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“That’s true,” his father agreed. “But what your mother said is true as well. There will be changes.”
“Good changes, though,” his mother pointed out. “After my Ceremony of Twelve, I missed my childhood recreation. But when I entered my training for Law and Justice, I found myself with people who shared my interests. I made friends on a new level, friends of all ages.”
“Did you still play at all, after Twelve?” Jonas asked.
“Occasionally,” his mother replied. “But it didn’t seem as important to me.”
“I did,” his father said, laughing. “I still do. Every day, at the Nurturing Centre, I play bounce-on-the-knee, and peek-a-boo, and hug-the-teddy.” He reached over and stroked Jonas’s neatly trimmed hair. “Fun doesn’t end when you become Twelve.”
Lily appeared, wearing her nightclothes, in the doorway. She gave an impatient sigh. “This is certainly a very long private conversation,” she said. “And there are certain people waiting for their comfort object.”
“Lily,” her mother said fondly, “you’re very close to being an Eight, and when you’re an Eight, your comfort object will be taken away. It will be recycled to the younger children. You should be starting to go off to sleep without it.”
But her father had already gone to the shelf and taken down the stuffed elephant which was kept there. Many of the comfort objects, like Lily’s, were soft, stuffed, imaginary creatures. Jonas’s had been called a bear.
“Here you are, Lily-billy,” he said. “I’ll come and help you remove your hair ribbons.”
Jonas and his mother rolled their eyes, yet they watched affectionately as Lily and her father headed to her sleeping-room with the stuffed elephant that had been given to her as her comfort object when she was born. His mother moved to her big desk and opened her briefcase; her work never seemed to end, even when she was at home in the evening. Jonas went to his own desk and began to sort through his school papers for the evening’s assignment. But his mind was still on December and the coming Ceremony.
Though he had been reassured by the talk with his parents, he hadn’t the slightest idea what Assignment the Elders would be selecting for his future, or how he might feel about it when the day came.
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“OH, LOOK!” LILY squealed in delight. “Isn’t he cute? Look how tiny he is! And he has funny eyes like yours, Jonas!” Jonas glared at her. He didn’t like it that she had mentioned his eyes. He waited for his father to chastise Lily. But Father was busy unstrapping the carrying basket from the back of his bicycle. Jonas walked over to look.
It was the first thing Jonas noticed as he looked at the newchild peering up curiously from the basket. The pale eyes.
Almost every citizen in the community had dark eyes. His parents did, and Lily did, and so did all of his group members and friends. But there were a few exceptions: Jonas himself, and a female Five whom he had noticed had the different, lighter eyes. No one mentioned such things; it was not a rule, but was considered rude to call attention to things that were unsettling or different about individuals. Lily, he decided, would have to learn that soon, or she would be called in for chastisement because of her insensitive chatter.
Father put his bike into its port. Then he picked up the basket and carried it into the house. Lily followed behind, but she glanced back over her shoulder at Jonas and teased, “Maybe he had the same Birthmother as you.”
Jonas shrugged. He followed them inside. But he had been startled by the newchild’s eyes. Mirrors were rare in the community; they weren’t forbidden, but there was no real need of them, and Jonas had simply never bothered to look at himself very often even when he found himself in a location where a mirror existed. Now, seeing the newchild and its expression, he was reminded that the light eyes were not only a rarity but gave the one who had them a certain look – what was it? Depth, he decided; as if one were looking into the clear water of the river, down to the bottom, where things might lurk which hadn’t been discovered yet. He felt self-conscious, realising that he, too, had that look.
He went to his desk, pretending not to be interested in the newchild. On the other side of the room, Mother and Lily were bending over to watch as Father unwrapped its blanket.
“What’s his comfort object called?” Lily asked, picking up the stuffed creature which had been placed beside the newchild in his basket.
Father glanced at it. “Hippo,” he said.
Lily giggled at the strange word. “Hippo,” she repeated, and put the comfort object down again. She peered at the unwrapped newchild, who waved his arms.
“I think newchildren are so cute,” Lily sighed. “I hope I get assigned to be a Birthmother.”
