Until then the crowd had seemed interested enough, but now all eyes were riveted on the giant, who stepped forward hesitantly, each of his hands as big as a man’s head.
Barthélemy will go among you, the preacher said. He will seek your aid so that we may continue our mission.
The preacher then took a felt bag from his jacket and handed it to the giant, who withdrew slightly, looking about him, his fear evident now, his eyes wild. Isa could see the waves of compassion and worry pass through the crowd.
Be calm, my boy, the preacher said. Seek the Christian generosity of these good citizens.
Isa was amazed that such things still happened. People emptied their wallets. The way the giant pulled his mouth taut with nervous fear and averted his eyes as he held out the bag touched her. Only when he stood above and she gave a few dollars did she sense the element of threat, that she might not want to know what this fear could become at its limit.
Afterwards the preacher began a lengthy exhortation. The two young men at the van went among the audience to whisper prayers. Isa received and repeated her own, then another, that she composed just then, invoked silently, eyes on the giant.
It rained that evening, the fire in the nearby pasture extinguished, and when the storm had blown over, insects began to whir and faint steam rose from the ashes into the washed and moonlit sky. Isa sat on the porch. Levon had come up from the stream early. His vigil was occasional now, more a means of keeping appearances. He’d spoken a bit about new research on biological engineering that disproved evolution and showed that every plant and walking thing had been concocted then set upon the earth as if into a showcase. She listened, smiled, and he’d gone to his room. His light had clicked off exactly one hour after the official time of sunset, Most appropriate —he liked to say—and most in concordance with the circadian rhythms. She’d waited, then went in and took two bags of soft cookies from the cabinet.
The road glistened, and as she crossed into the pasture, her pant legs grew heavy with moisture. One of the young men was coaxing the fire, and the other, who’d taken out a guitar, tuned and strummed it and sang softly, Jesus. Then Barthélemy appeared from the direction of the forest, his arms loaded with sticks.
Hello, she called as the fire lifted into the dead wood. The man in black wasn’t there, just the two who’d gone among the crowd offering salvation, one seated on a plastic bucket, the other on a stool.
Hello, they both said, and God bless and words of thanks as she passed the cookies around, and one sang—For you, he told her—about Galilee. But Barthélemy sat in the open door of the van and began reading a dog-eared Bible though every cookie passed his way he devoured and only when she stood near and held the bag did he look up with a veiled if not indifferent expression.
I’m Isa, she told them.
My name’s Andrew, said the guitarist, a young man with a pale complexion that the firelight made hysterical. He introduced Morris, the other, then pointed and said, That’s Barthélemy. We’re in town a week or so. We’ll be giving a service this Sunday at the Lower Macedonia Baptist Church. You should come.
I will, she told them. What you’re doing is wonderful. Well, goodbye.
They waved and said God bless again, the too-happy, Archie-faced youths, though the giant only glanced at her, a little too long but still indifferent.
That Sunday the man in black —Reverend Diamondstone, the minister introduced him—gave the most compelling and strange sermon Isa could have imagined, of archangels and wrecking balls and his personal narrative of failure and loss and finally salvation, how he’d gone from being a sinner to a man of the cloth. He described a dream in which he ascended a narrow mountain road in a ’57 Chevy convertible. Everyone in the car was laughing so hard they could barely lift their heads.
Then I looked up, he said, and a black eighteen-wheeler was coming down that road, honking and honking, and we didn’t slow down and there wasn’t even space to turn around. I woke up to honking and saw the archangel Michael. I knew then that I had to leave my wealth for the kingdom of heaven.
The rain started again, drumming the peaked roof. It lasted through the barbecue and singalong and a congregational jubilance that undoubtedly would have finished in starlit prayers without it. Musical instruments and Bibles were held under jackets, white bread soggy, gravy thinning out, the fire hissing like an angry audience.
Though Isa tried to manoeuvre herself near Barthélemy, he stayed close to Diamondstone, who —she could no longer believe she was imagining it—kept an eye on her tack from buffet to picnic table to church porch when the rain battered down, drilling up the loose earth. She might have gone home sooner had she not seen that the giant, too, was watching.
All the while the congregation gathered around Diamondstone, and she wondered at his power. She could sense him as if he occupied a place of greater density, drawing her gaze the way a black widow on a wall once had when she was cleaning. His prayers were at times long and Byzantine, at others as simple and hokey as country songs, but they always seemed appropriate. He had the ability to slip formidable lines into casual conversation:
In the future we will turn to Jesus as our one sure link to the past. Otherwise we will get lost in the chaos of time.
The fear is not that the earth is invaded by inhuman aliens but that with technology we become those very insectlike invaders ourselves.
Hearing Diamondstone’s coreligionists applaud, Isa doubted her intentions. She was educated, falsely married, and Barthélemy was mute, perhaps half mad and among loony spiritual company. She’d had crushes, once a towering professor, another time a linebacker whom she later saw with his girlfriend propped on his knee. She never passed big men without glancing up, in department stores or in the street, measuring their heft, matching them against her own, against Jude’s. Barthélemy dwarfed any she’d seen.
