by Pete Hautman
A gush of blood spills from Will’s nose. Tobias seems shocked by what he has done, but only for a moment, and then Will is swinging his thin arms, pummeling Tobias about the neck and shoulders. He is taller than Tobias, but Tobias outweighs him. Tobias strikes back, hammering a fist into Will’s cheek. Will lurches back; Tobias kicks him in the knee. Will lets out a howl and collapses. Tobias kicks him again, this time in the face. I throw myself between them and wrap my arms around Tobias; he falls backward and I land on top of him. Men are shouting and Tobias is struggling mightily. A pair of strong hands grabs my shoulders and pulls me off him.
The fight lasted only seconds, but the noise was enough to bring Brothers Jerome and Benedict at a run. It is Jerome who holds me now, his grip painfully tight. Benedict is bending over Will, assessing his injuries. Tobias climbs to his feet, uttering more curses. Benedict gives him a shocked look.
“Brother, seal thy lips!” he says.
Tobias tells him to go to Hell, a terrible curse that causes Brother Benedict to blanch.
Jerome releases me and attempts to take Tobias by the arm, but Tobias shakes him off. “I want my clothes and my stuff back. Now!”
“Peace on you, Brother.” Jerome speaks softly, as if coaxing a skittish calf.
“Piss on yourself! I’m not anybody’s brother!” Tobias squares his shoulders and clenches his fists as if expecting Jerome to attack him, but Jerome simply sets his features in a flat smile.
Brother Benedict helps Will to his feet. His nose is already swelling; there is a cut on his cheek. “We had best see Brother Samuel,” Benedict says. “Can you walk?”
Will nods, but when he tries to put weight on his left leg he nearly collapses. Beads of pain sweat appear on his forehead.
“Lean on me,” Benedict says, and they hobble off together on three legs. Tobias looks scornfully after them.
“Your Worldly goods are safe with Brother Enos,” Jerome says.
“Where do I find this Enos guy?” Tobias is sounding less frightened and more confident. He believes he has power, that he is different from the rest of us. I am sorry for him, but also discover within myself a trickle of unclean joy at the price he will pay.
“I will take you to him,” Jerome says.
All through the day, as Luke and I repair fences in the south meadow, I am beset by feelings of anger and guilt over the events of that morning. I did not need to show amusement at Tobias’s discomfiture. I could have calmed him, perhaps. Still, it was he who struck the first blows. I think of Will, his nose stuffed with cotton, lying in his cell with ice packs on his swollen knee, and I blame him, too, for laughing at Tobias, and for failing to defend himself. We are all sinners.
It is late afternoon when Lynna slips into my mind, and I realize that I have not thought of her in many hours.
“Brother!” Luke calls to me. He is struggling to reset a damaged post. I go to him and hold the post steady. As he pounds the soil firm around its base, I send up a silent prayer of thanks. The Lord has sent Tobias here for a reason. Before his arrival, I had been beset by thoughts of the Worldly girl, but now I am thinking of Tobias, and Lynna seems unreal and distant.
“I wonder how he is,” I say.
“Who? Brother Will?” Luke gives the post a shake.
“My thoughts were of the new boy.”
Luke gives me a curious look. “It was Will who was injured. Samuel says he may never fully recover from the damage to his knee.”
“Tobias does not know our ways,” I say. “He was frightened and confused.”
“A few days in the Pit will do him good.”
“Perhaps.” I think of Tobias in the Praying Pit beneath the Tower, a bare cubicle used voluntarily by some penitents, and more rarely for the punishment of the unrepentant or dangerously disturbed. The last time the Pit was used for involuntary detention was four summers ago, when Brother Von, Father Grace’s son, sneaked into Womenshome and hid in the rafters above their bathing pool. Von was not right even then. He could learn neither numbers nor writing and could handle only the simplest of tasks, but he was happy, always full of laughter and joy, a boy in a man’s body. His attempt to spy on the women was but the curiosity of a child.
