by Sara Taylor
“Hop on up here, Annie,” Ma said, gently. “It’s a bench seat for a reason.”
She slid into the middle and snapped the lap belt around her waist, and we glided back onto the road. In the moment she didn’t seem much in the mood for talking, and Ma didn’t push her, though we both noticed, and noticed each other noticing, the way that she looked at the road signs, the mile markers.
“The hard part is over now,” Ma said, and I knew that even though it was just a senseless platitude meant to make the girl feel better, she was lying. The hard part was coming, would keep coming for the rest of her life.
I gleaned the whole of Anna-Maria’s story—rechristened Annie by my mother—in pieces, some on the ride away from her family with the three of us sharing the front seat and the popcorn and the radio dials, some from Ma later in our journey.
Margaret-Mary home-schooled her kids, so when Annie blazed through the textbooks she was given her mother simply handed her the next one, kept an eye on her but mostly let her do her own thing. This worked just fine for all involved until Annie was fourteen, at which point she finished twelfth grade, which left her parents with the awkward problem of what to do with her, since state law said she had to have three more years of education, but there was no more education to give her short of college. Her parents had assumed that, like most of the girls in their community, she would get married as soon as she finished high school, but they had to admit that fourteen was simply too young. The easiest workaround was that she spent the day at the public library, an approved reading list in hand, and took the state-mandated tests once a year with her brothers and sisters to prove that they were keeping up with the standards of the public school.
The reading list she finished in weeks, so the reference librarian, who figured the list to be a mite scant on the sciences, taught her how to use the free dial-up, let her sit in the back room looking up chemistry simulations and calculus tutorials, but it wasn’t long before she was using it to explore another world, a world where girls didn’t necessarily end their education with high school, didn’t necessarily have babies, didn’t necessarily love men, or marry men, or have the men that they married chosen for them. Where some people never married at all. She didn’t want to be done with school; she wanted to learn more for the sake of learning, the way a person generally eats cake for the sake of eating cake rather than for its nutritional value. She began planning then.
Some parts were simple: when she turned seventeen her father wrote out her transcript and gave it to her to send in to the Board of Education so that she could get her high-school diploma, and it was easy to make a photocopy for her own purposes. The SATs were more difficult—they were long and cost money, and the results had to be mailed to your house. She took the test on a weekday when she was supposed to be at the library, counted the days and picked up the mail at the post office until the results came. That didn’t go entirely according to plan. Her mother saw the envelope, asked why the ETS was writing to her, but seemed satisfied with the answer that they knew she had just finished high school and were reminding her to register to take the test in time to apply to go to college in the fall—something that she had no business doing, she well knew. The applications she wrote at the library, and the librarians furnished the letters of recommendation. When the acceptance letters finally came she intercepted them in the same way she had the test scores.
Modesty and submission were the watchwords of daughter-raising, so she knew few young women with sharp tongues and sharp minds, who knew who they were and what they were doing and weren’t crushed even though they bent under the weighty authority of those above them—which her mother had taught her was everyone, because the meek shall inherit the earth. Pushing back directly, telling her parents what she desired, didn’t occur to her.
She had thought that she would have time to consider, to weigh, to decide whether a few more years of books were worth the effort of securing them, and how she might practically do that. But then, unexpectedly, the betrothal had come. She’d known the young man from church—by sight at least; mixing between the sexes wasn’t particularly encouraged—but once the parents had decided on the pairing they were formally introduced. He was polite, kind to her, and for a while she considered giving up on the idea of going off, of resisting the future that God had so clearly arranged for her, possibly more out of inertia than desire. The world was strange and terrifying and Zacharias Habishaw, who was an elder’s son with a bright future as a leader in the church and manager of a local supermarket, seemed like he would make a kind husband, and she thought that she could be content with a few children and a house of her own to run the way she wanted. It wouldn’t be quite the same as running her mother’s kitchen and taking care of her brothers and sisters; there would probably be time for reading in the slack moments, maybe he would even get her a computer of her own, let her start a home business selling eggs or making clothes or writing workbooks for home-schooling Christian families the way many of the women they knew did.
The date for the wedding was set, and some of the parameters for their interactions were relaxed. When they were first introduced she and Zacharias had only spoken in the presence of their parents, were allowed a weekly phone call of thirty minutes with Anna-Maria’s father on the line to ensure the conversation remained godly. Now they were given a little privacy at social gatherings, allowed to step away from the group so long as they remained clearly in sight and behaved themselves; her father’s presence on the phone line was eliminated, frequent letters encouraged with the promise that they would not be opened or read by anyone else.
