I Am Not Esther

by Fleur Beale

  I made the boys take off their shirts and godawful trousers when they played in the water. Luke gasped but Abraham ripped his clothes off and jumped in so Luke followed. Maggie just wanted to sit beside me with her bare feet in the water. I put my arm round her and she leaned against me while I sat and thought. I had to get Mum’s address. If I could do that, then somehow I’d find a way of writing to her.

  The next day, as soon as Uncle Caleb had gone to work, I went to the toilet, but on the way I dived into his study. There was a filing cabinet in the corner behind the desk. I opened the top drawer. Letters. My heart thumped. Airmail letters. I pulled one out and nearly cried aloud with disappointment. It was some religious thing from Nelson all about how the men should demand obedience from the women. I shoved it back, eased the drawer shut again and crept out of the room.

  I sat on the toilet and thought. Mum’s address had to be in there somewhere. All I had to do was find it.

  The next evening, after family prayers and my fantastic singing, Uncle Caleb informed me he’d had a letter from Mum. She was well and she sent her love, and no, it was not necessary for me to read it.

  I stormed out of the house without asking. Daniel and Maggie found me in the park an hour later. Maggie threw her arms around me.

  ‘She was sure you were dead,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Well, if somebody would talk to her about Miriam, then she wouldn’t be worried all the time,’ I snapped.

  He looked upset, but instead of answering, he handed me a letter. An airmail letter! In Mum’s handwriting! I stared at him, my mouth open. ‘I collected the mail today.’ He often went to work with Uncle Caleb. ‘I did not give this to my father.’

  ‘Oh, Daniel! Thank you so much!’ I let Maggie go and gave him a bear hug.

  He looked a bit startled. ‘If my father saw you do that, then you would have to marry me!’ Was he joking?

  I tore the letter open, reading it greedily. Then I sat quite still, the page moving gently on my lap. It was a nothing letter. It could have been written by a fence post. She’d had a good flight. The people she was working with were very dedicated and very kind. Conditions were appalling. She was well and she hoped I was, too. Love from Mum. There wasn’t even an address.

  ‘Read it.’ I held it out to Daniel. ‘It doesn’t tell me anything. I still don’t know why she left. Or where she is.’

  He took it and remarked, ‘My father says she repented and has seen the light.’

  I hugged Maggie hard. ‘Daniel, that’s crap! Something happened. She was ordinary one day and the next day she was off to Africa. It was like she was running away.’

  He didn’t say anything and if he was going to keep going with the repenting bit then he could keep on saying nothing. But after a while he asked, ‘There was no clue at all? Nothing that was different?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. She’d been busier than usual, but that had been going on for several months …’ I stopped, staring at him.

  ‘There was something?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘The men,’ I whispered. ‘Louisa — she’s our neighbour — said creepy men kept coming to visit Mum when I wasn’t there.’

  Daniel gave me a twisted smile. ‘Would she think Elders of The Children of the Faith were creepy?’ He looked at the ground for a moment. ‘It could have been them. I know they travel a lot, but the children are never told why.’

  I put my hands over my face. Maggie threw her arms round me. ‘Do not cry, Esther. Please do not cry.’

  Daniel turned the letter over. ‘There is no stamp,’ he said. ‘It has been franked but I cannot read that or the postmark.’ He frowned over it. ‘It might be a Z on the postmark, but the rest is too smudged to read.’

  ‘What countries start with Z?’ I knew so little about Africa.

  ‘Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe.’ Daniel stood up, handing the letter back to me. ‘Wait. She has written something here and then crossed it out.’

  Together, we stared at the crossed-out writing. ‘I can make out sorry,’ I said at last.

  ‘And I think the rest is I can’t think why I and that is it.’ Daniel looked at me. ‘She is sorry about something.’

  I felt light and almost happy. ‘She’s sorry she ran off and left me with …’ I stopped. I couldn’t very well say ‘the mad relations’ in front of him.

