A New Eden

by Quent Cordair

  As Aaron talked, Eileen’s eyes kept drifting to the second piece, still masked by paper.

  “And the Met lent these to you?” she asked dubiously.

  “A donation from the family and certain other considerations resulted in an amendment to their inventory list: I bought them.”

  He removed the paper from the second piece, lifted and turned it towards her. Eileen’s eyes began to well.

  Aaron said, “In the only images I’ve ever seen of Thomas’s wife, Felicienne, she’s in group shots and at a distance. The photos were fairly grainy, and she seemed thinner and fairer, more severe, reserved, but assuming that this is Felicienne Hale – and who else could it be? – she’s darker here, more passionate, alive. . . . younger perhaps?”

  Eileen dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. She glanced at Max. “Aaron, I haven’t seen these paintings since I was a little girl.” She hesitated a moment, as though about to add something before changing her mind. “These used to hang on the wall there, on opposite sides of the hearth. You can still see the slight discolorations, the lighter rectangles.”

  “How did they come to be in the auction lot?”

  “We needed the money then. Those were difficult days – the mine was barely producing. The price of silver was down. My father sold the paintings, along with – other things. . . .” Her voice quivered. “I’m just glad they’re back in family hands – in your hands, that is. You’ll take good care of them, of course.”

  “I will, Amuma. But these seem to mean a lot to you. I was going to hang them in the office, but – would you mind if I kept them here with you for a while? Maybe back in their old places by the hearth? I would like that.”

  Her eyes brimming, she could say nothing more. She only smiled, nodding. He went to her and hugged her about her shoulders. Kissing her on the temple, he said. “There is one condition though.”

  She looked up at him.

  “Let’s please make sure, Amuma, that nothing happens to you for a good long while, so that I don’t have to retrieve these any time soon, okay? You’ll take care of yourself? You’ll let me know if there’s anything you need?”

  She patted his hand. “I’ll do my best, Aaron. Please don’t worry on my account.”

  “You always do your best.” He kissed her on the top of her head. “I’ll let Max do the honor of re-hanging them for us,” he said.

  He excused himself, needing to get back to the office. Max walked with him out to the car, a low-slung black convertible.

  “You’re a good man, Aaron Hale.”

  “I love to see her smile.” Aaron glanced down the line of cottages. “Is the professor home?”

  “I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning. He’s been spending weekends elsewhere lately. Never says where.” He laid his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind my asking, was it Skye or the paintings that brought you over today?”

  “Neither. Or both really, in a sense. And of course I wanted to see you and Amuma.”

  “Your family must be wondering about Eileen’s plans for the mine, given the scare with her health.”

  “We do need to talk with her about that, but this afternoon didn’t seem the right time. I wouldn’t want to risk stressing her any more for a while.”

  “Well, there’s never a good time, I suppose. But the going out is as much a part of life as the coming in. The realities must be dealt with.”

  “I don’t want you to break any confidentialities, Max, and if you’d rather not discuss it, I understand, but has she talked with you at all about what she might want to do with the mine?”

  “Oh, we’ve discussed it. All I can say, without breaking any confidentialities, is that we don’t see eye to eye on the matter. You’ll have to take it up with her though. I’m just the hired help, you know. The mining rights have been with her family such a long time. But she’s a tough one. She’ll be fine. She’s not sentimental. That’s what she’ll tell you anyway.”

  “Thanks for taking care of her, Max.”

  “That’s my job – and I’ve got the best damned job in the valley.”

  Aaron opened the car door.

  “One more thing, Aaron – ”

  “Yes?”

  “Skye . . .”

  Aaron stopped and turned. “What about Skye?”

  “What are we going to do about her?

  “We?”

  “We’re not just going to lie down and let the Church have her, are we?”

  Aaron looked south, in the direction of the Church campus, then glanced up to the hill.

  “You’re not just going to give up on her, are you?” Max asked.

