Parable of the Sower (31 page)

I sat with him and cleaned our new handgun while he cleaned the rifle. Harry was on watch and needed my gun. When I went over to give it to him, he let me know he understood exactly what was going on between Bankole and me.

“Be careful,” he whispered. “Don’t give the poor old guy a heart attack.”

“I’ll tell him you were worried,” I said.

Harry laughed, then sobered. “Be careful, Lauren. Bankole is probably all right. He seems to be. But, well… Yell if anything goes wrong.”

I rested my hand on his shoulder for a moment and said, “Thank you.”

The nice thing about sitting and working alongside someone you don’t know very well, someone you’d like to know much better, is that you can talk with him or be quiet with him. You can get comfortable with him and with the awareness that you’ll soon be making love to him.

Bankole and I were quiet for a while, a little shy. I sneaked glances at him and caught him sneaking glances at me. Then, to my own surprise, I began to talk to him about Earthseed—not preaching, just talking, testing I guess. I needed to see his reaction. Earthseed is the most important thing in my life. If Bankole were going to laugh at it, I needed to know now. I didn’t expect him to agree with it or even to be much interested in it. He’s an old man. I thought he was probably content with whatever religion he had. It occurred to me as I spoke that I had no idea what his religion was. I asked him.

“None at all,” he said. “When my wife was alive, we went to a Methodist church. Her religion was important to her, so I went along. I saw how it comforted her, and I wanted to believe, but I never could.”

“We were Baptists,” I said. “I couldn’t make myself believe either, and I couldn’t tell anyone. My father was the minister. I kept quiet and began to understand Earthseed.”

“Began to invent Earthseed,” he said.

“Began to discover it and understand it,” I said. “Stumbling across the truth isn’t the same as making things up.” I wondered how many times and ways I would have to say this to new people.

“It sounds like some combination of Buddhism, existentialism, Sufism, and I don’t know what else,” he said. “Buddhism doesn’t make a god of the concept of change, but the impermanence of everything is a basic Buddhist principle.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ve done a lot of reading. Some other religions and philosophies do contain ideas that would fit into Earthseed, but none of them
are
Earthseed. They go off in their own directions.”

He nodded. “All right. But tell me, what do people have to do to be good members of an Earthseed Community?”

A nice, door-opening question. “The essentials,” I answered, “are to learn to shape God with forethought, care, and work; to educate and benefit their community, their families, and themselves; and to contribute to the fulfillment of the Destiny.”

“And why should people bother about the Destiny, farfetched as it is? What’s in it for them?”

“A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children. A real heaven, not mythology or philosophy. A heaven that will be theirs to shape.”

“Or a hell,” he said. His mouth twitched. “Human beings are good at creating hells for themselves even out of richness.” He thought for a moment. “It sounds too simple, you know.”

“You think it’s simple?” I asked in surprise.

“I said it
sounds
too simple.”

“It sounds overwhelming to some people.”

“I mean it’s too…straightforward. If you get people to accept it, they’ll make it more complicated, more open to interpretation, more mystical, and more comforting.”

“Not around me they won’t!” I said.

“With you or without you, they will. All religions change. Think about the big ones. What do you think Christ would be these days? A Baptist? A Methodist? A Catholic? And the Buddha—do you think he’d be a Buddhist now? What kind of Buddhism would he practice?” He smiled. “After all, if ‘God is Change,’ surely Earthseed can change, and if it lasts, it will.”

I looked away from him because he was smiling. This was all nothing to him. “I know,” I said. “No one can stop Change, but we all shape Change whether we mean to or not. I mean to guide and shape Earthseed into what it should be.”

“Perhaps.” He went on smiling. “How serious are you about this?”

The question drove me deep into myself. I spoke, almost not knowing what I would say. “When my father…disappeared,” I began, “it was Earthseed that kept me going. When most of my community and the rest of my family were wiped out, and I was alone, I still had Earthseed. What I am now, all that I am now is Earthseed.”

