Future Home of the Living God

by Louise Erdrich

  We stop talking. Phil shifts the heavy rifle, pulls me against him. I’m still looking up into the sky.

  “The weird thing?”

  We talk about how the redundant gene, or twin, becomes a kind of ghost gene, a silent pseudogene. An untranslated DNA sequence.

  “So imagine, metaphorically and physically, what this says about us,” I say.

  “We carry the history of our genetic mishaps.”

  “And we live with, and our bodies are aware of, the successful history of our own mutations.”

  Exactly right—folded quietly and knitted in right along with the working DNA there is a shadow self. This won’t surprise poets. We carry our own genetic doubles, at least in part. What if some of those silenced genes were activated? I don’t know how, but what if they were? And they decided to restore us to some former physical equilibrium?

  “What if?” I say, and you kick, hard. “Here, feel.”

  I put Phil’s hand on the place I felt you, but you’ve shifted away. I understand why so many people did not believe in evolution before last month, and still don’t, and never will. It means that perfect physical harmony, grace, and in Darwin’s phrase, endless forms most beautiful, resulted slowly as the result of agonizing failures. In their eyes, evolution makes life on earth a scenario of bloody, ham-handed, ruthless, tooth-and-nail struggle. So they point to some miraculous structure, like the eye, each part dependent on the next, and say There, how could that be done piecemeal? How could anything but perfection produce perfection? Impossible! But there it is, I think now, the evidence coded and encrypted within each drop of blood, each hair and fingernail paring. For every intelligent piece of design, for every perfection, ghosts of failures exist, too. Mistakes. Whales have vestigial leg bones, pelvises, from their land origins. We survive with certain of those imperfect flaws in our design, the most immediate for me being that the size of the human upright and walking female pelvis is often incompatible with the size of a human baby’s head.

  “I’m not afraid,” I say to Phil, only out of bravado. “I am really not afraid to have our baby.”

  “Right this moment? Or all the time?”

  “Usually, I’m scared.”

  He buries his face in my hair.

  “There’s midwives, underground midwives, already. We’re going to get you one.”

  “There are?”

  “I just heard about them.”

  “Yeah,” I say, after a while. “That explains things.”

  “What things?”

  “It explains what Sera’s doing and why there are fake people living in my family’s house.”

  September 8

  Phil comes back from the neighborhood picnic with a paper plate of cold cuts and a schedule of Uniter church services that the two of us are strongly urged to attend. He says that all the churches are going to be required for federal use.

  “Federal? Like there’s a government?”

  “A church government. The Church of the New Constitution.”

  September 15

  I haven’t written to you. It is getting harder to keep track of things. I sleep as though drugged, half the day, all night. I’m groggy. Phil says that you must be having a growth spurt. I have never been so sleepy. I have had to discipline myself. I said that I was good at living within limitations, and it is true, but that is only because I adhere to a rigid schedule. I have constructed a minute order in my day that I follow to the letter—not just as best I can, but no matter what. I do not allow myself to crumple or stay in bed, because I know that if I give in, I will curl up in a fetal ball around you for the next three months. I might sink into an undifferentiated state of dread or go catatonic. That is my secret. I keep it from myself and from Phil—how close I am to unraveling. How crucial it is that I adhere to my routine.

  I get up each morning at seven a.m. That is the first act of will, the supreme one. But Phil helps. He holds me. I wake up and turn to him, and he just holds me. I do not tell him what I feel because sometimes, now, he gets impatient with us. He usually helps me out of the bed, though at times he doesn’t understand how exhausted I am and pushes a little. He even seems a bit rough, though he’s under such stress, he probably doesn’t even notice. My favorite are the moments when he admires you, us, strokes me, and says you’ve grown. That’s the temporary lift I need to rise. I go into the bathroom and wash my face with a washcloth. I bury my face in the wet weave and it is often here that fear overcomes me. I wring the washcloth out and look at myself. I see the influence of Sweetie in my face, and I wonder about my mysterious father. There is no chance that I will find him, now, but I do not think that I’ll ever get over not seeing him. Dark, she said he was a full-blood. Very brown. I didn’t get his skin tone, but I will always wonder if my hands, my eyes, my elbows, are just like his. I will always wonder if I speak like him, laugh like him, walk his walk, alive or dead in this world. And I have other things to wonder about:

  Will this be the day that I am discovered and taken away? And what then? What would they do to you? I use a cleansing cream to wash my face. I use it sparingly. I don’t know if it can ever be replaced. I have a pretty good supply of toothbrushes, though. And I floss carefully because I’ve heard that pregnant women are at risk for cavities and I don’t have a dental plan—who knows whether that will matter? Then I brush out my hair, which is growing fast, it seems. Is it from pregnancy hormones or just fear? Probably hormones. Stress makes your hair fall out. I put my hair up in a towel while I take a shower. I wash my hair every other day. That is also important. Having clean hair helps my outlook. There is water, note. And on most days electricity. But we use it sparingly, no air-conditioning, and I can hardly move for the heat. I dress as best I can—it’s not as though I kept a stash of maternity clothes on hand in case I got pregnant—Phil has let me wear some of his old shirts and I can still fit into my jeans, unzipped. I wear moccasins and cushy socks. We’re well into September and soon I hope will come a slight edge of coolness in the morning air, just a hint of the fall I remember from childhood. This used to be my favorite time. As for winter, that is gone, a ghost season.

