by Gene Wolfe
“He is sick, isn’t he,” the woman said. “He’s hot as fire. And screaming like that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nitty said. “He’s sick sure enough.”
A little girl’s voice said, “What’s wrong with him, Mama?”
“He’s running a fever, dear, and of course he’s blind.”
Little Tib said, “I’m all right.”
Mr. Parker’s voice told him, “You will be when the doctor sees you, George.”
“I can stand up,” Little Tib said. He had discovered that he was sitting on Nitty’s lap, and it embarrassed him.
“You awake now?” Nitty asked.
Little Tib slid off his lap and felt around for his stick, but it was gone.
“You been sleepin’ ever since we were on the train. Never did wake up more than halfway, even when we got off.”
“Hello,” the little girl said. Bam. Bam. Bam.
“Hello,” Little Tib said back to her.
“Don’t let him touch your face, dear. His hands are dirty.”
Little Tib could hear Mr. Parker talking to Nitty, but he did not pay any attention to them.
“I have a baby,” the girl told him, “and a dog. His name is Muggly. My baby’s name is Virginia Jane.” Bam.
“You walk funny,” Little Tib said.
“I have to.”
He bent down and touched her leg. Bending down made his head peculiar. There was a ringing sound he knew was not real, and it seemed to have fallen off him, and to be floating around in front of him somewhere. His fingers felt the edge of the little girl’s skirt, then her leg, warm and dry, then a rubber thing with metal under it, and metal strips like the copper man’s neck going down at the sides. Little Tib reached inside them and found her leg again, but it was smaller than his own arm.
“Don’t let him hurt her,” the woman said.
Nitty said, “Why, he won’t hurt her. What are you afraid of? A little boy like that.”
He thought of his own legs walking down the path, walking through the spinning flowers toward the green city. The little girl’s leg was like them. It was bigger than he had thought, growing bigger under his fingers.
“Come on,” the little girl said. “Mama’s got Virginia Jane. Want to see her?” Bam. “Mama, can I take my brace off?”
“No, dear.”
“I take it off at home.”
“That’s when you’re going to lie down, dear, or have a bath.”
“I don’t need it, Mama. I really don’t. See?”
The woman screamed. Little Tib covered his ears. When they had still lived in the old place and his mother and father had talked too loudly, he had covered his ears like that, and they had seen him and become more quiet. It did not work with the woman. She kept on screaming.
A lady who worked for the doctor tried to quiet her, and at last the doctor herself came out and gave her something. Little Tib could not see what it was, but he heard her say over and over, “Take this; take this.” And finally the woman took it.
Then they made the little girl and the woman go into the doctor’s office. There were more people waiting than Little Tib had known about, and they were all talking now. Nitty took him by the arm. “I don’t want to sit in your lap,” Little Tib said. “I don’t like sitting in laps.”
“You can sit here,” Nitty said. He was almost whispering. “We’ll move Virginia Jane over.”
Little Tib climbed up onto a padded plastic seat. Nitty was on one side of him, and Mr. Parker on the other.
“It’s too bad,” Nitty said, “you couldn’t see that little girl’s leg. I saw it. It was just a little matchstick-sized thing when we set down here. When they carried her in, it looked just like the other one.”
“That’s nice,” Little Tib said.
“We were wondering—did you have something to do with that?”
Little Tib did not know, and so he sat silent.
“Don’t push him, Nitty,” Mr. Parker said.
“I’m not pushing him. I just asked. It’s important.”
“Yes, it is,” Mr. Parker said. “You think about it, George, and if you have anything to tell us, let us know. We’ll listen.”
Little Tib sat there for a long time, and at last the lady who worked for the doctor came and said, “Is it the boy?”
“He has a fever,” Mr. Parker told her.
“We have to get his pattern. Bring him over here.”
Nitty said, “No use.”
And Mr. Parker said, “You won’t be able to take his pattern—his retinas are gone.”
The lady who worked for the doctor said nothing for a little while; then she said, “We’ll try anyway,” and took Little Tib’s hand and led him to where a bright light machine was. He knew it was a bright light machine from the feel and smell of it, and the way it fit around his face. After a while she let him pull his eyes away from the machine.