  ‘I have been wondering why she did,’ Daniel said, taking Maggie’s hand and starting to walk. ‘It has never happened before that a dissident has repented and commended a child not brought up in the Rule to the care of the Fellowship.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘I would have to be the first.’ And probably the last since I was determined not to be a success story from their point of view.

  He smiled. ‘Come on. We had better get back. It will be the discipline room for you again tomorrow, I am afraid.’

  I groaned. ‘I’ll leave you another message under your pillow,’ I promised Maggie.

  We walked home, swinging her between us. Just before we got to the house, we stopped and walked like good little Pilgrims and I put on the scarf they’d brought with them.

  Daniel was right about the discipline room. I wrote Maggie her message and the Os had their eyes shut and their mouths open in big yawns.

  I had to learn psalm 27. I learned it in the morning, shouting out, ‘When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.’

  One of the twins walked past and I heard her giggle.

  Aunt Naomi brought me my three pieces of bread at lunch time. ‘The children and I are going to the Circle of Fellowship this afternoon.’ She put the tray down. ‘You would have enjoyed it, Esther. You would have been able to meet the two girls who will be going to school with you.’

  School! Wow and yippee! Escape.

  I heard them all leave the house. They went with Uncle Caleb and Daniel after lunch. I listened until I couldn’t hear the car any longer. They had to be brain-dead if they thought I’d stay in the discipline room all afternoon.

  The house was quiet when I tip-toed into Uncle Caleb’s study. I could hear cicadas screeching outside.

  I stood for a long time, looking at the desk, the filing cabinet and shelves. Somewhere in here there might be Mum’s address. There might be the letter she had written to Uncle Caleb. I shook my head crossly. Did I want to find out, or not? I’d never get a chance like this again. I started searching. I opened the top right-hand drawer of the desk. A religious book and religious papers. The second drawer. Letters. I grabbed them, skimmed the top one. The Fellowship wishes to commend your efforts in the great experiment. We have prayed and it has come to us that this is a Godly test case, and that if it is successful then we will bend our efforts to return others to the Fellowship of The Children of the Faith. We pray for you in your travail and ask you to endure the Godlessness of the child in the meantime. Know that the Fellowship remembers you and yours each day in prayer.

  Now what the hell did that mean? I looked at the date on the postmark. The day before yesterday. Were they talking about me? Was I the child? And if so, then what was the experiment? Return others to the Fellowship? I stared at the words, concentrating so hard that I didn’t hear the sound of the car. But I did hear the footsteps. I raised my head, my breathing suspended. No! Let me be imagining it!

  Then the door opened behind me.

  Oh God, I was dead! Better for me if I was — standing there with the letter in my hand.

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift my head. I stood frozen, waiting for the words to blast me from the universe.

  ‘Hello, Kirby.’

  Daniel? It was Daniel, not my uncle? And he’d called me by my own name. I collapsed into the chair. ‘Is Uncle Caleb here?’ I whispered.

  ‘Are you still alive?’ he said, smiling and lifting his eyebrows.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think I died of fright.’ And what was he doing here?

  ‘My father wanted some papers. I off
ered to get them for him. I thought it might be a good idea if I came instead of him.’ He picked up a folder from the desk.

  ‘Thanks, Daniel. Thanks a heap.’

  ‘You are welcome,’ he said. ‘But he will probably come to check on you himself.’

  ‘Thanks. Daniel, look at this.’ I was still shaking as I held the letter out to him.

  He didn’t take it. ‘It is my father’s letter,’ he said. ‘It is not my place to read it.’

  Bloody hell. ‘It’s about an experiment,’ I gabbled. ‘About returning people to the Fellowship and enduring the Godlessness of the child. Me.’ I took a breath. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. Such matters would be decided by the Elders at their regular meetings. They might inform the adults, but the children would never be told.’

  ‘Do you think …’

  He smiled at me. ‘I think I had better leave, or my father will come to find me. I know nothing about it, Kirby. I am sorry.’

  How could he stand it? How could he be so bloody obedient and be so happy to know nothing? I watched him drive away in a red minivan. This family seemed to have a different car every week. Would God approve, I asked myself.

