God in Concord

by Jane Langton

  Jack Markey and Jefferson Grandison were there for similar reasons, beaming and affable, true members of the Concord community, not menacing outsiders. Grandison had even brought along his wife, a nondescript little woman with dyed red hair.

  Ananda Singh saw the crowd on the sidewalk as he rode up Walden Street on Oliver Fry’s bicycle. At once he slowed to a stop and put one foot down on the pavement. Ananda was in no mood to see or be seen. He didn’t want to ride into that flood of light, that worldly glare—not when he was so wretched, not when his life was disintegrating around him.

  There was a path beside the theater, leading off into the darkness. Ananda dismounted, bumped the bike up on the sidewalk, left it leaning against the fence beside the path, and hurried out of the light, head down.

  The path was narrow, but it led straight away from Walden Street between the theater and the savings bank next door. Apple trees lined the path. Ananda’s feet kept kicking the hard little knobs of green fruit littering the ground. To his surprise the path took him to a narrow wooden bridge. At once he guessed that the water flowing beneath it was the Mill Brook. Long ago the little stream had been dammed to make a millpond. The pond and the mill were gone, but Main Street was still called the Milldam.

  The bridge was a surprise, a sanctuary in the middle of town. Ananda stopped on the bridge and leaned on the railing, looking up at the clapboarded rear wall of the First Parish Church. Above it the gold dome of the lighted steeple rose into the dark sky. Then he stared down at the black water. Along the edges of the stream, nature had crowded forward, filling every niche. Wild vines reached across it into empty air. The water itself was invisible, but he could hear it purling, moving secretly toward the river.

  When he heard voices, his misery returned. People were approaching along the path. Ananda hurried to the other side of the bridge and lowered himself into the thick growth of weedy shrubs lining the shore. Boldly he stepped into the shallow water and waded upstream.

  “Here,” said Jack Markey, stopping on the bridge, and running his hand along the railing. “No one will bother us here.”

  Jefferson Grandison moved up beside him, and together they looked down at the water. “Well?” said Grandison.

  Jack took a deep breath. “I’m resigning,” he said. “Well, of course I’ll carry on with Walden Green, but as for everything else, I’m sorry, sir, but I’m quitting. As of right now.”

  There was a pause. Then Grandison spoke very softly. “Whatever for?”

  Jack couldn’t tell him the real reason, his sense of ill fortune to come, of the approach of the last days. I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe. “It’s just that I’ve had enough.” He turned to look at his chief, but Grandison’s face was invisible in the darkness. Only his glasses glimmered at Jack. “I think, sir, I’ve done all you asked of me without question or complaint.”

  Jefferson Grandison spoke without emotion, his face still blank and dark. “I’m not sure you understood me when I turned over those funds to you the other day. Not only were they to be shared with your subordinates, they were for services not yet rendered.”

  Again there was a pause. “What do you mean,” said Jack, “not yet rendered?”

  “I mean services still to be performed.”

  “No,” said Jack. His voice trembled. He was overcome with a sense of injustice. “No more. There won’t be any more.” Angrily, almost weeping, he related in detail the hideous difficulties he had encountered in disposing of the body of Pete Harris. “Oh, killing him was nothing. A gun to the head in a dark corner of the hospital parking lot in the middle of the night, nothing to it. The river was right there, so I tossed away the gun. And then I shoved Harris into the trunk of my car. But, Christ, next morning when I tried to dump him in the open place in the swamp, that asshole Homer Kelly came along and saw him there, so I had to haul him out again. The damn carcass must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Two hundred and fifty swollen, stinking pounds. And then I had to figure out what to do with it. Well, what the hell would you do? I’ll tell you what I did, I—”

  “The landfill,” said Grandison at once, interrupting, grasping Jack by both arms.

  “The landfill?” Jack gaped at him.

  “The compactor. They’ve installed one. It’s one of ours.”

  Jack shuddered. He was filled with horror. He had a mental image of the bloated body of Pete Harris being crushed in the compactor, exploding into hideous, foul-smelling fragments. “Oh, Christ,” he said, pulling away from Grandison.

