Ready?
Ready.
Now?
Soon.
Do the scientists really know?
Will it happen today, will it?
Look, look; see for yourself!
The children pressed to each
other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering
out for a look at the hidden sun.
It rained.
It had been raining for seven
years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and
filled from one end to the other
with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of
showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over
the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand
times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus,
and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had
come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives.
It's stopping, it’s stopping!
Yes, yes!
Margot stood apart from them,
from these children who could never remember a time
when there wasn’t rain and rain
and rain. They were all nine years old, and if there had
been a day, seven years ago, when
the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they
could not recall. Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in
remembrance, and she knew they
were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow
crayon or a coin large enough to
buy the world with. She knew they thought they
remembered a warmness, like a
blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands.
But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of
clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and
their dreams were gone.
All day yesterday they had read
in class about the sun. About how like a lemon it was, and how hot. And they
had written small stories or essays or poems about it:
I think the sun is a flower, that
blooms for just one hour.
That was Margot’s poem, read in a
quiet voice in the still classroom while the rain was falling outside.
Aw, you didn’t write that!
protested one of the boys.
I did, said Margot. I did.
William! said the teacher.
But that was yesterday. Now the
rain was slackening, and the children were crushed in the great thick windows.
Where’s teacher?
She’ll be back.
She’d better hurry, we’ll miss
it!
They turned on themselves, like a
feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes. Margot stood alone.
She was a very frail girl who
looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed
out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her
hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she
spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate, staring at
the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.
What’re you looking at? said
William.
Margot said nothing.
Speak when you’re spoken to.
He gave her a shove. But she did
not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else. They
edged away from her; they would not look at her. She felt them go away. And
this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the
underground city. If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and
did not follow. When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games
her lips barely moved. Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her
lips move as she watched the drenched windows. And then, of course, the biggest
crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she
remembered the sun and the way the sun was, and the sky was when she was four
in Ohio. And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been
only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the
color and heat of it and the way it really was.
But Margot remembered.
It’s like a penny, she said once,
eyes closed.
No its not! the children cried.
It’s like a fire, she said, in
the stove.
You’re lying, you don't
remember! cried the children.
But she remembered and stood
quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a
month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched
her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn’t touch her
head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different, and they
knew her
difference and kept away. There
was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it
seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands
of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons
of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting
silence, her thinness, and her possible future.
Get away! The boy gave her
another push. What’re you waiting for?
Then, for the first time, she
turned and looked at him. And what she was waiting for was in her eyes.
Well, don’t wait around here!
cried the boy savagely. You won’t see nothing!
Her lips moved.
Nothing! he cried. It was all a
joke, wasn’t it? He turned to the other children.
Nothing’s happening today. Is it?
They all blinked at him and then,
understanding, laughed and shook their heads.
Nothing, nothing!
Oh, but, Margot whispered, her
eyes helpless. But this is the day, the scientists predict,
they say, they know, the sun...
All a joke ! said the boy, and
seized her roughly. Hey, everyone, let's put her in a closet before the
teacher comes!
No, said Margot, falling back.
They surged about her, caught her
up and bore her, protesting, and then pleading, and
then crying, back into a tunnel,
a room, a closet, where they slammed and locked the door.
They stood looking at the door
and saw it tremble from her beating and throwing herself
against it. They heard her
muffled cries. Then, smiling, the turned and went out and back down the tunnel,
just as the teacher arrived.
Ready, children? She glanced at
her watch.
Yes! said everyone.
Are we all here?
Yes!
The rain slacked still more. They
crowded to the huge door. The rain stopped.
It was as if, in the midst of a
film concerning an avalanche, a tornado, a hurricane, a
volcanic eruption, something had,
first, gone wrong with the sound apparatus, thus
muffling and finally cutting off
all noise, all of the blasts and repercussions and thunders, and then, second,
ripped the film from the projector and inserted in its place a beautiful tropical
slide which did not move or tremor. The world ground to a standstill. The
silence
was so immense and unbelievable
that you felt your ears had been stuffed or you had lost your hearing
altogether. The children put their hands to their ears. They stood apart. The door
slid back and the smell of the silent, waiting world came in to them.
The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming
bronze and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile
color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their
spell, rushed out, yelling into the springtime.
Now, don’t go too far, called the
teacher after them. You’ve only two hours, you know.
You wouldn’t want to get caught
out!
But they were running and turning
their faces up to the sky and feeling the sun on their
cheeks like a warm iron; they
were taking off their jackets and letting the sun burn their
arms.
Oh, its better than the sun
lamps, isn’t it?
Much, much better!
They stopped running and stood in
the great jungle that covered Venus, that grew and
never stopped growing,
tumultuously, even as you watched it. It was a nest of octopi,
clustering up great arms of flesh
like weed, wavering, flowering in this brief spring. It was the color of rubber
and ash, this jungle, from the many years without sun. It was the color of stones and white cheeses and ink, and it
was the color of the moon.
The children lay out, laughing,
on the jungle mattress, and heard it sigh and squeak under them resilient and
alive. They ran among the trees, they slipped and fell, they pushed each other,
they played hide-and-seek and tag, but most of all they squinted at the sun
until the tears ran down their faces; they put their hands up to that
yellowness and that amazing blueness and they breathed of the fresh, fresh air
and listened to the silence which suspended them in a blessed sea of no sound
and no motion. They looked at everything and savored everything. Then, wildly,
like animals escaped from their caves, they ran and ran in shouting circles.
They ran for an hour and did not stop running.
And then -in the midst of their
running one of the girls wailed. Everyone stopped.
The girl, standing in the open,
held out her hand.
Oh, look, look, she said,
trembling.
They came slowly to look at her
opened palm.
In the center of it, cupped and
huge, was a single raindrop. She began to cry, looking at it.
They glanced quietly at the sun.
Oh. Oh.
A few cold drops fell on their
noses and their cheeks and their mouths. The sun faded
behind a stir of mist. A wind
blew cold around them. They turned and started to walk back toward the
underground house, their hands at their sides, their smiles vanishing away.
A boom of thunder startled them
and like leaves before a new hurricane, they tumbled
upon each other and ran.
Lightning struck ten miles away, five miles away, a mile, a half
mile. The sky darkened into
midnight in a flash.
They stood in the doorway of the
underground for a moment until it was raining hard. Then they closed the door
and heard the gigantic sound of the rain falling in tons and avalanches, everywhere
and forever.
Will it be seven more years?
Yes. Seven.
Then one of them gave a little
cry.
Margot.
What?
She’s still in the closet where
we locked her.
Margot.
They stood as if someone had
driven them, like so many stakes, into the floor. They looked at each other and
then looked away. They glanced out at the world that was raining now and
raining and raining steadily. They could not meet each other's glances.
Their faces were solemn and pale. They looked at their hands and feet, their
faces down.
Margot.
One of the girls said, Well...?
No one moved.
Go on, whispered the girl.
They walked slowly down the hall
in the sound of cold rain. They turned through the
doorway to the room in the sound
of the storm and thunder, lightning on their faces, blue and terrible. They
walked over to the closet door slowly and stood by it.
Behind the closet door was only
silence.
They unlocked the door, even more
slowly, and let Margot out.