  Aaron got into the car and closed the door. He looked up at the man in the beret. Max’s face was filled with hope and concern.

  “I’m thinking on it, Max,” Aaron said with a smile.

  “That’s my boy,” Max said. “That’s a Hale. You think on it. You keep working on it. You’re the smart one, son. If anybody can figure it out, you can. Just let me know how I can help.”

  “I’ll let you know, Max,” Aaron said, starting the engine.

  “And Aaron?”

  “Yes, Max?”

  “I love her too, you know.”

  “I know, Max. I know.”

  The dogs chased the car down the drive as Max returned to the porch. Eileen had come out, and they stood together, waiting, watching. When Aaron made the turn onto the hardtop, he waved. They waved back. The purr of the powerful engine rose and faded. The dogs trotted back up the lawn. The silence of the afternoon prevailed.

  “So – you still don’t think there’s a chance?” Max asked, still watching the road.

  Eileen only shook her head.

  “None?” he asked.

  She sighed a sigh from the bottom of her soul. “We have to be realistic, Max. The world has become what it is.”

  “Can’t we at least let them know? One of them? Just in case . . . ?”

  “I’m sorry, Max. It’s not going to happen. It can’t. Not in our lifetimes, not in theirs. Maybe not in another thousand years. I just can’t do that to them, to either of them. I love them too much. I should hope you do too.”

  Max could only shake his head. He kicked at the porch post with the toe of his boot before turning and ambling off towards the tool shed, grumbling and swearing under his breath.

  Eileen went back inside. At the table, she picked up the portrait of the woman and looked into her eyes – the mysterious, beautiful eyes that had been the wonder of her childhood. She clutched the painting to her chest and wept silent tears.

  * * *

  Paige found Sandal where she said she would be that afternoon, working a shift behind the bar at the Elbow Room, on the plaza. It was early. There weren’t more than a half dozen patrons in the establishment. Paige chose the barstool with the most empty stools on each side and hoped she wouldn’t be approached, particularly by the man wearing the camouflage baseball cap. He was already leering, trying to catch her eye. Sandal smiled a welcome to Paige and went directly over to the man in the cap. She leaned in and spoke a few quiet words to him. When she didn’t get the response she was looking for, she leaned in again and spoke a few more. The man removed his cap, set it on his knee and stared morosely into his mug of beer. Sandal returned to take Paige’s order.

  “Now – what will it be, hun?”

  “I think I love you.”

  Sandal winked. “You and half the other women who come in here. But you don’t want the wine we serve down here. How about a nice Manhattan?”

  “That would be perfect.”

  “How was church this morning?”

  “Good Lord, this is a small town.”

  “And the longer you’re here, the smaller it gets. Carlos there, in the gray shirt, is maintenance at the hotel. He said he saw you at the service.”

  “I didn’t think Flockers were allowed to drink?”

  “Oh, Carlos isn’t Flock, but his wife likes to go. Carlos tags al
ong on Sunday mornings just so she’ll let him recover here for a few hours afterwards. Did the Flockers manage to convert you?”

  “Considering that I’m sitting here in a bar about to indulge in an adult beverage – ”

  Sandal chuckled. “It’s quite the experience, huh?”

  “I’m still processing.” Paige took a first sip of the Manhattan. She nodded her approval. Sandal slid away to refill Camo Cap’s beer.

  The walk from the cathedral to the plaza would have taken Paige less then thirty minutes under normal conditions, but she hardly remembered it – her mind had been reeling with the imagery and sounds she had experienced that morning. The anxiety attack had started during the service itself, but she had managed to keep it under control, closing her eyes when necessary, focusing, deliberately slowing her breathing, pushing the emotion down and away, letting it go.

