Ceremonies

by T E. D Klein

A few of them laughed, but the younger man pretended not to hear. 'It was made of the same seeds we're planting tonight,' he went on, 'the same white flint corn that the Indians grew. Just the thing for a start as late as this. They say it has the shortest season.'

  'Let's hope it's not too short,' came a stern voice from the down the row. 'Short the life of man, and soon the harvest.'

  'Now let's be fair, Joram,' said another. 'You said yourself it made a real nice cottonbread.'

  His wife, walking several paces behind them, had been waiting for this moment. 'Amos,' she called, 'will you ask Brother Sarr something for me?'

  The chanting died. In the sudden silence her words rang across the field.

  'Ask him why they call it cottonbread?'

  The young man didn't wait for the question to be repeated. 'I thought everybody knew that,' he said quickly, without looking back over his shoulder. 'It's because they used to cook it over the cottonwood fire. Tasted real good, I'll bet!' As if to put an end to the subject, he slammed his staff with special vehemence into the earth. The crown of corn leaves rustled fiercely.

  The question had come as a surprise; he hoped he'd sounded convincing. Obviously Deborah had been talking again. Would she never learn? Back there by the fire Brother Joram had practically told him to take a stick to her, and he, for all his college education, had found himself agreeing. She was getting to him, that woman, in more ways than one…

  He paused a moment and turned to watch her slip three seeds into the hole he'd just made. Her hair swept loosely past her face, the way it did as she climbed into bed beside him each night. Standing, she covered the hole with a careless scrape of her bare foot, and as she looked up their eyes met. She smiled. It was a loving smile, and a knowing one.

  He looked down, biting his lip. He was hungry for her, and she knew it. All week he had avoided her embrace, hoarding his pent-up energies for the planting; it would help ensure a bountiful crop. But now the sight of her moving another pace closer and bending toward the earth, deliberately thrusting out her hips, so aroused him that he had to turn his face away or he'd have cried out. Savagely he plunged his staff into the furrowed ground and gave it a violent twist; several leaves were shaken off and lost in the darkness. If only he hadn't made that vow… He thought of her round body, the softness of her skin beneath the rough dress, and wondered, as he rejoined the ranks of the men, if he dared hoist that dress and enter her tonight, with all the corn seed not yet sown.

  Nudging the woman beside her, Deborah nodded toward her husband. 'Did you see the way Sarr was looking at me?' she said in a low, husky voice. 'As soon as you folks leave, I swear he's going to take me right here in this field!'

  The image was a scandalous one, but credible nonetheless. They burst into delighted laughter.

  Poroth heard the laughter, but not what had provoked it. 'Like a pack of spoony schoolgirls,' Rupert Lindt had said, and he'd been right. How deliriously innocent they were, Deborah no less than the rest. And how shocked they'd be if he told them the truth about what they'd done tonight.

  'Hide thee, haste thee,

  Gillycorn Hill… '

  He had stumbled upon it, quite by accident, in German class; a book in the college library, confirming his suspicions, had hinted at still darker things, older than the pyramids, older than recorded history. He'd read of pre-Christian nature worship and how, each spring, tribesmen had once sacrificed their gods in human form. The rest he'd figured out for himself. Beneath his neighbors' sober-sided piety he had glimpsed the painted face of the savage; behind this evening's quaint observance he had seen a blood-stained altar and a figure stretched naked upon it like a five-pointed star. He had witnessed the ritual slashing of the throat, the rending of the limbs; while his friends enjoyed their moonlit meal, he'd had a vision of frenzied hands tearing at a thing without a head, while, just beyond the firelight, children fought greedily over what looked like a face. Though their flood now bore a deceptive modern name, it had formerly been known as Gottin bread, symbol of what they'd once devoured – the flesh of the Goddess incarnate, her hair the garland that now crowned his staff.

  'If Mole don't taste thee,

  Worm he will.'

