The Divide

by Jolina Petersheim

  Nodding curtly, she lays the child on the bed.

  “What are you two going to eat?”

  She whispers, “My son . . . he brings food.”

  “Mike?”

  She nods.

  “I thought nobody was allowed out?”

  “He’s not a prisoner,” Papina replies, swallowing. “He’s one of the guards.”

  It takes a moment for me to comprehend. “Then how come he won’t get Sal out?”

  “He doesn’t want to lose his position.”

  “Yeah, well,” I snap, “she could lose her life.”

  Papina’s lips are wired tight, so I wonder if I’ve angered her enough to incite her vow of silence. But then she picks up a candle and crosses the room to the filing cabinet. Setting the candle on top, she inserts a key—connected to a chain looped around her waist—into the top drawer. She pulls open this drawer and runs her gnarled fingers over pieces of jewelry, whose real or synthetic gems reflect light on the warehouse ceiling.

  She unlocks the second drawer, opens it, and leans in, glancing over her shoulder from time to time so I know she doesn’t want me to see what she’s doing. Eventually Papina comes back, bearing a tarnished cuff bracelet inset with a stone the size of an egg.

  Holding it out to me, she rasps, “Tell Sal this is just in case she needs it.”

  I accept the proffered bracelet. “In case she needs it for what?”

  Papina’s eyes glitter like those gems. “She’ll know.”

  Unsettled by this exchange, I place the bracelet in my rucksack because I don’t feel comfortable putting it on, then begin retracing my steps. But I stop and gaze down again at Colton, still sleeping. The sheet hanging in front of the window swells and recedes with the cross breeze, the gentle motion nearly lulling my anxiety as well. Watching the boy-child dream so effortlessly, I cannot help comparing his sleep with my own these past few nights.

  Confused and heartsick, I walk through the warehouse’s front door and find Moses waiting for me at the base of the cement steps. “How you holding up?” he asks.

  I explain what I just learned. “How could Mike imprison his own family?”

  Moses puts a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t lose heart,” he says. “You go talk to the community. I’ll talk to the militia. Between us, we should be able to come up with a plan.”

  At the crossroads, branching our paths, Moses stands on Main Street’s centerline, looking back. I can’t make out his features in the gloaming, but I understand what he feels. Just as my chest ached holding Colton, my chest aches seeing him. You can’t help knowing what someone means to you when, each time your eyes meet, it seems you are one glance closer to good-bye.

  Jabil isn’t waiting for me outside the gates. Instead, Malachi lets me through as he’s always done. I don’t know what I expected; maybe for someone to be worried—my daed or Seth, perhaps. But soon I see that life is continuing the same as before. The wind snaps laundry, the uniform dinginess fading to white by the sun. The small kitchen gardens, in between cabins, are redolent with the scent of compost. The rooster and hen peck a circle around Judith’s toddler while he plays in the dirt. Hammers create a steady percussion as the men work on the schoolhouse, where the community expects me to teach until I have Jabil’s children. I doubt anyone knows our wedding might be off. Jabil’s not the type to tell; but then, neither am I.

  I walk up to the Snyders’ cabin. The door is open and Jabil’s mudder is inside, kneading bread on the table dusted with flour, though I’m sure none of the ingredients come from wheat. “Hello, Mrs. Snyder,” I say.

  She looks up, eyes guarded. “Good afternoon.” She smudges flour on her temple as she pushes back her graying hair. “Jabil’s in the garden.”

  “Thank you.” I back out, aware that this is not my place. Maybe it’s never been.

  Jabil is working a new, rectangular patch of ground. Without horses, his only option is to turn each clod with a shovel. The process is taxing—that much is clear—but he is doing it with the single-minded intensity with which he approaches anything. His sweat-soaked back is to me, and I am relieved. I don’t want to see if the uncertainty surrounding our engagement has worn on him, like it’s worn on me. He turns at the sound of his name and holds up a hand to block the sun as he scans the field. I see the moment he registers my presence. His hands wrap more firmly around the shovel, so that I wonder if he’s going to continue working, ignoring me. But then he sets the shovel down and crosses the field, taking large strides to navigate the ruts.

