Brothers to Dragons (3 page)

What he had told Eileen Calder was exactly true. He did not see the need to mention that whenever any child missed a meal, so too did he.

* * *

"Come on, Job. There's nothing to be afraid of, it's quite safe up here."

Eileen Calder could not understand why Job was so reluctant to take the last few steps. He had walked up the stairs willingly enough, although he had been forced to stop frequently for breath—those lungs, flawed at birth, would never have normal efficiency. But Job seemed excited at the idea of visiting the very top of Cloak House. He had wanted to look out of each window as they moved higher and higher, and he had paused and gaped with pleasure and amazement at the great, noisy air handlers, drawing their intake at the top floor of the building, above the smog layers, and pumping air down to provide tolerable breathing for all the lower levels. The handlers were not so necessary now, at night, but in the afternoon Eileen Calder had been forced to wear a filter mask when she walked over to Cloak House.

They had finally arrived at the door that led out into the night and onto the flat roof. And now Job was hanging back. Was he afraid of the night itself?

She had an inspiration. It was not just the roof. Job had been brought to Cloak House when he was six weeks old; Father Bonifant had made it clear that he still considered Job too young to go out into the streets. So this must be a completely new experience for the boy—he had lived all his life
inside,
in this building, without ever seeing open sky or breathing fresh air!

"Job, it's all right. Look." She let go of his hand and took the last few steps herself, to stand on the rooftop in the warm night air. "See, up there—stars."

They were not much to see. The muggy damp of air, even ten stories up, was still thick with smoke and dust. But Job came hesitantly forward and stared up and around in wonder.

"That's the city, Job.
Our
city." Taking his hand again she led him around the perimeter of the roof, with its five-foot guard rail and thick wire mesh.

"Over there." She pointed northwest. "That's the hospital where you were born, and where I work. And way over there—you can't see it, because it's too far away—is the suburb where I used to live."

She felt a stab of nostalgia for her house and flowers, followed by a stronger rush of anger. When the charity work at the hospital was done, most of the medical staff flew out on the shuttle helicopter to cleaner air and safer streets. She had done exactly that herself until last year, when compassion for the children she was leaving behind every night became stronger than fear or comfort. If she chose, she could still return to her old life. But Job and the other children of Cloak House had no place to run to if the area became too tough or the air too dirty. They were stuck with this, like it or not.

She moved on quickly, past the dark secrets of the northern and eastern ghettoes. If Job had asked her what was in those unlit urban canyons, she could have offered no more than the unpleasant rumors passed on to her by welfare patients at the hospital. And she would not have told those to Job. Maybe they exaggerated, and only a fifth of what they said was true; but that fifth was too much.

They arrived at the western edge of the roof. Eileen Calder had deliberately kept it for last.

As usual, the Mall Compound was brilliantly lit. Tonight there was an added attraction. Helicopters by the dozen were landing, loading, and taking off for the airport that lay across the river, its runway lights visible far to the southwest of the Compound's mile-long rectangle.

Job had never seen anything like it. He gazed enthralled at the swarm of choppers, lifting, hovering, and darting away like gigantic dragonflies.

"What are they? What are they doing?"

"It's the final day of Congress—the people who run this country have been living there, and now they're going home. They'll be back again in a few months."

She felt again the stab of anger. Sure,
they
could leave here, exchanging the barricaded security (and rumored luxuries) of the Mall Compound for forests and deserts and mountains, and the great river valleys. But how long since a congressman or congresswoman had been to visit her hospital? How long ago, if ever, had one been to Cloak House?

She could tell that Job didn't understand what she was saying, that he was obviously too young and the words "Congress" and "country" and even "month" still meant nothing to him. No matter. His bright eyes were fixed on the dazzling lights of the Compound, and on the swarm of cars and trucks around its floodlit helicopter pads.

"I like that. I want to go there." He spoke so quietly that she could hardly hear him. "I'll take Laga with me, too."

"You will, Job. One day you will go there."

He wouldn't, of course. Not with his background and his appearance and his physical problems. For him the doors to the country's treasure chamber were already locked, the glittering prizes of life already denied. But you could not tell that to a small child.

And you should not even think it
yourself.

I'm getting old, thought Eileen Calder. Old and worn out and cynical. And being cynical is a lot worse than being old or worn out.

She took the little boy with his receding chin and marred jaw-line and weak lungs, and lifted him in her arms.

"You will, Job Salk." She hugged him to her. "You'll go there when you grow up, you and Laga. And then the brightest lights in the world will be switched on, just for you."

Chapter Three

And behold, there came a great wind
from the wilderness, and smote the
 
four corners of the house, and it fell
 
upon the young men, and they are dead;
 
and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

—The Book of Job, Chapter 1, Verse 19

When Job was nearly ten years old, four bad things happened within a few months. They were all consequences of a single badness, but it was years before he realized that.

The first came one misty September day, when Nurse Calder arrived at Cloak House for a final and tearful meeting. "They've closed the hospital, Job." She hugged him to her. "No more funding, not for babies, not for emergencies, not for anything. I've got to find another position. I know I can't do it in the city. I have to leave. Goodbye, little love. Look after yourself."

Job knew that she was very sad, but she only came to see him every few months, anyway, and at the time he did not understand the finality of this visit.

Much worse than Nurse Calder's leaving, and a shock that overturned his whole universe, was the second bad thing: the loss of Mister Bones.

Father Bonifant populated Job's earliest memories; he was the bedrock on which the boy's whole life rested, the one constant element of a changing world. He had sat with Job at one year old, when wheezing attacks turned breathing into agony; six months later he had prayed and bathed the little body with cold water through one endless night when fever had thrown Job's frail limbs into muscle-tearing convulsions.

