Kornwolf

by Tristan Egolf

  That was what had happened to Jacob.

  Growing up, he had never been known as a menace. Not unlike most other boys, he’d been given to occasional acts of mischief. But never had he gotten in serious trouble. The youngest of three, he was seen to have come from an upstanding, disciplinarian family; through proper rearing, he and his siblings had always been thought of as even-tempered.

  The war would bring all of that to an end.

  Less than a month before the “draft” (as the English referred to being conscripted) had been discontinued as a government policy, Jacob’s number had been called up.

  The whole situation had been absurd, said Auntie. The conflict had been almost over.

  Nevertheless, he’d been ordered to service, pending a lengthy appeal in the capital.

  Ten months later, he’d found himself pounding railroad ties with a traveling work gang.

  For almost a year, he would live in a boxcar with ten other men serving terms of their own. By day, their labor would be demanding. By night, their hours had been twice as long. The only relief would come on the weekends, when most of the crew had been granted leave. Their meager pay would carry them into the nearest urban port of carousal. Familiar, already, with bottled spirits, the Orderly roadmen were soon falling prey to the worldly temptations of song and the flesh. For most of them, life in The Basin would not resume without definite complications. Some would find the transition impossible; dozens would leave the community thus.

  Now, said Auntie (the rate of her breathing slowed with her carefully measured speech). Now then, she went on in Py. Dutch: “Most of the stage had already been set …”

  On arriving home, unannounced, for a seven-day leave that autumn, Jacob—scraggly, unshaven, wearing a leather jacket and clipped with an earring—found himself up against not just the hazards of “decompression,” as it was known—including an edict of social avoidance for breach of dress and lack of humility—he was to find out, at once, of his sister’s engagement to Benedictus Bontrager.

  Auntie paused to allow her narrative proper time to register for Ephraim. In silence, she walked from one end of the floor to the other.

  Benedictus, she said, had been one the oldest bachelor males in the district. At least three women were known to have spurned his proposals of marriage—and more his advances. He’d been renowned as a drunken letch, the bane of an otherwise God-fearing family. In youth, he’d spent many years in transit, steadily moving around the region. Once his family had settled in Blue Ball, he’d already come of working age. He had landed a job in a livestock yard. Soon, he had left the home of his parents. He’d lived in a one-room cabin, alone, on an overgrown hillside west of Paradise. Grizelda, his newborn sister—his junior by fourteen years—would grow up in Blue Ball. He would have little in common with her. He wouldn’t relate to her sense of grounding, her evident faith in object permanence. Matters of kinship would breed his resentment.

  In time, he would drift away from his family. Auntie would never consider him kin. Neither would both of their younger siblings, who grew to regard him with muted contempt.

  Ephraim’s uncle, Jacob, for his part, had always distrusted Benedictus.

  And in that, Auntie said, moving again, he certainly hadn’t stood alone …

  Even before the mill had opened, Benedictus, Grabers, Tulk and the Stoltzfi were rumored to have been involved in shady dealings with English farmers—matters so crooked, allegedly, so illegal, the church had refrained from addressing them. Likewise, Benedictus was known to have plied his trade at the Soddersburg market, a cattle yard widely renowned by area farmers for high rates of stock mortality. Many district councils forbade their members even to visit the grounds.

  That being the case, a substantial number of Plain Folk resented the mills and their owners. Even though Jacob’s parents may not have shared in that sentiment, they were outnumbered.

  In time, he would learn to accommodate for their notable excess of gullibility. But he would never forgive them for allowing “The Crow” to so much as look at Maria, let alone for conceding her hand in marriage …

  Auntie halted in mid-pivot, stopping to loom over Ephraim, her profile starkly etched in the yellow glow of the streetlights. Her posture was rigid.

  Exhaling, she went on:

  She and Maria, Ephraim’s mother, had grown up together, one year apart. Their families had lived down the road from one another. Their parents had been members of Old District Seven.