“Lily!” Mother spoke very sharply. “Don’t say that. There’s very little honour in that Assignment.”
“But I was talking to Natasha. You know the Ten who lives around the corner? She does some of her volunteer hours at the Birthing Centre. And she told me that the Birthmothers get wonderful food, and they have very gentle exercise periods, and most of the time they just play games and amuse themselves while they’re waiting. I think I’d like that,” Lily said petulantly.
“Three years,” Mother told her firmly. “Three births, and that’s all. After that they are Labourers for the rest of their adult lives, until the day that they enter the House of the Old. Is that what you want, Lily? Three lazy years, and then hard physical labour until you are old?”
‘Well, no, I guess not,” Lily acknowledged reluctantly.
Father turned the newchild on to his tummy in the basket. He sat beside it and rubbed its small back with a rhythmic motion. “Anyway, Lily-billy,” he said affectionately, “the Birthmothers never even get to see newchildren. If you enjoy the little ones so much, you should hope for an Assignment as Nurturer.”
“When you’re an Eight and start your volunteer hours, you can try some at the Nurturing Centre,” Mother suggested.
“Yes, I think I will,” Lily said. She knelt beside the basket. “What did you say his name is? Gabriel? Hello, Gabriel,” she said in a singsong voice. Then she giggled. “Ooops,” she whispered. “I think he’s asleep. I guess I’d better be quiet.”
Jonas turned to the school assignments on his desk. Some chance of that, he thought. Lily was never quiet. Probably she should hope for an Assignment as Speaker, so that she could sit in the office with the microphone all day, making announcements. He laughed silently to himself, picturing his sister droning on in the self-important voice that all the Speakers seemed to develop, saying things like: ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER TO FEMALES UNDER NINE THAT HAIR RIBBONS ARE TO BE NEATLY TIED AT ALL TIMES.
He turned towards Lily and noticed to his satisfaction that her ribbons were, as usual, undone and dangling. There would be an announcement like that quite soon, he felt certain, and it would be directed mainly at Lily, though her name, of course, would not be mentioned. Everyone would know.
Everyone had known, he remembered with humiliation, that the announcement: ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER TO MALE ELEVENS THAT OBJECTS ARE NOT TO BE REMOVED FROM THE RECREATION AREA AND THAT SNACKS ARE TO BE EATEN, NOT HOARDED had been specifically directed at him, the day last month that he had taken an apple home. No one had mentioned it, not even his parents, because the public announcement had been sufficient to produce the appropriate remorse. He had, of course, disposed of the apple and made his apology to the Recreation Director the next morning, before school.
Jonas thought again about that incident. He was still bewildered by it. Not by the announcement or the necessary apology; those were standard procedures, and he had deserved them – but by the incident itself. He probably should have brought up his feeling of bewilderment that very evening when the family unit had shared their feelings of the day. But he had not been able to sort out and put words to the source of his confusion, so he had let it pass.
It had happened during the recreation period, when he had been playing with Asher. Jonas had casually picked up an apple from the basket where the snacks were kept, and had thrown it to his friend. Asher had thrown it back, and they had begun a simple game of catch.
There had been nothing special about it; it was an activity that he had performed countless times: throw, catch; throw, catch. It was effortless for Jonas, and even boring, though Asher enjoyed it, and playing catch was a required activity for Asher because it would improve his hand-eye coordination, which was not up to standard.
But suddenly Jonas had noticed, following the path of the apple through the air with his eyes, that the piece of fruit had – well, this was the part that he couldn’t adequately understand – the apple had changed. Just for an instant. It had changed in mid-air, he remembered. Then it was in his hand, and he looked at it carefully, but it was the same apple. Unchanged. The same size and shape: a perfect sphere. The same nondescript shade, about the same shade as his own tunic.
There was absolutely nothing remarkable about that apple. He had tossed it back and forth between his hands a few times, then thrown it again to Asher. And again – in the air, for an instant only – it had changed.
It had happened four times. Jonas had blinked, looked around, and then tested his eyesight, squinting at the small print on the identification badge attached to his tunic. He read his name quite clearly. He could also clearly see Asher at the other end of the throwing area. And he had had no problem catching the apple.