  Then they both turned their heads and stared at the water. There had been a noise, a splash, an exclamation.

  “What was that?” said Grandison.

  Jack peered into the dark and whispered, “Who’s there?” Something was rising out of the brook, something long and thin and white. Ananda, who had been balancing himself on the muddy edge of the stream, had slipped and fallen on his back. Standing up in the water, he looked back at the two men on the bridge, and Jack saw his face clearly in the light from the floodlit steeple and the glittering golden dome.

  He knew him at once. It was the kid from India, the foreign kid living at Hope’s house, the one she was so crazy about—Jack had guessed it before Hope did herself. Once again the sense that he was present at a day of judgment boiled up in Jack. He was lifted out of himself. When Grandison thrust a cold object into his hand, he took it without question. Vaulting over the railing into the shallow water, he plunged upstream.

  Ananda stared at him and stumbled backward, putting one foot in a hole. Jack came at him with the gun held high over his head. Before Ananda could regain his balance, Jack brought the butt of the gun down on his narrow skull once, twice, three times.

  Ananda fell to his knees in the water, but Jack hauled him upright and held him sprawling in his arms. He turned to stare up at Jefferson Grandison.

  “I trust you see what to do now?” whispered Grandison, leaning over the railing, his face still in deep shadow. Only the metal frames of his glasses sparkled at Jack like rings of gold.

  “No, Mr. Grandison,” cried Jack, careless of what happened from one moment to the next. “What the hell do I do now?”

  “The landfill, you fool, the landfill. Take him to the landfill.”

  Like Ananda before her, Hope Fry slowed down at the theater, exhausted with running, shy of passing the crowded steps so thick with elegantly dressed people all talking and laughing at once. She could no longer see the lanky boy crouched over the handlebars of her father’s bicycle. Where was he? He must have turned the corner onto Hubbard Street.

  She was about to run across the street to the other side when she saw the bicycle leaning against the fence beside the path to the Mill Brook.

  There was no question whose bicycle it was. Oliver’s old Raleigh was an old-fashioned bike with upright handlebars. Nobody but Hope’s father rode that kind of old thing anymore. Hope could feel her heart beat as she went up to it and touched the narrow saddle. It was still warm. Ananda must be walking along the path to the bridge.

  Peering into the darkness, Hope could see someone silhouetted against the lighted church. She turned into the path. Now that she was so close to Ananda, she didn’t have the faintest idea what she would say to him. Slowly she trailed along the path, trying to think of something, running things over in her mind.

  She was just in time to see Jack Markey pluck Ananda out of the water, just in time to hear Jack’s furious question and the other man’s reply. Hope wanted to cry out to Ananda and scream at Jack, but a panic-stricken intelligence possessed her, and she ducked back under one of the apple trees.

  Jefferson Grandison walked blindly past her. He found his wife waiting for him on the porch in front of the theater. Intermission was over. Everyone else had gone inside. The music of the second act was noisy from within.

  “Where’s Jack?” said his wife.

  “He had to leave,” said Grandison, firmly
taking her arm.

  “Why don’t we go too? Please, Buzzie?”

  “Nonsense, Annie. Of course we’re not leaving.” Urging her ahead of him, Grandison walked back into the theater.

  “He’s back,” people whispered, turning their heads and staring, as Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Grandison walked forward and took their conspicuous seats in the front row.

  61

  The guilty never escape, for a steed stands ever ready

  saddled and bridled at God’s door, and the sinner

  surrenders at last.

  Journal, January 31, 1841

  Sarah Peel was late. Bridgie Sorrel had made a scene in Melanie’s Lunch Room, and Melanie didn’t know what to do, so she went out and found Sarah and brought her back and asked her to handle it, and Bridgie was really having a fit, so by the time Sarah could detach herself it was dark. She ran as fast as she could down Main Street and panted across the Nashawtuc bridge.

  What if she were too late? What if the vet had already shot lovely Pearl or stuck her with a poisoned needle?

