I Am Not Esther

by Fleur Beale

  I looked in on Maggie before I went back to the family room. She was sleeping and there were no tear tracks down her cheeks.

  ‘Is she crying?’ Aunt Naomi asked.

  I shook my head and she relaxed. ‘Good. You are good with her.’ It was the nearest to approval that I’d got since I’d arrived in this house a whole huge long week ago. To reward me, she gave me a basket of mending. I’m sure knowing how to sew buttons on is an essential life skill I will one day be very glad I have. Not.

  I went to bed, planning to stay awake and creep out when everyone was asleep, but I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until Aunt Naomi called me at seven.

  It was Sunday and we went to church at ten o’clock. I kept my head down. I didn’t want to be part of this crowd of people in their stupid clothes and their stupider ideas. But I couldn’t shut my ears. They had a leader called Ezra Faithful and he did a great line in hellfire and damnation. He didn’t seem to like women much and I wanted to hit him.

  After church they all stayed in the hall while girls spread food out in another room. I went outside and sat on the steps.

  Daniel followed me. ‘My father says you must come inside and eat the fellowship meal.’

  I shook my head. ‘Tell him to get stuffed. I want my mother.’

  ‘He will pray for you when we get home if you do not come,’ Daniel said. He held out his hand. ‘Come, Kirby. Sometimes it is easier to do what they say.’

  I was stunned. He had called me Kirby and he’d said … I’d think about that later. I got up and went with him.

  That evening, while I was clearing the table after dinner, I said, ‘Aunt Naomi, has my mother written to you?’ Every day I hoped for a letter but they didn’t even have a letter box.

  ‘You must ask your uncle, Esther.’

  She had written, and they hadn’t told me? ‘May I go now?’ I was learning the rules of this place.

  She nodded. ‘He is in his study.’

  I knocked on the door, waited until he said to come in. ‘Yes, Esther?’

  ‘Has my mother written?’

  ‘It is too soon to hear from her, Esther.’

  ‘May I write to her, then? Can I have her address? Please! I miss her so much!’ I need to tell her how I’m going mad and that she has to come home.

  ‘She is doing the Lord’s work, Esther. You should rejoice.’ He bent to his Bible again. ‘You may write. I will address it for you, there is no need for you to have her address. I will post it for you.’

  Yeah, after you’ve read it first, you ugly, stinking old rat of a pig’s bum! I went back to the family room too angry and upset to watch where I was going and slammed straight into the open door. The socks I darned had to be done again, I pulled the stitches so tight. I got told off for being wasteful of time, effort and wool. The twins sat and sewed neat stitches into pictures for their bedroom wall. Not pictures, verses from the Bible. I stared at Rebecca’s.

  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

  E and she was halfway through what could possibly turn out to be a V.

  I hoped they’d jab themselves and fall asleep for a hundred years. Tonight I would stay awake, tonight I would search through Mum’s stuff. There had to be a clue there somewhere.

  The torch was a lump under my pillow when I went to bed. The house fell quiet around me. I waited for ages and then I got up very carefully, slipped onto the floor and went to the window.

  It was an old house, and the windows slid up. There was a clanging noise in the wall from the weights or something. I sat on the sill, one leg dangling and held my breath, listening. Nothing moved and there was no sound except for my thudding heart.

  There was a flower garden under the window. I pushed myself out from the sill and jumped so I landed clear of it. The grass was cool and crisp under my feet. I tip-toed to the garage, fumbling for the key under a loose brick in the path.

  I turned it in the lock. Turned the door handle. No sound except my raspy breathing. Uncle Caleb would kill me. His God would strike me dead.

  I found the cupboard and the bags were there, stacked neatly on a wide shelf. I took down the first one. It was one of those ones with handles and zips. I undid it carefully and lifted the stuff out. Mum’s winter clothes. Her thick jerseys, skirts, a scarf. I lifted up the sweatshirt she’d always worn round home and held it against my face. It brought her back so sharply that it hurt. I hugged it. Mum, come back. How could you leave me?

  ‘You wicked, disobedient girl!’

