by Pete Hautman
She is radiant; the Lord has filled her with light.
Once, I see her turn in my direction. I think it is me she’s looking at, or so I hope, as I plan to marry Sister Ruth. I have known since we were small children that she would be my wife. When I think of the future, of the years of waiting for the angel Zerachiel to come for us, I think of Ruth and me together. It has always been thus.
In less than a year, I will come of age. I will go to Father Grace and I will ask him to give her unto me. I cannot imagine him refusing.
Again, her eyes seek me out, and I hold her gaze for a moment before looking away. An image of the Worldly girl flashes before my eyes; I push it away. The Worldly girl has no place here.
Elder Abraham voices a short benediction, then invites the women to display their offerings. From within their robes, the women produce packets of sweets and savories. They unwrap them and lay them out on the long trestle table at the end of the room as we men watch and wonder at other treasures hidden beneath their modest garb. Once the treats are laid out, the women return to their places, and we men are permitted to examine and sample their offerings.
Father Grace’s son, Von, with his shorn scalp and doughy features, is the first to the table. He snatches several treats, shoving them into the sleeves of his robe, then quickly retreats to the far side of the hall, where he fits himself into the corner and begins to eat. Everyone ignores him. Von is not right in the head, but he is harmless.
The rest of us gather before the trestle table and admire our Sisters’ work.
Sister Ruth Grace has prepared a selection of small crescent-shaped savories decorated with seeds: some with nigella, some with amaranth, some with poppy. I take a plate and select one of each, along with several of the other women’s treats. I have not eaten in many hours, and my body is shaky from the long walk.
There is more to do than eat. Under the vigilant eye of Elder Abraham, as we sample each of the treats we have selected, we engage the women in conversation.
“Who among you prepared this chocolate drop cookie?” asks Brother John Grace. Brother John, at twenty-nine, is one of the eldest of the unmarried men. With his exceptionally long nose and spotted complexion, he is also among the least well-favored.
“It was I,” says Sister Beryl.
“It is sublime.”
“Th-thank you, Brother John.” Sister Beryl’s cheeks flush red. Beryl is a slight girl with a wan, frightened expression. She has just turned fourteen. This is her first Babel Hour.
I bite into Sister Ruth’s poppy seed crescent. It is savory, moist, and still warm with the heat of her body.
“This is an excellent cruller!” exclaims Brother Will Grace.
“Thank you, Brother Will,” says Sister Angela. “I had hoped you would enjoy it.”
Brother Will nods seriously and pushes the rest of the cruller into his wide mouth. Will is known for his appetite, though he is thin as a broom handle.
I gird myself to offer my compliments to Sister Ruth, but Brother Benedict speaks first.
“The amaranth crescent is a wonder,” he says, smiling at her. “Do I detect a hint of nutmeg?”
“You do indeed,” says Sister Ruth.
“The poppy seed crescent is most perfect,” I blurt out.
“G’bless, Brother Jacob,” says Sister Ruth, even as Brother Benedict frowns upon me.
I feel my face turning red. It is considered rude to direct two compliments in a row to the same woman, and I have both embarrassed myself and incurred Brother Benedict’s ill favor. This is no small matter, as Benedict, who trained for seven years in a Worldly college, teaches us our letters and the history of the World.
The other men declare their appreciations. The conversation begins to loosen and become more personal. Brother Luke asks after the health of Sister Angela’s mother, who is suffering from shingles. Sister Mara, one of the boldest of the women, asks Brother Gregory to sample her lavender biscuits. I try to speak again to Ruth, but Brother Jerome is between us, telling her that the amaranth crop is coming in strong. I bite into a honey cake made by Sister Louise. It is too sweet and dry, and I have trouble swallowing. Sister Louise sees me replace the remains of the tiny cake on my plate. I want to reassure her, to lie to her, but my mouth is full of dry sweet cake and all I can do is smile and nod. She quickly looks away. I devour another of Ruth’s crescents to wash away the sour honey taste. Once again I attempt to approach Ruth, but now she is talking with Brother Luke. For a brief instant, her eyes slip past him and we are looking at each other. She smiles, and I am certain her smile is for me.
