Homeland and Other Stories by Barbara Kingsolver Read Free Book Online Page A

“Thisscientist named Konrad Lorenz discovered that right after they hatched the baby birds would imprint on whatever they saw. When he raised them himself, they imprinted on him and followed him around everywhere he went. Other scientists tried it with cats or beach balls or different shapes cut out of plastic and it always worked. And when the baby ducks grew up, they only wanted to mate with those exact things.”
    The kids are interested. “That’s too weird,” one of them says, and for once they want to know why.
    â€œWell, I don’t know. Nobody completely understands what’s going on when this happens, but we understand the purpose of it. The animal’s brain is set up so it can receive this special information that will be useful later on. Normally the first thing a baby duck sees would be an adult duck, right? So naturally that would be the type of thing it ought to grow up looking for. Even though it’s less extreme, we know this kind of behavior happens in higher animals too.” She knows she’s losing her audience as she strays from ducks, but feels oddly compelled by the subject matter. “Most animals, when they’re confused or under stress, will fall back on more familiar behavior patterns.” As she speaks, Lydia has a sudden, potent vision of the entire Father John family, the downtrodden women at their mandala woodstove and the ratty-haired children and the sublime Father John himself. And standing behind him, all the generations of downtrodden women that issued him forth.
    A girl in the back speaks up. “How did the scientists get the ducks to, um, go back so they were normal?”
    â€œI’m sorry to say they didn’t. It’s a lifetime commitment.” Lydia really is sorry for the experimental ducks. She has thought of this before.
    â€œSo they go around wanting to make it with beach balls all the time?” one boy asks. Several of the boys laugh.
    Lydia shrugs. “That’s right. All for the good of science.”
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    She wakes up furious, those women and ducks still on her mind. Instead of boiling the water for coffee and oatmeal, she goes to the sink and picks up the handmade soup tureen. “Do you like this bowl?” she asks Whitman, who is standing beside the bed buttoning his shirt.
    He looks at her, amazed. They haven’t been asking lately for each other’s opinions. “I don’t know,” he says.
    â€œYou don’t know,” she says. “I don’t either. I’m ambivalent, that’s my whole problem.” She holds it in front of her at arm’s length, examining it. Then she lifts it to chin level, shuts her eyes, and lets it fall on the stone hearth. The noise is remarkable and seems to bear no relation to the hundreds of pieces of crockery now lying at her feet, cupped like begging palms, their edges as white and porous as bone. Lydia, who has never intentionally broken anything in her life, has the sudden feeling she’s found a new career. She goes to the cabinet and finds the matching duckshaped ladle and flings it overhand against the opposite wall. It doesn’t explode as she’d hoped, but cracks like a femur and falls in two pieces. David gets up and stands by the door, looking back over his shoulder, trembling a little. Whitman sits back down on the bed and stares, speechless and bewildered.
    â€œI never applied for this job I’m doing here,” she says. “I don’t know how I got into it, but I know how to get out.” With shaky hands she stacks her papers into neat piles, closes her briefcase, and goes to work.
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    The walk home from school is not pleasant. The mud sticks to her boots, making her feet heavy and her legs tired. Tonight she’ll have a mess to clean up, and she’ll have to talk to Whitman. But his silent apathy has infected her and she’s begun to suspect thateven screaming won’t do it. Not talking,