prostitute, I left as soon as I was 18.

  "If you go," Kayce said, "don't come back. This is a decent, God-fearing house. You will not bring your trash and your sin back here!"

  I had gotten a job caring for children in a household where the father had died. I had deliberately looked for a job that did not put me at the mercy of another man—a man who might be like Madison, or worse than Madison. The pay was room, board, and a tiny salary. I believed I had clothing and books enough to get me through a few years of working there, helping to raise another woman's children while she worked in public relations for a big agribusiness company. I had met the kids—two girls and a boy—and I liked them. I believed that I could do this work and save my salary so that when 1 left, 1 would have enough money to begin a small business—a small cafe, perhaps—of my own. I had no grand hopes. I only wanted to get away from the Alexanders who had become more and more intolerable.

  There was no love in the Alexander house. There was only the habit of being together, and, 1 suppose, the fear of even greater loneliness. And there was the Church—the habit of Church with its Bible class, men's and women's missionary groups, charity work, and choir practice. I had joined the young people's choir to get away from Madison. As it hap­pened, the choir provided relief in three ways. First, I dis­covered that I really liked to sing. I was so shy at first that I could hardly open my mouth, but once I got into the songs, lost myself in them, I loved it. Second, choir practice was one more excuse that I could use to get out of the house. Third, singing in the choir was a way to avoid having to sit next to Madison in church, it was a way to avoid his nasty, moist little hands. He used to feel me up in church. He really did that. We would sit down with Kayce between us, then he would get up to go to the men's room and come back and sit next to me with his coat or his jacket on his lap to hide his touching me.