Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,58
Zahra told me a couple of weeks ago that a drawing I’d done of Harry looked almost human.
But this time Zahra hadn’t come to talk about my drawing.
“So you’re going to leave!” she hissed at me as soon as we were alone. She looked angry and bitter. Here and there around us, people found their own Gathering Day amusements. May was teaching Mercy Noyer how to weave a small basket from tree bark. A few adults and older kids had gotten a soccer game going in spite of the cold. Marc and Jorge were out there on opposite sides, having a great time running up and down the field, getting filthy, and collecting more than their share of bruises. Travis, who also loves soccer, has said, “I think those two would kill each other for a chance to score.”
If only Marc would confine himself to scoring in soccer.
Of course, I wasn’t as surprised at Zahra’s question as I had been at Gray’s. “Zee, I’m not leaving,” I said.
Like Gray, she didn’t believe me at first. “I heard you were. Your brother said… Lauren, tell me the truth!”
“Bankole wants me to move to Halstead,” I said. “You know that. I don’t want to go. I think we’ve got something worthwhile going here, and it’s ours.”
“I heard they offered you a house by the ocean?”
“Within sight of the ocean, but not that close. You don’t want to be too close to the ocean in Halstead.”
“But a real house, I mean. A house like back in Robledo.”
“Yes.”
“And you turned them down?”
“Yes.”
“You’re crazy as hell.”
That did startle me. “You mean you want me to go, Zee?”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re the closest thing I got to a sister. You know damned well I don’t want you to go. But…you should go.”
“I’m not.”
“I would.”
I stared at her.
“I’d go to a better place if I could. I got two kids. Where do they go from here? Where’s your little baby going from here?”
“Where would they go from Halstead? Halstead is like Robledo with a better wall. Why do you think there are people there who are planning to emigrate to Russia or Alaska and others who are just trying to hang on to their little piece of the twentieth century until they die? None of them is trying to build anything to replace what we’ve lost or to boost us to something better.”
“You mean like Earthseed? The Destiny?”
“Yes.”
“It ain’t enough.”
“It’s a beginning. It’s a way of trying to build tomorrow instead of cycling back into some form of yesterday.”
“Do you ever stop preaching?”
“Am I wrong?”
She shrugged. “You know I’m not religious the way you are. Besides, even if you go to Halstead, we’ll still be here. And Earthseed will still be Earthseed.”
Would it? Maybe. But Earthseed is a young movement. I couldn’t walk away and leave it to a “maybe.” I wouldn’t walk away from it any more than I’d walk away from the baby I would soon be having.
Someday, I want people to go from here and teach Earthseed. And I want what they teach to still be recognizable as Earthseed.
“I’m not going,” I said. “And, Zee, I think you’re a liar. I don’t think you’d go either. You know that here at Acorn we’re with you if you get into trouble. And you know we would take care of your kids if anything happened to you and Harry. Who else would do that?” She had been raised in some of the nastier streets of Los Angeles, and she knew about loyalty, about depending on her friends and having them depend on her.
She looked at me, then looked away. “It’s good here,” she said, staring out toward the hills to the west of us. “It’s better than I thought it could be when we got here. But you know it’s nothing like as good as we had back in Robledo. For your baby’s sake, you ought to go.”
“For my baby’s sake, I’m staying.”
And she met my eyes again. “You sure? Think about the future.”
“I’m sure. And you know damned well I am thinking about the future.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she sighed. “Good.” Another silence. “You’re right. I wouldn’t want to go, and I wouldn’t want you to go either. Maybe that’s because I’m as big a fool as you are. I don’t know. But…we do have something good here. Acorn and Earthseed—they’re both too good to let go of.” She grinned. “How’s Bankole dealing with things?”