Jonas had been completely mystified.
“Ash?” he had called. “Does anything seem strange to you? About the apple?”
“Yes,” Asher called back, laughing. “It jumps out of my hand on to the ground!” Asher had just dropped it once again.
So Jonas laughed too, and with his laughter tried to ignore his uneasy conviction that something had happened. But he had taken the apple home, against the recreation area rules. That evening, before his parents and Lily arrived at the dwelling, he had held it in his hands and looked at it carefully. It was slightly bruised now, because Asher had dropped it several times. But there was nothing at all unusual about the apple.
He had held a magnifying glass to it. He had tossed it several times across the room, watching, and then rolled it around and around on his desktop, waiting for the thing to happen again.
But it hadn’t. The only thing that happened was the announcement later that evening over the speaker, the announcement that had singled him out without using his name, that had caused both of his parents to glance meaningfully at his desk where the apple still lay.
Now, sitting at his desk, staring at his schoolwork as his family hovered over the newchild in its basket, he shook his head, trying to forget the odd incident. He forced himself to arrange his papers and try to study a little before the evening meal. The newchild, Gabriel, stirred and whimpered, and Father spoke softly to Lily, explaining the feeding procedure as he opened the container that held the formula and equipment.
The evening proceeded as all evenings did in the family unit, in the dwelling, in the community: quiet, reflective, a time for renewal and preparation for the day to come. It was different only in the addition to it of the newchild with his pale, solemn, knowing eyes.
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JONAS RODE AT a leisurely pace, glancing at the bikeports beside the buildings to see if he could spot Asher’s. He didn’t often do his volunteer hours with his friend because Asher frequently fooled around and made serious work a little difficult. But now, with Twelve coming so soon and the volunteer hours ending, it didn’t seem to matter.
The freedom to choose where to spend those hours had always seemed a wonderful luxury to Jonas; other hours of the day were so carefully regulated.
He remembered when he had become an Eight, as Lily would do shortly, and had been faced with that freedom of choice. The Eights always set out on their first volunteer hour a little nervously, giggling and staying in groups of friends. They almost invariably did their hours on Recreation Duty first, helping with the younger ones in a place where they still felt comfortable. But with guidance, as they developed self-confidence and maturity, they moved on to other jobs, gravitating towards those that would suit their own interests and skills.
A male Eleven named Benjamin had done his entire nearly-Four years in the Rehabilitation Centre, working with citizens who had been injured. It was rumoured that he was as skilled now as the Rehabilitation Directors themselves, and that he had even developed some machines and methods to hasten rehabilitation. There was no doubt that Benjamin would receive his Assignment to that field and would probably be permitted to bypass most of the training.
Jonas was impressed by the things Benjamin had achieved. He knew him, of course, since they had always been groupmates, but they had never talked about the boy’s accomplishments because such a conversation would have been awkward for Benjamin. There was never any comfortable way to mention or discuss one’s successes without breaking the rule against bragging, even if one didn’t mean to. It was a minor rule, rather like rudeness, punishable only by gentle chastisement. But still. Better to steer clear of an occasion governed by a rule which would be so easy to break.
The area of dwellings behind him, Jonas rode past the community structures, hoping to spot Asher’s bicycle parked beside one of the small factories or office buildings. He passed the Childcare Centre where Lily stayed after school, and the play areas surrounding it. He rode through the Central Plaza and the large Auditorium where public meetings were held.
Jonas slowed and looked at the nametags on the bicycles lined up outside the Nurturing Centre. Then he checked those outside Food Distribution; it was always fun to help with the deliveries, and he hoped he would find his friend there so that they could go together on the daily rounds, carrying the cartons of supplies into the dwellings of the community. But he finally found Asher’s bicycle – leaning, as usual, instead of upright in its port, as it should have been – at the House of the Old.
There was only one other child’s bicycle there, that of a female Eleven named Fiona. Jonas liked Fiona. She was a good student, quiet and polite, but she had a sense of fun as well, and it didn’t surprise him that she was working with Asher today. He parked his bicycle neatly in the port beside theirs and entered the building.
