The Crystal City: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Volume VI (33 page)

This time, at least, there was no fumbling and searching. He knew exactly what was wrong—the lungs, not yet fully formed inside, the tiny structures not yet ready to filter the air through into the blood. The tissue was a little better formed this time; some air was passing. And for some reason the baby’s umbilical cord had not yet been tied off. The placenta would soon detach itself from the wall of the womb, but for the moment, there was still air passing into the baby’s blood. So there was a little time. Not enough, it would take hours and hours to prepare the lungs, and the placenta could not last that long.

But he did not brood on what he could not do. Instead he simply did it, told each tiny part of the lung what to do, helped it do it, and then the next part, and the next, each time a little easier because the tissues could more easily change when they were adjacent to tissue that had already matured enough to transform the air into what the blood needed it to be.

It was almost as if the baby’s very heart slowed down—indeed, for a moment Alvin thought that the heart had stopped. But no, it was beating very, very slowly, and he worked with feverish intensity, wishing he could slather on the mature tissue the way a painter slaps whitewash on a wall instead of doing it the way he had to do it, like a tatter making knot, knot, knot, and only gradually turning it into lace.

“I’ve got to tie this cord,” said the midwife. “You know your business, I’m sure, but I know mine, and you don’t wait for the afterbirth to come out of itself!”

“Look how he breathes in the air,” said Margaret. “Look, almost as if he had a hope of life.”

And then, as she watched his quick breathing, as she felt his rapid heartbeat, she began to see paths emerging out of darkness. He would not die. He would live. Mentally damaged from the lack of air at the time of his birth, but alive. She was not afraid of such damage—maybe Alvin could fix the problem, yes, if Alvin was watching he could…

More paths opened, and more and more, and now there were a few where the baby was not damaged, where it would learn to walk like any other child, and talk, and…

And now all paths were open, like a normal life, except that there was something that she needed to do.

“Cut the cord,” she said. “He can breathe on his own now.”

“About time,” said the midwife. She strung a thread around the cord and tied it tight, then another about two inches away, and then passed a sharp knife under the cord between the knots and pulled upward.

The afterbirth slid out onto the clean rags covering the bed.

The baby cried, a whimpering sound, not the lusty cry of a full-term baby, and the poor lad was still as scrawny as could be, but he could breathe, and now almost every path in the child’s life showed him in his father’s arms, as the three of them, father, mother, and son, stood on the bluff overlooking the river.

The sound of an axe chopping against wood rang out and Alvin came out of his deep concentration. It had been hours and hours, working on the baby’s lungs, but somehow the child had stayed alive through all of it, and now it was done. The child was breathing on his own. The cord was cut. And Alvin was surprised that it was still light. Surely it had taken him all day.

He got up from the stone, his body stiff from resting in one position for so long. He walked to the edge of the bluff, expecting to see many trees fallen.

Instead, there was Verily making his way down the hill. What had he been doing, coming up and checking on Alvin all day? Couldn’t he do this by himself? And instead of teams of axemen toppling trees, only the one axe was being wielded, and by a man who seemed to be no part of an organized plan.

What had Verily been doing all day, while Alvin wrestled to keep his baby alive?

Only as he was about to cry out to Verily impatiently did Alvin take note of the fact that Verily’s shadow still fell long beyond him, down the hill, toward the west.

It was still morning. Early morning. Only minutes after Verily had left Alvin. Somehow, all those hours of work—and as sore as his body was, it
had
to have been hours—had been compressed into only a few minutes.

“Verily!” he called. “Wait!”

Verily turned and watched as Alvin leapt and slipped and slid down the hill to join him.

“What is it?” said Verily.

“How long ago did we talk?”

Verily looked at him as if he were crazy. “Three minutes.”

“I did it,” said Alvin. “Somehow in just those minutes, I did it.”

“Did what?”

“The baby’s born. He can breathe. He’s alive.”

Only then did Verily understand. “Thank God, Alvin.”

“I do,” said Alvin. “I do thank God.”

Then he burst into tears and wept in the arms of his friend.