  Breakfast is important. I am careful about breakfast. We don’t see eggs anymore, but there is still bread and there is also jelly. In fact, we’ve got a lot of jelly. It’s left over from the church breakfasts: tubs of it, cans, little jelly packets, jars. We have jelly with toast and oatmeal and I stir jelly into my tea. After breakfast, I brush my teeth again to get rid of all that jelly. Then it is time for Phil to leave, which is the second hardest part of the day, partly because I sense how much he needs to leave.

  It is not that things change all of a sudden after the rush of our first, heady, giddy, sweet, falling-in-love weeks. It is just that we’ve got big worries. Distractions and fears.

  Once Phil is gone—that is the very hardest. Still, I don’t cling to him as he’s leaving, I just exist. I do not think ahead or think behind, even two minutes. I taste him and touch him and feel the life of him. I register as much of him as I possibly can absorb. I sponge him in. Then the door shuts and I take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. I want to stand rooted to the spot and let Phil find me exactly where I was when he left. I want to crumple to the floor like an empty suit of clothes. I want to cry, and sometimes I do cry, why not? Who will hear me, among the angelic orders? But mostly I say to myself that it is time for my daily routine of pregnancy exercises. One hour of stretches, weights, resistance bands, yoga from a book. If I do the hour the good endorphins will be released in my brain and I will be able to stick to the day’s redemptive routine. If I don’t do it, I don’t know. I don’t want to know.

  Finally, when my exercises are finished, I clean one room of the house besides the kitchen, which I always clean. I just clean one room because I need to rotate them, I need them to actually get dirty. When that’s done, I go to my desk. Ever since I was nearly discovered, I am very cautious about working at my desk by the window. I check the yard through the blinds,
I wait, I am patient. I consider moving back into my laundry room, but there is my limit. I can’t do it. If I could not look out on the trees I am sure I would succumb to the fear that’s dogging me. With the window to look out of, I can calm myself enough to work on Zeal, and write to you.

  September 16

  I have been staring at the back of a square-backed kitchen chair, an old wooden chair painted white, and I have been thinking for some time now thoughts that I cannot believe I am thinking. These are not thoughts I can confide. I cannot talk about them to you. I can’t tell these thoughts to anyone. They return with such persistence that I fear I am losing control over my mind. No, I cannot say them or even describe them, but I wonder, Do you feel them? Do you somehow absorb and sense the content? I hope you don’t, I pray not. I am dangerously imperfect and I would not have these thoughts if I was a better person. I guess that is true enough. But then again, how could I not? Have these thoughts? When I am trapped by the content of my body? By you?

  Later on, I decide that maybe I’m not so terrible to want to get rid of you. It is really not you, or me, it is the situation. I forgot. If everything else was predictable, I could accept you, completely. I could. I am sure.

  September 17

  The borders were sealed off years ago—the border crossings between the United States, or whatever we are now, and Mexico and Canada. Neither of them want us. But illegal as we are, Canada still functions as the escape hatch in the roof of this country, though the fence is well guarded and people are constantly hunted down and returned. There are still many ways to cross, on foot or by boat. I think that is what Sera and Glen have done. Knowing I’m in hiding and worried about being followed, they probably decided not to visit me but instead to go north. I hope they were able to transfer their assets before selective banking started. I hope that I was not alone in thinking to clean out my accounts.

  “How much money do we have?” Phil asks.

  “People are still using cash?”

  “Not always, but it works half the time.”

  He’s made the bulk of our cash off selling little jelly packets in the vigorous city street markets.

  “A thousand. Plus I bought some cartons of cigarettes.”

  Phil’s eyes warm with admiration.

  “Cigarettes! I can buy anything with those. People smoke like crazy now.”

  I’ve got a thousand counted up, wrapped in the empty freezer, in newspaper. The rest of the money is buried under a flagstone by the back door. Why I don’t tell Phil about all of the money, about the liquor and ammo at that moment, I don’t know. But once I haven’t told him, it is impossible to suddenly tell him. I say nothing.

  “We’ve got to keep alert now,” he says.

  “I am alert! I’m so alert I can’t stand it!”

  Phil puts his arms around me, and says that he’s going to take the money and some cigarettes to buy false identity papers, so we can follow my parents. He repeats, again and again, that I must not go out and I must not for any reason show myself in the doorway. He has come home to find me excited and agitated and walking around an inexcusably messy house—there are things out of place all over—!—

  “I won’t. Why would I?”

  “You’re having trouble.”

  I’m not though. He doesn’t see me all day, how hardworking and down-to-earth I’ve been all day. And it isn’t easy with the wind high, with the trees crashing their limbs together out there, with the dry leaves changing color and the sky that hot autumn blue. It is very hard. I want to go out. Couldn’t I just be very fat, or stooped, in a wig of white hair? Couldn’t I just be a potbellied man or a nun? A nun? Of course I could be, and Phil could obtain an old-time habit, couldn’t he? Why couldn’t I go out, then, anywhere, and walk in safety?

