Parsifal had once heard that love will find a way, but a compass would also have been nice.
Joe would have said that Parsifal had a subconscious desire to lose himself in his past, and maybe that was true.
So what if he did?
Parsifal passed what might have been a familiar waterfall, though it was impossible to be certain because waterfalls are particularly vulnerable to the changes of time and the seasons. This one, about six feet high, was probably nowhere nearly as forceful as it was in spring, or summer, with bugs hovering over the water, but it had a respectable flow. In the muddy edges of the pool at its base he could see the tracks of raccoons, deer, squirrels, and even a rabbit or two. This was their world, the forest; it was no longer his. He had given up his rights here when he left. Now that he had returned, blundering around like an oaf for no reason but his own selfishness, he felt ashamed.
I ought to go back where I belong, Parsifal thought, back to the blind men and to my house, back to my small, owner-operated, pen repair business.
But he did not.
Parsifal’s favorite part of the library was the oversize-book section, which was off to one side, against a wall across from a large window. The reason he liked it was that the proportionately large size of the books made him feel like he was a child again, reading the books Conrad had brought him on those times when he chanced to pass a yard sale on his way to the forest. There had been the usual ones, like Fighting Ships and Animal Buddies, hanging from the bag on his father’s belt, but out of all of them the one that was most special, left behind all those years ago, was The Old Trapper’s Guide to Wood-Craft.
Everywhere he walked in the forest, Parsifal noticed that the birds, and sometimes even the insects, would fall silent. From the cheerful, continuous conversation they all seemed to be having, the moment he appeared they would become mute, as if they knew something about him they were not telling.
They had never done this in the old days, when he lived there.
“Unfit for life,” the Germans call it.
For the first time, Parsifal wondered if Conrad too had taken the bus to the forest or if he had driven in his own car, which he would have had to park at the edge of the forest while he visited his family.
Until then, he had never thought of his father as driving anything.
But who exactly is fit for life?
Two hours later Parsifal settled himself on a warm, flat rock near the stream and opened the backpack that contained his sandwiches. They were in pretty fair shape, except for one where the mayonnaise had soaked into the slices of bread and made them soggy. He decided to eat that sandwich first and save the rest for later.
He wished he’d remembered the compass.
Along with the sandwich he had two carrots, and washed everything down with a drink of the tropical fruit punch he had filled his canteen with during the continental breakfast, which now seemed long ago.
Another reason Parsifal liked libraries so much was that in a library everyone was busy looking at the books and not at him.
Likewise, when he looked at a book, it did not look back.
Joe told Parsifal the following story: Many years earlier, while serving in the United States Army, he had been stationed at a remote outpost where the only available food had to be dropped in. Soon, he and his companions got tired of the usual canned and freeze-dried meals and began to crave something — nearly anything — that was fresh. One day Joe noticed a small stream near their base, and that night, using a spool of nylon thread, a branch, and some paper clips that had been tempered and sharpened, he assembled a makeshift fishing apparatus. The following day, using pieces of cheese and freeze-dried meat, Joe was able to return to his base with a dozen trout.
Of course, all of his fellow GIs quickly made the same type of apparatus, but for some mysterious reason Joe was the only one actually able to catch fish. As a result, his commander decided to give him a day off every week. On that day others did his chores and Joe did nothing but fish. “Some days I’d bring in twenty or thirty fish,” Joe told Parsifal, “and the least I ever caught was ten, which was after a rain, so the water was muddy.
“Then we were transferred to an equally remote base, that, as fate would have it, also had a stream nearby. We tried the same thing, and do you know I never caught a single fish, though I could often see them swimming around in the water. Nor could anyone else. Nor have I ever been able to catch another fish to this day — not that I’ve tried all that hard.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Parsifal asked.
“Just to illustrate a simple point: things change.” Joe picked a jelly donut from a greasy bag, after offering one to Parsifal, and bit down. “Sometimes you can go back to what was, and sometimes, no matter how much you want to, you can’t. Remember: whatever you do, don’t look back.”
Over the past several hours, Parsifal had felt one or both of his boots filling with water. This was because many of the areas of the forest had puddles that were covered by leaves and hard to see until it was too late. Naturally, this had also been true when he was young, but back then he was barefoot, and scarcely noticed it.
Now there was only one thing to do: keep walking until he reached dry ground again. When he did, he would sit on a log and pull off his shoes and socks, wring out his wet socks, and replace them with a pair of dry ones. The formerly wet, now just damp socks he would hang on the outside of his backpack to give them a chance to dry as he traveled.
It made him happy that he had thought to bring along so many pairs of socks, even if he had forgotten his compass.
He knew what Joe would say, but unfortunately Joe wasn’t around to say anything to anyone these days.
Even if the whole forest had burned to the ground, Parsifal reasoned, the cup would not be destroyed, because it was made of metal, and though it might have lost some of its shape from the heat, it would still be there, though possibly trapped beneath a fallen tree or in several inches of ash.
For the first time it occurred to him that he should have brought along a metal detector to the forest, but it was far too late for that.
Sometimes Parsifal wonders if, when Pearl died in that forest fire, she felt much pain.
The first blind person he met when he arrived in the city was standing at a traffic light and carrying a white cane, but at that time a white cane and accompanying dark glasses meant nothing special to Parsifal. This was before jail and the Happy Bunny, even before he had finished high school. The colors of the man’s shirt and pants did not match, and one of his socks was brown while the other was blue.
“How are you?” the man said, looking straight ahead.
“I’m fine. How are you?” Parsifal replied.
“I’m fine, too,” the man said. Then the light changed and Parsifal crossed the street as the man remained standing on the curb. Parsifal had thought it odd, and when he recounted his experience to Mrs. Knightly, his social worker, she explained to him the man was blind.