The Colors of Alemeth - Vol. 1

by V. Cobe

CHAPTER 4

  Sun’s Farm

  The farm was large enough for two people to live on without even seeing each other and had everything necessary for a simple and safe life.

  Reuel was a nice and reserved man. He didn’t talk about any aspect of his life, except those regarding the farm and the Institution. He was fifty and worked ardently, sometimes from sunrise to sunset.

  At first we saw him only during lunch and dinner, meals I’d prepare with the groceries he brought from the village. He’d be gone by the time I woke up, and then gone again after lunch. After dinner, he’d retire to his office with the door closed until late. And then there were full weeks where he wasn’t even there, but he’d always inform me.

  Before I realized, I was feeling at home. We were apparently safe and comfortable. Why leave? No one had traced the phone calls, no one had come to get us, and for a while, we were able to live in relative peace.

  That didn’t mean things weren’t uncomfortable at times, not at all. Reuel was an incoherent man who showed an overwhelming interest in Alem, who was just a baby. Not that he hurt him. It was just that all the attention he gave him was a little upsetting.

  “He needs to hear the word of the Lord,” he said one time, picking up Alem to take him to the farm’s chapel. “Because he’s not going to mass—”

  “You really think it’s necessary? He doesn’t even speak yet.”

  “It’s necessary, yes. He may not speak yet but he listens. It’s at this age that his values are constructed and rooted.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “It was one of the conditions I gave you if you were to stay here.” He was smiling despite the remark. “He cannot go to mass, given that you’re fugitives, but at least let me teach him something.”

  “Okay, take him.”

  The private chapel was made entirely of wood, including the floor, and not much bigger than the interior of a truck. But it served Reuel perfectly. It had an image of the Crucifixion at the center of a wall. Below it, a few candles decorated a small table, under which a wooden board lay on the floor, indicating the place where one should kneel.

  He kneeled with Alem in his arms and prayed. His eyes were glowing with emotion, though it seemed more for my son than for Christ.

  “Our Lord Jesus Christ loves you so much, Alemeth!”

  He caressed my son’s hair.

  “Never forget that there’s only love in God, and that it’s love that gives meaning to everything. Don’t listen to those who talk about hate, sin and war; there’s only love in the Institution.”

  I sighed, rolled my eyes and sat, trying to convince myself that he was just a bit strange and that there wasn’t any evil in him.

  But later that night, after cleaning the kitchen, I found him at the same spot raising Alem under his arms and placing him face to face with the image of Jesus. He whispered, “You are a filthy, impure, contaminated sinner. Garbage!”

  I screamed in disbelief. I took Alem from his hands and locked us in the bedroom for the rest of the night.

  The next day, Reuel addressed me as soon as I opened the door.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. He’s not going to mass. He needs to hear everything they teach there, even the bad things. I only want the best for him. Don’t doubt that.”

  My days were spent taking care of Alem. We’d watch television, where the Most Holy President preached novelties in dozens of languages every week, and where the TV newscast provided information on what was happening around the world, information I knew was censored and distorted by the Institution.

  After some time, I was running with Alem up and down the farm, on cloudy and sunny days alike, and even in the rain. We’d roll in the grass together, snack on figs we picked off trees in the orchard and drink milk that had just come out of the cows. I started reading to him a lot.

  He was always talking and laughing. He loved to observe the plants, the clouds and the animals. His favorites were ants. Sometimes he’d pick them up and take them a bit ahead in their trail.

  And the sun, how he loved the sun….

  At age five, he behaved like a normal child, despite not having interacted with any. By then, difficult questions started to arise, especially about his father.

  We were inside the farm’s chapel. I was cleaning it, and Alem was playing with a toy car.

  Without warning he asked, “Mom, do I have a dad?”

  He was standing still at my side and facing Jesus at the small altar.

  “Of course you have a dad. Everybody has a father. Even if he’s not there anymore, like yours.”

  “And where is he?”

  “Remember when Sábio went to Heaven?” I asked. Sábio was one of the horses on the farm who’d died a few months before.

  “Yes…. Did Dad go to Heaven as well?”

  “Yes, your father went to Heaven as well, before you were born, when you were still in my belly. His name was Irá. I’ve told you this before.”

  He looked at the altar for some time without saying a word. Then he asked, pointing at Jesus, “And him?”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he my father?”

  Of course Reuel’s education had its results.

  “No, he’s Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

  “And is God also my father?”

  How could an atheist explain God to a five-year-old child without interfering with his beliefs?

  “Yes, you could say he’s also your father.” I sighed.

  “I don’t think so,” he replied casually and then went back to play with his toy.

  Sometimes I wondered if maybe it wasn’t better to live like that forever. And then I’d come to my senses. I wouldn’t be able to keep Alem there when he became a troubled teenager. I couldn’t take away his right to a normal life. I wouldn’t isolate him from the world, even if we both knew it would be for the best.

  He started to explore the farm after turning six. He’d disappear without warning. He still preferred to play with trees and animals than with the toys I’d given him.

