A World Elsewhere by Wayne Johnston

assessing—
That it’s you we find the hardest to endure.
    “I’m sure, Mr. Druken,” she said, “that you would find it no burden to do without your stipend for a month. But I think the boy would find it burdensome. Tell me, were you thinking of the boy or only of yourself when you made up that hurtful verse? Here is your stipend. I hope you’ll be more cordial the next time we stop by. You’re very clever, Mr. Druken, and you’re only in your twenties, but unless you turn it to some better use, your cleverness may outlive this little boy. You haven’t been poor long enough to truly understand what it means to be poor. But this child has lived in poverty since he was born.”
    Landish knew she was right, knew that he’d not only been hurtful but selfish and reckless to mock Nun One who held Deacon’s fate in her hands.
    A man they nicknamed the “wealth inspector,” of whom Hogan often spoke and who Landish thought meant well, began, at the behest of the nuns, to come by once a month to give them food vouchers and to see if the contents of the attic matched the list of their possessions, which he held in front of him on a clipboard as he walked about, ticking off each item with a pencil. He enumerated every object in the attic as if preparing for an auction. The table and two chairs. The bed. A few dishes and some cutlery. A few books. Gen of Eve and Captain Druken’s hat. Two washtubs.
    His job was to make sure that those to whom he gave vouchers that could be redeemed for food at certain stores had no secret sources of income. Landish told Deacon that some wealth inspectors would quibble over the smallest gift. They would count the number of troutyou caught and dock you accordingly. Or the number of blueberries you still had strength enough to pick.
    But their wealth inspector never quibbled. He always made the same joke, pretending that Deacon was an item on his list, opposite whose name there was a box in which he put an X.
    “Just the one Deacon, same as last month?” he would say. “Good. No Deacon deduction then.”
    He sometimes gave Deacon a large candy called a peppermint knob.
    He measured off a wedge of vouchers from the roll he carried in his coat.
    They were required to allow him—or else forfeit their right to vouchers—to search through closets, cupboards, under beds, through bed linen, dresser drawers. He could do anything that might turn up what he referred to as “excess.”
    It was always roughly a month between visits, but they never knew for certain when the wealth inspector might arrive. As soon as you leave, Landish told him, we start roasting legs of lamb that we have hidden beneath the floorboards in the house.
    “Mine is a thankless job,” the wealth inspector said, “but one that I cannot afford to lose. You never give me any trouble, Mr. Druken, but some others, let me tell you.”
    So he did. He told Landish of the others while Deacon sat and listened to them talk. “What I see is what you have,” he said. “I never doubt it but I must go through the motions of making sure. This attic poses no great challenge to a man of my profession.”
    “What with it being so uncluttered,” Landish said, “and having only one porthole we can throw things out of when we hear you coming up the stairs.”
    “I know you like to joke with me,” the wealth inspector said. “I enjoy it, it helps me keep perspective, and I have always done right by the two of you. Truth be told to no one but you and me and the boy, I have sometimes allotted you an extra voucher or two.”
    Landish, well able to imagine the treatment that he received in certain houses—the threats and offers of God only knew what sorts of bribes, the avowals of revenge and of nighttime visits to his house, whose address would have been widely known—felt grateful to him. He wore a wedding ring, no doubt had children of his own of whom he never spoke.
    Landish suspected that no other wealth inspector would omit from