Mythology 101 (9 page)

“It’s peaceful here,” Keith said at last.

Holl smiled. “It is that.”

O O O

Nothing seemed ever to be wasted by the little people. Keith saw the same stiff flowered fabric used over and over again in different applications. Two little girls’ dresses, several window curtains, an old woman’s apron, and a gaudy young man’s shirt had obviously all come from the same bolt. “And bed coverlets, too,” Holl affirmed, after Keith mentioned it to him. “There are no looms in this place. That much wood we cannot spare, so textiles are some of the hardest things to come by. You’ll see the same scrap of cloth recycled a dozen times before it’s too badly worn to mend. It’s a sure sign that fabric’s on the way out when it becomes curtains. No wear to the body of the cloth, you see.”

“Sure, I see,” said Keith, musing. Now that he was aware of it, he saw that most of the fabrics here were well cared for, but old and worn, including his friend’s clothes. Patches were skillfully blended on trouser-knees and jacket-elbows. Probably re-dyed for camouflage. “Textiles, huh?”

“Huh. What we can’t grow for ourselves, or make, or … er, find, we do without. Now, Lee Eisley, in the class, has a handy job as an assistant in the Food Services. He has been known to drop packages of meat in our way, and a few other feats of kindness, after … well, when we lost another source of supply.”

“Don’t you ever buy stuff you need?” Keith asked impetuously, and then wished he hadn’t.

Holl gave him a pitying look. “How and with what, Keith Doyle? Shall I go out and get a job selling cookies? Or maybe helping out Santa Claus at a shopping mall?”

“Well, why not?” Keith had a sudden delighted vision of dainty, point-eared elf helpers escorting hulking human children to Santa’s throne. “No one would believe you were real, under the right circumstances. Nobody knows who Santa’s helpers are.”

“Why not?” Holl echoed. “Because these nameless workers have got backgrounds, backgrounds that your government knows about, and takes for granted. Maybe you don’t know who they are, but they are known. It’s a casual thing for you to have a job. It’s your world. You’ve got a
social security number
. Everyone knows where you came from. An adult, especially one that looks like me, popping out of nowhere prompts questions, questions that we don’t want answered in public, starting with ‘where did you get them ears?’” His eyebrows drew together, and his voice took on the tone of a moronic teenager.

“I’m sorry. I feel awkward asking such dumb questions, but I don’t how else to ask what I want to know.”

Holl’s face relaxed and he slapped Keith companionably on the back, taking him solidly in the kidneys. Keith winced. “The trouble with you is that you have a basically honest heart. Haven’t you heard it said to you by a thousand professors, Keith Doyle, that there are no dumb questions?”

“… Just dumb people,” Keith finished self-deprecatingly. The curious illumination in the ceiling was dimming, shading more toward a sunset finish: reds and oranges on one side, and already blue-black on the other. Some special effects. Whoever did the programming on that ceiling was good, Keith thought. It had been cloudy and rainy all day outside, and it was already long past dark up there, but here he was watching the sun go down in a perfectly clear sky. He envied the elves for being able to delay sunset as long as they wanted. They sure knew how to live. The little children were being called in by their parents. “Look, I’d better go,” Keith insisted. “I’ve got some homework to finish tonight.”

“Mm-hmm. Late for us, too. You’re welcome here. I’ll ask you to guest again sometime. You’ve not met my family, yet.”

“Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks for asking me! When would you like to come to dinner in the dorm? The food’s not much to brag about, but there’s lots of it.”

A broad smile lit Holl’s face. “I’ll come with joy any time you like, if only to see how you explain me away to your friends, Keith Doyle.”

“I’ll think of something,” Keith promised, smiling down at him.

“That’s what I’m looking forward to.”

***

Chapter 10

When Keith left the library complex, he ran all the way back to the dormitory and seized the phone. Pat was out, probably at play rehearsal. Keith felt if he didn’t share his experience with someone, he would explode. He dialed Marcy’s number and counted the rings impatiently until she answered.

“Hello?” She sounded irritated, probably interrupted in the middle of a good television program, or sleep, or something. Keith realized at that moment he had no idea what time it was.