  I jumped a thousand metres. Uncle Caleb on the warpath. I stayed where I was, crouched on the floor holding my mother’s sweatshirt in my arms. I said nothing. There was no point and I fiercely didn’t want him to know I was crying.

  ‘How did you know where to look?’ he thundered.

  I sniffed, wiped my face on the sweatshirt, and looked all the way up to his grey face. Daniel told me. Daniel didn’t deserve to be dropped in it. ‘It seemed the obvious place,’ I muttered.

  He loomed above me. ‘I told you these things do not concern you.’

  Fury raged in me, chasing away the tears and I was bloody glad of it. I jumped up and glared at him. ‘Uncle Caleb! I have to try to find out why she left! I need to know why she went away and left me.’ I held the sweatshirt in my hands, in front of me like a shield.

  ‘You are a very self-centred child, Esther.’ No expression in his voice or face. ‘Your mother experienced salvation. She has gone to do the Lord’s work. You should rejoice. Put those things away, then go to your bed.’ He turned and walked out.

  That was it? No dragging everyone out of bed and praying over me? I’d got off? Somehow I doubted it.

  Suddenly I felt very tired. I struggled to lift the bag back onto the shelf. But I kept the sweatshirt.

  In the morning, Aunt Naomi woke me up at six o’clock. ‘Get dressed,’ she whispered. ‘You are to study the Bible today.’

  ‘What?’ I hoped I was still asleep and dreaming.

  ‘You are to study the Bible. In the discipline room.’ She frowned. ‘Our own children have not had to use the room since …’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Hurry.’

  What had she been going to say?

  I slid down from the bunk and climbed into my neatly folded clothes. I took my own knickers from under my pillow. I rinsed them out every night and put them there. When they wore out, I wouldn’t wear any.

  Maggie was fast asleep. When she woke up, I’d be gone.

  Knowing this household, nobody would tell her I wasn’t dead.

  I sat down beside her and shook her awake. ‘Maggie, listen. I got into trouble last night and I have to spend the day in the discipline room.’ Her eyes got huge in her pinched little face. I shook her gently. ‘It’s okay! I’m not going to die. I’ll still be here in the house, but I think I have to stay there all day.’

  She just stared at me, then at last she said, ‘Miriam went to the discipline room and then she died.’

  Shock ran through me. Had she killed herself? I hugged Maggie. ‘I promise I won’t die!’ I grab bed a pencil and paper from the desk. ‘Look, I’ll draw you a picture.’

  ‘No!’

  I’ve never heard anything more eerie. The hair prickled on my scalp and the twins stirred in their sleep. Maggie’s face had gone dead white and she was shaking. I grabbed her and held her tight. ‘Look, it’s okay, kid! All right! I won’t draw anything. I promise.’ She couldn’t read. What could I do? Write her a note anyway? ‘Watch, Maggie! This is a letter. Will you remember what it says?’

  I felt her head nod against my shoulder. ‘Great! Now watch.’ She turned her head slightly. I read it to her as I wrote: I am in the D room. I am being sOOOO gOOOOd.

  I drew smiley faces in all the Os.

  ‘Now if you get worried when you wake up, you look at that and remember I’m being an angel.’ I hugged her again. ‘See you, button nose.’

  It made her giggle. They didn’t use nicknames in thi
s family. Rebecca turned over in the top bunk and muttered in her sleep. Would she like it if I called her Bex, or Becky?

  I made my bed and went out, blowing Maggie a kiss on the way. Another puzzle. Why had she freaked out about drawing a picture, for God’s sake?

  Aunt Naomi put three pieces of plain bread on the table beside a glass of water. ‘This is your breakfast. I will bring you more at lunch time and dinner time.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I bet Mum’s refugees would be thrilled to have all this. I’ll think of them and give thanks while I eat it.’

  That ought to slide the ground out from under her feet — and the wicked uncle’s — when she told him.

  She ignored me and just said, ‘I will take you to the bathroom three times during the day. Your uncle has put the study you are to do on the table in the discipline room.’

  They were going to lock me in?

