The Alliance

by Jolina Petersheim

  Dark-Haired Guy says, “What do you mean, ‘protect the perimeter’? Would you use guns?”

  “We’d have to carry guns, but that doesn’t mean we’d have to use them.” Even I know how ridiculous this sounds. “Think of it like border patrol. You all could be in charge of taking care of basic needs and helping the people, and we would more or less be in charge of keeping the property secure and protecting all the assets. You won’t be able to help anyone if you don’t have anything left to help them with.” Still, Leora and the rest of the community look at me like an outsider calling the shots—which is exactly what I am.

  I glance over the group, squinting at the other Englischer guy with sunken gums and a dirty fleece hat. And then we’ve got Miss Technology, who looks like the hardest thing she’s ever done is file her nails. I inwardly sigh; we don’t exactly have a militia. “Members of the community would not have to participate in the border patrol,” I conclude. “But it’s also unfair to ask us, who don’t believe the way you all do, to give up our lives just because you don’t agree with taking up arms.”

  A woman’s sob cuts through the room. We all turn and look. Miss Technology is the one crying, her chin on her chest. I can see the perfect alternating streaks in her dyed-blonde hair, and the diamond rings that capture the light filtering through the schoolhouse windows, casting prisms on the plaster above. “I just want—” she sobs again—“to see my family.”

  “And where are they?” Leora asks beside her, in a remarkably kind tone.

  The woman uses a Kleenex to dab the skin beneath each eye. “Estes Park. Colorado. I was on my way home. I saw the sign for the community. I just wanted . . . produce.”

  I don’t say anything, but I’m sure my silence—everyone’s silence—says enough. Without transportation, this woman’s detour has turned into a dead end. I don’t want to tell her now, yet there’s a very high chance that she might never see her family again. Or that she might die in the process of trying to make it back to her family, like so many other refugees whom I have unintentionally designated as the locusts.

  I rise to my feet, shifting my weight to my left foot. I look at everyone again and ask, “So—is an alliance possible?” It feels callous to keep forging ahead while this woman is mourning the loss of her family. But I also know we have no time to lose.

  The community says nothing; they just look at me, their faces as blank and white as the ceiling. The two Englischer men are nodding. Miss Technology is crying too hard to respond.

  “We will discuss this with the community,” White Beard says. “I do not think a decision like this needs to be made in haste.”

  “Forgive me,” I reply, “but isn’t it necessary to decide in haste when time is of the essence?”

  “Bishop Lowell, why don’t we ask the Englischers to leave while we take a vote?”

  Bishop Lowell, who is now no longer just “White Beard,” nods and repeats the request as if we haven’t heard Dark-Haired Guy say it. Lumberjack Charlie huffs, and the older Englischer guy in the fleece hat gets up from the bench and walks down the center aisle. But I remain where I am.

  “The Mennonite women don’t have to be present for this either,” Bishop Lowell adds, making sure he’s heard over the drone of conversation. “The fathers and husbands can represent their families.”

  “And what about those of us who are fatherless?”

  I turn to look, along with the entire Mennonite population clustered together in that tight-fitting room, beginning to stink of body odor and trapped air. Leora Ebersole is the one who, upon feeling the pull of our gazes, rises from the sea of people like the figurehead on the front of a ship. With her quiet voice and habit of avoiding people’s eyes, she strikes me as someone who would try to blend in with the crowd. And yet, here she stands.

  Leora’s skin is candle-wax pale except for two burning circles pressed high on her cheeks. Jet eyes gleam behind the wire-rimmed lenses of her glasses. Her body vibrates with anger, like a divining rod trying to establish its energy’s source. But I have no idea at whom this anger is directed.

  Dark-Haired Guy steps forward. Our gazes all shift from Leora to him. He looks at Bishop Lowell and lowers his shoulders, meek, like he’s approaching a tsar. “I think what she means is that she’s concerned for her familye.” Clearing his throat, Dark-Haired Guy says, “I will cast a vote for you, Leora.”

