通常，早晨的家庭活动一一分享梦境，乔纳思的贡献很有限，因为他很少做梦。就算偶尔记得一些片断，也无法拼凑起来，说出个所以然。
但是今天早晨与往常很不一样，他前一晚做的梦是那样的鲜明。
当莉莉像往常一样，绘声绘影地详述漫长的梦境时，乔纳思的心思不晓得飞到哪儿去了。这次莉莉又做了一个噩梦，梦中她违反规定，骑着妈妈的自行车，被警卫逮个正着。
大家仔细聆听，并和莉莉讨论梦中所透露的警讯。
“谢谢你提供的梦境。”乔纳思心不在焉地公式化地响应着。他试着集中注意力，听妈妈的梦。妈妈的梦有点零乱，好像是违反了一项她不了解的规定而被人责备。大家认为可能是因为她不愿意对那位再次违法的市民下重罚，才会做这样的梦。
爸爸说他没有做梦。
“加波呢？”爸爸低下头，问婴儿篮里的小宝宝。小宝宝刚吃饱，正咯咯笑着，等着回育婴中心度过白天的时光。
大家全都笑了。述说梦境从三岁开始，出生不久的小宝宝到底会不会做梦，大家都不知道。
“乔纳思呢？”妈妈问。虽然乔纳思很少有梦境可以分享，但他们还是会问。
“昨天晚上我做了一个梦。”乔纳思告诉大家。他换了个坐姿，皱皱眉头。
“很好。”爸爸说，“快点告诉我们吧。”
“事实上，细节我已经不太记得了。”乔纳思试图把怪梦重温一遍。
“我好像是在养老院的浴室里。”
“你昨天是到那儿去过。”爸爸指出。
乔纳思点点头：“但又不完全像那里，梦中只有一个浴盆，可是养老院的浴室里有一排接一排的浴盆。梦中的房间既潮湿又温暖，我脱下衣服，也没有穿罩衫，全身赤裸。温度太高了，我不断地流汗。费欧娜跟昨天一样，也在那里。”
“亚瑟也在吗？”妈妈问。
乔纳思摇摇头：“不在。只有我跟费欧娜单独站在浴盆旁边。她正在笑，不过我没有。我甚至有点儿生她的气，因为她没把我的话当一回事。”
“什么话？”莉莉问。
乔纳思盯着自己的盘子，不知道为什么，他觉得有点窘：“我要她进到浴盆里去。”
他迟疑了一下。他知道自己必须说出整个梦境，不能只挑一部分来说，因此，他强迫自己把不安的那部分也说出来。
“我要她脱下衣服，进到浴盆里，”他飞快地解释，“我想帮她洗澡。我手里拿着海绵。但是她不愿意，一直笑着说不要。”
他抬头看着父母：“就是这样。”他说。
“儿子，你可以描述一下梦中那种强烈的感觉吗？”爸爸问。
乔纳思想了一下，过程虽然模糊，但感觉非常清晰，仿佛现在还在他脑海里回旋。“那是一种‘想要’的感觉，”他说，“我明知道她不愿意，也知道不应该这样，却渴望这样做，我可以感觉到我全身上下都充满了这种需求。”
“谢谢你让我们分享了你的梦境。”过了一会儿，妈妈开口说话，她瞥了爸爸一眼。
“莉莉，”爸爸说，“上学时间到了。你要不要跟我一起走，顺便帮忙看着婴儿篮里的宝宝？他扭来扭去的，我担心会掉出来呢！”
乔纳思起身去整理课本。他很意外大家竟然没有讨论他的梦境，就跳到最后的谢词。也许他们也跟他一样困惑吧！
“等一下，乔纳思，”妈妈温和地说，“我会写张致歉字条给你的老师，这样你就不必为了迟到道歉。”
他纳闷坐回到椅子上，挥手跟提着加波的婴儿篮的爸爸和莉莉再见，然后看着妈妈整理早餐剩余的菜肴，并将托盘放到前门，方便工作人员收取。
最后，妈妈坐到他身边来：“乔纳思，”她微笑着说，“你所描述的那种强烈的需求感，就是你的第一次‘激情’。爸爸和我一直在期待你产生这样的感觉。这是每个人成长必然会经历的过程，爸爸和我在你这个年纪时都有过。将来有一天莉莉也会有。”
“而且通常是从梦里开始的。”妈妈补充道。
激情！他听过这个名词。社区法则中有，只是不记得上头写些什么。广播员也不时提到：“请注意！提醒大家，如果产生激情现象，要往上呈报，以便开处方治疗。”
以前他并不在意这种宣布，因为他听不懂，也从未想过自己会有这些现象。他忽略这项宣布，就像大多数的居民会忽略广播员的很多命令和提醒一样。
“我要不要往上呈报？”他问妈妈。
妈妈笑了：“你已经报告了，就在梦境分享的时间啊。这就够了。”
“那治疗呢？广播员说要开处方治疗。”乔纳思觉得很沮丧。怎么会在十二岁典礼前的当儿发生这种事？他会被送到远方治疗吗？就因为他做了一个荒谬的梦？
妈妈再度露出安心、亲切的笑容，“不用，不用。”她说，“只要服用一些药丸就行了。你已经可以服用药丸了，这就是治疗激情的方法。”
乔纳思顿时开心了起来。他知道药丸是什么，爸爸妈妈每天早上都服用。据他所知，有些朋友也在服用。有一次，他和亚瑟一块儿上学，才刚蹬上自行车，亚瑟的爸爸就在跑道上大叫：“亚瑟，你忘了吃药丸了！”亚瑟温顺地呻吟了一声，调转自行车，骑回屋前。
生活里面有些事是不能问的，即便是朋友也不能问，因为那样做就会“凸显差异”，令人不安。例如亚瑟每天早上服用一颗药丸，乔纳思没有。所以最好只谈论相同点，以免莽撞。
他马上吞下妈妈递给他的小药丸。
“就这样？”他问。