  All such goings-on, of course, were safely in the past; there was no harm in them today. Perhaps he'd read more history than the rest of the Brethren, and perhaps he'd seen more deeply tonight, but his faith remained as strong as it had always been. The origin of everything was dark, no doubt, but blood spilled long ago had long since dried. Time, he knew, made all deeds respectable; some people even ate their god each Sunday. For him all gods and goddesses were one, aspects of an all-encompassing Divine; and after tonight's sacrament, followed by his mother's benediction, he walked with the confidence of one who'd been truly blessed.

  Behind him, appropriately, the women had reached the final, optimistic verse of their chant:

  'Fly thee, fleet thee,

  Gillycorn Hill… '

  Forcing his thoughts from the altar, the naked victim, the memory of his wife, he raised his voice with theirs in an exuberant shout:

  ' If Worm don't eat thee,

  I will!'

  There was a sudden splintering of wood. The point of his staff struck something hard and wriggling. From the earth before him rose an angry sound like fat sizzling on a fire, and something thrashed convulsively, almost wresting his staff from his grasp. An ear of brittle corn snapped off and fell silently at his feet. In the distance one of the cats leaped up and went streaking across the lawn.

  Lifting the staff, he squinted closely at its tip, but the moon was almost gone and he could see nothing. The wood felt cracked and pitted near the end; it was sticky to the touch, and oddly cold.

  His stomach now unsettled, he pressed the staff once more into the ground, turning it against the clean soil. He said nothing to any of the others, and by the time the third acre was planted he had driven the incident from his mind.

  It was then that it happened. The hour was late; the crickets still sang, but the lightning bugs were dimmed, and the moon had long since disappeared behind the scrub pines to the west. Suddenly, by the faraway blaze, a child cried out in dismay.

  She was standing over the bag of seed, pointing to something at her feet. Soon she had been joined by a group of the older men.' 'Tis nothing!' one of them called hoarsely. He waved the laborers back to the field, but Poroth and his wife continued hurrying toward the fire. In its light, amid a milling crowd of children and elders, they saw the seed bag lying on its side, looking slightly more shrunken than they'd remembered it. Gaping from the bottom was a small circular hole through which spilled a steady stream of corn seed.

  ' 'Tis nothing,' repeated the old man. 'We'll get it all.' Around him his comrades were already gathering up the individual kernels that lay scattered in the grass.

  But what none of them spoke of was the other hole they had seen and quickly covered over – a hole that, before the bag rolled on its side, had lain just below the first, twisting sinuously into the earth.

  Carol was sorry when at last they reached the front steps of her building, where tattered aspidistra struggled against cellophane bags and candy wrappers in two soot-covered boxes on either side of the doorway. The place, which till now had seemed a haven, somewhere she could actually afford, suddenly looked very shabby to her; she was glad it was night and that the nearest streetlamp was several houses away. Freirs acted as if he didn't notice, but she was afraid he was only being polite. He had to be richer than he pre- tended, she was certain of it, one of those self-confident New York Jewish boys who'd grown up with all the advantages and didn't realize how lucky they were. Or if he wasn't rich, he was at least generously supplied with money and would soon be relaxing in the country while she'd still be here working all summer. For their entire walk together she'd been acutely aware, with every block they passed, that he'd be leaving the city on Sunday; and though she reminded herself that the day had been an extraordinarily good one -bless
ed, practically – she couldn't help feeling that, at the same time, God was being curiously cruel: no sooner had she met someone she might truly fall in love with than he was being taken away from her.

  Freirs himself, she'd noticed, had begun to grow inexplicably jumpy as their walk drew to an end. He'd become skittish as a greyhound, in fact, seeing shapes in every shadow, certain they were being followed, and some of his tension had rubbed off on her. Only a few yards from her house he had frozen without warning in his tracks and seized her arm, yanking her back as if before a chasm and gesturing wordlessly at a thing the size of a pea pod that had scuttled across their path. Carol had let out a little cry before she'd realized it was only a waterbug. How in the world was a person like this going to get along in the country?

  She paused at the bottom of the steps, not sure whether to ask him up for coffee or to say goodbye. 'Well, Jeremy,' she said, 'it sounds like you're in for a great summer. I envy you, I really do. I just hope you'll give me a call when you get back to the city.'