Elder Abraham claps his hands three times. His hands are large enough to cover a dinner plate; the claps ring out like gunshots.
We men return our plates to the table and line up against the wall opposite the women. There is a vibration in the room, a barely suppressed excitement from both sides. Were it not for the kind strictures placed upon us by Father Grace and Zerachiel the Lord’s Command, we might become no more than animals, swept away by tides of lust.
Elder Abraham’s voice fills the room: “‘And the Lord said unto Abraham, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her. Now therefore restore the man his wife; for he is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live: and if thou restore her not, know thou that thou shalt surely die, thou, and all that are thine.’”
Babel Hour is come to a close.
The women leave the hall first. Elder Abraham leads the men in a prayer of cleansing and digestion, after which we are allowed to retire to Menshome. I am walking with Brother Will, taking the longer route around the Sacred Heart. My traitorous thoughts have returned to the Worldly girl, and I feel an urge to share with Will what happened, but as I open my mouth to confess to him, I notice, on the grassy verge beside the crushed-rock path ahead of us, a scrap of pale cloth. I am about to remark upon it to Brother Will when a door bangs open. A figure dashes out from Womenshome onto the verge and snatches up the scrap of cloth. She is barefooted, and her long dark hair is loose and free about her shoulders. Seeing the two of us, she lets out a squeak of alarm, then runs quickly back inside. As the door slams, we hear an explosion of high-pitched giggling.
Brother Will and I stop and look at each other in shock.
“Was that not Sister Ruth?” Brother Will says.
“It was,” I say, as my phallus swells with the black blood of desire.
I say nothing to Will or anyone else of my encounter with the Worldly girl, and it may be too late. If I go to Brother Enos now, he will chastise me first for interrupting him at his evening prayers, and then again for not going to him immediately upon my return from my patrol. And what could I say? That I was late because I had paused to chat with a Worldly rifle-toting girl? That I had not come to him directly because I did not wish to miss Babel Hour? That after Babel Hour, I had been so consumed with lustful thoughts of both Sister Ruth and the Worldly girl that I came first here, to Sinners’ Chapel, to purify myself with a cedar switch?
I grit my teeth and strike three more blows.
The red cedar that grows on the hillsides produces large numbers of small, sharp needles. To brush up against one is slightly unpleasant, but to slap a needled branch hard against one’s naked flesh is a blow from the hand of Zerachiel. Shirtless, I flail my back until the stinging becomes burning, the burning an exquisite throbbing, the throbbing a soul-searing agony. I do not stop until that which lies below my waist feels as far away and insignificant as the faintest star in the blackest sky.
By the time I place the branch in the brazier, offering up a final prayer for absolution, I have hardly enough life in me to stagger through the dark night to Menshome. On this day I have walked thirteen miles and beaten myself well and good. Still, it is nothing compared to the punishment I might yet receive from Brother Enos should he fathom my transgressions.
Brother Will and Brot
her Gregory are reading Scripture in the common room, sitting shoulder to shoulder beneath the single bulb. I walk past them without speaking. They look up, but do not remark upon the dark streaks on the back of my robe. I retire to my cell, strip naked, and curl up on my mattress of straw ticking, lying on my side to keep my weeping back from gluing itself to the rough sheets.
I pray for sleep, but I am charged with memories. How badly have I sinned? And was my sin of speaking with the Worldly girl lesser or greater than the sin of not telling Brother Enos of my indiscretion?
My back burns with the fire of penitence. Can I yet redeem myself by confessing? Or have my sins hurled me beyond the boundaries of redemption? Even now, as I lie curled in this sickle of pain, images of Sister Ruth and the Worldly girl Lynna dance about the tattered edges of my soul.
