Charlinder's Walk (7 page)

Something about these suggestions was bothering him. They brought to mind something he hadn't given any thought in some time.

"Miriam," he interrupted, "not too long ago you said something about 'Heaven forbid a guy should do anything productive around here.' Do you really think that? Do you think Benjamin,” he referred to her brother, “doesn’t do any real work?”

“Oh, pfft. Benjamin has a sense of humor, he knows what I mean.”

“I’m sure you mean that old rhyme of ‘Man works from sun to sun, but woman’s work is never done.’ Is that what you’re getting at?”

“Yeah, actually, it
is
pretty galling to spend all day hunched over a set of knitting needles and then find out a few young punks were so
bored
they thought it would be funny to mix up the weaving supplies as a joke. If you’re pulling pranks to fill up your spare time, you’re doing something wrong.”

“That happens maybe a handful of times a year, so do you think anyone who isn’t in the Never Done department isn’t being productive? Really?”

"Of course I don't mean you," she said. "You're always helpful."

"With my spinning and weaving, sure, but what about my teaching?"

Miriam seemed to deflate with the breath she exhaled. She started walking to the other end of the field to hold the sheep in. When she turned in his direction again, she found Charlinder still watching her, waiting for an answer.

"Nobody says they don't want you to teach," she called out from her spot some distance away. "They just wonder if it's necessary for you to teach all the children all those things you talk about in that school."

"So, what, I should teach some more than others? Or, should I just stop teaching some of them anything at all?"

"Char, calm down. I'm sure they could all stand to learn something from you."

"So what's the problem with teaching everything to all of them?" Charlinder demanded, walking up closer to Miriam's new spot.

"For example," she answered. "My grandson keeps asking me why he needs to learn to read and write, and I don't know what to tell him."

Charlinder was dumbfounded at this. "Miriam, you use written records at every council meeting."

"Most people are never going to be on the village council. How am I supposed to justify them going to school to learn something they'll never use anywhere else? Because for everyone who's not on the council, there's nothing to read or write about, just like they don't need to know history after they finish school."

"But even if it's just for council meetings, you never know which of those kids will be on the council until they grow up, and they should be chosen for their ability to govern, not based on which ones learned to read as children."

"Of course that's true, but I don't care to see a whole generation of children grow up thinking they don't have to labor because they can make administration their life's work."

"None of the kids in my classes are growing up to think that," Charlinder protested. "They don't think any such thing."

"They think you're teaching them something they only need to know so they can do their homework," Miriam corrected him. "And then they'll never use it when they grow up, because they certainly don't see their parents using it."

"The written word is a necessary tool for any civilization," Charlinder argued. "So if we're ever going to become a civilization again, we need to maintain it."

"I know we need to maintain the written word. But if most of us won't have any use for it until a few hundred years from now, then these kids can't imagine what's the reason for them to learn it now, and I'm sorry, Char, but if you must ask for my opinion, I can't see how giving them all the same pre-Plague knowledge is doing anything productive."

So he had his answer. Miriam, a chosen village leader and the person whose opinion he respected above all others except for his uncle's, thought that his job, the central feature of his life, was largely unnecessary for the good of the community. She, too, thought that all life was in the here and now, and anything that gave attention to the past was superfluous, to the future was frivolous, and to other parts of the world was incomprehensible. There was so much wrong with what she was saying to him, and with what she was saying, apparently, to the rest of the village, even if only in what she didn't tell them. She was far too intelligent to be so complacent. He knew enough history to see that when passion was on one side and apathy was on the other, passion tended to win, no matter how wrong-headed its position. Charlinder knew that Miriam was one of the people who understood; though he hated to think of himself as being on a “side,” he could see lines being drawn in the sand and she was on a side with him. But that didn’t mean anything if this was how little she cared.

Whether his students' parents appreciated the value of it or not, Charlinder continued to teach as usual. It wasn't long before he decided to give a history lesson on something much older and more persistent than the Plague. This was bigotry, and the millennia-old violence it wrought.

"...so before the war ended in 1945, somewhere between twelve and thirteen million people died in the concentration camps under Adolf Hitler's regime, and this death toll was always known as the Holocaust," he explained to his class.

A small hand went up from one of his younger students. Charlinder motioned for the little girl to speak. "How much is twelve or thirteen million?"

A titter went around through his older students, but Charlinder etched a number, 12,000,000, in the sheet of damp clay at his feet that he maintained for the schoolroom. "You know how many is ten, right? Ten times ten is a hundred," he explained, pointing at the last two zeros on the clay, "and that much times ten is a thousand. That times ten is ten-thousand, times ten again is a hundred-thousand, times ten again is a million. Twelve or thirteen of that big number is about how many people died in the Holocaust, so you can see that his idea of the Final Solution made some very, very bad things happen.”

Another small hand went into the air. "What happened to Mr. Hitler when the war was over?"

"Nothing happened to him after that, because right before the war ended, he killed himself."

"Now that's what I call a Final Solution," said one of the older girls in the back.

Charlinder couldn't help but smile at this answer. "Thank you. Other questions?"

Another small hand went up, from a little boy who'd been trying to get Charlinder's attention all morning. "What's a homa-sek-shul?"

He waited for the laughter in the back to subside, then explained, "a homosexual is a person who likes to do sex with people of the same gender. It means a guy who likes guys in that way, or a girl who likes girls. Like Dr. Darrell, for example," he said, referring to their current village medic. Thus given a known example, the children didn’t ask for further details.

