Of course it was summer, and that helped. They worked longer hours, but they worked at pleasant jobs, out of doors, for farmers who had a rational regard for what was possible (The factories were said to be much worse, but they wouldn’t re-open till late in October). Often there would be extra food, and when your life centers around getting enough to eat (the rations at Spirit Lake were, deliberately, not enough) this was an important consideration.
It was the times in between that were so weirdly wonderful, times of an idleness as plain and pure as the shaking of leaves in a tree. Times between reveille and being hustled into the trucks, or times you waited for a truck to come and take you back. Times that a sudden storm would cancel out the day’s appointed baling and you could wait among the silences of the ceasing rain, in the glow of the late, returning light.
At such times consciousness became something more than just a haphazard string of thoughts about this, that, and the other. You knew yourself to be alive with a vividness so real and personal it was like God’s gloved hand wrapping itself about your spine and squeezing. Alive and human: he, Daniel Weinreb, was a human being! It was something he’d never even considered up till now.
There was a part of the compound set aside for visitors with pine trees, picnic tables, and a row of swings. Since visitors were only allowed on Sundays, and since few of the prisoners were ever visited in any case, the place looked unnaturally nice compared to the weedy fields and bare dirt of the compound proper, though for the visitors, coming to it from the outside world, it probably seemed plain enough, a park such as you would have found in any neighboring town.
Hearing the squeals of his sisters before they became visible behind the screen of pines, Daniel stopped to get hold of himself. He seemed quite steady and far from tears. Approaching nearer, he could see them through the branches. Aurelia was on one of the swings and Cecelia was pushing her. He felt like a ghost in a story, hovering about his living past. There beyond the twins was his father, in the front seat of a Hertz, smoking his pipe. Milly was nowhere to be seen. Daniel had thought she wouldn’t come but even so it was a disappointment.
To his credit he didn’t let that show when at last he emerged from behind the trees. He was all hugs and kisses for the twins, and by the time his father reached the swings, Daniel’s arms were full.
“How are you, Daniel?” Abraham asked.
Daniel said, “I’m fine.” And then, to nail it down, “In fact I really am.” He smiled — a smile as plausible as this little park.
He set the twins down on the grass and shook hands with his father.
“Your mother meant to come but at the last minute she didn’t feel up to it. We agreed it probably wouldn’t do your morale any good to see her in one of her… uh…”
“Probably,” Daniel agreed.
“And it probably wouldn’t be that good for her morale, either. Though, I must say, this place—” pointing at the trees with his pipestem “—is a bit, uh, nicer than I was expecting.”
Daniel nodded.
“Are you hungry? We brought a picnic.”
“Me? I’m always hungry.” Which was truer than he would have cared to be known.
While they spread out the food on the table, another car arrived with other visitors. Having them as an audience made it easier. There was a roast chicken, which Daniel got the better part of, and a bowl of potato salad with what seemed a pound of bacon crumbled in it. Abraham apologized for there being only a quart of milk for everyone to drink. The beer he’d brought had been confiscated at the checkpoint on the highway.
While he ate, his father explained all that was being done to have Daniel released. A lot of people, apparently, were incensed about his being sent to Spirit Lake, but they were none of them the right people. A petition had been sent to Mayor MacLean, who returned it saying the whole thing was out of his hands. His father showed him a typed list of the names on the petition. A lot of them had been customers on his route, others he recognized as his father’s patients, but the surprising thing was how many of them he’d never heard of. He had become a cause.
For all that it was the food that registered. Daniel had got so used to the process food at Spirit Lake he’d forgotten what an enormous difference there could be between that and the real thing. After the chicken and potato salad, Abraham unwrapped a carrot cake. It was the closest Daniel came to breaking down during the whole visit.
When the food was gone Daniel became conscious of the usual obscuring awkwardness rising up again between him and his father. He sat there staring at the weathered boards of the table, trying to think of what to say, but when he did come up with something it never precipitated a real conversation. The excitement at the other picnic table, where they were talking Spanish, seemed a reproach to their own lengthening silences.
Cecelia, who had already been carsick on the ride to Spirit Lake, rescued them by tossing up her lunch. After her dress had been sponged clean, Daniel played hide-and-seek with the twins. They had finally got the idea that there wasn’t just a single hiding place to hide in, but a whole world. Twice Aurelia went beyond the fieldstone posts marking the perimeter to find a place to hide, and each time it was like a knife right through his stomach. Theoretically you weren’t supposed to be able to feel the lozenge, but no one who’d ever been implanted believed that.
Eventually it was time for them to go. Since he hadn’t found a way to lead round to it by degrees, Daniel was forced to come right out with the subject of McDonald’s. He waited till the twins were strapped into their seatbelts, and then asked his father for a word in private.
“It’s about the food here,” he began when they were by themselves.
As he’d feared, his father became indignant when he’d explained about the rations being deliberately less than the minimum for subsistence. He started going on about the petition again.
Daniel managed to be urgent without being swept along: “It’s no use complaining, Dad. People have tried and it doesn’t do any good. It’s the policy. What you can do is pay what they call the supplement. Then they bring in extra food from McDonald’s. It doesn’t make such a big difference now, ’cause most of the farmers, when we go out and work for them, usually scrape up something extra for us. But later on, in winter, it can be nasty. That’s what they say.”
“Of course, Daniel, we’ll do all we possibly can. But you certainly will be home before winter. As soon as school starts again they’ll have to put you on probation.”
“Right. But meanwhile I need whatever you can let me have. The supplement costs thirty-five dollars a week, which is a lot to pay for a Big Mac and french fries, but what can I say? They’ve got us over a barrel.”
“My God, Daniel, it’s not the money — it’s the idea of what they’re doing here. It’s extortion! I can’t believe—”
“Please, Dad — whatever you do, don’t complain.”
“Not till you’re out of here, certainly. Who do I pay?”
“Ask for Sergeant Di Franco when they stop you at the checkpoint on the way back. He’ll tell you an address to send the money to. I’ll pay it all back, I promise.”
Abraham took his appointment book out of the breast pocket of his suit and wrote down the name. His hand was shaking. “Di Franco,” he repeated. “That reminds me. I think that was the fellow who made me leave your book with him. Your old friend Mrs. Boismortier has been by the house several times, asking after you, and the last time she brought a present for me to bring you. A book. You may get it eventually, once they’ve made sure it’s not subversive.”