Ceremonies

by T E. D Klein

  How impressive Deborah was this afternoon! The way she stood up to that bitch.

  After hearing Deborah's description of her early in the summer, I suppose I'd been expecting a sort of backcountry witch, filled with homilies and spells and homespun wisdom. Instead, I got a nasty old hag. Still can't get over how rude she was; she obviously didn't take to me at all. Probably hates New Yorkers. Anti-Semitic, too, I'll bet. I almost have to laugh, now, the way that goddamned cat attacked her. Though at the time it wasn't quite so funny…

  They searched for her everywhere. All of them were white-faced and shaken except, oddly, Mrs Poroth herself. She appeared almost calm.

  'I've seen what I came to see,' she said to her son. She didn't appear to mind the deep, painful-looking scratches on her face and declined to stay. "Tis just as I thought. There's a spirit in that animal, something that's against all nature. There's naught I can do, though, for I know you'll not heed what I have to tell you. The animal's yours, and you're the one that must destroy it.'

  He didn't say anything until she'd left, but he was obviously troubled. 'No,' he kept saying to himself, 'no, I couldn't do a thing like that. This time she's wrong.'

  'Of course she's wrong,' said Deborah, tight-lipped. 'She was just upset about what happened.'

  Sarr nodded, but he seemed unconvinced.

  They strolled around the property without managing to find the cat. In vain they searched the smokehouse and the barn. 'Sometimes she gets under the front porch and won't come out all day,' Deborah recalled, but the cat was not there. Finally they gave up.

  'She's off in the woods,' Sarr said. 'She'll come back when she's ready.'

  'In a better temper, I hope,' Deborah added.

  Freirs left them, still despondent, at the house and walked back to his room. He noticed, as he approached, that the door on the other side of his outbuilding was slightly ajar. It might easily have been left that way by Deborah or Sarr – because that half of the building was used as a storeroom, the two of them were always bringing things in and out – but he wondered if the cat might have slipped inside. He was tempted to go back up to the farmhouse and tell the Poroths, but he didn't want to seem afraid, especially in front of Deborah. Besides, he'd be embarrassed if they came all the way out here and found nothing. He told himself that he had nothing to fear; it was only a cat, after all. And if he found her he'd be a hero.

  Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him and switched on the light. The room smelled heavily of mildew and mouse droppings. It was piled high with lumber, bottles, old furniture, carefully folded seed bags, and dusty footlockers, some of which obviously predated the Poroths and had, no doubt, been moved down here from the attic in the farmhouse.

  Crouching, he peered nervously beneath an old sofa which sagged beneath the weight of four overstuffed valises and a cardboard carton filled with empty jars. From behind him came the buzzing of horseflies as they slammed themselves against the windowpanes; the sills below were Uttered with their bodies.

  A dead wasp lay among them, probably one from the swarm in the smokehouse, lying just inches from the tiny space at the bottom of the pane by which it probably had entered. Freirs imagined it battering itself against the glass and wondered if, as it lay dying, it had seen the hole at last and realized the futility of its efforts.

  In one corner, almost at eye level atop the slashed and pitted surface of a table, an ancient steamer trunk caught his eye. It was decorated with faded ribbons and appeared to be some remnant of the previous century. Upon it lay several piles of moldy-looking books. He picked them up gingerly, one by one, holding them away from his face lest they be crawling with silverfish and worms. They proved to be religious tracts, and as boring as most of that genre. Heaven's Messengers, he read with distaste. Bible Themes for Busy Workers. The Shepherd and the Sheep. He tossed the books aside and raised the lid.

  Inside there were more of them, and some badly folded old clothes. So much for his fantasies of stereoscopes, antique postcards, jewels. .. The clothes, though moth-eaten, might have had a certain value – he noticed a woman's black dress with large cloth-covered buttons down the front, a dress which, though severe, might have fetched a good price in some Village boutique – but he wasn't very interested in such things. The books here were even worse: Aids to Believers. Handfuls of Help. Beneath the Moss. The Footsteps of the Master.