  I ate my ‘breakfast’ and then toddled off to the discipline room behind Aunt Naomi’s swishing skirts. She opened the door next to my uncle’s study. The room wasn’t much bigger than a cupboard with a little table in it. I sat down on the chair. There was no window and the light fell on the table in a pool, leaving the corners in shadow. I’d go mad if they locked me in. But when I looked after she’d left, there didn’t seem to be a lock on the door. I got up and turned the handle, pushing it open to make sure. So, I was here on trust.

  I sat and thought about my alternatives. If I ran away, Maggie would be devastated. Where would I go? Auckland was a long way from Wanganui. And Uncle Caleb was the only one who knew Mum’s address. The same old problems. Wait till school starts, Kirby. Be patient. Spend the time working out why Mum left like she did. There has to be a reason.

  I looked at the stuff on the table. It turned out that my Bible study was to learn a psalm and apparently I had to find it first because there were no page numbers given.

  Well, this was a new experience, ratting around in a Bible. But I’m smart and I found it, all seventeen verses of it. And it wasn’t your modern rubbish either. This version was full of thee and thou and thy. ‘For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.’ I hadn’t seen much mercy so far, only a lot of hell.

  The next verse was even better and I felt it was talking directly about Uncle Caleb. ‘O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul.’

  I planned my day. I would learn the psalm before lunch. I’ve never found it difficult to learn things. Mum and I used to do it for fun. She said poetry was part of my heritage. I knew heaps of it. In the afternoon, I would work out my next move in my search for Mum.

  I wrote the psalm out on a bit of the paper and then I started learning. When I learn things, I stride around the room. I shout out like a town crier. I’m noisy.

  I forgot Uncle Caleb had his office right next door.

  The door of the discipline room flew open just as I was standing on the chair and yelling, ‘Preserve my soul, for I am holy.’

  ‘Silence!’ he thundered. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

  ‘I’m doing my Bible study,’ I said. ‘I always learn things like this.’

  His face went from grey to dark. I’ll beat you at this game. ‘Uncle Caleb, isn’t this just wonderful! The words! So beautiful! I’d never realised before, but then, I’ve never even opened a Bible before. Thank you!’ I beamed at him, waving the paper around.

  He actually smiled at me. ‘Our dearest prayers are being answered, Esther. God does indeed work in mysterious ways. Continue your study, child, but if you could moderate the volume until I leave for work I would appreciate it.’

  He went out and I was so gobsmacked, I plopped down in the chair. He really meant all this stuff. It mattered to him that I was turning out to be a Godly woman. I felt a bit guilty and that made me mad. He had no right to impose his wacky beliefs on me. No flaming right at all.

  I sat at the table and wrote, ‘My name is Kirby. I am not Esther.’ I was me. Not some robot they programmed.

  I had the prayer or psalm or whatever it was learned by lunch time, but I decided I wouldn’t tell anyone I could learn it that quickly, or next time I might get three times as much.

  Daniel brought me ‘lunch’. ‘Gee, thanks,’ I said. ‘Sure you can spare it?’

  He put down the tray and pulled one of Aunt Naomi’s big biscuits wrapped in wax paper from his pocket. ‘The diet gets a bit monotonous in here.’

  ‘Thanks!’ I looked at him as I munched. ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I know twenty psalms off by heart.’

  ‘I’m impressed! How can one boy be that wicked?’

  But he didn’t tell me. Instead he said, ‘You did not tell my father that I told you where to find your mother’s things.’

  ‘How do you know I didn’t?’

  He smiled slightly. ‘My father would have mentioned it to me.’

  Of course he would. And there would have been a family prayer session over it. ‘Why did you tell me where they were?’

  He looked somewhere over my head. ‘Sometimes, I believe my father is not always right.’

  I stared at him. He was quite gutsy in his own weird way. ‘How’s Maggie?’ I asked.

  ‘Magdalene is a little quiet, but she started smiling when she heard you — er — speaking the psalm so loudly.’

  I grinned. I would let rip again a few times this afternoon, just to let her know I was still alive.