  His classes with Reuel continued. I tried to dissuade the man, but when he told me he’d been a teacher, I had nothing to reply. The truth was that—in spite of the heavy religious load of the classes, even heavier than at mass—Alem was learning a lot, and fast. Tests could come anytime.

  “Matthew 14:30.”

  “Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith,’ he said, ‘why did you doubt?’” answered Alem.

  “It’s wrong. Review the Book again.”

  I didn’t like that, but what could I do? I was a guest at that man’s house. And maybe there wasn’t any harm in giving Alem such a broad knowledge of the Institution. He was still young; he’d have time to form his own opinions.

  On the day of that Bible test, after cleaning the stable, I didn’t find him outside where I had left him playing with a toy horse.

  I shouted for him, but the only response was the echo from the hills around the farm. Reuel also didn’t know where he was.

  I ran inside the house while Reuel searched outside. The library’s door was half open, Alem’s toy horse lay on the ground. I moved closer and heard a voice.

  “I don’t know. I’m scared. I feel weird.”

  It was him.

  I opened the door and called him hesitantly.

  He was sitting with his back to the entrance, behind a desk, but turned to me as soon as he heard me. He got up from the desk and ran to me.

  “I was worried!” I exclaimed while hugging him. “Don’t do that again. You have to tell me where you go.”

  “I’m sorry.” He hugged me tighter.

  Before leaving the library I peeked around.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “No one.”

  “But I heard you. You said you were scared.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “If there’s anything that you’re afraid of, tell me. Is it
Reuel? Did he hurt you?”

  “Brownie!” he shouted when he saw the toy horse.

  We picked it up and left the house to tell Reuel everything was okay.

  When we found him, he didn’t show any sign of relief. Instead, he said, “Matthew 14:30.”

  Alem lowered his eyes, cleared his throat and replied, “‘But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’’”

  Nine years after we’d settled, it was time to depart.

  I was watering the flowerbeds around the house while the sun was setting when two big gray cars stormed in through the farm gates.

  I dropped the watering can and called for Alem, but he didn’t answer. Reuel wasn’t on the farm.

  The cars stopped in front of me. Its windows were shaded by smoke.

  I thought I could run and hide, but I didn’t have Alem. So I waited, trembling, with my heart in my hands.

  The second car’s rear door opened. One foot slipped out, then a second and then the face of Bishop Zalmon Costa appeared.

  Defeat weighed in my heart. The end had arrived. I was going to be arrested, at best, and Alem would be taken away from me.

  We had committed several Transgressions: missed Sunday masses, with no notice; missed the commemorations of the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ; missed paying the Faith tax to the Institution; omitted the relocation to the countryside; and of course, the procession incident. But above all, we disappeared off the map and that was the main problem.

  Another man climbed out from the first car, and after him another. One of them had the word Order written above his chest on his scarlet uniform. The other had the word Investigation.

  “Bethel,” said the bishop.

  “Ten years have passed…,” I said.

  “I’m well aware of that. We haven’t stopped looking for you.” He looked around. “Where’s Alem?”

  I couldn’t believe that after all that time the Institution was still looking for us, persistently enough to actually find us.

  “I had reasons. This all happened so fast.”

  “Shush, we don’t have to talk now. Come, let’s go back to Carmel.”

  “But Alem… you’re going to take him from me.”

  “Do not worry about Alemeth. I have a plan for him.”

  Hearing that only made me more nervous.

  He was nowhere to be found. I looked in every room, inside every closet, under every mattress.

  Nothing.

  The outside was vast, but the portion occupied by houses was relatively small. Alem wasn’t in any of them.

  I ran through the farm, ascending and descending the hills, until I spotted a small brook down in the vale flanked by tall weeds where Alem liked to spend time.

  As I went down the hill, I lost sight of the stream because of the tall vegetation. I finally found a dirt track, brushed away a bunch of grass and there he was next to the water. He wasn’t alone. A girl his age with long brown hair and wearing a green dress disappeared in that precise moment through the meadow on the other side of the stream.

  He had something coming out of his lower back and going around to the front of his body. His hair was shining. I called him instinctively, but my voice trembled.

  When he turned to me, I screamed. In his arms was a black serpent. Alem’s scarlet hair glowed like it was made of gleaming liquid, and his eyes were completely white with the exception of a red slit across each.

  A chill ran through my left arm.

  He dropped the serpent, and the moment it touched the ground, it vanished. His hair stopped shining, and the eyes I knew returned.

  I ran to him and kneeled to his height, held his arms and looked him directly in his eyes, not knowing what to do.

  “What happened?” I asked him, shaking him by his shoulders, barely breathing.

  “I was just playing,” he answered nervously.

  I glanced over to the grass on the other side.

  “Who were you playing with? What did you have in your arms?”

  “I don’t know what happened.” His voice was shaking. “I was just playing.”

  He hugged me tightly, and I felt his fear. My son was growing up, and the future was going to be much more complicated than I had thought.

  The bishop observed the scene from the top of the hill. His face was serene, and his red cassock was blowing in the wind.

  I grabbed my child’s hand.

  “Come, Alem. It’s time to go home.”