The Lesson

The Second Visit, 4

Now, you may imagine that she was testing him by reading from this particular book, which, as anyone who has read a biography of Ezra Wesley knows, was the late master’s favorite book. He had read it dozens of times, and this copy was the copy he took with him on long train rides. It was said by some that his compulsive carrying of this book was especially ridiculous on the basis that he had in fact memorized the book. That, though, had never been completely established, for although he had on numerous occasions recited from it, he had never actually recited it in its entirety. In any event, if it was a test, it was a test that began when she started to read, for it was not from the book that she read at all! She had opened another, smaller book, within the first book, and looking down at the boy, who could see none of this, read aloud from it.

— It was a cold day, and the dogs were dying one by one. As they drew farther into the wilderness, the will of the rider seemingly intensified until the dogs obeyed him even before the desperate pleas of their own ragged frames. They had dragged him for days through that bleak landscape, and now, crossing some invisible barrier in the monochrome world, they all at once set to perishing. And so it was that when the last dog died, the man alit from the dogsled, and continued on foot.

— What is a dogsled? interrupted Stan.

— You know what a dog is?

He frowned at her.

— You know what a sled is?

— Of course.

— Make the dogs pull the sled and you have a dogsled. People say that this really happens in the coldest parts of the world, but I have never seen it. Do I believe there are dogsleds? I don’t believe it or disbelieve it. It does seem unlikely, though, that dogs could be found who would want to do this.

— Is this the second book of a series?

— No.

— Then, how do we know where the man was before?

— We don’t, yet.

— All right. What’s monochrome?

— We’ll get nowhere if I define everything for you. Just listen and pick things up by what they might seem to mean.

She drew a breath and began again.

— The snows began to end, then, as he ascended that final hill. At its crest, the weather broke, and there was green grass, stretched out like a promise. The man fell to his knees there, and tears ran down his face. Then the dogs were licking at his face again, climbing over their own harnesses, to wake him, and he was leaned over the front of the sled, confused by the cold, biting wind cutting into his eyes, and there were miles still to…

Stan was asleep. He was always falling asleep, this one. She moved closer and put her face near his, listening. A small rasping sound accompanied his breathing.

— Would you have stayed awake for the other book? she asked.

Of course, the boy said nothing.