“I see,” says Mr. Adam as she opens the book to show a calm, satisfied-looking woman whose eyes are on the same side of her face, one resting on her nose while the other marches across her cheekbone.
“The pictures are strange,” she says. “But see how smooth the paper is.” She runs her fingers over it. “I don’t know how he made the pictures that way.”
“Those are pictures of pictures,” says Mr. Adam. “Not the picture itself.”
“Like the picture of the first Mr. Adam,” she says. “Capturing time on paper.”
Mr. Adam looks confused. “No, just a picture,” he says.
“Did you know him?” asks Vanessa. “Cubist Picasso?”
“I think he’s dead,” says Mr. Adam.
“Did he make this book?”
“I doubt it. I guess he was a famous artist, so people took pictures of his paintings and put them in a book.”
Vanessa considers this. There are artists on the island—Mr. Moses the brewer carves lifelike birds and people, and Mr. Gideon the shoemaker draws with charcoal on paper, making portraits almost akin to the miraculous photographs. Vanessa imagines using a magical contraption to catch Mr. Gideon’s images and making a book out of them. The idea is so ridiculous she suddenly laughs out loud. Mr. Adam laughs too, even though he can’t read her thoughts.
“I think it’s…I don’t think he’s very good,” says Mr. Adam.
“I don’t either,” says Vanessa. “Nobody looks like this, but at the same time it’s interesting.”
“I suppose,” says Mr. Adam. “Which is your favorite book in here?”
“Oh,” says Vanessa, overwhelmed at the difficulty of this question. “Oh, I don’t know. I think…well, I love The Call of the Wild.”
“That’s about a dog, right?”
“A dog, yes, in a place called Alaska, and they pull people around on sleds for gold. Some of the men are very mean. The only gold I’ve seen is on Mr. Solomon the wanderer’s plate that he collected from the wastelands. It has flowers on it too.” Vanessa isn’t sure why people would fight and kill and freeze for something shiny and yellow, but at the same time, it is so brilliant and beautiful that she can almost understand it. “I can’t imagine a place where you eat off something so precious.”
“See, this is why it’s a mistake to let everyone read things like this,” says Mr. Adam. “You shouldn’t know what Alaska is, or gold, or anything like that.”
“But I just said that there’s gold on the plate,” replies Vanessa. “And I don’t know anything about Alaska except it’s cold and there’s gold there. And there are big dogs, huge strong dogs, stronger than the dogs here, and you can make them do things.”
“There are certainly a lot of dogs on the island,” Mr. Adam says slowly. “Cats too, although not so many as the dogs. But I suppose you need cats to keep the rats in check. And dogs make for good company.”
“Do you have a dog now?” asks Vanessa.
“Oh, not yet, though I’m sure I will eventually. Everywhere I look people are drowning puppies, so I assume they can spare one for us.”
“Would Mrs. Adam like that?”
“I suppose. She had a dog back—back in the wastelands, a yippy little thing.”
“Oh?” says Vanessa carefully.
“No bigger than a loaf of bread, barked at everything.”
“A puppy?”
“No, no, a full-grown dog.”
Vanessa has never seen a dog the size of a loaf of bread. All the dogs on the island are more or less the same size. “What did Mrs. Adam do with it?” she asks.
“Oh, she just carried it around,” he says. “Like a baby. Now she’ll have a real baby.”
“Yes, when is the baby coming?”
“Oh, not long. Two months at the most. She’s terrified of having it, poor thing.”
“Terrified?”
“That something will go wrong.”
“That she’ll bleed out or have a defective?”
“Well, I suppose. No defectives, though.” He snorts. “Not my child. We don’t have that problem.”
“But…there are no defectives in the wastelands?”
“Oh, well, there are, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“I mean, yes, there are. It’s different, though.”
“What’s different?”
“Well, it’s not…I mean, there aren’t the same kind of rules that you have here.”
“What kind of rules did you have?”
“None, really. I mean, I couldn’t go around killing people or anything like that.”
“What about children?”
“What about them?”
“Do people kill them?”
“Kill them? It’s—” He glances at her. “You know I’m not supposed to be talking to you about this.”
She remains quiet.
“You’re a sneaky little girl, Vanessa,” he says, wagging his finger at her. “Do you know what I do with sneaky little girls?”
She stares at him. “No.” She wasn’t aware that people had procedures for such things. Perhaps they do in the wastelands.
He inhales to say something, then exhales and smiles at her. “You’re very smart. Too smart. But you’re such a lovely girl I think I’ll forgive you.”
She’s not sure what to say, so mumbles a quiet “Thank you.”
Suddenly she realizes she has never been alone with an adult man besides Father in all her life. She glances at Mr. Adam, who somehow seems larger and darker than he was before, like the dim light has obliterated his face, his hands swelled to gargantuan proportions. He appears to be moving closer to her, although his legs and feet are still, like he is expanding and his flesh is advancing on her small frame. She looks away, her breath quickening. Suddenly she is sure that if Mother knew she was alone with Mr. Adam, she would be furious.
“You’re an obedient girl too, aren’t you, Vanessa?”
“I suppose,” says Vanessa carefully. She blinks a few times, but he still seems to be towering above her, wrapped in shadow. He moves closer.
“You do what you’re supposed to.”
“Yes.”
He is quiet for a moment, and then says, “I like that about your island. That children follow the rules.”
She says, “They don’t, in the wastelands?”
“Not like here.” And she knows she could parse the meaning of those three words for days, weeks, the rest of her life.
“Tell me,” she says desperately, “please tell me.”
“Sneaky little girl,” he says again, and she feels an impotent fury well in her chest.
“Mr. Adam, please tell me something,” she says. “Anything.”
He gazes at her for a while, taking her measure, and says, “In the wastelands…” He stops, obviously thinking as hard as he can. “In the wastelands…children can…No. In the wastelands…” He stops. “I’m sorry, Vanessa. I truly am. But I honestly think it’s better for you, for everyone here, to know nothing.”
“At least tell me about the fires.”
“Fires?”
“The fires, the fires of the wastelands. Do they burn up everything?”