[Part 2] "The Giver" by Lois Lowry

by Yaroslav11T Donald Teel Unsplash

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CHAPTER VI.

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“Lily, please hold still,” Mother said again.

Lily, standing in front of her, fidgeted impatiently.

“I can tie them myself,” she complained.

“I always have.”

“I know that,” Mother replied, straightening the hair ribbons on the little girl’s braids.

“But I also know that they constantly come loose and more often than not, they’re dangling down your back by afternoon.

Today, at least, we want them to be neatly tied and to stay neatly tied.”

“I don’t like hair ribbons.

I’m glad I only have to wear them one more year,” Lily said irritably.

“Next year I get my bicycle, too,” she added more cheerfully.

“There are good things each year,” Jonas reminded her.

“This year you get to start your volunteer hours.

And remember last year, when you became a Seven, you were so happy to get your front-buttoned jacket?”

The little girl nodded and looked down at herself, at the jacket with its row of large buttons that designated her as a Seven.

Fours, Fives, and Sixes all wore jackets that fastened down the back so that they would have to help each other dress and would learn interdependence.

The front-buttoned jacket was the first sign of independence, the first very visible symbol of growing up.

The bicycle, at Nine, would be the powerful emblem of moving gradually out into the community, away from the protective family unit.

Lily grinned and wriggled away from her mother.

“And this year you get your Assignment,” she said to Jonas in an excited voice.

“I hope you get Pilot.

And that you take me flying!”

“Sure I will,” said Jonas.

“And I’ll get a special little parachute that just fits you, and I’ll take you up to, oh, maybe twenty thousand feet, and open the door, and—”

“Jonas,” Mother warned.

“I was only joking,” Jonas groaned.

“I don’t want Pilot, anyway.

If I get Pilot I’ll put in an appeal.”

“Come on,” Mother said.

She gave Lily’s ribbons a final tug.

“Jonas?

Are you ready?

Did you take your pill?

I want to get a good seat in the Auditorium.”

She prodded Lily to the front door and Jonas followed.

It was a short ride to the Auditorium, Lily waving to her friends from her seat on the back of Mother’s bicycle.

Jonas stowed his bicycle beside Mother’s and made his way through the throng to find his group.

The entire community attended the Ceremony each year.

For the parents, it meant two days holiday from work; they sat together in the huge hall.

Children sat with their groups until they went, one by one, to the stage.

Father, though, would not join Mother in the audience right away.

For the earliest ceremony, the Naming, the Nurturers brought the newchildren to the stage.

Jonas, from his place in the balcony with the Elevens, searched the Auditorium for a glimpse of Father.

It wasn’t at all hard to spot the Nurturers’ section at the front; coming from it were the wails and howls of the newchildren who sat squirming on the Nurturers’ laps.

At every other public ceremony, the audience was silent and attentive.

But once a year, they all smiled indulgently at the commotion from the little ones waiting to receive their names and families.

Jonas finally caught his father’s eye and waved.

Father grinned and waved back, then held up the hand of the newchild on his lap, making it wave, too.

It wasn’t Gabriel.

Gabe was back at the Nurturing Center today, being cared for by the night crew.

He had been given an unusual and special reprieve from the committee, and granted an additional year of nurturing before his Naming and Placement.

Father had gone before the committee with a plea on behalf of Gabriel, who had not yet gained the weight appropriate to his days of life nor begun to sleep soundly enough at night to be placed with his family unit.

Normally such a newchild would be labeled Inadequate and released from the community.

Instead, as a result of Father’s plea, Gabriel had been labeled Uncertain and given the additional year.

He would continue to be nurtured at the Center and would spend his nights with Jonas’s family unit.

Each family member, including Lily, had been required to sign a pledge that they would not become attached to this little temporary guest, and that they would relinquish him without protest or appeal when he was assigned to his own family unit at next year’s Ceremony.

At least, Jonas thought, after Gabriel was placed next year, they would still see him often because he would be part of the community.

If he were released, they would not see him again.

Ever.

Those who were released— even as newchildren—were sent Elsewhere and never returned to the community.

Father had not had to release a single newchild this year, so Gabriel would have represented a real failure and sadness.

Even Jonas, though he didn’t hover over the little one the way Lily and his father did, was glad that Gabe had not been released.

The first Ceremony began right on time, and Jonas watched as one after another each newchild was given a name and handed by the Nurturers to its new family unit.

For some, it was a first child.

But many came to the stage accompanied by another child beaming with pride to receive a little brother or sister, the way Jonas had when he was about to be a Five.

Asher poked Jonas’s arm.

“Remember when we got Phillipa?” he asked in a loud whisper.

Jonas nodded.

It had only been last year.

Asher’s parents had waited quite a long time before applying for a second child.

Maybe, Jonas suspected, they had been so exhausted by Asher’s lively foolishness that they had needed a little time.

Two of their group, Fiona and another female named Thea, were missing temporarily, waiting with their parents to receive newchildren.

But it was rare that there was such an age gap between children in a family unit.

When her family’s ceremony was completed, Fiona took the seat that had been saved for her in the row ahead of Asher and Jonas.

She turned and whispered to them, “He’s cute.

But I don’t like his name very much.”

She made a face and giggled.

Fiona’s new brother had been named Bruno.

It wasn’t a great name, Jonas thought, like—well, like Gabriel, for example.

But it was okay.

The audience applause, which was enthusiastic at each Naming, rose in an exuberant swell when one parental pair, glowing with pride, took a male newchild and heard him named Caleb.

This new Caleb was a replacement child.

The couple had lost their first Caleb, a cheerful little Four.

Loss of a child was very, very rare.

The community was extraordinarily safe, each citizen watchful and protective of all children.

But somehow the first little Caleb had wandered away unnoticed, and had fallen into the river.

The entire community had performed the Ceremony of Loss together, murmuring the name Caleb throughout an entire day, less and less frequently, softer in volume, as the long and somber day went on, so that the little Four seemed to fade away gradually from everyone’s consciousness.

