Girl in Landscape (13 page)

“There was a couple like that living next door to us, in Bryn Mawr,” said Bruce. “We shared an under-garden with them and some other families. Only they had a boy.”

“A baby?”

“About Martha’s age. It’s kind of weird, lesbians and a
boy
.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Pella, squelching his enthusiasm.

The only way she knew to manage right now was to smooth down all irregularities, to placate Bruce and
anyone else. Everything would be normal, everything would be okay. Nothing would be weird. She would keep weirdness contained within herself, to protect the others. Foremost among them, Clement.

They walked on until they stood in front of Pella’s house. “Well,” said Pella, wanting to be rid of him now.

“See you later, I guess,” said Bruce.

“Okay.”

“Let me know what’s going on, okay?”

“Shut up, don’t talk about it here.”

“Sorry. Bye.” He looked at her wanly, raised his hand, then headed off, half-running.

Raymond was in the biggest chair, with the album of family photographs spread open in his lap. Pella hadn’t seen it since they’d packed it up, back on Pineapple Street, those last few days. Raymond looked up surprised, and snapped the album shut.

“What are you doing?” said Pella.

“Nothing.”

“Where’s Clement?”

“You know, with Joe Kincaid. Talking about the school thing.”

“What about David?”

“I dunno. He and Morris and Martha were going around.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?”

“Didn’t feel like it. Why didn’t you?”

Pella didn’t answer. Instead she went through to the bathroom and locked the door from inside. She pushed
her pants to her ankles, plunked down on the toilet and peed. Finished, she hunched forward on her knees, eyes shut. She already wanted to silence her thoughts and wander again, from herself, from the trap of the family house. She couldn’t bear to go back out and see Raymond huddled with the photographs, grown reflective at last, at the wrong time.

Craving distance, she let herself drift, sitting there with her chin on her crossed wrists. In a moment she woke into a lithe body running from under a monumental shadow, into a patch of sun. A household deer again. She scampered over a fallen pillar and back into shadow, and Hugh Merrow’s house came into view.

Her curiosity had called her back here.

Around the corner, up the wall, and through the window, then down, on silent feet, into the room. Pella was nothing but eyes and feet now, the rest of her only a tremble in-between. It was easy to ignore a tremble, let eyes follow feet. She dashed up on a table and looked around.

The Archbuilder was gone. Hugh Merrow was at the sink, washing his brushes, scumbling in a jar of turpentine, then kneading the bristles back and forth against the porcelain. If something had gone on between Merrow and the alien, it was over. Pella had managed to miss it, exactly.

Whatever they’d done hadn’t advanced Merrow’s portrait of the Archbuilder. There wasn’t any color rinsing out of the artist’s brushes, and the canvas sat looking precisely as it had before, a sketch in gray wash. Unfinished, forgotten.

“Put the chairs in a circle.”

“That’s not like school.”

“Are you complaining?”

“I thought you didn’t want—”

“If we’re gonna do it we should do it right.”

“There’s no right way. This is something different, as you’ll see—”

“Chairs in a circle is different like
kindergarten
.”

“We could use the porch.”

“No, then they’d just be distracted.”

“We’ll be distracted
inside
, watching household deer.”

“I’ll chase them out.”

“No, Morris, set up the chairs.”

“He wants to be deer monitor.”

“That sounds like the name of an Archbuilder. Deer Monitor.”

•   •   •

Clement had cleared out their living room for the classroom, the one-room schoolhouse. Joe Kincaid, who’d been a professor in Pennsylvania, was teacher, which made Clement what? The principal? The dean? The class consisted of Pella, Raymond and David, Bruce and Martha. Plus Morris Grant. And two Archbuilders. One was Ben Barth’s friend, Hiding Kneel, the other the one Pella had seen at Hugh Merrow’s, whose name was announced as Truth Renowned. But not Doug Grant, who at fifteen apparently judged himself too old, and not Melissa Richmond-Concorse, the lesbians’ baby, who at two wasn’t old enough.

On a high shelf in the corner perched two household deer, waiting.

