by Fleur Beale
I felt stupid but nobody else was around.
This church had wooden pews, not the chairs I was used to in the temple. They weren’t comfortable but I sat on one halfway towards the front. I didn’t try to pray or even to think. For now, it was just enough to be there. If the Lord smote me on the way home, so be it — at least then I’d know Elder Stephen and the Rule were right.
CHRISTMAS IN THE WORLD was so different from what I’d been used to. Jim woke us all up in the morning by galloping round the house singing a song I remembered from school in Wanganui — ‘Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer’. Then he sang, ‘Get up, family! It’s Christmas!’
When we emerged from our rooms, we discovered he was wearing reindeer antlers on his head.
‘Dare you to wear them to church,’ Miriam said — and laughed at my horrified face.
Jim patted my hand. ‘If you come with us, Rebecca, I won’t wear them. I’ll behave properly.’
Nina said, ‘Please come, Rebecca! I know it’s blackmail but I truly don’t want to be seen with a reindeer.’
I didn’t want to go, but I did want to. I missed worship, I missed the presence of the Lord in my life almost as badly as I missed Rachel and my family. ‘Okay. Yes, I’ll come.’
They were pleased, not that they made a big thing of it. We had breakfast, then hurried to get ready in time.
I chose a plain dark-blue skirt, black stockings and a long-sleeved blouse. I tied a scarf over my hair. Miriam pulled it off.
‘D’you really think the Lord will strike you dead if you go bare-headed?’
‘Go easy on her, Miriam,’ Daniel said.
Miriam stamped her foot. ‘It’s all just so unnecessary. Those old men, they get off on controlling people, especially women.’
He laughed at her. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Kirby.’
That made her laugh too. ‘Sorry, Rebecca.’ Then she sighed. ‘I just wish …’
Yes. All of us wished the Faith hadn’t split our family apart.
We arrived at the church a few minutes early. People were cheerful, smiling at the family and greeting them by name. Miriam introduced me to a hundred of them. The names washed through my mind, snagging on my surprise at the way many of them were dressed. There were girls in skimpy dresses that showed the flesh of their shoulders and arms. Women wore trousers — some of them brightly coloured. Not one of them covered her hair.
I was glad when the service started, but the shocks kept coming. The preacher was a woman. She was cheerful too, and she spoke of a loving god. During the whole hour she didn’t utter one threat of eternal damnation. There was no hint of disappointment from her or anyone else who spoke. The readings from the Bible were weirdly familiar but slightly wrong and I couldn’t work out why.
As we stood to sing a Christmas carol, Daniel whispered, ‘Stop frowning, Rebecca. You’re not losing your mind. It’s a modern version of the Bible. Easier to understand but not nearly so poetic.’
I stumbled out into the day feeling bludgeoned in my head and heart and soul. Again the questions plagued me — what to believe? What was true?
Daniel took my arm. ‘It’ll get better, little sister.’
He drove us home to where Ellen and Kirby were preparing a meal, and where there were presents to open.
Nina raised her wine glass. ‘To Rebecca, who is learning to live in the world.’
Jim said, ‘It’s great to have you with us — all three of you. It’d be a miserable time for us otherwise.’ Their own three children were all far away. One was in New York, one in Canada and the other was travelling through India.
Early in the new year, Kirby would be going to Japan. And I had just learnt how to catch a bus. Small things, Rebecca. One step at a time.
‘Presents!’ Kirby said. She sat on the floor by the tree, handing them out. She threw one to me. ‘Catch, Rebecca.’
That made me cry, because I missed my family whose day would be so different from this one. I’d never been given a present before and I hadn’t thought to give gifts to the others.
Jim gave me a hug. ‘Open it.’
I did so — and laughed. It was a packet of handkerchiefs, brightly coloured and patterned. I dried my tears with the tartan one.
There were more presents — felt-tipped pens from Miriam, a book about science from Daniel, two novels from Kirby and Ellen, and a swimsuit from Nina and Jim.