  I look at her. The burning circles on her cheeks have spread down to her neck. She reaches up and twists a crimson pinch of skin. “How—how can you cast a vote for me?” she asks, her voice trembling. “You are not my vadder, and you are certainly not my husband.”

  Before the words have finished resonating, Leora whirls and flees the schoolhouse. I glance at Dark-Haired Guy’s face, as colorless as Leora’s own, and feel a twinge of sympathy. But it’s still not enough to keep me from getting up from the bench and hobbling down the aisle behind her. I don’t bother going out through the segregated door, but through the same one Leora just exited. It’s time to change some of these old-fashioned rules.

  Moses

  THE ENGLISCHER GUY in the fleece hat turns to watch my progress—one pasty gray eye shooting off to the left, one fixed right on me. He smiles, showing a gap where his front teeth should be, but doesn’t offer me any support. He just lights a cigarette and leans against the side of the schoolhouse with his right boot propped up on the log siding behind him—the outline of his face chiseled rough like an arrowhead, his smoke twisting in the late-summer breeze.

  Meanwhile, Leora walks over to the cedar fence enclosing the yard and paces, her hands set into fists. That knowing grin from the guy in the hat makes me understand how desperate I look, falling all over myself, trying to reach somebody who doesn’t want me around. And I don’t blame her; she doesn’t know me from Adam. So I shamble over to the playground and sit on the wooden swing, which is even rougher than that bench inside the school.

  Wrapping my hands around the ropes, I prop my hurt ankle on the knee of my good leg and scope out my surroundings. The Mennonite women are coming out the correct side of the segregated doors. They have their hands so full, trying to wrangle their kids down the steps, that they don’t seem too perturbed by the exclusion from the meeting. Someone inside the schoolhouse draws the doors closed. At the sound, Leora turns from the fence. She’s taken her glasses off, and when she sees me studying her, she pauses. Her face looks vulnerable, and softer, without the frames.

  Perhaps aware of this exposure, she turns from me and holds the wire frames up to the sky to inspect each lens carefully before slipping the glasses on and pushing them with one finger onto the sloped bridge of her nose. Then she stands there, her back to me, before moving across the grounds, her granny shoes imprinting the dirt. I don’t let myself believe that Leora’s really coming over until she gives me the smallest of smiles and takes the swing next to mine.

  I smile back at her, and she closes her mouth over faintly lapped teeth and looks away. Together, we watch the mothers huddle beneath the mature line of pines shading the east side of the schoolhouse. They feed their babies pieces of sandwiches and cookies they must’ve wrapped in cellophane and packed in the black purses that look as cumbersome and outdated as their shoes. When they return our stare, they stop clucking at their kids long enough to give Leora a disapproving look.

  But Leora ignores them. Lifting her chin, she pulls back on the ropes of the swing and pushes off the ground. She pumps her legs in and out until the swing rises and her cotton dress fills with wind, revealing black tights with a run trailing along the back of her left calf.

  I observe her—suspended in midair, nearly weightless. I am unable to look away, although I sense that in their culture, as in most cultures, it is considered rude to stare.

  Leora’s swing slows, and she stops it entirely by placing her feet on the ground at the same time, causing the pieces of loose hair to fly toward her face. She wraps her arms around the ropes and clasps her hands together and rests t
hem between her knees, the weight holding down the fabric of her dress. “Tell me. How certain are you that the EMP is really what happened?”

  I think about telling her I’m a hundred percent certain. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that it is almost impossible to be fully certain about anything. Even faith, even love. “About 75 percent,” I admit, not meeting her eyes. For some reason, I feel more deceitful telling the truth than I would a lie.

  Leora leans back from me, as if shocked by the lower percentage, when earlier I pretty much guaranteed that if we don’t start moving now, lives will be lost.

  “Look at it from my viewpoint,” I say. “If I’m right, it’s a huge benefit that everyone will be prepared when things really get tough. If I’m wrong—and I doubt that I am, but if I’m wrong—what’s the problem with running people through a drill of worst-case scenarios?”