  'Hell, we can do better than that. How about coming out to visit me sometime? It would do you good, get you away from the dusty old books and little old men. You could come out for the weekend' -his confidence seemed to slip – 'or else just for the day, whatever you like.'

  'Oh, Jeremy, I'd love to!'

  'Gilead's just a couple of hours by bus,' he went on. 'It's a nice scenic ride, really not bad at all. Or you could take the express to Flemington, around twelve miles east of it, and save yourself almost an hour. Either way, I could come pick you up. The Poroths have a truck they'd let me use.'

  'That sounds wonderful,' she said. 'It would be lovely to get away for a weekend.' She wanted to ask where she would sleep if she stayed over, but didn't have the courage. Surely the farmer and his wife must have a spare room she could use.

  'Great,' he said. "Then it's settled.' He already had a scrap of paper pressed against his knee and, with his foot on the bottom step, was scribbling down her house number from above the doorway. 'I'll write you when I get out there and let you know everything’s okay.'

  Standing with him on the sidewalk, she followed his gaze, then looked up past the tiers of dirty brick and plaster to a row of windows on the fifth floor. They were dark. Maybe Rochelle had gone out with her boyfriend, and for once Carol would have the place to herself. More likely, though, she was in bed, and certainly not alone. 'If you'd like to come in for coffee,' Carol said, making up her mind, 'we'll have to be very quiet. My roommate's probably asleep already.'

  'Oh, that's okay.' After the triumph of getting her to agree to see him, he seemed disinclined to press his luck. 'It's late, and I've got a ton of books to pack tomorrow.'

  'Just don't forget to take along those nature guides,' she said, starting up the steps. 'I want you to be an expert tracker by the time I come out.'

  She heard him hesitate, then follow her. When she turned he was standing beside her, smiling 'I was hoping you'd come out a good deal sooner than that,' he said. 'Maybe even next weekend.'

  He held the outer door open while she reached into her handbag for her keys. 'Well,' she said, a little surprised, 'maybe I could… ' She searched her mind for doubts, objections, other plans – and realized, feeling suddenly foolish, that she had none. She had no plans for the entire summer. 'Yes,' she said, 'that might be very nice. I think I can probably get away.'

  'Okay, then. I intend to write you as soon as I get out there. And you'd better write back!' He tapped her nose with the tip of his finger. 'Remember, I'm depending on it.'

  'Don't worry. I've got two married sisters plus my mother, and I never miss a letter.' She paused, fitting the key into the inner lock; it was time to make her goodbyes. 'Well, I've had a wonderful evening, and I really want to thank you for- Oh, no! Look at this.' She withdrew the key and pressed against the door. It swung open at her touch. Something had happened to the bolt.

  He bent to examine it. 'Looks like somebody unscrewed the little metal plate,' he said, poking at the pitted wood with his finger. 'I wonder if anything's been robbed.' He shook his head. 'This fucking city.'

  She stared uncertainly into the dim light of the hallway. 'It's sort of scary.'

  'Look, would you like me to come up with you? I'll just see you to your door, I don't want to come in or anything.'

  'Could you, please? I'm sure there's nothing the matter, but just in case someone's inside there… ' She swallowed.

  'Glad to. I'll go first.'

  Frowning, he stepped into the hall. She followed him. The passage was a narrow one, and silent at this hour; their feet scraped audibly against the yellowing white tiles that climbed stained and broken halfway up the walls. At the farther end a thick black metal door concealed an elevator scarcely larger than a closet, lit by only one bare bulb that dangled from wires in the ceiling. It trembled as the two of them crowded inside, and again when the inner door slid echoingly shut.

  With a whirr of distant gears the car gave a lurch and rose slowly up the darkened shaft, their shadows flirting back and forth with the swinging of the bulb. They watched the shadows, the curls of paint around the emergency button, and the numbers sliding past the small glass porthole in the door. Through it, as each new floor came into view, a pale circle of light winked open and shut like an eye, then disappeared below them. They said nothing, both of them hushed, listening.

  The car slowed, sighed, and came shuddering to rest at the fifth floor. Peering through the glass before Freirs pushed ahead of her, Carol could see that there was no danger after all. The hall was empty.

