by Adam Cloake
Brother Marcus took Tom by both shoulders, and stared directly into his eyes. It was an uncomfortable sensation. “What you are doing for your parents is very brave, Thomas,” he soothed. “You are offering them a huge benefaction. I hope that you will always cherish the part you are about to play in their joyous passing.”
“I do. I do indeed,” Tom stammered. “This is how it was meant to be.”
“And soon, the Brethren will find you a companion of your own, Thomas. A wife who shares our beliefs. That way, one of your own children can one day give you the same beautiful gift that you are giving tonight.”
“God be praised!” Tom answered, feeling foolish, as he often did, about how awkward he sounded in the company of other believers. He was afraid he must come across like a novice actor on stage with a troupe of veterans.
“I'll see you in an hour, Brother,” said Marcus, the selling smile fixed to his lips. He reached up and held Tom’s fleshy cheek in the palm of his hand for a few long seconds. The palm felt moist. Tom was conscious that his own skin was oily, even though his teenage years were almost gone, and dotted with little pink mounds of stubborn acne. With his thumb, Marcus gently stroked Tom’s cheek. Tom stood still, with his eyes closed, until the hand was finally removed.
Brother Marcus turned sharply, and left the room.
An evening chill had entered through the window, so Tom chose to shut it, pushing the sash down. It squeaked for a moment, then gently knocked onto the lower frame. Soon, the smell of food would stop taunting him.
He sat down by the window, attempting to gain some peace from the darkening day outside. Because they were in a valley, there was little to see in the dim light, except for the peaks nearby. They were much taller than the hills around the Irish colony which had been his home for almost seven years. Taller and darker. There were pine trees dotted along the crests of these hills. They looked lonely and cold.
The dull glow of the sinking sun reminded Tom of his father’s sick eyes. There were no artificial lights anywhere outside, so the window was gradually becoming a black mirror for the room. The image of the landscape melted away, slowly replaced in the glass by a reflection of Tom’s own body and, above it, the moon shape of his face, broken only by pink spots, some joined together by narrow scars, left by the sleep-time scraping of his own fingernails. The black fur on his jaw and chin, fluffing out at either corner of his mouth, was an embarrassing reminder of how boyish he still looked, and how difficult he found it to be taken seriously as a grown man. His white t-shirt strained against the bulging belly behind it, except for a smiling line of flesh which had escaped above the belt-line. The pressure of his thighs on the chair seat splayed them wide, making them seem even fleshier than they already were.
The Brethren repeatedly ordered the members of the flock to love themselves, to cherish themselves, but Tom found this a perpetual struggle. His parents had noticed this blasphemy, making it one of the reasons for the subtle displeasure in their voices and in their looks.
He was ten years old when Annie and Brendan first decided to leave their Catholic faith, and give their lives over to the Brethren. By default, their two children were also signed up. Tom had to be persuaded into accepting many of the new, more austere beliefs which began to appear in his life. His parents’ cajoling grew in intensity, as their own faith, sceptical at first, became deeper.
At first, Tom and Eileen saw little change in their everyday lives. They still lived in the same house in the Dublin suburbs. They still hung around with their friends from early childhood. And they were still allowed to enjoy the same free time as other children.
Within a few months, however, things began to change. They continued to attend their regular schools but, one day, Sister Marjorie had shown up. Grim and imposing, her job was to direct them in the ways of their new faith. This took up much of their Saturday and Sunday each week.
Little by little, they found their other freedoms curtailed. As they spent more of their time with Sister Brenda, there was less available for their friends. Their access to television diminished almost completely. They were required to spend more time at home, studying doctrine alongside their regular homework. Heaven and Hell became a central part of their lives.
A distance began to emerge between the two children and their parents, although for very different reasons. As the baby of the family, Tom had always been treated with more warmth and attention than had Eileen. However, since he had never been an academic child, he struggled to comprehend the nuances and contours of the Faith. Since it was becoming so important to them, Annie and Brendan soon lost patience with him, seeming to regard him almost as inferior, not deserving of their respect. He increasingly felt like a grubby little boy, backward and stupid, trying to impress his elders with his tenuous grasp of their beliefs, but succeeding only in exposing his own failings.
This had not been an easy time for Tom, but the effect on his sister was much worse. Eileen’s defiance of her parents’ wishes became more insistent. She openly rejected the new dogma – its misogyny, its homophobia, its sheer dourness. As a thirteen-year-old, she was wilful and stubborn in a way that Tom could never have been. Also, because she was a girl, Eileen’s resistance met with more sanction than if it had come from her little brother.
There was also evidence of a new restlessness in his parents, a disillusionment with everything around them – the neighbours, the traffic, the ubiquity of shops and public houses. Brendan was becoming increasingly disillusioned with his business, as if selling his skills in exchange for money was becoming loathsome to him. Tom could sometimes hear him confide to Annie the disdain he felt for his customers. Soon, this disdain seemed to encompass everybody around them. Those who had not been saved were profane and wicked to him.