Now, at this special Naming, the community performed the brief Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony, repeating the name for the first time since the loss: softly and slowly at first, then faster and with greater volume, as the couple stood on the stage with the newchild sleeping in the mother’s arms.

It was as if the first Caleb were returning.

Another newchild was given the name Roberto, and Jonas remembered that Roberto the Old had been released only last week.

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But there was no Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony for the new little Roberto.

Release was not the same as Loss.

He sat politely through the ceremonies of Two and Three and Four, increasingly bored as he was each year.

Then a break for midday meal— served outdoors—and back again to the seats, for the Fives, Sixes, Sevens, and finally, last of the first day’s ceremonies, the Eights.

Jonas watched and cheered as Lily marched proudly to the stage, became an Eight and received the identifying jacket that she would wear this year, this one with smaller buttons and, for the first time, pockets, indicating that she was mature enough now to keep track of her own small belongings.

She stood solemnly listening to the speech of firm instructions on the responsibilities of Eight and doing volunteer hours for the first time.

But Jonas could see that Lily, though she seemed attentive, was looking longingly at the row of gleaming bicycles, which would be presented tomorrow morning to the Nines.

Next year, Lily-billy, Jonas thought.

It was an exhausting day, and even Gabriel, retrieved in his basket from the Nurturing Center, slept soundly that night.

Finally it was the morning of the Ceremony of Twelve.

Now Father sat beside Mother in the audience.

Jonas could see them applauding dutifully as the Nines, one by one, wheeled their new bicycles, each with its gleaming nametag attached to the back, from the stage.

He knew that his parents cringed a little, as he did, when Fritz, who lived in the dwelling next door to theirs, received his bike and almost immediately bumped into the podium with it.

Fritz was a very awkward child who had been summoned for chastisement again and again.

His transgressions were small ones, always: shoes on the wrong feet, schoolwork misplaced, failure to study adequately for a quiz.

But each such error reflected negatively on his parents’ guidance and infringed on the community’s sense of order and success.

Jonas and his family had not been looking forward to Fritz’s bicycle, which they realized would probably too often be dropped on the front walk instead of wheeled neatly into its port.

Finally the Nines were all resettled in their seats, each having wheeled a bicycle outside where it would be waiting for its owner at the end of the day.

Everyone always chuckled and made small jokes when the Nines rode home for the first time.

“Want me to show you how to ride?” older friends would call.

“I know you’ve never been on a bike before!”

But invariably the grinning Nines, who in technical violation of the rule had been practicing secretly for weeks, would mount and ride off in perfect balance, training wheels never touching the ground.

Then the Tens.

Jonas never found the Ceremony of Ten particularly interesting—only time-consuming, as each child’s hair was snipped neatly into its distinguishing cut: females lost their braids at Ten, and males, too, relinquished their long childish hair and took on the more manly short style which exposed their ears.

Laborers moved quickly to the stage with brooms and swept away the mounds of discarded hair.

Jonas could see the parents of the new Tens stir and murmur, and he knew that this evening, in many dwellings, they would be snipping and straightening the hastily done haircuts, trimming them into a neater line.

Elevens.

It seemed a short time ago that Jonas had undergone the Ceremony of Eleven, but he remembered that it was not one of the more interesting ones.

By Eleven, one was only waiting to be Twelve.

It was simply a marking of time with no meaningful changes.

There was new clothing: different undergarments for the females, whose bodies were beginning to change; and longer trousers for the males, with a specially shaped pocket for the small calculator that they would use this year in school; but those were simply presented in wrapped packages without an accompanying speech.

Break for midday meal.

Jonas realized he was hungry.

He and his groupmates congregated by the tables in front of the Auditorium and took their packaged food.

Yesterday there had been merriment at lunch, a lot of teasing and energy.

But today the group stood anxiously, separate from the other children.

Jonas watched the new Nines gravitate toward their waiting bicycles, each one admiring his or her nametag.

He saw the Tens stroking their new shortened hair, the females shaking their heads to feel the unaccustomed lightness without the heavy braids they had worn so long.

“I heard about a guy who was absolutely certain he was going to be assigned Engineer,” Asher muttered as they ate, “and instead they gave him Sanitation Laborer.

He went out the next day, jumped into the river, swam across, and joined the next community he came to.

Nobody ever saw him again.”

Jonas laughed.

“Somebody made that story up, Ash,” he said.

“My father said he heard that story when he was a Twelve.”

But Asher wasn’t reassured.

He was eyeing the river where it was visible behind the Auditorium.

“I can’t even swim very well,” he said.

“My swimming instructor said that I don’t have the right boyishness or something.”

“Buoyancy,” Jonas corrected him.

“Whatever.

I don’t have it.

I sink.”

“Anyway,” Jonas pointed out, “have you ever once known of anyone—I mean really known for sure, Asher, not just heard a story about it—who joined another community?”

“No,” Asher admitted reluctantly.

“But you can.

It says so in the rules.

If you don’t fit in, you can apply for Elsewhere and be released.

My mother says that once, about ten years ago, someone applied and was gone the next day.”

Then he chuckled.

“She told me that because I was driving her crazy.

She threatened to apply for Elsewhere.”

“She was joking.”

“I know.

But it was true, what she said, that someone did that once.

She said that it was really true.

Here today and gone tomorrow.

Never seen again.

Not even a Ceremony of Release.”

Jonas shrugged.

It didn’t worry him.

How could someone not fit in?

The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made.

Even the Matching of Spouses was given such weighty consideration that sometimes an adult who applied to receive a spouse waited months or even years before a Match was approved and announced.

All of the factors— disposition, energy level, intelligence, and interests—had to correspond and to interact perfectly.

Jonas’s mother, for example, had higher intelligence than his father; but his father had a calmer disposition.

They balanced each other.

Their Match, which like all Matches had been monitored by the Committee of Elders for three years before they could apply for children, had always been a successful one.

Like the Matching of Spouses and the Naming and Placement of newchildren, the Assignments were scrupulously thought through by the Committee of Elders.