  Over the course of their childhood, Auntie had watched the uncanny bond that existed between Maria and Jacob develop.

  In Rumspringa, even though she had been older (by two years, a critical leap in seniority), Jacob had cast a suspicious, disapproving eye toward her every suitor—even the older and bigger heads of the supper gangs—without fear of reprisal. It was a given that anyone sweet on Maria would have to contend with him …

  One of his closest companions, at the time, had been Ephraim’s counsel, Jarret Yoder—and no, the recurrence had not been at random. Now, as then, Yoder was clearly watching out for Jacob’s interests. Just as he’d shown up in Percy’s court that evening, armed to the teeth for battle, he had met Jacob at the bus station twenty years earlier, hoping to ward off disaster.

  It would have been difficult for Jacob to process what Yoder had then been obliged to tell him. At first, he would’ve been hard-pressed to think that his friend might dare to be so rude. Even in casual jest, the notion of Bontrager’s going anywhere near his sister would’ve come through as aggressively rude.

  But, after a while, it would’ve been clear: Yoder, in fact, was telling the truth.

  Whereupon, he would have been forced to explain how The Crow had moved in on Maria less than a month after Jacob had left The Basin. His parents, it would’ve come out, had been lured by the thought of a well-established suitor. They had approved of The Crow’s designs on Maria.

  That much, he might have processed.

  But never could Jacob have thought to envision that Benedictus’s every advance might have prompted other than Maria’s scorn.

  Neither would Auntie, for that matter. Likewise, most of their friends would disapprove. But try as they would, one and all, to dissuade her, something had gotten ahold of Maria.

  By nature, Maria had never distinguished herself as naive. Nor overly gullible. In many ways, she had been keenly intuitive. The problem was: she’d also been a fool for love. Benedictus had seen this, and capitalized on it: his approach had been straightforward, simple, direct: flattery, diligence, patience, consistency and most important, coaxing her parents. If nothing else, a decade of spurned advances had taught him how not to proceed. By dint of elimination, at last, he would manage to hit on a working formula: gifts to the family, clean, untattered garments, perfect church attendance. And never forgetting to smile—not until marital vows had been exchanged. As hard as this might have been for Jacob, on hearing about it, to comprehend, it was something The Crow had been planning for years. The groundwork had all been laid in advance.

  Livid, Jacob would have ordered his friend to drive him home at once. And after a year of pounding ties, he would’ve been no one to argue with. Yoder would have taken him through New Holland, past the gorge, to the Speicher lane—doing his best, all the while, to quell Jacob’s anger with reason. To little avail.

  This would account for Jacob’s temper on showing up, out of the blue, at his parents’ home. Said to have been in a spluttering frenzy, he’d frightened his mother “half to death” and even threatened his father with violence before running out of the house in tears.

  Maria, “thank God,” had not been home.

  By the end of the afternoon, Auntie continued, a long-haired, muscle-bound, bearded Jacob in denim, a T-shirt and dark sunglasses had been seen in the back of an English vehicle, looking the worse for wear and tear.

  By dusk, he and Yoder—a young man said to have lost his faith in God already—had been spotted at a bar on Old Route 30,
drinking themselves into blind confusion.

  By midnight, they’d been arrested for public misconduct, then locked in a precinct cell. And, by morning, Jacob’s district council was set to convene and rule on his case.

  With nowhere to go, estranged from his family and penniless after their wild night, he would have been left with no choice but (as rumored) to sleep in a ten-acre plot of forest belonging to Jarret Yoder’s uncle. For the first few nights, Yoder might have brought him blankets and food, and even kept him company. But nobody else would’ve known (or been sure of) his whereabouts. Or of his worsening condition.

  However, once he had missed his date of return to the highways, that would change.

  Within ten days of his last known appearance in Blue Ball, a pair of military officers had come around, asking questions at market. Rumors would circulate, rumors that Jacob had left the country, or maybe gone west. Members of District Seven would humor the officers, up to a point, with conjecture. But nothing would come of it. Eventually, they would be left with no choice but to go on their way. By early October, Jacob’s fate would have been consigned to the great unknown—yet one more innocent lost to the war.