  He went away and Aunt Naomi came and let me go to the toilet, then I was on my own for the afternoon.

  It was the longest afternoon of my life. I tried to think constructively about Mum but I couldn’t and if I could’ve painted my thoughts, they’d have been dark red and black and they’d be slashed onto the paper with thick, ugly strokes.

  I hate her, I really hate her.

  I’m so frightened.

  Three

  I ATE MY THREE PIECES of bread for dinner. The smell of roast lamb drifted down the passage. My stomach rumbled. I was allowed out for family prayers after dinner. I was hungry and steaming mad which I decided was heaps better than being frightened and miserable. They always had a Bible reading in the evening, nine million prayers and a couple of hymns.

  ‘You did not die,’ Maggie whispered.

  Bloody hell.

  I’d never joined in before, but I thought, why not? I held Maggie’s hand and raised my voice in song. I sang loudly and cheerfully and just a bit out of time and a bit out of tune. But I looked happy and holy. My uncle and aunt smiled encouragingly, the kids giggled and Daniel actually raised an eyebrow at me and smiled.

  I got to recite my psalm, which I did with great expression and one hundred per cent correctness. Even so, I got sent back to the discipline room for the evening. I whispered to Maggie, ‘I’ll put another message under your pillow when I come to bed.’ She didn’t smile, but seemed to relax.

  Back in the discipline room I wrote Maggie her message: I am gOOd.

  This time, I drew little faces in the Os, with big round mouths so that they looked as if they were singing.

  Then I wrote to Louisa and Gemma. I wrote about what it was like here and how miserable and worried I was about Mum.

  I feel betrayed. You wouldn’t dump a scraggy old cat the way she dumped me. I HATE her. She must’ve been crazy to leave me here. This is the most idiot religion. Half the time I don’t believe it’s for real, it’s so unbelievable. I have to watch what I say all the time because if I say something they don’t like the whole family gets hauled in and they pray about me. It’s bloody lucky they can’t read my thoughts. They’re trying to change me, but they won’t. I won’t let them. I won’t be Esther. I’m going to keep on being me. Kirby.

  How could I send it? I had no stamp or envelope and my uncle would read it and tear it up and pray over me. I started again:

  Dear Louisa and Gemma,

  I have surprising news for you. Mum has gone to Africa to wo
rk with refugees and I am staying with her brother and his family. I was surprised to find she had a brother but she hasn’t seen him since she was sixteen. They live very holy lives and are teaching me lots of prayers and songs. I like the language of the Bible they use. My aunt made me new clothes because the women in their faith always wear skirts.

  My uncle has Mum’s address if you want to write to her. Write to me, I miss you heaps.

  Love and hugs,

  Kirby

  Aunt Naomi smiled when she read it the next day.

  ‘Your uncle will post it today, Esther,’ she promised.

  Maggie didn’t say anything about her message until we were making our beds after breakfast (a thing I’d never done in my life B. P. — Before Pilgrims).

  ‘It made me laugh,’ she said. She smoothed her hand across the paper. ‘Miriam drew pictures.’

  ‘What did she draw?’ I asked carefully.

  ‘She drew me,’ Maggie whispered. ‘My father was very angry. She had to go to the discipline room …’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘Is that when she died?’ I kept on making the bed. I didn’t want to do anything to stop her talking.

  ‘Yes. She drew my picture and then she went to the discipline room and then we went to the study for two days and then she died.’

  I couldn’t stand it. I threw my arms round her and held her tight as she sobbed and sobbed. ‘It isn’t your fault she died,’ I cried. ‘She would have been very glad she was able to draw you before she died. She loved you.’ And why somebody didn’t talk to this poor little kid about her dead sister was more than I could figure. It was criminal and totally not Christian. But I couldn’t help wondering how she’d died, and the thought that I couldn’t get out of my head was that she must have committed suicide.

  I took the little ones to the park in the afternoon, my scarf coming off the second we turned the corner away from the house. I changed the route we took so we could walk past a dairy. The only way I could think of to find out what was happening in the world was to read the newspaper billboards. Today’s had an earthquake, but it wasn’t in Africa.