Only the Archbuilders were enthusiastic. The fathers strung along the children on the promise of something unusual, or there would have been outright rebellion. As it was, Joe Kincaid and Clement Marsh were meeting with passive resistance. If the families were laying ground for a new society, all the more crucial school be kept out of it. Why clean a slate only to make the same drab marks on it again? So the children dragged their feet, honorably, in the name of later generations, children who would view them as architects of a paradise.

Anyway, six children and two Archbuilders weren’t a class, and two fathers weren’t a school. The objections were endless. Yet here they were, seated in an abysmal circle, forced to stare at one another as they listened.
Outside, the irregular sun-splashed terrain of the valley beckoned. Being drawn indoors made the children feel they were creatures of the valley now, as much as the Archbuilders, maybe more.

Pella sat with her feet up on her chair, arms around her knees. She picked idly at the scab on her ankle, eyes focused through the window, on the distant horizon.

“—we’re not going to pretend that you’re all reading at the same level,” Joe Kincaid was saying. “Or should be reading the same things—”

“We are all reading on the same planet,” said Hiding Kneel, leaning forward into the circle. The two Archbuilders sat together, Hiding Kneel agitated, fronds in motion, Truth Renowned silent and shy, arms and legs tucked away. Though no one admitted to fear of the Archbuilders, the children had given them plenty of room.

Seated near the windows, their fur glowed in the sun, looked almost wet in shadow.

“Uh, yes,” said Joe Kincaid. “I guess that’s the point. One thing that’s certain is we’re on the same planet. Sharing what we learn about it is as important as any other sort of schoolwork. I know Bruce and Martha are studying at home, and I guess your mom gives you lessons at home too, Morris. Anyway, this will be the
opposite
of kindergarten, for whoever said that. We’ll call ourselves a study group, which is a kind of school
I
didn’t have until college. But I didn’t live on another planet when I was growing up either.”

“That suggests that you are not growing up now,” said Hiding Kneel.

“Ah, good point. I should know better, since part of what I’m getting at is that you’re never done learning. For instance, lots of Archbuilders speak English; Clement has decided to be the first human to speak Archbuilder—”

“There’s no such thing as speaking Archbuilder,” said Raymond. “There’s hundreds of languages. Caitlin said. Remember?”

“Well, I’ll study one of the languages,” said Clement. “Our Archbuilder members here can help me decide which would be a good choice. Just listen to Joe for now, Ray.”

Pella felt the scab on her ankle scratch off under her fingernail, then a little chill of pain where blood met open air. She cursed her body. She wanted to hide it away.

“We’ll meet twice a week,” Joe Kincaid went on. “I’m sure some of you will be quite relieved to hear that. This doesn’t mean you can quit your independent-study work. What we’ll do here is get together to talk about what we’re learning. The older kids can help the younger ones with hard material, and native speakers can help students of new languages. Teaching is one of the best ways to learn.”

“Sounds like college is dumber than kindergarten,” said Morris Grant.

“Kindergarten didn’t have Archbuilders,” said Bruce.

“And Archbuilders didn’t have kindergarten,” snorted Morris.

“Rather, we have a system of tutorship—” began Hiding Kneel seriously.

“Maybe we’ll bring in guests to speak to the group,” said Clement, trying to reassert control. “Diana Eastling, if she could be convinced—”

“Let Hiding Kneel talk, Dad,” said Raymond. “I mean, all Diana Eastling does is
study
the Archbuilders. Kneel
is
one.”

Pella’s attention quickened at the mention of Diana Eastling. As far as she knew the biologist was still away, exploring. Had Clement seen her?

The one place Pella wasn’t spying was home. Who knew what Clement was up to?

Clement said, “Fair enough—”

“The germs of the word
kindergarten
elaborate certain paradoxes in our situation,” said Hiding Kneel, fronds waving. “We are not young, nor do we generally produce offspring. Otherhandedly, we are all children of the generation that preceded us, those who reshaped our world and then abandoned us to it. Further,
garden
indicates a preserve, a cultivated portion, but there is none such. We meander in ruins and waste. Yet again, our providential potatoes grow ubiquitously, and the climate is like a—I cannot recall the word …”

“I don’t know,” said Clement, when no one else spoke. “I can’t think of what word you’re after.”

“Don’t start him up again,” said Morris Grant. “He’ll talk forever.”

