The Giver - Lois Lowry [33]
"Giver," Jonas asked as he arranged himself again on the bed, "how did it happen to you when you were becoming The Receiver? You said that the seeing-beyond happened to you, but not the same way."
The hands came to his back. "Another day," The Giver said gently. "I'll tell you another day. Now we must work. And I've thought of a way to help you with the concept of color.
"Close your eyes and be still, now. I'm going to give you a memory of a rainbow."
13
Days went by, and weeks. Jonas learned, through the memories, the names of colors; and now he began to see them all, in his ordinary life (though he knew it was ordinary no longer, and would never be again). But they didn't last. There would be a glimpse of green—the landscaped lawn around the Central Plaza; a bush on the riverbank. The bright orange of pumpkins being trucked in from the agricultural fields beyond the community boundary—seen in an instant, the flash of brilliant color, but gone again, returning to their flat and hueless shade.
The Giver told him that it would be a very long time before he had the colors to keep.
"But I want them!" Jonas said angrily. "It isn't fair that nothing has color!"
"Not fair?" The Giver looked at Jonas curiously. "Explain what you mean."
"Well..."Jonas had to stop and think it through. "If everything's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?"
He looked down at himself, at the colorless fabric of his clothing. "But it's all the same, always."
Then he laughed a little. "I know it's not important, what you wear. It doesn't matter. But—"
"It's the choosing that's important, isn't it?" The Giver asked him.
Jonas nodded. "My little brother—" he began, and then corrected himself. "No, that's inaccurate. He's not my brother, not really. But this newchild that my family takes care of—his name's Gabriel?"
"Yes, I know about Gabriel."
"Well, he's right at the age where he's learning so much. He grabs toys when we hold them in front of him—my father says he's learning small-muscle control. And he's really cute."
The Giver nodded.
"But now that I can see colors, at least sometimes, I was just thinking: what if we could hold up things that were bright red, or bright yellow, and he could choose? Instead of the Sameness."
"He might make wrong choices."
"Oh." Jonas was silent for a minute. "Oh, I see what you mean. It wouldn't matter for a newchild's toy. But later it does matter, doesn't it? We don't dare to let people make choices of their own."
"Not safe?" The Giver suggested.
"Definitely not safe," Jonas said with certainty. "What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?
"Or what if," he went on, almost laughing at the absurdity, "they chose their own jobs?"
"Frightening, isn't it?" The Giver said.
Jonas chuckled. "Very frightening. I can't even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices."
"It's safer."
"Yes," Jonas agreed. "Much safer."
But when the conversation turned to other things, Jonas was left, still, with a feeling of frustration that he didn't understand.
He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.
He tried. Without asking permission from The Giver, because he feared—or knew—that it would be denied, he tried to give his new awareness to his friends.
"Asher," Jonas said one morning, "look at those flowers very carefully." They were standing beside a bed of geraniums planted near the Hall of Open Records. He put his hands on Asher's shoulders, and concentrated on the red of the petals, trying to hold it as long as he could, and trying at the same time to transmit the awareness of red to his friend.
"What's the matter?" Asher asked uneasily. "Is something wrong?" He moved away from Jonas's hands. It was extremely rude for one citizen to touch another