  I went back into the discipline room.

  Twenty minutes later, Uncle Caleb showed up. He stuck his grey head round the door. ‘You are studying, Esther?’ he asked in his grey, flat voice.

  To hell and back with you. ‘No, Uncle Caleb. I’m missing my mother and I need to know why she left.’

  So what did the old buzzard do? He got down on his knees and prayed. It took a thousand or so years before he left. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Maggie would have been so upset, I reckon I’d have taken off right then.

  Maggie was going to be upset when I did leave. But not even for Maggie could I stay here forever. I choked back a sob. At least I knew a little more now. Mum must be part of this great experiment. They wanted her back and they’d visited her and visited her and she hadn’t told me.

  Oh, Mum, what have they done to you? And to me. A Godless child to be endured.

  Four

  A COUPLE OF WEEKS DRAGGED past. Mum didn’t write, my uncle still wouldn’t give me her address and my life was bounded by prayers, singing, housework and rules. The rules drove me wild. They were all written out and hung on a scroll sort of thing in our bedroom. Aunt Naomi often sent me off to read it. ‘Rule Ten,’ she would snap. ‘Go and read it.’

  Then I’d have to recite it to her when I came back. ‘A daughter respects her elders. She is modest. She does not draw attention to herself.’

  ‘Did that not mean anything to you?’ she would sigh. ‘Braid your hair tidily, Esther. And do not try to look at your reflection in the pot lids.’

  If you had a mirror in the house, I wouldn’t have to.

  But I kept on trying to find something that would show me my reflection. I had nightmares about looking in a mirror and having no face.

  I didn’t get to go to any Circle of Fellowship meetings. Maggie was sick and I offered to stay with her. That earned me a smile from my aunt. The next one I was back in the discipline room because I totally refused to start embroidering a Bible verse like the twins were doing. Aunt Naomi had caught me running down the street with the little ones. ‘Esther, you will begin sewing your text this evening. Here is the verse I have chosen for you.’

  She flipped open her Bible and pointed. ‘Charity doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil.’

  ‘I am not sewing that,’ I said, through clenched teeth.

  I guess it was lucky for me that she decided not to make a fight out of it. Instead, she snapped, ‘Very well. Then you will go to the discipline room tomorrow and commit the chapter to memory.’

  It was the worst day I’d spent in there. There was too much time to worry about Mum. I found it hard to breathe in that little room and I longed for windows so I could search for my reflection.

  They took me to buy my uniform on a Thursday. Aunt Naomi told me we’d all be going into town for the day. ‘Even Uncle Caleb?’ I asked.

  ‘All of us,’ she nodded. ‘Now go and wake the children, Esther.’

  Abraham and Luke were already awake and playing some game. ‘Time to get dressed,’ I said and went to get the girls up.

  ‘Today is our town day!’ Rachel sprang up and reached for her clothes.

  ‘Yeah, well count me out,’ I said, handing Maggie her blouse.

  ‘But you have to come,’ Rebecca said. ‘We all go. All of us, always.’

  ‘Look, Bex-baby — there is no way I’m going to walk into town dressed like this.’ There was no way I’d go anywhere I didn’t have to with her parents either, but I didn’t tell her that.

  They all stopped what they were doing and stared at me. ‘You must call me Rebecca,’ she said at last.

  Rachel said, ‘You will have to come, Esther. If you refuse then Father will make us all pray for you.’

  I grabbed Maggie’s pillow and thumped the wall with it. God, I just love this discipline system. Do something wrong and the whole family gets punished. ‘Too bad,’ I said, swapping the pillow for the hairbrush. ‘You can all suffer for ten minutes on your knees and then you can toddle off to town without me.’ I brushed out Maggie’s hair.

  ‘You do not understand,’ Rebecca said, her voice urgent. ‘If you refuse to go, we will all have to pray about it until you agree to go. And then you will have to spend tomorrow in the discipline room.’

  I said nothing and they all stopped what they were doing and stared at me, Maggie looking like she was having trouble breathing.

