My father reached down and tried to pull the knife out of Kino's body, but it resisted. My mother bent down to help. The hilt was covered in blood, so she pushed my father's hands aside and grasped it through the sleeve of her white blouse. He put his hands around hers and slowly, they pulled it out – inch by inch – with a horrible grating sound.
Thinking back, this delay was Kino's final gift to me. As if, somehow, he held onto the blade of that knife to buy me time. For as my parents work ed. at the knife, struggling for control of it, a little voice whispered in my ear.
"Can you ride a bike?" it said. It sound ed. like the voice of a little boy, younger, even, than me.
"Yes," I whispered back.
The voice continued, "If you stay here, you're going to die."
"I'd rather die than stay alive and have the operation. That operation's worse than dying if it makes me like them."
Again, the horrid grating of metal on bone. About half the knife was out.
"But honestly, do you want to die?"
Honestly? "I'd prefer to live."
"Then," the voice said quietly, "time for a third choice."
"What's that?"
Almost all of the knife was out.
"You can ride a bicycle, yes?"
"Yes."
"Then, climb up on the seat of the motorcycle behind you. Grab the handlebars. Twist your right hand toward. you and lean your body forward. It'll be just like riding a bicycle – a big, heavy bicycle."
With a horrible sucking sound that I still hear some nights in my sleep, the knife slid out of Kino's corpse, and my father and mother fell over backward. My father had the knife. The grownups around them cried out in alarm, and then laughed nervously.
"And then what?" I asked, too loudly. The grownups looked around at me strangely, as if they'd forgotten I was there – as if they'd forgotten what this was all about. My father held the horrible carving knife in his bloodstained hand and grinned at me. He was terrifying, but I felt no fear.
"We drive away!" the little voice cried.
I spun around and leapt onto the motorcycle's seat just as my father rushed toward me, waving the knife. My mother screamed.
As I had been told to do, I twisted the right hand grip and leaned forward. The motorcycle fell heavily from its stand and the engine roared to life. My body was thrown backward, and I clung desperately to the handlebars and gripped the gas tank with my knees.
The cluster of grownups was suddenly behind me.
I was riding the motorcycle. And it was just like riding a big, heavy bicycle. I steadied the handlebars lightly as we crossed uneven ground. Once on the flat road, we sped away.
"Good work! Keep it up!" the voice cried. "Keep a firm grip on the tank with your thighs. That'll keep you steady. I'm going to tell you how to change gears now."
I followed the voice's instructions. The wind was in my face, making my eyes water. Through my tears, I could see the gate ahead of us getting bigger and bigger, then suddenly it was behind us too, and we were out on the open road, running through seemingly endless fields of green, green grass. It was the first time in my life I had ever been beyond the village gates.
I thought of nothing as I drove, concentrated on nothing except keeping my balance. Not of my parents, not of Kino, not of the cold, onyx eyes of the village elder. Not even of the life I'd left behind.
The wind stung my eyes, but I paid it no mind. I drove on, sobbing.
I don't know how long I drove. Minutes, hours, days. Then the voice said, "Right, I think that's enough of that."
I came back to myself, blinking, and sat up straighter on the seat.
"Do what I tell you."
As instructed, I carefully pulled on a lever with my left hand, and moved my right foot against a pedal, and the motorcycle gradually slowed down. When it seemed about ready to stop, I stuck out my feet.
On a bicycle, my toes would have bounced lightly off the ground and I would have glided to a stop, but this was different. My feet hit the ground hard, and the heavy motorcycle toppled over.
"Eep!" my patient instructor bleated. Still holding the handlebars, I hit the gro und and rolled, ears ringing with the sound of metal on dirt.
"Well, that was perfectly terrible! Who taught you to ride a bike, what's-your-name?"
I ignored the voice and lay on my back, looking up at the sky. It was empty, and blue. I turned my head and saw nothing but grass and flowers bobbing in the breeze. I stood up and looked around. I was in the center of a field of red flowers. The field was so wide that when I glanced back along the rut that the motorcycle's tires had made in it, I could no longer see my village. But just for an instant, I flashed back to the traveler lying there, in the yard behind our hotel, with the knife through his he art, dying.
"Kino," I whispered. Oddly, I was not sad. I could no longer cry. I had cried out every tear in my body and given them to the wind. But neither was I happy. I just stood there, numb.
“Hey!" said a voice from near my feet. I looked down, and saw the motorcycle lying on its side. "I said that was perfectly terrible!"
"What?"
"Your driving, is what. Would it be too much trouble for you to set me upright?"
As odd as it seemed – as unexpected – the voice was coming from Kino's motorcycle.
"Motorcycle? Is that you?"
"Of course it is! There's nobody else here, is there?" The voice sounded a little angry.
There wasn't anyone else around. We were alone in the field of red flowers. "Right, sorry."
“I don't need your apologies, little girl, I need you to put me upright. Please," the motorcycle added, sounding needy.
I found that tone more charming than the demanding whine. I did as it asked, crouching down, pressing my chest against the seat, and pulling it upright with all my strength.
We had crushed a good many red flowers.
I put my foot on top of the kickstand and pushed down on it while pulling the motorcycle upward. The bike moved backward over the stand and didn't topple over again when I let go.
"Thanks," it said.
"You're welcome," I replied.
"That was close back there." It sounded relieved.
For a second I had no idea what it meant. Then I remembered the sunlight gleaming on the blade of the carving knife. It was as if I'd watched it happen to someone else. As if I were no longer that little village girl.
"Thank you for saving me," I said automatically.
The motorcycle answered, "Right back at you. If I'd been left there, who knows what would have happened to me? I'm glad you rode me out of there, Kino."
"What did you just call me?" I asked.
"Kino."
"Why?"
"A moment ago, I asked you your name, and you said Kino."
"But I'm..." and I started to say my name, but that name was no longer mine. That was the name of a child who'd lived in that village without a care in the world. Who believed you had to have an operation when you turned twelve to become a "proper grownup." That child had died today, or perhaps she had merely grown up all on her own.
In any event, she no longer existed.
I took a step closer to the motorcycle and said, "I am Kino. It's a good name, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I like it. Say, what's my name? Do I have one? I don't remember."
I remembered the name the other Kino and I had chosen the day before. "Hermes. Your name is Hermes. After an old friend of... someone who died.”
"Hm... Hermes. Not bad," said Hermes, trying his name out a few more times, evidently pleased. Then he asked, "What's next, Kino? What do we do? Where do we go?"
We stood there in the center of a sea of red, the soft perfume of flowers and grass rising up around us. I had no answers for him, and he had none for me.
So, we began our travels knowing nothing, least of all where we were going.