  “Thought you ran off,” he says.

  This greeting is so carefully devoid of emotion, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. “I just needed time to think,” I say. “Like you said. But I was away longer than I planned.”

  He raises his eyebrow, as if he hadn’t noticed.

  I continue. “Sal’s locked up, as are Angel and the families that were staying at the fairgrounds in Liberty. It appears that the government came in—or some other organization that has overtaken the government—and forced the people into a detention camp.” I pause, giving Jabil time to register the news. “They are separating the parents from the children. Leaving the grandparents behind too. Papina, Sal’s grandmother, told us everything firsthand.”

  “‘Us.’” Leaning back, Jabil closes his eyes. “Charlie told me you went with him.”

  “With who?”

  “Moses. Don’t play with me, Leora.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t understand why Charlie has to make my personal life his business.”

  Jabil looks to the side. I can see the undertow of anger, glimmering just below the surface of his indifference. “Charlie was getting ready to leave for the militia when he told me you’d already left with Moses. He said it in front of everyone. It was like he was trying to retaliate.”

  “I’m sorry, Jabil. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just knew I had to get away.”

  “Yes. But you didn’t have to go away with him.”

  “No,” I murmur, looking down. “I guess I didn’t.” Jabil and I are silent, as if we are each aware anything said will only heighten the tension. And then a child begins to cry in the compound, causing me to remember why I came back. “But don’t you think that what’s happening at the fairgrounds is more important than what’s happening here?”

  Jabil looks at me. “Is that really what you think?”

  I sense this is a trick question, but I answer honestly. “Yes. I want to help them get out.”

  The lines carved between his thick brows remind me so keenly of his uncle, I wonder if the expression came with the role. “How?” he asks.

  “Our community. We could help them.”

  Jabil pinches the bridge of his nose. “You are talking about using force, aren’t you?”

  I nod. “My vision is to join our community with Moses’s militia.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Leora. I can’t sanction that.”

  I speak in more of a whisper, forcing myself to measure my words. “So you want to let Angel get worked to death in a camp, when we’re practically the ones who sent her there?”

  “No. We will pray that God will release her.”

  “Don’t hide behind your faith when you’re really just scared to take a risk.”

  Jabil rears back, eyes wide. “You are on dangerous ground, Leora.”

  I look up at him. “Yes, perhaps, but I believe I’m not the only one.”

  It’s nearly dusk, and Jabil still hasn’t called a meeting. I approach him in the barn, where he’s forking chicken dung and old straw from the coop into a wheelbarrow for the raised beds. I lean against the doorjamb for a moment—just watching him work—and realize that, for as long as I’ve known him, he’s almost always been in action. What is he trying to prove? That he is worthy of love and respect, the same as I am always trying to prove? The same as we all are?

  I ask, “Aren’t you going to tell them?”

  His shoulders tense. He doesn’t tur
n. “There’s no life in it.”

  “Says the person who’s not trapped inside the camps.”

  “Fine.” He forks another scoop. “You tell them, if you want to so badly.”

  I stare at the back of his dark head, the strong neck tapering down to the broad line of his shoulders. It makes me nearly hurt to look at him—not with the desire of a lover, but with the proprietorship of a mother looking at her child. “How’d we ever get here, Jabil?” The words are spoken so softly, I’m not sure he’s going to hear them. But he does.

  Only now does he turn and meet my eyes. “You know that better than me.”

  The hollow sound of the triangle, which I just struck, resonates throughout the compound. I stand in front of the well with the cast-iron piece in hand, waiting to see if anyone responds. They do, of course. They’ve been trained the same as Pavlov’s dogs, and for the first time, I see the similarity between the families gathered in the fairgrounds and the families gathered here. We all harbor an innate need for community. Sometimes there is safety in numbers; sometimes those numbers make it easier to round us up.

