by Alden Nowlan
“Yeah, I heard ’em laughin’.”
And they had laughed so many times before! They used to laugh when you tormented me. Don’t you remember, Av? But Kevin was shy and it was hard to find the right words, so he said nothing . . .
“Yuh gonna do it?”
The edger saws blatted like a slaughtered sheep.
“— Yuh gonna do it?”
“Gonna do what?”
“You know! Are yuh gonna do what we was talkin’ about? Are yuh gonna fight ’em?”
Kevin sighed. Here on the shoulder of the road, sawdust and mud had mingled, creating something that looked and felt like black clay. The scarlet cart pushing her, the old mare staggered crazily down the sawdust hill, the boy with the reins laughing and yelling at her . . .
“No. I guess not, Av. I guess I ain’t gonna fight.”
Av spat on the black clay.
“I guess we ain’t got nothin’ tuh talk about then,” he grunted.
“I guess not, Av.”
“Well, so long, Key-von.”
Av whirled and stalked away, his back erect and unforgiving. Walking backwards, Kevin watched until he vanished behind a clump of spruce. He felt — knowing the feeling to be foolish — that he had somehow betrayed a friend.
Nineteen
But, in the spring, Kevin had begun to read the Bible, and now the Book altered the very geography of his world.
Squatting in the field behind the hen house with the cool, black, faintly odorous volume on his knees, he read of how God created the heavens and the earth and of how the earth was without form, and void, while darkness was upon the face of the deep. Looking out over the heath, over the alders and maple saplings and young spruce nodding in the breeze, he tried to imagine how it had been on that first day. The sun had risen for the first time, a tumbling red-gold splendour in the east, and God had walked across the new, loam-pungent earth, grass and flowers and shrubs springing full-grown from the prints of His feet. God had walked through this very field. The very ground on which Kevin sat might once have been touched by the sandalled feet of God!
Grandmother O’Brien often spoke of the ancient time when God had lived among men. She would say that such and such a thing had happened in the days when God was still on earth. And the Bible told of how He had walked in the garden in the cool of the evening. Kevin imagined Him walking down the rows of vegetables, the skirts of his robe swishing against potato and turnip tops, His ankles brushing against sun-coloured pumpkins and green-gold squash.
Prone on his belly in the tall grass by the lilac hedge, he read of how God had created Adam, and of how He had put Adam to sleep and taken out his rib and made a woman. And he remembered that his grandmother had assured him that even to this day men had one rib fewer than women.
God had created woman so that man might have a helpmeet. But, sometimes, men did wicked things with women. The hot blood pulsated in Kevin’s veins as he remembered Kaye Dunbar and June Larlee lying together on Kaye’s bunk. How had they escaped from the wrath of God? Why had God not struck them dead?
Several times since that day when he ran from Kaye’s cabin with June Larlee’s laughter seering his ear drums like the wail of a banshee, he had met his uncle. But now there was an invisible wall between them. They were like two houseflies facing one another from opposite sides of a sheet of window glass. The barrier could be neither seen nor penetrated. They neither of them spoke of that day, but once or twice Kevin had caught his uncle giving him a strange look, half-mocking and half-pitying, that showed that he remembered . . .
And when, one night near the end of October, Kaye went jacklighting deer, tripped on a windfall, and shot off his big toe, Kevin was convinced that this was God’s way of punishing him.
For God was a jealous god and quick to punish. The serpent had tempted Eve and she, in turn, had led Adam into sin. They had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God had driven them from Eden and stationed angels with flaming swords at the gates to see that they did not get back in.
But, after eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve had known that they were naked, and they had sewn fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. Why were they naked? Grandmother O’Brien said that nakedness was a great sin. And she was wise in the ways of God. Excitement stirring like a live thing in his belly, Kevin thought about nakedness . . .
