The Beginning of Sorrows

by Gilbert, Morris

  When Dr. Kesteven finally stopped drinking and splashing, he looked at Cat, and then at Zoan, curiously. The water drops sparkling brilliantly in his wild beard, he shook his head impatiently, then his eyes flew open. “Zoan! It’s you!” he boomed. Standing up, he almost ran to the slight young man, but pulled up short of giving him a bear hug. “It’s me, Dr. Kesteven! Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Yes, sir; I know you. Hello, Dr. Kesteven.”

  “But—I can’t believe we met up! Though I knew you must be out here wandering around somewhere,” Niklas said with enthusiasm. He was a little amazed, himself, at how glad he was to see Zoan. “How’ve you been, Zoan? You’ve been all right, have you?”

  “I’ve been fine,” Zoan answered. He had looked at Dr.

  Kesteven, and addressed him as politely as he ever did, but he seemed distracted.

  Suddenly Niklas was extremely embarrassed. It seemed that he was much more glad to see Zoan than the young man was to see him. Curtly he said, “Good to see you again,” then went back to sit by Gildan.

  David Mitchell moved over to stand beside Zoan. “Hello. I’m Sergeant David Mitchell.”

  Zoan’s X-ray eyes zeroed in on him as he said, “I’m Zoan,” and then turned away.

  “Sure glad we happened upon you, Zoan,” David said warmly. “Thanks for helping us out.”

  Zoan didn’t answer. David Mitchell sensed that he wasn’t being rude—he didn’t seem to know how to be, or to be extremely courteous—but that Zoan was merely concentrating hard on something else. Following his glance, David saw that he was looking at Colonel Darkon Ben-ammi and Colonel Vashti Nicanor very closely. Just as David was going to offer to introduce them, Zoan suddenly turned and walked over to the two Israelis.

  He stopped and said simply, as he always did, “I’m Zoan.”

  Amused, they introduced themselves.

  At first, Vashti thought maybe the young man was smitten; she affected some men that way, sometimes. But he was so still, so intent, and had such haunting eyes, that finally she grew nervous.

  “Haven’t you ever seen a woman before?” she asked tersely.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then what are you staring at?”

  “Are you some kind of Indians?”

  Ben-ammi chuckled. “You’ve never seen anyone from the Mideast?”

  “I don’t know. You’re—different.”

  “And?” Vashti retorted rudely.

  “Well, you’re pretty, ma’am, but that’s not why I’m looking at you. It just seems that you’re different.”

  Vashti seemed taken aback, so Darkon said patiently, “We’re from the Middle East. We’re New Zionists.”

  “Zion?” Zoan showed the first traces of emotion they’d seen on his face: He looked eager. “You mean you’re Israelites?”

  Now Vashti was amused. She and Darkon exchanged quick smiles, and Darkon said in a kindly tone, “Well, I suppose you could call us that. We’re from Israel.”

  “You’re Jews?” Zoan asked, stepping closer.

  Ben-ammi shifted a little uneasily. “We’re, both of us, of the Israeli race, but we don’t practice the Jewish religion.”

  This distinction meant nothing to Zoan. His eyes gleamed like black pearls. “You’re real Israelites—God’s chosen people. You’re so lucky. It must be just the best thing to be God’s favorites! And I’m so glad you’re here. That means that God will really bless us, and watch over us. For you.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  BY THE GRACE OF ALMIGHTY GOD, Jesse Mitchell had only been sick enough to be bedridden maybe four times in his entire long life.

  “It’s hard to understand God’s purposes sometimes, Noe,” he said unhappily, picking at the heavy Syntex blanket, one from the case that Xanthe St. Dymion had provided for them. His voice sounded as if he were speaking from the bottom of a barrel, and his n’s and m’s were flat.

  “Now settle down, Jess.” Noe Mitchell laid her hand on his forehead, then dipped a cloth in cool water, scented with some fresh sprigs of peppermint that still grew heartily by the cabin steps. The scent was as refreshing as the spring’s first warm breath.

  “Got to go out and tend the fire,” he muttered, impatiently pushing her hand aside.

