Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem Page B

fish in the jar weren’t important, something else would be, and she would have to learn that something else on her own. No one could be counted on to tell her. She felt the burden of this lonely knowledge fall on her, instantly.
    She hoped David hadn’t named his new pets. Or counted them.
    “Kneel, are you listening?” said Ben Barth.
    “Assuming the Marshes to be residing long and unveiling interest to me slowly, I wasn’t, no,” said Hiding Kneel. “Rather I was busily savoring nuances, details such as the name of Pella Marsh.”
    “Enough about that,” said Pella. She disliked the way her name had gotten roped together with swallowing live things as
savoring nuances
.
    “Well, get over here,” said Ben Barth. “Mr. Marshisn’t just any new homesteader on your dirty old planet.”
    “In as how?” said the Archbuilder, sidling toward them.
    “In as he’s an important politician from Earth,” said Ben. “He’s here to scrape us up into some kind of society. Be the first real civilization on this planet since your great-great-grand-whatever and their pals built those arches.”
    “Ah. What will you build?” said Hiding Kneel.
    “Sorry?” said Clement.
    “Whatever it is, it won’t all fall down,” said Ben Barth. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Marsh?”
    “Well, we’re not building anything right now,” said Clement. “I mean, besides a home. What I did back on Earth might be relevant at some time in the future; I’ll do that kind of work if there’s a call for it. But a planet with less than two hundred people on it doesn’t have any use for a politician. I’m just here to join the community.”
    “Listen to him, Kneel. A speech maker, whether he means to or not. Now you’re going to hear some English spoken around here, instead of that bunk of yours.”
    “I’m in a state of anticipation, anticipating statehood,” said Hiding Kneel.
    Raymond and David came out of the back, David rubbing his mouth and nose with a curled finger. “There,” said Raymond, pointing at the Archbuilder, and whispering menacingly in his brother’s ear. “Its name is Hiding Kneel. It talks crazy. And that guy is Ben Barth. He helped Clement with our stuff.”
    Pella caught sight of the household deer again, more than she’d ever seen before, all darting to take up positions around the room.
    David stopped when he saw the Archbuilder, and stared. Hiding Kneel raised its glass of juice in a salute. Pella could only think of the potato fish that had been swimming in it a moment before.
    David’s face warped in dreadful slow-motion. The actual crying, the noise and tears, always waited until his face made itself ready. Like seeing a dish slip and fall toward the floor, it was impossible to do anything but watch.
    Then it came, a roar of weeping. “The kid’s scared,” said Ben Barth delightedly. “He thinks he’s having a nightmare, Kneel!”
    “David, it’s all right,” said Clement. “Hiding Kneel is our friend.” To the Archbuilder he said, “I’m sorry.”
    Raymond punched his brother lightly on the shoulder. “C’mon, David. Be brave like an arm.”
    David just stood and stared and cried. The situation freed Pella to study Hiding Kneel’s face again, to stare down her own fear. To marvel at the furred, toothless hole of a mouth, at the burnished cheeks, the tangle of fleshy tendrils.
    “We showed him
pictures
,” said Ray, as though he were an old hand at Archbuilders, as though he’d seen more than pictures himself before Hiding Kneel appeared.
    Ben Barth chuckled. “Pictures don’t do that face justice, though, do they?”
    “Could it be your countenance that has mispleasedthe child?” said Hiding Kneel to Ben. “He had no similar photographic preparation for such an event.”
    “Get the big comedian, here,” said Ben Barth. “You’ve really got to work on your delivery, Kneel.”
    Pella saw that Clement was paralyzed, made stupid by the situation. She went and plucked David