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Chapters (95)
  1. Title Page
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
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  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
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  18. 17
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  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
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  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
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  38. 37
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  40. 39
  41. 40
  42. 41
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  44. 43
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  47. 46
  48. 47
  49. 48
  50. 49
  51. 50
  52. 51
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  55. 54
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  70. 69
  71. 70
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  73. 72
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  75. 74
  76. 75
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  78. 77
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  86. 85
  87. 86
  88. 87
  89. 88
  90. 89
  91. 90
  92. 91
  93. 92
  94. Also by DAVID KLASS
  95. Copyright Page

I drop the balloon and stand there, numb. Somehow I know that I’m hearing my mother’s voice for the first time. It’s a sweet and melodic voice, but its true beauty comes from a deep reservoir of personal anguish.

Up till this moment, I felt fury toward this woman in the far future who sent me away when I was a baby. Night after night on the tramp steamer I pulled out the locket and studied her image by moonlight. A dozen times I was tempted to hurl it over the side. How could she have abandoned me to be raised by strangers? What coldness and cruelty would make a mother do such a terrible thing?

Now, hearing the sadness in her song, I consider for the first time the possibility that she might have had her reasons. As I stand motionless on the cold mountaintop, I suddenly understand that events which seem cruel and heartless when looked at one way may appear selfless and even heroic when viewed from a different vantage point.

Regret infuses my mother’s voice, pulsing in her pitch and deepening her tone. I wonder what dire events forced her to give me up. Was I her only child? Has she thought of me every day and every night since then, wondering if I was alive somewhere, being taken care of, being loved and fed and comforted, even if by a stranger’s hands?

The boy with the braid is also standing motionless, listening to the song, perhaps remembering his own mother. Then, as if sensing something, he walks over and picks up the side of the balloon’s mouth that Gisco dropped. He reaches high over his head, stretching it wide open.

Rat-tat-tat, the bursts of submachine-gun fire riddle the glacier above us, sending a snowstorm of ice flakes down on us. The bandits are hustling up the mountainside, stopping every so often to fire volleys.

We’re sheltered by the rocks, but they’ll soon be close enough to blow us to bits.

The cold wind is no longer blasting me. I feel it slacken and ease off, as it shifts. It seems to refocus itself in a new direction, gusting suddenly and with such power that its blast drowns out the last sad notes of my mother’s lullaby.

The young lad of the mountains now stands directly in its way. The whistling wind unbraids his long black hair, which flies wildly behind him as he holds the balloon’s mouth over his head with both hands.

The great nylon cavity fills up in a few seconds.

My plan worked perfectly, Gisco observes, recovering from his melancholy ruminations on his final resting place with lightning speed. All we’ve gotta do is heat the air, get this thing off the ground, and the two of us can resume our southerly peregrinations.

The three of us, I correct him.

What?

The boy’s coming with us.

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