Anne Tyler by Noah's Compass

Author:Noah's Compass [Compass, Noah's]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-08-01T16:26:06.260000+00:00

“Well, let’s see them.”

Jonah struggled out of his knapsack and laid it on the rug. Unzipping it took some doing—everything seemed to be such hard work, at this age—but eventually he brought forth a

box of apple juice, a plastic bag of carrot sticks, a pack of crayons, and a coloring book entitled Bible Tales for Tots. “I just finished Abraham,” he told Liam.

“Abraham!”

Wasn’t that the man who’d been willing to slaughter his own son?

“Now I think I’ll do Joseph,” Jonah said. He started flipping through the coloring book.

“Could I see Abraham?” Liam asked him.

Jonah raised his head and gave him a level stare, as if he didn’t quite trust Liam’s

motives.

“Just a peek?” Liam said.

Jonah turned back several pages to show a picture that had been covered over with

jagged swaths of purple, nowhere near inside the lines. From what Liam could make out, it

was a benign illustration of a man and a boy walking up a hill. Abraham obeys God’s command to deliver Isaac, the caption read.

“Thanks,” Liam said. “Very nice.”

Jonah resumed flipping pages, settling finally on one that read Joseph had a coat of many

colors. The coat was a sort of bathrobe affair with wide vertical stripes.

“Do they have your story? Jonah and the whale?” Liam asked.

Jonah gave another of his effortful shrugs and dumped the pack of crayons out on the carpet. All of them seemed untouched except for the purple, which was worn down to a nubbin.

“You’re supposed to tell about Joseph while I’m coloring,” he said.

“Who, me?”

Jonah nodded vigorously. He selected the purple crayon and started making wild horizontal marks across the coat. There was an extremely high probability that the purple would stray

onto the carpet, but Liam was so relieved to have Jonah occupied that he didn’t intervene. He

sat down in an armchair and said, “Okay. Joseph.”

Strange how unconnected he felt to this child. Not that he had anything against him; certainly he wished him well. And it was true there was something fetching about those fragile

little ears, and those tiny bare feet in laughably small flip-flops. (The universal appeal of the

miniature! Obviously it must serve to perpetuate the species.) But the fact that they were related by blood seemed too much to comprehend. Did other grandparents feel this way? Or

maybe it was just that Jonah was growing up in such a different world, with his fundamentalist

parents and his Bible Tales for Tots.

Liam couldn’t for the life of him remember the point of the Joseph story.

Still, he did his best. “Joseph,” he said, “had a coat of many colors that was a present from

his father, and this made his brothers jealous.”

He wondered if the word jealous would be familiar to a four-year-old. It seemed doubtful.

He tried to guess from Jonah’s expression, but Jonah was busily working away, his lower lip

caught between his teeth.

“Joseph’s brothers were upset,” Liam clarified, “because they didn’t have any coats of

many colors themselves.”

“Maybe Joseph could let them borrow his sometimes,” Jonah said.

“You would think so, wouldn’t you.”

“Did he?” Jonah persisted.

“Well, no, I don’t believe he did.

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