Alvin leaned on the fireplace, watching Margaret nurse little Vigor. “Got a mighty good suction in him,” said Alvin.

“Like a tick,” said Margaret. “Can’t pry him loose till he’s full.”

“He’s getting strong, don’t you think?

“Getting some muscle on him,” said Margaret. “But I don’t think he’ll ever be one of those fat little babies.”

“That’s fine,” said Alvin. “Don’t want to raise a spoiled child.”

“You’ll raise him whatever he is,” said Margaret. “And if anyone’s likely to spoil him, it’s you.”

“That’s my plan, more or less,” said Alvin.

“Don’t want him to be spoiled, but you plan to spoil him.”

“Can’t help it. Only way to save this boy is to have another child to divide up my doting.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Margaret.

“Do you mind, not traveling now, not being in the world of affairs?”

“I don’t look beyond this town now,” said Margaret. “I try to forget that the world outside is maneuvering itself toward war. I pretend that somehow it will stay beyond the borders of our little county.”

“Not so little. Very and Abe got us good boundaries. Lots of room to grow.”

“I’m more concerned about how much our people grow inside them.”

“Can’t make them,” said Alvin.

“I know.”

Vigor was done with breakfast, and now Alvin cracked the boiled eggs and sliced them onto a plate for his and Margaret’s breakfast.

“Mayor of the fastest-growing city in Noisy River, and you have to fix your own breakfast.”

“I’m fixing
your
breakfast, and that’s all the difference.”

“My but we’re in love,” said Margaret.

Old pain and ancient loneliness hung in the air between them.

“Alvin,” said Margaret. “I always tried to do what was best.”

“I know,” said Alvin.

“And sometimes what was best was not to tell you all that I knew.”

Alvin said nothing.

“You never would have gone to Barcy,” she said. “We never would have had all these people, the core of this City of Makers.”

“Might have gone to Barcy all the same,” said Alvin.

“But you would never have gone near Rien.”

“You sure that saving her was what spread the fever?”

“In all the paths where you never met her, she died without a single other soul catching the disease.”

Alvin smiled a wan smile and stuffed an entire egg into his mouth. “At least I’ve got good manners,” he said, spraying bits of yolk onto the table.

“Yes, I can see that all those lessons I gave you have paid off. I can’t take you out in company.”

“Guess we’ll just have to stay in.”

“You’ll never listen to me again, will you?” she said.

“I’m listening right now.”

“But you’ll never do something just because I tell you that you ought to.”

“Have you changed?” asked Alvin. “Or do you still think you’re the one best able to decide whether I should know the consequences of my deeds?”

“I’ve already promised a dozen times over.”

“But I don’t believe you,” said Alvin. “I believe you mean it now, but in the moment, when you’re deciding what to tell me and what not to tell, I think you’ll hold back the things I most want to know, if you’re afraid that knowing will cause me harm.”

“You’re not the most important thing in the world to me now, you know,” said Margaret.

“Am so,” said Alvin.

“The baby is.”

“The baby’s just little and he can’t get into much trouble yet.”

“
You
did.”

“You got the habit of looking out for me too deep set. I can’t trust you to let me decide for myself.”

“Yes you can,” said Margaret. “Besides, you don’t need me to tell you everything now.”

“I can’t control what the crystal ball shows me. It’s not like your knack.”

“It’s better.”

“I think the blood and water make more of a mirror than a window.”

“I think it shows good people how to do good, and bad people how to do bad. You won’t come asking me what to do, when you can see what’s good and right in the walls of the house you’re building.”

“Don’t know if we should rightly call it a house,” said Alvin.

“It’s not a chapel—nobody’s going to preach.”

“A factory, maybe,” said Alvin. “Or a house of mirrors, like in that carnival in New Amsterdam.”

“Then it’s a house after all,” said Margaret. “And I was
right
.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t
right
,” said Alvin. “Just said I’d like to have chosen for myself.”

“You’d rather have chosen wrong, knowing, than chosen right, not knowing.”

“Well, when you put it that way, it makes me sound like a dunce on purpose.”

“Indeedy,” said Margaret.

