A Place so Foreign | Page 8

robutler apart, just to get a look at how it was all put together,
but it was a lost cause -- I couldn't even figure out how to get the cover off.
I walked through the cool dark, the only light coming from the grimy attic window, and
fondled each piece. I picked up an oilcan and started oiling the joints and bearings and
axles of each machine in turn. Pa would have wanted to know that everything was in
good working order.
#
"I think you should be going to school, James," Mama said, at breakfast. I'd already done
my morning chores, bringing in the coal, chopping kindling, taking care of the
milch-cows and making my bed.
I took another forkful of sausage, and a spoonful of mush, chewed, and looked at my
plate.
"It's time, it's time. You can't spend the rest of your life sulking around here. Your father
would have wanted us to get on with our lives."
Even though I wasn't looking at her when she said this, I knew that her eyes were bright
with tears, the way they always got when she mentioned Pa. His chair sat, empty, at the
head of the table. I had another bite of sausage.
"James Arthur Nicholson! Look at me when I speak to you!"

I looked up, reflexively, as I always did when she used my full name. My eyes slid over
her face, then focused on a point over her left shoulder.
"Yes'm."
"You're going to school. Today. And I expect to get a good report from Mr Adelson."
"Yes'm."
#
We have two schools in New Jerusalem: the elementary school that was built twenty
years before, when they put in the wooden sidewalks and the town hall; and the
non-denominational Academy that was built just before I left for 1975.
Miss Tannenbaum, a spinster lady with a moustache and a bristling German accent
terrorised the little kids in the elementary school -- I'd been stuck in her class for five
long years. Mr Adelson, who was raised in San Francisco and who had worked as a
roustabout, a telegraph operator and a merchant seaman taught the Academy, and his
wild stories were all Oly could talk about.
He raised one eyebrow quizzically when I came through the door at 8:00 that morning.
He was tall, like my Pa, but Pa had been as big as an ox, and Mr Adelson was thin and
wiry. He wore rumpled pants and a shirt with a wilted celluloid collar. He had a skinny
little beard that made him look like a gentleman pirate, and used some shiny pomade to
grease his hair straight back from his high forehead. I caught him reading, thumbing the
hand-written pages of a leatherbound volume.
"Mr Adelson?"
"Why, James Nicholson! What can I do for you, sonny?" New Jerusalem only had but
2,000 citizens, and only a hundred or so in town proper, so of course he knew who I was,
but it surprised me to hear him pronounce my name in his creaky, weatherbeaten voice.
"My mother says I have to go to the Academy."
"She does, hey? How do you feel about that?"
I snuck a look at his face to see if he was putting me on, but I couldn't tell -- he'd raised
up his other eyebrow now, and was looking hard at me. There might have been the
beginning of a smile on his face, but it was hard to tell with the beard. "I guess it don't
matter how I feel."
"Oh, I don't know about that. This is a school, not a prison, after all. How old are you?"
"Fourteen. Sir."
"That would put you in with the seniors. Do you think you can handle their course of

study? It's half-way through the semester now, and I don't know how much they taught
you when you were over in," he swallowed, "France."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just stared at my hard, uncomfortable shoes.
"How are your maths? Have you studied geometry? Basic algebra?"
"Yes, sir. They taught us all that." And lots more besides. I had the feeling of icebergs of
knowledge floating in my brain, ready to crest the waves and crash against the walls of
my skull.
"Very good. We will be studying maths today in the seniors' class. We'll see how you do.
Is that all right?"
Again, I didn't know if he was really asking, so I just said, "Yes, sir."
"Marvelous. We'll see you at the 8:30 bell, then. And James --" he paused, waited until I
met his gaze. His eyebrows were at rest. "I'm sorry about your father. I'd met him several
times. He was a good man."
"Thank you, sir," I said, unable