  But then Sarah saw the horse leaning over the paddock fence, just as usual, a looming dark shape against the spotlights illuminating the house. Pearl was reaching out her long neck as if she were looking for Sarah.

  Thankfully Sarah scrambled down the bank and went up to Pearl and stroked her nose and fed her a handful of candy. The candies were expensive Swiss chocolates Palmer Nifto had picked up somewhere. They were laced with brandy. Pearl ate them daintily and nosed at Sarah, asking for more.

  “No more, sweetie. That’s all I’ve got.”

  Beyond the paddock Sarah could see the vet’s big van in the driveway. He was there all right. He was probably in the house having a drink with Mr. and Mrs. Bland. Then he’d come out and murder darling Pearl.

  There was no time to lose. Sarah hurried around to the gate and opened it. Then she came back to Pearl and stepped up bravely on the first rail of the fence. “Now hold still, Pearlie,” she said.

  Pearl always did what Sarah wanted. Obligingly she edged her rump closer to the fence and stood quietly while Sarah stepped on the second rail, then to the third, and teetered with her shins against the fourth. Pearl moved encouragingly a little closer and looked around at her.

  “Okay, girl,” murmured Sarah. Boldly she flung one leg over the broad back, then plopped herself down with a thump, smack in the middle.

  Pearl stood very still while Sarah adjusted her several skirts and wriggled until she was comfortable. It felt wonderful. It felt right. It felt like being a queen. It was so high!

  Pearl looked around at her again, as if to say “All right now?” And then she took a tentative step forward.

  Sarah buried her fists in Pearl’s mane and hung on tight as the horse began to walk gently around the yard. Sagging a little to the left and a little to the right, Sarah clung to the horse’s belly with her legs. There was nothing to it. She had known it, she had always known it! Once a person knew how to ride, they never forgot. The horse’s head bobbed up and down, the fresh damp smell of the river floated up to Sarah’s nose, and a pretty scrap of moon hung in the sky above the trees. Gallantly Sarah dug her heels into Pearl’s sides, just to see what would happen.

  Sure, thought Pearl, why not? Picking up speed, she hurried around the yard with the same easygoing single-footed gait. Joyfully Sarah prodded her again, and once again Pearl obliged. Around and around they cantered at high speed, Sarah leaning forward against the horse’s neck, her legs flopping up and down. On the third time around the yard they sailed right through the gate past Marjorie Bland and the dumbfounded veterinarian.

  Away went Pearl with Sarah Peel on her back, straight as an arrow along Nashawtuc Road, straight across the Nashawtuc bridge, straight through the red light at Main Street, while cars veered to the side and screeched to a stop and the drivers leaned out to shout. Away they went straight down the middle of Thoreau Street in the dark of the summer night, free of Roger and Marjorie Bland, free of the vet, free of being put to sleep.

  They were an astonishing vision, the gray-white horse and Sarah in her layers of clothing all bleached the same gray by the sun. The wind of the running horse blew everything back, Pearl’s mane and tail, Sarah’s fluttering skirts and streaming scarves.

  “I’ll get her back,” cried the vet, a stern-jawed man of action, leaping into his van. With a roar it swerved around the gravel drive, spitting pebbles over Roger’s and Marjorie’s flabbergasted legs, and then it stormed out onto Nashawtuc Road.

  But Pearl was already out of sight, racing through another stoplight, heading with abandoned recklessness for Route 2 with its thick speeding traffic, two lanes tearing east in the direction of Boston, two more charging westward, whizzing hellhound the other way.

  62

  As my own hand bent aside the willow in my path,

  so must my single arm put to flight the devil

  and his angels.

  Journal, January 29, 1841

  There was no one outside the theater when Hope mounted her father’s bicycle and began pumping up Walden Street, ramming her feet down on the pedals, throwing all the strength of her thin body into propelling the bicycle forward without benefit of multiple gears.

