The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel

by Robert Coover

  “Please help us, O Lord, as you see fit, to understand Ely’s death and message rightly,” Clara says, praying aloud, and Ben says: “Amen.” “Let us poor sinners know the right so as we can do the right. And keep that good man Ely always close to your bosom, dear Lord! In the name of Christ Jesus, who has rose up this day in glory, and in remembrance of our beloved Prophet, amen!” “Amen.”

  Although their Prophet is at the heart of their public prayers, all the more naturally so now that he is dead, in their private prayers both Ben and Clara always put in a particular word for and to Ely, who is always somewhere near, she knows, watching over them. Sometimes near enough to touch if he could be touched. When she doesn’t feel him close by, she knows she is doing something wrong. Like thinking too much about everyday details and losing track of their main objectives. Which are not about next things, but about last things. It is Ben who often brings her back to what matters by asking her, “Where’s Ely, Clara?” Thus, merely by his presence, near or far, Ely sanctions her mission and guides her in it. The Brunists are as much his creation as hers or Giovanni Bruno’s, though not everyone in the movement is fully aware of that. It is more like a kind of secret knowledge that she and Ben share. And little Elaine, too, who also in her loneliness talks to her father and her brother in her prayers, and sometimes when she’s not praying. Ely with that quiet look on him seems always at peace, but at the same time concerned about them. As though he were God’s servant, unable to rest until all that must be had safely come to pass. Harold, their boy who died so young in the war, is always there with him, just behind his shoulder. He and Ely were always close. Now they seem closer than ever.

  Only recently have they learned that their Prophet has been called unto the Lord, though Clara was not surprised. She has felt Giovanni Bruno to be gone since the Day of Redemption, if not in some sense even before, his mission—God’s mission through him—having been fulfilled by bringing Ely’s message up from the black depths into the light that it might be understood and acted upon. Prophecy’s broken vessel, alive and not alive. There was only a spark left in him, mostly in his eyes. When he spoke it was as if from some cavernous depths, deeper than he was deep, and she was not sure his lips moved. He was in bed mostly; the First Followers met beside it. At first there were six of them, and then twelve, and of these first ones now there are but six again unless the Palmers boy returns some day; out in the world, however, they have expanded manifold. It was young Colin Meredith who brought the news of the Prophet’s last hour in an ecstatic and dramatic manner not unlike that of speaking in tongues, shortly after he joined the encampment some three weeks ago. Wayne Shawcross had tried to get Colin to help with wiring up the cabins, and even though there was no current running through the wires, as soon as the boy touched one of them he fell to the ground in convulsions with his eyes rolled back and he began howling like an animal with its paw in a trap. When they finally freed his hand from the wire and got him calmed down and back to himself again, he explained around his sobs that he had witnessed Giovanni Bruno being killed with electricity. They had both been sent to the same place after the Day of Redemption, and one day, he said, he saw they had the Prophet strapped down and wired up and then they turned on the electricity and his body started bouncing and jerking and smoking. He saw them rolling him out on a hospital trolley afterwards, completely blue, and he never saw him again, and he knew then that he would have to run away or they would kill him, too. He still has nightmares. After that, they released Colin from construction work and let him clean up the campground litter and help Mrs. Edwards—Sister Debra—in the vegetable garden. Though the boy clearly has emotional problems, to Clara his witnessing rings true. The Prophet of Light crucified by light. And now God’s message, having passed through Ely and Giovanni, is lodged in her. It is not a safe or easy thing to be God’s messenger (already there is a lump where there shouldn’t be one), and she hopes she has enough life and strength left to overcome the powers of darkness and accomplish God’s will.

  Sister Debra was not around when Colin had his fit, but she was very upset to hear about it and pushed harder than ever to finish up her cabin so she and Colin could move in. Clara doesn’t quite understand Mrs. Edwards’ whole story, especially as regards the boy, and whatever happened between her and her cruel husband, but the woman seems truly dedicated and is an important convert right from the very heart of those who have persecuted them. She has asked to be baptized by light tonight. Her joining them feels like a story straight out of the Bible, like one of Jesus’ parables, or Paul’s “remnant chosen by grace.”

  Rocky is rooting about in the wet underbrush nearby. Might be a rabbit he’s after, though he has no teeth left to do anything about it if he finds one. Wanda’s Hunk Rumpel, who was such a hero today, has already shot a few and skinned them and cooked them up for everybody. Everybody who likes rabbit, that is, she not being of that number. Across the way, the distant mine hill is slowly slipping into the overcast sky, though the tipple and water tower still stand out as if inked there (it is like a picture in the Bible, Clara thinks, like something flat on a page you can’t walk into…). Sometimes in the late morning the low winter sun hits that water tower and turns it into a beacon so bright it hurts the eyes, and even now it radiates a peculiar glow against the dark sky. Though she has hesitated to revisit the Mount, it is likely that, if Mr. Suggs can get permission for them, and maybe even if he can’t, they will all make a pilgrimage over there together three weeks from now during the anniversary and camp consecration ceremonies, for it seems like the right thing to do. Maybe even an urgent thing to do.

