I had been able to tell from Grandfather’s expression that this was a funny story, and yet I hadn’t found it funny. He had looked at me and had added, quickly, “This was before,” meaning before the epidemic of ’52, which had originated in squirrels before being transferred to humans, and had resulted in the eradication of all North American squirrels.
Anyway, when Grandfather and I had gone to the Square, it mostly had been to listen to the storytellers. They usually assembled on weekends and on occasional weekday evenings, so people could come hear them after work, and they worked in what Grandfather called a guild, meaning that they split their earnings among themselves, and arranged their own schedules so that there would never be more than three there at the same time. You came at a certain hour—say, 19:00 on the weekdays and 16:00 on the weekends—and paid either in chits or in coins. You paid in half-hour increments, so every thirty minutes, one of the storytellers’ helpers went around the audience with a bucket, and if you wanted to stay for longer, you gave him more payment, and if you wanted to leave, you left.
Different storytellers told different kinds of stories. You went to one person if you liked romances, and another if you liked fables, and another if you liked stories about animals, and another if you liked history. The storytellers were considered gray vendors. This meant that they were licensed by the state, same as the carpenters and plastic makers, but they were also much more heavily monitored. All of their stories had to be submitted to the Information Unit for approval, but there were always Flies at their sessions, and certain storytellers were known to be more dangerous than others. I remember once going to a session with Grandfather, and when he saw who the storyteller was, he had gasped. “What is it?” I had asked. “The storyteller,” he whispered in my ear. “When I was young, he was a very famous writer. I can’t believe he’s still alive.” He had looked up at the man, who was old and had a limp and was settling onto his stool; we took our places on the ground around him, sitting on pieces of cloth or plastic bags we had brought from home. “I barely recognize him,” Grandfather murmured, and, indeed, there was something wrong with the storyteller’s face, as if the entire left-hand side of his jaw had been removed; every few sentences, he brought a handkerchief to his mouth and blotted at the saliva that was dribbling down his chin. But once I got used to his speech, the story he told—about a man who had lived here, on this very island, on this very Square, two hundred years ago, and who had forsaken great riches from his family to follow the person he loved all the way to California, a person who his family was certain would betray him—was so absorbing that I even stopped hearing the drone of the Flies that hovered above us, so absorbing that even the money collectors forgot to circulate, and it wasn’t until an entire hour had passed that the storyteller had sat back and said, “And next week, I’ll tell you what happened to the man,” and everyone, even Grandfather, had groaned with disappointment.
The next week, a large group of us were waiting for the storyteller to reappear, and we waited and waited, until, finally, another of the storytellers came over and said that she was very sorry to report that her colleague was suffering from a terrible migraine, and that he wouldn’t be coming to the Square today.
“Will he be back next week?” someone called out.
“I don’t know,” the woman admitted, and even I could tell she was scared, and worried. “But we have three other excellent storytellers here with us today, and you’re all welcome to come listen to them.”
About half the crowd did join the circles of those other storytellers, but the rest of us, including Grandfather and I, did not. Instead, we walked away, Grandfather looking at the ground, and when we reached our home, he went into the bedroom and lay down facing the wall, which he did when he wanted privacy, and I stayed in the other room and listened to the radio.
For the next few weeks, Grandfather and I went back again and again to the Square, but the storyteller, the one who had been a famous writer, never appeared again. The strange thing was how upset Grandfather had been; after every trip to the Square, he would walk more slowly than usual back home.
Finally, after about a month of looking and waiting for the storyteller, I asked Grandfather what he thought had happened to him. He looked at me for a long time before he answered. “He was rehabilitated,” he said, at last. “But sometimes rehabilitations are temporary.”
I didn’t really understand what he was saying, but I somehow knew not to ask more questions. Shortly after that, the storytellers disappeared entirely, and when they finally reappeared, about eight years ago, Grandfather hadn’t wanted to go any longer, and I hadn’t wanted to go without Grandfather. But then Grandfather died, and I made myself start going, just a few times a year or so. But even all these years later, I still found myself wondering what had happened to the man who was going to California: Had he done so after all? Had his beloved been waiting for him? Was he in fact betrayed? Or had we all been wrong: Had they been reunited and become happy? Maybe they were in California together and happy still. I knew it was foolish, because they weren’t even real people, but I thought about them often. I wanted to know what had become of them.
None of the storytellers I had seen in the years since that time with Grandfather were as good as the old man had been, but most of them were fine. And most of the stories were much happier. There was one storyteller in particular who told stories about animals who did silly things and played pranks and got into mischief, but in the end, they always apologized and everything worked out fine.
This storyteller wasn’t here today, but I recognized another I liked, who told funny stories about a married couple who were always getting into mishaps: There was one in which the husband couldn’t remember if it was his turn or his wife’s turn to do the grocery shopping, and as it was their anniversary, he didn’t want to ask her, because he didn’t want her to be disappointed, and so he went to the store and bought the tofu himself. Meanwhile, the wife also couldn’t remember if it was her turn or her husband’s to go to the store, and because it was their anniversary, she didn’t want to ask him, and so she also went to the grocery and bought some tofu. The story ended up with them both laughing over how much tofu they had bought, and making it into all kinds of delicious stews, which they ate together. Of course, this story was unrealistic: From where were they getting all these protein coupons? Wouldn’t they have fought after realizing they’d wasted so many of them? Who forgot whose turn it was to go to the store? And yet that wasn’t part of the story. The teller mimicked their voices—the man’s high and worrying, the woman’s low and dithering—and the audience laughed, not because it was true but because it was a problem that wasn’t actually a problem yet was being treated like it was.
As I crouched in the back row, I felt someone sit next to me. Not too close, but close enough so that I could feel their presence. But I didn’t look up, and they didn’t look over. This story was about the same married couple, both of whom thought they had misplaced a dairy coupon. It wasn’t as good as the tofu story, but it was good enough, and when the collectors came around, I put a coupon into the bucket so I could stay for the next half hour.