“就这样。”妈妈回答，把瓶子放回柜子里，“今后可别忘了吃。前几个星期我会提醒你，但以后你得自己记住。如果你忘了吃，激情会再度出现，激情的梦境也会再度出现。
有时候，还得看情形调整药量。”
“亚瑟也吃药。”乔纳思透露。
妈妈点点头，一点也不惊讶：“你的很多男同学可能都在服用了。女生也快了。”
“我必须服用多久？”
“直到你进入养老院为止，”她解释，“整个成年生活都要服用。渐渐地这会变成习惯，就像例行公事一样。”
她瞧了瞧手表：“如果你现在出门，可能还不会迟到。快走吧。”
“还有，乔纳思，”他走到门口时，她又补充说’“谢谢你让我们分享你的梦境。”
乔纳思飞快地蹬着自行车往前冲，内心隐隐地觉得骄傲，很高兴自己加入服用药丸的行列。他又回想起那个梦，虽然有些困惑，感觉上却很愉悦。
他喜欢妈妈说是“激情”的这种感觉。他记得自己刚醒过来时，曾希望这种感觉能再出现。
当他骑车拐过路口，将家远远地拋在后头时，那个梦境也跟着被拋到脑后了。在那一瞬间，他有点失落，想要把那种感觉抓回来，但是那种感觉消失了，激情不见了。
chapter 6
"Lily, please hold still," Mother said again.
Lily, standing in front of her, fidgeted impatiently. "I can tie them myself," she complained. "I always have."
"I know that," Mother replied, straightening the hair ribbons on the little girl's braids. "But I also know that they constantly come loose and more often than not, they're dangling down your back by afternoon. Today, at least, we want them to be neatly tied and to stay neatly tied."
"I don't like hair ribbons. I'm glad I only have to wear them one more year," Lily said irritably. "Next year I get my bicycle, too," she added more cheerfully.
"There are good things each year," Jonas reminded her. "This year you get to start your volunteer hours. And remember last year, when you became a Seven, you were so happy to get your front-buttoned jacket?"
The little girl nodded and looked down at herself, at the jacket with its row of large buttons that designated her as a Seven. Fours, Fives, and Sixes all wore jackets that fastened down the back so that they would have to help each other dress and would learn interdependence.
The front-buttoned jacket was the first sign of independence, the first very visible symbol of growing up. The bicycle, at Nine, would be the powerful emblem of moving gradually out into the community, away from the protective family unit.
Lily grinned and wriggled away from her mother. "And this year you get your Assignment," she said to Jonas in an excited voice. "I hope you get Pilot. And that you take me flying!"