  “I come from plain people,” Ben says alongside her. “Us Woszniks never come to a place like this with just only the view in mind. Might check to see if it was a good position to hunt from, but otherwise we wouldn’t give a hoot. I guess none of us ever had much imagination. Nor much brains neither.”

  “You got brains aplenty, Ben—and more than brains, wisdom. The kind the Good Book tells about, the word of wisdom as given to believers by the Spirit of God. I depend on you, Ben. You know I couldn’t never do this without you.” She is not flattering him. He is a good man, a righteous man, and with his quiet no-nonsense manner he has counseled her through many a vexation during their long exodus, and she knows that Ely has chosen him for her and for her task. Ben is slow to move, but when he moves, it is with right judgment, his humble steadfastness a model for them all. Still a handsome man, too, tall and big-shouldered, with a bushy salt-and-pepper prophet’s beard grown on their travels, a man comfortable inside himself, if a bit stooped now, starting to get the settled look of men his age. And he surely can sing. “Now, why don’t you sing me your new song you was telling me about?”

  “Well, it ain’t exactly a new song. I figured we’d be singing ‘Amazing Grace’ tomorrow night when we turn on the lights, so I only made a special verse to begin it with.” His guitar is down below, so he sings without it, just as he did the night he turned up, almost like a miracle, at one of their first meetings all that time ago, his mournful voice floating out over the dripping trees and into the dying sky, rolling gracefully up and down through the stretched vowels…

  “It was da-hark a-ha-hand damp i-hin Wil-derness Camp

  As we worked through-hoo the ha-hard winter days;

  Bu-hut theh-hen cay-hame a flame fru-hum God’s-a holy lamp:

  Thu-huh light uh-huv Amay-zi-hing Grace!”

  “Oh, that’s beautiful, Ben, and it says so much in so few words.”

  “I reckoned I’d sing the first part in the dark, and when I got into the last line, Wayne’d throw the switch, and then we’d all sing ‘Amazing Grace’ together.”

  “You’re a showman, too, Ben. Sing it to me again. Sing me all of it. It eases me so.” Which is something Ely always said about that song, and now it’s as if he has just said it himself, talking through her as he sometimes does.

  Bringing electricity to the camp is in truth an amazing grace
. They will celebrate it and give thanks to God at tomorrow night’s Coming of Light ceremony, and now that the word is out about their being here, Clara has decided to invite some of their old friends in the area. It seems like the right moment. With electricity, they will not only be able to light up the whole camp, they will also have a big commercial refrigerator in the kitchen and electric ovens instead of that old cast iron wood-burning cookstove left over from the Depression era. They’ll have electric space heaters that can be plugged in wherever needed and dehumidifiers so the plaster will set proper, and they can use their power tools in the workshop, speeding up the construction work. There will be lights in the Meeting Hall and in all the cabins that can be saved—many of the sockets and switches and ceiling and wall lamps are already in place and wired up—and this afternoon Wayne and the others have been testing out the new streetlamps, a gift of Florida Bishop Hiram Clegg’s congregation. They have set the date of April 19 for the formal consecration of the new International Brunist Headquarters and Wilderness Camp Meeting Ground, and they hope to have all the most essential things done by then. Crowds of Followers will be flooding in, and they are not near ready, but the turning on of electricity will make it feel like they might have a chance.

  The electrification of the camp could not have been done without Wayne Shawcross. The movement invested in a house trailer for Wayne and his wife Ludie Belle, needing his experience as a builder and electrician, and he has been worth many times the purchase price. Ludie Belle, who converted from a life of sin, is a willing worker and a lively presence, though, as Ben has said, when she gets the Spirit on her, she does throw it around a tad. Purchasing a mobile home for one of their Followers was something they had already done, out of necessity, for Wanda Cravens and her children. Her husband died alongside Ely in the mine, leaving the poor woman at loose ends, and for these past five years she has been tagging dumbly along with them, not knowing what else to do or where to go, finding herself pregnant about half the time, Wanda being a simple thing men take advantage of. As Ben says, sin is sin, but for some folks there’s just not much built in to fence it out, though it doesn’t exactly stay either, but just sort of blows right through. She and Ben had to share with Willie and Mabel Hall the burden of carrying along Wanda and her sickly brood, until they finally decided to buy her a used trailer home of her own, Willie at first doing most of the driving. And it did help her find a man, another man in a string of men, though this one may stick around. Wanda is not much help, and whatever she does usually has to be done over, but they use her to run small errands, do the washing up, and serve coffee and cookies at their church services and tent meetings, and that was how she met Hunk Rumpel, an army veteran who was otherwise homeless and happy to have a trailer to move into, relieving Willie of his driving duties, though he may or may not have a license. Hunk is not much brighter than Wanda but he is a stalwart Follower and he has some construction and survival skills picked up in the Army. Smoke is now pouring out of the Meeting Hall fireplace chimney down below; Hunk is probably banking up the fire for tonight’s prayer meeting, while Ludie Belle lights the candles and sets out the folding chairs.

