Parable of the Talents

are warmer than they once were.'

He laughed. 'When I was a boy, Siberia was a place where the Russians—the Soviets, we called them then— sent people they thought of as criminals and political trou­blemakers. If anyone then had said that Americans would be giving up their homes and their citizenship and going to make new lives in Siberia, the rest of us would have looked around for a straitjacket for him.'

'I suspect it's a human characteristic not to know when you're well off,' I said.

He glanced at me sidewise. 'Oh, it is,' he said. 'I see it every day.'

I laughed, wrapped an arm around him, and we went back to the Cannon house to a meal of broiled fish, boiled pota­toes, Brussels sprouts, and baked apples. The Cannon house sits on a large lot, and, like Bankole and I, the Cannons raise much of their own food. What they can't raise, they buy from local farmers or fishermen. They're also part of a co­operative that evaporates salt for their own use and for sale. But unlike us, they use few wild foods or seasonings—no acorns, cactus fruit, mint, manzanita, not even pine nuts. Surely there will be new foods in Siberia. Would they learn to eat them or would they cling to whatever they could grow or buy of their bland familiar foods?

'Sometimes I can't stand the thought of leaving this house,' Thea Cannon said as we sat eating. 'But there'll be more opportunity for the children when we leave. What is there for them here?'

I'm not so pregnant that most people notice, and I do wear loose clothing now. But I did think that Thea Cannon, who has seven kids of her own, would have noticed. Maybe she's just too wrapped up in her own worries. She's a plump, pretty, tired-looking blond woman in her forties, and she always seems a little distracted—as though she has a lot on her mind.

That night, I lay awake beside Bankole, listening to the sounds of the sea and the wind. They're good sounds as long as you don't have to be outside. Back at Acorn, being on watch during rough weather is no joke.

'The mayor tells me the town is willing to hire you to re­place one of their teachers,' Bankole said, his mouth near my ear and his hand on my stomach where he likes to rest it. 'They've got one teacher who's in her late fifties and one who's 79. The older one has been wanting to retire for years. When I told them that you had pretty much set up the school at Acorn and that you taught there, they almost cheered.'

'Did you tell them that all I've got is a high school edu­cation, a lot of reading, and the courses I audited on my fa­ther's computer?'

'I told them. They don't care. If you can help their kids learn enough to pass the high school equivalency tests, they'll figure you've earned your pay. And by the way, they can't ac­tually pay you much in hard currency, but they're willing to let you go on living in the house and raising food in the garden even after I'm dead.'

I moved against him, but managed not to say anything. I hate to hear him always talking about dying.

'Aside from the older teacher,' he continued, 'no one around here has a teaching credential. The older people who do have college degrees do not want second or third careers teaching school. Just install some reading, writing, math, history, and science in these kids' heads, and everyone will be happy. You should be able to do it in your sleep after what you've had to put up with in Acorn.'

'In my sleep,' I said. 'That sounds like one definition of life in hell.'

He took his hand off my stomach.

'This place is wonderful,' I said. 'And I love you for try­ing to provide it for the baby and me. But there's nothing here but existence. I can't give up Acorn and Earthseed to come here and install a dab of education into kids who don't really need me.'

'Your child will need you.'

'I know.'

He said nothing more. He turned over and lay with his back to me. After a while I slept. I don't know whether he did.

************************************

Later, back at home, we didn't talk much. Bankole was angry and unforgiving. He has not yet said a firm 'No' to the people of Halstead. That troubles me. I love him and I believed he loves me, but I can't help knowing that he could settle in Halstead without me. He's a self-sufficient man, and he truly believes he's right. He says I'm being childish and stubborn.

Marc agrees with him, by the way, not that either of us has asked Marc what he thinks. But he's still staying with us, and he can't help hearing at least some of our disagreement. He could have avoided mixing