  She walked beside him to her door and slipped her key into the lock. It was an awkward moment; maybe she should plead with him to come in.

  'Well,' she heard herself say, 'thank you once again. I had a really lovely evening.' She hoped he could see that she meant it, and wondered if he felt the same. At the turn of the key the door swung inward; beyond it the front hall was dark. She dropped her voice to a whisper. 'And it was really sweet of you to come up here like this. I only wish it weren't so late.' Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she encircled his neck with her arm and pressed a kiss to the side of his mouth. He seemed to take it as his due.

  'Amen,' he said. 'See you in Jersey.'

  'I'll be waiting for your letter.' She stepped into the darkness; he raised a hand in farewell and turned away. Shutting the door, she heard the clang of the elevator and, moments later, the churning of gears as it started down.

  The apartment smelled of garlic and fried meat and, from the doorway of the living room, men's after-shave. Rochelle and her date had not gone out, then; there'd be no dawdling in the kitchen tonight, and no light to guide her to her room. Half feeling her way, Carol tiptoed through the hall; the only illumination came from beneath the bathroom door at the other end. As she passed, it swung silently open. In its light stood the boyfriend, staring at her open-mouthed, olive-skinned and hairy. He jumped back when he saw that it was her, his sex jiggling; she tried to look away. The light was snapped off, and she heard a low chuckle. 'Thought you were Shelly!' he said. There was toothpaste on his breath.

  'No, it's only me.' She could feel the nearness of his body as she brushed past him; she groped blindly, nearly stumbling, toward her bedroom. There was the sound of breathing behind her, then a pause, and she heard him pad slowly down the hall.

  Once inside the room, she closed the door tightly and switched on a small lamp by her bed. The dancers on the posters seemed to leap out from the wall, arms outstretched in welcome – Merrill Ashley, Baryshnikov, Karen Kain as the Swan Queen – but it was hard to turn her mind from that figure in the bathroom, the damp and shining hair. ..

  She forced herself to think of Jeremy, hoping he was really going to send for her, reminding herself, lest she be hurt, how little she really knew of him. How strangely nervous he had been at the end of their walk here, furtively watching for criminals – and cripples! – yet never for a moment losing that special New York cockiness of his. Maybe s
he should have insisted he come in; she wished he were here beside her, to hold her all night in his arms, but by now he would be downstairs, perhaps back on the street. She went to her window to see.

  Parting two slats of the Venetian blind, she peered outside. Yes, there he was, trotting briskly down the front steps, his body foreshortened from this angle. He seemed to be moving fast, his stride lengthening; she hoped it came from feeling good about tonight, and not from any eagerness to leave. Within seconds he'd reached the dying maple that stood halfway up the block, leaves trembling in a final ray of moonlight. Soon he would be past the corner, out of sight.

  She was just about to turn from the window when, from the shadows somewhere beyond the row of tenements to her left, almost at the edge of her vision, she thought she saw a small white shape drop soundlessly to the sidewalk and go scurrying after him, waving something in its hand as if it were a wand. Midway to the corner it made a queer, mincing little pirouette and disappeared behind a line of cars parked beneath the tree.

  This was no cripple; it looked as plump and agile as a child, though surely no child could be out at such an hour. Tugging at the cords along the end, she readjusted the blinds for a better view. The slats tilted open; parallel bands of street light flooded the room. She peered outside again, but it was too late: the moon had set, the street was still, the tree dark and unmoving against the sky. A trail of mist was rising in ghostly tentacles from the sidewalk. Both figures were gone.

  June Twenty-fifth

  A very special day indeed! Dawn has broken over the horizon like the lifting of a vast, immeasurable curtain, and the sky is rosy with promise. At ease upon the rooftop of his building, he settles back in the dusty canvas deck chair and blinks contentedly at the heavens, his face aglow with early morning sunlight. The air up here is temperate, with just a hint of blossoms beneath the street smells and the scent of roofing tar. Birds cry raucously overhead; breezes stir the pale wisps of his hair. Behind him lies the dark river, sweeping past hills still mottled by shadow. Before him, eastward, stretches the city, its towers like an endless line of tombstones, black against the brightening sky.