  Their general all-purpose Meeting Hall—church, dining hall, school room, offices—was converted from the old camp lodge, built early in the century in the days of rustic grandeur with heavy beams and stone walls and foundations. It was solid still except for the roof, which needed to be stripped to the rafters and rebuilt, and it was up on the roof that Hunk proved as invaluable as Wayne Shawcross has been on electricity. Though a big man with a lot of belly ballast, Hunk is agile and fearless in high places and he can command work crews with blunt authority and can lift the weight of three men. Once the building was tight and could shelter them, Ben installed a coal stove at the back and hung Coleman lanterns from the beams. Their brothers and sisters from Randolph Junction, still in touch with Hiram Clegg, presented them with a fine old upright piano. Ely’s final message in its gilt frame now hangs by the fireplace, alongside the Prophet’s “Seven Words” on a wooden plaque, created by some South Carolina youngsters with a woodburning kit, and a framed near-lifesize photograph of their late Prophet standing in the rain on the Mount of Redemption, a mine pick over his shoulder, his hand raised in a blessing. The Meeting Hall is where their Easter service was held this morning, celebrating Christ’s triumph over death, and where tonight’s candlelight prayer meeting will be. It is beautiful and it is hallowed by their labor and it anchors them.

  So much of this is due to Mr. John P. Suggs, his money, time, influence, and his good Christian heart, a man who gives, as it says in Proverbs, and who does not hold back. He has obtained many of the materials for them at wholesale and purchased some things for them outright, has provided his own workers and equipment for pipe laying, erecting light and telephone poles, and resurfacing the access roads, has seen to the repair of the fresh water pumps, and, with Welford Oakes’ help, work has begun on a new cesspool and modern septic system. He has brought in trucks and heavy machinery to rip out underbrush, shovel up rubbish, demolish and haul away rotted structures, and to clear a half acre on the south side for Mrs. Edwards’ vegetable garden. He used his connections with the mine owners and bankers to get electricity extended to the camp from the old mine and is now arranging for phone lines from there, something crucial for Clara in her evangelical work. In effect, they will be wired up directly to the Mount of Redemption, something Clara plans to remark upon during tomorrow night’s Coming of Light ceremonies. Mr. Suggs is a saintly man who attributes his conversion to one of Ely’s tent-meeting sermons, at which time he gave himself to Jesus and became a regular supporter of Ely’s Church of the Nazarene. He loved Ely and took his death hard, saying it plunged him into doubt and despair, and he did not at first understand the Brunist movement with its Italian Catholic prophet and its talk about the imminent end of the world. He was a businessman and he did not have any particular end date in mind, and he had no sympathy for wine-drinking Romanists, being a reformed drinker himself. But the Nazarene church fell onto hard times, and after trying on other denominations without conviction, he started thinking again about the Brunists and the role that Ely had played in their origins and it all began to make sense to him. Whereupon he got in touch with them. He and Ben hit it right off, and together she and Ben dispelled his doubts.

  Their main worry is what they will do with the crowds of Followers they anticipate will be rolling in here over the next three weeks. The Meeting Hall, so warm and ample a haven for the twenty or so living and working at the camp now, could seat a couple hundred at a stretch, and though there are a few more cabins that might be made livable and others could be built, it is hard to imagine many more people living here than are here now. Even if they come with their own mobile homes, the trailer park itself is full already, and the parking lot near the Meeting Hall, not yet cleared, is meant for visitors’ cars only. They have always intended this place to be a religious center and church headquarters, not a place for people to live, but Clara knows that many of those coming for the dedication ceremonies three weeks from now have no notion how they will live when they get here and will have no plans for moving on. Word about the new Brunist Wilderness Camp at the edge of the Mount of Redemption has spread among the believers; she herself has helped to spread it. Many of them are selling up or giving away all they have to be here, fully expecting the Coming of the Kingdom of Light, and Clara cannot naysay it because it may be so. She has sometimes said as much herself, following their Prophet’s own call and asking for such commitment as Jesus asked, “Leave everything and follow me!” The coincidence of dates seems to fulfill the Prophet’s enigmatical prophecies of “a circle of evenings” and “Sunday week,” making ever more urgent his call to “Come to the Mount of Redemption,” and, moreover, this place has mystical overtones for those who have never been here, and they will want to see it for themselves.

  So, they will have to set up tents in the fields about and use all the l
ocal motels and call upon friends to take in pilgrims. They cannot turn anyone away. God has led them here, He will somehow provide. Mr. Suggs has offered mine property land for Followers to pitch their tents on or park their cars and mobile homes, as well as temporary accommodation in his Chestnut Hills development at the edge of West Condon, partly emptied out since the closing of the mines and the general exodus. Ben still owns a small farm nearby with a one-room farmhouse, and he has been back to see if it might be useful for visitors, but found it vandalized and in worse shape than the camp cabins, the porch and walls partly harvested for lumber or firewood. In fact, he pulled some of the loose boards off himself and threw them in his truck for use in repairing the camp cabins. They will just have to hope that, if the day passes without God’s intervention, these people will see for themselves what is possible and what is not.