No Resting Place by William Humphrey Page A

when his inclination to emigrate became known, they did. No harm did they do him, and it was illegal for them to attempt to dissuade him, but they turned against him.
    Dr. Ferguson did not feel that he would be abandoning his people. Like it or not, they would all soon be joining him in their new home in the west. There they would have the same need for him as they had here. He would be waiting for them with a pharmacy, a surgery, a hospital all set up. Indeed, rather than abandoning them, by going ahead he would be rededicating himself to them.
    However, the diehards who felt that anyone who went was deserting them were resentful of their doctor for even talking about going. That he was the son of one of their most respected leaders was no mitigation; on the contrary, it was a betrayal of that leader, and thus doubly a betrayal of them all. It had become heresy to think differently from Tsan Usdi. The more prominent the person who did so, the greater the outcry. Anyone who was not with them was against them. Any break in their ranks reinforced the enemy.
    â€œIt is not that I think the cause is wrong and deserves to lose,” the doctor declared. “I think as you do, that it is right and deserves to win. But anybody with eyes in his head can see that it is lost. We are outnumbered and we have been outfought. Now is the time to make the best we can of things before they get still worse. However, if it turns out that you were right to stay and I was wrong to go, if conditions here improve and the outlook brightens, I can always come back. All roads lead two ways.”
    He likened himself to Noah. The flood was coming and he had been forewarned. He had been chosen not because he alone among men found favor in the eyes of God but rather because he was better educated than most, knew more of the world, could see where things were tending, was clear-eyed enough to recognize the inescapable. He had been told to build his ark, provision it, take with him the wherewithal for starting life over after the waters had receded. If his kind was to survive, he must prepare the way, find his Ararat and send out the dove. He would have a home ready and waiting for his old father and mother.
    â€œIs this the only spot of earth that we can live on?” he asked. “Is this the only air our lungs can breathe? Are we so dependent, so delicate, so unadaptable?”
    â€œYou speak like a white man,” said his father. “To them one place is the same as another so long as it yields a profit. For us the earth is more than a provider. It is our mother and father. All its creatures are our brothers.”
    â€œWhat you are describing, Father, is a backward and primitive people. Yes, I have seen what it means to them to be evicted from their homes and driven off their land. I have seen grown men and women kneel and kiss the ground. I have seen them stroke a tree and bid it good-bye. A touching sight. It brought tears to my eyes. Both of them. With one I wept for their sorrow and with the other for their childishness.
    â€œWhat is home? Our first one is our mother’s womb, but there comes a time when we outgrow it and the cord is cut. Then it is our parents’ house. Precious. Never to be forgotten. But there comes a time when we leave it, like the birds their nests, to make a home of our own. Those who do not do so, who spend their lives with their parents, we feel have never quite grown up but have remained children. Maybe leaving here and going to a new country will be the thing to make our people grow up, become independent.
    â€œThis place is no longer our home. It is our prison. We have been deprived of every freedom. We may not plan anything for our protection. We are forbidden to speak to one another in numbers of more than two. Our newspaper has been suppressed. Our children are growing up in ignorance and superstition. We are losing the advancements we have made and reverting to savagery. Out there we will