She pulled herself up slowly from her knees, feeling the smart of returning circulation. Stiffly she limped to the other room. The coffee steamed gently at her although she had poured it out a lifetime ago. The bacon and eggs were still warm and uncongealed. She broke the warm crisp toast and began to eat.
“I’ll figure it all out sometime soon,” she murmured to her plate. “And then I’ll probably scream for a while.”
Karen came back early in the afternoon, bursting through the door that swung open before she reached it.
“Oh, Lea!” she cried, seizing her and whirling her in a mad dance. “You’d never guess-not in a million years! Oh, Lea! Oh, Lea!” She dumped the two of them onto the bed and laughed delightedly. Lea pulled away from her.
“Guess what?” Her voice sounded as dry and strained as her tearless eyes.
Karen sat up quickly. “Oh, Lea! I’m so sorry. In all the mad excitement I forgot.
“Listen, Jemmy says you’re to come to the Gathering tonight. I can’t tell you-I mean, you wouldn’t be able to understand without a lengthy explanation, and even then-” She looked into Lea’s haunted eyes. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked softly. “‘Even Stilled, it comes through like a blunt knife hacking, doesn’t it? Can’t you cry, Lea? Not even a tear?”
“Tears-” Lea’s hands were restless. ” ‘Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.’ ” She pressed her hands to the tight constriction in her chest. Her throat ached intolerably. “How can I bear it?” she whispered. “When you let it come back again how can I even bear it?”
“You don’t have to bear it alone. You need never have borne it alone. And I won’t release you until you have enough strength.
“Anyway-” Karen stood up briskly, “food again-then a nap. I’ll give sleep to you. Then the Gathering. There will be your new beginning.”
Lea shrank back into her corner, watching with dread as the Gathering grew. Laughter and cries and overtones and undercurrents swirled around the room.
“They won’t bite!” Karen whispered. “They won’t even notice you, if you don’t want them to. Yes,” she answered Lea’s unasked question. “You must stay-like it or not, whether you can see any use in it or not. I’m not quite sure myself why Jemmy called this Gathering, but how appropriate can you get-having us meet in the schoolhouse? Believe it or not, this is the where that I got my education-and this is where-Well, teachers have been our undoing-or doing according to your viewpoint. You know, adults can fairly well keep themselves to themselves and not let anyone else in on their closely guarded secrets-but the kids-” She laughed. “Poor cherubs-or maybe they’re wiser. They pour out the most personal things quite unsolicited to almost any adult who will listen-and who’s more apt to listen than a teacher? Ask one sometime how much she learns of a child’s background and everyday family activities from just what is let drop quite unconsciously. Kids are the key to any community-which fact has never been more true than among us. That’s why teachers have been so involved in the affairs of the People. Remind me sometime when we have a minute to tell you about-well, Melodye, for instance. But now-“
The room suddenly arranged itself decorously and stilled itself expectantly and waited attentively.
Jemmy half sat on one corner of the teacher’s desk in front of the Group, a piece of paper clutched in one hand. All heads bowed. “We are met together in Thy Name,” Jemmy said. A settling rustle filled the room and subsided. “Out of consideration for some of us the proceedings here will be vocal. I know some of the Group have wondered that we included all of you in the summons. The reasons are twofold. One, to share this joy with us-” A soft musical trill of delight curled around the room, followed by faint laughter. “Francher!” Jemmy said.
“The other is because of the project we want to begin tonight. “In the last few days it has become increasingly evident that we all have a most important decision to make. Whatever we decide there will be good-bys to say. There will be partings to endure. There will be changes.”
Sorrow was tangible in the room, and a soft minor scale mourned over each note as it moved up and down, just short of tears. “The Old Ones have decided it would be wise to record our history to this point. That’s why all of you are here. Each one of you holds an important part of our story within you. Each of you has influenced indelibly the course of events for our Groups. We want your stories. Not reinterpretations in the light of what you now know, but the original premise, the original groping, the original reaching-” There was a murmur through the room. “Yes,” Jemmy answered. “Live it over, exactly the same-aching and all.
“Now,” he smoothed out his piece of paper, “chronologically
-Oh, first, where’s Davey’s recording gadget?”
“Gadget?” someone called. “What’s wrong with our own memories?”
“Nothing,” Jemmy said, “but we want this record independent of any of us, to go with whoever goes and stay with whoever stays. We share the general memories, of course, but all the little details-well, anyway. Davey’s gadget.” It had arrived on the table unobtrusively, small and undistinguished. “Now chronologically-Karen, you’re first-“
“Who, me?” Karen straightened up, surprised. “Well, yes,” she answered herself, settling back, “I guess I am.”
“Come to the desk,” Jemmy said. “Be comfortable.”
Karen squeezed Lea’s hand and whispered, “Make way for wonder!” and, after threading her way through the rows of desks, sat behind the table.
“I think I’ll theme this beginning,” she said. “We’ve remarked on the resemblance before, you know.
” ‘And the Ark rested … upon the mountains of Ararat.’ Ararat’s more poetical than Baldy, anyway!
“And now,” she smiled, “to establish Then again. Your help, please?”
Lea watched Karen, fascinated against her will. She saw her face alter and become younger. She saw her hair change its part and lengthen. She felt years peel back from Karen like thin tissue and she leaned forward, listening as Karen’s voice, higher and younger, began ….
ARARAT
WE’VE HAD trouble with teachers in Cougar Canyon. It’s just an accommodation school anyway, isolated and so unhandy to anything. There’s really nothing to hold a teacher. But the way the People bring forth their young, in quantities and with regularity, even our small Group can usually muster the nine necessary for the county superintendent to arrange for the schooling for the year.
