A New Eden

by Quent Cordair

  “And now I ask you, who was the more meek?” He had come to the crux. “Jesus Christ, or Obadiah Skairn?”

  He waited. Some in the audience seemed certain it was Jesus – some offered as much out loud, if not loudly – but the reverend had not yet suggested a clear answer. Had he misled them? Only benevolently, of course, if so. If he sometimes let them fall into a rhetorical trap he laid before rescuing them, it was only for their own benefit. For a long moment, he left the audience in a state of uncomfortable uncertainty.

  “Who had more to repress of his nature and strength?” he asked. “Jesus, or Obadiah?”

  Well, clearly that was Jesus, who was, or could have been at will – as everyone knew – supernaturally stronger and greater than anyone in everything. Relieved, several dozen people shouted out the answer – Jesus!

  The reverend, with a gathered fervency, led them into the final act of his story. He strode the breadth of the stage, gesticulating more emphatically, his hands working, his face projecting the pain and anguish of Jesus himself as he cried unto God, pleading for relief from his suffering. He became Jesus, begging and crying to his Father in heaven for mercy, for deliverance from the agonizing death he knew he would soon endure. He paused between sentences, allowing the audience to respond with prayer and praise and thanks, their volume rising and falling with his own in a call and response that led them to deeper depths, through darker darks, through the very valley of the shadow of death so they might reach the higher heights –

  “‘Nevertheless – ’” he said. “That was the word Jesus used as he faced the darkness alone in the Garden of Gethsemane – ‘Nevertheless, not my will, Lord, but thine be done.’ This was the lowly and submissive state to which Jesus so heroically and humbly brought himself that night. He brought himself down to a complete acceptance of God’s will, no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice, no matter the pain.

  “Obadiah Skairn knew that his ordeal paled in comparison to what Jesus willingly suffered.” From the pulpit, the reverend raised his second book, the less thick of the two, his finger on an open page. He didn’t need to read the verse he quoted: “And yea, though I too was sorely tempted to curse God for my condition, I did remember our Lord’s suffering, and I did tell the devil, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan, for the Lord Jesus has paved this path with his blood. And though it may be my Lord’s will that I die in this place, I will bless and thank Him for allowing me to take my last steps with Him, and I know that if I reach those pearly gates and the Lord says, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant’ – those words will be more than sufficient shelter, food, and water for me.’ Amen and bathem.

  “No, my brothers and sisters, Brother Obadiah didn’t do it for an earthly reward. He didn’t do it for a heavenly reward either. Like his Lord Jesus, he did it because it was the right thing to do; he did it because it was what God asked him to do.

  “And when Jesus was victorious over his trials in the desert, he humbly, meekly, rode into Jerusalem, not on a horse, not in a chariot, but on a donkey. And still, the people recognized him as their king, and they spread their palm fronds and branches before him, demonstrating their own meekness and humility by offering a physical token, an offering that recognized and thanked the Lord for the humility of Jesus Christ which surpassed that of all others.”

  He asked the audience to look inside their programs, to remove the paper palm frond inserted within and to write on it what they would be willing to lay as an offering before the Lord on this Passion Week. It didn’t have to be money, if one had none to give. It could be a commitment to work at one of the church shelters or at the hospital or the hospice. It could be helping with one of the youth programs. It could be a greater commitment to one’s own family, or to share the Prophet’s message with at least one new person each week over the next year, or to give up a hobby in order to donate that money and time to the Lord’s work instead. He asked each person present to then sign their name on their palm frond and to bring it to the altar for the Lord. He urged each viewer watching on their television or through the Internet to go to the church’s website, to do so right that very minute, without delay, and to click on the image of the palm frond on the front page and type out their offering to God, to enter their name on their palm frond and to submit it to God. Without action, there is no commitment. He repeated it: without action, there is no commitment. Commit what you can to God today – because He gave His all for you. Because it’s the right thing to do. Do this for the Lord, and the Lord will bless and keep you.

  The choir began to sing a hymn about submitting one’s all in exchange for God’s watchfulness and for His provision of all of one’s needs. The family in Paige’s row had only one pen among them, but as each child finished writing something on a palm frond, they edged past Paige to join the line of people in the aisle filing down to the stage. A large wicker basket was held by an usher at the foot of each aisle. The family’s little boy, accompanied by one of his sisters, was dropping his frond in the basket when the choir began a second hymn.

  As the Prophet has prophesied, so shall it be,

  When His Flock is humbled and on bended knee,

  When His Cross is raised upon yon mountain high,

  The Age of Christ’s Reign upon Earth will be nigh.

  Paige stepped out and joined the worshipers returning to their seats farther back. At the top of the aisle she kept going, past the Angel and through the central doors, into the foyer. An usher opened the outer door for her, smiling, thanking her for coming. The Angel posted outside remained stoic behind his sunglasses, his hands clasped in front of him. She knew he was watching her. He said nothing.

