Being Magdalene

by Fleur Beale

  I was glad the noise of the others stopped them from hearing her.

  Inside the house, Rebecca pulled me aside. ‘How are you doing, little sister?’

  I looked down at my locked hands. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever get better. I’m scared.’

  She took my hands, stroking them until my fingers relaxed. ‘It’s been harder for you than for the rest of us.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s the same. We all left.’

  ‘No, it’s not the same. Dear sister, you were so damaged when Miriam left. They should have explained, they should have told you. Rachel and I knew what dead and damned meant, but we weren’t allowed to talk to you about Miriam. She was dead. It was against the Rule. I’m so sorry.’ She put an arm around me, holding me close.

  ‘Do you think I can get better? Tell me the truth, Rebecca. Please.’

  She took hold of my shoulders and looked into my eyes. ‘Yes, you will get better. I promise you. It’ll take a while before you start to feel good, but, trust me, you really will get better.’

  We were quiet for a bit, then she laughed softly. ‘Look at Zillah — do you reckon she’ll be happy about Xanthe now?’

  We watched them, both intent on the computer screen in front of them. Xanthe seemed to be explaining how something worked. ‘She’s telling her about stethoscopes,’ Rebecca said. ‘Did somebody use one when you went to the hospital?’

  I couldn’t remember.

  Nina and Jim were setting out morning tea when there was hammering on the door. Fright shot through me. Was it the Elders come to drag us back?

  Jim went to answer it. I heard hurrying footsteps, then Zillah was up and running. ‘Abraham!’ Talitha was behind him, looking so different from how a godly Faith wife should look. Faith wives never wore patterned dresses, or looked so happy either.

  Rebecca ran to greet her, pulling her forward to meet Miriam and Xanthe. Abraham and Daniel had their arms around each other, and they both had tears in their eyes.

  I watched them and I watched Talitha. Her summer dress was short to her knees and the sleeves stopped well above her elbows. She looked pretty with her hair loose, and it was cut to just below her shoulders. After a bit she sat down beside me. ‘It is difficult for you just now, my sister?’

  ‘Yes. But I’ll be all right. They’re helping me. They promise I’ll get better.’ I didn’t want to talk about myself. ‘Talitha, you’re not going back, are you?’

  She looked sad for a moment. ‘No. Abraham doesn’t want to. Not now.’

  ‘Do you want to? Do you want to be a proper Faith wife?’

  For a while she was silent, gazing into a future I couldn’t begin to imagine, then she seemed to come back to now and started speaking again. ‘I love being free. I love going to the library. I love studying. I’m doing a computer course. I hope my family leaves the Faith.’ She paused to smile at me. ‘Remember the secret phone they bought when you ran away? I’m so glad they have it — I talk to them most days. Mother says they’ll wait to see if the people have the will to appoint new Elders. She says there is much unrest about Elder Stephen and Elder Hosea.’

  ‘Is it because we ran away?’ I asked.

  Abraham swooped in, seized me and lifted me from my chair. ‘Sure is, little sister. You two chucked a hive of bees in amongst the Elders and they’re all busy getting stung.’

  Daniel called from across the room, ‘You’re okay about leaving the Faith, brother?’

  Abraham put me back on my chair. ‘The Faith! Huh, I left it years ago. I’m a bit sorry about the parents and the work, but I’ll see Luke again if he sticks to his plan.’

  If Luke left, our parents would have lost seven of their eight children.

  ‘I hope Rachel will leave,’ Rebecca said. ‘Do you think she will, Magdalene?’

  I wished I could tell her something that would give her hope. ‘I don’t know. She’s a good and godly woman. She’ll follow where Saul leads her.’

  Rebecca shut her eyes tight for a moment. ‘But she’s got a good brain. Surely she must see …’

  I touched her hand. ‘Saul’s a good man. They talk — really talk, I mean.’

  I saw Talitha look at Abraham, her eyebrows raised in a question. He pulled his mouth down but nodded. ‘Yeah. Tell her now.’

  ‘What?’ Rebecca stared at them. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Calm down, sis,’ Abraham said. ‘Nothing’s happened. Yet.’

