Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [27]
“Here?” said the boy.
The old man looked about himself. “No—just a little farther.” He pointed. “There—see through there? We can see the church from here.” The black skeleton of a burned steeple was framed against a square of sky between two trunks on the edge of the forest. “But listen—hear that? Water. There’s a brook up above, and we can get down in its little valley and see nothing but treetops and sky.”
“All right,” said the boy. “I like this place, but all right.” He looked at the steeple, then at the old man, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“You’ll see—you’ll see how much better,” said the old man.
As they reached the top of the ridge, he gestured happily at the brook below. “There! And what do you think of this? Eden! As it was in the beginning—trees, sky, and water. This is the world you should have had, and today, at least, you can have it.”
“And look!” said the boy, pointing to the ridge on the other side.
A huge tank, rusted to the color of the fallen pine needles, squatted on shattered treads on the ridge, with scabs of corrosion about the black hole where its gun had once been.
“How can we cross the water to get to it?” said the boy.
“We don’t want to get to it,” said the old man irritably. He held the boy’s hand tightly. “Not today. Some other day we can come out here, maybe. But not today.”
The boy was crestfallen. His small hand grew limp in the old man’s.
“Here’s a bend up ahead, and around that we’ll find exactly what we want.”
The boy said nothing. He snatched up a rock, and threw it at the tank. As the little missile fell toward the target, he tensed, as though the whole world were about to explode. A faint click came from the turret, and he relaxed, somehow satisfied. Docilely, he followed the old man.
Around the bend, they found what the old man had been looking for: a smooth, dry table of rock, out by the stream, walled in by high banks. The old man stretched out on the moss, affectionately patted the spot beside him, where he wanted the boy to sit. He unwrapped his lunch.
After lunch, the boy fidgeted. “It’s very quiet,” he said at last.
“It’s as it should be,” said the old man. “One corner of the world—as it should be.”
“It’s lonely.”
“That’s its beauty.”
“I like it better in the city, with the soldiers and—”
The old man seized his arm roughly, squeezed it hard. “No you don’t. You just don’t know. You’re too young, too young to know what this is, what I’m trying to give you. But, when you’re older, you’ll remember, and want to come back here—long after your little cart is broken.”
“I don’t want my cart to be broken,” said the boy.
“It won’t, it won’t. But just lie here, close your eyes and listen, and forget about everything. This much I can give you—a few hours away from war.” He closed his eyes.
The boy lay down beside him, and dutifully closed his eyes, too.
The sun was low in the sky when the old man awakened. He ached and felt damp from his long nap by the brook. He yawned and stretched. “Time to go,” he said, his eyes still closed. “Our day of peace is over.” And then he saw that the boy was gone. He called the boy’s name unconcernedly at first; and then, getting no answer but the wind’s, he stood and shouted.
Panic welled up in him. The boy had never been in the woods before, could easily get lost if he were to wander north, deeper into the hills and forest. He climbed onto higher ground and shouted again. No answer.
Perhaps the boy had gone down to the tank again, and tried to cross the stream. He couldn’t swim. The old man hurried downstream, around the bend to where he could see the tank. The ugly relic gaped at him balefully from across the cut. Nothing moved, and there was only the sound of wind and the water.