Von was seen by Sister Louise. The women chased him out of the building, where he was subdued by several Higher Cherubim. Father Grace directed that Von, who had seventeen summers at the time, be confined to the Praying Pit. For several days, Von’s cries and moans could be heard from beneath the Tower. It was a dark and disturbing time in Nodd. Finally Father Grace took Von to the infirmary, where Brother Samuel, our healer, performed an exorcism, and Von’s anguished cries ceased. A few weeks later, Von was returned to Menshome with two livid scars beneath his brow. Some of the young men whisper that he is also missing something between his legs. I do not know if that is true, but he has troubled no one since that day. Nor has he laughed.
“We had best get moving lest we miss supper,” Luke says.
I nod and sling the tool bag over my shoulder. As we continue our journey along the meadow fence, I wonder whether an exorcism might be performed on Tobias. The thought disturbs me as I think of the scars beneath Von’s brow and the emptiness in his eyes.
I will pray for them both at Evensong.
The Cherubim are talking in low voices as Luke and I enter the dining area. Luke goes to sit with Jerome and Gregory. I set my tray near Will and Aaron. Aaron is talking about Tobias.
“He should be banished.” Aaron is but a Lower Cherub, yet he makes this pronouncement as if he were already an Elder.
“I hope he is,” Will says, his voice distorted by his swollen and bandaged nose.
“What about the sister and mother?” I ask.
“Father Grace would not wish to lose them as well,” Aaron says.
“I would not miss them,” Will says.
Aaron shrugs.
I eat my stew quickly and mechanically, hardly tasting it. When I have finished I go to Tobias’s cell. As he said, all his possessions have been confiscated. On a hunch, I reach my hand into the space behind his mattress and run my hand along it until I feel something hard. I lift out a small red-and-white cardboard box bearing the inscription Marlboro. Inside are six cigarettes and a green plastic lighter. The pounding of my heart feels hollow, as if my viscera has been replaced by nothingness. I close my eyes and focus on breathing until my heartbeat slows, then tuck the cigarette packet into my sleeve, take it to my cell, and hide it at the back of my drawer. It is most strange, to watch myself perform these acts. I wonder whether I am possessed, and if so, what demon or angel has attached itself to my soul.
Evensong is lightly attended that evening. Father Grace is not present, nor are any of the other Elders save for my father, who leads us in prayer. On the women’s side I see Sister Ruth sitting with her mother, Sister Naomi. The eldest Sisters are present, as always: Agatha, Yvonne, Marianne, and the widow Dalva, all sitting at the front. My mother is there as well. On the men’s side are Peter, the youngest of the Archcherubim, who manages our livestock and crops; Caleb, who teaches us numbers; the Higher Cherubim Jerome, John, and Taylor, and a half dozen Lower Cherubim, including myself. Von is sitting off by himself, munching on something he has hidden in his sleeve. Will has chosen not to come, for which I cannot blame him, as he must still be feeling poorly.
I follow the prayers automatically. I tell myself I am there to pray for the souls of Tobias and Brother Von, yet even as my mouth forms the proper words, my thoughts drift. I think of cities and oceans; I think of airplanes and cars and trains; I think of the moon. I think of Tobias casting his cigarette butt into the gorge; I think of Sister Salah. I think of Worldly girls with sun in their hair. Was it only days ago I spoke with Lynna?
I open my eyes to find myself back in the Hall of Enoch. My eyes drift to the right and touch upon Sister Ruth. As if sensing my thoughts of her, she turns her head and looks at me. Her teeth flash white. I feel the blood rush to my face, and elsewhere.
“No.” My own voice startles me. I open my eyes. I am alone.
I think of Brother Von hiding in the rafters of Womenshome, looking down upon the bathing pool, waiting for the Sisters to reveal their secrets, and I imagine that I am him. Was it such a terrible thing he did? Perhaps it was, for while I sometimes follow my mind deep into those places, I do not go there in the flesh. Is that all that separates me from Von? That paper-thin moment when sinful thought crosses over into sins of the flesh? What then of Lynna, the Worldly girl? Though we never touched, though we are separated by miles of chain-link fence, I feel her presence.