Obviously, relations with Brendan’s partner Lenny became fraught with tension. Tom was deeply disappointed by this. He loved the garage, and he loved Lenny like a surrogate uncle. Although younger than Brendan, Lenny was a widower, with two grown sons living in the States. At an early age, Tom discovered that learning about cars and their engines was among the few things he was good at. Before the change, he had spent much of his time doing bits of light work in the garage. Lenny, even more than Brendan, became his mentor. Tom learned a lot from him, and a close bond grew between them.
But then, everything changed. He began to suspect that his parents, frustrated by their familiar world, were planning something drastic.
And, about eight months after they adopted the Faith, this drastic event finally happened. Over breakfast one Saturday morning, Brendan and Annie, normally quite reticent with their children, announced that they were selling their home, leaving the secular distractions of the city behind, and moving across the country to the Church’s new colony in Mayo.
Once this move was complete, Tom was thrown into a new pit of isolation. He was now eleven years old, and quickly realising that he was expected to forget his old life completely, as a new one was created for him. From now on, the emphasis would be on practicing the tenets of the Faith, and bending his energies to the benefit of the Commune. He still played games and sports with the other boys, although physical contact was discouraged. They were occasionally allowed to visit the local villages – but not the larger towns – as long as they were strictly supervised by the older boys.
The girls were seldom allowed outside, most of their time taken up with cleaning and mending.
Tom suspected that the locals regarded them all with mirth, as well as some suspicion. On their days out, the simplicity of the boys’ clothing, and the way they walked around, all bundled together like shackled slaves, marked them out as different. However, as long as the Brethren were not openly holding mass weddings or naked rituals, they were quietly tolerated. Some of these locals, however, stared at the boys with sheer dislike in their eyes, having heard rumours of darker activities taking place in the Commune.
Eileen found herself a victim of such darkness. Her continuing res
istance meant that she was frequently punished, more so than any of the other children. The girls were ordered to avoid speaking to her – or even looking at her – for days at a time. Even worse and, with increasing frequency, she was locked in her bedroom for full days without food. Her mother took it upon herself to administer these punishments in person. Eventually, on the arrival of her sixteenth birthday, when it was legal to do so, Brendan – speaking on behalf of his silent wife – informed Eileen that she was to leave the Commune, and never return. Arrangements had been made for her to be driven up to Dublin, where she would be allowed to remain in a house owned by the Brethren. After a maximum of six months, she was expected to begin creating her own path.
As she was about to walk through the black gate for the late time, she turned and gave her little brother a look of accusation. Despite his young age, perhaps she had hoped that, as a male, he might have had enough influence to help her in some way. But he had been incapable of saying, or doing, anything in her defence.
Her name was never mentioned again.
Tom spent the next few years wracked by guilt. All that was left to him was to try and make the best of his position. He continued in his attempts to understand and strengthen his faith, but he needed something more practical. The community expected everybody to contribute what skills they possessed, and Tom had found some satisfaction in maintaining and mending the colony’s vehicles. One of the men from the colony’s garage taught him how to drive and, once he turned 18, he received permission to take official lessons outside. Although this gave him a sense of adventure, he always felt relieved to return home to the safety of the Commune. He passed his test and, for almost a year, became one of the colony’s official drivers. He fetched supplies from, and carried messages to, the world outside the walls; he became guide and mentor to the boys on their excursions; he ferried important members around. And, when his parents shocked him with their proposed trip to Scotland, he was the most obvious person to drive them.
Now, they were both praying together downstairs, and he was alone up here. They were the only people he had left in his life, and they had been separated from him. He should have disobeyed Marcus’s instructions. He should have insisted on remaining downstairs. He cursed himself for not having the courage to stand up to a man of such authority. Besides, he knew that his parents would have sided with Marcus anyway.
A sudden movement outside the window snapped Tom out of his reverie. Sitting on the outer sill was a magpie, the bluey-black “U” of its bib almost invisible in the darkness, above the clean whiteness of its belly. The night was so dark that it was impossible to see anything beyond the bird. For all Tom knew, the Brethren may have posted sentries outside. They might be staring up at him right now.
“Do you have a friend with you, by any chance?” he asked the solitary bird, his voice stopped by the glass. “It’s joy I’m after now, not sorrow.”
As if to quench any such hope, there came a sharp knock on the bedroom door.
It was time.
* * *
There was an antiseptic smell in the clinic which made it feel more humid than the rest of the house, a fact not helped by the room’s lack of windows. The large fan in the ceiling may have cooled the air a little, but the noise it created made the place even more oppressive.
The room’s electric lights were supplemented by a dozen candles. These were ringed around the operating area, which was in the dead centre of the room. Tom suspected these candles had been blessed beforehand. Surrounded by the strong lights overhead, their incongruous flickering provided little illumination, and served only to add an extra level of eeriness to the scene.