"So why did Mr. Hitler want them to die?" asked the boy.

"That is a tough question. A lot of people at the time thought homosexuals were evil because their religion said so, and Hitler grew up in one of those religions, too. But a lot of historians tried to figure out just what Hitler believed and between World War II and the Plague, they were still arguing about it, so no one can really answer that."

A ten-year-old boy raised his hand. "How many people were in Europe before the war?"

"I'm not sure about that, either. There were a lot more than thirteen million, but after the war ended, there weren't many Jews left since six million of them died in the camps."

That much got the class quiet. Charlinder waited for another student to ask a question, or else he would break them off into age groups and start math lessons.

One of the little ones raised his hand again. "How much people live in our village now?"

The question had nothing to do with the lesson, but if the kids wanted to see a staggering comparison of numbers, they could see it.

"The last time someone counted, there were about a hundred-fifty of us here," he answered, drawing a 150 in the clay, just below the last three zeros in the 12,000,000. "So as you can see, that's a lot of villages all gone."

There was another hand in the air from a 6-year-old. "Is that how come there's so little of us now?" he inquired.

Charlinder had to think a moment before he realized the scale of what this child was asking. He was only in his first year of school, but Charlinder assumed all children learned something of the Plague from their families.

"No, no, no, not at all," he began while taking his position at the world map he'd been studying so obsessively for weeks. "World War II happened almost two-hundred years ago, and the Holocaust happened in Europe. We're in North America, so none of our people were in the camps. There were still many, many more people left in Europe when the war was over.

"Then about a hundred-twenty years ago, there were six and a half billion people in the world, and they started dying, very fast, of a terrible disease called the Plague. After just two years, there was hardly anyone left. That's why there are so few of us here now, and why we have so little."

Another small hand brought another knotty question. "Why'd everyone die from the Plague?"

"It was a very contagious disease. You know how, when one of you has a cold and comes to school, some other kids get the cold, too? Well, with the Plague, everyone in the school would get it, only it didn't just make them sniffly, it killed them."

The same child spoke again. "How come people got the Plague?"

"For the same reason they get any other disease; when a new germ develops, people get infected until they develop an immunity to it, but that's a lesson for science class. Come on, let's do math lessons."

Another little boy stood up, smiling brightly. "My Uncle Taylor says a higher power named God made people get sick with the Plague because they were being bad!" he announced happily.

“That is a very interesting perspective from your Uncle Taylor, and I’m sure he can tell you all about it after school. Now it’s time for math lessons, so let’s get into groups,” ushered Charlinder. His older students, already whispering to each other for a few minutes, stood up and began heading toward their corners of the room. The little ones also stood up, but they weren't sure whether to go to their math areas or mill around the Plague session.

Another boy of the same age stood up and addressed Michael. "It was not a higher power," he sneered. "Everyone got the Plague because they didn't wash their hands or eat enough vegetables!"

Charlinder thought whoever had supplied the boy with that explanation was working on just as shaky a ground as the Faithful with their fire-and-brimstone fearmongering, but no matter, he simply wanted the class to change the subject.

"They did not!" objected the first one. "It was from God! Uncle Taylor told me so!"

"Your Uncle Taylor is stupid!"

"He is not!"

"He's a squirrel-brain and you are too!" proclaimed the second child. Taylor’s nephew responded by lunging at him.

The other little ones squealed in excitement as the two boys rolled around on the floor, growling and pummeling each other. “That’s enough, both of you!" barked Charlinder, but the children completely ignored him. The older ones rushed forward to watch the fight, and some even shouted, "Get him, runt!" though Charlinder couldn't tell which one they were cheering. He waded through the sea of small bouncing bodies and pulled the second boy off from on top of the first one, who scrambled up and tried to claw at his opponent up in Charlinder's arms.

Charlinder looked for Elizabeth, his best and most helpful student. She was standing at the back of the room, watching the pandemonium but clearly waiting for it to end. Charlinder made eye contact with her. "Get him, will you?" he requested, gesturing towards the furious little boy attacking his waistline. Elizabeth ran up and grabbed the child around the waist, holding him sideways and carrying him to the other side of the room. The rest of the children were still out of control. Charlinder looked for something small and hard that he could bang against the wooden bookshelves to make a loud sound. There was nothing. In one furious motion, he doubled over at the waist to put his face at the children's eye level and roared, "SIT DOWN!"

Every body in the room dropped to the floor, including Elizabeth, still with the now-compliant six-year-old in her arms. The other one, whom Charlinder still held, also went limp. Every mouth was still, every face watched Charlinder with big, round eyes.

"Groups D and E, please start passing around the blank paper and writing ink on the shelf. The rest of you, get into your math groups and I don't want to hear a peep until I've told you what to do."

He couldn't wait for the school day to end. He tried to give them a good session of math lessons, but all he could do was switch between groups and keep telling the children when they were getting the answers wrong. His concentration was shot. When it was finally time for everyone to leave for lunch, Charlinder didn't even stay to tidy the place up. He had to get out.

He usually took his meals with his uncle, but this time, he waited in a different line, where he hoped those close to him wouldn't see him. He snagged a bowl of stew and a square of cornbread and then snuck out of the meeting square to find a private place to eat. He didn't have anything to hide, but he needed to be alone.

"There he is," said a familiar voice when he was partway through his lunch on the riverbank. His uncle and Miriam were headed to his spot with their lunches in hand.

"I wondered where you were," said Roy.

"Char, darling, what's the matter?" asked Miriam, never one to beat around the bush.