I held it up and gasped. It was indecent. I loved it. ‘Thank you! I’ll wear it — I’ll swim in the sea and I’ll imagine Elder Stephen’s face if he saw me.’
‘Atta girl,’ Ellen said. She raised her glass again. ‘To absent friends and family, especially Rory.’
Who was Rory? I didn’t like to ask, even though I knew I could. It was harder than I’d ever dreamed to break the rules of a lifetime.
But Ellen was watching me. ‘You can ask, Rebecca.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s okay. I don’t need to know.’
Daniel said, ‘Maybe not, but you do need to practise asking for knowledge.’ He smiled at me, my once so-serious brother. ‘Go for it, little sister. You can do it.’
They were all smiling at me, all encouraging me. Yes, I could do this. ‘Ellen, please will you tell me who Rory is?’
She cheered, and the others clapped. But her story was nothing to cheer about. ‘I was thrown out of the Faith on my sixteenth birthday because my father discovered I was pregnant. I’d been raped regularly for two months by an Elder who ordered me to submit to him. I didn’t even know what was happening. Rory is the child of that pregnancy. I had him adopted out.’
Kirby took up the story. ‘That’s why she sent me to live with you guys. She freaked out when Rory contacted her, and she ended up in a psych ward with severe depression. That’s why I couldn’t find her.’
We were all quiet. It was hard for me to believe an Elder could transgress so sinfully, but I did believe it. I heard the truth of it in her voice, and in Kirby’s.
At last, I said, ‘Thank you for telling me.’ I didn’t say any more, didn’t ask the question battering at my mind.
Kirby tilted her head. She looked at Miriam, who pulled her mouth down and nodded. My cousin said, ‘You don’t know what rape means, do you?’
My sister said, ‘They still aren’t telling girls the secrets of the marriage bed, are they?’
I let out a breath. ‘No, I don’t know what it means. And no, they’re still not telling us a single damned thing!’
They shrieked, all of them, even Ellen. Miriam gasped and said, ‘Progress! I bet that’s the first time in your life you’ve said a bad word.’
I was astonished at myself. ‘Yes. It felt good, too. Now I know why people swear.’
They laughed again. My sister went out of the room and came back with drawing paper and pens. ‘The facts of life, with illustrations coming up, Rebecca. Pin your ears back.’
The adults got to their feet. ‘Christmas dinner will be ready when you’ve finished.’
‘Wimps,’ Kirby said.
‘Guilty as charged,’ Jim said. They scurried from the room.
Miriam drew pictures of naked men and women. She explained, with help from Kirby and Daniel, exactly what the secret of the marriage bed was. Rachel and I had been right — it was all about the differences between males and females.
I stared at the drawings, trying to shut out thoughts of Elder Stephen. But I couldn’t shut out the reason he’d been so determined to keep me ignorant — what 16-year-old girl would willingly do that with an old man she feared and disliked?
He must have suspected I would run. How ironic that I’d have married him if he hadn’t sent Elder Hosea to guard me.
Nina called us to a table laden with food. They talked as they ate, but I was quiet, my mind somewhere different.
‘Rebecca? You okay?’ Kirby asked.
‘I know what I want to do next year. I want to go to school. I want to go to a proper school and have proper lessons.’
/> The whole family clapped and cheered.
I turned to Kirby, but called her by her Faith name. ‘Esther, will you cut off my plait for me?’
It seemed the others all knew the story of how she’d hacked off her own hair in protest when she’d been sent to live with our family, because they nodded, and Ellen said, ‘Appropriate.’
Kirby said, ‘Sure will, kid.’
Miriam fetched Nina’s big sewing scissors, and with a couple of clacks of the blades Kirby chopped off half the length of my braid.
I shook out the rest. For the first time in my life, it floated free around my shoulders.
I could do this. I could live in the world.
That night I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I no longer saw Rachel looking back at me. It wasn’t just the hair — it was something about how the girl I was watching looked at me as if the world interested her, as if she knew she could learn, ask questions, use her mind.