  Slowly, the community gathers and converges around the platform. They shift uneasily, scanning the space behind my head, as if expecting someone else to step forward to conduct this meeting. Most importantly, a man. Instead, I clear my throat, finding myself assaulted with stage fright, despite knowing the faces staring from the crowd. Perhaps that makes the fear even worse.

  “Good evening,” I begin. “I’m here to share some unsettling news with you.”

  I haltingly go on to tell them about the barbed-wire fence and guards surrounding the fairgrounds. Anxiety distorts the faces of the community as they understand how this information might one day affect them. For who says we are exempt from being placed inside those gates? “I am going to the airport in Kalispell,” I conclude. “Moses and I are trying to come up with a plan to free the people. Anyone here is more than welcome to join us. I will be leaving directly after this. But please—” I hold up my hand—“before you make any decisions in haste, know that I have no idea what we will face, nor can I even say that we will make it back.”

  I step down from the platform. No one says anything. Jabil is not here, having decided—I guess—to remain in the barn while I gave my speech. And then Daed and Seth come up to me. Side by side they stand, their heredity in such lockstep, it takes my breath.

  “We will go,” my vadder says.

  “Thank you. But who’s going to stay with Anna?”

  Judith Zimmerman, overhearing this, leaves the women’s group to walk closer. “Let me watch her,” she says. “Consider it my contribution, since I’m unable to do anything else.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She smiles.

  “Well, I guess I’ll go with Seth and Daed and then come back for Anna in a few days, if that’s okay?”

  “Take your time,” she says. “What’s one more when you’ve got five?”

  Such generosity threatens to unravel my emotions, but I instead remain standing in front of the platform while Daed and Seth leave to pack a few items for the trip. But no one else approaches to say they will join. After a while, I wind my way toward the barn, staring at the ground so the members of the community won’t see how disappointed I am.

  Jabil is still working, the wheelbarrow now heaped. The dirt inside the coop is scraped clean and bears marks from the tines.

  I tell him, “Daed, Seth, and I are going to be leaving soon.”

  Jabil turns and slants the pitchfork against the wall. “Well, I am glad they’re at least going with you. Be careful.”

  “We will.” Jabil and I are so cautious with each other. I look away from him. Dust motes twirl in the light slipping through the west side of the barn. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”

  “No one’s forcing you to go.”

  “Then the situation is.”

  “Leora—” he sighs—“we live in a fallen world. There will always be ‘situations.’”

  “Yes, but I don’t think our forefathers meant for pacifism to be passive.”

  “Well, I know they didn’t believe in taking up arms. I will not be unequally yoked.”

  Waves of fear break against the wall of my chest as I understand that the security, the safety, which Jabil represents is about to be cut away. “You’re calling it off?”

  “If you leave—” he won’t meet my eyes—“then, yes.”

  “Please don’t make me choose.”

  Finally, he looks up. “Leora. Don’t you see? You already have.”

  Daed, Seth, and I arrive at the airport sometime during the night. A man is guarding the entrance. A leather gun strap pulls across his right shoulder. I can see the stock of the weapon poking around the other side of his back. “Can I help with something?” he asks.

  I lift the cage of my ribs, drawing in breath. “Yes. We’re here to see Moses Hughes.”

  “He expecting you?” The man’s face is nondescript in the darkness; his caution is clear.

  “No,” I reply. “But we’re from the community. Where he stayed after his crash.”

  The man pauses, looking at each of us in turn. He doesn’t open the gate. “Wait here a minute,” he says. We watch his outline grow fainter as he walks away.

  Much longer than a minute passes before Moses materializes on the road. “Everything okay?” he asks as he fumbles a key into the padlock. His hair is matted on the back of his head.

  “Yes. Sorry for waking you. We just wanted to help.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. There’s just not much to help with at this point.”

  I glance at him as the three of us pass through the gate. “You have no plan?”

  He shakes his head. “Not yet.”

  Seth asks Moses, “You think you could take me up in a plane tomorrow?”

  Daed says, “I think he would like to take your sister up first.”

  This embarrasses me, but Moses just grins. “Luke, you might be right.”

