The Quiet Word

Letter 10 of the Book of Forgetting

The afternoon came in warm and close, and I was at my bench fitting a new calibration weight to the rangefinder when Noa came in without knocking, her blue sweater bright against the grey pressing at the window.

“Fernando,” she said. “They’re all saying it now.”

I set down the weight. “Who’s all?”

“The babies. All of them. Every house with a new one.” She held her river stone in both hands. “My mother heard it from the midwife. Elam Segal’s daughter. Tobiah Sharon’s two. Liesl’s five. All of them, same words.”

“The same sentence?”

“The same sentence.” She looked at me. “‘The fog is just fog.’ Clear as a bell. All of them.”

I stood and reached for my jacket. “Let’s go see Liesl.”

Liesl’s house was small and neat, the windows open to the warm air. She sat in a chair by the bed, a baby in each arm, three more in the bassinet and basket. Her dark hair was loose, her forearms bare, the small sparks-burns of her work visible. She looked at me with the same direct stare she used on a warped rail.

“Fernando,” she said. “You came.”

“I came to see the five.” I looked at the babies. “Noa says every new one in town is speaking the sentence.”

“Every new one,” Liesl said. “Elam’s daughter. Tobiah’s two. My five. Nine babies, one sentence, same voice. Like they’re all reading from the same page.”

“Nine,” I said.

“Nine.” She shifted the baby in her left arm. “And three old ones died last night. Gavriel Dagan the plumber. Itai Zohar the engineer. Micah Gefen the cafe owner. All asleep. All eighty or older.”

“I heard about Gavriel,” I said. “He was eighty-five.”

“Itai was eighty-two. Micah was a hundred and one.” She looked at me. “Nine born. Four died. The numbers don’t balance anymore.”

“They balanced yesterday,” I said.

“They balanced yesterday.” She looked down at the baby in her arms. “Now they don’t.”

I stood by the bed, the babies breathing in their own rhythms, the warm air holding the smell of milk and sleep. “Did the midwife say anything else?”

“She said it’s been like this all week.” Liesl’s voice was flat. “Every house with a new one, the baby wakes and speaks. Then goes back to sleep. The mothers are afraid to sleep themselves.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Outside, the square was busy. Ivo stood by the old well at the edge of the orchard, a stone in his hand. He was the guard captain, a heavy man in a plain grey-green jacket with a small brass badge shaped like a ring of fog.

“Fernando,” he said. “You’ve heard about the babies.”

“I’ve heard.”

“Nine of them.” He dropped the stone into the dark. I counted. The splash came a full second late. “And the well’s still slow, and the fog still measures different going out than coming back, and the old ones are dying in their sleep.” He looked at me. “The Council wants me to keep people at their work. I don’t know what work means anymore.”

He walked off toward the survey post, and I stood by the well a moment longer. I dropped a stone myself. I counted. The splash came a full second late.

That night I wrote the day in the Book of Forgetting. Nine born, speaking the sentence. Four died, asleep. A stone falling slow. A captain who did not know what work meant anymore.

I did not know what any of it meant. But the babies had spoken, and the old ones had gone quiet, and the well had answered late.