“A
hothouse
, thank you,” continued Hiding Kneel, as though Morris or Clement had supplied the word.
“And so
kinder
in a
garden
is seemingly on-target. Begging the pardon of Morris Grant, I regard it flawed to say we don’t have kindergarten. Indeed, we more lack anything other.”

“
What?
” said Morris Grant.

“And your, uh, system of tutorship?” said Joe Kincaid.

The two household deer on the shelf in the corner were in motion, bouncing, shaking. Pella squinted to see better. One had mounted the other, was pumping frantically. Unmistakable. Like a nature show about mating bears or lizards. The one thing that was done the same everywhere.

Except by Archbuilders, thought Pella. They weren’t split like all the rest of the world into fuckers and fuckees.

“Our system of sleeping and dreaming, you mean,” said Hiding Kneel to Joe Kincaid.

“If that’s what you mean—”

“Certainly,” said Hiding Kneel. “I learned English that way.”

“Hear that?” chortled Morris Grant. “It learned English asleep. No wonder.”

“Shut up,” said Bruce.

“Please, explain it to us,” said Joe.

“Let Pella Marsh do that,” said Hiding Kneel, uncurling its tendrils in her direction. “She may be better able.”

“
What?
” said Pella, startled. She’d been staring at the humping deer, imagining herself displaced into one or the other of them.

“I suggest you might elaborate the method of education by reverie,” said the Archbuilder.

Pella’s face heated. “What makes you think I know anything about it?” she said fiercely.

Archbuilders sleeping, household deer creeping, and Archbuilders learning English asleep. Spying on people, that’s what Hiding Kneel meant. Education by reverie. No wonder Efram didn’t like household deer.

She’d take the pills, she decided.

“What’s this, Pella?” said Clement.

“Nothing,” said Pella, glaring at Hiding Kneel, ignoring Clement.

“This school is off to a great start,” said Morris Grant, with heavy sardonic emphasis.

“I like it,” said David sincerely.

“You said we were going to have snacks,” said Martha Kincaid to her father.

“In a minute,” said Joe Kincaid. “First let’s pair off into study partners—”

Pella was matched with David. She turned her back to Clement, hoped he’d forget what Hiding Kneel had said. Morris Grant was paired with Clement, clearly by design. Hiding Kneel was Raymond’s partner, and the other Archbuilder, Truth Renowned, was matched with Martha Kincaid.

“Might we now play backgammon?” said Hiding Kneel excitedly.

There were heavy footsteps on the porch.

•   •   •

They all turned as the door was thrown open. Standing like a statue in the sunlit doorway was Efram Nugent. He didn’t step inside, but held there, silhouetted in the light, and surveyed the room, then raised his hand and pointed at Truth Renowned.

“Step away from that girl,” he said.

Truth Renowned stood beside Martha Kincaid, fuzzy limbs folded together like braids, fronds wavering. No one spoke.

“You heard me,” said Efram, the three words strung out like gunshots in the distance.

Household deer scooted through the doorway past Efram’s feet and made for the dusty shadows.

Efram’s presence was irrevocable. The day was smashed into another shape by his arrival, the air itself made watery. Pella felt a treacherous thrill seeing him wreck the classroom with his insinuations.

Truth Renowned, of course, couldn’t look less dangerous.

“What is this?” said Clement. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve been looking for this one,” said Efram. “Should have figured it would take a chance like this to hide. Play school.”

He moved into the room. Behind him, revealed in the doorway, stood Ben Barth and Doug Grant.

Now Clement stepped forward, out of the double row of study partners that stood frozen in the middle of the room.

“What are you talking about?” he said, his voice rising. Pella heard the tone that had cost him the election, the tone of the lost cause.

“It’s not a thing that we’d want to talk about in front of all these kids,” said Ben Barth. “Has to do with this Archbuilder, though, and Hugh Merrow. Not a pretty thing, Mr. Marsh.”

Efram stared at the alien, ignoring Clement. “Truth Renowned knows what we’re talking about—don’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” said Truth Renowned, revealing a voice at last: a warble, a quaver. “Hugh Merrow preferred that I not speak about these matters.”

“Well I prefer that you do speak,” said Efram, adding only after a pause, “about these
matters
.”

“Evidently conflictual!” said Hiding Kneel.