From then on, only the men went into town. It wasn’t a hardship, not really, since the rules softened whenever they left. Memaw opened the church windows and played piano for hours, everything in her repertoire. Picnic lunches were made from leftovers, and the children ran wild. In summer, the women stripped down to their slips and lay in the sunny yard like cats. One rainy day, Mary brought the forbidden box from hiding—a small black-and-white television with spindly antennae. She plugged it in and they crowded around, cooing and clapping. They watched a cat and mouse cartoon that Memaw remembered from her childhood—The Tom and Jerry Show—agape, completely transported, and then a remake featuring Pépé Le Pew, a skunk in heat hounding a small black cat. Memaw turned it off. “Nothing funny about being chased by a Tom,” she said, and that was that. No more secret talking box.
The pills draw Rebekah, laced in memory, deeper into dreamland. The Farm, the Family, dissipates. She is in a forest, lush and green, filled with barrel-trunked trees so wide her arms reach only partway around. They are as big as a house. Bigger. So tall that the sky is obliterated by the leafy canopy above. Paul stands among them. In this vision, he is older, a grown man, filled out in torso and across his stooped shoulders. Grey at the temples. He looks strong yet weary. Still handsome. Beside him stands a woman, a warrior bride, a rebel with startling black eyes. Branches twist around them and disappear into a thousand shades of green. Roots and branches entwine, equally buried in the rich loamy earth and in the starlit heavens above.
Rebekah wakes with a dull knowing. He will belong to another some day. And she has no right to bring more children into this miserable existence, into their legacy of hate and shame. If it is a boy, sweet and soulful like Paul, he will be made to pay for their sins. And if a girl? Rebekah can only weep at the thought.
In the new world, there will be no time for quilting. No time for making bread and shucking corn, for grinding it into flour and grits. This place will be fast-moving and dangerous, like a river’s lethal current. No room for nostalgia or hesitation. There will be only the things a person can carry on her back and in her heart, in her mind. She will need to run, run, and keep running, in order to survive.
CHAPTER 17
A fierce chill seizes their bedroom, one Ruth cannot shake, not even with another shawl wrapped around her. Susan, called by Father Ernst for the first time in over a year, will at least appreciate the warmth of his chamber, something Hannah boasts about. “It’s spacious, Cousin Ruth, and heated—you can’t imagine!” Still, Ruth pities Susan. Apprehension sparked her otherwise dim eyes and slowed the drag of her foot as she approached his beckoning hand. And Hannah—so used to Father’s comforts—will be bitter, still locked in the wintry cell for Contemplation.
Rachel and Helen and Leah curl in their cots. Ruth settles an extra quilt over each one. These nights, they fall asleep so abruptly that Ruth feels compelled to check for a fluttering pulse. They slumber right through. No more crying and shuffling to a mother bed for comfort. Mornings, Susan must rouse them brutishly. And when they wake, they speak of dreams—vivid, intoxicating dreams that rob them of rest.
Rebekah, mute and pale, still lies prone. Ruth touches her forehead: pallid and cold. “Wake up,” Ruth says.
Nothing.
“Wish you’d talk. I’ve a need.”
Rebekah doesn’t move.
“Well, I shall speak and hope you hear me. Father Ernst is set for me to marry. What can I do?”
If only Paul were here. The bunker is so much worse without him, and without Rebekah’s gentle grace buffering them all. Ruth stifles a sob.
Rebekah’s hand twitches. It clamps hard on Ruth’s wrist. Slowly, Rebekah turns her head toward Ruth. Her eyes are so dilated, pupil swallows iris. She shakes her head back and forth. Nothing but air gasps out of her open mouth.
“Mama.” A hushed voice at the door.
Ruth turns. Abel, barefoot, has a large wet spot on his rumpled pyjama pants. He’s pissed himself again.
“What now. Whyn’t Silas help you?”
The child says nothing, just shivers.
Ruth wrenches her wrist free from Rebekah’s cold grip. She strokes Rebekah’s unsettled face, tries to soften her expression. “I’ll be back,” she says.