  “I can take care of that,” Noe said in a no-nonsense tone that she very rarely used with her husband. Jesse had started off with a cold, then it had gone down into bronchitis. Noe was afraid that if he kept galloping around outside in the wet, cold night air he’d come down with pneumonia. Jesse, who knew well when to listen to his wife, lay back down and closed his eyes. She leaned forward and sponged his forehead again and prayed for a few moments. Then she saw that he had dropped off into an uneasy sleep.

  Moving slowly and trying to ignore the pain in her arthritic joints, she put on an extra pair of socks and a pair of boots. She pulled on a heavy black coat that had also been in one of the boxes Xanthe had given them. Again Noe was grateful for Xanthe St. Dymion’s gifts. She and Jess owned very few clothes as it was, and had never collected much heavy clothing. Even though the temperatures were lower in the desert, the cold here seemed to creep into your bones as if you’d been shot with a hypodermic full of ice shards. That’s the way it seemed to Noe, especially in her hands. The coat came down almost to her ankles, and was a distinct military cut. She pulled on some of the finest real black leather gloves she’d ever seen, and then, with only the slightest hesitation, pulled one of the commissary berets over her gray head. “Don’t guess any-body’ll give me any trouble,” she observed to herself. “I know I must look just like one of those big, mean commissar women.” The thought tickled her, even in her worry and pain.

  It was a long, cold walk, it seemed, to Sky Rock. Jesse had piled up enough wood to last, she estimated, for two days. As she started the hard work that it takes to build a fire, she wondered, And what am I going to do after all this wood’s gone, Lord? Break out an ax and chop down one of these trees? That’s about as likely as me wandering around and dragging up all this wood like Jess does . . .

  But Noemi Mitchell was a practical and solid woman, and had learned to deal with the problem at hand. With a measure of satisfaction she reminded herself, Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof . . . and these days are evil enough, yes, Sir, Lord, without me shopping for trouble. I’ll build this fire, and I’ll tend it, and then tomorrow we’ll see about that fire, and then the next night You can just tell me what to do, and that’ll be the end of it.

  It took a long time, but she started from the beginning with small twigs and got a blaze going, then began to add bigger chunks. Soon the fire was roaring and she stayed so close that her clothes began to smoke. Finally the blaze reached up over her head. She walked back down to the cabin, a forlorn figure, so tiny that it seemed she was a child dressed in her father’s overcoat.

  The night passed agonizingly slowly for Noe. She kept watch over Jesse and she kept watch over the fire.

  Sometime around midnight something happened to Noe. She was trudging back up to Sky Rock, exhausted and depressed, when suddenly she felt something . . . it was not a physical sensation like a wind or frigid air or wetness or rain, but it was like something surrounding her, pressing upon her, just the same. She stopped walking, but didn’t look around. Though it might have been the most difficult thing she’d ever done, for her heart quailed with fear, she bowed her head and closed her eyes. It was there, everywhere, a dark presence, a malevolent sense that someone—or worse, some thing—filled with hatred and darkness was hovering over her. It was as if she were a tiny little frantic fish, and it was looming huge over her, with a net, an inescapable net, and she would struggle and cry out but in a minute, in a second, it would see her, the poor little helpless fish . . .

  “Oh, Lord,” she muttered, her eyes tightly shut. “When the enemy will come in like a flood You’ve promised to raise up a standard against him. The devil is here, Lord, but You’ve overcome the devil . . . in Your blessed Son Jesus’ nam
e, and by His blood . . .”

  She didn’t exactly know how long she stood there, crying out to God, her eyes and heart closed to the evil that pressed in on her. But when she started walking again, each step was so difficult, and her entire body was so heavy and pained and cold, that she almost wept. She stoked the fire one last time, for she sensed, rather than saw, that dawn was not far off. By the time she made it back to the cabin, it seemed that the darkness had turned into a soft twinkling gray.

  Jesse was worse the next night. Noe was so sore from the previous night’s work, and her hands hurt so badly, that sometimes she caught herself jerking and staring down at them to see if they were on fire. She tended the signal fire, though Jesse had gotten so bad that he seemed lost in a fog of fever. He wasn’t delirious, but he was dull-minded and slept heavily.

  The sense of evil, and the battle, was worse that night, too.

  The next dawn, Noe was sitting in the rocking chair by the fire, staring down at the black leather gloves she’d kept on all night.