I went to bed and wept again for my sister.
Thirty-four
I STARTED SCHOOL at the end of January. They decided to put me into Year 11 even though I was old enough to be at least a year ahead.
I chose to go to a co-ed school without a uniform.
‘Why?’ Edwin asked.
‘I want to make my own decisions, including about what to wear,’ I told him. I no longer worried about trying to give him the right answers.
He decided I didn’t need any more sessions. ‘Just pop in now and again. I’ll follow your progress with great interest.’
‘Thank you.’ I hesitated, not sure if I should say what was in my mind. I waited for him to give me permission. When he didn’t, I walked out and closed the door behind me.
I really wanted … That’s when I remembered, or maybe realised, I didn’t have to ask permission. If I wanted to say something, I should just say it.
I knocked on the door again.
‘Edwin — I don’t know if this will come out right, but you’re the first person who wanted to know what I really thought.’ I stopped — there was more to it than that. I tried again. ‘It’s like you treat me as a proper person. Weird.’
‘Good weird or bad weird?’
I turned the tables on him. ‘Edwin, use your brain. You’ve got a good one in your skull.’
I closed the door behind me on his shout of laughter.
SCHOOL WAS HARD WORK — there were so many gaps in my learning. But I loved it. I came to understand what Miriam meant when she said design school challenged her mind.
But as March approached and the time for Rachel’s confinement drew near, I ached to be with her. Although I no longer knew which god, if any, to believe in, I prayed she’d be safe. I prayed her baby would be well and healthy.
I studied harder than ever, partly because it helped take my mind off the pain of losing Rachel and the rest of my family.
I went to see Edwin. He had no comfort for me. ‘Freedom comes with a cost, I’m afraid. It’s a hard thing to accept. I’m sorry.’
I told him I prayed for them, and was grateful he didn’t ask if I still believed in the Lord. When I tried to think about what I believed now, the Lord got mixed up with Elder Stephen. I didn’t have a scrap of belief in Elder Stephen.
I began spending days after class in town, looking at baby shops. Several times I nearly bought things — a rattle, a teddy bear, a little sun bonnet. Always I came away empty-handed. I couldn’t reach over the rift the Elders had driven between Rachel and me. It would cause her immense pain. I couldn’t do that to my beloved sister. Each day, when I woke up, I sent my thoughts and love to her: Have you had your baby yet? Are you well? Is the baby well?
School was my solace. My test and exam results improved from dreadful, to bad, to average, to reasonable by mid-year. By mid-year too, I was comfortable going to church each Sunday, even though my old certainty about what to believe was no longer there.
I went to see Edwin about it. He grinned at me. ‘You don’t want much, do you Rebecca Pilgrim? Fine minds all through the centuries have struggled to know what to believe. Welcome to worldliness, kid.’
Trust him to put my questions into perspective.
AT THE START of the third term, our English class had to do speeches. The idea of getting up and speaking in front of everyone was daunting. I’d come a long way in the months since my escape, but this felt like too much too soon.
‘Course you can do it,’ Miriam said. ‘If you can obey the idiot Rule for sixteen years, you can for sure give a four-minute speech.’
‘Just talk about your life,’ Daniel said. ‘How many other kids have had your sort of life? They’ll be riveted.’
What a hideous idea.
What a brilliant idea.
I worked on it, practised it, got swamped with nerves. I moaned about it to Kirby, emailing her in Japan.
Ooooh, she wrote back. Poor Rebecca! It must be as bad as waiting to embrace old Saggy in the marriage bed. NOT!!!!
I was still nervous, but I would survive.
ON THE DAY, I carried the wedding dress to school in a bag. I was third on the list of speakers. While Jarrod was giving his speech, I went to the English department office to change into the dress. I braided my hair into a single plait and I put on the black lace-up shoes and the black socks.
‘Ready when you are, Rebecca,’ Mr Chaney called.
I walked in. The kids stared. I knew now what a truly ghastly dress it was. I began speaking.