  At the bottom of the pile, however, against the trunk's age-discolored lining, lay what appeared to be a stack of magazines. He lifted them out, hoping for a cache of old Munsey's or some ancient

  Harper's Weeklies from the Civil War days, but they proved to be something more unusual: yearbooks. Spring Street Bible School, the covers said. Gilead, New Jersey.

  There were almost two dozen in all, in no particular order, ranging from the early 1880s up to 1912. The covers were of paper, cracked and yellowing, with several separated from the bindings; the yearbooks themselves – mere pamphlets, actually – were only thirty pages long. Most of them bore names at the top, written in childish hands: Isaac Baber, Rachel Baber, Andrew Baber… This was the family, he recalled, that had previously owned the farm.

  Picking up the most recent issue, he flipped through it back to front. Student essays filled the pages, essays with tides in old-fashioned gothic letters on such subjects as 'The Duty of a Christian' and 'Living in the Way of the Lord.' There was also a selection of song lyrics, not alma maters but hymns: 'Reapers of Life's Harvest' 'Blue Galilee,' 'There Is a Power in the Blood.'

  To the work! to the work! there is labor for all;

  For the Kingdom of Darkness and Error shall fall;

  And the name of Jehovah exalted shall be,

  And we'll shout with the ransomed, 'Salvation is free!'

  In the front of the book were four group photos: male and female students, male and female faculty; obviously the sexes had been segregated. There appeared to have been fewer than sixty students in the entire school, and half a dozen teachers. They were a solemn-looking bunch, sitting stiff and unsmiling as they gazed up at him from that bygone day as if through a sepia mist. He scanned the captions; a welter of familiar names greeted him. P. Buckhalter, J. van Meer, several Lindts and Reids and Poroths. Most, he realized, would be dead by now. The name Baber had been carefully underlined wherever it appeared. In the first row, among the youngest boys, he was amused to notice a pale, earnest little face labeled M. Geisel.

  Suddenly his eye was caught by the name V. Troet. There were an R. Troet and an S. among the girls, he noticed, and a B. among the female faculty. Deborah had said it was a large family.

  What of the branch that had been wiped out in the fire, the branch that had lived right here? Were any of them represented? No, he checked again; the books only went back as far as 1881. They'd all be dead by then, dead and in their graves.

  All but one…

  He turned to the earliest book; the boy would have been around thirteen then.

  Yes, there he was, in the middle row, crowded in with the rest: A. Troet.

  He held the book up to the light, peering more closely at the tiny, blurred figure, that stared at him from the page. The figure was short, with a wide, honest-looking face, but beyond that it was indistinguishable from the rest. Perhaps – was it a trick of the light? – perhaps there was the tiniest hint of a smile at the corners of the lips, a lone smile among all those grave Utile faces…

  No, it was just his imagination.

  He looked ahead to the next book, 1882. There he was again. A Troet, still slightly shorter than the rest. He felt a tiny, inexplicable chill. This time there was no doubt at all. The figure was smiling.

  There was no mention of him in the following year's book, or in any of the others. No doubt he'd dropped out of school and out of the world – until he'd struck again in 1890…

  Well, his photo would make an amusingly ghoulish little pinup for the wall above Freirs' desk. Portrait of the Devil as a Young Man. Tucking the collection of yearbooks
beneath his arm, he piled the other books back inside the trunk, laying the clothing on top. He hoped he hadn't piled them too high, and that the trunk would close. Reaching up, he pulled the lid down He jumped back. Bwada was crouching behind the trunk only inches from his face, eyes unblinking, burning into his. A hissing sound escaped her throat, and her body seemed to swell. Spreading her claws, she prepared to leap.

  Suddenly, for no discernible reason, she appeared to think better of it. She settled down, licked her lips, and purred.

  'Nice cat,' said Freirs, backing out of the room. 'Nice cat.' There'd been something about the way she licked her lips, something not quite right, but there was no time to worry about it now. 'You just sit there, and I'll be right back with your friends.'

  Slamming the door, he ran for the farmhouse.

  She walked home, musing, following the dusty road as it wound its contrary way through the forest and fields. She paid no mind to her torn cheek; there were nine ways of making pain go away, and she knew them all. Besides, she had more important matters to occupy her now.