I force myself to mouth a silent prayer of cleansing and abstinence. The Lord must hear me with one ear because when I close my eyes again, Lynna is gone. Instead, the image that hovers before me is that of Tobias.
I lie awake until all the others have retired, and the lights are out, and the symphony of their snores echoes from the rafters. When I judge all of Menshome to be dreaming, I rise silently and take the package of cigarettes from my drawer and let myself out, even as I pray for forgiveness for the sin that I am about to commit.
The Village on this moonless night is still and silent as a cat in ambush. A low light flickers from one window in Elderlodge. Elsewhere the compound is all deep grays and pitch-black. I make my way past Elderlodge to the Tower, where I kneel outside the low, barred window at its base. I hear the scurry of some small creature in the grass: a vole, or perhaps a wood rat.
No sound issues from within the Pit.
Brother Benedict has taught us that there is a point in every mortal transgression when the mind, the heart, and the soul clash. I never understood that before, but now I feel the battle raging within as I kneel before the low window and peer into the darkness.
“Tobias!” I whisper.
Nothing. Then a rustling sound, and I see the shadow of his face looking out at me. “Who’s that?” he asks.
“Brother Jacob.”
I hear him breathe in and out.
“Get lost,” he says. But he keeps his voice low, and his fingers curl around the bars.
“I brought you something.”
More breathing. “What?”
I remove the cigarette package from my sleeve and hold it out to him. He takes it.
“You smoke any?” he asks.
“No,” I say. I hear him fumbling with the cigarettes, then a flare of light illuminates his face as he thumbs the lighter. I smell smoke. Each time he inhales, the tip of the cigarette becomes bright enough that I can see his face.
“How come?” he asks.
“How come what?”
“How come you’re being nice to me?”
I shrug, then realize he probably can’t see me. “I thought you might need them.”
“I don’t need them. I can quit anytime.”
“I am sorry that you are here in this place.”
“They can’t keep me here forever.”
I think of Von. “You must repent.”
“Repent for what? They took my stuff!”
“Did Brother Enos speak with you?”
“The dude with the face like a hatchet?”
“Yes.” I almost smile at his description.
“Him and the other guy, the fat one.”
“Brother Samuel.”
“Yeah. They’ve both been talking to me. Reading the Bible and stuff. I think they’re trying to brainwash me. I told them I wanted my stuff back.”
“Do not provoke Brother Samuel,” I say, thinking of the surgery he visited upon Brother Von. “Tell them you are sorry and that you wish to make amends.”
“Why? I didn’t do anything!”
“You attacked Brother Will.”
“He was laughing at me.”
“He meant nothing by it. He is badly injured. Brother Samuel says he has torn the tendons in his knee.”
Tobias puffs furiously on his cigarette. The glowing tip is quite long. After a time, he speaks.
“So I just say I’m sorry? And they’ll let me out?”
“That is my hope.”
“And what if I run to the cops and tell them you guys locked me up?”
“The police are of the World. Nodd is of the Lord.”
Tobias snorts dismissively. “In Colorado Springs, they never said nothing about locking people up or everybody dressing the same. They were all, like, love and peace and nature.” He draws again on his cigarette. “I should’ve known this place was bogus. I mean, the church was in a mini-mall, between a Chinese restaurant and a dry cleaner. Used to be a donut shop, but they closed ’cause of the dry-cleaning smell.”
“What church?”
“Grace Ministries. It was the most rinky-dink operation you can imagine. I couldn’t believe my mom was taking it serious.”
I am surprised by this. I imagined our ministries as being large, beautiful buildings, like the Hall of Enoch.
“One-Eye — Father Grace — he wasn’t all scary, like he is here. He had on regular clothes, and a patch over his eye, and his hair was tied back, and he kept talking about Nodd as a sanctuary, like he was a salesman for some exclusive resort. He was like, ‘Come to Nodd, live off the land in peace and security, and all your problems will go away.’