They began a regular Bible study together, conferred over the phone and, when possible, in person; this was partly at the suggestion of their parents, partly due to their own initiative, as they felt the need to get past the awkwardness of getting to know each other as quickly as possible but didn’t quite seem able to—there is only so much talking about daily life one can do when one’s daily life is completely repetitive, and Anna-Maria of course thought it unwise to bring up her forays to the library and how she spent her time there. She loved the Bible study—he seemed surprised at her willingness to argue with him, her knowledge of the permitted secondary texts, her ease and familiarity with the material, and if their relationship had been limited to theological debate she could have been very happy being married to him.
But Zacharias had standards. He took the opportunity provided by the Bible study and their increased communication to educate her as to the manner in which he expected his wife to behave. He was nearly twenty-three, and had had ample time to work out what that would best involve. He did not approve of inviting the outside world into his house to poison his children’s minds: no television, no radio, certainly no computer. He expected her to be industrious, to keep the house clean and the children obedient, to keep a garden and preserve enough food for the off-season, to bake her own bread and sew their clothes and never contradict him, not even in private—the Bible studies were the exception to the latter rule, and he was appreciative of her fervency in that area.
All of those guidelines she could accept—it was, with the exception of the bread (they used a stand mixer; Zacharias said that hand-kneaded tasted better and allowing a machine to do her work for her was a sign of inherent slothfulness) and the sewing (they made their own jumpers, but most of the rest of their clothing they bought mail-order) quite similar to the life that her mother led, that she herself had so far essentially led, as she had moved from being her mother’s little helper to the primary cook and jumper maker. She wanted to stay near her family, to remain in the church and live by its mandates—not a feasible task for a single woman unless she remained in her parents’ house, which would be taken to mean that they had raised her badly, that no one would concede to marry her—so she viewed the impending wedding as a business arrangement, that would provide materially and, she hoped, intellectually for them both. She put her acceptance letters away and looked forward to bei
ng in charge of her own kitchen, to looking after her own children, and was thankful that she hadn’t taken the misstep, yielded to temptation, broken her parents’ hearts in the way her older brother had. She nearly burned the bundle—transcripts, SAT scores, five acceptance letters and a few scholarship offers that she hadn’t expected and had rescued from the kitchen trash where they had been tossed, unopened, her father assuming that they were asking her to apply—but at the last minute she decided to keep them. They were a vanity, but she wanted to have something to remind herself that she was as smart as any boy.
Then Zacharias had dropped the figurative bomb. Or bombs, as it were. There were two, the first mentioned casually, in an offhand manner, the second developed at painful length. He thought that it was a given, clearly, or else he would have made an issue of it at the outset: he had heard that she spent an excessive amount of time in the library, presumably reading, and while that was a perfectly healthy activity for a young girl, provided the material was appropriate, now that she was an adult he expected her to put childish things aside, to paraphrase St. Paul. Only godly books would enter his house, edifying, informative books, books that spoke truth and truth alone. He would, of course, need to approve them beforehand; she was intelligent for a female but unfamiliar with the temptations of the world, and he was worried that she would pollute herself with false doctrine, or else devote time to frivolous distractions and let the keeping of the house and children fall to the wayside. She did not like the sound of that—a diet of theology alone she thought she could stomach, but what was theology without discourse, and what was discourse when only one opinion was represented?
Then he sent her some of his approved books, and her heart sank even lower: pre-digested pap. There was nothing to puzzle out or come to grips with, they just told her straight up what to think, how to behave. Even the scripture references were watered down, presented in colloquial English, with no context given, let alone translation notes. And, too, there was this issue of having the volume of her consumption limited. While it annoyed her that he assumed that she did not know how to manage her time and her work effectively, she supposed that this was because he did not yet know her. The marriage manuals her church favored recommended that husbands set their wives daily tasks as part of their role as the head of the house, which had never been very successful in her own home as her father was generally fuzzy on the daily running of the place, but she’d heard it was quite popular in other homes in the community, so she guessed that he’d come from a house of that sort. He would hopefully see how silly it was for him to write her chore lists once he learned that she could manage quite well without his direction, but she could not be sure that he would not continue to restrict how much she read even after he discovered that she was competent to manage her time and her duties. And while she considered whether this—such little problems, such selfish hesitations—were reason enough to ask to have the engagement broken, or at least reconsidered, the other bomb dropped.