He had seen Kaye naked. The man took off all his clothes when he swam. But Kaye’s body, aside from its muscles and scars and hairiness, was not very different from his own. He had never seen his father naked. When Judd went to bed, he removed only his trousers, socks, and shoes. And Kevin knew that it annoyed and embarrassed him to be surprised in his shirt and underwear. On the few occasions when he had gone into a room and found Judd pulling on his trousers, the man had flushed and told him to get the hell out of there. Recalling the fate of Ham, the son of Noah, who had looked upon the nakedness of his father, Kevin blanched and shuddered. God had turned Ham’s skin black. Judd seldom spoke of the Bible, but once he had told Kevin that Ham, when God cursed him, stood on all fours, like a dog. As a result, the palms and soles of Negroes were white, even to this day.
He wondered about the nakedness of women. He had seen June Larlee naked, but only for an instant. It was as though the darkness had been broken by a lightning flash. In that flash, he had caught a momentary glimpse of a white, palpitant mound of living flesh.
Surely, he had committed no sin in looking upon June Larlee’s nakedness?
But there was his mother. Unlike June Larlee, Mary never wore shorts; both Judd and his mother said it was disgraceful for grown women to dress like little boys. Kevin had seen her only in fragrant flannelette pajamas. In these she was more fully clothed than in a frock. But the pajamas suggested something secret and intimate, something almost as private as nakedness. Hastily, he turned his mind away from his mother and to less terrible sins. There was Isabel Dubois, who had called him a snot-nosed runt because he had tried to keep the other boys from shaming her. And there was Nancy Harker, the daughter of Madge Harker, the bootlegger. A poplar-limbed, golden-skinned girl of about his own age. The boys who teased Isabel became almost diffident in the presence of Nancy. And once on the way home from school she had asked him (not teasingly, but as though it were the most casual question imaginable) if he liked girls. He wished now that he had — but it was a sin to make such a wish. A hellfire sin. For wishing such things, boys were thrown into a lake of never-ending fire. He thought of moths that hurled themselves down the chimneys of the kerosene lamps, of how the heat of the burning wick baked their frenziedly whirring wings. And he thought of the high-pitched whistling that sometimes came from the stove. Judd said that this was the sound of insects roasting in their burrows inside the wood . . .
And one afternoon, alone in the kitchen, Kevin lifted the lid of the stove and held his hand over the flame until the heat rasped his palm like sandpaper. This was what it was like in hell! Oh, please God, forgive me, he prayed. I won’t think any more about sinful things. I promise I won’t, God! And he rubbed the tears from the corners of his eyes and set the lid back in place.
For the answers to some questions, the questions that were not so much weighted down with darkness and sin, he went to his grandmother. He asked her, for example, if Lot’s wife, who had turned to salt when she looked back at Sodom, still stood upon the plains of Zoar.
And Grandmother O’Brien tightened her grip on the hot brick that lay against her waist and answered, “Yes, laddie, she’s still a-standin’ there, right where she was when the Lord turned her tuh salt! Why, I’n remember when I was a little wee tiny girl, there was an old sea captain came tuh our house. He’d sailed on every one of them seven seas, laddie. And I’n remember how he told mother and father about seein’ Lot’s wife — he seed her fer hisself, seed her with his own eyes. Right there on the plains of Zoar. She was still a-standin’ there, jist like a statue made outta salt. An’ yuh know what that sea c
aptain done, laddie? Yuh know what he done?” Her voice sank to an awed whisper. “Why he broke off one o’ her fingers! An’ he had that there finger right there in his pocket! He showed it tuh us right there in the kitchen. I’n remember it jist as if it was yesterday. A woman’s finger that had turned tuh salt!”
“Gee whiz,” Kevin breathed. “Gosh!”
“O’course I expeck she’s growed another finger by now, laddie. I expeck when somebody breaks a piece off of her, the Lord makes another piece grow right back on.”
“Holy mackerel!” Kevin whistled.
And he promised himself that when he became a man he would take a ship to Zoar and look upon the woman whom God’s wrath had turned to salt.