‘Praise the Lord.
‘I am Rebecca, daughter of Caleb Pilgrim and his wife Naomi. I am the sister of Daniel, Miriam, Rachel, Abraham, Luke, Magdalene and Zillah. We all have biblical names. We were all born into a religion called the Children of the Faith.
‘The dress I am wearing was meant to be my wedding dress. Almost a year ago, the leader of the Faith said the Lord told him to take me as his wife. He was seventy-six years old. I was sixteen. I had to marry him. The Lord spoke through him. If I refused, I would be refusing to obey the Lord and would end up in the fires of eternal damnation.
‘I ran away on my wedding day.’
Daniel was right: there wasn’t a movement from my classmates. Every one of them stared at me, some of them with their mouths open.
‘I know seven of the psalms by heart. It was how we were disciplined. We had to stay in a small room all day, learning the psalm Father set for us. Mother was allowed to give us three pieces of plain bread for each meal, and a glass of water. In the evening, we had to recite the psalm we’d learnt.
‘My twin sister Rachel and I were sent to the discipline room for two days for not turning away when we saw our cousin, who had been expelled from the Faith and deemed to be dead. I committed the further sin of speaking five words to her.
‘A line from Psalm 18, one of the psalms Father set us to learn, reads: The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
‘If we got into less serious trouble, Father would call the whole family to his study. We had to kneel on the wooden floor while he prayed for us. If we were lucky, the prayer only lasted for ten minutes. Other times, we stayed on our knees for much longer.
‘I ask you all to kneel now. Close your eyes while I pray for you the way we were prayed for.’
They looked stunned, but they did it — perhaps encouraged by Mr Chaney, who also dropped to his knees.
I kept it short, using the vocabulary of the Elders. Transgression, repentance, vanity, obedience, iniquity. ‘You may resume your seats.’
I waited for the rustling to stop.
‘When my sister Miriam ran away, we had to stay on our knees for two days, praying. All she wanted was to draw and paint, but that is against the Rule. It is vanity to have images of yourself and it is idolatry to have non-religious pictures on the walls. She too was expelled and deemed dead. We weren’t allowed to mention her name ever again. She was deemed to be one of the flood of the ungodly.
‘You will be asking yourselves: why didn’t I
run? Why did I stay?
‘In the end, I did run. But there is a cost to freedom. I’m dead to my family now. I am also one of the flood of the ungodly. I’ll never know if my twin sister gave birth to a boy or a girl in March this year. I’ll never know if she is well, or if she nearly died the way my mother nearly died with her last baby.
‘I’m luckier than some who are cast out. I have my brother Daniel and my sister Miriam on the outside as well.’
I told them why Daniel had been cast out. I could see the disgust, the incredulity on their faces when they heard it was because he wanted to study to be a doctor.
‘That was my life. It’s not been easy finding a new way to live in the world. I’m still working it out. Freedom is precious but costly. That is a thing I know for sure, and it’s about all I know for sure. For now, it is enough to build on.
‘I end this speech with the words the Children of the Faith say at the end of any important conversation.
‘Praise the Lord.’
There was a silence before applause crashed through the room.
It was a great relief to shed the dress, unplait my hair, and put my jeans and sweatshirt on again.
I’m not Sister Rebecca. I am Rebecca.
About the Author
Fleur Beale is the author of many award-winning books for children and young adults — she has now had more than 50 books published in New Zealand, as well as being published in the United States, the UK and Germany.
In 2012, she won the Margaret Mahy Medal for her outstanding contribution to children’s writing. In the 2009 LIANZA Children’s Book Awards, she won the Esther Glen Award for distinguished contribution to children’s literature for Juno of Taris, and Fierce September won the young adult category in the 2011 NZ Post Children’s Book Awards as well as the LIANZA Young Adult Award in 2011.
Fleur is the only writer to have twice won the Storylines Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book, with Slide the Corner in 2007, and I Am Not Esther in 2009.