"Sure I will," said Jonas. "And I'll get a special little parachute that just fits you, and I'll take you up to, oh, maybe twenty thousand feet, and open the door, and — "
"Jonas," Mother warned.
"I was only joking," Jonas groaned. "I don't want Pilot, anyway. If I get Pilot I'll put in an appeal."
"Come on," Mother said. She gave Lily's ribbons a final tug. "Jonas? Are you ready? Did you take your pill? I want to get a good seat in the Auditorium." She prodded Lily to the front door and Jonas followed.
It was a short ride to the Auditorium, Lily waving to her friends from her seat on the back of Mother's bicycle. Jonas stowed his bicycle beside Mother's and made his way through the throng to find his group.
The entire community attended the Ceremony each year. For the parents, it meant two days' holiday from work; they sat together in the huge hall. Children sat with their groups until they went, one by one, to the stage.
Father, though, would not join Mother in the audience right away. For the earliest ceremony, the Naming, the Nurturers brought the new children to the stage. Jonas, from his place in the balcony with the Elevens, searched the Auditorium for a glimpse of Father. It wasn't at all hard to spot the Nurturers' section at the front; coming from it were the wails and howls of the new children who sat squirming on the Nurturers' laps. At every other public ceremony, the audience was silent and attentive. But once a year, they all smiled indulgently at the commotion from the little ones waiting to receive their names and families.
Jonas finally caught his father's eye and waved. Father grinned and waved back, then held up the hand of the new child on his lap, making it wave, too.
It wasn't Gabriel. Gabe was back at the Nurturing Center today, being cared for by the night crew. He had been given an unusual and special reprieve from the committee, and granted an additional year of nurturing before his Naming and Placement. Father had gone before the committee with a plea on behalf of Gabriel, who had not yet gained the weight appropriate to his days of life nor begun to sleep soundly enough at night to be placed with his family unit. Normally such a new child would be labeled Inadequate and released from the community.
Instead, as a result of Father's plea, Gabriel had been labeled Uncertain and given the additional year. He would continue to be nurtured at the Center and would spend his nights with Jonas's family unit. Each family member, including Lily, had been required to sign a pledge that they would not become attached to this little temporary guest, and that they would relinquish him without protest or appeal when he was assigned to his own family unit at next year's Ceremony.
At least, Jonas thought, after Gabriel was placed next year, they would still see him often because he would be part of the community. If he were released, they would not see him again. Ever. Those who were released — even as new children — were sent Elsewhere and never returned to the community.
Father had not had to release a single new child this year, so Gabriel would have represented a real failure and sadness. Even Jonas, though he didn't hover over the little one the way Lily and his father did, was glad that Gabe had not been released.
The first Ceremony began right on time, and Jonas watched as one after another each new child was given a name and handed by the Nurturers to its new family unit. For some, it was a first child. But many came to the stage accompanied by another child beaming with pride to receive a little brother or sister, the way Jonas had when he was about to be a Five.
Asher poked Jonas's arm. "Remember when we got Phillipa?" he asked in a loud whisper. Jonas nodded. It had only been last year. Asher's parents had waited quite a long time before applying for a second child. Maybe, Jonas suspected, they had been so exhausted by Asher's lively foolishness that they had needed a little time.
Two of their group, Fiona and another female named Thea, were missing temporarily, waiting with their parents to receive new children But it was rare that there was such an age gap between children in a family unit.
When her family's ceremony was completed, Fiona took the seat that had been saved for her in the row ahead of Asher and Jonas. She turned and whispered to them, "He's cute. But I don't like his name very much." She made a face and giggled. Fiona's new brother had been named Bruno. It wasn't a great name, Jonas thought, like — well, like Gabriel, for example. But it was okay.
The audience applause, which was enthusiastic at each Naming, rose in an exuberant swell when one parental pair, glowing with pride, took a male new child and heard him named Caleb.
This new Caleb was a replacement child. The couple had lost their first Caleb, a cheerful little Four. Loss of a child was very, very rare. The community was extraordinarily safe, each citizen watchful and protective of all children. But somehow the first little Caleb had wandered away unnoticed, and had fallen into the river. The entire community had performed the Ceremony of Loss together, murmuring the name Caleb throughout an entire day, less and less frequently, softer in volume, as the long and somber day went on, so that the little Four seemed to fade away gradually from everyone's consciousness.
