the earliest part of the night. Jonas, in his bed, lay awake for a while; from time to time he raised himself on one elbow, looking over at the crib. The newchild was on his stomach, his arms relaxed beside his head, his eyes closed, and his breathing regular and undisturbed. Finally Jonas slept too.
Then, as the middle hours of the night approached, the noise of Gabe’s restlessness woke Jonas. The newchild was turning under his cover, flailing his arms, and beginning to whimper.
Jonas rose and went to him. Gently he patted Gabriel’s back. Sometimes that was all it took to lull him back to sleep. But the newchild still squirmed fretfully under his hand.
Still patting rhythmically, Jonas began to remember the wonderful sail that the Giver had given him not long before: a bright, breezy day on a clear turquoise lake, and above him the white sail of the boat billowing as he moved along in the brisk wind.
He was not aware of giving the memory; but suddenly he realised that it was becoming dimmer, that it was sliding through his hand into the being of the newchild. Gabriel became quiet. Startled, Jonas pulled back what was left of the memory with a burst of will. He removed his hand from the little back and stood quietly beside the crib.
To himself, he called the memory of the sail forward again. It was still there, but the sky was less blue, the gentle motion of the boat slower, the water of the lake more murky and clouded. He kept it for a while, soothing his own nervousness at what had occurred, then let it go and returned to his bed.
Once more, towards dawn, the newchild woke and cried out. Again Jonas went to him. This time he quite deliberately placed his hand firmly on Gabriel’s back, and released the rest of the calming day on the lake. Again Gabriel slept.
But now Jonas lay awake, thinking. He no longer had any more than a wisp of the memory, and he felt a small lack where it had been. He could ask the Giver for another sail, he knew. A sail perhaps on an ocean, next time, for Jonas had a memory of ocean, now, and knew what it was; he knew that there were sailboats there, too, in memories yet to be acquired.
He wondered, though, if he should confess to the Giver that he had given a memory away. He was not yet qualified to be a Giver himself; nor had Gabriel been selected to be a Receiver.
That he had this power frightened him. He decided not to tell.
JONAS ENTERED THE Annexe room and realised immediately that it was a day when he would be sent away. The Giver was rigid in his chair, his face in his hands.
“I’ll come back tomorrow, sir,” he said quickly. Then he hesitated. “Unless maybe there’s something I can do to help.”
The Giver looked up at him, his face contorted with suffering. “Please,” he gasped, “take some of the pain.”
Jonas helped him to his chair at the side of the bed. Then he quickly removed his tunic and lay face down. “Put your hands on me,” he directed, aware that in such anguish the Giver might need reminding.
The hands came, and the pain came with them and through them. Jonas braced himself and entered the memory which was torturing the Giver.
He was in a confused, noisy, foul-smelling place. It was daylight, early morning, and the air was thick with smoke that hung, yellow and brown, above the ground. Around him, everywhere, far across the expanse of what seemed to be a field, lay groaning men. A wild-eyed horse, its bridle torn and dangling, trotted frantically through the mounds of men, tossing its head, whinnying in panic. It stumbled, finally, then fell, and did not rise.
Jonas heard a voice next to him. “Water,” the voice said in a parched, croaking whisper.
He turned his head towards the voice and looked into the half-closed eyes of a boy who seemed not much older than himself. Dirt streaked the boy’s face and his matted blond hair. He lay sprawled, his grey uniform glistening with wet, fresh blood.
The colours of the carnage were grotesquely bright: the crimson wetness on the rough and dusty fabric, the ripped shreds of grass, startlingly green, in the boy’s yellow hair.
The boy stared at him. “Water,” he begged again. When he spoke, a new spurt of blood drenched the coarse cloth across his chest and sleeve.
One of Jonas’s arms was immobilised with pain, and he could see through his own torn sleeve something that looked like ragged flesh and splintery bone. He tried his remaining arm and felt it move. Slowly he reached to his side, felt the metal container there, and removed its cap, stopping the small motion of his hand now and then to wait for the surging pain to ease. Finally, when the container was open, he extended his arm slowly across the blood-soaked earth, inch by inch, and held it to the lips of the boy. Water trickled into the imploring mouth and down the grimy chin.
The boy sighed. His head fell back, his lower jaw dropping as if he had been surprised by something. A dull blankness slid slowly across his eyes. He was silent.
But the noise continued all around: the cries of the wounded men, the cries begging for water and for Mother and for death. Horses lying on the ground shrieked, raised their heads, and stabbed randomly towards the sky with their hooves.
From the distance, Jonas could hear the thud of cannons. Overwhelmed by pain, he lay there in the fearsome stench for hours, listened to the men and animals die, and learned what warfare meant.
Finally, when he knew that he could bear it no longer and would welcome death himself, he opened his eyes and was once again on the bed.
The Giver looked away, as if he could not bear to see what he had done to Jonas. “Forgive me,” he said.
JONAS DID NOT want to go back. He didn’t want the memories, didn’t want the honour, didn’t want the wisdom, didn’t want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden.
But the choice was not his. He returned each day to the Annexe room.
The Giver was gentle with him for many days following the terrible shared memory of war.
“There are so many good memories,” the Giver reminded Jonas. And it was true. By now Jonas had experienced countless bits of happiness, things he had never known of before.
He had seen a birthday party, with one child singled out and celebrated on his day, so that now he understood the joy of being an individual, special and unique and proud.
He had visited museums and seen paintings filled with all the colours he could now recognise and name.
In one ecstatic memory he had ridden a gleaming brown horse across a field that smelled of damp grass, and had dismounted