  One week later, the killing had begun.

  To start off, one of the Stoltzfi’s layer houses had fallen under attack. A flock of hens had been ripped to pieces. No explanation would come of the incident.

  Three days later, it would happen again. But this time fifty-one birds would be killed. A warning would quickly go up through The Basin: a mountain lion was stalking the poultry.

  In days to follow, many acres of corn would be ravaged, uprooted and ruined.

  Then, less widely acknowledged, Mary Ann Schnaeder, the Bishop’s sister, had been assaulted by a “foul-smelling, devilish beast.”

  Over the course of the next weekend—all inside of forty-eight hours—three herds of cattle would be attacked, a goat would be mangled and left on the highway, a storage bin would be drained of corn and a “rabid bear” would be seen chasing traffic …

  “Does any of this sound familiar?” Auntie spoke, interrupting the flow of images.

  Slowly, she stepped away from the window. Something about her was different now. Her eyes were lustrous, wide, unhinging.

  Behind her, the moon had appeared through a break in the clouds, washing over the tree-lined escarpment. The Basin glowed in a milky haze. It was radiant, luminous. It spilled through the window.

  Facing it, Ephraim sat breathlessly comatose. Both of his arms were unresponsive. His body felt shackled, entombed and increasingly distant with every passing moment. He hadn’t been conscious of Auntie’s voice or diction through most of the preceding narrative. Even now, he couldn’t rely on the testimony of his perceptions—i.e., her question, and his having heard it. All he could summon was one of his own. In German, with difficulty:

  “Und meine mutter?”

  Slowly nodding her head with a flexuous look of now we’re getting somewhere, Auntie came forward. “Yes. Your mother,” she said. Her voice was palpable finally.

  The floorboards groaned beneath her advance. “Your mother was already living at home—in your home—when Jacob returned that autumn. Benedictus had bought the estate from the Nolts, who’d gone to Kentucky in April. His plan had been to move in as soon as he and Maria were wed in November. Meantime, she would attend to the house. Her mother would help her equip the kitchen. Her father would till and nourish the land, and her friends and relations would sleep in the back room.

  “For all of our apprehensions, Jacob would only appear on one occasion.”

  Auntie stopped to catch her breath. This seemed to be taking a toll on her nerves—her voice was cracking now, torn with sickening dread and what sounded like anticipation.

  “Your mother and I were upstairs that evening. By rueful coincidence, Benedictus and Bishop Holtz were down in the cellar. The two men had been taking structural measurements. Normally, they wouldn’t have been in the house. The timing couldn’t have been any worse—as, at that moment, seemingly out of nowhere, a desperate cry had gone up in the woods. We ran to the window … We spotted him there—on the lane, at a hobble—approaching the house. He looked like nothing we’d ever seen—like a tortured ghost. He looked like an animal … Your mother let out a scream at the sight of him. At once, she ran for the door to go after him. But Benedictus barred her way. And when I intervened, the bastard hit me. Then he locked us both in a closet. Wailing, your mother collapsed in tears.”

  Auntie leaned forward: “And that was the last we ever saw of the Jacob we knew. In his place”—she settled her gaze on Ephraim firmly—“days later, came forth your progenitor.”

  Ephraim blinked in sudden confusion.

  She drew in closer. Her breath smelled of blackening apples and vinegar. “Yes,” she said. The veins on her neck were like ruts in the candlelight. “Yes …” she repeated, and this time the word was drawn out as a hissing gaseous emission.

  “I don’t understand,” Ephraim muttered.

  Scarcely able to summon his breath, he rocked on the desktop. He felt like a giant, throbbing artichoke beached in silt.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Repeating himself …

  Auntie closed in, beaming, exultant.

  She seized his testicles, clamped down and twisted.