Brother Will is snoring in the next cell. I envy him his deep sleep, and wonder how he can rest so easily after laying eyes upon Sister Ruth, bareheaded and barefooted. Ruth’s dark tresses tangle in my head with Lynna’s golden crown, and once again the Beast attacks me through my groin.
I rise early so that I may perform my morning ablutions alone. I wash, dress, and take myself to the Sacred Heart. The sun is yet unrisen, but Brother Andrew is already on his ancient knees in his flower beds, planting new bulbs, preparing the gardens for the long winter that is to come, his long white beard soiled from dragging in the fresh-turned earth. Andrew has been frenzied in recent weeks, ministering to his plantings as if every hour might be his last, as well it might, given his great age.
In the Village, every space not covered by a building or a pathway is devoted to our gardens. Under Brother Andrew’s care, the flowers come up more beautiful and profuse with every spring. One day our gardens of Nodd will rival those of the first Eden, and the Tree will bear sweet fruit, and the Ark will come.
I kneel at the wall and pray, but I cannot bring myself to pray for Zerachiel’s coming. Not yet. As the words of the Arbor Prayer pass over my tongue, I am thinking of Ruth. I am thinking of Lynna. I pray with my lips as I sin in my heart.
When the sun rises, I break my fast in the dining room in Menshome. Will is already shoveling down a stew of broad beans and potatoes. We will need full bellies, for on this day we will be many hours in the fields.
My father, Elder Nathan, comes in and asks if any of us know where he can find Brother Taylor.
“He took the Jeep into West Fork,” John says. “He said he had to pick up a part for the tractor.” Brother Taylor maintains our vehicles and mechanical equipment. He is one of the few Grace who deal regularly with the World.
“Ask him to see Sister Elena when he returns,” my father says. Sister Elena is my mother. “She is having trouble with one of the washing machines.”
I feel his eyes pass over me. I fear that he can see into my stained and sullied heart. To avoid his eyes, I bend my head over my plate and fill myself with hot stew.
My father heard the call of Father Grace when I was yet a child. Back then he was known as Nate Green. He was a lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska, but he was not a happy man. The vacuum of the World had emptied his soul, and it was not until he met Father Grace that he began to find himself again.
My mother opened her heart to Father Grace as well, and shortly thereafter my parents gave unto him all their Worldly possessions and took themselves here to Nodd.
I remember that first life vaguely, like a faraway dream. I remember television, and our dog, Spots, and a boy named Bobby who lived next door. I remember playing on a swing, and a few other things. Or maybe I remember only because my mother has told me of these things. I had but five summers when we came to Nodd.
My father does not often speak of the past, although once, as a way of explaining my failure at some small task, he told me that I had been conceived in sin. I remember it as if it had happened yesterday. In a moment of anger, he told me that his next child would be pure and clean as January snow.
Later that same day, my mother came to me as I was cleaning the chicken coops. She put her arm around me and said, “You were conceived in love, Jacob. The fact that your father and I were not married at the time cannot change that.”
“Are you saying he is wrong?”
“Your father is a man, Jacob. He is a good man, but he has much anger inside him, and sometimes it spills over onto those he loves.”
“He told me you would bear him a pure boy.”
My mother laughed and shook her head so hard a strand of hair fell across her face. She tucked it back, looked around to see if anyone was watching, then quickly kissed me on my forehead.
“You are pure enough for me,” she said, and left me with the chickens.
That was years ago. Because it is the will of the Lord, the fruit of my mother’s womb has failed to set, and I remain my father’s only — his tainted — issue.
My mother is not best loved amongst the Grace, for she has a way of speaking her mind when she should not, she is reluctant to give praise where she perceives mediocrity, and she speaks often of Worldly things. My mother is as devout as any, but she will at times say things like, “What wouldn’t I give for a double cappuccino right now!” Or she will say of Elder Seth, who is known for his inflexibility and sour demeanor, “Someone should tell that man to move his bowels.”
But she has a softer side, and during those odd times when we find ourselves together for a moment, as when she delivers laundry to Menshome, she tells me things of her early life, and of the World.