They were at the beginning of one of their Bible study sessions by telephone, just through the pleasantries, and she was about to attack the reading from that day, when he interjected:
“God has told me that we should talk first, for a bit, about spousal obedience.”
It had taken a moment for her brain to change tracks, but when it did, she said of course she would be obedient. It was in the vows, after all. Now, to get back to what St. John seemed to be getting at—
“Not like that, Anna-Maria, I mean obedience. Do you understand?”
“I can’t really say that I do, if you mean for the added emphasis to indicate that you’re using the word to imply other than the meaning given as its standard definition and implied in the marriage vows.” The delay to their discussion, which she had been looking forward to, was beginning to irritate her.
“Oh, I very much mean obedience as defined by the marriage vows. In fact, one might say that the marriage contract exists solely to sanctify this . . . obedience.”
She didn’t quite understand, yet.
“Turn for me, for just a moment, to Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth, chapter seven.”
That was something he did that annoyed her—gave the entire description of a book instead of using the colloquial name, “First Corinthians,” as though he were in the pulpit and she in the pew. She paged through her Bible to the book.
“Verses three through five, read it just to yourself.”
The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
She had read the passage before, of course, but hadn’t really paid attention. She was mulling it over when he spoke again.
“Obedience makes for a peaceful house. And who would know better what will make us happy as a family than St. Paul?”
She didn’t answer, but felt coldness in the pit of her stomach.
“It may be a bit improper to speak of it before we are married, but I did not want to take you by surprise. I will tolerate no arguments in this matter.”
She could tell that he was uncomfortable now, but still she did not speak.
He cleared his throat. “At first, since we will be still getting to . . . Know . . . each other, I will expect your obedience daily. After some time, when we are more comfortable with each other, more familiar, that frequency may increase. Of course, I will observe all of the guidelines when you are with child and following birth.”
She still did not answer.
“It is for our own well-being.”
“I understand.” She was surprised that her voice did not crack.
“I apologize for embarrassing you, but I felt that it was an important matter. I want you to ready yourself, for when we are married.” He cleared his throat. “Now, on to John.”
She had only engaged with the most superficial part of her mind for the rest of the conversation; the deeper, more essential part was preoccupied with the horror and confusion and deep discomfort that she felt in response to what he had said.
When she told Ma and me that part of the story we were sitting three abreast, drinking Coke and passing popcorn at a rest stop while torrential rain rattled down, waiting for it to clear enough for Ma to be able to make out the striping on the road. I came out with some choice words for Zacharias, but Annie shook her head.
“He is a product of his environment, and even so he would have made a better husband, I think, than many men I know. Knew. We could have had a truly enjoyable relationship, if we hadn’t been married to each other. He was kind.”
“‘Kind—’ that’s exactly the word I’d use to describe someone who thought it was his duty to control everything I did,” I said.
“He respected me, and that’s more than many of them would have. He let me have opinions.”
She didn’t know much about sex—she understood the biological aspect of conception, but the mechanics had not been adequately explained. Not that they needed to be for her to know how she felt about it: she was horrified at the idea of letting him do that to her, not once but repeatedly, for the rest of her life. She had no romantic feelings for Zacharias, knew that she never would, suspected that she may never have them for anyone. If she broke their betrothal she would be married to someone else sooner or later, possibly someone with stricter views, who she found less tolerable. This was what made her finally decide that she had to get out.
First, she prayed for deliverance, with the same calm persistence that she’d prayed for her mother to survive the birth of the younger sister who had come with a dose of pre-eclampsia and months of forced bed rest. Then, she considered: she could theoretically take her birth certificate and dri
ver’s license and walk away, get a job bagging groceries and start her life over, except she knew she didn’t have the skills or resources to do so, and since she wasn’t yet eighteen the police, if they found her, would return her to her parents. So then, what resources did she have? The acceptance letters—a place to go for a few years, a means to make up for the skills she lacked—and the brother that had run away from home five years before.
When she had time in the house alone she hunted. Her mother had secrets, kept little things from her father, and even though he had forbidden them to speak to or speak of her brother she hoped that in this case the water of the womb would prove to be thicker than the blood of the covenant. Even so, finding her brother’s emails, buried in the account that her mother used for ordering textbooks and dress shirts and parts for the stand mixer, was an accident. As was finding the emails that Ma had written as well, when email started becoming as reliable as letters. At first she was confused by these, then enthralled, shamelessly read them all with the raptness with which she always approached the written word; when she recognized the veiled offerings of assistance for what they were, she realized that her finding the messages was by divine appointment. God had shown her where to go and who would get her there.