She walks Abel to the showers and helps him strip. Ribs point like fingers, front and back, and a hard potbelly pushes below. Ruth pulls clean towel and cloth from the cupboard, and he gives over his soiled clothing. The pyjamas reek of urine. Ruth pictures herself red-knuckled and whip-sore, trying to scrub that smell out in the cold basin. They’ve so little left, they reuse the dish and laundry water—icy grey with floating lard-soap slivers.
“May as well burn them to keep warm.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t tell no one,” she says. “I mean it.” She balls the cotton up tight and, instead of adding it to the laundry bin, sets it aside.
The child smiles once, quickly. “Nobody will know I had an accident?”
“Not if we burn the sheets too,” she says. A plan forms. She has other evidence to dispose of.
Ruth wipes Abel’s bare skin with a cloth. He shivers. She dunks and wrings out the rag, wipes again at his bottom.
“Who helps you bathe?”
“Mother Rebekah but now she’s sick.”
Ruth sucks her teeth. “Next time come get me. I’ll help.”
“You’re a girl.”
“Not really. I’m Ruth.”
She towels him dry and helps him into a clean pair of flannels with feet, a trap door, and snaps all up the front. “Still cold?”
He nods.
She layers another set over top and holds his feet between her blistered hands to warm them. “Now we’ve got to strip the bed. Put on new sheets. Are the boys awake?”
He shrugs. If Ruth is caught in the boys’ room there will be more to “contemplate.” Her palms can’t take the willow again.
“Come. You’re sleeping in our room.”
“No girls!”
“In a clean bed by yourself.”
Abel looks stricken. But what else can she do? It will be fine, as long as Susan stays the night with Father and does not find out. Ruth takes his hand. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
In the women’s chamber, Ruth turns back the bedclothes on an unused cot. Abel crawls in.
“Smells better here,” he says.
“I should hope so. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Mother.”
Ruth’s chest heats. A bubble rises inside, trapped.
Back in the showers, alone, Ruth drops her grimy trousers and peels off woollen socks that hold their shape on the floor. She piles the bloody rag, formerly her underpants, with Abel’s soiled pyjamas. She dips a fresh cloth in the grey-water bucket and begins to wash her lower half. She must wet and wring out the cloth several times before her skin is clean. She adds this stained rag to the burn pile. Ruth’s knees knock from the cold. She pulls on clean cotton underpants, woollen tights, and an extra pair of socks, then folds a clean, dry washcloth inside the crotch of the underpants to soak up her sorrow.
Another rag submerged; she tracks her steps, wiping at every smudge, balling the cloth tight when she’s done. Now that her lower half is clean and clothed, she sets about washing the rest. Her sweater and shirt go in the laundry bin. She sponges her underarms, small breasts, and narrow torso. She scrubs her hands, fingers, and thin arms, and reaches the cloth around her prominent ribs, the back of her neck, behind her ears. Her teeth chatter. Goose bumps dimple her blueing skin. She pulls on an undershirt with long sleeves. Next, she finds a fresh nightshirt in the cupboard. She wraps a flannel blanket around her shoulders like a shawl, and gathers the dirty clothes.
The Great Hall is unlit. A pale glow spills from underneath Father Ernst’s door. He’s running lights, a heater, and who knows what else while the rest of them freeze. Ruth enters the small kitchen and realizes, too late, that the gas is off and so is the ventilation. There will
be no burning anything tonight, not without making some noise or filling the Hall with smoke. Abel’s pyjamas will have to wait. But she cannot risk her blood tide discovery. The Family hardly produces garbage, so she can’t put it there. Every item is scrutinized for repurposing. Even the most useless-seeming things are categorized and put in containers in the main pantry. Old food bins now house rusty nails, bolts, broken springs, ballpoint pen canisters, buttons, broken zippers, pieces of shoelace.