  The visitor had come. It was here among them. When she'd looked into the cat's eyes she had seen it glaring out at her, as if through the eye holes of a mask.

  Lucky that she'd seen it while it was still so weak. Proof, no doubt, of divine Providence – for she knew how to fight the thing. Her boy, Sarr, was useless, but she knew what to do.

  Yes, that was a possibility old Absolom hadn't counted on – that one of the Brethren would know and be prepared.

  She had been prepared for more than twenty years. She had known that it would happen like this; it was just as her visions had shown her.

  She set her jaw, thought of the struggle that lay ahead, and continued down the dirt road with a more determined stride. She felt vindicated. She'd been right after all. On her cheek the blood was dry, the wound already healing.

  Rosie was waiting for her when she got off work at seven. He'd stationed himself at a table by the window of the shabby little coffee shop next door, biding his time with a chocolate malted and a slice of pound cake until she emerged. He knocked on the window as she walked past and waved her inside.

  'Just let me pay the bill,' he said, making greedy little sounds with his straw as he sucked up the last of the malted. He stuffed the final crumbs of cake into his mouth. 'May I walk you home? I want to talk.'

  Carol had talked with Rosie on the phone just last night, when she'd called to thank him for the new dress, but she was happy to see him again. Voorhis had been hard to bear today; Miss Elms, the assistant supervisor, had wounded Carol with a caustic remark, early in the afternoon, about her lack of enthusiasm – 'When you came to work here we all thought you were going to amount to something, but so far you haven't' – and there'd been hints from one of her superiors, oily Mr Brown in acquisitions, that he and Mrs Tait were considering reducing her hours still further during the summer lull. They aren't even paying me a living wage now, Carol had thought, but she'd been too cowed to say anything.

  Rosie's smiling face made a welcome contrast to the librarians' sour ones, and strolling downtown with him, laughing at the excited way he'd peer into every store window they passed as if he just might buy whatever was inside, be it a baby toy, a side of beef, or a maid's uniform, was the perfect way to unwind.

  'Have you looked at that book I sent over?' he asked, as they waited for the light to change at Twenty-first and Eighth. 'The one with all those country dances?'

  'I've only had time to glance at it,' she said. 'Some of the steps certainly look complicated.'

  'How'd you like to try one with me?'

  Carol shrugged. 'Sure if you like. Any particular reason?'

  He looked hurt. 'Don't you think it might just be fun?'

  'Oh, of course, Rosie,' she said hastily. 'Of course it'll be fun. 1 only meant, did you send the book over as part of our research, or simply because you know I like dancing?'

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and moved closer to her as they walked. 'As a matter of fact, young lady, that book is extremely germane to what the two of us are studying. The steps peasants once danced in tiny, isolated North Italian villages were the same ones children danced in Elizabethan England – and are still dancing in modern-day East Africa.'

  'No, it can't be!'

  'Oh, yes. And strictly entre nous, yours truly is the first to have discovered the connections. So you're going to be involved in some pretty important research, young lady – original research that ought to cause quite a stir. You may find yourself with a very nice little career, by the time we're done.'

  'Wow wouldn't that be incredible!'

  She reminded herself that the old man was probably just trying to impress her, or else he might simply be mistaken. But what if he was right? Wouldn't it be wonderful to make a real contribution to scholarship, to be respected at last as an authority on something, her work studied by the sort of earnest souls who came to Voorhis every day? That institution's miseries were temporarily forgotten; she was thinking, instead, how the tedious little summaries she prepared twice weekly for Rosie, the abstracts of papers and journal articles, might be worthwhile after all.

  By the time they reached her house, he was mopping his forehead repeatedly with a large white handkerchief. 'Lordy,' he said, 'I can't remember when it's been so hot.'

  'It is pretty awful,' she conceded. 'I hate to think of what's still in store.'

  'Do you think I might come up and cool off?' He dabbed wearily at his throat.

  'Oh, of course you can. I'll give you some iced tea. I have to warn you, though, it's probably hotter up there than it is here on the sidewalk.'

  Rosie smiled. 'Well, I'll take my chances.'

