Charlinder's Walk (56 page)

"Hey, your guess is better than mine," he said. "I can't wait to hear it, whatever it is."

"I'll keep you posted."

Not all of his cohort were still around. Kenny had been the head of nautical travel for many years until he left his two oldest nephews in charge and retired. Charlinder thought it fortunate that Kenny had finished work on his own terms before he died a few years later, at home and in his bed, from heart problems. Phoebe had succumbed a few years before that to an illness similar to the one that had killed Charlinder's grandmother. Sunny had struggled for several years with a neurological condition that made her progressively weaker and more helpless until it killed her at fifty-six. As her brother was already gone by then, that left Charlene as the center of the family. She was also second in command of Architecture & Engineering Research, along with raising four children, and had the gray hairs to show for it. He liked to think, sometimes, that it was fortunate that Sunny's life had ended that way, because her family all knew it was coming and they had time to say goodbye to her. Then he remembered that any relief they’d found in that certainty could not make up for the years they spent watching her suffer. The idea that he would live to see the deaths of some of his friends was nowhere near as surprising to him as the fact that he had lived to see age sixty in such good health. He was now older than anyone else in his family in his living memory. The fact that not only were Charlene and Carlos now older than Lydia had ever been, but that he was still around to see them raise their teenagers and healthy enough to play with their toddlers, never failed to come as a shock.

"Great-granny, Uncle Char is here," said Emilia, directly into Miriam's ear, when he and Judith reached their spot by the pier.

"Yes, of course it's him," Miriam replied irritably. "Char, these fellows have some business with you, now don't keep them waiting any longer."

"Right! Good morning, gentlemen," he said, shaking their hands, "what can I do for you?"

"Mr. Woodlawn-Roy, is it?" said the older of the two. The way his voice came out got Charlinder's attention more than anything else in the previous year.

"It's fine if you just call me Charlinder," he answered. "Listen, are you originally from Scotland?"

"If by 'originally,' you mean we’ve lived there for most of our lives and still keep our homes there," he said, "then yes. Our ship is docked near the mouth of the bay," he explained. "We won't sail it in any nearer until we're given the go-ahead. Here, you can read this," he placed a sealed letter in Charlinder's hand, "and that'll tell you what this is about."

Speechless, Charlinder broke the wax seal and unfolded the letter. He gave it a quick once-over, looked at the signature, and had to sit down. He handed the letter to Emilia. "Why don't you read it aloud for all of us?"

Bemused, she took the letter and began reading aloud so that her great-grandmother could hear.

"'Dear Mr. Woodlawn-Roy,

'If you're reading this letter, it means our tradesmen have made a successful journey to your land via Canada. We have received news here of the academy you have built in your country, and as the head of another school, I would like to discuss business with you. We are not acquainted, but my sisters have told me you're a competent teacher and I am writing to propose the discussion of a partnership between our two institutions.

'If you are interested, please agree to a meeting with the captain of the ship, who will explain the details. He is also my nephew, and is very familiar with the academy here.

'Sincerely yours,

'George MacPherson'"

"How long did it take you all to make this trip?" Miriam demanded of the Scottish sailors.

"Several months, ma'am," said the younger one, "with some stops along the way."

"Char, dear, did you ever hear of anyone named George MacPherson?" Miriam asked.

"Yes, I know who he is," he said distractedly, but turned to the visitors. "How did you all know about our school here?"

"We've been sailing farther in recent years," said the older one, "and you're known in parts of Canada. Word gets around. So are you agreeable, sir? Will you meet with our captain to discuss the matter further?"

Charlinder let the news sink in some more while Emilia relayed the information for Miriam. He looked to her, either for permission or just for a reality check.

"Why don’t you tell us why the man who wrote this letter isn’t on your ship?" Miriam asked of the visitors.

"This is the farthest we’ve ever sailed, ma’am," said the younger of the two, "and we didn’t know what would be at the end of it. That’s a very long voyage for a man his age to risk, only to be disappointed."

It occurred to Charlinder that he was of the same age.

"I don't know about you," Miriam said, reading the confusion in his posture, "but I can't wait to hear what these fellows have to say."