“My mom was totally into it. I figured it was just one of her phases, you know? She used to be all into this Jesus Saves church, and before that it was Scientology. I guess Kari getting knocked up pushed Mom over the edge. Me getting thrown in jail didn’t help, either.”
“You were imprisoned?”
“Just for a couple days. It was no big deal. I borrowed a car from some guy and he called the cops. Anyway, when my mom started talking seriously about coming here, I looked up the Grace online. There are congressmen and stuff investigating. They say you’re a cult.”
“We are not a cult.”
“Whatever. I just want to get out of here.”
I do not know if he means he wants out of the Pit, or out of Nodd. I fear to ask.
“I am sorry you are troubled,” I say. I hear a sound and look behind me. I see the dark shape of someone walking from Menshome to the lavatory. Probably Brother Benedict, whose bladder is weak. I lower my voice further and whisper, “Even if you do not truly regret your sins, you must repent, or it will go poorly for you.”
“Okay! All right already!”
“Hush. Brother Benedict is up and about.”
We wait in silence for Brother Benedict to leave the lavatory and return to Menshome. I am trying to understand how I have come to risk being caught talking to Tobias, bringing him cigarettes, and suggesting that he bear false witness to Brother Enos. This Worldly boy, filled with anger and sin, has done me no great service, yet I feel responsible. Perhaps it is that when think of him, I am able to push aside the dull ache that threatens to consume me when I think of Ruth, and the other, sharper pangs brought on by thinking of Lynna.
“You still there?” Tobias whispers.
“I am.” I hear anger in my voice.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” It is not his fault that I have sinned. “Benedict is returning to Menshome. I will wait a few minutes for him to settle, then I must go.”
The lighter sparks, and he sets fire to another cigarette.
The next several days are busy. I am put to work harvesting sorghum, separating the seed heads, fodder for our milk cows, from the stalks, which we press for syrup and molasses. Sorghum is our main source of sweetener. I am accustomed to the earthy flavor, although I much prefer wild honey. Last year Brother Taylor discovered
a large beehive in a lightning-blasted cottonwood, and for months afterward we had honey. I always watch now for bees and note the direction they take. I believe there is a hive somewhere on the Spine, but I have yet to find it.
I think of Tobias often. The day after he was placed in the Pit, the Brothers talked of little else. But as the days pass, as Brother Will’s wounds heal, the drama of that violent morning fades from memory. By the time a week has passed, the Brothers act as if Tobias does not exist. Still, I cannot forget that he is there, and I keep thinking about the scars above Brother Von’s dead eyes.
On Manday night I cannot sleep. I once again creep out of Menshome and visit the Praying Pit.
As I near the Tower, I hear a man’s voice. I stop, holding my breath. The voice is coming from inside the Pit. I listen carefully. It sounds like Father Grace, but thinner, without the power he brings to his words. I walk softly to the base of the Tower, get down on my hands and knees, and crawl to the window.
It is definitely Father Grace’s voice, but I sense that it is not Father Grace himself. It is a recording of one of his sermons. I hear another sound as well. Snoring. I press my face against the bars and attempt to look inside, but the darkness is utter and impenetrable.
“Tobias!” I whisper. The snoring continues. I find a small stone and toss it toward the sound. I hear a sudden snort, then sounds of movement. “Tobias!” I say again.
A few seconds later, pale fingers grasp the bars and I can see the smear of his face.
“Jacob?”
I am vastly relieved to hear his voice.
“Yes, it is me. Are you well?”
“I’m okay. . . . No, actually I’m going nuts in here. They make me listen to this stuff all night. I have to stuff cheese in my ears to sleep.”
“Cheese?”
“It’s all I got. And they make me read the Bible all day. How long are they gonna keep me here?”
“Did you repent?”
“I said I was sorry. I don’t think Enos believes me. Also, he smelled the cigarettes and found the butts.”