Ruth has another idea. She unlocks and rolls open the tunnel door. Shuts it behind her. Her breath hangs in the air like tiny clouds. She feels her way down the frigid tunnel until the bare pulse of the cairn light shows itself. There’s nothing else in the dark, not one scuttling rat. “Forgive me, God. Forgive me, Memaw,” she says before dismantling the cairn, one palm-sized rock at a time. She buries her blood-stained clothes inside. Then she restacks the stones.
Ruth prays, “Holy Father in Heaven, forgive this unclean body, this silence, these lies. How heavy, my burden. Shine Your light on Paul wheresoever it finds him, and bring him home. Send us a sign for the Ascension, God, I beg you. Amen.”
Retracing her steps, she slides open the tunnel door and closes it carefully, sending the bolt home. She tiptoes past Father Ernst’s door over to where Hannah sits huddled on the cousin board, knees drawn to her chin, arms wrapped around her shins.
“Hannah.”
The girl’s watchful eyes are open. Ruth unwraps the flannel blanket from her own shoulders and hands it between the bars. “I know how cold it gets here.”
Hannah doesn’t move. She says, “Usurper!”
“What for now?” says Ruth.
“I seen your blood in the bucket. You let Father alone.”
“Hannah, take this. Don’t be silly.”
She snatches the blanket from Ruth. Wraps it tightly around herself. “It’s my time. I’m the bride,” she mutters.
“Then don’t tell anyone,” says Ruth.
Hannah’s eyes narrow on Ruth. “Keep your womanhood secret?”
“I wish you would.”
Hannah sits back onto the cousin board, blanketed and smug. “Well. Bring me my woollen leggings and the soft green sweater, and I’ll think about it.”
CHAPTER 18
Father’s chamber is warm and bright. Susan swept and mopped it earlier. She wiped the sooty dust from the walls, taking down each framed photograph to dust carefully and remount in order: Memaw, Deborah, and Mary—sun-soaked on the main porch so many years ago. Then Deborah’s handsome boys, just before they were martyred in Washington. Third, Mary’s eldest sons, pinned with the Family’s insignia. They carried out the Atlanta and Cincinnati attacks. Next, twelve dark-suited men encircling a white-robed Father Ernst—ministers from the sister Families. God knows if they’re still similarly bunkered, eking out survival. Father Ernst lost contact—no more internet or cellphone service—after going to ground.
Last, Susan’s favourite picture. A black-and-white photo of the farm, featuring the main house and barn with the church spire behind, the ridge breaching the orchard, and fields rippling beyond. The light is peculiar. Daybreak mist pulls like wraiths from the gnarled fruit trees and from the rows of tousled cornstalk. Susan hears phantoms—beasts lowing, hens clucking, and children hand-clapping their songs on the church steps. She traces a silver spiral up, up to the edge of the frame with her finger.
“Come,” says Father Ernst from the doorway. He turns the bolt and strides to his chair on the other side of the room.
The bed is luxurious. Susan put the wine-coloured flannels on just the other day. High thread-count cotton pillowslips—worn, but still slick to the touch. Father Ernst’s blankets are woollen blends lined with satin—store-bought, not made by the women like the ones tucked into their own cots. Susan stoops to straighten Father’s slippers and to flip back the corner of the oval rag-tied rug she made from strips of disused clothing. She had used an old toothbrush, removing its head and filing the handle to a rough needlepoint, looping thread through the hole at the other end. Easier on the wrists, and what else were they to do with all those chewed-down toothbrushes? The rug is well made. Not beautiful, not like his mail-order blankets, but it’s serviceable and keeps the chill off his feet.
“Sit,” he says, patting the wide bed.
Susan slowly lowers her haunches. Pain shoots up the left hip and knots like an angry ball in her left foot. She leans to the right and breathes heavily. “Setting’s not the joy you’d imagine,” she says, by way of apology.
“What’s better for you?” he asks gently.
“On my side.”
“Go ahead.”
Susan stretches out, draws her leaden legs onto the mattress and sighs. Her back is to Father Ernst. She’d much prefer to keep her eyes on him, but the threat of rolling over and inciting a paroxysm of pain subdues her. Firestorms run the length of her spine.