"Yes, we're agreeable," answered Charlinder. "I am very interested in speaking with your captain."

"Good," Miriam pronounced. "You boys go on back to your ship, tell them to come on in."

"Uncle Char, how do you know about this George MacPherson, if you're not acquainted with him?" asked Emilia.

"I stayed at his mother's house for a while on my way home from Italy," he recalled, "but he wasn't there at the time."

The twins went off to ready the dock for the incoming ship. He looked up at Judith, who shrugged back at him as if to say, well, why not?

He had always surmised that it would be hundreds of years before they were able to go out and see the rest of the world. He had always assumed, at the very least, that it would be well outside of his lifetime before they were ready for that kind of travel. After less than forty years, the rest of the world was on its way. There was no going back.

Acknowledgments

In chronological order, I would like to thank...

...my brave and loyal friend Megan Farley, for reading the rough draft and holding me accountable to my writing goals,

...my discerning editor, Christina Baker Kline, for showing me the book's strengths and helping me deal with its flaws,

...my multitalented friend and illustrator, Venessa Kelley, for giving Charlinder a face.

Here are the people who made sure I got it done, who made it better, and who made it ready. They helped me make it happen.

Author's Notes

Over five years ago, while stewing in the juices of culture shock, uncertainty, boredom, and the most dizzying summer heat of my life, I first began to write out an idea for a story about a sparsely populated future, starring a curious, determined young man named Charlinder. Perhaps because I am one of those writers who can never let it rest, I still want to talk about him after the book is finished. If you’re reading this, I assume it’s because you’ve already read
Charlinder’s Walk
through to the end. If you’ve skipped ahead after reading only half the book or less, then this is a good time to turn back, before I say something that gives away the plot. Here there be spoilers, and all that.

Writing What I Know

The idea of the post-Plague world occurred to me many years ago, as an inchoate, incoherent sort of plot; I could picture Eileen and company struggling to survive and trying to get on with their lives in the wake of the end of the world as they knew it. I never put it down on paper, though, and eventually I realized it was because the Plague survivors wouldn't make a story so much as a never-ending saga. There could be a beginning and a middle, but no real end.

I began to think more clearly about this post-apocalyptic world at some point during the training for my Peace Corps assignment in Albania in 2006. Between language classes and practicum, I had no time for any sustained writing effort, but I could see a story emerge. There I knew what it was like to be immersed in a culture I didn't understand, surrounded by very loving, generous people speaking to me in a language I didn't know, and easily identifiable as a foreigner wherever I went, with or without ever opening my mouth. It was during this stage that I met Charlinder: a thoughtful, opinionated, mildly misfit 20-year-old charged with a one-room schoolhouse full of rambunctious children with apathetic parents. Once I knew how it felt to be so far out of my element, this character took shape with the understanding that the initial Plague survivors provided the context, while their descendants could have a story.

After three months of training in a small Elbasan village called Kuqan, I headed out to my assignment in the city of Lushnje, where I taught English at the high school. While living with the second of what ended up being three host families, I could speak enough of the language to get things done, but also had almost no work to do and was suffering what was arguably the most vicious case of culture shock of my 25-year-old life. I spent my first week at site reading the copy of
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
I'd received from my grandfather, and by the end of it, I had a better grip on my post-apocalyptic story. Between Susannah Clarke's novel and my deepening experience with Albania, I could see where Charlinder was going, because now I had Gentiola.

After that first week, with a mostly unoccupied summer ahead of me and no more books to read, I began to write up plans for
Charlinder's Walk
. The working title was
Char and Eileen
, which I subsequently scrapped because the use of Eileen's name was misleading.

The fun of writing a post-apocalyptic story was that I could build a new world from the ground up, but the challenge of building a world from the ground up was that I had to picture how people would live in such a primitive setting. In the first draft, there was a prologue that introduced the initial survivors and showed how much of the existing world was destroyed by the loss of life. It showed how Eileen barricaded herself in her house and eventually went back outside when she heard something tell her she'd be safe. Outside, she met Mark and José, followed shortly by Marissa and Ryan. Eileen and Mark were acquainted from having lived in the same town; Mark attended the same church as Eileen's parents, though he was more reactionary than most of the congregation.

