Children of the Dusk Read Online Free PDF Page A

that veneer. He had one himself, only he called it philosophy .
    Distracted by introspection, she at first ignored an unfamiliar buzzing that was attempting to penetrate her consciousness. When it became so intense it was almost a thrumming, she looked upward to find its source. All that she could see against the canopy of tree and sky was Bruqah, staring with fearful eyes toward the outer fringes of the rain forest.
    She made a lethargic attempt to push herself to her feet.
    "Get down!" the Malagasy yelled.
    Even as the words left his mouth, a dark cloud emerged from the surrounding forest and spread across what little sun remained. The shadow touched Miriam and she squinted upward. Panic set her heart racing like waves against the shoreline as the darkness deepened. All human sound stopped in the clearing as heads and eyes turned upward.
    A quiet whirring began high in the air. Starting pianissimo , it grew rapidly into a crescendo that drowned out the incessant calling of the lemurs and chittering of the birds. Mesmerized, prisoners, guards and dogs watched the dark cloud move toward them. When it looked as if it would envelop them, the guards came to life, pointing their carbines this way and that.
    "The hand of God," said quietly.
    As if in answer, the sun went black, and Miriam realized the cloud was alive.
    Grasshoppers swarmed in from all sides, the cloud so thick that guards and prisoners alike danced and batted and cursed the deluge of whirring, maddening, gray-green wings. Sol threw himself across Miriam, who could not stop herself from whimpering with fear as the insects, some as long as fifteen or eighteen centimeters, alighted in her hair and on her face.
    "Get them off me, Sol, get them off!" she yelled, batting at them to no avail.
    He fought them, but it was a losing battle. They invaded his clothes, and then his nostrils and ears. He tore at his shirt and hair. Around him, Nazis jerked like marionettes. The dogs howled and leaped and snapped, or ran in terrified circles.
    Sol brushed the insects from Miriam's face but he was unable to stop the horde. He hugged her, covered his head, and squeezed shut his eyes. Miriam did the same, aware of grasshoppers on the bridge of her nose, exploring her nostrils, and fluttering against her eyelids.
    Suddenly she felt Sol go rigid. His arms felt like iron around her body.
    "Not here! Not now!" she thought, knowing immediately that the trauma of the swarming had triggered a psychic episode, and that the darkness behind his lids had exploded with cobalt-blue light. When she felt his body go slack, she knew that the vision held him in thrall. For as long as it did, he would be useless to everyone, especially to himself. Dybbuk or no dybbuk, he would always be a visionary, able to glance into the future.
    Not that it did anyone any good, Miriam thought. The visions always seemed out of context until the event was upon them.
    She felt Sol thrashing on top of her and pushed him off her belly. The vision had apparently ended, she thought, curious despite her skepticism and her fear of what was happening around--and on--them.
    "Solomon?"
    The word emerged as a whisper. Sol rolled fully off her and looked around. He appeared to be dazed by fear and by the spectacle of the meadow, seemingly so benign when they had emerged from the track that ran up the rain forested hill, acrawl with myriad insects. Most of the grasshoppers had settled, and were eating. Now and again a few whirred into the air, only to alight again on the closest solid object. The Nazis and prisoners were brushing themselves off, the insects suddenly listless after the fury with which they had arrived. The guards wore sheepish expressions, a result, apparently, of their cowardice before something as innocuous as grasshoppers, disturbing though they were in a swarm. The prisoners picked off the insects gingerly, unafraid, unhurried. After all, what was an insect, after what they had endured in the camps and during