  He continued to smile mysteriously as they rode up in the elevator. By the time they'd reached the door to her apartment, she'd begun to grow uneasy.

  Unlocking the door, she pushed it open. A wave of cool air bathed her face. From the living room she heard the soft churning of a motor. She turned to him, eyes widening. 'Rosie, did you-?'

  He nodded, chuckling. 'Had it installed this afternoon, while you were at work.'

  'Oh, Rosie, this is the nicest surprise I've ever had!'

  She rushed into the living room. There, fitted into the window, was a glossy white Fedders, two round vents regarding her like eyes.

  Rosie followed her in and stood grinning at his handiwork. 'It should make the place a bit more livable, don't you think?'

  'God, will it ever!' she said. 'But how in the world did you get in here?'

  He shrugged. 'Your super was very understanding.'

  Carol breathed deeply of the cool air and let the chilly breeze caress her face. She wished there were some way to repay him, or at least to show her gratitude. 'Well,' she said finally, 'it's certainly going to be more comfortable to read in here, thanks to you. I'll be able to work twice as hard now.'

  'You know, I do believe you have a point. In fact' – he surveyed the room – 'there's something the two of us could work on tonight. Here, give me a hand with this.' He began tugging the coffee table toward the wall.

  'What are you doing?' she asked, already coming forward to help him.

  'Clearing away some of this furniture,' he said, grunting with exertion. 'It'll give us more room.'

  'Room for what?'

  Rosie smiled. 'Why – to dance, of course!'

  But it was only Carol who danced that night.

  Opening up the book of folk dances seemingly at random, he chose one near the back. 'Here,' he said, handing it to her, 'this one looks interesting.'

  'II Mutamentos (The Changes),' she read. 'Of unknown origin."

  This dance is said to mimic, in symbolic terms, the transformation of a worm into a butterfly.

  It may be performed either singly or in pairs.

  'It looks a little monotonous,' said Carol, studying the diagrams. 'All this spinning…'

  'Nonsense,' said Rosie, 'just give it a try. You'll find it more fun tha
n you imagine. Here, I'll play shaman, and you can be the nubile native girl.' Clapping his hands, he began singing in a frail old-man's voice, softly at first, as if to himself, but then with growing enthusiasm.

  'Da'moghu… da'foe moghu… riya daeh… '

  Shamans? Native girls? What was the old man talking about? 'Wait,' said Carol, trying to hear the beat before taking a step, 'that doesn't sound like Italian.'

  'A dialect,' said Rosie, still clapping his hands and nodding 'From Tuscany.'

  'Oh.' Carol peered over his shoulder at the book, still hesitant to begin. 'Look, couldn't we do some of the others, instead? The ones near the front look more like fun.'

  Rosie smiled patiently and stopped dapping. 'Don't worry, Carol, we'll get to it. We'll get to all the others, if you like.' Gripping her shoulders in a fatherly way, he moved her into the center of the floor. 'But this is the one I think you should try now. Just a practice run.'

  'But-'

  He raised his hand for silence. 'Believe me, Carol,' he said, 'it's your dance. It's for you.'

  And he clapped his hands again, and cocked his head, and sang. And in the center of the little room, to the interminable churning of the air conditioner, she danced.

  July Fourteenth

  Taking a bath at Poroth Farm was a three-step operation, and Freirs had become adept at it. First it was necessary to turn up the flame on the modern gas-powered hot water heater – a round white tubular affair nearly as tall as a man, which took up much of the bathroom -while simultaneously twisting a faucet in the unit's side, releasing more water into the tank. One then waited half an hour or more, doing chores or checking through whatever assortment of seed catalogues and Bible tracts the postman had brought, or, as was usual in Freirs' case, celebrating the end of morning exercises by snacking on some likely morsel discovered in the cool of the root cellar, where most of the perishables were stored. When the water supply was hot and ready, one returned to the bathroom, turned down the flame and the water, and opened the spigots in the huge old bathtub, stained with age and big enough for three, which stood beside the heater. Finally, after another wait, one could climb into the tub and enjoy a long-overdue soak. It was a somewhat tedious process, but an ultimately rewarding one. Freirs went through it almost every day.