One of the ways--perhaps the most important way--that the survivors' world was turned upside-down was that their new, low-tech way of life demanded a vastly different skill set than the infrastructure-dependent, highly organized society in which they'd grown up. José was an extremely important member of the original survivor community because he was a skilled carpenter. Eileen was respected despite her abrasive personality because she could teach her fellow survivors skills such as using a spinning wheel, churning butter and making soap from wood ash and rendered fat. Certain life skills shown in the Paleola village, I can either perform or at least have seen up close. I've helped with cooking on a hearth, for example, and I knit with yarn that I spun. I don’t know how to shear a sheep but I have the general idea. As the village schoolteacher, Charlinder is responsible for keeping his students supplied with paper and ink for their lessons, and I think making paper is one of those activities like having sex: you shouldn't write it up close unless you've done it yourself at least once.

In a later round of revisions, I aimed to reduce the length of the novel. After much consideration I didn't like the prologue; it was 5000 words of death, destruction and bleakness, and it didn't fit with the tone of the rest of the book. Eileen's place in the story was limited to journal entries, and Mark was only seen through Eileen's less-than-impartial eyes.

Something that makes the Paleolans rather strange is that they run a farm but don't raise any animals for meat. Not that they're vegetarians; when they want meat, they catch it from the river or shoot it in the woods. They decided early on that they wouldn't raise meat animals, at least not at first, because it was a more efficient use of farmland to keep animals for live use. A century later, they still maintain the arrangement. They raise chickens for eggs, keep horses for pulling carts, and sheep for wool and milk. They grow flax for linen, and have fields of corn, wheat and soybeans as staples. There is no clear separation between work and personal life because everyone is at work all day long. Families live in small log cabins with dirt floors, but these are mainly bedrooms. Because they are accustomed to keeping animals only for live use, it never occurs to Roy to suggest to Charlinder that he could also slaughter the sheep if he runs out of food. In two years of travel, it never occurs to Charlinder that his animal could be used for meat until he is alone and starving in the mountains.

Not Intended to Be a Factual Statement

As the disclaimer up front says, I do not expect anyone reading this book to assume they will pick up any new, valuable knowledge of biology, anthropology or agriculture from my narrative, and on that note, I will go into specifics about where I intend accuracy and where I was strictly writing fiction.

You may have noticed that special attention was paid to Charlinder's time spent in the last country before he reaches Italy, which he later finds out was Gentiola's homeland of Albania. The way the locals behave towards Charlinder is probably not an accurate representation of Albanian culture (thought it could arguably be accurate for what would remain in the post-Plague world), but it is a fair representation of how it feels to be an American living in Albania. When Charlinder first arrives in the country, he hears the locals referring to him as "Afrikan," which is not realistic; in real life they would more likely refer to someone who looks like him as "zezak," which means Negro, but I needed to use a word that my monolingual American POV character would understand.

In some ways, Gentiola is a very recognizable Albanian, in other ways she is highly atypical. A character as bizarre as Gentiola cannot be perfectly representative of any known culture, but she is typically Albanian in that she is extremely hospitable, curious, generous and delighted to meet a foreigner from further west. She is also an environmentalist fanatic, hostile to tradition, and not above going to bed with her houseguest, all of which have nothing to do with her home culture and everything to do with Gentiola being her damn crazy self. The character as I've written her was born in 1975, well within the reign of dictator Enver Hoxha, who kept his citizens under tight isolation from any foreign influences for decades. She would have graduated from secondary school just as the country was transitioning to democracy, and thus just as the country allowed citizens out and foreigners in. Her family life is fairly accurate for the country post-democracy: the oldest son emigrates and sends money home from abroad, the daughter goes to university, in her case she goes to university abroad, while the youngest son stays home and looks after the parents. The roadside collision is a too-common cause of death. She doesn't mention her native religion in the text, but she was probably born to a family of Muslim heritage, at a time when all religious observance was forbidden by law. She is not reliant on an established religion (she later found another, more obscure religion which meshed well with her delusions) but also extremely suspicious of any attempts to discourage religious expression and practice.