Only once was she able to get close to him. The clouds had temporarily blown past, sunlight glittering in the late-afternoon sky as if vast and invisible cobwebs had caught raindrops. The congregation strolled the lawns, discussing politics and the Rapture and even guns, though the preferred subject was the eternal sanctity of marriage and its threats. Diamondstone was working the crowd like a socialite, and she wondered what he had to gain. Then the thundering of an approaching storm resonated in the earth.
Her patience was almost exhausted. She’d been listening in on one circle of conversation after another and decided it was time to leave. But the rain came suddenly, and while others ran for the porch, she found herself beneath the shelter of a gazebo. A second later Barthélemy stepped in next to her.
The downpour shut them off. It was as if they stood in a round windowless room. He opened and closed his hands, his musty odour not unlike that of dry fields in the first minutes of a long-awaited rain. He no longer appeared afraid, his gaze distinct and measuring.
I’m Isa, she said.
In the dark of falling water his eyes shone. Her head barely reached his shoulder and she considered the size of a heart that would suffice for such a man, that could push blood through so much body. What might it want? Desperately, she wondered what to say or do, but he was already turning, stepping through the wall of rain.
That night Isa woke suddenly. She’d been dreaming of Jude though had no one image of him, just a sense of immensity, the way someone might recall the mountains where she’d been born. It took her a moment lying in the quiet dark before she realized that something else had roused her, not the dream. The night was calm and without wind, and she listened until she heard the low creaking of the porch beneath her window. She got up and looked out. After a few seconds a swatch of shadow shifted near the driveway. A black bear was nosing around the shed where she kept the trash. Often enough in the spring, they came down from the mountains, hungry after the winter. She should have known it was this to begin with. But lying in bed again, an hour passed and it was one in the morning before she admitted to herself that she wouldn’t be able to sleep
. The horses had begun to whinny in the pasture, and their skittish hoofbeats were oddly loud. She got up and dressed and went down to the porch. The bear was gone, and she crossed the yard to the stables. Only when she neared the door did she smell the heat of another body. She’d been downwind of bears after hibernation, and she thought of this. Then all at once she placed it.
What do you want? she managed to say, trying to catch her breath.
He came into the moonlight, the edges of his eyes pale.
I’m Isa, she pronounced carefully, considering whether she should run. She pointed to herself.
I can speak, he said. He took a step closer. His face was calm enough. I’m sorry I scared you.
Her heart clamoured in her chest. What are you doing here?
I followed the stream up. I’ve been going into the forest for firewood, and I found a path here. I really didn’t mean to scare you.
It’s okay, she said. Her fear had given way to a sudden, breathless sense of hilarity. And how about French? Do you speak French?
No.
Did … did your parents really freeze to death?
No, he said and glanced off. Then they just stood, not quite looking at each other.
How long have you been … with the reverend? she asked.
A year or so, he told her and moved his lips as if to say more.
Isn’t it sort of dishonest to pretend you’re a mute French orphan giant or whatever, just to make money?
I am a giant. Besides, it’s for a good cause.
She tried to think of something else to say, but the way he faced off conveyed no interest. She was afraid he was going to leave. Are you hungry? she asked. Regardless, she herself was, insomnia and adrenaline being powerful aperitives.
Barthélemy, she said.
Bart, he corrected. You can call me Bart. Yeah, I’m hungry. I mean, I guess I’d eat something if you did.
Will you wait here? I’m going into the house. I’ll be back in a few minutes. We can eat in the stables.
Inside she felt giddy, as if she might any second burst into laughter, though she was terrified. From the pantry she took two family-size bags of corn chips, three jars of salsa and three cans of meat ravioli. From the fridge, half a block of smoked Italian cheese and a crispy baguette spread with congealed garlic butter. As quietly as possible, she put it all in a grocery bag. She added a pan of tiramisu, Parmesan and a two-litre bottle of root beer. On the way out she snatched a bag of chocolate-covered coffee beans.
Crossing the yard she began to feel ridiculous with so much, but half an hour later she wondered if she should return to the kitchen, only a little root beer remaining. The tack room had a hot plate, and she’d heated the ravioli. She was surprised at how easily they fell into conversation as they began to eat.
Where are you from? she asked.
Maine. Originally from Maine.
She waited for a question from him, but when none was forthcoming, she told him that she’d studied Maine’s history for part of her graduate research.
Do you read a lot? he asked.
She smiled. Any excuse is good.
What are your favourite books?
Nervously she named a few, trying to think of something that wasn’t a classic.
Oh, he said. I used to like Thomas Wolfe and Kerouac. I’ve only had the Bible for a while now.
Watching him eat, swiftly, unconsciously, his gaze abstracted, she thought of Jude, but unlike Jude he talked almost dreamily. In the light of the single lamp, she studied his heavy features. He seemed too docile for his size. His hair was roughly cut, and she wanted to touch the sharp, clumsy angles made by the scissors and feel them against her hand.