  My face flushes even more. Mumbling something incoherent, Daed cuts in front of us beneath the airport sign. Seth plods along until Daed turns and gestures for him to catch up. Moses laughs beneath his breath. “Looks like your dad’s trying to give us some privacy.”

  I quickly change the subject. “I told the community about what happened, Moses. With Sal and the families. Seth and Daed were the only ones willing to come help.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Well, I am.” I pause. “And disappointed. Jabil said we could pray they’d be released.”

  “And what did you say?”

  I glance over, and Moses seems genuinely interested. “I told him not to hide behind his faith when he’s really just scared to take a risk.”

  He shakes his head. “You sure know how to cut to the chase.”

  “It was too harsh, I agree. But I’m fed up with it. This—” I gesture wide—“this whole religious apathy thing that’s really just a cover-up for fear.”

  “Listen to you.” A smile softens Moses’s voice. “You sound so different from the timid girl you were when we first met. Like you could bust in there and break them out yourself.”

  “If only I could.” I look down at the road’s painted dividing lines passing beneath my feet.

  Moses stops walking. “I’m glad you came, Leora.” I stop walking as well. When I look toward him, his smile is gone. “I—” He hesitates. “We need you here.”

  Josh doesn’t have much to say when Moses and I encounter him in the hangar the next morning. He just looks at me and then smiles meaningfully at Moses, humming a tune I don’t recognize, but which makes Moses give him a pointed look. Josh goes quiet and continues working on the Cessna, which doesn’t make me particularly excited to go up in it.

  I ask Moses, “You sure you remember how to fly?”

  “Pretty sure.” He winks. “I only crashed that once.”

  Before I can retort, Josh slams the hood on the nose
of the plane and moves back to let me and Moses slip past him. Moses gives me a hand up into the passenger side. The interior is dusty, the dashboard a faux wood grain embedded with numerous gauges. A checked, blue-gray material covers the bucket seats. Stuffing sprouts along the ripped seams. The seat belts make no sense to me, since they can’t protect a body if the plane smashes into the ground.

  I ask Moses, as he climbs into the other side, “How’d you talk me into this again?”

  “The same as I talk you into anything. I reminded you that you can only live once.”

  “Well—” I snap the seat belt across me—“I’d like that once to last a long time.”

  “It will. Or as long as the EMP will let it.” He hands me a headset and smiles, tempering his words. “Would you feel better if I explained everything, or do you just want to ride?”

  I pull the headset over my ears. “Just ride.”

  Pulling on his own headset, he says, “Relax. You can trust me.”

  I make a noncommittal sound and lean back against the seat, closing my eyes. I hear Moses pushing and pulling knobs and flipping switches. He rolls the window down and yells something to Josh about taxi clearance, though I sense the comment’s tongue-in-cheek. The engine sparks to life, and the plane begins rolling. I look out the window and see Josh watching from the tarmac, his face solemn behind his sunglasses. I shift my gaze to Moses, studying his profile, his hands gripping the yoke as the engine’s whirring grows.

  We gain momentum, and the plane lifts. It’s as if we’re not rising as much as the ground is tearing away. The force presses me back against the seat. I close my eyes as my stomach drops. Moses reaches over and touches my knee. I feel like I could die at any moment, and yet my entire body is electrified by his hand.

  Moses lifts my headset and calls over the drone, “Open your eyes!”

  I do and glance through the window. The light sears my vision, nearly blinding me with its potency. Distant, linen-colored clouds billow into the never-ending expanse of azure sky. I look down, out through the side window, and watch as the ground gets farther and farther away, making everything on it seem so much smaller and less significant. We fly over what must be a campsite, and I can see the bare ground where trees have been cut for buildings and firewood. Smoke rises from the middle, its wispy trail disappearing as it merges with air below us. The truth of what we are doing, and the reason for our flight, tries to slip its way into my thoughts, attempting to steal this moment of peace and surreal beauty. But I force myself to let these thoughts and worries fade. Here, no people are imprisoned or starving; here, no promises are made only to be broken. The only thing that matters is that Moses and I exist.