  She had a terrible delusion—just for a moment, but it was wrenching just the same—that if she took off the gloves, raw sinews and throbbing, swollen joints and cartilage would be there instead of skin. Shaking her head to clear it of the gory vision, she bowed her head, and finally the tears came. “Lord, that’s all the wood, and Jess is worse. Please tell me what to do.”

  The answer came, though it took a while, and the pain in Noe Mitchell’s hands did not lessen.

  A wise woman buildeth her house . . .

  That was all, and it was enough.

  Noe raised her faded, tearstained blue eyes and smiled wearily.

  God is good, she thought gratefully. Here is my place, and here is my ministry, right here in my house, taking care of my husband. That signal fire, those people, are Jesse and God’s business. This is mine.

  And so, for five nights, while Jesse Mitchell wandered in the grip of fever and illness, and Noe Mitchell stayed by his side, the desperate people wandering in the forests far below them saw no beckoning fire in the hills.

  They had all been drawn to it, and by it they had been united, by their belief in it and their dependence upon it. The night of the blackout, twelve people had hurried to Tybalt Colfax’s church, frightened, confused, looking for their shepherd. Tybalt and Galatia Colfax, in spite of great misgivings, had led them out of the burning city toward the beacon in the hills that all had seen as a sign of hope and deliverance.

  Along the way, more stragglers had fallen in with them, so that there were twenty-one of them now, two weeks later. It had been a difficult time for them all, and some of them were wavering, weakened from the great physical demands of living under such primitive conditions, the terrible food, the long marches in the cold. They were like newborn kittens. None of them had any skills in woodcraft, hunting, constructing shelters, building fires. Of all of them, Allegra Saylor had been the one who had just worked and experimented and thought until she figured out how to do things. Surprisingly, her meek and gentle father, Merrill Stanton, was usually the one who decided what to do.

  “What’s Perry’s story, Mother?” Allegra Saylor asked, her eyes fixed on a young man wearing a dirty yellow macintosh over a violently green sweater and sagging Ty-jeans. He was slogging along determinedly behind Allegra and Kyle and her mother as they toiled up one of the countless hills.

  Genevieve Stanton had to work to gather enough breath before she could answer, stifling an unreasoning surge of envy at Allegra, who was not even breathing hard. Genevieve had been lithe and energetic like that when she was younger. But then again, I’m not fifty anymore, she reflected with grim humor. She eased the straps on her backpack for a few moments. Though her burden wasn’t very heavy—neither Merrill nor Allegra would allow her to carry much—the straps had been cutting grooves into her shoulders. But Genevieve Stanton had not complained. That just wasn’t her way, and she disapproved of people with those kinds of ways. Arching her back to ease the strain, she answered quietly, “He comes to church every time the doors are open. But I’ve never seen him with anyone else, no parents or friends. He must be a child of one of those ‘non-nuclear’ families,” she pronounced with disgust. “Hmph! Nonexistent is what I call them. Merrill and I always speak to him, but we’ve never asked him home for dinner or anything . . .” Her voice, suddenly pained, trailed off.

  Sturdily Allegra said, “Well, you’ve adopted him now, Mother. At first I thought he had a crush on me. Then I decided that, really, he was more taken with Kyle; he probably would love to have a little brother. But now I think he’s really hoping you and Dad will be his surrogate parents.”

  Genevieve said quietly, “I think all those things are true. The Lord has said He will set the fatherless into families, and I think He’s set Perry into our family. And I thank the Lord for him.”

  Allegra said nothing, though she thought her mother was a little strange for thanking God for Perry Hammett. Perry was caught in the awkward half-child, half-man stage at seventeen years old. His worn frayed Ty-jeans sagged in all the wrong places on his chubby body. Poor Perry, with the painful blush and desperate shyness and embarrassing clumsiness and teenage acne, had been their constant companion for the last two weeks. What am I so grumpy about? Allegra scoffed at herself. At least he’s quiet. At that moment they heard a deep thump behind them, and dry sticks breaking and pebbles rolling and Perry crashing to the ground, for the second time that day.

