White Dog Fell from the Sky - By Eleanor Morse Page 0,148

A future, something stretching before you. Moses had built his little car in such a way that it rattled along in front of him as he steered it. He, Isaac, had no car rattling in front of him. His car was behind him.

He remembered his mother long ago telling him about the oceans on Earth. She’d said that the waters were so big, you couldn’t see to the land on the other side. The waters, she’d heard, had threads that connected to the moon. When the moon was full, the tides were high. She didn’t know where the water came from and went back to. It was a mystery. He remembered her face as she’d talked, lit up with something larger than herself. He’d lost the thread between himself and this mystery. Call it God, call it the tides or the moon, he couldn’t feel the wonder of things. Even more than the loss of a future, this emptiness pained him beyond measure.

There was something else he felt, almost but not quite lost. By the end, he didn’t care whether they took his life or not, but he wouldn’t let them have the memory of the people he loved. Those people were in him still, some of them dead, most of them still alive. He remembered the crested barbet falling down the chimney, his feathers blackened with soot, rescued from the jaws of the cat. It had stood on the curtain rod, so shocked it couldn’t move. He’d put it in his hand and taken it outside, and it had stood a moment before flying to the high branch of the tree where its mate waited. There were those on the branch waiting for him.

The sun had reached its peak several hours earlier and was traveling down the sky. His shoulder throbbed, and his leg, but he wanted to keep going now until he reached his destination. Another third of a kilometer, then around the corner where the store stood, then down the road a short distance and another corner, and he would see the house. He wasn’t thinking now, just moving ahead in a kind of trance. He passed down the next stretch of road without seeing and came around the last corner. The first thing he noticed was the tent in the garden, standing by the flat rock where he’d gone to read the letter from his mother.

As he limped toward the house, he made out three figures on the stoop, two black heads and a furry white one between them, like a black-and white-photograph. White Dog lifted her nose. All at once, she clambered to her feet and let out a sound halfway between a cry and a howl. She was running, Lulu and Moses behind, a streak of white, paws on his chest. The children were in his arms now, laughing. And then he saw Alice come out of the house, wearing the same blue dress that had been part of a strange dream, blowing in the wind at the border.

Acknowledgments

Heartfelt thanks to my early readers, Rhonda Berg, Nicole d’Entremont, Jeanne Hayman, Kate Kennedy, Robin Lippincott, Nomakhosi Mntuyedwa, Sena Jeter Naslund, Catherine Seager, Susan Williams, and Alisa Wolf, whose honesty and encouragement have made this book what it is.

My gratefulness to Andrew Seager for introducing me to a country that will live in me forever. And to Keletso Ragabane, who welcomed me when I knew nothing.

My love and gratitude to friends who have been like family, and family treasured beyond words: Susan Allen, Edith Allison, Casey Doldissen, Kate Kennedy, Namdol Kalsang, Alan Morse, Dean Morse, Philip Morse, Louise Packness, Alan Seager, Catherine Seager, Xavier Simcock, and Elizabeth Young.

To my agent, the amazing and indefatigable Jane Gelfman; to my editor at Penguin (USA), the incomparable Kathryn Court; and to my editor at Penguin (UK), Juliet Annan, my deepest thanks.

To Carla Bolte, interior designer; Beth Caspar, copy editor; Maddie Philips, production manager; and Jim Tierney, jacket designer, this book is better and more beautiful for your abundant talents. To Tara Singh, assistant editor at Penguin, and Cathy Gleason at Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents, I thank you for your kind and knowledgeable help.

Many thanks to the staff, students, and faculty members at Spalding University’s brief residency master of fine arts in writing program, a lively, vigorous, and life-affirming community of writers.

Thank you to Priscilla Webster and Rose Ann Walsh at the Peaks Island library for procuring so many fine books. And to the following writers whose research, artwork, and eloquence have deepened my understanding of the long-term effects of torture and of the remarkable culture of the !Kung San people: Paul Augustinus, Botswana: A Brush with the Wild; David Coulson and Alec Campbell, African Rock Art; James Denbow and Phenyo Thebe, Culture and Customs of Botswana; Nicholas England, Music Among the Ju/’hoansi and Related Peoples of Namibia, Botswana and Angola; Peter Johnson and Anthony Bannister, Okavango; Willemien Le Roux and Alison White, Voices of the San; Richard Katz, Boiling Energy: Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung; Bradford Keeney, Kalahari Bushmen Healers; Peter Matthiessen, The Tree Where Man Was Born; Leanh Nguyen, “The Question of Survival: The Death of Desire and the Weight of Life”; Pippa Skotnes, Claim to the Country: The Archive of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek.

Finally, I am grateful to the community of Peaks Island and to its artists, writers, musicians, and oddballs whose presence, along with the birds and ever-changing sky and sea, has been a daily source of inspiration, joy, and nourishment.

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Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks – the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company – and change the world.

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Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books

The quality paperback had arrived – and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.

Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy. We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.

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First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2013

First published in Great Britain by Fig Tree 2013

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

ISBN: 978-0-241-96259-6

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