Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem Read Free Book Online

enrolled in the White Walnut school, where talented children were allowed to study in the light. That was his plan. But if it failed, then he just wanted to get her inside, for a week or a day or an hour. Just to see, just once. So she would know.
    White Walnut, however, seemed organized to resist his attempt. This office, where citizens could come to petition or complain, was kept in green, denying Moon and his daughter even a glimpse of the sighted world beyond the airtight doors. And the staffers were stonewalling so far, meeting his questions with silence.
    â€œMr. Moon,” the woman finally called out. He took his daughter’s hand and felt his way up to the desk.
    â€œFollow me.” She held his shoulder and guided him past the desk, through a set of doors in the back of the room. The sound of their footsteps told him they’d entered a narrower space, a corridor possibly, and he felt new hope that he and his daughter would be ushered into the light.
    The receptionist slipped away, back through the door they’d entered, and rough hands seized Moon by the shoulders and wrists and separated him from his daughter.
    â€œLinda!” he called out.
    â€œDaddy!”
    â€œQuiet,” said a voice close to Moon’s ear. The hands yanked him down into a seat. “Sit still.” Moon could make out the sounds of three or four different people moving around him and his daughter.
    â€œWhat?” said Moon.
    â€œYour eyes. Sit still.”
    â€œDaddy?”
    â€œIt’s okay, Linda. They won’t hurt you.”
    There was the sound of tearing tape. Hands tilted Moon’s head back and brushed his hair from his forehead. A wet, stinging cloth swabbed his eyelids. Hydrogen peroxide. Then a dry towel, and then something sharp and cold was taped across his eyes. Moon didn’t understand: why blindfold them in the green?
    He heard Linda gasp as they pushed her out of her seat, towards the far end of the room, and then the hands took his shoulders and pushed him in the same direction. Men stood close on either side of him. Ahead came the sound of a rubber seal breaking, and then a rush of air. The men pushed him forward, through the airlock, and then Moon understood that the darkness across his eyes wasn’t a blindfold but a tinted plastic lens, to protect his atrophied eyes from the light.
    He could see again. But just barely. He could make out the shapes of his daughter and her two escorts ahead of him, and he could see the bright lights on the corridor ceiling. When he turned his head, he could nearly make out the features of the men directly beside him.
    They rushed him through the corridor and into an elevator. It plummeted and opened again, and two of the men took Linda forward, and out. Moon moved to follow, but the remaining two held his arms, and the elevator doors closed.
    â€œWait a minute,” he said. “Where—”
    â€œRelax. We need to talk to you alone. She’ll be fine.”
    â€œWhat—”
    â€œYou want her in the school, she has to take some tests, right?” The grip on his arm tightened painfully.
    Moon thought: this isn’t fair. I wanted to be with her when she first found out what it was to see. I wanted to share that moment with her. But this wasn’t what he’d meant anyway, this shielded gloom. He’d wanted to amaze her with the light.
    The elevator dropped another level and opened, and they rushed Moon through another hallway and into an unfurnished office. He struggled to make out the details of their faces or clothing through the plastic lens, but nothing was visible except in smoky silhouette. Chairs were brought in; Moon was given a seat in the middle of the room, his back to the door.
    â€œMoon,” said one of the men. “You gave the name Moon.”
    â€œYes . . .”
    â€œBut we’ve never heard of you. You go under some other name.”
    Moon reached up, reflexively, to pull at