by T E. D Klein
The screen door slammed, and Freirs could see the assembled Brethren turn to watch as the two of them stiffly descended the back steps, like the last and most important arrivals at a ball. There were by now nearly a hundred people in the yard. Among them he recognized the leathery old farmer who'd given him a lift and the elderly couple who'd refused him one. He even thought he recognized, from the skimpiness of his beard, the teenage boy who, with the girl, had almost run him down. He wished once again that he'd gotten a better look at them.
Abruptly the elderly couple turned their backs on one another like figures in a dance, and, as he watched, the woman appeared to walk away without a word of goodbye. In fact, he noticed now, all the women, old and young alike, had begun to move off to the side of the lawn nearer the barn, leaving the major portion of it to the males. He realized that the sexes were once again being segregated, just as they'd been in the Bible school yearbook. Like Orthodox Jews, he decided. Crazy.
Freirs had expected Joram Sturtevant to lead the worship, but apparently the man's position was more social than theological, for when the services finally began it was neither he nor Poroth, the host, who strode to the front of the group and asked for silence, but rather a short, older man whom Freirs had never seen before. Clasping a large, worn-looking black Bible before him, he called upon the assembled Brethren to pray with him for Sister Lise Verdock, who, along with her family, could not be with them this morning owing to her tragic accident. All eyes were downcast as the man led the invocation, quoting at length from Jeremiah – 'O Lord, my strength and my fortress and my refuge in the day of affliction' – the Bible open in his hands now but never actually looked at, as if the mere act of holding it affirmed the truth of what he said.
After the prayer the man stepped back, handing the book ceremoniously to a younger man who took his place. Gradually, as the morning progressed and new speakers, women as well as men, replaced the old, each of them holding the Bible while addressing the congregation, Freirs began to realize that what had seemed, at first, to be an unstructured occasion was in fact highly formalized. People seemed to know just when to take their turns as speaker; when, as happened but seldom, two Brethren found themselves approaching the front of the congregation at the same time, one would hold back and wait, as if by some prearranged system of dominance.
Nearly a dozen people, mostly men, had addressed the group, with further prayers for everything from more rain to the smiting of idolaters, along with another prayer for Lise Verdock, when, after a pause in which no others had volunteered to speak, Sarr Poroth pushed his way to the front. Watching from his seat by the window, Freirs saw him scan the congregation and smile at Deborah, who was supported by two of the women – and closely observed, at the same time, by Mrs Poroth.
Holding the Bible open before him, Sarr began to speak. Freirs leaned closer to the screen to hear better.
' "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man… " '
It took Freirs a moment to recognize the passage. Though most of the others had spoken from Jeremiah, Sarr was telling of the Flood, of great cataclysmic events that at last, under God's goodness, had had an end. ' "And Noah builded an altar," ' he said, not once looking down at the text,' "and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." '
Freirs found the singsong rhythm of the passage unexpectedly comforting, easily as much so as the words themselves, though for hours afterward something in him would repeat, troubled, that final qualifying phrase:
'While the earth remaineth.'
Joram Sturtevant stood ramrod straight, defying the heat and staring intently at each successive speaker, but he found it hard to concentrate on what was being said. His thoughts were on the stranger back there in the house.
He had not liked what he'd seen. Granted, the man bore a name hearkening back to the prophet, yet he himself was, by his own admission, an infidel. That had been his very word, in fact; he'd spoken it with pride.
There'd have been danger enough if the stranger had been of a rival faith, one of the numerous Christian or Hebrew or mongrel sects that schemed and struggled and vied for men's souls in the vast benighted world beyond the borders of the town; they were all the same, those sects, all greedy and, when the Last Judgment sounded, all damned. But to have so bluntly declared himself an infidel, an enemy of faith itself- surely this was a hundred times worse. Maybe Brother Rupert had been right about him.
And to call this infidel a 'guest,' as Poroth had this morning -surely that was the flimsiest of lies.
Poroth himself was speaking now, drawing laborious parallels, in a low and earnest voice, between the tribulations of Noah and the Brethren's current difficulties. The young man had a good mind, Joram conceded, but he was clearly nervous in groups and made a poor speaker. And it seemed he made an even worse farmer. Joram cast his eye over the cornfields in the distance, the small, sickly-looking stalks already prey to all manner of weeds and pests. He could see, even now, that Poroth's first crop would be accounted a failure.
The image struck him as an apt one: for wasn't Gilead itself a kind of garden, carefully cultivated, nourished and protected, its families as varied as the crops of a well-managed farm, its young like tender shoots? Yes, here was the stuff of some future sermon! And admitting a stranger entrance, as Poroth had, was akin to opening a garden's gates to predators. The shoots would be corrupted, seeds trampled, the soil itself tainted.
Perhaps, though, as with the first Fall, a woman was to blame.
Young Poroth, lacking as he did a father's guidance, seemed inclined to let Deborah order him about, and it was said that taking in the stranger had been her idea.
