“I haven’t read his book yet,” Mum says. “I will. What is it really about, Megs?”
“It’s about four children who have to go to the countryside during the war—”
She interrupts me with a sound that is halfway between an uh and an oh. “I remember all of that. Operation Pied Piper they called it. I remember so clearly. You were about seven years old, and I kept imagining what it would be like if we lived in London and I had to send you away.” She shudders.
“Well, that’s how the book starts—four children are sent away to live in the house of a professor. They find a wardrobe that leads to a land called Narnia. They are to be kings and queens but they don’t yet know that, and there they have all kinds of adventures with talking animals and a witch and a faun and a lion named Aslan.”
“That’s what he talks about the most,” Mum says. “Aslan.”
“Yes, I think he’s God . . . or maybe supposed to be God. But Mr. Lewis doesn’t actually say. Anyway, the children become kings and queens and it’s beautiful, really. I don’t want to give too much away because I want you to read it.”
Mum nods and then stands. She walks to the counter where I notice, just then, that a pot of stock is boiling. She drops bite-size pieces of potatoes into it, then turns to me. “Megs, forgive me for saying you shouldn’t tell your brother stories. You tell him anything Mr. Lewis tells you. I don’t know the right answer to anything these days.”
“Neither do I, Mum. I don’t know if anyone does. Only math problems seem to have right and wrong answers, far as I can tell lately.”
She almost laughs, then she holds out her hand for me to take. I stand and go to her and hold her hand in my own. She squeezes my fingers before she lets go to chop the carrots.
Because even with the dark parts and the light parts and the good parts and the bad parts, dinner must still be served.
Ten
The Map of Imagination
George joins us for Saturday morning breakfast in the kitchen. Mum, Dad, and I are talking over each other while George sits quietly at the scarred wooden table where generations of the Devonshire family have sat. He draws in the large black sketchbook I’d given him yesterday. The pencil is moving fast on the paper making scratching noises; he pauses every few moments to stare at it and choose another color from the box.
Mum is asking me about exams.
“I’m ready, I promise,” I tell her.
Dad sets down the London Times and shakes his head. “America and Australia are asking us to intervene with the prisoners of war in Russia.” Then he looks to me. “And it appears a mathematics man, an author, Bertrand Russell, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature, of all things.” He leans forward. “Math and literature combined.” He shakes his head. “Megs, we love having you here, but maybe you shouldn’t come home so much. Perhaps instead you should be studying with your friends at school? Preparing for your exams?”
“Dad!” George says, but he doesn’t even look up from his coloring. “Don’t say that.”
Mum laughs and sets one poached egg on Dad’s plate, kisses the top of his dark hair. “She is fine. Our smart girl knows the right thing to do.”
“And anyway, my resident mates don’t help,” I tell Dad. “They’re only at university to find a husband.”
He smiles at me and I feel warm. Dad’s smile is like the sun when it finally comes out after long days of rain. I scoot closer to George and peek at his drawing. I take in a quick breath. “George!”
It is beautiful.
No.
That’s not a big enough word.
It’s stunning.
George is drawing a sketch of a young boy in an attic. The boy, obviously Jack Lewis, is bent over a desk and he’s writing. Behind him, unfinished but obvious, is a lion lurking in the corner. His mane is wild as a forest, his eyes amber and clear, his nose a dark leather, and his countenance kind. That lion—he’s no less wild than one in a jungle, but he’s also gentle and watching over the young boy.
“You’re an artist,” I exclaim. “A true-blue artist.”
Dad looks side-eye at George’s drawings, not moving his Times one inch, as if he doesn’t want us to know he’s peeking. Then he smiles; I see it even as he flips the page of the newspaper.
“Look at these,” I say. “I had no idea you knew how to draw so beautifully.”
“I did,” George says and takes another bite of his toast with orange marmalade. “I had an idea.” The jam sticks to his lips and he wipes with the heel of his palm.
Mum looks over my shoulder. “You sketched that?” She sets down her kitchen towel and sits down on the other side of George, puts one arm around him.
“You didn’t know he can draw so well either?” I ask, and I wonder why we haven’t noticed. Have there not been colored pencils and art notebooks in our house? No, there haven’t been.
“Sometimes he draws little doodles on things,” Mum said. “But this . . .” She looks to her son. “These are so beautiful. Did you copy this from somewhere?”
“From my head,” he says with a shrug. “When Megs is telling me the stories, I see pictures in my head. I can see it all and then I just draw it.”
“Your imagination,” I say. “It’s extraordinary.”
“It is?”
Mum touches the notebook. “Yes, it is. It’s exactly what Megs said.”
We are all silent as we realize that even though we’ve hovered over George for all these years, we haven’t noticed this talent of his. Not because he hid it from us but because perhaps we paid mind to the wrong things.
I realize George’s imagination is taking him places while I ramble on about stories and facts about Mr. Lewis. George takes something of this world and travels to another, as if the story world and the real world run right alongside each other. Or maybe they are inside each other. I warm with this new knowledge, with the idea of these worlds all running next to each other. Einstein found one, Mr. Lewis another, and my brother yet another.
For a breath or two, I wonder about this magical world we live in. It’s a mystery we can never understand. For a moment, a small and breath-holding moment, I know it to be true: there is more, something more I can’t see, a vivid truth that can’t be described by logic or words alone, a truth that delights the heart.
And then my feeling—or was it a knowing?—is gone. I am back in the winter light, and I realize that maybe this was what Mr. Lewis was talking about with his biscuit tin and with Squirrel Nutkin and with nature. I suspect he understands that joy, that sudden longing or knowing that comes and is gone so quickly.
I want it back.
I want it back as badly as Edmund wanted more Turkish delight.
*
Later that morning, after I’ve worked through a few equations and after George takes his morning nap, Mum and Dad go for a long walk in the crisp snow-covered town, leaving us alone. We sit on big fat pillows in the living room facing a fire that snaps and sparks like stars rising up the chimney.
“What do you want for Christmas?” I ask George. “Tell me.”
George wiggles his toes near the fire and lies back, stares up to the ceiling. “I want to go to Ireland.”