“Hi,” he sang, sounding heady even in his own ears. “It’s Keith. I just had dinner with THEM. You know. Them.”

“What?” Marcy demanded sleepily. “Which them?”

“They, them. Holl and Tay and Maura and … I was right there, where they live. I
saw
. I just had to tell someone. You. I wanted to tell you. And, Marcy? Thanks for getting me in there. You don’t know what it means to me. Well,” all his breath came out in a rush on that one syllable, and he forced his tone to assume false casualness, “see you in class.” He hung up the phone.

“Wait!” came a shriek out of the receiver. “Keith—?”

O O O

Keith threw himself around the room for the next few hours, unable to settle anywhere in his excitement. He waggled a finger chidingly at the
Field Guide
and the other books on legendary creatures stacked anyhow on his shelves, feeling pleased with himself that he now knew something none of them did. “I’ve got your numbers, guys.” Real elves were more interesting than any of the pipe dreams and fictional illusions he’d ever read about. And how did those lights in the ceiling work? There were no wires or even
fixtures
.… More unexplained data, and he had to know.

The ringing of the telephone disturbed him, so he took the receiver off the hook and threw the whole instrument under the bed.

The arrangement he had seen in the library basement amazed him. To do as the elves had done, to have created a viable living environment inside a dark concrete box without letting anyone ever see them, or know what they were doing, and to continue to exist—even prosper, to a certain extent—surpassed all means or vocabulary Keith had for expressing admiration. They were survivors. They ate, slept, cooked, made clothes and houses and tools, played, and raised children, all in a space the college had forgotten, and would have dismissed as unimportant and unusable if reminded of it. What were discards to his spoiled generation became raw materials in the hands of those concealed craftsmen. Look at what they did with scrap lumber and used curtains.…

It troubled him that all their skill couldn’t disguise the poverty of their situation. True, they could make beauty and function out of garbage, but it was still garbage. Now that he thought about it, there probably wasn’t a whole two-by-four in the whole village. Then, too, there was the clothing. It was all of an old fashioned, loose, comfortable cut, intended to wear for a long time. None of it was way out of the ordinary, but remained far from fashionable. Just about every garment sported a patch, sometimes more than one. Keith thought guiltily of jeans he owned that had patches embroidered on them just for show. He would help supply his new friends with donations of fresh raw materials, anything they needed. He was good at finding things. What those elf seamstresses could do with pretty new fabrics—! It would take all his ingenuity to come up with a way to get what they needed; he certainly didn’t have unlimited money. Keith scowled impatiently out his window at the night, wishing it wasn’t too late an hour to start on his resolution. Textiles, food, lumber, kitchen utensils, tools …

The list was beginning to form in his head, when it occurred to him that he wasn’t alone in his eagerness to help out the little folk. Lee Eisley was already doing it, though he had never let on when Keith grilled him about their classmates. He would have to find Lee and talk to him, and find out what needed doing most.

O O O

“Very vell,” the Master said, leaning over the head of the table. “I declare that the Council of Elders is open, and all who need to speak vill be heard.” He sat down and looked around, waiting for someone to speak.

The old folk around the table glanced at one another, but no one opened his mouth. With a rueful shake of her head, Catra got to her feet. “I would speak, Master.”

“Gut. Vhat haf you to say?”

“You must already know, for I have not made a secret of my discovery.” She turned to the others, holding up a small, neatly trimmed piece of newsprint in the lantern light. “As archivist, it is my duty. I found a story in one of the weekly newspapers that leads me to believe we are in grave danger of discovery.” The room erupted into a hubbub of worried exclamations. “Now, wait. It doesn’t go so far as to mention any of us by name. All it says is that folk answering our general descriptions have been seen frequenting the streets of the Midwestern campus and town.”

“Frequenting!” Curran exploded. “There’s a bare few who go ‘round and about, and no’ often. Do we keep them from gaeng out, then?”

“No. Ve cannot keep them from their tasks. We need to do have them done.”