“He needs to see the doctor,” Nitty said. “I know without a pattern you can’t charge the government for it. But he is a sick child.”
The lady said, “If I start a card on him, they’ll want to know who he is.”
“Feel his head. He’s burning up.”
“They’ll think he might be in the country illegally. Once an investigation like that starts, you can never stop it.”
Mr. Parker asked, “Can we talk to the doctor?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you. You can’t see the doctor.”
“What about me? I’m ill.”
“I thought it was the boy.”
“I’m ill too. Here.” Mr. Parker’s hands on his shoulders guided Little Tib out of the chair in front of the bright light machine, so that Mr. Parker could sit down himself instead. Mr. Parker leaned forward, and the machine hummed. “Of course,” Mr. Parker said, “I’ll have to take him in with me. He’s too small to leave alone in the waiting room.”
“This man could watch him.”
“He has to go.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nitty said, “I sure do. I shouldn’t have stayed around this long, except this was all so interesting.”
Little Tib took Mr. Parker’s hand, and they went through narrow, twisty corridors into a little room to see the doctor.
“There’s no complaint on this,” the doctor said. “What’s the trouble with you?”
Mr. Parker told her about Little Tib, and said that she could put down anything on his own card that she wanted.
“This is irregular,” the doctor said. “I shouldn’t be doing this. What’s wrong with his eyes?”
“I don’t know. Apparently he has no retinas.”
“There are such things as retinal transplants. They aren’t always effective.”
“Would they permit him to be identified? The seeing’s not really that important.”
“I suppose so.”
“Could you get him into a hospital?”
“No.”
“Not without a pattern, you mean.”
“That’s right. I’d like to tell you otherwise, but it wouldn’t be the truth. They’d never take him.”
“I understand.”
“I’ve got a lot of patients to see. I’m putting you down for influenza. Give him these; they ought to reduce his fever. If he’s not better tomorrow, come again.”
Later, when things were cooling off, and the day birds were all quiet, and the night birds had not begun yet, and Nitty had made a fire and was cooking something, he said, “I don’t understand why she wouldn’t help the child.”
“She gave him something for his fever.”
“More than that. She should have done more than that.”
“There are so many people—”
“I know that. I’ve heard all that. Not really that many at all. More in China and some other places. You think that medicine is helping him?”
Mr. Parker put his hand on Little Tib’s head. “I think so.”
“We goin’ to stay here so we can take him, or keep on goin’ back to
Martinsburg?”
“We’ll see how he is in the morning.”
“You know, the way you are now, Mr. Parker, I think you might do it.”
“I’m a good programmer, Nitty. I really am.”
“I know you are. You work that program right and that machine will find out they need a man running it again. Need a maintenance man too. Why does a man feel so bad if he don’t have real payin’ work to do—tell me that. Did I let them put something in my head like you?”
“You know as well as I,” Mr. Parker said.
Little Tib was no longer listening to them. He was thinking about the little girl and her leg. I dreamed it, he thought. Nobody can do that. I dreamed that I only had to touch her and it was all right. That means what is real is the other one, the copper man and the big woman with the broom.
An owl called, and Little Tib remembered the little buzzy clock that stood beside his mother’s bed in the new place. Early in the morning the clock would ring, and then his father had to get up. When they had lived in the old place, and his father had a lot of work to do, he had not needed a clock. Owls must be the real clocks; they made their noise so he would wake up to the real place.
He slept. Then he was awake again, but he could not see. “You best eat something,” Nitty said. “You didn’t eat nothing last night. You went to sleep, and I didn’t want to rouse you.” He gave Little Tib a scrap of corn bread, pressing it into his hands. “It’s just leftovers now,” he said, “but it’s good.”
“Are we going to get on another train?”
“Train doesn’t go to Martinsburg. Now, we don’t have a plate, so I’m putting this on a piece of newspaper for you. You get your lap smoothed out so it doesn’t fall off.”
Little Tib straightened his legs. He was hungry, and he decided it was the first time he had been hungry in a long while. He asked, “Will we walk?”
“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 Little Tib’s 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 no more 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 on to Nitty with one hand and on to 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 making 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.”