  She was alone on the street, except for Jack Markey’s car. Its taillights were moving swiftly away from her, but she knew where it was going. Hope raced after it, standing up because the seat was so high she couldn’t sit down. On the steep approach to Route 2 she leaned forward, struggling, sobbing with effort, filling her lungs with strangled gulps of cool night air. Oh, God, why hadn’t her father ever bought himself a new bicycle?

  Jack Markey was unaware that Hope was following him. He was unaware of anything but his own seething fury. This was the last time he would ever do Grandison’s bidding. It was the last time, the very last time. The sense of last times crowded in on him. It pressed inward from the dark sky. It churned in his digestive tract and constricted his breathing.

  From the backseat there was a slight sound, a groan from Ananda Singh. For a moment Jack lost control of the car, and it veered to one side and bumped up and down on the rough shoulder. Wildly he brought it back onto the pavement and raced across Route 2 as the yellow light turned red. Turning into the landfill, he began mumbling under his breath passage after terrifying passage from the book of Revelation. The evil verses had meant nothing to him when he had learned them as a show-off little kid, jumping out of his tiny chair to recite, while everyone smiled and clapped and the pastor put his big hand on Jack’s head and blessed him. “And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, and the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together.” And then there were the verses about the horsemen, and Death, and Hell following after.

  The compactor was a shapeless large object halfway up the dirt road. Jack parked beside it, turned off the engine, switched off the lights, pulled on the brake, and sat for a minute, trying to accustom himself to the darkness. Then he heaved himself out of the car and looked up at the sky. At once a pair of stars dropped from the zenith, and Jack cried out and fell to his knees. They were only Perseid meteors, a couple of burning rocks from the swarm of flying stones encountered by the earth every summer in its orbit around the sun, but Jack didn’t know about the Perseids, he only knew about the dread warnings in the book of Revelation.

  After a moment he came to his senses. The heavens had not departed like a scroll rolled together. The sky was still there, with most of its faint stars. Shakily Jack got to his feet and told himself to get the thing over with. He opened the back door of the car, took hold of Ananda Singh, and hauled him out by the shoulders.

  Ananda’s body was limp. Jack had no stomach for what he was about to do. It took all his strength to drag Ananda to the pit and tip him over the edge. At once he jumped in beside him and covered the prostrate body with miscellaneous refuse and a big sheet of cardboard.

  Climbing out of the pit, Jack was so weak he could hardly stand. His stomach was chu
rning, saliva poured into his mouth. He barely had time to climb the steps to the controls of the compactor and push the button, before his gorge rose. Then he tumbled down the steps and fell to his knees. The contents of his churning stomach spewed out of him in volcanic spasms as the grinding noise of the machine started up behind him. He didn’t see Hope Fry leap down into the pit, he didn’t hear her scrambling among the rubbish, looking for Ananda Singh.

  At once Hope was caught in the undertow of the sucking tide. As the far wall of the machine began shoving against everything in its path, she was lifted by the thick moving flood and propelled forward. Frantically she scrabbled with her arms and legs, feeling for Ananda. It was like trying to find a drowning man. Oh, God, where was he? Then a broken bottle gashed her hand and Ananda’s head rolled against her leg. Frantically she reached for him. Plastic bags pressed against her, rose and tumbled over her face, blocked her breath, burst and released their contents all over her, while the moving wall of steel ground forward, whining, mashing the contents of the pit against the jaw at the other end, to be crushed and pulverized and turned into pulp.

  Hope hauled and tugged. For a moment she had Ananda by the waist. But then once again she was knocked down by buckling cardboard boxes. Squashed bags roiled around her, an avalanche of catalogs fell on her, the handle of a broom struck her chin. Once again she surfaced and heaved at Ananda.

  Oh, thank God, he was beginning to help her. His hands came alive. They gripped hers feebly as she waded to the side of the narrow pitching cavity. With a last effort she hoisted Ananda’s legs over the edge and rolled him free, so that he lay safely above her on the ground. At once he pulled himself up and reached down to her, and she clutched at his hands, but her foot was caught. Her leg twisted and snapped.