“Hello, Jonas,” the attendant at the front desk said. She handed him the sign-up sheet and stamped her own official seal beside his signature. All of his volunteer hours would be carefully tabulated at the Hall of Open Records. Once, long ago, it was whispered among the children, an Eleven had arrived at the Ceremony of Twelve only to hear a public announcement that he had not completed the required number of volunteer hours and would not, therefore, be given his Assignment. He had been permitted an additional month in which to complete the hours, and then given his Assignment privately, with no applause, no celebration: a disgrace that had clouded his entire future.
“It’s good to have some volunteers here today,” the attendant told him. “We celebrated a release this morning, and that always throws the schedule off a little, so things get backed up.” She looked at a printed sheet. “Let’s see. Asher and Fiona are helping in the bathing room. Why don’t you join them there? You know where it is, don’t you?”
Jonas nodded, thanked her, and walked down the long hallway. He glanced into the rooms on either side. The Old were sitting quietly, some visiting and talking with one another, others doing handwork and simple crafts. A few were asleep. Each room was comfortably furnished, the floors covered with thick carpeting. It was a serene and slow-paced place, unlike the busy centres of manufacture and distribution where the daily work of the community occurred.
Jonas was glad that he had, over the years, chosen to do his hours in a variety of places so that he could experience the differences. He realised, though, that not focusing on one area meant he was left with not the slightest idea – not even a guess – of what his Assignment would be.
He laughed softly. Thinking about the Ceremony again, Jonas? he teased himself. But he suspected that with the date so near, probably all of his friends were, too.
He passed a Caretaker walking slowly with one of the Old in the hall. “Hello, Jonas,” the young uniformed man said, smiling pleasantly. The woman beside him, whose arm he held, was hunched over as she shuffled along in her soft slippers. She looked towards Jonas and smiled, but her dark eyes were clouded and blank. He realised she was blind.
He entered the bathing room with its warm moist air and scent of cleansing lotions. He removed his tunic, hung it carefully on a wall hook, and put on the volunteer’s smock that was folded on a shelf.
“Hi, Jonas!” Asher called from the corner where he was kneeling beside a tub. Jonas saw Fiona nearby, at a different tub. She looked up and smiled at him, but she was busy, gently washing a man who lay in the warm water.
Jonas greeted them and the caretaking attendants at work nearby. Then he went to the row of padded lounging chairs where others of the Old were waiting. He had worked here before; he knew what to do.
“Your turn, Larissa,” he said, reading the nametag on the woman’s robe. “I’ll just start the water and then help you up.” He pressed the button on a nearby empty tub and watched as the warm water flowed in through the many small openings on the sides. The tub would be filled in a minute and the water flow would stop automatically.
He helped the woman from the chair, led her to the tub, removed her robe, and steadied her with his hand on her arm as she stepped in and lowered herself. She leaned back and sighed with pleasure, her head on a soft cushion headrest.
“Comfortable?” he asked, and she nodded, her eyes closed. Jonas squeezed cleansing lotion on to the clean sponge at the edge of the tub and began to wash her frail body.
Last night he had watched as his father bathed the newchild. This was much the same: the fragile skin, the soothing water, the gentle motion of his hand, slippery with soap. The relaxed, peaceful smile on the woman’s face reminded him of Gabriel being bathed.
And the nakedness, too. It was against the rules for children or adults to look at another’s nakedness; but the rule did not apply to newchildren or the Old. Jonas was glad. It was a nuisance to keep oneself covered while changing for games, and the required apology if one had by mistake glimpsed another’s body was always awkward. He couldn’t see why it was necessary. He liked the feeling of safety here in this warm and quiet room; he liked the expression of trust on the woman’s face as she lay in the water unprotected, exposed and free.
From the corner of his eye he could see his friend Fiona help the old man from the tub and tenderly pat his thin, naked body dry with an absorbent cloth. She helped him into his robe.
Jonas thought Larissa had drifted into sleep, as the Old often did, and he was careful to keep his motions steady and gentle so he wouldn’t wake her. He was surprised when she spoke, her eyes still closed.