  ‘They have talked to my parents,’ Talitha said. ‘Saul is very clear — he says they’ll leave unless the people have the will to get rid of all the Elders.’

  Abraham held up his hand. ‘Don’t get excited yet, Rebecca. Brother Ebenezer says even if the Elders change the new lot might stick to the stupid Rule.’

  Miriam thumped a wall with her fist. ‘Why don’t they walk out? Just leave. It’s dumb. Can’t they see how false the whole set-up is?’

  ‘Chill, sister,’ Abraham said. ‘There’s good stuff too — or there could be.’

  ‘Yes,’ Talitha said. ‘That’s why my folks haven’t left yet. They know how good it used to be. People loved and supported each other. They could leave if they wanted to. Mother’s two brothers left but they weren’t dead to her.’

  Miriam gave a mocking laugh. ‘If it was so damned good, why didn’t they stay?’

  ‘Education,’ Talitha said. ‘One of them is now a scientist in America. The other one is a university professor in Christchurch.’

  ‘Hope might want to go to a proper school,’ Zillah said. ‘She’s clever.’

  ‘More heartbreak for my sister if she turns out to be another Zillah,’ Rebecca said. ‘Why can’t she see it? Why don’t they just pack up and leave?’

  Obedience, the threat of eternal damnation, love for our parents, love for the Lord. Rebecca must know all the reasons in her heart. It was easy for worldly people to see how wrong the Faith was — especially when they couldn’t see any goodness in it.

  Zillah said, ‘Abraham, do you go to worship now?’

  He said, ‘Yeah, I go. The pastor’s a good guy. Gives nice short sermons.’ He slung an arm around his wife to give her a hug.

  Talitha smiled up at him. ‘My husband is a kind man. He comes to worship because he knows it is important to me.’

  It warmed my heart to see their love for each other.

  During lunch, we talked of Father’s visit. Miriam was bitter. ‘Serves him right if he’s miserable. Damn well deserves to be. I can’t believe he had the nerve to ask you to forgive him.’

  ‘You didn’t see him,’ I told my sister. ‘He was in agony.’

  She tossed her head. ‘What goes around comes around.’

  Zillah said, ‘Mother should be in agony too. She’s as horrible as Elder Stephen.’

  The others gaped at her. ‘Zillah! How can you say that!’

  ‘She’s kind. She loved us.’

  ‘We always knew she loved us.’

  They turned to Abraham.

  He shrugged. ‘These two slaved away doing everything while she lay in bed or yelled at them.’

  I took Zillah’s hand. ‘I’m glad Mother didn’t come. I’m glad she didn’t try to apologise, because I wouldn’t believe her. I try not to think about her. Miriam, it’s like how you feel about Father. That’s how we feel about Mother.’

  They were shocked. Rebecca, her face pale, said, ‘She changed? She must have changed. She was loving. She loved us. I know she did.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t love us,’ Zillah said.

  The weekend was full of surprises for me. I watched Daniel and Xanthe, Abraham and Talitha — I saw how they teased each other, how they laughed together, held hands, kissed when they thought nobody was looking. It hadn’t been like this for Rachel and Saul, even though they too loved each other dearly. Which way was right? I couldn’t decide. Rachel was happy with the man who had chosen her. Abraham and Talitha were happy, but I didn’t know if it was because the Lord had guided Abraham to choose her, or if i
t was just luck.

  On Sunday night, after everyone had gone home, Zillah said, ‘Xanthe’s nice. She told me lots of really useful facts. I think it’s good when girls know how to change a fuse, don’t you, Magdalene? And it’s good girls can be doctors too and still get married if they want to. I might get married one day, but I don’t think I’ll be a doctor.’

  ‘What do you want to be?’ I’d not even thought about my own future. It loomed in front of me, dark, dangerous and unknown.

  My sister propped her head on her hand. ‘I’d like to invent things. Xanthe told me people invent things all the time. I’d like to do that.’

  Long after Zillah had fallen asleep I lay in my bed, trying to think about my future, but my mind kept skittering sideways to Father. What would his future be if he could no longer believe? What of Mother? Could she see the truth about Elder Stephen? Even if she could see it, she wouldn’t let herself believe it. I pushed her out of my mind. I didn’t want to think about her. I didn’t want to be bitter like Miriam was, so it was best not to think of her.

