Butler, Octavia - Parable of the Sower

I sat with him and cleaned our new handgun while he cleaned the rifle. Harry was on watch and needed my gun. When I went over to give it to him, he let me know he understood exactly what was going on between Bankole and me.

“Be careful,” he whispered. “Don’t give the poor old guy a heart attack.”

“And why should people bother about the Destiny, farfetched as it is? What’s in it for them?”

“A unifying, purposeful life here on Earth, and the hope of heaven for themselves and their children. A real heaven, not mythology or philosophy. A heaven that will be theirs to shape.”

“Or a hell,” he said. His mouth twitched. “Human beings are good at creating hells for themselves even out of richness.” He thought for a moment. “It sounds too simple, you know.”

“You think it’s simple?” I asked in surprise.

“I said it sounds too simple.”

“It sounds overwhelming to some people.”

“I mean it’s too…straightforward. If you get people to accept it, they’ll make it more complicated, more open to interpretation, more mystical, and more comforting.”

“Not around me they won’t!” I said.

“With you or without you, they will. All religions change. Think about the big ones. What do you think Christ would be these days? A Baptist? A Methodist? A Catholic? And the Buddha— do you think he’d be a Buddhist now? What kind of Buddhism would he practice?” He smiled. “After all, if `God is Change,’ surely Earthseed can change, and if it lasts, it will.”

I looked away from him because he was smiling.

This was all nothing to him. “I know,” I said. “No one can stop Change, but we all shape Change whether we mean to or not. I mean to guide and shape Earthseed into what it should be.”

“Perhaps.” He went on smiling. “How serious are you about this?”

The question drove me deep into myself. I spoke, almost not knowing what I would say. “When my father…disappeared,” I began, “it was Earthseed that kept me going. When most of my community and the rest of my family were wiped out, and I was alone, I still had Earthseed. What I am now, all that I am now is Earthseed.”

“What you are now,” he said after a long silence, “is a very unusual young woman.”

We didn’t talk for a while after that. I wondered what he thought. He hadn’t seemed to be bottling up too much hilarity. No more than I’d expected. He had been willing to go along with his wife’s religious needs. Now, he would at least permit me mine.

I wondered about his wife. He hadn’t mentioned her before. What had she been like? How had she died?

“Did you leave home because your wife died?” I asked.

He put down a long slender cleaning rod and rested his back against the tree behind him. “My wife died five years ago,” he said. “Three men broke in-junkies, dealers, I don’t know. They beat her, tried to make her tell where the drugs were.”

“Drugs?”

“They had decided that we must have something they could use or sell. They didn’t like the things she was able to give them so they kept beating her. She had a heart problem.” He drew in a long breath, then sighed. “She was still alive when I got home. She was able to tell me what had happened. I tried to help her, but the bastards had taken her medicine, taken everything. I phoned for an ambulance. It arrived an hour after she died. I tried to save her, then to revive her. I tried so damned hard… .”

I stared down the hill from our camp where just a glint of water was visible in the distance through the trees and bushes. The world is full of painful stories.

Sometimes it seems as though there aren’t any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.

“I should have headed north when Sharon died,”

Bankole said. “I thought about it.”

“But you stayed.” I turned away from the water and looked at him. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t know what to do, so for some time I didn’t do anything. Friends took care of me, cooked for me, cleaned the house. It surprised me that they would do that. Church people most of them. Neighbors. More her friends than mine.”

I thought of Wardell Parrish, devastated after the loss of his sister and her children— and his house.

Had Bankole been some community’s Wardell Parrish? “Did you live in a walled community?” I asked.

“Yes. Not rich, though. Nowhere near rich. People managed to hold on to their property and feed their families. Not much else. No servants. No hired guards.”

“Sounds like my old neighborhood.”

“I suppose it sounds like a lot of old neighborhoods that aren’t there any more. I stayed to help the people who had helped me. I couldn’t walk away from them.”

“But you did. You left. Why?”

“Fire— and scavengers.”

“You too? Your whole community?”

“Yes. The houses burned, most of the people were killed… . The rest scattered, went to family or friends elsewhere. Scavengers and squatters moved in. I didn’t decide to leave. I escaped.”

Much too familiar. “Where did you live? What city?”

“San Diego.”

“That far south?”

“Yes. As I said, I should have left years ago. If I had, I could have managed plane fare and resettlement money.”

Plane fare and resettlement money? He might not call that rich, but we would have.

“Where are you going now?” I asked.

“North.” He shrugged.

“Just anywhere north or somewhere in particular”

“Anywhere where I can be paid for my services and allowed to live among people who aren’t out to kill me for my food or water.”

Or for drugs, I thought. I looked into his bearded face and added up the hints I’d picked up today and over the past few days. “You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”

He looked a little surprised. “I was, yes. Family practice. It seems a long time ago.”

“People will always need doctors,” I said. “You’ll do all right.”

“My mother used to say that.” He gave me a wry smile. “But here I am.”

I smiled back because, looking at him now, I couldn’t help myself, but as he spoke, I decided he had told me at least one lie. He might be as displaced and in distress as he appeared to be, but he wasn’t just wandering north. He wasn’t looking for just anywhere he could be paid for his services and not robbed or murdered. He wasn’t the kind of man who wandered. He knew where he was going. He had a haven somewhere— a relative’s home, another home of his own, a friend’s home, something— some definite destination.

Or perhaps he just had enough money to buy a place for himself in Washington or Canada or Alaska. He had had to choose between fast, safe, expensive air travel and having settling-in money when he got where he was going. He had chosen settling-in money. If so, I agreed with him. He was taking the kind of risk that would enable him to make a new beginning as soon as possible— if he survived.

On the other hand, if I were right about any of this, he might disappear on me some night. Or perhaps he would be more open about it— just walk away from me some day, turn down a side road and wave good-bye. I didn’t want that. After I’d slept with him I would want it even less.

Even now, I wanted to keep him with me. I hated that he was lying to me already— or I believed he was. But why should he tell me everything? He didn’t know me very well yet, and like me, he meant to survive. Perhaps I could convince him that he and I could survive well together. Meanwhile, best to enjoy him without quite trusting him. I may be wrong about all this, but I don’t believe I am. Pity.

We finished the guns, loaded them, and went down to the water to wash. You could go right down to the water, scoop some up in a pot, and take it away. It was free. I kept looking around, thinking someone would come to stop us or charge us or something. I suppose we could have been robbed, but no one paid any attention to us. We saw other people getting water in bottles, canteens, pots, and bags, but the place seemed peaceful. No one bothered anyone. No one paid any attention to us.