“This morning we celebrated the release of Roberto,” she told him. “It was wonderful.”
“I knew Roberto!” Jonas said. “I helped with his feeding the last time I was here, just a few weeks ago. He was a very interesting man.”
Larissa opened her eyes happily. “They told his whole life before they released him,” she said. “They always do. But to be honest,” she whispered with a mischievous look, “some of the tellings are a little boring. I’ve even seen some of the Old fall asleep during tellings – when they released Edna recently. Did you know Edna?”
Jonas shook his head. He couldn’t recall anyone named Edna.
“Well, they tried to make her life sound meaningful. And of course,” she added primly, “all lives are meaningful, I don’t mean that they aren’t. But Edna. My goodness. She was a Birthmother, and then she worked in Food Production for years, until she came here. She never even had a family unit.”
Larissa lifted her head and looked around to make sure no one else was listening. Then she confided, “I don’t think Edna was very smart.”
Jonas laughed. He rinsed her left arm, laid it back into the water, and began to wash her feet. She murmured with pleasure as he massaged her feet with the sponge.
“But Roberto’s life was wonderful,” Larissa went on, after a moment. “He had been an Instructor of Elevens – you know how important that is – and he’d been on the Planning Committee. And – goodness, I don’t know how he found the time – he also raised two very successful children, and he was also the one who did the landscaping design for the Central Plaza. He didn’t do the actual labour, of course.”
“Now your back. Lean forward and I’ll help you sit up.” Jonas put his arm around her and supported her as she sat. He squeezed the sponge against her back and began to rub her sharp-boned shoulders. “Tell me about the celebration.”
“Well, there was the telling of his life. That is always first. Then the toast. We all raised our glasses and cheered. We chanted the anthem. He made a lovely goodbye speech. And several of us made little speeches wishing him well. I didn’t, though. I’ve never been fond of public speaking.
“He was thrilled. You should have seen the look on his face when they let him go.”
Jonas slowed the strokes of his hand on her back thoughtfully. “Larissa,” he asked, “what happens when they make the actual release? Where exactly did Roberto go?”
She lifted her bare wet shoulders in a small shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t think anybody does, except the committee. He just bowed to all of us and then walked, like they all do, through the special door in the Releasing Room. But you should have seen his look. Pure happiness, I’d call it.”
Jonas grinned. “I wish I’d been there to see it.”
Larissa frowned. “I don’t know why they don’t let children come. Not enough room, I guess. They should enlarge the Releasing Room.”
“We’ll have to suggest that to the committee. Maybe they’d study it,” Jonas said slyly, and Larissa chortled with laughter.
“Right!” she hooted, and Jonas helped her from the tub.
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USUALLY, AT THE morning ritual when the family members told their dreams, Jonas didn’t contribute much. He rarely dreamed. Sometimes he awoke with a feeling of fragments afloat in his sleep, but he couldn’t seem to grasp them and put them together into something worthy of telling at the ritual.
But this morning was different. He had dreamed very vividly the night before.
His mind wandered while Lily, as usual, recounted a lengthy dream, this one a frightening one in which she had, against the rules, been riding her mother’s bicycle and been caught by the Security Guards.
They all listened carefully and discussed with Lily the warning that the dream had given.
“Thank you for your dream, Lily.” Jonas said the standard phrase automatically, and tried to pay better attention while his mother told of a dream fragment, a disquieting scene where she had been chastised for a rule infraction she didn’t understand. Together they agreed that it probably resulted from her feelings when she had reluctantly dealt punishment to the citizen who had broken the major rules a second time.
Father said that he had had no dreams.
“Gabe?” Father asked, looking down at the basket where the newchild lay gurgling after his feeding, ready to be taken back to the Nurturing Centre for the day.
They all laughed. Dream-telling began with Threes. If newchildren dreamed, no one knew.
“Jonas?” Mother asked. They always asked, though they knew how rarely Jonas had a dream to tell.
“I did dream last night,” Jonas told them. He shifted in his chair, frowning.
“Good,” Father said. “Tell us.”