He was certain that his Assignment, whatever it was to be, and Asher’s too, would be the right one for them.

He only wished that the midday break would conclude, that the audience would reenter the Auditorium, and the suspense would end.

As if in answer to his unspoken wish, the signal came and the crowd began to move toward the doors.

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CHAPTER VII.

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Now Jonas’s group had taken a new place in the Auditorium, trading with the new Elevens, so that they sat in the very front, immediately before the stage.

They were arranged by their original numbers, the numbers they had been given at birth.

The numbers were rarely used after the Naming.

But each child knew his number, of course.

Sometimes parents used them in irritation at a child’s misbehavior, indicating that mischief made one unworthy of a name.

Jonas always chuckled when he heard a parent, exasperated, call sharply to a whining toddler, “That’s enough, Twentythree!”

Jonas was Nineteen.

He had been the nineteenth newchild born his year.

It had meant that at his Naming, he had been already standing and brighteyed, soon to walk and talk.

It had given him a slight advantage the first year or two, a little more maturity than many of his groupmates who had been born in the later months of that year.

But it evened out, as it always did, by Three.

After Three, the children progressed at much the same level, though by their first number one could always tell who was a few months older than others in his group.

Technically, Jonas’s full number was Eleven-nineteen, since there were other Nineteens, of course, in each age group.

And today, now that the new Elevens had been advanced this morning, there were two Eleven-nineteens.

At the midday break he had exchanged smiles with the new one, a shy female named Harriet.

But the duplication was only for these few hours.

Very soon he would not be an Eleven but a Twelve, and age would no longer matter.

He would be an adult, like his parents, though a new one and untrained still.

Asher was Four, and sat now in the row ahead of Jonas.

He would receive his Assignment fourth.

Fiona, Eighteen, was on his left; on his other side sat Twenty, a male named Pierre whom Jonas didn’t like much.

Pierre was very serious, not much fun, and a worrier and tattletale, too.

“Have you checked the rules, Jonas?” Pierre was always whispering solemnly.

“I’m not sure that’s within the rules.”

Usually it was some foolish thing that no one cared about— opening his tunic if it was a day with a breeze; taking a brief try on a friend’s bicycle, just to experience the different feel of it.

The initial speech at the Ceremony of Twelve was made by the Chief Elder, the leader of the community who was elected every ten years.

The speech was much the same each year: recollection of the time of childhood and the period of preparation, the coming responsibilities of adult life, the profound importance of Assignment, the seriousness of training to come.

Then the Chief Elder moved ahead in her speech.

“This is the time,” she began, looking directly at them, “when we acknowledge differences.

You Elevens have spent all your years till now learning to fit in, to standardize your behavior, to curb any impulse that might set you apart from the group.

“But today we honor your differences.

They have determined your futures.”

She began to describe this year’s group and its variety of personalities, though she singled no one out by name.

She mentioned that there was one who had singular skills at caretaking, another who loved newchildren, one with unusual scientific aptitude, and a fourth for whom physical labor was an obvious pleasure.

Jonas shifted in his seat, trying to recognize each reference as one of his groupmates.

The caretaking skills were no doubt those of Fiona, on his left; he remembered noticing the tenderness with which she had bathed the Old.

Probably the one with scientific aptitude was Benjamin, the male who had devised new, important equipment for the Rehabilitation Center.

He heard nothing that he recognized as himself, Jonas.

Finally the Chief Elder paid tribute to the hard work of her committee, which had performed the observations so meticulously all year.

The Committee of Elders stood and was acknowledged by applause.

Jonas noticed Asher yawn slightly, covering his mouth politely with his hand.

Then, at last, the Chief Elder called number One to the stage, and the Assignments began.

Each announcement was lengthy, accompanied by a speech directed at the new Twelve.

Jonas tried to pay attention as One, smiling happily, received her Assignment as Fish Hatchery Attendant along with words of praise for her childhood spent doing many volunteer hours there, and her obvious interest in the important process of providing nourishment for the community.

Number One—her name was Madeline—returned, finally, amidst applause, to her seat, wearing the new badge that designated her Fish Hatchery Attendant.

Jonas was certainly glad that that Assignment was taken; he wouldn’t have wanted it.

But he gave Madeline a smile of congratulation.

When Two, a female named Inger, received her Assignment as Birthmother, Jonas remembered that his mother had called it a job without honor.

But he thought that the Committee had chosen well.

Inger was a nice girl though somewhat lazy, and her body was strong.

She would enjoy the three years of being pampered that would follow her brief training; she would give birth easily and well; and the task of Laborer that would follow would use her strength, keep her healthy, and impose self-discipline.

Inger was smiling when she resumed her seat.

Birthmother was an important job, if lacking in prestige.

Jonas noticed that Asher looked nervous.

He kept turning his head and glancing back at Jonas until the group leader had to give him a silent chastisement, a motion to sit still and face forward.

Three, Isaac, was given an Assignment as Instructor of Sixes, which obviously pleased him and was well deserved.

Now there were three Assignments gone, none of them ones that Jonas would have liked—not that he could have been a Birthmother, anyway, he realized with amusement.

He tried to sort through the list in his mind, the possible Assignments that remained.

But there were so many he gave it up; and anyway, now it was Asher’s turn.

He paid strict attention as his friend went to the stage and stood self-consciously beside the Chief Elder.

“All of us in the community know and enjoy Asher,” the Chief Elder began.

Asher grinned and scratched one leg with the other foot.

The audience chuckled softly.

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“When the committee began to consider Asher’s Assignment,” she went on, “there were some possibilities that were immediately discarded.

Some that would clearly not have been right for Asher.

“For example,” she said, smiling, “we did not consider for an instant designating Asher an Instructor of Threes.”

The audience howled with laughter.

Asher laughed, too, looking sheepish but pleased at the special attention.

The Instructors of Threes were in charge of the acquisition of correct language.

“In fact,” the Chief Elder continued, chuckling a little herself, “we even gave a little thought to some retroactive chastisement for the one who had been Asher’s Instructor of Threes so long ago.