When Job was six, Father Bonifant had given him the assignment that transformed the boy's life. The high point of Job's week became Saturday morning, when he accompanied Mister Bones on shopping expeditions, wandering from the richer western suburbs to the worst parts of the eastern ghettoes, searching for anything that was being given away, thrown out, or available for tiny amounts of ready cash. Job soon realized why he had been singled out from two hundred children for this privilege. Father Bonifant had struggled for years with
chachara-calle
, the gabble of the stteet people, and never mastered it. Job, don't ask him how, had found that it came to him as easily as breathing—more easily, what with the bad air and his weak lungs. He became the interpreter, learning in the process how to find his way around the city, how to negotiate, and how to crack the jokes against himself and Mister Bones that made him acceptable to the ghetto-dwellers. And when he returned to Cloak House, he relived each of those exciting Saturday mornings for Laga. She was now English-speaking, but still shy and much smaller than she should have been. Job had appointed himself her special friend and protector.

It was during those street expeditions that Job first heard the phrase,
Quiebra Grande.
The street language had no words to describe the concept of global economic decline and depression, and so the "Great Crash" suggested to Job not a financial failure, but the collapse of some real but far-off structure of unimaginable size. It seemed totally unrelated to anything that might happen to Job or to anyone he knew.

Those Saturday rambles of the city also revealed another side of Father Bonifant, a seldom-seen man who hid behind the stern disciplinarian and guardian of Cloak House morality.

"You might say we have something in common, you and I." It was a sweltering summer morning, and Mister Bones was sweating a metal-wheeled hand-cart through a narrow alley, while Job sat on it and enjoyed—or endured—a bumpy free ride. "I'm referring to our
boniness
."

And then, when Job showed no sign of understanding what he meant, "You were named for a great general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Old Boney, his enemies used to call him. And I, of course, am known as Mister Bones."

Job was shocked to silence. No one at Cloak House would dream of saying "Mister Bones" anywhere within a mile of Father Bonifant—yet he knew the nickname. And he was making
a joke
about it!

"But do not let Napoleon Bonaparte become your hero, even though you are his namesake." If Father Bonifant had seen Job's reaction, he did not let it show. "Napoleon was a great general, one of the most famous in history. But a general becomes famous by killing. Remember this, Job Salk: your friend, Nurse Calder, is more of a hero and a greater person than Napoleon."

"How do I tell who is a great person?"

"That is a very difficult question. A complete answer now would confuse you. Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a
hard
question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer—except faith. I tell you this: one day you will know how to tell who is a great person."

Job had puzzled over that statement for the rest of the day, as he haggled for a great heap of old furniture and persuaded himself that none of it was stolen. (The latter at Father Bonifant's insistence; Job had sadly turned away over the months a score of wonderful deals for hot property.) This time he finally came to an agreement and they loaded the cart. Back at Cloak House the goods would be carefully sorted, the seats of ancient armchairs examined (a sure source of lost coins), and the springs and iron frames removed for sale as scrap metal.

The load when it was in position was too much for Father Bonifant. Job had to go off and find a couple of
basura
, the "street garbage" homeless who lived in one of the alleys, and persuade them to help to push.

"What did you offer them?" asked Father Bonifant, as Job rode in grandeur on the topmost armchair. "Not food, I hope. This is a very bad month."

"Nothing. I just asked them if they were bored stiff and wanted something to do. They called me
chico feo
—little ugly—but they said they were."

All that had happened only one month before Nurse Calder came to see Job for the last time, and just two months before the dreadful, world-shattering day when Father Bonifant called a meeting in the big assembly room, to tell them that he was leaving.

"Tomorrow will be my last day at Cloak House," he began. As the babble started, he glared around him. He was still Mister Bones, and the incipient hubbub died to an awful silence. "I have been here for seventeen years, seventeen happy and fulfilling years. It is only fair to tell you that I will leave unwillingly. I love Cloak House, and I love all of you. Although I do not expect most of you to understand what I am about to say, I hope that you will remember it and reflect on it when you are older.

"For some years I have found it necessary to speak out against the actions of our own government. Within the Mall Compound there has been an increasing callousness towards the less fortunate of our country by the most fortunate. I have seen a widening gulf between rich and poor, between have and have-not, between our Congress and the people whom they are supposed to serve. I saw that gulf clearly. I denounced it.

"In the past few months, sure that no one was listening, I became more outspoken and specific. I named individuals in the Congress who are the worst offenders. Now I find that I was mistaken. My words
were
being followed, more closely than I dreamed. They were far from acceptable.

"Yesterday I was summoned to appear before the trustees of Cloak House, which operates under congressional control. I was told that the stewardship of this institute must be nonpolitical, and that in view of my 'intemperate, not to say treasonous' words I would be relieved of my position, and reassigned.

"Word of my reassignment came this morning. It will be far from here. I will serve as a spiritual guide to those who dwell within the Nebraska Tandy."

Tandy.
A ripple of horror ran around the room at that dread word. Father Bonifant ignored it.

"The Nebraska Tandy was the first disposal site in this country, and has become one of the biggest. My guess is that more than a hundred thousand people now live within the restricted area. Thus assignment to the Nebraska Tandy carries a great responsibility, and I choose to regard it as an equally great honor. But it is unlikely that I will return here, or that we will ever meet again."

He took a long, stern look around him at the wide-eyed faces.

"That is all I have to say, except to tell you again that I love you all very much. Now let us pray together; for each other, for our great country, and for its wonderful people."

Mister Bones vanished from Cloak House that night. He never returned.

* * *

For Job, that was the second bad thing. The third bad thing was the arrival of Colonel della Porta, the new Chief Steward of Cloak House.