  The jolt that tore from his thorax to every appendage so far exceeded all previous forays into the world of pain—a cross of electrocution, impalement and ratcheting steadily flush in a vice grip—the regents of hell would have squirmed in discomfort.

  Auntie brutally wrenched his scrotum. Crying out, he fell to his knees. She wrung both hands. Her fingernails gouged him. Something popped. He went into convulsions. He felt himself losing control of his bowels.

  Speaking out there, she was—hissing and warbling off in the storm.

  What was she saying?

  He couldn’t distinguish her words in the hammering downpour of images flooding his mind. Panels of black and white now alternating to complementary colors: red, green—red, green—orange, blue—purple, yellow—purple, yellow—orange, blue—red, green—red, green … Increasing in frequency, slowly dissolving in tone and uniformity, darkening, withering, smoldering in from the edges: blossoming ringlets of cancerous black—out of which shades of light and movement began to materialize, gelling to form …

  … through a hazy, vaporous, moonlit field sat the Bontrager home. His father’s house. But the Minister didn’t appear to be present. The place looked newer, less gone to the dogs …

  The motionless figures of two young women stood, side by side, in the sitting room window. Staring across the yard, toward the forest. Something was out there. Beckoning, calling them …

  Fade to black.

  Return: both women in nightgowns, walking across the clearing, familiar somehow: both seeming absent within the moment—unconsciously driven …

  Fading again.

  Then there was jostling bulk in the grass—snorts and labored panting in time, a soft, impassioned gasp on the wind. Succeeded by steady, labored breathing …

  More darkness.

  The women, divested of garments—Auntie (and Mother?), impossibly younger—lying still on a bed of lilac …

  Darkness.

  Then a primal scream … A torrent of deviant, carnal excess: requited in full, among three with abandon: two vestal maidens, one blighted pariah. The odor of sweat and ammonia, rancorous. Slapping of tenderized flesh on bone—and of writhing. And thrashing. And snarling. Fluids. Rapture: flaring to white-hot emptiness—out of which seed would take root in each vessel …

  Ephraim, screaming, exploded from both ends.

  And now—she warbled, out there in the maelstrom, her voice at a squalling, murderous hiss—now, after so many years of silence, bearing the burden of knowledge exclusively, after an age’s charade in The Order—at last, the cycle would be completed. With the sacrificial lambs of marriage and motherhood fully consigned to the tas
k, the tragedy set into motion by Jacob years earlier would enter its final act. Tonight, the blight would be consummated. Tonight, the curse would come to term—though not by way of Ephraim’s sister. No one would ever know about Fannie. Fannie herself would remain unsuspecting. The blight would never awaken in her. Auntie had seen to ensuring as much. Her daughter had been given every amenity, every security, growing up—a faith and a future within The Order … As Ephraim might have been given the same … But, through circumstance, Ephraim had been destroyed. There was only one purpose left for him: he alone would complete the cycle. All he required was a jolt to ensure it …

  “You pitiful bastard,” Auntie spat.

  She twisted his mangled scrotum a hundred and eighty degrees, then tightened her grip. She pitted one foot to his torso and heaved with all of her strength. He brayed like a hinny. A snapping of bone sounded, growing louder. All at once, the candles blew out.

  A howl went up from Ephraim’s throat.

  At last, his testicles hardened and swelled in her grip. A blow to her jaw disengaged it. She fell to one side, hitting the floor.

  Above her, the moonlight was blotted out suddenly.

  Stumbling around in the dark, he was. Moving now. Painfully. Coughing and hacking, he shuddered, then turned on her.

  “Fastnacht Sweet.” She laughed.

  With the riding gear straining and rumbling under his buggy the whole way out of town, Minister Bontrager lashed his reins across the back of the lurching pacer. The underfed animal, having been held in police impoundment, neighed defiantly. Cursing, the Minister lashed again. The leather held taut in his clammy grasp. His feet were moving, flopping around the trunk.

  He had been in this state all day.