THE SON OF ELI

CHAPTER 16: THE EDUCATION OF ELI

Jo kept her hands across her breasts and lowered herself into the tub and fought hard to keep her breathing even as her eyes appraised him, drinking in his innocence and the sheer beauty of him. She felt a pang of guilt as thoughts of the amorous intruded on her vision. She wondered how she could feel that way when she had been so disgusted by Mike's betrayal.

She forced her eyes off his body and spoke as calmly as she could.

"You're different because you're male, and I am female. Do you want to use the water closet?"

"I do," he said. "To release the water from my penis."

"To urinate," she said quickly as she felt a peculiar heat swimming up to her neck. "Go ahead, Eli. But next time, if I'm in here, or Nancy, you have to wait until we came out before you enter."

"Why?" he asked, puzzled, and began to urinate noisily into the bowl.

"It is good manners, good etiquette!" she said and was appalled by her sudden fierce voice. He was just a child, in a way, and just beginning to learn about things. "Look, it is not right for you to see me without clothes."

"Oh," he said as he turned from the WC and faced her. "But I like it this way. The clothes don't feel good."

"You'll grow to find them comfortable. Please, wait for me inside."

"Oh," he said, and once again put his head to one side as he regarded her. "I wanted to feel them. They look… nice."

"You can't touch them!" she said, and again her harsh voice surprised her.

He scowled in his innocence, and strangely it made him even more appealing and made her feel an irrational urge to pull him into the tub with her.

"Are they… painful?"

She looked at him with a look of despair on her face.

"No, Eli, they're not. But you cannot touch a female's breasts unless she wants you to, do you understand? Not even when you find them nice."

He looked a little pained at that, just like a sulking boy, then he nodded and left the bathroom abruptly. Jo sighed and realized how close she had really come to doing something unthinkable.

She quickly finished up and flew into her night robe, belted it, and went into the room. He was lying on his back at one side of the bed, curled up, and breathing gently.

As she turned down the lamp, she wondered why she felt a little piqued that he had fallen asleep.

***

The following morning, Jo entered the clinic and stared at Mrs Tilly with shock.

The woman was not only out of her bed, but she was moving around with a spiritedness that baffled Jo. She did not enter the ward, but stayed in the corridor outside and watched Mrs Tilly speaking to a shaken Emelia, then Jo marched on to the office Dr John used as a consulting room.

The elderly man was sitting behind the desk and dozing. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn the previous day and had an old stethoscope around his neck. He looked up with bloodshot eyes when Jo entered.

"You didn't go home last night, did you?" Jo asked although it sounded more of a statement than a question.

Dr John did not smile like he usually did.

"No, I didn't," he said quietly. "I wanted to, in fact. I got as far as the field, then I came back. I couldn't leave Tilly. Have you seen her?"

Jo nodded.

"Saw her speaking to Emi," she said with a sigh as she sat down. "I supposed her condition has something to do with Eli?"

Dr John rubbed his face absent-mindedly and scratched his ears.

"Yes, of course. Gave her a little – just a little of his blood. By the way, his blood type is undefined, it is a myriad compound that is rich and vibrant, not like anything I've ever seen. But tell me, did anything unusual happen last night?"

Wordlessly, Jo opened the journal in her hand and handed it to him. She noticed that his hands were not quite steady as he grabbed the book and read avidly.

"Amazing!" Dr John whispered eventually. "This is unbelievable! Where's he?"

"At Nancy's ward," Jo replied. "She wanted to show him some books."

Dr John handed the journal back to her.

"You keep writing that, but in secret," he said, his voice harried. "You would have to take charge this morning, sweetheart. I want to go home and wash down, take a nap, if possible. I want Eli to go with me."

Jo wondered why that statement didn't please her much.

"You have something in mind?"

Dr John pointed at the journal in her hand.

"I want him to see the library," he said quickly. "And watch the videos. I want to see how he does it. Seems to me that he needs a crash course in the world we live in. If he can assimilate information that fast, then he's really something wonderful indeed. But, keep it a secret for now, okay?"

"Can we?" Jo asked, oddly exasperated. "Look at Mrs Tilly!"

"Nobody knows I infused her with Eli's blood, just you and me," Dr John said quickly. "You know her, she thinks it is one of the miracles of God. Let it be like that for now!"

As he dashed out of the office, Jo sighed and waited for a while before going out to prepare for the morning's crop of patients.

She looked out of her office window fifteen minutes later and saw Dr John walking with Eli and Nancy down the field. For a moment, she felt fleeting resentment again and thought about calling Nancy to go to school. The girl was happy with Eli, and moreover, Jo didn't want her with Anita yet.

Nancy had asked about why Mike and Anita were no longer in the house, although she had expressed happiness that Anita was out. Jo had informed her that there was a little adult misunderstanding, but things would be alright, that the two of them would do just fine.

Nancy had smiled and nodded, saying she liked Eli a lot more than Mike, and that the three of them would be fine, and that was what she wanted.