He had seen pictures of modern operating theatres, and this one seemed nothing like any of them. Although the extension was much more modern than the house, the word “Victorian” still came naturally to his mind. The walls were made of painted stone, and the two operating tables were long benches made of wood. On each of these benches, his parents now lay. Seeing these two elderly people – his creators and life-givers – lying in this bizarre supine position, wrenched at Tom. Their own fear was clearly written on their faces.
He wanted to run away from this. He had to keep reminding himself that he had never been in any real position to prevent this ritual from taking place. Everybody he knew – which amounted only to the colony members – was in favour, and seeking outside help would have stirred up a disaster for which he didn’t believe he was strong enough to take responsibility.
The medical instruments on display – blades, saws, probing tools – had ivory handles, as if they were on loan from some museum. At least everything seems clean enough, he thought, before suddenly realising the irrelevance of that fact. This was no normal procedure, where the goal was to save the patients' lives. When this was over, the physical bodies of these two people would be shells, as dead as the stone walls surrounding them. Only their souls would remain.
And that was why he was here.
Brother Marcus and Sister Ruby entered the room. They walked past where Tom sat, and went straight to the wooden benches.
“How do you feel?” Brother Marcus asked each of his patients.
“A little frightened,” was Annie's reply. “But confident in the Lord's glory.”
“I'm frightened too,” Brendan added, his eyes fixed on the ceiling he could barely see. “But this is the right thing to do. Of that, I’m certain”
“Indeed, my friend,” said Marcus. “When this is completed, you will both be together forever.” Behind him, Sister Ruby grunted her assent.
Tom was seated in a corner of the room, the plastic chair uncomfortable beneath his taut thighs. Until he received an instruction from someone, he was entirely uncertain of what to do, so he chose to remain invisible. His part would come later.
And so, as a distant clock somewhere in the house rang out nine muffled chimes, the Ceremony of The Living Soul commenced.
Sister Olive had been introduced as a qualified anaesthetist, so she administered the sleeping drug to each patient in turn, beginning with Annie. As in a conventional operation, they were each asked to count down from ten. Neither of them had reached seven by the time their voices faded.
Brother Marcus worked on Brendan, while Sister Ruby concentrated on Annie. Although he diverted his gaze from the scene as much as possible, Tom had the impression that the surgeons were working in sync, like contestants playing the same challenge on a TV show he had seen as a child.
The two nurses spent the entire time mumbling softly in Latin, their voices muffled by the surgical masks over their faces.
Despite being unable to see much of the procedure, Tom believed he could feel every part of it, beginning with the very first cut. With their scalpels, Marcus and Ruby each made a long incision in the patients' chests. Was it Tom’s imagination, or could he actually hear the slithering sound of metal separating skin? Instantly, he saw the extraneous blood from the open cavities dart through, and darken, the clear pipes which led from the patients to a pair of waiting plastic bags suspended over the tables.
That’s my parents’ blood, he inwardly screamed. That’s their life being sucked through those tubes, filling up those bags.
Only a few minutes of life now remained to them.
Moments later, with Tom still quietly controlling the reeling within him, Marcus and Ruby were each handed a short saw. Immediately, Tom’s ears were assaulted by the rasping sound of two sternums being cut in half. Soon, both hearts would be laid bare, and the final part of the operation could begin.
Again, those blasphemous questions niggled Tom’s mind like an army of worker ants. Was God really strong enough to complete the task which had been promised here? On the tail of this question came another, more potent one: Did God exist at all? Tom did the mental equivalent of biting his tongue.
He sometimes felt that there were two versions of Tom Walsh inside him, and had been since he was ten years old. The physical one was right here, in this room.
This was the version of himself which had been raised in the Faith, the one who strove to be a good believer. The Other Tom was the imaginary person within his mind, or perhaps within his soul. In some other realm of existence, Tom saw this Other continue along the same path that the little boy was already on, before the Brethren had entered his life. The happy, cheerful little lad he had once been – the lad who had played football with his school friends, who had learned about car engines in his father’s garage, and who was looking towards a normal future – still somehow existed. And that boy, that Other Tom, now a 19-year-old like him, was watching all this from within, rejecting it all, rejecting the entire life the Real Tom was living.
Before he could resolve any of these thoughts, he heard Marcus say to Sister Ruby. “I'm almost finished,” he panted. “Maybe three more minutes. How about you?”
“A little longer. Perhaps five or six,” replied Ruby, betraying a little of the disappointment she felt at falling behind her colleague.
Tom’s profane thoughts scuttled away. It was too late now anyway. The scarlet blood bags told their story. Brendan and Annie were at the doorstep of death. They were still alive, and would remain so just long enough for the final, most important, act of the ritual.
“I’m ready!” Marcus announced, his voice filled with strain.
Less than a minute later, Ruby said, “Ready!” She had obviously decided to get a move on.
Marcus turned towards Tom, and used his bloody, rubber-clad finger to beckon the young man forward. Tom rose awkwardly from the chair, and moved towards the centre of the room. The smell of blood and exposed flesh became stronger with each step.
He knew, of course, what was about to happen. It had all been explained to him. But he was trying hard not to imagine it, the enormity of it.