At night, in the firelight-coloured seclusion of near-sleep, he saw the moon stand still on Gibeon and the sun in the valley of Ajalon. He saw the gleaming war chariots of the Amorites and heard the wall-shattering trumpets of Joshua. Swords flashed, spears rattled, lances hissed through the air. Fire and brimstone rained upon Sodom and hailstones smote the land from Azekah to Makkedah . . .
The creek became the River Jordan and beyond Jordan lay the lands of the Amorites. There dwelt Sihon, the King of Heshbon, and Og, the King of Bashan, who dwelt in Ashteroth, great ogres in leopard skins whose beards were frothed with their hatred of the Most High God.
In the sawdust desert behind the mill were the lands of the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And beyond the cedared hills was the valley in which the swordsmen of Joshua ambushed and slaughtered the sons of Ai.
The grain field across the road was the field of Boaz in which Ruth had gleaned. And the swamp at the foot of the garden was the land of the Moabites. There Ehud, the son of Gera, the Benjaminite, slew Eglon, the King of Moab, a man so fat that when he was slain the fat of his belly closed over the hilt of the sword and hid it.
The north fence was the border of Abel-meholah. The great stone on the heath was Hebron. The barn was Jerusalem. The easternmost section of the heath was the valley of Rephaim and the alders were the mulberry trees in which the wind had sounded on the day that David, King of Israel, slew the hosts of the Philistines.
In this secret world, Kevin found somewhat the same sense of power and security as he obtained from his mother. And, unlike his mother, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob never abandoned him.
“I think you brood too much. It isn’t good for you,” Mary said.
She sounded resentful — almost jealous.
“I ain’t broodin’,” he growled.
His voice was sullen. Since she had started going away in the evenings, her slightest criticism infuriated him. He felt that she no longer had any right to criticize him.
“Don’t sauce, Scampi. I’ve got enough troubles without having you sauce me.”
“I ain’t sassin’,” he retorted.
They were in the kitchen, and Grandmother O’Brien was watching and listening. Her mouth might have been full of vinegar or sour milk, but Kevin knew that this was one of the ways she had of smiling.
Mary stamped her foot like a petulant child.
“You were saucing me! Don’t you tell me that you weren’t!”
“All right! Have it yer own way! I was sassin’ yuh!”
This was how their quarrels were ignited and spread. It was like a grass fire: a single match was dropped in the dry spears and, within seconds, the flames were roaring across the field with the speed of the wind.
“Oh, Scampi! You treat me so awful sometimes! I do everything in the world for you and I don’t get a bit of thanks for it! You aren’t the least bit grateful for all the things I do for you —”
“I ain’t never asked yuh tuh do anythin’ fer me.”
“Oh, yes you have! You’ve come bawling to me a thousand million times, Scampi! Whenever the least little thing bothers you, you come running to me and you —”
“I won’t come runnin’ no more!”
He clenched his fists. Her taunts were a breach of trust. He hated her for betraying him.
“Oh, yes, you will! You’ll come bawling to me. Oh, Mummy, you’ll be whining. Oh, Mummy —” She imitated his terror-stricken whimpering. Her eyes were spiteful and pitiless. “Oh, Mummy, you’ll be whining, and you’ll want me to treat you just as though you were a tiny little baby and you’ll —”
“It’s allus you that wants me tuh act like a baby! It ain’t me! It’s you!”
“Me! Why, I wish you were a man! I wish you were big enough to go out and work for your living. Then I could put on my coat and walk out of here. I —” Her voice died. She bit her lip and glanced at Grandmother O’Brien. The old woman emitted a rattling, chuckling cough.
Kevin spun and ran to his room.
Throwing himself on the bed, he buried his face in the pillows and wept, his body jerking with the convulsive force of his sobbing.
After a long time, someone entered the room. He did not look up. This was his mother. She had come to comfort him. For as long as he could remember, their quarrels had ended with her voice in his ear, her soft, warm hands on his body. For a little while, he would pretend that he was still angry. She would stroke his ear lobes and the small of his back . . . Her breath would tickle his ear. And he would pout and refuse to respond to her pleading, lie stiff under her caresses. Then, when he felt that he had punished her sufficiently or when he could no longer restrain himself, he would turn and throw his arms around her neck and they would kiss, and —
“It don’t do no good tuh bawl,” a harsh voice chided.
