Minerva’s eyes and mouth opened like flowers. “You’re paying rent? But—why would Father allow that? It’s against the very nature of Bonaventure, the egalitarianism of what we strive for. No one should be allowed to buy special favors just because they’re wealthy.”
“Minerva, please—is wanting to be in this house so desirable? Out here, on the opposite edge of the farm, away from everyone. It’s not right to maroon a group in the wilderness and let them fend for themselves. Better for me to stay out here and leave the others to the comfort of the main house.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Well, your father agreed with me.” Or at least, thought Lyman, he agreed to the twenty dollar note. “But if the other members think I’ve been shirking work, I would be happy to help with the farming.” The thinnest thread of indifference laced his tone.
Minerva cast around her, a little jumbled and lost. “You could assist Mr. Sutton. One of his hogs has disappeared.”
“Is that so?”
“I don’t presume you know anything about it.”
Lyman spread open his palms. “Now where would I hide a hog?”
Minerva smiled a small smile. “Mr. Sutton is a very suspicious sort.”
For half a moment, each was silent.
“It’s not buying a favor. I would never think to do such a wrong.”
Minerva nodded. “Perhaps there’s some reason in what you say.” Suddenly she clasped him again. “I do hope you’re well enough to go walking with me again. I so enjoy our rambles.”
Lyman hugged her to him. “I do too,” he said. “It’s good for me to get out of this house.” And although she could not see it, his gaze lingered on the basement door.
•••
When they next met to resume their woodland walks, Minerva was much surprised at Lyman’s appearance: though still a little puffy and swollen and colored in the dustiest shades of plum, Lyman’s face had collapsed into something very like its old assemblage. Amazingly this transformation had occurred over scarce days.
“I have been taking medicine recommended by a friend,” Lyman offered when pressed.
“What friend?” Minerva asked, perhaps too sharply. “A friend at Bonaventure?”
“No. A friend down—south. My friend advised that certain minerals when mixed with water would help reduce the swelling.”
“Really? What minerals, exactly?”
Lyman let out a low whistle. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to speak of it. It’s a secret, you see. The recipe is a home remedy that my friend tells me has been passed down for generations among his, ah—” Lyman trailed off, finally returning to his thought to add the word, “family.”
“Well,” said Minerva, “I dare say this friend of yours down south must live in Florida and possess the surname de Leon. He should become a cosmetician and mix his minerals into ladies’ toilette soap. When applied to a body less injured, I expect they would restore whole decades.”
The pair had selected a gray overcast afternoon to restart their walks together, the air unusually warm but the breeze cool as it rained orange leaves upon them.
“You say the friend recommended your prescription, through the post I assume. It’s odd that I don’t see you up at the Consulate to request your mail,” said Minerva after some moments’ rumination. “Nor do I recall mail addressed to you ever arriving at the house.”
Lyman shrugged. “I correspond rarely and when I do, I prefer to meet the postman myself to assure delivery and receipt.”
“Do you worry about someone reading your mail?”
“Not at all. I worry about misplacement.”
Minerva said, “So you lack trust in your compatriots.”
“Mistrust and an acceptance that accidents occur are two very different emotions. Take Mr. Sutton’s pig, for example. You’ve told me he insists it was stolen. Yet there’s no evidence the hog’s disappearance is anything more than an accident.”
“It’s odd that a hog that size has not reappeared, though. Father sent word around to the other farms and nobody has seen it.”
“This corner of the state is hardly New York or Boston. A hog could live the remainder of its lifetime in this wilderness outside human awareness.”
“Mr. Sutton is certainly upset about the hog’s loss, however. Accident or intentional, the result is the same. An evil has been done.”
One of the great mysteries of Bonaventure, Lyman had discovered during his time there, was that while its members agreed upon a course of newfound communal living both for personal reward and as an example to the rest of the planet, they certainly disagreed on the precise shape and form of that idealized existence. Modeling the men and women of tomorrow demanded countless questions be asked today.
Take the merely practical, for example. If clothes betrayed wealth and rank in the greater world, should the farm members perhaps dress identically in simple smocks? If gout was the malady of kings and plutocrats, should their diets abstain from meat? These simple day-to-day unknowns invariably led to more heady queries. Should the members restrict their attentions to themselves or strive toward effecting change in the greater world? How could their experiment be regarded successful if in their self-concern they ignored the plight of the bonded slave or the diseased orphan? And so on flowed the questions to Lyman’s eternal boredom, the uncertainties of the utopians ascending ever higher in great spirals until finally the wax of their wings melted and they fell one by one into an unanswerable Aegean.
When these discussions erupted, Lyman was always careful to refrain from comment or, if invited to speak, to offer the briefest of opinions. Yet it was common during their walks, after having shared farm gossip and commented upon the weather, for their discussions to