Now, at this special Naming, the community performed the brief Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony, repeating the name for the first time since the loss: softly and slowly at first, then faster and with greater volume, as the couple stood on the stage with the new child sleeping in the mother's arms. It was as if the first Caleb were returning.
Another new child was given the name Roberto, and Jonas remembered that Roberto the Old had been released only last week. But there was no Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony for the new little Roberto. Release was not the same as Loss.
He sat politely through the ceremonies of Two and Three and Four, increasingly bored as he was each year. Then a break for midday meal — served outdoors — and back again to the seats, for the Fives, Sixes, Sevens, and finally, last of the first day's ceremonies, the Eights.
Jonas watched and cheered as Lily marched proudly to the stage, became an Eight and received the identifying jacket that she would wear this year, this one with smaller buttons and, for the first time, pockets, indicating that she was mature enough now to keep track of her own small belongings. She stood solemnly listening to the speech of firm instructions on the responsibilities of Eight and doing volunteer hours for the first time. But Jonas could see that Lily, though she seemed attentive, was looking longingly at the row of gleaming bicycles, which would be presented tomorrow morning to the Nines.
Next year, Lily-billy, Jonas thought.
It was an exhausting day, and even Gabriel, retrieved in his basket from the Nurturing Center, slept soundly that night.
Finally it was the morning of the Ceremony of Twelve.
Now Father sat beside Mother in the audience. Jonas could see them applauding dutifully as the Nines, one by one, wheeled their new bicycles, each with its gleaming nametag attached to the back, from the stage. He knew that his parents cringed a little, as he did, when Fritz, who lived in the dwelling next door to theirs, received his bike and almost immediately bumped into the podium with it. Fritz was a very awkward child who had been summoned for chastisement again and again. His transgressions were small ones, always: shoes on the wrong feet, schoolwork misplaced, failure to study adequately for a quiz. But each such error reflected negatively on his parents' guidance and infringed on the community's sense of order and success. Jonas and his family had not been looking forward to Fritz's bicycle, which they realized would probably too often be dropped on the front walk instead of wheeled neatly into its port.
Finally the Nines were all resettled in their seats, each having wheeled a bicycle outside where it would be waiting for its owner at the end of the day. Everyone always chuckled and made small jokes when the Nines rode home for the first time. "Want me to show you how to ride?" older friends would call. "I know you've never been on a bike before!" But invariably the grinning Nines, who in technical violation of the rule had been practicing secretly for weeks, would mount and ride off in perfect balance, training wheels never touching the ground.
Then the Tens. Jonas never found the Ceremony of Ten particularly interesting — only time-consuming, as each child's hair was snipped neatly into its distinguishing cut: females lost their braids at Ten, and males, too, relinquished their long childish hair and took on the more manly short style which exposed their ears.
Laborers moved quickly to the stage with brooms and swept away the mounds of discarded hair. Jonas could see the parents of the new Tens stir and murmur, and he knew that this evening, in many dwellings, they would be snipping and straightening the hastily done haircuts, trimming them into a neater line.
Elevens. It seemed a short time ago that Jonas had undergone the Ceremony of Eleven, but he remembered that it was not one of the more interesting ones. By Eleven, one was only waiting to be Twelve. It was simply a marking of time with no meaningful changes. There was new clothing: different undergarments for the females, whose bodies were beginning to change; and longer trousers for the males, with a specially shaped pocket for the small calculator that they would use this year in school; but those were simply presented in wrapped packages without an accompanying speech.
Break for midday meal. Jonas realized he was hungry. He and his group mates congregated by the tables in front of the Auditorium and took their packaged food. Yesterday there had been merriment at lunch, a lot of teasing and energy. But today the group stood anxiously, separate from the other children. Jonas watched the new Nines gravitate toward their waiting bicycles, each one admiring his or her nametag. He saw the Tens stroking their new shortened hair, the females shaking their heads to feel the unaccustomed lightness without the heavy braids they had worn so long.
"I heard about a guy who was absolutely certain he was going to be assigned Engineer," Asher muttered as they ate, "and instead they gave him Sanitation Laborer. He went out the next day, jumped into the river, swam across, and joined the next community he came to. Nobody ever saw him again."
