And Mother found him.
The empty chamber pot dropped and rolled, and she hollered in surprise and then let out a nervous, brittle laugh.
Diamond jumped back and wished he hadn’t.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, which happened to be a little bit true.
She stared at him. Surprise became reflexive anger, and the anger was quickly swallowed up by deep old pities. “We know this is difficult,” she said at last. Then she reached for his face, leaving her long hand in the air as he backed away. “For you and for us, this is such a burden. But it won’t be forever, Diamond.”
His life felt like forever.
“When you grow up,” she said. “I promise. When you’re big enough and know how to act . . . when you aren’t a little boy who cuts his face for no good reason . . . you’ll walk out of here. And if you wish, you’ll never have to return to that room again.”
She wanted him to feel thankful.
The rule, the tradition, was to dip his head as people did toward their superiors, and he would say, “Yes, Mother. Thank you, Mother.”
But Father had left without warning, and Diamond’s anger wasn’t going away. Squaring up the little shoulders, putting his odd feet apart, he shook his head and said, “I won’t. No, I won’t ever do that.”
Her blackish-brown eyes grew huge. “You won’t do what?”
“Leave my room,” he said. Then to prove his words, he retreated up the little hallway. “The world sounds awful. I won’t go. I want to stay here forever.”
His parents were very different from one another. Mother wasn’t able to secure every thought, parsing out her sentences with clear authority. She was the parent who suffered doubts and second-guesses. Nothing her son could have said would have struck harder. Did he really not want to leave this room, this prison cell? Had their warnings been given too many times and too well, and now the child didn’t have any curiosity left? That was an awful, unbearable prospect. And that’s why she didn’t hesitate, grabbing up one of his thin arms, dragging her barefoot son back to the second door and then into the long hallway.
Looking over her shoulder, she told him, “A quick glance then. Have a glimpse.”
Diamond was stunned and very scared. This would be momentous, and he wasn’t prepared. Never leaving his tiny familiar place was only words, only noise, and when the hallway curved before both of them, he muttered, “No.”
She pulled harder. “One look out the window,” she told him. “You deserve that much.”
He meant to shout, “No.”
But the hallway had come to an end. A tall pane of clear glass stood before them, and beyond the window was a great reach of air filled with green light and flickering shadows and objects moving too quickly to be seen clearly.
Diamond jerked his hand away.
Mother looked down at him. Didn’t he understand? Couldn’t he appreciate what she was doing? She was breaking the most important rule, and he was spoiling the moment with a toddler’s stubborn idiocy.
She grabbed his little shoulders.
And Diamond swung—a reflexive hard sweeping motion with his right fist.
Mother shouted and stumbled and fell.
Now their faces were at the same level. Both faces were crying. With her right hand, the injured woman touched her ribs gingerly, and she winced, and she tried twice to stand before giving up. The pain was too awful. But with her other arm, she managed to pull her son close and hold him until her misery subsided part way, and he gradually fell back into quiet, exhausted sobs.
“We’ve always told you that you’re weak,” she said. “But that’s a lie mostly meant for others. You’re just small and not built for trees.”
People were climbers. But Diamond wasn’t a climber.
“For your size, you’re really very strong. Amazingly strong. And now you know.”
But what did he know?
She rose slowly and breathed as if nothing could hurt worse. But she managed to guide him back to his hallway and into his room. “Please, shut the door for me. Would you?” she asked. Then as it closed, she added, “And don’t tell your father. For today, for always, this has to be our secret.”
One secret led to others, building a conspiracy that brought mother and son closer. Children weren’t supposed to begin reading and writing until they were a thousand days old. That was the rule and had been the rule forever, which made it only sweeter when she brought in the big-worded books intended for school children and simple people. While his father worked, Mother taught Diamond about letters and the very important marks that went between the letters, creating meaningful words that could be strung together in endless sentences. And she gave him black markers and bare pages, pleased with his successes and quiet when he failed. But he made few mistakes, particularly on matters of memory. Everything inside his head seemed eager to be found, and every day he amazed the old woman with what he had learned and how he found the patterns inside each of these secret lessons.
That a book could hold pictures was a revelation. The fat old volumes on his shelves were filled with long, impenetrable words, but one of his learning books was built from brightly colored drawings. Diamond studied strange faces and bizarre objects. The faces belonged to the Creators. Painted scenes showed the bright blackness that existed in that timeless time before the world. Mother sat beside her strange boy, describing how the Creators tried to weave perfection out of shadow, out of nothingness. Each of their works failed and had to die, but the gods learned and learned, and in a show of genius, they managed to piece together this Creation, this splendid, beautiful world without end.
The Creators loved the world and knew they could never do better, and celebrating what they had accomplished, those titanic beings kissed one another before dissolving into the same nothingness from which people and trees had come.
One Creator was named Marduk.
Patting the floor, Diamond said, “Our tree is named Marduk.”
Important trees had important names and long histories.
His mother nodded. “But how do you know that?”
“I heard so.”
“Someone told you about our tree?”
“No. You and Father were talking, and I was listening.”
She looked at him and then at the closed door. “What else have you heard?”
The world was full of noises that never found his ears. “I haven’t heard much,” he claimed, not really lying.
“There are reasons we tell you so little,” she said.
He nodded.
“Why we don’t dare explain more.”
Diamond waited.
“But if you live in the dark too long, your mind will be crippled.”
Mother’s plan, imprecise as it was, involved teaching the boy just enough—a string of tiny lessons to feed his mind, and perhaps, with luck, ease his transition into the world. Some days were full of reading and counting, and he never got tired. But she was tired or she was scared, and there were days when he taught himself, reading common words and writing them with his right hand. She also taught him manners and some mathematics and little songs for children. Diamond was rarely bored, but if he let his gaze wander, she would relent, giving him larger skills and bigger views. And every day, no matter the circumstance, lessons began and ended with a solemn promise not to share what was happening. Father was busy and had many problems, and no, Mother wouldn’t explain the poor man’s burdens, but Diamond needed to believe her and please stop asking those questions.
So he stopped asking, for days and days. And then one day, without urging, Mother began to talk about their home tree. Marduk was a blackwood, and more than a thousand families lived inside its carved tunnels and rooms. Some neighbors were her cousins, and others were friends or at least had been friendly in the past. She saw few people anymore. But hearing sadness in her own voice, Mother promised that if something was important and necessary, then there was goodness to find, and that’s why this isolation was endurable.