  Once outside the church, she thought she was safe, but as she was crossing the street, a car rushed by too closely, blaring its horn. She hadn’t seen the vehicle at all – perhaps she had forgotten to look – and then her heart was racing beyond control, her chest restricting as she fought to breathe, the nausea and dizziness overwhelming. She had stumbled to a nearby bus-stop bench and put her head between her knees until she was able to stand and walk again. The symptoms didn’t wholly abate until she walked through the door of the gallery. There, she was safe. There, the world was right. There, no one was pleading to heaven, no one was crying, no one was seeking forgiveness or mercy or guidance. There was no adulation of a savior – there was no need to be saved. The upturned faces were sinless. The upright bodies were proud. In the gallery, there was no shame.

  But there was no Ian either.

  Mrs. Argent, Ian’s aunt, had been as helpful, friendly and accommodating as her nephew, but when Paige mentioned Ian having taken her by horseback to visit Eileen’s studio, her demeanor shifted slightly. She didn’t become less friendly, but Paige could tell that the woman was measuring her in a new light. Paige wanted to purchase the casting of Rapture she had seen in Eileen’s studio, the one with the lighter patina, if it was available for purchase, but – she wanted to do so through Ian. She didn’t say as much. She didn’t realize it until her hand was reaching for her credit card. But Ian wasn’t scheduled to work again until Tuesday, according to Mrs. Argent, and Paige was due to fly out the next morning.

  The credit card remained in her purse. Returning to the front window, she studied the sculpture again, lingering, hearing its soul call to her soul with its flight. She turned and crossed the plaza to the Elbow Room.

  She stared into her empty glass. Sandal caught her eye, asking with a look if Paige was ready for a second drink. Paige nodded.

  Why? she asked herself. And why had she felt compelled to go to the cathedral that morning? After three weeks of disciplined rest and recovery, three weeks of forced peace and tranquility, of desperately needed detoxification of her spirit – why did she have to go? The respite at The Sophia had been expensive, but the cloistering had been, as she had hoped and intended, perfectly uneventful. Except for the peeping-tom incident. And then the confrontation in town by the other Angel. Otherwise, it had been three weeks without anxiety or fear. And when the nightmares were finally abating, when the exhaustion and sense of helplessness were finally dissipating, there it was, at the core of her being – the curiosity – that damned, blessed, insatiable curiosity that had always driven her to find out the how and the why of things, the same unquenchable thirst for answers and reasons that had pulled her into the heart of a revolution in Cairo, into a war zone in Syria, into a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan. . . .

  It really wasn’t anything more than simple curiosity – was it? That, and her desire to tell the story? To reveal what had been hidden to the world? Yet she couldn’t deny that the visit to the cathedral that morning had been motivated, at least in part, by a lingering, festering sense of injustice and anger at the behavior of the Angels towards her. Her action that morning hadn’t been passive, nor even essentially neutral – it had been an active, personal, willful pushing back against a thing feared. Wanting to learn what went on in the cathedral was rooted in wanting to discover what made the Angels tick, and gaining knowledge of what made the Angels tick was to the end of being able to push back, to fight back. Identifying the enemy’s strengths was essential to discovering his weakness. Knowing his weakness was as good as knowing exactly where to kick and punch a man, as hard as you could, to give you time to get away. . . .

  Why had she felt threatened by those two minor incidents? They had leered at her and touched her, yes, but they hadn’t physically harmed her. She had survived so much worse elsewhere. She was supposed to stay neutral. That was the standard: neutrality. But that was her dirty little secret: she was not neutral. She would have to keep working on that.

  She resolved yet again to do better, reaffirming her commitment to the accepted standard: as an independent, objective journalist, she was never to take a side. Her own personal prejudices and desires and fears didn’t matter – they couldn’t matter. There were always two sides to every story. Everyone has their own truth. She could hear her journalism professor saying it over and over again, could see him scrawling the words with the squeaky marker on the whiteboard. There was no right or wrong. Like Justice holding the scales, she too had to remain blindfolded to judgment, while keeping her eyes wide open, seeing and uncovering as much of the truth as she could possibly find.