There she was now, amongst the women near the barn, staring dully at the proceedings. What had happened to her yesterday had been no surprise to Joram. He had been convinced for some time that the devil was in that cat; his right hand still smarted from his encounter with her earlier in the year. Sister Deborah should have foreseen the tragedy. Like as not it had been a judgment upon her. She was, Joram allowed, a handsome woman; he admired the slim-ness of her form and her dark, wanton-looking eyes, though he suspected she'd be capable of all manner of sin.
Lotte, his own wife, had once been just as slim, but after three sons her figure had thickened. And now, of course, the woman was almost unrecognizable, her belly grown so enormous it pained her constantly. Joram thought of her as Sarr came to the end of his talk. He had left her in the Poroths' living room, her sweating form filling their little rocker in a way he'd found faintly disagreeable. Somewhere in him was the vague suspicion that he'd been wrong to bring her here today, but this he'd long since repressed, and what he felt instead was, for the most part, a mixture of irritation at her feminine frailty – the other children hadn't been such trouble – and concern at her appearance. If he felt any guilt, it was for not having insisted that she come outside here with him for the services, to stand, just like Deborah, with the other women. They couldn't allow themselves to grow soft, he and Lotte. They had an example to set for the community.
Freirs had expected the services would be over when Poroth finished speaking; he hadn't counted on the hymns. There were more than a dozen of them, from 'Blue Galilee' to 'Christ the Harvester,' growing in volume and fervour until he felt sure some of the Brethren would wilt beneath the steadily advancing sun, which, having risen above the low wall of clouds, now shone down fiercely.
Toward the end, growing weary of the songs, he thought he heard from the living room, a low, agonized moan. Leaving his seat by the window, he walked to the d
oorway and looked in. There, still sunken in the rocker where he'd seen her before, was the pregnant woman, alone now and looking barely conscious, sweating terribly in her heavy black dress and obviously in great discomfort. She looked up dully as he entered, blinking at him through great trusting cow eyes that showed neither recognition nor fear.
Freirs approached the chair and stood staring down at her, thinking, Christ, she shouldn't be out of bed looking as pregnant as this. As she raised her head to look at him, he forced his face into a smile. 'Hello,' he said softly. As the morning sunlight touched it, he saw her swollen belly squirm.
He was the first man to smile at her all morning. Joram only glowered at her these days, as if her condition were somehow not a blessing but a curse. She hadn't wanted to come to the worship, she'd felt so tired, so filled up inside she could scarcely breathe. It had never been like this before, not with the others; sometimes, when the child inside her moved, it felt as if the child were rearranging all her insides to suit itself, so strong-willed was it, like Joram. It was surely bound to be another boy. She wished that just this once the Lord would let her have a daughter, but it wasn't for her to question His ways. Joram would be angry with her if he knew she'd even thought of it.
She wanted this pregnancy to end. It was becoming too much for her to bear. And it was so hot today; she'd have liked to sit out upon the back porch and watch the services, she knew they'd be a comfort to her, but Joram wouldn't hear of it. He'd said that either his woman stood out there in the sun with the rest of the congregation or else hid herself away; he'd not be shamed by having her sit while the others stood. So she'd been condemned to this airless little living room. She had been feeling dizzy from the heat and the discomfort when the stranger approached her.
She envied the way he was dressed; he looked so much more comfortable, and you could see his plump arms and legs, like a baby's. The colors of his clothing reminded her of the flowers in her garden. He had a kind face, and his hands looked soft, like healing hands; they stirred vague memories of Joram's own hands long ago, before the children came, and memories of the soft hands of the mid wives.
'How are you feeling?' he was asking, smiling down at her like the sun.
'Oh, my,' she said, 'just look at me!' And she shook her head, almost ready to laugh, as if the two of them were sharing a joke, one that people like her husband would never understand.
'I am looking,' he was saying, and his smile was so sympathetic she was almost able to forget the ache inside her. She smoothed back a strand of hair from her sweating brow, wishing he could see her at her best, and realized, suddenly, that her thighs were parted more than was proper for a married woman with a strange man, the heavy black material dipping like a damp trough between her legs. But it was all right, the stranger was comfortable in his way and she was comfortable in hers. He looked as though he would understand.
'How much longer do you have?' he was asking, nodding at her stomach. She could see he was impressed. She was proud of her condition once again and remembered that she didn't have to be ashamed at all, the way Joram tried to make her feel. She thrust her belly upward even more.
"Twill be any day now,' she confided, with a little shiver of excitement. 'I feel it movin' all the time.'
The stranger smiled. 'I guess the poor kid's getting impatient!'
She giggled; the sound felt funny, she hadn't laughed in so long. 'It's movin' now,' she said, but not alarmed for once; she was pleased at the stranger's interest. She ran a hand over her belly, feeling the child kick but also feeling how good her own hand felt. His would feel even better.
'You can touch it if you want,' she said, smiling up at him, her body so huge and so sensitive. The stranger reached toward her, then hesitated.
'Go ahead,' she said breathlessly. 'Touch it… Touch it… '
They were all looking at Sturtevant now, waiting for him to give the word. He turned to the assembled group. 'Brothers and Sisters, as you know, the Lord has given us a special task to perform today. These good people fear they've been sheltering malign spirits under their roof. It is for us, their brethren and neighbors, to purify the house and all within it. Let us, then, have a Cleansing. Join with me now in divesting their home of its worldly goods so that we may better fill it with the Holy Spirit.'