At the meeting where Asher was discussed, we retold many of the stories that we all remembered from his days of language acquisition.

“Especially,” she said, chuckling, “the difference between snack and smack.

Remember, Asher?”

Asher nodded ruefully, and the audience laughed aloud.

Jonas did, too.

He remembered, though he had been only a Three at the time himself.

The punishment used for small children was a regulated system of smacks with the discipline wand: a thin, flexible weapon that stung painfully when it was wielded.

The Childcare specialists were trained very carefully in the discipline methods: a quick smack across the hands for a bit of minor misbehavior; three sharper smacks on the bare legs for a second offense.

Poor Asher, who always talked too fast and mixed up words, even as a toddler.

As a Three, eager for his juice and crackers at snacktime, he one day said “smack” instead of “snack” as he stood waiting in line for the morning treat.

Jonas remembered it clearly.

He could still see little Asher, wiggling with impatience in the line.

He remembered the cheerful voice call out, “I want my smack!”

The other Threes, including Jonas, had laughed nervously.

“Snack!” they corrected.

“You meant snack, Asher!”

But the mistake had been made.

And precision of language was one of the most important tasks of small children.

Asher had asked for a smack.

The discipline wand, in the hand of the Childcare worker, whistled as it came down across Asher’s hands.

Asher whimpered, cringed, and corrected himself instantly.

“Snack,” he whispered.

But the next morning he had done it again.

And again the following week.

He couldn’t seem to stop, though for each lapse the discipline wand came again, escalating to a series of painful lashes that left marks on Asher’s legs.

Eventually, for a period of time, Asher stopped talking altogether, when he was a Three.

“For a while,” the Chief Elder said, relating the story, “we had a silent Asher!

But he learned.”

She turned to him with a smile.

“When he began to talk again, it was with greater precision.

And now his lapses are very few.

His corrections and apologies are very prompt.

And his good humor is unfailing.”

The audience murmured in agreement.

Asher’s cheerful disposition was well-known throughout the community.

“Asher.”

She lifted her voice to make the official announcement.

“We have given you the Assignment of Assistant Director of Recreation.”

She clipped on his new badge as he stood beside her, beaming.

Then he turned and left the stage as the audience cheered.

When he had taken his seat again, the Chief Elder looked down at him and said the words that she had said now four times, and would say to each new Twelve.

Somehow she gave it special meaning for each of them.

“Asher,” she said, “thank you for your childhood.”

The Assignments continued, and Jonas watched and listened, relieved now by the wonderful Assignment his best friend had been given.

But he was more and more apprehensive as his own approached.

Now the new Twelves in the row ahead had all received their badges.

They were fingering them as they sat, and Jonas knew that each one was thinking about the training that lay ahead.

For some—one studious male had been selected as Doctor, a female as Engineer, and another for Law and Justice—it would be years of hard work and study.

Others, like Laborers and Birthmothers, would have a much shorter training period.

Eighteen, Fiona, on his left, was called.

Jonas knew she must be nervous, but Fiona was a calm female.

She had been sitting quietly, serenely, throughout the Ceremony.

Even the applause, though enthusiastic, seemed serene when Fiona was given the important Assignment of Caretaker of the Old.

It was perfect for such a sensitive, gentle girl, and her smile was satisfied and pleased when she took her seat beside him again.

Jonas prepared himself to walk to the stage when the applause ended and the Chief Elder picked up the next folder and looked down to the group to call forward the next new Twelve.

He was calm now that his turn had come.

He took a deep breath and smoothed his hair with his hand.

“Twenty,” he heard her voice say clearly.

“Pierre.”

She skipped me, Jonas thought, stunned.

Had he heard wrong?

No.

There was a sudden hush in the crowd, and he knew that the entire community realized that the Chief Elder had moved from Eighteen to Twenty, leaving a gap.

On his right, Pierre, with a startled look, rose from his seat and moved to the stage.

A mistake.

She made a mistake.

But Jonas knew, even as he had the thought, that she hadn’t.

The Chief Elder made no mistakes.

Not at the Ceremony of Twelve.

He felt dizzy, and couldn’t focus his attention.

He didn’t hear what Assignment Pierre received, and was only dimly aware of the applause as the boy returned, wearing his new badge.

Then: Twenty-one.

Twenty-two.

The numbers continued in order.

Jonas sat, dazed, as they moved into the Thirties and then the Forties, nearing the end.

Each time, at each announcement, his heart jumped for a moment, and he thought wild thoughts.

Perhaps now she would call his name.

Could he have forgotten his own number?

No.

He had always been Nineteen.

He was sitting in the seat marked Nineteen.

But she had skipped him.

He saw the others in his group glance at him, embarrassed, and then avert their eyes quickly.

He saw a worried look on the face of his group leader.

He hunched his shoulders and tried to make himself smaller in the seat.

He wanted to disappear, to fade away, not to exist.

He didn’t dare to turn and find his parents in the crowd.

He couldn’t bear to see their faces darkened with shame.

Jonas bowed his head and searched through his mind.

What had he done wrong?

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CHAPTER VIII.

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The audience was clearly ill at ease.

They applauded at the final Assignment; but the applause was piecemeal, no longer a crescendo of united enthusiasm.

There were murmurs of confusion.

Jonas moved his hands together, clapping, but it was an automatic, meaningless gesture that he wasn’t even aware of.

His mind had shut out all of the earlier emotions: the anticipation, excitement, pride, and even the happy kinship with his friends.

Now he felt only humiliation and terror.

The Chief Elder waited until the uneasy applause subsided.

Then she spoke again.

“I know,” she said in her vibrant, gracious voice, “that you are all concerned.

That you feel I have made a mistake.”

She smiled.

The community, relieved from its discomfort very slightly by her benign statement, seemed to breathe more easily.

It was very silent.

Jonas looked up.

“I have caused you anxiety,” she said.

“I apologize to my community.”

Her voice flowed over the assembled crowd.

“We accept your apology,” they all uttered together.

“Jonas,” she said, looking down at him, “I apologize to you in particular.

I caused you anguish.”

“I accept your apology,” Jonas replied shakily.

“Please come to the stage now.”

Earlier that day, dressing in his own dwelling, he had practiced the kind of jaunty, self-assured walk that he hoped he could make to the stage when his turn came.

All of that was forgotten now.

He simply willed himself to stand, to move his feet that felt weighted and clumsy, to go forward, up the steps and across the platform until he stood at her side.

Reassuringly she placed her arm across his tense shoulders.

“Jonas has not been assigned,” she informed the crowd, and his heart sank.

Then she went on.

“Jonas has been selected.”

He blinked.

What did that mean?

He felt a collective, questioning stir from the audience.

They, too, were puzzled.

In a firm, commanding voice she announced, “Jonas has been selected to be our next Receiver of Memory.”

Then he heard the gasp—the sudden intake of breath, drawn sharply in astonishment, by each of the seated citizens.

He saw their faces; the eyes widened in awe.

And still he did not understand.

“Such a selection is very, very rare,” the Chief Elder told the audience.

“Our community has only one Receiver.

It is he who trains his successor.

“We have had our current Receiver for a very long time,” she went on.

Jonas followed her eyes and saw that she was looking at one of the Elders.

The Committee of Elders was sitting together in a group; and the Chief Elder’s eyes were now on one who sat in the midst but seemed oddly separate from them.

It was a man Jonas had never noticed before, a bearded man with pale eyes.

He was watching Jonas intently.

“We failed in our last selection,” the Chief Elder said solemnly.

“It was ten years ago, when Jonas was just a toddler.

I will not dwell on the experience because it causes us all terrible discomfort.”

Jonas didn’t know what she was referring to, but he could sense the discomfort of the audience.

They shifted uneasily in their seats.

“We have not been hasty this time,” she continued.

“We could not afford another failure.”

“Sometimes,” she went on, speaking now in a lighter tone, relaxing the tension in the Auditorium, “we are not entirely certain about the Assignments, even after the most painstaking observations.

Sometimes we worry that the one assigned might not develop, through training, every attribute necessary.

Elevens are still children, after all.

What we observe as playfulness and patience—the requirements to become Nurturer—could, with maturity, be revealed as simply foolishness and indolence.

So we continue to observe during training, and to modify behavior when necessary.

“But the Receiver-in-training cannot be observed, cannot be modified.

That is stated quite clearly in the rules.

He is to be alone, apart, while he is prepared by the current Receiver for the job which is the most honored in our community.”

Alone?

Apart?

Jonas listened with increasing unease.

“Therefore the selection must be sound.

It must be a unanimous choice of the Committee.

They can have no doubts, however fleeting.

If, during the process, an Elder reports a dream of uncertainty, that dream has the power to set a candidate aside instantly.

“Jonas was identified as a possible Receiver many years ago.

We have observed him meticulously.

There were no dreams of uncertainty.

“He has shown all of the qualities that a Receiver must have.”

With her hand still firmly on his shoulder, the Chief Elder listed the qualities.

“Intelligence,” she said.

“We are all aware that Jonas has been a top student throughout his school days.

“Integrity,” she said next.

“Jonas has, like all of us, committed minor transgressions.”

She smiled at him.

“We expect that.

We hoped, also, that he would present himself promptly for chastisement, and he has always done so.

“Courage,” she went on.

“Only one of us here today has ever undergone the rigorous training required of a Receiver.

He, of course, is the most important member of the Committee: the current Receiver.

It was he who reminded us, again and again, of the courage required.

“Jonas,” she said, turning to him, but speaking in a voice that the entire community could hear, “the training required of you involves pain.

Physical pain.”

He felt fear flutter within him.

“You have never experienced that.

Yes, you have scraped your knees in falls from your bicycle.

Yes, you crushed your finger in a door last year.”

Jonas nodded, agreeing, as he recalled the incident, and its accompanying misery.

“But you will be faced, now,” she explained gently, “with pain of a magnitude that none of us here can comprehend because it is beyond our experience.

The Receiver himself was not able to describe it, only to remind us that you would be faced with it, that you would need immense courage.

We cannot prepare you for that.

“But we feel certain that you are brave,” she said to him.

He did not feel brave at all.

Not now.

“The fourth essential attribute,” the Chief Elder said, “is wisdom.

Jonas has not yet acquired that.

The acquisition of wisdom will come through his training.

“We are convinced that Jonas has the ability to acquire wisdom.

That is what we looked for.

“Finally, The Receiver must have one more quality, and it is one which I can only name, but not describe.

I do not understand it.

You members of the community will not understand it, either.

Perhaps Jonas will, because the current Receiver has told us that Jonas already has this quality.

He calls it the Capacity to See Beyond.”

The Chief Elder looked at Jonas with a question in her eyes.

The audience watched him, too.

They were silent.

For a moment he froze, consumed with despair.

He didn’t have it, the whatever-she-had-said.

He didn’t know what it was.

Now was the moment when he would have to confess, to say, “No, I don’t.

I can’t,” and throw himself on their mercy, ask their forgiveness, to explain that he had been wrongly chosen, that he was not the right one at all.

But when he looked out across the crowd, the sea of faces, the thing happened again.

The thing that had happened with the apple.

They changed.

He blinked, and it was gone.

His shoulders straightened slightly.

Briefly he felt a tiny sliver of sureness for the first time.

She was still watching him.

They all were.

“I think it’s true,” he told the Chief Elder and the community.

“I don’t understand it yet.

I don’t know what it is.

But sometimes I see something.

And maybe it’s beyond.”

She took her arm from his shoulders.

“Jonas,” she said, speaking not to him alone but to the entire community of which he was a part, “you will be trained to be our next Receiver of Memory.

We thank you for your childhood.”

Then she turned and left the stage, left him there alone, standing and facing the crowd, which began spontaneously the collective murmur of his name.

“Jonas.”

It was a whisper at first: hushed, barely audible.

“Jonas.

Jonas.”

Then louder, faster.

“JONAS.

JONAS.

JONAS.”

With the chant, Jonas knew, the community was accepting him and his new role, giving him life, the way they had given it to the newchild Caleb.

His heart swelled with gratitude and pride.

But at the same time he was filled with fear.

He did not know what his selection meant.

He did not know what he was to become.

Or what would become of him.

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CHAPTER IX.

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Now, for the first time in his twelve years of life, Jonas felt separate, different.

He remembered what the Chief Elder had said: that his training would be alone and apart.

But his training had not yet begun and already, upon leaving the Auditorium, he felt the apartness.

Holding the folder she had given him, he made his way through the throng, looking for his family unit and for Asher.

People moved aside for him.

They watched him.

He thought he could hear whispers.

“Ash!” he called, spotting his friend near the rows of bicycles.

“Ride back with me?”

“Sure.”

Asher smiled, his usual smile, friendly and familiar.

But Jonas felt a moment of hesitation from his friend, an uncertainty.

“Congratulations,” Asher said.

“You too,” Jonas replied.

“It was really funny, when she told about the smacks.

You got more applause than almost anybody else.”

The other new Twelves clustered nearby, placing their folders carefully into the carrying containers on the backs of the bikes.

In each dwelling tonight they would be studying the instructions for the beginning of their training.

Each night for years the children had memorized the required lessons for school, often yawning with boredom.

Tonight they would all begin eagerly to memorize the rules for their adult Assignments.

“Congratulations, Asher!” someone called.

Then that hesitation again.

“You too, Jonas!”

Asher and Jonas responded with congratulations to their groupmates.

Jonas saw his parents watching him from the place where their own bicycles were waiting.

Lily had already been strapped into her seat.

He waved.

They waved back, smiling, but he noticed that Lily was watching him solemnly, her thumb in her mouth.

He rode directly to his dwelling, exchanging only small jokes and unimportant remarks with Asher.

“See you in the morning, Recreation Director!” he called, dismounting by his door as Asher continued on.

“Right!

See you!” Asher called back.

Once again, there was just a moment when things weren’t quite the same, weren’t quite as they had always been through the long friendship.

Perhaps he had imagined it.

Things couldn’t change, with Asher.

The evening meal was quieter than usual.

Lily chattered about her plans for volunteer work; she would begin, she said, at the Nurturing Center, since she was already an expert at feeding Gabriel.

“I know,” she added quickly, when her father gave her a warning glance, “I won’t mention his name.

I know I’m not supposed to know his name.

“I can’t wait for tomorrow to come,” she said happily.

Jonas sighed uneasily.

“I can,” he muttered.

“You’ve been greatly honored,” his mother said.

“Your father and I are very proud.”

“It’s the most important job in the community,” Father said.

“But just the other night, you said that the job of making Assignments was the most important!”

Mother nodded.

“This is different.

It’s not a job, really.

I never thought, never expected—” She paused.

“There’s only one Receiver.”

“But the Chief Elder said that they had made a selection before, and that it failed.

What was she talking about?”

Both of his parents hesitated.

Finally his father described the previous selection.

“It was very much as it was today, Jonas—the same suspense, as one Eleven had been passed over when the Assignments were given.

Then the announcement, when they singled out the one—”

Jonas interrupted.

“What was his name?”

His mother replied, “Her, not his.

It was a female.

But we are never to speak the name, or to use it again for a newchild.”

Jonas was shocked.

A name designated Not-to-Be-Spoken indicated the highest degree of disgrace.

“What happened to her?” he asked nervously.

But his parents looked blank.

“We don’t know,” his father said uncomfortably.

“We never saw her again.”

A silence fell over the room.

They looked at each other.

Finally his mother, rising from the table, said, “You’ve been greatly honored, Jonas.

Greatly honored.”

Alone in his sleepingroom, prepared for bed, Jonas opened his folder at last.

Some of the other Twelves, he had noticed, had been given folders thick with printed pages.

He imagined Benjamin, the scientific male in his group, beginning to read pages of rules and instructions with relish.

He pictured Fiona smiling her gentle smile as she bent over the lists of duties and methods that she would be required to learn in the days to come.

But his own folder was startlingly close to empty.

Inside there was only a single printed sheet.

He read it twice.

RECEIVER OF MEMORY

1. Go immediately at the end of school hours each day to the Annex entrance behind the House of the Old and present yourself to the attendant.

2. Go immediately to your dwelling at the conclusion of Training Hours each day.

3. From this moment you are exempted from rules governing rudeness.

You may ask any question of any citizen and you will receive answers.

4. Do not discuss your training with any other member of the community, including parents and Elders.

5. From this moment you are prohibited from dream-telling.

6. Except for illness or injury unrelated to your training, do not apply for any medication.

7. You are not permitted to apply for release.

8. You may lie.

Jonas was stunned.

What would happen to his friendships?

His mindless hours playing ball, or riding his bike along the river?

Those had been happy and vital times for him.

Were they to be completely taken from him, now?

The simple logistic instructions—where to go, and when—were expected.

Every Twelve had to be told, of course, where and how and when to report for training.

But he was a little dismayed that his schedule left no time, apparently, for recreation.

The exemption from rudeness startled him.

Reading it again, however, he realized that it didn’t compel him to be rude; it simply allowed him the option.

He was quite certain he would never take advantage of it.

He was so completely, so thoroughly accustomed to courtesy within the community that the thought of asking another citizen an intimate question, of calling someone’s attention to an area of awkwardness, was unnerving.

The prohibition of dream-telling, he thought, would not be a real problem.

He dreamed so rarely that the dream-telling did not come easily to him anyway, and he was glad to be excused from it.

He wondered briefly, though, how to deal with it at the morning meal.

What if he did dream— should he simply tell his family unit, as he did so often, anyway, that he hadn’t?

That would be a lie.

Still, the final rule said . . . well, he wasn’t quite ready to think about the final rule on the page.

The restriction of medication unnerved him.

Medication was always available to citizens, even to children, through their parents.