  Why did she always have to push back? Why here? Why now? In Cairo, she had been brutally groped and assaulted by more than a dozen men at once, and yet, eventually, she had been able to get over the incident and let it go. Hadn’t she? Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe it all still went back to the time long ago, to the first time –

  She shivered and fought it off. Neutral . . . neutral . . . Just get the story and tell the story. Just do your job. And her job wasn’t here. Not in Aurum Valley. There was no story here. It was time to exit, time to self-extricate. Wasn’t that what she had been taught: that the most important skill was knowing when to get out? When to move on? No matter – for her it was back to New York tomorrow morning, and then on to wherever they wanted her to go next.

  She searched within herself for a quiet place, a Zen place, a place of deadened doldrums, a place with no wind, no waves, a calm in which to float above it all in blessed, solitary silence and serenity. . . .

  “Are you okay?” Sandal was in front of her again.

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Would you like another?”

  “I would but I won’t. Just water please. If you would though, please keep Camo Cap away for a while longer. Not a good time.”

  “Sure.”

  * * *

  The bar was filling with late-afternoon customers. As Sandal refilled Paige’s water glass, Paige looked up and asked, “So – what’s the Church’s obsession with the hill?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “The story is that back in the 1860s, the Church’s founder, Obadiah Skairn, dragged a wooden cross all the way up the hill one Good Friday, all by himself, followed by his followers. On the summit, at his insistence, they tied him to the cross with ropes, nailed his hands to the crosspiece, and planted the cross in the ground. The followers then went back down to the church as instructed and held a prayer vigil, leaving him to hang on the cross alone. At dawn on Easter morning, they returned. He claimed to have spoken directly to God, and God to him. He preached a sermon to them from the cross. Afterwards, they took him down, tended his wounds, and carried him and the cross back down the hill. He did it again the next Easter, and again, for seven years straight.”

  “Wow. Why?”

  Sandal shrugged. “He was emulating Christ. According to his writings he was striving to be as Christ-like, as ‘Christian,’ as he could possibly be, learning to suffer the way Christ had suffered, to be spiritually attuned to Christ’s perspective, to serve as the
best possible example to his flock.”

  “That must have been terribly painful and uncomfortable. And dangerous. He really had nails driven through his hands?”

  “You wouldn’t want to suggest to a Flocker that it didn’t happen just the way the story is written and told.”

  “He was completely exposed to the elements up there, for two nights?”

  “So they say. Now if you can imagine a late spring freeze, some driving wind and rain – there can be snow up at that elevation as late as Easter.”

  “He’s lucky to have survived it one year, much less seven.”

  “That’s the thing. Hanging on the cross was allegedly the last thing on earth he ever did. He had prophesied that God would someday honor his dedication and suffering by taking him directly up to heaven, and sure enough – or so the Flock claims – one Easter morning when his followers went back up the hill to fetch him they found only the cross. Obadiah Skairn was never seen again.”

  Paige raised an eyebrow. She glanced around, working to suppress her incredulity. Fortunately, as a reporter, she’d had years of practice, though Sandal wasn’t helping, with the smile in her eyes. “Well. Okay then,” Paige said. “So, the hill is the Flock’s holy place. I hear Passion Week is quite the spectacle.”

  “Too bad you won’t be here. Obadiah’s cross – the very same one, they claim – is brought down from its place on the cathedral wall. The prophet’s story is integrated into the Passion Play. On Friday, with thousands of the Flock following, the cross is carried in a grand procession to the hill – to as far as the West Gate. The first part of the play, on Thursday night, is impressive too. Back when we were kids, before they finished building the cathedral – they were using a big circus tent for Passion back then – we used to dodge the Angels to slip into the back and watch from beneath the bleachers. The play was high theatre even then. The costumes and the colors and the music were all so exciting. The drama always got my heart racing, especially when the guard challenges Peter about whether he is an associate of Jesus, and Peter denies knowing him – three times. You just know the worst is about to happen.”