The scarf came untied.
"It's like Gilgamesh," he said. "She goes to find the Wizard, like Gilgamesh tries to find… find… this Noah character and… and… and the Wizard is like a king because he and the land are the same thing, Oz and Oz, they have the same name and when he leaves in a balloon it's like his big bald head, and the land dies, and… and… and Dorothy is… goes to the Netherworld to find life. She goes to the Land of the Dead."
He was raving. It felt good to rave. He finally found words. "She goes to the Land of the Dead to find Life. Isn't that dumb? Why can't we find it here?" It seemed to him a very reasonable question, asked in the spirit of inquiry.
"You're scaring me," said Angel.
Jonathan seemed to settle back. He touched his own forehead and it felt burning even to him. "Sorry," he murmured.
"Maybe if I read to you some more?"
Angel rattled through the pages. The plain Kansas voice spoke.
" 'My sister would never be held down. She was small and pretty, like something in a music box. People were always asking her to sing. I remember that if she liked something, she would try to give it away. She would wrap it up, sometimes even with her best hair ribbons and give it to me, or Father, or the neighborhood gals. And she'd wait and watch as we opened up her gift.
" 'The life of a farmer's wife would never have suited her. I know my father wanted her to be a schoolteacher. When she ran away to St. Louis, he was very unhappy. He need not have been. She became, I am informed, even more beautiful. How I wish now that I could have visited the refined places in which she performed, to see her success, to hear the fine gentlemen, the appreciative ladies, applaud.
" 'After the Angel of Death descended, an exhalation of my sister's perfume was sent to us, a sweet child, her daughter, Dorothy.' "
Jonathan went still on the bed, unable to move
" 'This little girl became a new source of happiness to us. I learned then what I know now, that childhood is the source of all happiness. We remember joy when reminded of our lost years.' "
"Where?" whispered Jonathan. "Where is she?"
"Oh," said Angel and stopped. "You think it's her?"
"What's her name? The name of the author?"
Angel turned the wad of papers over in her hand. No name on the front. There was handwriting at the end of the manuscript.
"All it says is that this was retyped, but that most of the papers were lost in the 1903 flood. But, here, at the back it says the author was E. A. Branscomb."
"That's her, that's her." Jonathan nodded. He looked at Angel. "I'm not making this up, am I?"
"Don't think so," she said and passed him the papers.
He flipped through them, scanning. "Do you remember her saying anything about where the farm was?"
"She mentions the Kaw." Angel shrugged.
"She's got to tell us where she lived!" he exclaimed.
Something stopped him dead on a page before he knew consciously what he had seen. He stopped dead, and seemed to see the word "School" and then read:
I felt as blessed as my little charge to have had Miss Ida Francis for a schoolteacher, and Sunflower School so close at hand.
"I got her!" whispered Jonathan.
And then there was a knock, and Bill Davison came in. "Hello, I saw the note in the office," Bill began, to Angel.
"Bill!" Jonathan shouted, not at all surprised to see him. "Bill, I got her!" He shook the papers at him. Bill stood stunned for a moment. "I found Dorothy!" Jonathan said.
Bill answered him. "That's why I'm here," he said.
After they had talked for a while, Bill gave Jonathan something to help him sleep. Jonathan crept back to bed in a darkened room, and found Karl waiting for him there. Karl's body was smooth and cold. He kissed the tip of Jonathan's nose and asked the question that everyone asked. "What," Karl asked Jonathan, "do you want to do?"
"I want to stay here in Kansas," said Jonathan. "With you."
Manhattan, Kansas-September 1989
"Oz Ev"
"Real Home"-a motto on many trucks in Turkey, usually accompanied by a painting of a white house in green fields by a river
In the morning Jonathan wasn't in his room.
Bill walked out into the parking lot. There was a low, golden light pouring across Highway 24, the trucks tirelessly rumbling past. On the other side of the road there was a warehouse made of aluminum sheeting with an orange sign-REX'S TIRE C. Above that there was a rise of large trees, like clouds, up a slope to a deliberate clearing. MANHATTAN, said giant white letters. On the top of the hill there was a water tower, like a white upside-down test tube. There was an apple painted on it. MANHATTEN, said the water tower, the little apple.
Bill saw Jonathan walking out of the shrubbery. Jonathan was walking backward. A newspaper was curled up and held firmly under his arm.
"There you are," said Bill. "I was getting worried."
Jonathan answered with his back toward Bill. "The river moved. I was trying to find it."
"By walking backward? Come on, Jonathan." Bill tugged Jonathan around to face him. Jonathan was grinning. As soon as Bill let him go, like a door on a spring, Jonathan spun back around.
"Jonathan, turn around, please."
"I could walk into the river backward," he said.
"We're going to have breakfast. Are you up for breakfast?"
"Oh, yeah, I could eat a horse."
"Good, then let me look at you." He pulled Jonathan back around. Jonathan was still grinning. Bill held him in place and peered into his eyes, which had gone yellow.
"What color is your pee?" Bill asked.
"Bet you say that to all the girls."
"Come on, just tell me what color it is."
"How should I know? I'm color-blind!" Jonathan replied.
"Open wide." Jonathan stared back at him like Groucho Marx. "Your mouth, not your eyes."
Beginning at the back of Jonathan's throat there were ulcers, patches of yellow in pink swellings.
"Can you hold anything down?"
"Not even a job." Released, Jonathan spun around again. "If I walk backward, I'll go backward. Maybe I'll disappear."
"Jonathan," said Bill, to his back. "Do you want to find Dorothy?"
Silence.
"If you keep acting up, I'll have to take you straight to the nearest hospital. So turn around. You can turn around."
"Nope. Can't," said Jonathan, and turned around to face him.
"You're jaundiced, Jonathan. You may have something wrong with your liver. And you've got something very nasty down your gullet. You should be in the hospital. Now. I can give you today, Jonathan, but by evening, I want you in the hospital."
"Sure, Ira," said Jonathan.
There was a steakhouse next door to the Best Western, next door being about a fifth of a mile away. They walked across dirt to a breeze-block bungalow. The floor was made of tiles designed to look like blocks of wood. The Formica tables looked like wood. The food looked like wood. The hash browns looked like sawdust, the egg like putty. Breaded mushrooms steamed in tin basins like wooden knobs. Caterers had finally found a way to bottom-line breakfast.