  “Because,” says Phil, “nuns don’t wear habits very much, or at all, as you know. It would be so obvious, Cedar.”

  “I don’t think so, Phil, I really don’t. I’ve seen nuns in habits.”

  “Where? I mean besides in a nuns’ nursing home or convent?”

  Phil sounds exasperated and I am sorry to cause him any additional anxiety, but I really don’t think that I can bear to live inside for another day.

  “Where?” Phil demands.

  “Airports.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you saw a nun in a habit, she was from somewhere else: Italy or Latin America or, I don’t know, Poland.”

  “Is that true?”

  “When is the last time you saw a nun in a habit somewhere in the streets, in a normal place?”

  I think hard. “Gay pride parade?”

  Phil starts to laugh, then he stops with his mouth open and his eyes lose focus, like maybe he’s just remembered those days.

  “All right.” I try to stay calm. “I’ll think of something else to wear outside.”

  “What, an elephant suit?”

  I turn away, stunned, and cannot answer. I rise before him in my beautiful bulk. I tear up, but can’t speak. I begin to straighten things. I’ve found it difficult to get through my day unless the things in the house are put away in their places and perfectly aligned—somehow they never stay quite right. Oh, I don’t use a ruler or tape measure. I can do it all by eye, but it has become important to me that the little world in which I carry you is nicely maintained.

  “How messy I’ve let things get,” I say calmly. “Me in my elephant suit.”

  “Everything looks perfect,” he says. “Cedar, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what made me say that.”

  “Maybe it’s the real you. Maybe you aren’t who I think you are.”

  Phil comes over to me and tries to hold me in his arms. I hate him. I feel a sting of disgust because the jacket he wore falls to the floor and he bumps the chair into misalignment with the table, but then his arms are holding me and I’m enveloped in his human presence. My heart pumps faster and I grab him and hold on. I try to absorb his reality, his normalness, his non-pregnantness. I try to forgive his short temper and his maddening mobility. Besides, I know something’s wrong with my thinking. I just can’t tell exactly what it is since I am, of course, inside of my thinking.

  “We’re going to get out of here,” he says.

  I bury my face against his chest, run my hand along the collar of his shirt. His thick black hair is growing so long it is starting to flop over his forehead.

  “Here.” He holds my hand and takes something from his pocket and before I know it he has slipped a golden ring onto my finger. “And I’ve got one, too.” He puts his ring on and then grins at me with that big, sweet, wide Phil smile. “There. Married. Hi, honey, whadja cook?”

  My head clears suddenly. I know he’s kidding and I cling to that.

  “I forgot to cook.”

  “That’s my baby, and it’s okay. I scored crackers and cheese.”

  “Crackers and cheese?”

  I’m looking straight at Phil. My eyes brim over, I’m crying all of a sudden, my face is streaming, my nose is running, the tears that have been pressing up behind my face all day let go in a burst that seems to crack my chest open. My heart hurts like it was punched. I can’t bear it—crackers and cheese! It reminds me of all the wonderful, normal times that I have eaten crackers and cheese with my parents or friends. So many times in my past life and I’ve never appreciated how comforting and convivial those times were. Phil takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom and shuts the door. He pulls back the covers and helps me get comfortable against the pillows. I’m still crying, hiccuping, choking on my gallons and gallons of tears. I’m ashamed of my overflow, but helpless to stop. I keep apologizing and Phil says it’s all right, it’s all right, but after a while he becomes very solemn and says would I please consider that he was an asshole. I am not an elephant. And we now have conjugal duties to perform and with my permission he’ll commence what is after all a very important part of all marriages.

  “Plus, voilà! The rings! We�
��ve got the rings!”

  He waves the tiny box. We put our hands together. Mine is like a paw, chubby from my baby weight and dimpled at the knuckles. But the ring still fits.

  “It’s a very beautiful ring,” I finally say, “and I think that we’ll be all right.”

  Phil climbs into bed beside me. As we begin to touch I feel the rightness between us return. It happens slowly, look by look, question marks and kisses. I don’t think you’re ever going to read this. Honest to god. I doubt you’ll even want to. But if it turns out that you do, I can always tear out this page where I talk about making crazy passionate love while pregnant, can’t I, because I suppose it might traumatize you in the event that things turn out in some way where psychic trauma still has meaning.

  September 18

  You now weigh as much as eight or even twelve sticks of butter, and you open your eyes from time to time. You must know when I face the window; perhaps a soft radiance envelops you. I wonder if you feel the way I do on some mornings, waking, stretching to the light in warm physical joy. Yesterday I actually felt you hiccuping. If you are a baby boy, watch out for migrating testicles; they are now on their way from their place near the kidneys, moving through your lower body to their perfect scrotal placement. If you’re a girl, your clitoris is right out there, obvious, although your labia are very small yet, tiny flower. And you’ve got better lungs. You’re losing that bizarre lanugo hair. I know that all this keeping track of your development is a big assumption, maybe wishful thinking, on my part. I know all bets are off and I should form no expectation. But I am your mom and keeping track is what moms do.

  September 21