  “The problem is, Moses,” Leora snaps, “that they’re in there right now, voting on using armed guards to protect us, when we have never taken up arms in our lives.”

  “But I already told you, the Englischers would be doing the protecting part. You all would just be like . . . the community’s tenants.”

  She shakes her head in disgust. “We will not become mere ‘community tenants’ of the land and food that we own.”

  “We are not asking for even half an acre of your land. We are simply hoping to establish an alliance that will benefit all of us. We can provide protection, and you all—in exchange—can provide food and shelter.”

  “We do not need your protection. Our Gott is plenty capable of taking care of us.”

  Only then do I comprehend that Leora Ebersole has not come over here to separate herself from the rest of the Mennonite women and to show solidarity with me. Because right now I know that she does not agree with anything I’ve said, and I can feel there is an even larger chasm between the two of us.

  “Oh, really?” I turn in the seat of the swing so that I can lean closer to her without putting pressure on my ankle. “You think you don’t need protection because God will take care of you, but I bet you’ve got health and home insurance in case of an emergency, right?”

  Leora’s lips curve in triumph. “Actually, we don’t use insurance, but take care of our medical expenses within the community. We believe this is the way it should be, so don’t dismiss my culture just because you do not understand it.”

  “And don’t dismiss mine. I’ve seen what rises to the surface when the infrastructure of society falls apart. Have you?”

  She continues looking at me—absorbing me—her eyes so intense on my face that it’s hard not to look away. “No,” she whispers. “I haven’t.”

  “Lowlife scum is what rises to the surface, Leora, the very worst of humanity . . . the likes of which you’ve never seen. Especially not back here, in this community. It is an evil that is very hard to even imagine.” The two of us turn to peer across the playground—over to the children who are frolicking so happily, oblivious to the dangers that lurk on the horizon—and then we look at the snowcapped mountains behind them, behind us, that are no longer just a postcard of panoramic beauty, but a symbol of all that remains hidden, unseen.

  “These people shouldn’t even be called ‘people,’” I continue. “They’re like locusts that feed on other people’s misfortunes. These locusts don’t have any qualms about what they’ve got to do to stay alive. They are ruthless, without a tidy conscience like yours to keep their actions in check. Do you think any of the families leaving the city are going to stand a chance against these lowlifes?”

  “No,” she whispers again.

  “You’re right. They won’t. Maybe in the beginning, if they’re in groups, they’ll be okay. It’s kind of like herd immunity. But they will run out of food and water and they can only go so far without rest. Besides, most won’t even have a clue as to where they’re going. They’ll just be trying to get out of the city and find help. The locusts will form gangs and will prey on the desperate folks fleeing. They will take from them the little that they do have and leave them for dead. There will be no safe place.”

  I stop speaking and look at Leora. She has taken off her glasses to peer blindly at the grounds. Some of the women have moved away from the pine trees and are now letting their barefoot babies toddle along in the grass. I see that young blond boy again, who I spotted in the congregation, chewing on a piece of clover. The mother chides him in their language and pulls the weed gently from his fist and mouth. He plops down on the grass—worn bare by the amount of foot traffic—and smacks his hands against the earth, stirring up puffs of dust.

  That’s the thing with kids. It doesn’t matter what’s going on with the rest of the world; they are so oblivious that it’s hard not to laugh at their antics, even when it feels like everything around you is falling apart. Behind the kids, the guy in the fleece hat keeps chain-smoking cigarettes in a long stream of shaky fingers and nicotine. The mothers draw their kids away from him, as if his addiction can be ingested along with secondhand smoke. The lumberjack, who introduced himself as Charlie, stands beside the fleece-hat wearer. His large arms are crossed and bottom lip jutted out with a wad of snuff. In a way, they already look like displaced people, like refugees from a war nobody can really see or name, only hypothesize at its origins as I have done.

  Leora remains silent while I observe the grounds, but I can feel her staring. The children’s laughter flits across the wind, making me smile despite it all.

