The Book of Jonas Read Online Free Page A

he might easily have missed seeing it in the meek dawn.
    Alone for the moment, he glances around, then stoops to pick it up. The leather is creased at the spine, bent and folded over at the corners, worn bare at the edges. It feels dense in his hands. A leather tie wraps the book at its middle, and he gently tugs open the precise knot that holds it closed.
    The inside cover is inscribed with a compass rose, next to which is a brief, handwritten dedication in flowing script. The journal is filled with long stretches of text, each separated by half a blank page. Some sections take up multiple pages; some are only one or two paragraphs long. For the most part, the writing is a slanted, hasty scrawl, but occasionally it refracts into neat printing. Penciled-in scratch marks and corrections fill the margins.
    He is able to read only the first page. Before he gets a chance to go any further, he hears rocks clattering outside the cave mouth, and realizes the soldier has returned. He quickly closes the book, hastily ties the leather strap with a knot that faintly imitates the original, and puts the book back on the ground next to the pack.
    Eventually, he will read the whole thing. At first he will read with passing interest, and then with increasing fascination, and finally with dread. After he reads it, unsure what to do next, he will take the book to the back of the cave and wedge it underneath some rocks, confident that he is the only one who will ever be able to find it again.
    But for now, the fear of being discovered forces him to be content with stolen glances and skimmed passages. He knows he is trespassing, that these words were not meant for him. But he is able to convince himself that if he proceeds carefully, respectfully, he will harm nothing, violate no sacred laws. He is allowed to read it, he reasons, because he needs to know whom he is dealing with.
12

    You deserve an explanation.
    I have had this book with me ever since you gave it to me on my eighteenth birthday. During all that time I have not scratched a hundred words into it. Countless times I have thought of packing itaway, or misplacing it, or leaving it behind somewhere. But I kept it. Maybe this is why.
    I won’t try to justify anything we did, but you should know what happened. Maybe you will read something in the paper. Or maybe you will see a reporter talking into a microphone in the dusty aftermath. Maybe you will think to yourself that the snowy mountains behind him would be beautiful in another context. By then, it will be done. It will feel historical, like a stock-market crash or an election. It will seem inevitable.
    But this was not inevitable. We did exactly what we were supposed to do. Maybe that’s the horror of it. To call it an accident would be false. To call it a mistake implies that it was unintentional.
    What we did stank of intention.
13
    “Welcome to America,” they say.
    It is said often during the two years he stays with the Martins at their large home in the suburbs. They first said it to him when he arrived at their house on a muggy summer afternoon, the duffel slung over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold into a cavernous foyer and a cold blast of conditioned air.
    “Welcome to America,” they said.
    But since then, he is welcomed to America regularly. It becomes a kind of joke.
    They say, “Welcome to America,” when he expresses astonishmentat how friendly everyone is, smiling at him every time he opens his mouth to say anything, smiling at his accent. He is welcomed to America when he comments on the number of church steeples visible in the city and the surrounding towns. He is welcomed to America when he mentions the number of hours the Martins spend sitting passively in front of their television set.
    He is welcomed to America when he makes the mistake of saying that he does not like American football, which is all but a second religion in the Martin household. But Jonas says that it’s a jerky, start-stop kind