He lifted his head. Through a bubbling fog of tears, he saw his grandmother standing over him.
“It don’t do no good tuh bawl,” she grated again. In her voice, sadness mingled with satisfaction.
Burying his face again, he sobbed until his throat burned as though boiling water had been poured into his mouth and nostrils.
Twenty
David was Kevin’s favourite among the prophets, kings, and judges of Israel. He re-enacted the story of David until it seemed to him that he was not assuming the role of another, but repeating scenes from his own dimly remembered past.
As Kevin-David, he played the harp until the evil spirit departed from Saul. And as Kevin-David he went down into the valley of Elah to face the champion of the Philistines, Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span and whose coat weighed five thousand shekels of bronze, and there he slew him with a stone from his shepherd’s sling and smote off the head with his own sword, and when he returned from slaying the Philistine, the women came out of the cities with instruments of music and sang, Saul has slain his thousands and Kevin-David his ten thousands.
As Kevin-David, he fled from Saul to Achish, King of Gath, and there he pretended to be mad until he could escape to the Cave of Adullam, where four hundred men came and asked him to be captain over them . . .
Then came all the tribes of Israel to David unto Hebron and spake, saying, O Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Also in time past when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel. So all the elders of Israel came to the king of Hebron and King David made a league with them in Hebron before the Lord and they anointed David King over Israel.
The hen house was Gath, and the wagonshed was Perez-uzzah, where Uzzah was smitten when he touched the Ark of the Covenant. The east fence was Helam, where the king gathered together the men of Israel and slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen, and smote Shobach, the captain of the host, who died there. And around him, Kevin summoned an invisible army led by the captains of David, among whom there were Abishai, the brother of Joab and the son of Zerulah, who lifted up his spear against three hundred, and Benaiah, the son of Jehoida, who went down into a pit and slew a lion in a time of snow.
And while Kevin-David led the armies of Israel into battle with the hosts of Bethrehob, Zobah, and Maacah, winter descended upon Lockhartvil
le.
Judd hated winter. When the first snow fell, the lambent, star-shaped flakes melting the moment they touched the unfrozen earth, he stood at the window, shaking his fist and muttering with bitter sarcasm, “Snow, you bastard, snow! Snow, damn yuh, snow!” A few days later, the mill shut down and he, with most of the other mill hands, went to Larchmont and got drunk. This was November and Judd would be without a steady job until the mill re-opened in May . . .
One stony grey afternoon, Kevin helped his father bank the house. Now he wore wool breeches, tied with leather laces below his knees, flannel underwear that might have been made from rosethorns and thistles, two pairs of wool stockings, and a toque drawn over his ears. These clothes chafed like a straightjacket. And the wind, raking his cheeks and the strip of bare flesh between the cuffs of his mackinaw and his mittens, burnt like a dull knife.
Judd had wheel-barrowed slabs from the mill and, with these, built a box four feet high around the base of the house. Then, with a grub-hoe, he broke up a patch of frozen turf near the heath fence, and he and Kevin carried the sods and loose gravel to the box in shovels. The earth was almost odourless, but Kevin could smell the faint, yet unmistakable, scent of impending snow.
Judd worked like a machine, concentrating only on the shovelful of dirt in his hands. But this was not Kevin’s way. He was depressed by the thought of all the hundreds of shovelsful of dirt that would have to be poured into the box before the task was finished. Two hours from now he would still be shovelling! When he emptied his shovel into the box it did not seem to make any difference at all in the level of the dirt. He tried to increase his load and, to his chagrin, more than half of it spilled away before he got back to the house. He moved faster, broke into a run, and again much of his load was lost. He dumped every load in the same spot, seeking to fill at least one small section of the box. Then he spread dirt from one corner of the house to the other, trying to do all of it at once. And all of these experiments his father watched with amusement and scorn.