  The next morning I meant to tell Octavia about seeing my brothers during the weekend, but what I said was, ‘Zillah knows what she wants to be when she grows up.’ I stopped. Why had I said that? Zillah’s future had nothing to do with Octavia.

  Octavia pulled up a stool to sit across the table from me. ‘How old is she? Eight? Lucky girl to know so young. And what about you, my dear? What are your thoughts about what to be when you grow up?’

  I gripped my hands to stop them from drawing circles. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It scares you?’

  How odd. I could sense her kindness wrapping around me. I swallowed my terror. ‘Girls don’t have to think about it in the Faith. We marry the man who asks for us. We become godly wives and mothers if that is the Lord’s will.’

  She tipped her head to one side. ‘Do you still want to be a godly wife and mother?’

  The thought of it brought pain back to my stomach but, even so, it was an effort to give her my honest answer. ‘No. I don’t.’ I could only whisper the rest of it. ‘I’d have to become like Mother — like she used to be — just like Rachel has.’

  She took my hands, holding them — anchoring me in the present, in this room, in worldliness. After a bit, she said, ‘It’s okay to be frightened, dear girl. Your old life has been ripped away from you. That takes a lot of getting used to. You don’t have to worry about the future for ages yet. Let’s just keep digging to find out who you are, now that you’re not Magdalene of the Faith.’

  She made me a drink and when I’d finished it she said, ‘I’m guessing you’ve never used paints?’

  ‘No.’ I didn’t want to now either. Miriam got banished for using paints.

  She dropped her hand on my shoulder. ‘Here and now, Magdalene. All is well. Breathe, dear girl.’ When she saw I was calm again, she said, ‘Just play with the colours today. Choose ones you like. Use the biggest brushes and slap the paint on. Don’t try to make a picture. Don’t try to be careful. Let the brushes go where they want to.’

  Brushes didn’t have minds of their own. A Faith girl shouldn’t like Octavia or her odd way of saying things — but I did, even though a part of me still believed I shouldn’t.

  My brush hovered over the pot of yellow paint. It was bold, it drew attention to itself. It was happy.

  I couldn’t do it. I dipped the brush into the brown pot instead. I sat staring at the blob on the bristles but couldn’t bring myself to use such a drab, dull colour.

  I went to the sink and held the brush under the running water until it was clean. If only it was as easy to wash away guilt and worry. I walked slowly back to the painting table, thinking hard. There must be a middle way. A tiny dot of yellow should be all right, it wouldn’t draw attention to itself.

  I touched the brush to the paper. It was so pretty and so wrong. No wonder the Rule said Miriam mustn’t paint.

  Octavia didn’t comment. I wished she would. I wished she’d tell me what was right and what was evil.

  The brush went into the yellow again. In my head I heard Mother’s voice saying waste was a sin. I wouldn’t wash it down the sink.

  I covered the whole page yellow.

  So pretty. So wrong. I snatched another brush, but it too had a mind of its own. It wanted blue. I was already damned. What did one more pretty colour matter? I slapped it over the yellow. ‘Oh!’ I leapt back as if the page was an Elder looming to scold me. ‘What’s happened?’

  Octavia led me back and made me sit down. ‘You’ve discovered that blue and yellow make green. Have a play. See what colours you can make.’

  For a long time, I stood with a brush in my hand, staring at the page I’d painted. It was wrong. The Rule was clear. But the colours called to me, and I disobeyed the Elders and their Rule. Octavia worked beside me and didn’t talk. It was peaceful.

  At the end of the day, I’d filled many sheets of paper with vibrant colour. I washed the brushes and set them back in their jar.

  ‘I’m not a Faith girl any more,’ I said. ‘I have to decide for myself what I am.’

  Thirty-three

  THAT EVENING, ABRAHAM CALLED to tell us that Luke had sent him a brief email from the hire-centre computer. ‘Mother’s no better. Stays in bed all the time except for the Circle of Fellowship and worship. Believes every single word old Stephen utters. Goes on about the Rule, etcetera, etcetera, every time she sees Luke.’