“Huh!” Dierdre, Catra’s clan leader, seated to her right, was glancing at the slip of paper. “… as if Santa was setting up shop right here in the Midwest. ’Tis an insult!”

“Stereotypes,” Ligan agreed. “Too few stories for to choose from here.” He was the eldest of the Master’s clan, though it was the Master who spoke for the whole of the village.

“But who can have written this? Why now?”

“Is there no one new in the village class, now?” Ligan wanted to know.

“Just the vun, Keith Doyle,” said the Master.

“You met him the other day at dinner,” Catra reminded them, venturing a cautious opinion. “I don’t think it could be he.”

“And why not?” Curran demanded.

Catra shrugged her shoulders. “He doesn’t seem the type.”

“Ve must be more careful,” the Elf Master said, peering at them all over the tops of his gold glasses. “Only at night shall the scavengers go forth, and hats worn. Approach no new Big Folk. If this is a security leak, ve shall stop it here and now.” The others sadly nodded their approval. “Now, is there any more to bring to our attention?” None of the others raised a hand or stood up. The Master rose heavily to his feet. “Then the Council is closed.”

***

Chapter 11

“Lee Eisley?” Keith inquired into a cloud of hot steam billowing out of the maw of an industrial dishwasher. A burly man dressed in a greasy white uniform levered his torso upright from the conveyor belt he was trying to fix, and peered at Keith.

“Nope,” he boomed. “Back there.” He gestured over one shoulder with a rubber-gloved hand, and went back to banging on the control box with a wrench. “Dammit.”

Keith scurried past as the dishwasher belched out another blinding burst of steam. He shuffled by a column of white-enameled stoves and stainless steel work tables, where a dozen or so white-clad workers were making up huge batches of soups and salads. There was an incredible racket in the kitchens, the clanking and hissing from the dishwashers harmonizing with the growling mixing machines that were churning vast quantities of sweet-smelling dough. The yeast floating in the air made Keith sneeze on his way past them.

He found Lee, also dressed in white, beyond the next row of machines, loading fifty-pound sacks of flour and rice from a pallet into storage cabinets. He waited until Lee’s hands were empty before attempting to attract his attention.

“Um, Lee?”

The older student started, obviously surprised to be addressed. He peered at Keith without recognizing him.

“It’s me, Keith. From the class?”

“Yeah, hi.” Grunting, Lee hoisted another sack to his shoulders and staggered it across the room. “What can I do for you?”

“If you have a minute, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“Um,” Keith looked around. “It’s about our mutual classmates.”

“What?” The sack landed on its mates with a thud, and Lee spun, looking around for eavesdroppers, and seized a handful of Keith’s shirt. “You crazy, asking me about that
here
? Get out, you jerk.”

“They told me you’ve been, well, helping out.” Keith went on, wondering if he was wise to have confronted Lee here.

“You heard wrong,” Lee said, a little louder than necessary.

“Come on. I want to help, too.” Keith said persuasively. Lee’s expression told him nothing. “I know you’re helping. They told me. I’m sure there’s things I can do, too. I’ve got some ideas. But there’s stuff I need to know.”

“I told you before. I don’t know anything.”

“But that was before. Before I knew you were taking supplies to them, out of Food Service stocks.…” Keith lowered his voice to a confidential whisper.

Lee clamped a hand roughly over Keith’s nose and mouth. “Shut up,” he hissed. “All right, I have. So what? I still don’t know anything.”

“How long have you been doing … that?” Keith asked, more tactfully. His nose hurt. He rubbed it ruefully.

Lee went back for another sack. “I started doing it as a favor. I’m a grad student in journalism. I did my undergrad j-school work here, too. Five years. I took over when old Ludmilla asked me to help out her ‘little ones.’ Hell, I thought she meant feeding her cats.” He scowled at Keith as if he resented his good deeds being found out.

Keith took a deep breath. “Who’s Ludmilla?”

“She was a University cleaning lady. She retired four years ago. She still lives in town. If anyone knows about … them, she does.”

“Do you know her address?” Keith held out a notebook and pen. Lee snatched them, and scribbled a few lines.

“There. Now beat it.”