When he had crushed his finger in the door, he had quickly, gasping into the speaker, notified his mother; she had hastily requisitioned relief-of-pain medication which had promptly been delivered to his dwelling.

Almost instantly the excruciating pain in his hand had diminished to the throb which was, now, all he could recall of the experience.

Re-reading rule number 6, he realized that a crushed finger fell into the category of “unrelated to training.”

So if it ever happened again—and he was quite certain it wouldn’t; he had been very careful near heavy doors since the accident!—he could still receive medication.

The pill he took now, each morning, was also unrelated to training.

So he would continue to receive the pill.

But he remembered uneasily what the Chief Elder had said about the pain that would come with his training.

She had called it indescribable.

Jonas swallowed hard, trying without success to imagine what such pain might be like, with no medication at all.

But it was beyond his comprehension.

He felt no reaction to rule number 7 at all.

It had never occurred to him that under any circumstances, ever, he might apply for release.

Finally he steeled himself to read the final rule again.

He had been trained since earliest childhood, since his earliest learning of language, never to lie.

It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech.

Once, when he had been a Four, he had said, just prior to the midday meal at school, “I’m starving.”

Immediately he had been taken aside for a brief private lesson in language precision.

He was not starving, it was pointed out.

He was hungry.

No one in the community was starving, had ever been starving, would ever be starving.

To say “starving” was to speak a lie.

An unintentioned lie, of course.

But the reason for precision of language was to ensure that unintentional lies were never uttered.

Did he understand that? they asked him.

And he had.

He had never, within his memory, been tempted to lie.

Asher did not lie.

Lily did not lie.

His parents did not lie.

No one did.

Unless . . .

Now Jonas had a thought that he had never had before.

This new thought was frightening.

What if others—adults—had, upon becoming Twelves, received in their instructions the same terrifying sentence?

What if they had all been instructed: You may lie?

His mind reeled.

Now, empowered to ask questions of utmost rudeness— and promised answers—he could, conceivably (though it was almost unimaginable), ask someone, some adult, his father perhaps: “Do you lie?”

But he would have no way of knowing if the answer he received were true.

----------------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER X.

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“I go in here, Jonas,” Fiona told him when they reached the front door of the House of the Old after parking their bicycles in the designated area.

“I don’t know why I’m nervous,” she confessed.

“I’ve been here so often before.”

She turned her folder over in her hands.

“Well, everything’s different now,” Jonas reminded her.

“Even the nameplates on our bikes,” Fiona laughed.

During the night the nameplate of each new Twelve had been removed by the Maintenance Crew and replaced with the style that indicated citizen-in-training.

“I don’t want to be late,” she said hastily, and started up the steps.

“If we finish at the same time, I’ll ride home with you.”

Jonas nodded, waved to her, and headed around the building toward the Annex, a small wing attached to the back.

He certainly didn’t want to be late for his first day of training, either.

The Annex was very ordinary, its door unremarkable.

He reached for the heavy handle, then noticed a buzzer on the wall.

So he buzzed instead.

“Yes?”

The voice came through a small speaker above the buzzer.

“It’s, uh, Jonas.

I’m the new—I mean —”

“Come in.”

A click indicated that the door had been unlatched.

The lobby was very small and contained only a desk at which a female Attendant sat working on some papers.

She looked up when he entered; then, to his surprise, she stood.

It was a small thing, the standing; but no one had ever stood automatically to acknowledge Jonas’s presence before.

“Welcome, Receiver of Memory,” she said respectfully.

“Oh, please,” he replied uncomfortably.

“Call me Jonas.”

She smiled, pushed a button, and he heard a click that unlocked the door to her left.

“You may go right on in,” she told him.

Then she seemed to notice his discomfort and to realize its origin.

No doors in the community were locked, ever.

None that Jonas knew of, anyway.

“The locks are simply to insure The Receiver’s privacy because he needs concentration,” she explained.

“It would be difficult if citizens wandered in, looking for the Department of Bicycle Repair, or something.”

Jonas laughed, relaxing a little.

The woman seemed very friendly, and it was true—in fact it was a joke throughout the community—that the Department of Bicycle Repair, an unimportant little office, was relocated so often that no one ever knew where it was.

“There is nothing dangerous here,” she told him.

“But,” she added, glancing at the wall clock, “he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Jonas hurried through the door and found himself in a comfortably furnished living area.

It was not unlike his own family unit’s dwelling.

Furniture was standard throughout the community: practical, sturdy, the function of each piece clearly defined.

A bed for sleeping.

A table for eating.

A desk for studying.

All of those things were in this spacious room, though each was slightly different from those in his own dwelling.

The fabrics on the upholstered chairs and sofa were slightly thicker and more luxurious; the table legs were not straight like those at home, but slender and curved, with a small carved decoration at the foot.

The bed, in an alcove at the far end of the room, was draped with a splendid cloth embroidered over its entire surface with intricate designs.

But the most conspicuous difference was the books.

In his own dwelling, there were the necessary reference volumes that each household contained: a dictionary, and the thick community volume which contained descriptions of every office, factory, building, and committee.

And the Book of Rules, of course.

The books in his own dwelling were the only books that Jonas had ever seen.

He had never known that other books existed.

But this room’s walls were completely covered by bookcases, filled, which reached to the ceiling.

There must have been hundreds—perhaps thousands—of books, their titles embossed in shiny letters.

Jonas stared at them.

He couldn’t imagine what the thousands of pages contained.

Could there be rules beyond the rules that governed the community?

Could there be more descriptions of offices and factories and committees?

He had only a second to look around because he was aware that the man sitting in a chair beside the table was watching him.

Hastily he moved forward, stood before the man, bowed slightly, and said, “I’m Jonas.”

“I know.

Welcome, Receiver of Memory.”

Jonas recognized the man.

He was the Elder who had seemed separate from the others at the Ceremony, though he was dressed in the same special clothing that only Elders wore.

Jonas looked self-consciously into the pale eyes that mirrored his own.

“Sir, I apologize for my lack of understanding . . .”

