“I want you to come, Giver,” Jonas pleaded.
“No. I have to stay here,” the Giver said firmly. “I want to, Jonas. If I go with you, and together we take away all their protection from the memories, Jonas, the community will be left with no one to help them. They’ll be thrown into chaos. They’ll destroy themselves. I can’t go.”
“Giver,” Jonas suggested, “you and I don’t need to care about the rest of them.”
The Giver looked at him with a questioning smile. Jonas hung his head. Of course they needed to care. It was the meaning of everything.
“And in any case, Jonas,” the Giver sighed, “I wouldn’t make it. I’m very weakened now. Do you know that I no longer see colours?”
Jonas’s heart broke. He reached for the Giver’s hand.
“You have the colours,” the Giver told him. “And you have the courage. I will help you to have the strength.”
“A year ago,” Jonas reminded him, “when I had just become a Twelve, when I began to see the first colour, you told me that the beginning had been different for you. But that I wouldn’t understand.”
The Giver brightened. “That’s true. And do you know, Jonas, that with all your knowledge now, with all your memories, with all you’ve learned – still you won’t understand? Because I’ve been a little selfish. I haven’t given any of it to you. I wanted to keep it for myself to the last.”
“Keep what?”
“When I was just a boy, younger than you, it began to come to me. But it wasn’t the seeing-beyond for me. It was different. For me, it was hearing-beyond.”
Jonas frowned, trying to figure that out. “What did you hear?” he asked.
“Music,” the Giver said, smiling. “I began to hear something truly remarkable, and it is called music. I’ll give you some before I go.”
Jonas shook his head emphatically. “No, Giver,” he said. “I want you to keep that, to have with you, when I’m gone.”
Jonas went home the next morning, cheerfully greeted his parents, and lied easily about what a busy, pleasant night he had had.
His father smiled and lied easily, too, about his busy and pleasant day the day before.
Throughout the school day, as he did his lessons, Jonas went over the plan in his head. It seemed startlingly simple. Jonas and the Giver had gone over it and over it, late into the night hours.
For the next two weeks, as the time for the December Ceremony approached, the Giver would transfer every memory of courage and strength that he could to Jonas. He would need those to help him find the Elsewhere that they were both sure existed. They knew it would be a very difficult journey.
Then, in the middle of the night before the Ceremony, Jonas would secretly leave his dwelling. This was probably the most dangerous part, because it was a violation of a major rule for any citizen not on official business to leave a dwelling at night.
“I’ll leave at midnight,” Jonas said. “The Food Collectors will be finished picking up the evening-meal remains by then, and the Path-Maintenance Crews don’t start their work that early. So there won’t be anyone to see me, unless of course someone is out on emergency business.”
“I don’t know what you should do if you are seen, Jonas,” the Giver had said. “I have memories, of course, of all kinds of escapes. People fleeing from terrible things throughout history. But every situation is individual. There is no memory of one like this.”
“I’ll be careful,” Jonas said. “No one will see me.”
“As Receiver-in-training, you’re held in very high respect already. So I think you wouldn’t be questioned very forcefully.”
“I’d just say I was on some important errand for the Receiver. I’d say it was all your fault that I was out after hours,” Jonas teased.
They both laughed a little nervously. But Jonas was certain that he could slip away, unseen, from his house, carrying an extra set of clothing. Silently he would take his bicycle to the riverbank and leave it there hidden in bushes with the clothing folded beside it.
Then he would make his way through the darkness, on foot, silently, to the Annexe.
“There’s no night-time attendant,” the Giver explained. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. You simply slip into the room. I’ll be waiting for you.”
His parents would discover, when they woke, that he was gone. They would also find a cheerful note from Jonas on his bed, telling them that he was going for an early morning ride along the river; that he would be back for the Ceremony.
His parents would be irritated but not alarmed. They would think him inconsiderate and they would plan to chastise him, later.
They would wait, with mounting anger, for him; finally they would be forced to go, taking Lily to the Ceremony without him.
“They won’t say anything to anyone, though,” Jonas said, quite certain. “They won’t call attention to my rudeness because it would reflect on their parenting. And anyway, everyone is so involved in the Ceremony that they probably won’t notice that I’m not there. Now that I’m a Twelve and in training, I don’t have to sit with my age group any more. So Asher will think I’m with my parents, or with you …”
“And your parents will assume you’re with Asher, or with me …”
Jonas shrugged. “It will take everyone a while to realise that I’m not there at all.”
“And you and I will be long on our way by then.”
In the early morning, the Giver would order a vehicle and driver from the Speaker. He visited the other communities frequently, meeting with their Elders; his responsibilities extended over all the surrounding areas. So this would not be an unusual undertaking.
Ordinarily the Giver did not attend the December Ceremony. Last year he had been present because of the occasion of Jonas’s selection, in which he was so involved. But his life was usually quite separate from that of the community. No one would comment on his absence, or on the fact that he had chosen this day to be away.
When the driver and vehicle arrived, the Giver would send the driver on some brief errand. During his absence, the Giver would help Jonas hide in the storage area of the vehicle. He would have with him a bundle of food which the Giver would save from his own meals during the next two weeks.
The Ceremony would begin, with all the community there, and by then Jonas and the Giver would be on their way.
By midday Jonas’s absence would become apparent, and would be a cause for serious concern. The Ceremony would not be disrupted – such a disruption would be unthinkable. But searchers would be sent out into the community.
By the time his bicycle and clothing were found, the Giver would be returning. Jonas, by then, would be on his own, making his journey Elsewhere.
The Giver, on his return, would find the community in a state of confusion and panic. Confronted by a situation which they had never faced before, and having no memories from which to find either solace or wisdom, they would not know what to do and would seek his advice.
He would go to the Auditorium where the people would be gathered, still. He would stride to the stage and command their attention.
He would make the solemn announcement that Jonas had been lost in the river. He would immediately begin the Ceremony of Loss.
“Jonas, Jonas,” they would say loudly, as they had once said the name of Caleb. The Giver would lead the chant. Together they would let Jonas’s presence in their lives fade away as they said his name in unison more slowly, softer and softer, until he was disappearing from them, until he was no more than an occasional murmur and