He didn’t quite tell what he’d done in his life so much as enumerate his journeys and the books he’d read. It seemed he’d been everywhere, and getting lost in the names of places he repeated himself, as if he’d travelled the same routes many times. He rambled, and she considered that, having to pretend he was mute, he’d stored up years of conversation.
In turn she told him about her studies, the history she’d carefully reconstructed. It always surprised her how easily she described events that hadn’t touched on her life though had no doubt affected the arrival of Bart’s family in the U.S., which she told him. She said that the French population of Québec would be double what it was if it weren’t for the emigration. She didn’t say that she’d never been there.
In the quiet of the stables, horses shifted in the stalls or nickered softly. She’d paused a long time, not able to mention Jude by name, afraid that somehow all this would lead back to having to talk about Levon.
Bart cleared his throat. In a subdued voice he said that he also liked to read about history. He told her that his mother had given him books about the Roman Empire and ancient Egypt when he was a boy, and how he’d believed those places still existed far away.
Are you close to your mother? Isa asked.
He didn’t speak at first. Sometimes, he said, I think I read just to know what a person can become. I probably don’t really understand what I’m reading. I just think about what it means to me. It’s like I’ll have to read it all over again later, when I know more.
She wasn’t sure what to say. They sat against the wall. The digression had surprised her. She looked over. He held his clenched fists in his lap.
Yes, I’ve thought that before, she told him, and she considered how the simple perceptions from the mouths of strong men sound like poetry.
Sometime in the night Bart said he needed to go before his absence was noticed, and she invited him to come again the next evening.
He looked at her and hesitated. Okay, he said, but not so late.
That’s fine. My … my father doesn’t bother me when I’m in the stables. I’ll meet you here. I’ll bring better food tomorrow. But don’t let my father see you. He’s particular. Vaguely, she explained something about intolerance.
The stables were set back in the trees, the tack-room window facing the mountains, and Isa felt confident that Levon wouldn’t notice anything. They’d lived too long oblivious to each other, and ever since the stables had been built, there’d been an unspoken agreement that only she went there. The tack room had a kitchenette and a couch with a fold-out bed. It had been her refuge, its scents and familiar silence recalling the life she’d abandoned with Jude.
Isa’s lie about her father weighed on her all through the dawn and into the next day. She managed to sleep a little in the afternoon, and later she drove an hour to the built-up suburbs closer to D.C. She stopped at several restaurants and bought party-size trays of take-out sushi, spicy Thai soups in styrofoam tubs and bags of spring rolls as well as burritos and chicken enchiladas and chili. At a bakery she chose a lemon meringue pie, a sponge cake and a half-dozen chocolate eclairs, after which she stopped at the grocery store for soda and milk. She took it all to the tack room in a feed bag.
The rest of the afternoon she sat in her office and tried to read, but she could hardly focus. What did she want from Bart? And why was he with Diamondstone? Oddly—amazingly —he hadn’t mentioned religion.
A little before eight, she went to the back of the stables and sat under the cover of trees. When he arrived, it was from the stream, on the same forest path Levon used. He appeared nervous and wiped his sweaty palms on his pant legs. Only as they ate did he fall into the mechanisms of conversation.
I can’t believe all this food, he told her.
The spiritual life must not be so … epicurean, she said.
He didn’t comment on this, but the food vanished quickly, stacks of greasy tins and styrofoam containers on the floor, fingerstreaks on icing-smeared cake cardboards. After half an hour of crunching and slurping in a general silence of suppressed belches, they both sat back and rolled their eyes and moved about to get a purchase on their innards. Bart held a two-litre of pop. He twisted the cap and let the air hiss out. He tightened it, swished it a little, let out the fizz. He took a drink.
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How did you meet Diamondstone? she asked.
I was living in Louisiana, he said and swallowed. I had a guitar and amplifier and I sold them so Diamondstone could have his van repaired.
He sounded proud, she thought, like a child, but he furrowed his brow. I was thinking about everything you said about your family and my family. It’s true, you know. My mother’s name was Amy Beaulieu. It’s like you said—a lot of people in Maine have French last names.
Does your family still speak French?
Some of them. My grandparents do.
Isa wanted to say something about Jude. She wished she hadn’t lied.
Kerouac was from Maine, Bart added. I read somewhere that he spoke French before he spoke English.
The rain had started up again, its patter filling the space. Isa had the sense that she’d invented Bart. She was seeing him just then, his expressions as he spoke, lines and angles from ruddy flesh. His clothes were worn and stretched, and she could imagine them holding his shape after they’d been washed, the way Jude’s had.
Is everyone in your family as big as you are? she asked.
Some, he said. My father was. My mother was pretty big too. I remember when my growth spurts began. It hurt more than you can imagine. My mother told me that if I took a bath the pain would go away, and maybe because I believed her, it did. It got so I even thought standing in the rain would help. She’d go out with me and we’d just stand there.
Do you miss your family? Travelling like this?
He looked up. My mother’s dead. I never really knew my father. I mean, no, I never knew him.
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