“Don’t worry. I’m gone. Just your basic Good Samaritan, doing my annual good deed. No point in intruding on other good deeds.” Keith looked meaningfully at the food storage units. Lee seized a fifty-pound sack of rice threateningly, and Keith scurried away.

***

Chapter 12

Along one side of the campus ran rows of collapsible brownstone six-flats that were used mostly by students who preferred, and could afford, apartments to dorm rooms. The other tenants consisted of older people, couples just getting started, and people who worked at the University. The rent was cheap, so most didn’t complain about the condition of the buildings. The address he was looking for was only two doors down from Marcy’s place.

The crumbling concrete and brickwork were original issue, and in the dimly lit, redolent plaster hallways, Keith was sure he could trace some inscriptions hitherto found only in caves in pre-historic France. Heavy, varnished wooden doors hung at angles in their frames, letting triangular spears of light shoot out from under them onto the worn runners. He could hear television soap operas blaring, muffled behind the thick walls, and distant footsteps, followed by doors slamming. Two giggling children, a sister and brother both aged five or so, heels slipping, dashed down the flight above him just as Keith rounded the landing. He moved himself out of their way against the banisters. “Hey, watch it,” he complained.

“Sorry,” the little girl called back, and broke into playful shrieks as her brother caught up and started tickling her. “Stop that! I’m telling!
Momma
!” Keith shook his head, grinning, and kept climbing.

On the fourth landing, Keith found the faded card that read “Hempert.” He knocked.

A slender old woman with yellow-white hair opened the door. “Yes? How may I help you?”

Keith cleared his throat nervously. He was face to face with Ludmilla Hempert. Now how did he begin explaining what he wanted? “My name’s Keith Doyle. I’m a … friend of friends of yours, Miss Hempert.”

“Mrs. Hempert, but mein husband is these many years dead,” Ludmilla told him, looking up at him with startlingly kind, flower-blue eyes. She wasn’t much taller than the Elf Master, and she had the same kind of summing, patient expression. “Vich friends?”

“Your … the little ones.”

“Ach!” She caught her breath, and gestured him to cross the threshold. With a cautious look over his shoulder, she shut the door. “Dey sent you?” she asked in a low tone. “Is someting der matter?”

“No,” Keith hurried to reassure the old lady. She was already reaching for the limp wool coat hanging from the hook behind the door. “Really. Nothing’s wrong. Truthfully, they don’t even know I’m here. They’re kind of … protective of you.”

Ludmilla smiled, her cheeks lifting, and all the tired wrinkles disappeared from her face, making her look many years younger than the seventy or so she must be. Her hand fluttered down to her side, straightened her dress. “My kinder, like them they are. Zit down, please. Tea?” She darted ahead of him, hastening to dust off the top of a spotlessly clean, flowered sofa cushion.

“Um, sure. Thanks.” Keith sank onto the couch, and found it so soft he was all but swallowed up in its embrace. Ludmilla rushed out of the room, and Keith could hear clinks and rattles coming from the kitchen. She returned in a moment, pushing a narrow, brassbound tea wagon, on which was set a steaming pot, two cups and saucers, and a plate of sliced sponge cake. Keith sniffed appreciatively, accepted tea and a generous serving of cake.

“You know,” said Ludmilla, sitting down opposite Keith in a deep upholstered armchair, “it is just today I am thinking of my little vuns. It is forty two years since first I met them.”

“What?” Keith exclaimed, interrupting her unintentionally. “How long have they
been
here?”

“I am tellink you, young man.”

O O O

Forty-two years ago, she began, I was working at night, cleaning the University buildings. My shift, it was the least desirable, for which they paid me more money than was made by the staff during the day. We lived here. In those years, it was a family building, smelling of cooking, and everyone’s doors stood open all day. I had three children, whom my husband and I were struggling to feed. Children are like young robins, always hungry. Food and clothes cost more than only one of us could earn. He worked in the daytime, and I at night, so that there would always be someone at home for them. I would not want my children to grow up thinking that they were not cared for.

The buildings were not so many in that time. The science center, which has grown so much, was then only the red brick structure onto which the others have been added. Connected it was to all the others by the steam tunnels. At first I found them frightening to walk through, for the switches of the lights lay far within, not close to the entrances. When I grew accustomed to them, taking five giant steps, often with my eyes closed against the darkness, my observation was that the lights were placed for the ease of workers, who made access by the hatchways and manholes. Between the Science building and the library was the longest passageway, fourteen lights long. The next longest, the Student Common to the Liberal Arts building, was but ten.

It was forbidden for anyone not authorized to make use of the tunnels. If you have never been in them—ah, but I see that you have, though I may guess you have not authorization. They run from place to place, always filled with warmth from the steam jets. The pipes along the ceiling, packed as they are in asbestos fibers, are like the veins in the back of a hand. The sound is like the beat of a heart, too: the source of my fear when first I walked down there. The lights hang infrequently, with pools of darkness lying between them.

I walk along the middle when I go through the tunnels, you see, where the skirts of light on the floor are almost touching, the least to be in the dark. When I am working, I place my things against the wall, in case there is someone else who walks through. That way they do not trip on my pail and mop, or tread in my lunch. The allowed time for my meal is one half hour, too short to go home to eat. I was careful to remember, for I did not wish to go hungry all night.

I heard scuttling in the depths of the buildings always. Rats lived there. They ate the insects: cockroaches, beetles; so they were pursued mostly when they were found on the levels used by the teachers and students. That was not my job. I do not like rats, and I killed as many as I could.

When I went, broomstick in hand, to investigate the sound, there came another clamor behind me, from the place where I had left my pail and my lunch. The rats again! They would not get my food if I could help it. Like the wind, I flew back there, ignoring the cold darkness. My broom handle I held like a spear. It was a miracle I did not break any of the hanging light bulbs.

There
was
something, a small, hulking shape crawling among my things. I swooped in upon it, striking it away from the bag. It slid across the rough floor, tumbling against the wall. If it was a rat, it was the largest of its breed I had ever seen in my life. A rat over two feet long! I raised the stick to crush its head, and it flung up its two paws, and cried out, “No!”

I was stopped by that. Never had I heard a rat to make such a human-like noise. It sprang away quick as a wink when I let the stick down, but I was quicker. I thrust the bristle side of the broom in its way, and put down a hand to capture my prey. I grasped a handful of cloth.

My prisoner struggled and kicked, but I had it by the middle of its back, and it could not hurt me. It was so light that I hardly noticed its weight. Taking it into the light, I examined it. It was a black-haired child, clad in shirt and trousers, but what an amazing child! I thought immediately of the legends of my home, of the little house spirits, who would do good deeds or bad as it suited them. It could be that this little fellow was of the same type. What else but magic could account for its appearance? The eyes and cheekbones were sharp and wide, making it look like a little wild animal. And its ears were pointed, like a cat’s laid back. But it was of human type, and it swung its tiny fists in the air, crying out in a language I do not know, trying to get loose from my grip. I stood as one frozen in place. Its face was dirty, and under the loose shirt which I clutched in my hand, its ribs were thin.

With a heart’s wrench, I thought of my own children. This child, however strange it might appear to me, was but a child, and hungry. I made soothing noises to it, and it ceased struggling. Very slowly, I moved backward to where my lunch basket lay, and I lowered the little creature to the ground. It stood up, regarding me most warily. I opened my hand, let the broom lean against the wall, and stooped to my basket. Out of my eye’s corner could I see that the child had already opened it, but I had surprised it before it could take any of the contents. In there I had apples, sandwiches, a pint bottle of milk, and a wrapped slice of cake. I am proud of my skill of bakery; my mother taught me, and she was much acclaimed in the village of my birth. Moving smoothly, with no haste, I laid the contents out in a line on the floor before the child. It was trembling where it stood, and I smiled at it to show I meant no harm. Small wonder it was frightened. Had I not just plucked the poor creature up, like a wild hawk hunting a rabbit?