  She squinted hard against the bright sunlight. The clouds were scudding across the dome of blue above. The concrete walk felt as if it were shifting beneath her feet. With the overwhelming assault of sensations and emotions she had experienced still permeating her body and mind, the reality of the real world felt unreal. Where the walkway met the drive, she reached out for a lamppost, stopping to lean against it. She took in the mountains, the trees, the spring flowers bordering the walk and, across the broad expanse of the church lawn, the millions of blades of grass – deep green and nitrogen enriched, trimmed all to the same height.

  She started walking. She would walk all the way back to the hotel. Or at least as far as the plaza. Or at least as far as the art gallery.

  Eight

  The faded monochrome photos on the walls were a standing tribute to the men of the Hell Mine. They were tough men, determined men, dirty men, proud men, posing together at the mine’s mouth around filled ore carts, leaning on pneumatic drills and wide shovels, boots propped on crates of explosives, white-rimmed eyes staring out from faces begrimed with dust and soot. In the earliest images, the miners’ soft caps were fitted with oil-wick lamps. In later images were the carbide lamps, then the electric lamps on hard helmets. Men were posed next to the mine’s towering headframe, which pointed to the sky like an oil derrick. There were mechanics and hoist operators standing tall next to the great flywheel of the steam engine that lowered the miners down into the maw of the earth and raised up the metal-bearing ore they had blasted and ripped from the earth’s grasp. There were engineers and supervisors studying maps, charts, and models in the mine superintendent’s office – the very room in which Aaron Hale now stood, wondering, as he had since he was a child, what those men had been like, what their lives had been.

  Hanging above the old roll-top desk, the very desk that appeared in some of the photos, was the image of a man, a lone man standing on the top of the hill, looking off into the distance, hat in hand, face hard-lined, eyes clear and inscrutable – the man who had made it all possible, the man who had made it all happen – Thomas Hale.

  What had once been the superintendent’s office was now Eileen Vasari’s living room. From the kitchen came the sound of her wooden spoon tapping on the rim of a pot, the clinking of bowls and utensils. From the open window came the husking cho
p of Max’s hoe as he weeded potatoes in the side garden. The dogs were sitting quietly near the swing between the trees, watching a squirrel that was scolding from a limb above.

  Next to the roll-top desk sat a lace-draped side table, atop which stood an upright, cylindrical wooden box. On the box stood an antique lamp with a wrought-iron pedestal and a stained-glass shade, the lead-lined facets like so many multi-colored butterfly wings gathering light from the window. With care, Aaron shifted the lamp from the wooden box over to the roll-top desk.

  At first glance, the box might have been only that – a tall hatbox perhaps – decorated in elaborate bands of inlaid woods of a variety of grains and hues, arranged in tight, inset patterns of rectangles, squares, circles and triangles. There were no visible seams. Aaron’s fingers found a smaller square of wood along the box’s upper right side, and along the lower left, a triangle. He pressed both in at the same time.

  A drawer sprang free from the box’s front, just enough that one could grip the sides of it with one’s fingertips. Felt-lined, as if to hold jewelry, the drawer was presently empty. He slid it all the way out, turned it upside down and pushed it back in until he felt a soft click. Removing the drawer again, he turned it right-side up and pushed it back into place. Then he pressed a small circle on the top-left side of the box and held it in while pressing a rectangle on the lower right.

  A vertical drawer at the bottom-front sprang free, along with a drawer of the same dimensions and orientation near the top and directly above. The bottom drawer was filled with a heavy black-lead sand. The drawer near the top was empty. Aaron switched the drawers’ positions, moving the sand-filled drawer to the top, and the empty drawer to the bottom. He pushed both fully closed.

  A small hinged door between them fell open to reveal a row of five ivory buttons, inlaid in gold with the letters C through G. Each button, when pressed, chimed the corresponding musical note. He played the first fifteen notes of the melody to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and then closed the door, stepped back, and waited.

  Eileen had come in from the kitchen carrying a tray of sandwiches, hot soup and iced tea. On hearing the notes, she quietly set the tray on the dining room table and came to stand at Aaron’s side. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

  From within the box, a lilting waltz had begun to play, beneath which could be heard a sequence of faint clicks and whirs. A hinged lid in the box’s top slowly lifted open. Its underside, lacquered and framed in a byzantine pattern of gold leaf, was painted in a rich pastoral landscape, with lush blossoming gardens in the foreground and a river winding through meadows to a horizon of hazy mountains. From out of the box began to rise rows of little flowers with blossoms of multi-colored gems, leaves of metal foil, and stems of silver wire. The flowers were followed by a tree, its trunk encrusted with pearls and rubies. The branches were bare except for a single perched songbird, remarkably life-like, with a hinged beak of ebony and brilliant hummingbird feathers covering its throat and wings. The bird ruffled and shook its wings and tail, opened and batted its onyx eye, and began to sing and trill along with the waltz. Into the center of the garden scene rose a little porcelain ballerina in a white tutu. After a curtsy and a polite nod of her head, she began to pirouette to the music.