“Do I have to be mayor?” said Alvin. “I’d rather just spend my time building the…crystal.”

“They all look to you, anyway, whether you have the title or not. You’re the one who looks out for them, who watches the borders. You’re the one who causes the slave-catchers who come near here to keep losing their way. You’re the one who figured out that draining the swamp would stop the malaria.”

“It was Measure who suggested it,” said Alvin.

“You’re the one who watches over everybody like a mother hen.”

“Then let me run for mother hen.”

“Alvin,” said Margaret. “So what if you don’t care for the title? You’re going to be doing the job anyway, and it would be quite unkind of you to make someone else take the title, when everybody will know you’re the real leader. Take the name upon you, and don’t burden someone else with it, when they’ll never have the authority.”

“Didn’t think of someone else having to do it,” said Alvin.

“I know you didn’t,” said Margaret primly. “Because you’re still a hopelessly ignorant journeyman smith.”

“I am, you know,” said Alvin.

“You know I was teasing,” said Margaret.

“But I am,” said Alvin. “’Cause the thing I’m building, it’s not some cathedral made of visionary crystal. It’s the city. It’s the people. And I can make the blocks of crystal water as pure as can be, I can make the webs of blood that hold them up strong and true, we can plumb the walls straight, we can dwell inside it all the livelong day and see great visions and small memories according to our own desires. But I can’t make one bad person good.”

“You can make many a good person better.”

“Can’t,” said Alvin. “They have to do it their own selves.”

“Well, of course, but you help.”

“I’m trying to knit everybody together as one people, and I don’t think it can be done. Now that the journey’s over, the French folks suddenly don’t want much to do with the former slaves. And the former house slaves lord it over the former field slaves, and the blacks who were already free in Barcy lord it over all of them, and the ones who still remember Africa think they’re the kings of creation—”

“The queens, more likely,” said Margaret.

“And then there’s all the folks who’ve been close to me for years, they come here and think they know everything, but they weren’t on the journey, they didn’t cross over Pontchartrain on that crystal bridge, they didn’t camp in a circle of fog, they didn’t run before the face of the Mizzippy dam, they didn’t live being fed by reds on the far side of the river. You see? They think they’re closest to me, but they went down a different road and there’s nothing but divisions among the people and I can’t make it right. Even Verily can’t do more than patch up some of the tears in the fabric here and there, and that’s his knack!”

“Give it time.”

“Will it last, Margaret?” asked Alvin. “Will the things I’m building outlast me?”

“I haven’t looked,” said Margaret.

“And you expect me to believe you?”

“I can’t always see, when it comes to you and your works.”

“You’ve looked, and you’ve seen. You just don’t want to tell me.”

A single tear spilled over one eyelid, and Margaret looked away. “Some of the things you’re building will outlast you.”

“Which ones?”

“Arthur Stuart,” said Margaret. “You’re building him, and you’ve done a fine job.”

“He builds himself.”

“Alvin,” she said sharply. Then softer: “Alvin, my love, if there’s anyone in the world who understands this, it’s you. Everything you make builds itself, or thinks it does. That’s what making is, isn’t it? To persuade things to
want
to be the way they need to be. People are the hardest to persuade, that’s all.”

“Is Arthur Stuart the only thing I’ve created that outlasts me?”

She shook her head. “I see now that you were right. I can’t keep my promise. I can’t tell you everything.” She faced him, and now her cheeks were striped with tears, and her eyes were full of longing and regret. “But not because I’m trying to manipulate you or control you or get you to do something you wouldn’t otherwise do, I promise that, and I’m keeping that promise.”

“So why won’t you tell me?”

“Because I hate knowing the future,” said Margaret. “It robs the present of its joy. And I won’t make you live the way I do, seeing the end of everything when it’s still young and hopeful to everyone else.”

“So the city fails.”

“Your life,” said Margaret, “is a life of great accomplishments, and the best things you make will last for as many lifetimes as I can see.” Then she raised the baby higher in her arms, and though little Vigor was sleeping, she buried her face in the blanket he was wrapped in and wept.