Brother Will and I are assigned by Brother Peter to follow the scythe wielders and gather the cornstalks. We Grace plant but a few acres of corn. Wheat and rye, our staple grains, have already been gathered. The corn harvest takes but a single day, then on to the lentils, the beans, the squashes, the root vegetables.
Brothers Jerome and Aaron swing their scythes in great, forceful arcs, slicing through the thick cornstalks inches above the dry Montana soil, sending up billows of dust and chaff. Jerome looks back, sees how closely I follow, and swings his scythe low, scuffing the powdery earth, raising a cloud so thick I stop and hold my sleeve over my mouth and nose. Jerome laughs.
Our job is to gather sheaves of cornstalks and tie them loosely together into hattocks. Behind us, the shorn field is studded with such rough teepees. I slow my pace to let the reapers get farther ahead, and to let Will catch up. Will works slowly, as always. His sluggishness can be irritating at times. I build three hattocks to his two.
If the weather holds true and clear over the next three weeks, the ears of corn will dry, after which we will strip them from their stalks and haul them on wagons to the granary. There the ears will finish drying in mesh silos. Come November, the kernels will be twisted from the cobs to be ground into coarse meal for quick bread and sweet porridge.
I recognize my mother, one of three Sisters who follow us down the rows of corn, gleaning stray ears that have fallen from the stalks, loading them into cloth sacks they wear on their backs. My mother gleans with the speed of a hungry goose. As she bends and plucks ears of corn from where they have fallen, she sings under her breath. I hear a wisp of melody, an old song that I remember her singing to me as a young child. There is little singing among us, as music leads to temptations of the flesh, but in the fields, with the Elders out of earshot, my mother sings. It is not long before she comes close enough to speak with me.
“Jacob,” she says, “you perform the work of three. Slow yourself, lest you leave poor William feeling unworthy.”
“If Will feels unworthy he should move more quickly,” I say, then regret my remark and look around to be sure that Will is not close enough to have overheard.
“I fear you have inherited my own intemperance,” she says.
“Apologies, Sister. I did not sleep soundly.”
“I hear your voice rings strong at Babel Hour.”
I feel my face redden. This causes my mother to laugh out loud.
“That your loins whisper to you is no cause for shame.”
“I am not ashamed,” I say, although I am far more ashamed than she could know.
“If I may guess, is it Sister Ruth who catches thine eye?” she says.
I cannot lie aloud to my mother twice, so I look down at the fresh-cut corn stubble and nod.
“I pray there are others you look favorably upon as well,” she says.
I look up sharply. This is a very strange thing for her to say. For a moment I fear she knows of the Worldly girl, but the concern I behold upon my mother’s sun-browned features shows no hint of censure. It is something else.
“Brother!” It is Brother Jerome, looking back, telling me with his frown that I am not doing my part.
“G’bless, Sister,” I say to my mother, and return to my work.
We are blessed with a stretch of dry days that are perfect for the harvest. Brother Peter works us hard and long, and I do not think overmuch of Sister Ruth or the Worldly girl. By Manday much of the work is behind us. We trudge in from the fields, looking forward to a hot meal, early to bed, and to waking on Sabbathday, our day of rest. But when we enter the Village I see a black SUV parked before the Hall of Enoch.
All thoughts of food and sleep fly from my head.
Father Grace has returned to Nodd.
And his face was dazzling and glorious and terrible to behold.
— Enoch 89:23
For the past six weeks, Father Grace and his wives have been tending the Grace Ministries in Colorado Springs and Omaha, so that others might hear him and join us in Nodd. But few are willing to give up all their Worldly possessions. Father Grace has been preaching the words of Zerachiel for thirty years now, yet only we three score and two have embraced the truth of his calling.
Still, at times he returns from his journeys with converts, and we welcome them. There is always great excitement when new Grace enter our lives. On this occasion, a rumor passes through the Menshome like the wind: Father Grace has brought with him four new souls.