  Max came in from the garden. “If those damned moles don’t stop eating my carrots, I swear to God I’m going to – ” Upon hearing the music, he stopped short and came to stand quietly next to Eileen.

  The dancer whirled and twirled, gliding about her little meadow while the bird took up a countermelody to the underlying waltz. When he finished his song, he ruffled his feathers, winked his eye shut and tucked his head. The ballerina curtsied and nodded before sinking back into the box, followed by the tree with the bird, followed by the flowers. The lid slowly closed on its own and latched itself shut with a click. The next fifteen notes from “Ode to Joy” chimed, concluding with a flourish, like a blown kiss.

  Only the audience and the box remained, in a silence transformed.

  Aaron moved first, to return the lamp from the desk to atop the box.

  Eileen turned to Max. “You were saying something about the moles?”

  “Ah, never mind. It’s their lucky day. I’ll kill them tomorrow.”

  They gathered and sat around the table. Eileen poured the tea.

  “I went to church this morning, Amuma,” Aaron said.

  “Oh, really?” she asked, surprised. “So, she invited you then.”

  “Who?”

  “Skye. She was asking just yesterday if I thought you would go if she asked.”

  “Oh – no, I haven’t heard from her since she got back. She’s busy these days.”

  “She says the same of you. Why did you go then?”

  He took a drink of tea and set the cup down. “To see her. To hear her.”

  “Ah, she sang this morning then,” Max said.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “I would go just for that myself, I think,” Max said. “Yes, just for that.” He glanced at Eileen. She caught his eye. Aaron had called ahead to ask if he could join them for lunch. He hadn’t said why.

  “Ian told me about your visit to the hospital, Amuma,” Aaron said, making no attempt to mask his concern. “Is there anything I can help with? Do you need to see a specialist?”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine. It was just a fainting spell. If we need to find a specialist for anyone, it’s Shalimar – ” With that, she changed the subject to the status of one of the horses, who had suffered from chronic colic over the winter.

  The conversation turned to Max detailing his latest strategies for keeping the foxes away from the chickens and his plans to build a new woodshed, given the old shed likely wouldn’t hold up through another winter. Aaron told Eileen that he wished she could have been with him in Athens at the archaeological museum, where he had toured the sculpture collections from the Archaic through Roman periods. On his visit to the Met in Manhattan, he had sought out several works she had suggested he see. He had been particularly impressed by the detail in the Dürer engravings and the attention to anatomy in the da Vinci drawings. When they had finished eating he excused himself momentarily and returned from his car with a package wrapped in brown paper, about the size of two stacked coffee-table books.

  “Amuma, I want you to see this.”

  He untied the string and removed the brown paper, then unwrapped an inner layer of a wax-like paper. Inside, positioned face to face, separated by a thin sheet of cushioning foam and more paper, were two canvases mounted in antique gold-leafed frames. He turned the top item face up and displayed it for her. It was a portrait. A very old portrait.

  “Amuma, is this who I think it is?” he asked.

  Eileen blanched. She lost her balance momentarily and searched for the table’s edge with her hands. Max’s chair screeched back, but Eileen steadied herself before he could make it around the table.

  “It’s okay, Max. I’m fine. I was just a little startled.”

  “Aaron – maybe it’s too soon for surprises,” he said.

  “I’m fine, Max. Really. Aaron, where did you get this?”

  “It’s Thomas Hale, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s Thomas Hale. But where did this come from?”

  “The first time I saw it was a couple of years ago at the Met. It was in one of the back galleries, in a small exhibition they were calling ‘Forgotten Treasures.’ It took some persuasion – ” he smiled – “but one of the staff became willing to do some research for me and share what information they had. An intern had been helping catalog inventory in a back corner of one of the warehouses, and a pair of paintings had caught his attention. They had been part of a larger lot that a patron had bought at auction about seventy-five years ago, becoming part of a collection he later willed to the museum. A half-dozen more significant works were bundled together with a dozen or so works by lesser-known artists. These two were only listed as anonymous subjects by an unknown artis
t. They were obviously a pair, by the same artist, but no one had been able to identify them further.”

  He moved the painting closer to Eileen so that she could better see it without squinting. She reached for it, took it, and turned it over gently. Aaron continued –

  “There’s no artist’s signature on either of them. The only marking is the ‘T.H.’ burned into the wood of the stretcher bars, like a brand, on the back of both. The seller at auction had been anonymous. There was no further provenance. The archivist had identified the pair as most likely being late-nineteenth century American – of excellent quality, but he couldn’t find an artist with those initials doing similar work during that period. Since no one could identify the subjects or the artist, they weren’t deemed important enough to make a fuss over. They had been sitting in the back of the warehouse for seven decades. That they were included in the exhibition at all was due solely to the persistence of the intern, purely on esthetic grounds.”