#541 The Caretaker- Anthony Doerr
Doerr’s short stories are not like any of the others I’ve
read. They don’t tell stories about everyday occurrences, they don’t try to tap
into common themes or try to make connections that the reader can relate to.
These are singular tales, each an emotional undertaking that takes us into an
experience we would otherwise never think possible.
Joseph is a thirty-five year old Liberian man, doing
anything he can do to survive, including theft and looting. His mother is a
loving woman, teaches his son English from a dictionary and tends to her
garden. When civil war breaks out, she disappears and he is lost. He searches
for her but only finds death, and he is forced to kill a man.
He finds his way aboard a freighter and is given an American
refugee visa. He gets a job as a winter caretaker at a beach resort in Oregon.
When he witnesses a pod of beached whales on the shore, he goes into a
depression he cannot find relief from. He buries the hearts of the whales. He
is fired from the job because during his depression the house was left in
extreme disrepair and he settles into the adjacent forest tending to a garden
he has planted over the whale hearts.
One day he saves the life of Belle, the daughter of his
former employer. She was about to commit suicide. They begin a secret
friendship. She is deaf and teaches him sign language like his mother used to
teach him English. They grow the garden together, the only thing Joseph has
left of his mother. He is discovered, arrested and when he won’t eat, he is hospitalized.
He is on the brink of death, and he seems resolved with his plight.
“There is no fight is Joseph, no anger, no outrage at
injustice. He is not guilty of their crimes but he is guilty of so many others.
There has never been a man guilty of so much, he thinks, a man more deserving
of penalty."
When Belle brings his the fruits of their garden, he eats
with absolute joy. It might be a last meal, or it might be redemption. But it
is pure light.
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