If she went to the school, she was bound to have a class with Anita, and Jo didn't know how that worm would relate to Nancy, or what she would tell the little girl.

She turned her attention to her patients and made a mental note to check up on Dr John and Eli as soon as she completed her schedule.

***

Dr John's house had a library and private relaxation lounge for the Sports complex. It was located at the eastern tip, nestled amongst short trees and surrounded by a lush grass lawn and flowers.

He had converted it into a bedroom, sitting area, kitchen, and the library. There was a television and CD player which he had kept clean and functioning, although he could not remember the last time he had turned them on.

With no electricity, they had had to rely on a power plant owned by the Sports Complex. However, it was hard to get fuel, and there was no one to maintain the plant yet, so it could only serve his house, the main clinic, and just a couple of other rooms.

They put it on mostly on weekends for entertainment purposes. He knew a day would come when it would break down completely, or when they would not be able to get fuel and engine oil for it.

As he suspected, Eli was blown away by the books he found.

"Woooow, Doctor, this is so amazing!" he said as he moved excitedly around the room. He picked up a Geography book and began turning the pages excitedly and fast, and put it down in under one minute.

"Eli, you have to read that," Dr John said, but his heart was beating with excitement.

"I finished reading it," Eli said as he picked up a physics book next. "That book is about the old Bedouin dwellers in Africa, mostly found in the desert."

"I see," Dr John said in a tight voice.

"It is true, he has read it," Nancy said with a laugh. "That's how he reads, very fast!"

"Then, please put the books you read on one side so that they don't get jumbled up," he said.

"Alright, Doctor man," Eli said absent-mindedly as he hunched over the physics book. Dr John hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should show the boy the videos on the Meltdown, but he decided against that. It would be good to explain it to the boy himself, and watch if its narration would jog his memory a bit about something, anything!

He took a bath, ate some cereals, dozed in his bedroom for close to an hour, and then he woke up with a start, put on some clothes, and returned to the library.

His mouth fell open when he saw that Eli had packed all the books in a heap to one side of the room, and was now poring over a book of maps, the only book not packed.

"You packed all the books?" he asked.

"You told me to," he said without looking up from the map book.

"But… I said those you read!"

"They're the ones I read."

"You read all the books in just over an hour?"

He closed the map book and looked at him solemnly.

"Yes, Doctor John, and thank you for letting me read them," he said in a calm voice. "They taught me so many things! Now I know why Jo was upset last night when I wanted to touch her breasts inappropriately."

He was speaking in a cultured voice, an educated voice, and suddenly he was not the same prancing boy who had followed him home, and who had been playing child games with Nancy.

He was no longer a boy, but an educated young man.

"Oh, Eli," Dr John said, awed and shaken. "You're really something else! What a great miracle you are! Surely, the Meltdown denied us of what would have been the world's most amazing inventions ever!"

"And what might that be, sir?" he asked politely.

"You, my boy, you!" Dr John said excitedly. "I mean, do you know how we found you?"

He shook his head.

"Nancy told me I was inside that cylindrical glass, which I find amazing, next to impossible," he said and looked at Dr John with worried furrows on his forehead. "From what I learned of procreation, that should not be possible. I'm at a loss as to what might have happened."

"And you don't remember anything at all?" Dr John asked. "Nobody? No faces?"

Eli rubbed his temples suddenly.

"I see a face, a woman's face, dimly, but I cannot really make her out, and a man also. Three men, actually. One who is kind and loving, always smiling. One who is always fretting, serious-faced. And one who is scary, and has circles on his forehead, with huge, lights for eyes!"

"My goodness!" Dr John said. "That one, the one with the circles, you just described one of the Red Circles. They are suspected to have caused the Meltdown, those devils! They're indestructible, and kill humans on sight! Come, Eli. Let's watch some videos I've managed to collect over the past eighteen years. Most of them are what I took with my small digital camera, and others are what I got from people we helped, or from cameras, we found lying around."

So, for the next hour, Eli watched clips of various periods and areas and incidents that occurred during the Meltdown. Suddenly, he began to sweat, and he rubbed his temples furiously.

"Eli!" Dr John shouted and rushed to the boy. He touched Eli and groaned with horror when he felt how hot the boy was.

"Damn, you're burning up!" he said. "Come, lie in the settee! I'll open the windows and draw the curtains. Do you have fever, shivers, headaches?"

"Just headache," Eli said, and he was sweating profusely now.

Dr John made him lie down, and after opening the windows and drawing the curtains, he wet a towel and began rubbing Eli's face gently.

"Sali!" Eli whispered.

"What?" Dr John paused and asked. "What did you say, Eli?"

"Sali," Eli repeated. "The one with the circles. Sali! He did something bad to the rest, to the woman, to the two men, to the wonderful woman! Sali! He's evil! A Red Circle!"

He went limp and began to breathe gently.

He was asleep.

"My goodness!" Dr John whispered. "He has memories, hidden somehow, pushed somehow, or erased. Brainwashed? You continue to astound me, son of Eli! Who really are you?"