Alvin knelt beside her and put an arm around her and nuzzled her shoulder. “I’m a bad husband, to plague you like this.”

“No you’re not,” she said, her voice muffled by the baby, by weeping.

“Am so.”

“You’re the husband I want.”

“Your bad judgment.”

“I know.”

“You tell me what I need to know to be a good man,” said Alvin.

“But you are one, always, whether I tell you anything or not.”

“You tell me that much, and I won’t ask for more.” He kissed her. “And I’m sorry that you carry the burden that you do.”

“I’m not sorry for it,” she said. “It’s who I am. But I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, that’s all.”

Arthur Stuart watched the men digging the foundation of the observatory—for so Verily insisted on calling it, and Arthur liked the name. They dug deep to bedrock all the way around the outcropping of stone where the water came out. That would not be touched—it would remain inside, forever pouring its water out to flow in a clear, cold stream down the bluff and into the Mizzippy. It was the dry season now and other streams had slackened or gone dry, but this one flowed exactly as it had all summer.

The men digging the foundation trench—did they know that Alvin could have cleared this all away in just a few minutes? That he could have made the topsoil and the rocky subsoil flow upward and pour out onto the outside of the trench just by showing the dirt what he wanted it to do?

It was one of the perverse things Alvin had always done, making Arthur Stuart labor with his hands to make things that Alvin could have made in a moment. Like the time Alvin made him work half the summer making a canoe, burning and digging at a thick log until it was hollowed out. Now Arthur had learned enough makery that he could do it in ten minutes; it hardly mattered that Alvin could do it in ten seconds, ten minutes was good enough for Arthur Stuart.

But now Arthur was beginning to see what Alvin had been after, all that time. It wasn’t that digging the canoe helped Arthur learn how to use the hidden powers of makery, not at all. It was the deeper, truer lesson: That the maker is the one who is part of what he makes. If Alvin had simply made the canoe, then it would have been Alvin’s canoe. But because Arthur Stuart worked so hard to make it, it was
his
canoe, too. He was part of it. And if he had not gotten to know the wood—the shape of it inside the tree, the hard and soft of it, the way it burned slow and held its strength and even got harder where it had been scorched—then would he now be able to send his doodlebug through it and understand the virtue of the living wood? Could he be the maker that he was, if he had not been the clumsy boy with sweat pouring down his face and back, laboring with his hands?

These men who were putting in their day, digging the foundation, they couldn’t drip their blood into the Mizzippy and come up with blocks of visionary crystal. But they could dig into the earth, so when the finished observatory rose into the sky and people went inside to see what they could see, to learn what they might be, these men would be able to say, that building stands on the foundation I dug. I helped make that miraculous place. It has my sweat in it, along with Alvin Maker’s blood.

There was a man standing on the far side of the cleared land, watching, not the diggers, but Arthur Stuart. It took a moment for Arthur to realize who it was.

“Taleswapper!” he cried, and he ran full tilt right toward him, leaping over the trench just as a man was about to pitch a spadeful of earth, earning Arthur an irritated curse as the man had to stop himself in midswing and spill half the dirt back into the hole. “Taleswapper, I thought that you were dead!”

Taleswapper greeted him with an embrace, and his arms were stronger than Arthur had feared, but feeble indeed compared to what they had been, years before, when last they met.

“You’ll know when I’m dead,” said Taleswapper. “Because suddenly all the jokes will run dry and all the gossip will go silent and people will just sit and look glum because they got no tales to tell.”

“I reckon you heard what we were doing here and had to come and add it to your book.”

“I don’t think so,” said Taleswapper. “I filled it already.” He slid a thick volume from inside his deerskin jacket. “Every page in it, full, and I even added a few scraps to make more pages than the blamed thing had. No, I think I’m here because what you’re building, it’ll take the place of books like mine.”

“I hope not,” said Arthur Stuart. “I hope never.”

“Well, we’ll see,” said Taleswapper. “You’ve grown a lot taller, but not a whit smarter, as far as I can see.”

“Can’t see smart,” said Arthur Stuart.

“I can,” said Taleswapper.