“What you are now,” he said after a long silence, “is a very unusual young woman.”

We didn’t talk for a while after that. I wondered what he thought. He hadn’t seemed to be bottling up
too
much hilarity. No more than I’d expected. He had been willing to go along with his wife’s religious needs. Now, he would at least permit me mine.

I wondered about his wife. He hadn’t mentioned her before. What had she been like? How had she died?

“Did you leave home because your wife died?” I asked.

He put down a long slender cleaning rod and rested his back against the tree behind him. “My wife died five years ago,” he said. “Three men broke in—junkies, dealers, I don’t know. They beat her, tried to make her tell where the drugs were.”

“Drugs?”

“They had decided that we must have something they could use or sell. They didn’t like the things she was able to give them so they kept beating her. She had a heart problem.” He drew in a long breath, then sighed. “She was still alive when I got home. She was able to tell me what had happened. I tried to help her, but the bastards had taken her medicine, taken everything. I phoned for an ambulance. It arrived an hour after she died. I tried to save her, then to revive her. I tried so damned hard…”

I stared down the hill from our camp where just a glint of water was visible in the distance through the trees and bushes. The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.

“I should have headed north when Sharon died,” Bankole said. “I thought about it.”

“But you stayed.” I turned away from the water and looked at him. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know what to do, so for some time I didn’t do anything. Friends took care of me, cooked for me, cleaned the house. It surprised me that they would do that. Church people most of them. Neighbors. More her friends than mine.”

I thought of Wardell Parrish, devastated after the loss of his sister and her children—and his house. Had Bankole been some community’s Wardell Parrish? “Did you live in a walled community?” I asked.

“Yes. Not rich, though. Nowhere near rich. People managed to hold on to their property and feed their families. Not much else. No servants. No hired guards.”

“Sounds like my old neighborhood.”

“I suppose it sounds like a lot of old neighborhoods that aren’t there any more. I stayed to help the people who had helped me. I couldn’t walk away from them.”

“But you did. You left. Why?”

“Fire—and scavengers.”

“You, too? Your whole community?”

“Yes. The houses burned, most of the people were killed… The rest scattered, went to family or friends elsewhere. Scavengers and squatters moved in. I didn’t decide to leave. I escaped.”

Much too familiar. “Where did you live? What city?”

“San Diego.”

“That far south?”

“Yes. As I said, I should have left years ago. If I had, I could have managed plane fare and resettlement money.”

Plane fare
and
resettlement money? He might not call that rich, but we would have.

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“North.” He shrugged.

“Just anywhere north or somewhere in particular?”

“Anywhere where I can be paid for my services and allowed to live among people who aren’t out to kill me for my food or water.”

Or for drugs, I thought. I looked into his bearded face and added up the hints I’d picked up today and over the past few days. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

He looked a little surprised. “I was, yes. Family practice. It seems a long time ago.”

“People will always need doctors,” I said. “You’ll do all right.”

“My mother used to say that.” He gave me a wry smile. “But here I am.”

I smiled back because, looking at him now, I couldn’t help myself, but as he spoke, I decided he had told me at least one lie. He might be as displaced and in distress as he appeared to be, but he wasn’t just wandering north. He wasn’t looking for just anywhere he could be paid for his services and not robbed or murdered. He wasn’t the kind of man who wandered. He knew where he was going. He had a haven somewhere—a relative’s home, another home of his own, a friend’s home,
something
—some definite destination.

Or perhaps he just had enough money to buy a place for himself in Washington or Canada or Alaska. He had had to choose between fast, safe, expensive air travel and having settling-in money when he got where he was going. He had chosen settling-in money. If so, I agreed with him. He was taking the kind of risk that would enable him to make a new beginning as soon as possible—if he survived.

On the other hand, if I were right about any of this, he might disappear on me some night. Or perhaps he would be more open about it—just walk away from me some day, turn down a side road and wave good-bye. I didn’t want that. After I’d slept with him I would want it even less.