He waited, but the man did not give the standard accepting-of-apology response.

After a moment, Jonas went on, “But I thought—I mean I think,” he corrected, reminding himself that if precision of language were ever to be important, it was certainly important now, in the presence of this man, “that you are the Receiver of Memory.

I’m only, well, I was only assigned, I mean selected, yesterday.

I’m not anything at all.

Not yet.”

The man looked at him thoughtfully, silently.

It was a look that combined interest, curiosity, concern, and perhaps a little sympathy as well.

Finally he spoke.

“Beginning today, this moment, at least to me, you are The Receiver.

“I have been The Receiver for a long time.

A very, very long time.

You can see that, can’t you?”

Jonas nodded.

The man was wrinkled, and his eyes, though piercing in their unusual lightness, seemed tired.

The flesh around them was darkened into shadowed circles.

“I can see that you are very old,” Jonas responded with respect.

The Old were always given the highest respect.

The man smiled.

He touched the sagging flesh on his own face with amusement.

“I am not, actually, as old as I look,” he told Jonas.

“This job has aged me.

I know I look as if I should be scheduled for release very soon.

But actually I have a good deal of time left.

“I was pleased, though, when you were selected.

It took them a long time.

The failure of the previous selection was ten years ago, and my energy is starting to diminish.

I need what strength I have remaining for your training.

We have hard and painful work to do, you and I.

“Please sit down,” he said, and gestured toward the nearby chair.

Jonas lowered himself onto the soft cushioned seat.

The man closed his eyes and continued speaking.

“When I became a Twelve, I was selected, as you were.

I was frightened, as I’m sure you are.”

He opened his eyes for a moment and peered at Jonas, who nodded.

The eyes closed again.

“I came to this very room to begin my training.

It was such a long time ago.

“The previous Receiver seemed just as old to me as I do to you.

He was just as tired as I am today.”

He sat forward suddenly, opened his eyes, and said, “You may ask questions.

I have so little experience in describing this process.

It is forbidden to talk of it.”

“I know, sir.

I have read the instructions,” Jonas said.

“So I may neglect to make things as clear as I should.”

The man chuckled.

“My job is important and has enormous honor.

But that does not mean I am perfect, and when I tried before to train a successor, I failed.

Please ask any questions that will help you.”

In his mind, Jonas had questions.

A thousand.

A million questions.

As many questions as there were books lining the walls.

But he did not ask one, not yet.

The man sighed, seeming to put his thoughts in order.

Then he spoke again.

“Simply stated,” he said, “although it’s not really simple at all, my job is to transmit to you all the memories I have within me.

Memories of the past.”

“Sir,” Jonas said tentatively, “I would be very interested to hear the story of your life, and to listen to your memories.

“I apologize for interrupting,” he added quickly.

The man waved his hand impatiently.

“No apologies in this room.

We haven’t time.”

“Well,” Jonas went on, uncomfortably aware that he might be interrupting again, “I am really interested, I don’t mean that I’m not.

But I don’t exactly understand why it’s so important.

I could do some adult job in the community, and in my recreation time I could come and listen to the stories from your childhood.

I’d like that.

Actually,” he added, “I’ve done that already, in the House of the Old.

The Old like to tell about their childhoods, and it’s always fun to listen.”

The man shook his head.

“No, no,” he said.

“I’m not being clear.

It’s not my past, not my childhood that I must transmit to you.”

He leaned back, resting his head against the back of the upholstered chair.

“It’s the memories of the whole world,” he said with a sigh.

“Before you, before me, before the previous Receiver, and generations before him.”

Jonas frowned.

“The whole world?” he asked.

“I don’t understand.

Do you mean not just us?

Not just the community?

Do you mean Elsewhere, too?”

He tried, in his mind, to grasp the concept.

“I’m sorry, sir.

I don’t understand exactly.

Maybe I’m not smart enough.

I don’t know what you mean when you say ‘the whole world’ or ‘generations before him.’

I thought there was only us.

I thought there was only now.”

“There’s much more.

There’s all that goes beyond—all that is Elsewhere —and all that goes back, and back, and back.

I received all of those, when I was selected.

And here in this room, all alone, I re-experience them again and again.

It is how wisdom comes.

And how we shape our future.”

He rested for a moment, breathing deeply.

“I am so weighted with them,” he said.

Jonas felt a terrible concern for the man, suddenly.

“It’s as if . . .” The man paused, seeming to search his mind for the right words of description.

“It’s like going downhill through deep snow on a sled,” he said, finally.

“At first it’s exhilarating: the speed; the sharp, clear air; but then the snow accumulates, builds up on the runners, and you slow, you have to push hard to keep going, and —”

He shook his head suddenly, and peered at Jonas.

“That meant nothing to you, did it?” he asked.

Jonas was confused.

“I didn’t understand it, sir.”

“Of course you didn’t.

You don’t know what snow is, do you?”

Jonas shook his head.

“Or a sled?

Runners?”

“No, sir,” Jonas said.

“Downhill?

The term means nothing to you?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Well, it’s a place to start.

I’d been wondering how to begin.

Move to the bed, and lie face down.

Remove your tunic first.”

Jonas did so, a little apprehensively.

Beneath his bare chest, he felt the soft folds of the magnificent cloth that covered the bed.

He watched as the man rose and moved first to the wall where the speaker was.

It was the same sort of speaker that occupied a place in every dwelling, but one thing about it was different.

This one had a switch, which the man deftly snapped to the end that said OFF.

Jonas almost gasped aloud.

To have the power to turn the speaker off!

It was an astonishing thing.

Then the man moved with surprising quickness to the corner where the bed was.

He sat on a chair beside Jonas, who was motionless, waiting for what would happen next.

“Close your eyes.

Relax.

This will not be painful.”

Jonas remembered that he was allowed, that he had even been encouraged, to ask questions.

“What are you going to do, sir?” he asked, hoping that his voice didn’t betray his nervousness.

“I am going to transmit the memory of snow,” the old man said, and placed his hands on Jonas’s bare back.