  Bloody bloody hell. ‘All right! I’ll come. It’ll kill me, but I’ll come.’

  All nine of us climbed into the big brown van Uncle Caleb had arrived home in the night before.

  ‘How many cars has this family got?’ I asked Daniel in the most accusing sort of voice I could dredge up.

  He smiled — Daniel never laughed — and said, ‘My father owns a car rental business. We do not have a car of our own, we just use one of the business cars.’ All my arguments about living modestly while you owned a dozen cars went flat.

  ‘Aunt Naomi never drives,’ I said.

  ‘She cannot. The women never do. It is a man’s job.’

  This family! This faith! Trust the men to grab the fun jobs.

  All the way into town I stared out the window, biting my lips, determined not to cry, especially not in front of them. We got out of the van. If I live a million years nothing, but nothing, will ever be as embarrassing as walking through town with the whole bloody family and all of us wearing clothes from a hundred years ago.

  If I met anyone I knew, I’d die. No, I wouldn’t. I’d rush up to them and beg them to take me home with them. People looked at us. Some laughed, some smiled. A few looked pitying. I wanted to shrivel up and turn into a blob on the footpath.

  We marched into a shoe shop. They bought black lace-up shoes for all the kids starting at Daniel and going all the way down to Maggie. The only thing that surprised me was they didn’t buy them for the baby that hadn’t been born yet.

  I saw Maggie gazing longingly at a pretty pair of blue sandals that had little red squirrels painted on them. ‘Uncle Caleb,’ I said trying for a low and Godly voice, ‘could Magdalene try on those sandals? They would be most suitable for this weather.’

  In his grey voice he answered, ‘Esther, you are still ignorant of the Rule or you would not suggest such infamy. We wear plain clothes. We do not decorate ourselves, for that is frivolous and unseemly and directs our thoughts away from the Lord.’

  So we all got plain, black, heavy, hot, lace-up shoes. Apparently the school I was going to had black lace-ups as part of the uniform. ‘But there must be a summer uniform,’ I protested.

  ‘Sandals do not cover your feet decently,’ Uncle Caleb said. ‘You will wear shoes.’

  And if I could kick you with them, I would.<
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  Next we went to a big department store and bought the boys more horrible grey trousers and horrible grey shirts and horrible knee socks. Grey, of course. Poor little Maggie stared round her at dresses on racks. They were actually really gross — all frills and nylon lace and shiny buttons — but her soul was in her eyes. She was dying from greyness.

  The twins didn’t need new uniforms because they were in their second year at intermediate. While my uncle and aunt were busy with the boys, Rachel and Rebecca managed to survey the entire floor of the shop. ‘I have chosen the denim shorts and the bright pink halter top,’ Rachel hissed.

  Rebecca waited until Uncle Caleb had gone with the boys into the fitting room, and Aunt Naomi had taken Maggie to get some plain white socks. ‘I will have the short purple skirt and the white T-shirt with the space cadet on the front,’ she whispered back. They giggled.

  ‘We do this every year,’ Rachel murmured to me.

  ‘Then when it gets boring in church, we can imagine what would happen if we actually wore such clothes,’ Rebecca said quickly, watching for the fitting-room door to open.

  ‘Would you like to?’ I asked.

  They looked surprised. Rachel glanced over her shoulder to where Aunt Naomi was starting back towards us. ‘We have never thought about that, have we?’

  Rebecca shook her head.

  Aunt Naomi was carrying a pale blue knit shirt and a tartan kilt skirt. ‘This is your uniform, Esther. Please try it on.’

  The skirt came halfway between ankle and knee.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Aunt Naomi when I waded out of the dressing room to show her, ‘it is a little short.’

  ‘Short?’ I squeaked. ‘You’ve got to be joking!’

  Uncle Caleb said, ‘The women of our faith always dress with modesty.’

  ‘Not at school!’ I gasped. ‘Please!’

  Aunt Naomi tweaked the waistband. ‘This will have to do. The next size would be much too big. Perhaps I can let the hem down.’ She examined it. ‘Not enough fabric available there, I am afraid.’