  “But don’t you think that Gott can protect us?” she asks. “I saw the cross tattoo on your chest. . . . Do you believe in Gott? Are you a man of faith?”

  I turn to her and see her eyes are wet; she is begging me for the kind of comfort I can’t provide. Paralyzed, I block her out—I block everything out: light, touch, and sound—viewing instead where I was a year ago, as if I am back there right now. A dark, guilt-ridden place that I keep trying to escape from through every medium in my power, but always find myself returning to.

  “I’m not a man of faith,” I rasp. “I don’t know what kind of man I am.”

  From my peripheral vision, I look at Leora and see that she’s put her glasses back on, like a veil. I am wearing my own kind of veil. But I guess, in a way, we all are. One of the benefits of something as catastrophic as an EMP is that these veils are stripped away and true countenances are revealed. Soon we will know who we can count on and who will only wait until our guard is down to stab us in the back. The most surprising aspect of all is that, more often than not, these divisions of character are not as black-and-white as you might expect.

  “I understand that you’ve seen more than I have,” Leora says. “And I’m sorry. I understand, too, that you think I’m just a sheltered Mennonite girl who looks at life through rose-colored glasses. Well, I’m not. My vadder walked out on us two years ago. Or he disappeared two years ago. The result is still the same. We were penniless. Broke. My mamm and younger brother had to go work at Field to Table, and my mamm died not long after that. So without meaning to, I became like . . . the patriarch of the family. This is why I don’t care to be excluded from the community’s vote. Protecting my siblings is the highest calling I have. My greatest responsibility. This is why your words hit me so hard. I do not want to see my brother and sister suffer, but I also know—” Leora nods toward the schoolhouse—“that what Bishop Lowell said is true. We can’t take up arms to defend our lives at the risk of extinguishing a soul.”

  She pauses, looks at me. “Ever heard of Martyrs Mirror?” I shake my head. “It’s this compilation of stories about Anabaptist martyrs. Regardless of what they faced—and death wasn’t always the worst—they never took up arms to defend themselves. Martyrs Mirror was first published in 1660, and it’s still our most revered book, next to the Bible.”

  “I can tell you’re upset with me,” I say. “Only a few short hours ago, you helped saved my life, and here I am . . . trying to change your community’s ancient belief
s.”

  “Yes, I’m upset. But not only at you. I’m upset by the fact that one of the most cataclysmic events in our community’s history is taking place right now, and I cannot take part because I’m a woman who can only have a voice through her father and husband when I have neither to my name.”

  I smile, trying to add some levity to the conversation. “That dark-haired guy seemed pretty eager to give you his name.”

  “Jabil?” Leora sighs. “He might want to give me his name, but I’m not sure I want to accept it.”

  “I’d think about it if I were you. You’d be safer having a man like him beneath your roof when things get hard.”

  Leora rises from the swing, her once-waxen skin flared with color. “You sound like everyone else. And I hope you know I’d rather die knowing there is a possibility of love than live in safety without it.”

  Then, without another word, she walks away from me and stands beneath the pines with her people, her face as unyielding as if she’s crossed a line in the sand.

  Leora

  One of the schoolhouse doors opens. I turn and see Jabil standing there, his arms positioned on either side of the jamb. He scans the yard—searching for someone—and then his eyes alight on me. He nods, but I can tell he’s uneasy, powerless to understand what happened between us in the schoolhouse. I am unable to understand it myself.

  Jabil lowers his gaze and withdraws from his pocket the first decree ever drawn up by the community without the Lancaster County bishops’ consent. “May I have your attention,” he calls. The entire group—both Englischers and Mennonites—angles toward him. “The Mt. Hebron Old Order Mennonite Community has agreed to an alliance with the Englischers already gathered in our midst by means over which they have no control. The Englischers will hereby provide protection for our families, bulk food store, gardens, livestock, homes, and barns. We will set up blockades on the lane and around the perimeter of the community that will be guarded at all times. But we agree that we will offer water, soup, and medical care to the refugees who are walking past the barrier.