The sun was hot on his head. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. While the others formed themselves into a line and made ready for heavy labor, the men laying aside their vests and rolling up their sleeves, Joram walked round the side of the house and, slipping off his heavy black jacket, left it folded on the front seat of his car. In a moment or two the others would be filing into the house, with Lotte still seated there fat and sweating in the living room. He hated the thought of them seeing his wife like that; better to rouse her and get her outside, maybe have her sit in the car. He hoped she would not attempt to argue with him; with a determined stride he hurried up the front steps and through the open door.
The short hallway was dim, but sunlight streamed from the living room, through whose doorway, as if within a frame, he saw the figure of his seated wife – and of Jeremy Freirs bending over her, murmuring soft words as he stroked her rounded stomach.
It took the others several minutes to calm Joram down. The first group of Brethren had entered the house just as the yelling began, and in the end what they remembered were Joram's wild expression, the way the veins stood out in his forehead, and the admirable way that, in consideration of Freirs' relations with the Poroths, he restrained himself from physically attacking their guest.
His greatest fury was directed at his wife – though this, too, was held in check before the eyes of the community. Choking out a 'Woman! Remember yourself!' he seized her arm and dragged her roughly past the others, down the porch steps, and out to the navy blue station wagon parked beside the house. And what he said to the quaking woman once they were inside the car with the windows rolled up tight, no one in Gilead ever learned.
Meanwhile, politely ignoring the contretemps, if not oblivious to it, the others were continuing to file inside for the Cleansing, the crowd streaming through the back door and spreading throughout the house, each person taking as many objects as his or her arms could hold and carrying them out onto the lawn behind the house. It was like an old-fashioned moving day, Freirs decided, with the entire community there to help. He had stoutly maintained his innocence throughout Sturtevant's harangue, and now, reluctant to venture outside where the two of them were parked, he remained on the first floor watching the activity and lending a hand when he could. He saw men carry out chairs, shelves, a picture of the Holy Land from the living-room wall, even the andirons from the fireplace; two men struggled down the narrow wooden stairway with a chest of drawers; Rupert Lindt picked up the heavy wooden kitchen table all by himself and bore it outside. Women moved through the house, their arms laden with stacks of plates, clocks, rugs, or jars from the cellar. Even the smallest children worked, one with a handful of silverware, another with a flat, hard pillow from the bed, another with the little weather house from the living room. Cats darted excitedly beneath everyone's feet.
Gradually they were stripping the house of everything but the walls. Corah Geisel carefully untied the red glass witch ball from the lintel above the window in the nursery. Joram's brother Abram helped Poroth and Galen Trudel as they struggled to haul the Poroths' huge, heavy bed down the narrow stairs. Deborah, ill as she was, tried to carry out the Bible from the night table in the bedroom, but in her weakness dropped it to the floor, so that old Sister Corah, muttering a hurried prayer, had to carry it for her, Freirs helping Deborah herself downstairs. He was pleased at how tightly she gripped his arm.
The Poroths did not have a great many possessions, but the collection on the lawn grew huge, encompassing as it did all their worldly goods, even to the tiniest thimble. Freirs, when he wasn't actually helping, stood in the living room watching the furniture and objects being taken away around him with
bemusement, like a homeowner surrounded by moving men – nearly a hundred moving men, to be exact, and clearly familiar with the requirements of the occasion. In little more than half an hour the lawn outside, like the scene of some desperate everything-must-go tag sale, lay covered with household belongings and a mob of milling people.
The barn was next. Poroth released the hand brake in the truck and the assembled men pushed it out of the building and into the yard, with no need to start its engine and break the holy silence of the service. Following the truck, men hauled out the rusted old farm implements and, from the attic, the tools and removable furnishings from Sarr's workshop. The five hens and the rooster, cocking their heads as they looked down curiously on all the activity through the wire of their cage, were left inside to be blessed.
Poroth stood by the barn with hands on hips, overlooking the accumulation on his lawn with a gaze that appeared transported.
Freirs realized that he must be seeing, in all this, proof that his luck would surely turn. What Deborah felt was impossible to make out.
Freirs moved beside him and looked dubiously at the clouds. In a clearing to the east a smoke-white half-moon hung suspended in the sky. 'Let's hope it doesn't rain,' he said.
Poroth glanced up but, surprisingly, showed no concern. 'No matter,' he said with a shrug. "Twould simply be a cleansing sign from the Lord.'
Freirs nodded, privately recalling twin sayings about the weather at funerals: sunshine was a sign that heaven loved the deceased; rain was a sign that heaven was weeping for him. It was impossible to lose.
He looked back down at the lawn in time to see that a group of nearly twenty young women had joined hands in a ring and were staring in their direction.
'Who are they?' he whispered.
'Unmarried women,' said Poroth. 'I'll explain in a minute.' Smiling, he strode off into the center of the circle. One of the girls brandished a large black kerchief and, as Freirs watched, bound it around Poroth's eyes like a blindfold. Suddenly the group began singing, their high, girlish voices carrying eerily across the lawn: