My Ishmael (Ishmael 3) - Page 12

He made a face. I guess he thought this was an unnecessary question. All the same, he answered it—by asking me what I wanted him to do.

“I guess I want you to tell him to come back later.”

“I see. And is that what I should tell you if you come while Alan’s here?”

“Yes.”

“If Alan’s here when you arrive, I should tell you to come back later?”

“That’s right.”

He shook his head, bemused. “I’ll have to talk to him about it. I can tell you to come back later, but I can’t tell him to come back later. Not without discussing it first.”

“I don’t want you to do that,” I told him. “If Alan comes while I’m here, I’ll just leave.”

“But why? What have you got against him?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want him to know about me.”

“What is it you don’t want him to know?”

“I don’t want him to know anything. I don’t even want him to know I exist.”

“I can’t guarantee such a thing, Julie. If he walks through the door right now, he obviously will know you exist.”

“I realize that. But that’s just my first choice,” I told him. “If I can’t get that, then I’ll get the next best thing.”

“And what’s the next best thing?”

“Whatever I get just by walking out, that’s the next best thing.”

Ishmael suddenly lifted his upper lip, exposing a row of golden-brown teeth as big as thumbs. It took me a second to recognize this as a smile.

He said, “I’m beginning to think you have a character very like my own, Julie.”

I gaped at him.

“If you don’t understand what I mean by that right now, you’ll understand it someday.”

He was right, I didn’t understand it then. Now, four years later, I think I understand it. Maybe.

Anyway, when the chitchat was over, Ishmael settled back into his brushy bed and started in. “You believe that someone in the universe must know how to live in the world without destroying it. This is what your daydream seems to indicate.”

“Well … I don’t exactly believe it.”

“Let’s say rather that it makes sense to you. It seems reasonable to you that, if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, some people somewhere must know how to live sustainably on their world.”

“That’s right.”

“Why does this seem reasonable, Julie?”

“I don’t know.”

The ape frowned. “Before saying, ‘I don’t know,’ I’d appreciate it if you’d take a moment to see if perhaps you do know. And even if you find you truly don’t know, please take a stab at the answer.”

“Okay. You want to know why it seems reasonable that people on other planets would know how to live sustainably.”

“That’s right.”

Tags: Daniel Quinn Ishmael Classics
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