  Winking at her mother, Allegra hurried back to the boy. “Are you all right, Perry?” she asked, offering him her hand. He kept his head down, but Allegra could see the scarlet tops of his ears.

  “I’m fine, thank you,” he said faintly. “I’m getting good at it, as a matter of fact.”

  Allegra was stunned; she hadn’t been aware that Perry had a sense of humor. But maybe that was because he was always red-faced and tongue-tied around her. “Okay, glad to see you have it under control,” Allegra said, trying hard not to laugh. She returned to her mother and Kyle, who was toddling along gamely, holding on to his grandmother’s hand.

  “Is Perry okay?” Kyle asked anxiously. He liked Perry very much.

  “He’s fine. How are you doing, little bear?”

  “I’m going to go see Perry,” Kyle announced, wrenching his hand loose. Allegra let him go to Perry, watching him indulgently. He was wearing about five layers of clothing, and he looked like a stuffed sausage. Over it all he wore his favorite, a bright red sweatshirt with a picture of Benny the Blue Bear on it. He loved Benny the Blue Bear’s adventures on Cyclops, and had named his teddy bear after him, though the stuffed bear was not blue and only had one eye. He’d been Neville’s bear when he was a boy . . . the thought pained Allegra. She missed her husband terribly, and wondered constantly about him. But a hint of a smile touched her lips when she saw Perry offer to hold one of Benny’s hands. He and Kyle walked along, holding the small bear between them.

  When they finally crested the hill, they found Merrill Stanton waiting for them. He was always in the advance group that went ahead and chose a campsite and gathered firewood. Now, when he saw his wife’s pale face, he hurried over to her. He had his father’s .45 magnum stuck inside his belt, and as his black-and-red mackinaw swung open he brushed it with his fingertips, as if reassuring himself. It was the only weapon they had for the entire party. He felt ludicrous, carrying the enormous revolver, and worse, he knew he looked ridiculous. Merrill Stanton was the mildest of men, with kind eyes, a gentle manner, and a balding head. But somehow, he felt as if it were a part of his responsibilities, and he wouldn’t contemplate offering it to anyone else to carry. Besides that, it had been his father’s, and he’d managed to keep it even though the licensing had cost him dearly. He would never have been able to get a license to own a private firearm, except for the fact that he had been a pharmacist in the federalized health care system, and knew enough bureaucrats to shuffle the eternal coil of papers for him.

  “Here, let me help you, d
ear.” Stanton lifted the heavy knapsack from Genevieve’s shoulders, and she gratefully allowed him to. “Go thaw out by the fire. Hot soup, Kyle! Better hurry!”

  “Okay, Grandpa. C’mon, Perry, hot soup,” he coaxed.

  “Got your mug?” Perry asked him. “Oh, look! Here’s a Benny the Blue Bear mug in my backpack! What do you mean, it’s yours? I thought it was mine . . .” Perry took Kyle in hand, while Genevieve and Allegra gratefully stretched and rested for a bit before going to get their ration of soup.

  It took nearly an hour for all the stragglers to arrive. One older couple, the Hartleys, in their sixties, were barely able to walk. Quick compassion came to Allegra as the pair simply slumped down under a tree, unable to go another step. They’re too old for this sort of thing, Allegra thought, and a sense of raw rage came to her, aimless, helpless fury at whoever or whatever had created this misery.

  And what in the world are they doing out here, anyway? she thought rebelliously. My parents, luckily, are young enough and strong enough for this . . . but the Hartleys are so frail . . . and what about that poor Wheatley woman and the little girl? What in the world happened to them? They’re both almost catatonic!

  Allegra had wildly mixed feelings about this quest. Although she was a Christian, and on the night of the blackout, she had devoutly believed that the gleaming fire in the hills was a signal straight from God, well, things had changed since then. A moral and upright woman, strong in her beliefs in right and wrong and good and evil, she still was doubtful about Christianity being a deeply spiritual minute-to-minute force in a person’s life. To Allegra Saylor, it was much more like a creed, an oath taken, a promise made to God to live a moral life, raise your children in church, and follow the Ten Commandments. Allegra had always been faintly amused at her parents’ stout devotion—at least until now. Now this blind faith in something as unknowable as what was probably a squatter’s hunting fire in the hills was far from amusing. It was frightening.