Even now, I wanted to keep him with me. I hated that he was lying to me already—or I believed he was. But why should he tell me everything? He didn’t know me very well yet, and like me, he meant to survive. Perhaps I could convince him that he and I could survive well together. Meanwhile, best to enjoy him without quite trusting him. I may be wrong about all this, but I don’t believe I am. Pity.

We finished the guns, loaded them, and went down to the water to wash. You could go right down to the water, scoop some up in a pot, and take it away. It was free. I kept looking around, thinking someone would come to stop us or charge us or something. I suppose we could have been robbed, but no one paid any attention to us. We saw other people getting water in bottles, canteens, pots, and bags, but the place seemed peaceful. No one bothered anyone. No one paid any attention to us.

“A place like this can’t last,” I told Bankole. “It’s a shame. Life could be good here.”

“I suspect that it’s against the law to live here,” he said. “This is a State Recreation Area. There should be some kind of limit on how long you can stay. I’m certain that there should be—used to be—some group policing the place. I wonder if officials of some kind come around to collect bribes now and then.”

“Not while we’re here, I hope.” I dried my hands and arms and waited for him to dry his. “Are you hungry?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” he said. He looked at me for a while, then reached for me. He took me by both arms, drew me to him, kissed me, and spoke into my ear. “Aren’t you?”

I didn’t say anything. After a while I took his hand and we went back to camp to pick up one of his blankets. Then we went to an isolated little spot that we’d both noticed earlier.

It felt natural and easy to lie down with him, and explore the smooth, hard, broad feel of his body. He’d kept himself fit. No doubt walking hundreds of miles in the past few weeks had burned off whatever fat he’d been carrying. He was still big—barrel-chested and tall. Best of all, he took a lot of uncomplicated pleasure in my body, and I got to share it with him. It isn’t often that I can enjoy the good side of my hyperempathy. I let the sensation take over, intense and wild. I might be more in danger of having a heart attack than he is. How had I done without this for so long?

There was an odd, unromantic moment when we both reached into crumpled clothing and produced condoms. It was funny because of the way it hit us both at once, and we laughed, then went on to the serious business of loving and pleasuring one another. That combed and trimmed beard that he’s so vain about tickles like mad.

“I knew I should have let you alone,” he said to me when we had made love twice and were still not willing to get up and go back to the others. “You’re going to kill me. I’m too old for this stuff.”

I laughed and made a pillow of his shoulder.

After a while, he said, “I need to be serious for a minute, girl.”

“Okay.”

He drew a long breath, sighed, swallowed, hesitated. “I don’t want to give you up,” he said.

I smiled.

“You’re a kid,” he said. “I ought to know better. How old are you, anyway?”

I told him.

He jumped, then pushed me off his shoulder. “Eighteen?” He flinched away from me as though my skin burned him. “My god,” he said. “You’re a baby! I’m a child molester!”

I didn’t laugh, though I wanted to. I just looked at him.

After a while he frowned and shook his head. In a little more time, he moved back against me, touching my face, my shoulders, my breasts.

“You’re not just eighteen,” he said.

I shrugged.

“When were you born? What year?”

“Twenty oh nine.”

“No.” He drew the word out: “Nooo.”

I kissed him and said in the same tone, “Yesss. Now stop your nonsense. You want to be with me and I want to be with you. We’re not going to split up because of my age, are we?”

After a while he shook his head. “You should have a nice youngster like Travis,” he said. “I should have the sense and the strength to send you off to find one.”

That made me think of Curtis, and I cringed away from thinking of him. I’ve thought as little as possible about Curtis Talcott. He isn’t like my brothers. He may be dead, but none of us ever saw his body. I saw his brother Michael. I was terrified of seeing Curtis himself, but I never did. He may not be dead. He’s lost to me, but I hope he’s not dead. He should be here with me on the road. I hope he’s alive and all right.

“Who have I reminded you of?” Bankole asked me, his voice soft and deep.