  ‘He might run away too,’ Zillah said. ‘Do you think he will, Abraham?’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I reckon he’s waiting to see what’s going to happen. I don’t think he’ll hang around too much longer, though. He’s busting to get some real education.’

  ‘What about Rachel and Saul?’ I asked. ‘Does he say anything about them?’

  ‘Only that they still go to worship along with everybody else.’ Abraham sounded disgusted. ‘For the life of me, I can’t work out why they’re all still there.’

  So nothing had changed. I wondered what Father thought about at worship now that he no longer believed in Elder Stephen. I wondered if he talked to Luke about what was real and what was made up. Perhaps Luke was staying only because Father needed him to talk to.

  Forgiveness. I pushed the word away. I wasn’t ready to forgive him, although I hoped I would be one day. I was beginning to understand that I had to find the real me before I could worry about him. I knew I was getting better — it was easier to breathe now, easier to believe happiness was good, easier to believe in the kind Lord. One day soon, I’d go to church with my family.

  Zillah still watched me to make sure I really was getting better like I said I was. But as the time passed I stopped worrying about her worrying about me. She loved me, so of course she worried. I made sure I told her of each bit of progress, however small.

  Now that I knew for certain I wasn’t a Faith girl and didn’t want to be, I was making a list of things the real Magdalene liked.

  Bright colours. Pretty things. Funny things. Poems that made me laugh. Brothers and sisters. Aunts and uncles. Books. Running in the wind with Zillah. Wearing jeans and shorts. Pretty clothes. Learning.

  A couple of weeks into April, I said to Octavia, ‘I’ve been wondering — are there other people like Elder Stephen?’

  Her face became grim. ‘Hell, yes. History is riddled with them. Generally always men.’

  And so I came to learn about Hitler, war, dictators and priests in the dark ages who kept the peasants ignorant so that they were easier to control. Over the next couple of weeks, she gave me printouts to read from blogs on the internet. ‘These are stories from people who’ve escaped from fundamentalist sects — that’s what the Children of the Faith are too, by the way. These are modern stories, some of them written this year.’

  I read of beatings, isolation, blame, cruelty. Many of the posts were terrible, but they helped me. I wasn’t alone. There were others who’d left. They’d struggled, all of them, but
they’d survived.

  ‘I’m one of the lucky ones,’ I told Octavia. ‘We weren’t beaten, and I’ve still got family.’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ she said.

  Another day, after more reading and more talking, I said, ‘Can I work harder at this getting better stuff, Octavia? I’d really like to.’

  She gave a shout of laughter. ‘Let’s go to it, chicken.’ She dug out a splodge of clay. ‘Make that into Elder Stephen. Tell him what you think of him, and, when you’ve said everything you want to say, squash him flat and lock him up in the dark.’

  It was hard. I kept hearing his voice whispering of damnation, hell, fire and brimstone. I was an evil child filled with sin and iniquity. I couldn’t say the words hammering in my head. I was so angry I flattened him with both hands, threw him into the clay tin and thumped the lid on.

  The next day, his voice in my head was fainter. My words came more easily. By the end of the week, I didn’t let him get one word past his skinny lips before I was shouting at him, saying all the things I’d felt for all of my life. I yelled at him too for the pain he’d brought to Father, for the damage he’d done to Mother. When I was done, I tore him into tiny pieces. ‘Don’t come back into my head ever again. You’re an evil old man. Stay away.’

  Octavia put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Great work, Magdalene.’

  Together, we locked him back in the tin.

  That Sunday, I went to church with my family. The God that the pastor preached about was the nice Lord. For the first time ever, I enjoyed worship. I knew the real Magdalene was emerging day by day.

  In bed that night, I let my thoughts drift. As often happened, Father’s voice came into my head, asking for forgiveness. Soon, I told him. Soon I’ll be able to give you an answer.

  Mother lurked in the shadows. I pushed her away.

  These days, when Daniel or Abraham rang, I felt the truth of it when I told them, ‘I’m getting better. I really am.’