Of a sudden, it gasped, and pointed open-mouthed over my shoulder. I sprang up, spinning around, to see what had so alarmed it. Nothing was there. I turned back, just in time to see the little one dashing away, with all of my food in its arms. I laughed, for I had been fooled by an old trick, showing that my little one here had all of his wits about him, and I was sure, more than ever, that he was of the magical kind. I felt blessed for having seen it, and even more so for having done it a kindness. In our folk stories, it is important to do so. It brings no good to those who do them ill.

Only once did I ever tell my husband about seeing one of the Little People in the school building. He laughed, too, but in disbelief of me. Never to the end of his life did he credit my story. In his opinion, it was that the New Learning in the college would keep old superstitions away. But what, I argued, if it was not a superstition, but reality? He reasoned that if the Old Ones were real, then the New Learning would teach about them, too, and they did not. He had a firm opinion, but one of a closed mind. I think he was afraid to believe me. If one folk tale was true, a good one, he felt that the bad ones would have as much chance to be true, too. I loved and respected my husband, but I kept my own mind open.

At first he convinced me that I was imagining meeting the child, but I did see my little one again, and many times after that.

The next time I walked from the Science building to the library, far down the passageway, in the center of a pool of light, stood my milk bottle, on top of the folded napkin in which my sandwiches had been wrapped. Both were perfectly clean; the bottle gleamed as if it had been polished. I smiled. It was the little one’s way of saying “Danke.” I was much gratified, and when I passed through the tunnel, I left behind a quart bottle of milk, more apples, and a loaf of home-made egg bread flecked with bacon, an old recipe in my family. It was in my mind that the child must have parents, and if I would starve to let my own sons and daughters eat, in what pitiful state must this one’s be?

It was many days before I saw any other sign of life in the course of my tasks. Every time, the bottle would be returned to me, left where it could not be missed. I know I was watched most carefully; others in the employ of the University passed along the steam tunnels, and yet they never saw or heard a thing. And my milk bottles never were found by anyone else.

You may ask how I could continue to provide food for people I never saw, when it might be I was pulling it away from my own family’s mouths. There are those whose hearts Charity has never touched. I am not made that way. My mother always told me that hands open so they can give. Fruit was cheaply obtained. My sister’s husband had a farm not far away, and we had often meat and produce from them. And I allow myself to be proud that I am a thrifty housekeeper. I could make but a little go far, so I was able to feed—three, I believed—extra mouths, without extra expense.

I was not the only one from whom food came, though I was the only one who gave it willingly. From my fellow workers came complaints that the rats were stealing their lunches, and that they were also to blame for the occasional disappearance of supplies from out of the dormitory kitchens. No one else reported seeing a strange child.

One night, I rushed through my tasks, and came last to the library passageway. I wanted to see if perhaps my husband was right, and I had been dreaming, or that I was, and had not. Out of my basket, I took milk and bread and fruit, and laid it in the light. But now, instead of leaving, I sat down beside my offering, and waited.

I believed that I could hear low conversation not far from me in the dark. My little ones were deciding whether or not to reveal themselves to their benefactress.

“Come out,” I called. “I will not harm you.” I held out my hands, empty of weapons, so that they could see them. More hurried conversation, though I could not distinguish of how many voices. At last, there was movement in the shadows. There stepped forward a figure. It was my little mannikin. Behind him came two others, a man and a woman, perhaps a foot taller than the child. Her hair was the same shiny black as the boy’s, but the man’s was orange-red. They were, as I had believed, much mended, and thin and hungry-looking, but because of me, perhaps, less so than they must have been before.

I let my eyes devour my first glance in weeks of the child. It was good because I learned I was not mad, but also because my secret kindness had improved this child’s lot. He was not as thin as before, and for a wonder, he was clean! His shirt was neat, and his face had been washed. I think that even before I knew myself, these little wise ones knew I would wait for them this night. His expression had not the hunted fear of our first meeting, nor the hard defiance, which so reminded me of my younger son. He had a formidable will, into which he would grow one day, with care. I felt a sympathy with the parents. There was more here to deal with than making their child stay presentable.

They next had my attention. I was made to think of refugees, clad in well-worn rags, whose war it was not, and who wanted only to be left alone. But from what war? Whence had they come?