Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem Read Free Book Online

potato.”
    “How many different kinds?” said David.
    Bruce said: “Sour, meat, green, cake—”
    “And fish!” said Martha.
    “I’m getting to that,” said Bruce. “Sour, meat,green, cake, tea, uh, ice, and fish. Fish and ice are the hardest to find. Fish is the weirdest one.”
    “How do they grow in there?” said David.
    “Long time ago the Archbuilders took all their favorite foods and made them grow like this, under the ground, so they wouldn’t ever have to do any work. Efram says that’s what made them all lazy and stupid.”
    “Who’s Efram?” said Pella.
    “Efram won’t eat the potatoes,” continued Bruce, not quite answering the question. “Everybody else eats them, even if they’re trying to grow something else. But not Efram. He’s got Ben Barth working on his farm like a slave to get out enough food that isn’t Archbuilder potatoes.”
    Pella heard adult words echoed unreflectingly in Bruce Kincaid’s speech.
    “Efram who?” she said.
    Raymond and David were prying at the cake potato, trying to break the skin, reducing the thing to a bag of pulp in the process.
    “Efram Nugent,” said Bruce. “He’s not around now, or you’d of met him. He’s always out roaming around. That’s why Ben Barth’s got to run his farm.”
    “Efram discovered the Planet of the Archbuilders,” said Morris Grant, a little defiantly.
    “Did not, Morris,” said Bruce. “Don’t be stupid.”
    Morris Grant turned and sidearmed a rock into the cracked valley.
    “Show them fish potatoes, Bruce,” said Martha.
    “Okay, okay. I’ve got to find one first.” Bruce wentback to gouging in the crevice. He rejected a series of potatoes, piling them gently to one side, then said, “Here.” He held it out. Raymond reached out with extended hands, but Bruce said, “No, cradle it. Like a water balloon.” He plumped it against Raymond’s chest.
    “Take the others,” he said, and distributed the pile among Pella, David, Martha, and Morris. “E. G. Wa gives us a nickel for every potato we bring in. He bottles them and makes soup and stuff. Except tea potatoes—he’s always got too many of those. A nickel
credit
, that is. Forget that one.” He indicated the cake potato that Raymond and David had been struggling with. “You ruined it. It’s crap.”
    “I’m keeping the credit for the ones I carry,” said Morris.
    “Jeezus,” said Bruce. “Whatever.”
    “Credit where?” said Raymond.
    “E. G. Wa has kind of a shop,” said Bruce. “Much as you can have a shop with thirteen people in the entire valley. Seventeen now that you’re here.”
    “I thought there wasn’t any money here,” said Raymond.
    “Well, E. G. Wa and some other folks still use dollars and cents, just out of habit, I guess,” said Bruce Kincaid. “But mostly everybody just trades.”
    “Also the Archbuilders sometimes buy stuff,” said Martha. “Wa gives them money for bringing potatoes.”
    “Yeah, it’s kind of stupid,” said Bruce. “He gives them money, then takes it back. But it gives them something to do.”
    Archbuilders sounded less than impressive. Pelladecided she would be as casual about them as Bruce and Martha Kincaid.
    The six children trudged back across the valley, arms loaded with various potatoes, Raymond cradling just the one sloshy fish potato. Morris trailed, taking care to indicate his apartness from the group even as he joined them in the errand. They turned away from the path back to both the Kincaids’ house and to Pella and Raymond and David’s new home, and headed down a series of crumbled steps until those houses were out of sight.
    E. G. Wa’s shop was just the front part of his house, which was itself just another of the prefabricated cabins they all seemed to have for homes. Where the Kincaids had their dinner table, Wa had a counter loaded with jars. Against the wall was a small table with an optimistically full pot of coffee heating on a burner, and arrayed for the nonexistent