She had her initial episode the day they descended. The Family was bunkered safely when the first wave hit: twelve synchronized blasts carried out by the disciples in as many cities. As predicted, immediately following the explosions, thousands of cellphones snapped into simultaneous use—emergency calls mostly, but also the panic-stricken calling of loved ones—and those frequencies unwittingly set off a second round of explosives. Below ground, the Family listened to frenzied updates on the Ham radio and watched the radiation monitor. Susan began to tremble. Had they really done this terrible thing? Father Ernst, the great mastermind, crouched on his divan, radiated with a kind of jubilant madness. Then—somewhat unexpected—aftershock in each of the cities, the thermal pulse invoked noxious fires that burned along desolate, rubble-filled streets near the original bombsites. Gas stoves lit for dinner in the Midwest time zone became tertiary explosives, cutting a swath of destruction through thousands more homes, doubling the death toll. After that, fallout drifted in a steady north-easterly path from each site along clogged freeways, while hysterical families tried to flee. Within an hour, the whole world knew—dirty bombs had targeted ten American and two Canadian cities within minutes of each other. Newsmen called it “an unprecedented and unfathomable act of terrorism”; at first, they blamed the Middle East, much to Father Ernst’s disgust. His press statement, emailed one day before the scheduled blasts, had been dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic.
Susan fell reeling to the bunker floor, and the Family held hands around her while she seizured. They chanted and sang, and Father Ernst spoke in tongues. Susan had hoped, while in the throes of her affliction, that the news coverage, that this strange Family ritual, was merely a figment of her illness. But when she finally came to, lying on the cement floor in a soiled dress with a bleeding, swollen mouth, she learned the truth. News reports of FBI raiding some of the other settlements, dismantling their bunkers, and shooting or imprisoning their members, sent Father Ernst spiralling into despair. They were traitors, enemies of the state, once and for all.
Here, now, in Father Ernst’s chamber, Susan shakes her head to clear these memories. It won’t do to think on the past. Never does.
“Susan, we must talk about the Family. There is a spiritual deficit haunting us just now. Have you noticed?” Father Ernst’s voice is somewhere between intimate and sermonizing. Conspiring, but still instructing.
Her shoulders tense. She stares at the wall in front of her, blank and cold. “What do you mean, Father?”
“The children are listless. The women are ragged. There is no joy here, and I fear we are losing sight of our purpose. Do you agree?”
Does he want her to agree? Then he can’t backtrack. But if she disagrees, she’s contradicting him.
“Father, what do you want me to say?”
“The truth, of course. What you observe. What you think is the problem.”
A coal heats inside her. It burns to white ash. What she thinks is of no interest to anyone.
She says, “I just do the cleaning.”
Father Ernst exhales an irritated sigh.
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Susan considers the effort of sitting up, turning to face him—white hairs escaping nostrils and ears to join the rush of moustache and beard, wild to the belly, the sometimes hint of lip inside all that hair when he talks or laughs or shouts, the barbaric tufts of hair above his eyes, and cheekbones that sharpen his face, as though a drawstring tightens behind his head, pulling the skin taut. Under his watery eyes, the soft pouches of yellowing skin.
No. Susan prefers how he used to look. Tall and slim and clean-shaven. Bookish. Often contemplative. Nothing at all like the men she grew up around.
“I’m waiting, Mother.” His voice is laced with annoyance.
Susan’s body stiffens. She must tread lightly or this shall end poorly. Memaw knew how to handle his moods. That woman could settle a torrid bull.
“Ernst,” she says at last. “We’re starving. That’s the problem.”
The chamber is a hushed tomb.
“Tell me more.”
“That’s it. Can’t hardly sing or pray, they’re too weak.”
“And?”
“And?” Susan licks her cracked lips.
“What else,” he says, encouraging.
“Well, there’s naught left in the oats bin. The water’s too low. We’ve only the wafts of fuel.” Susan feels relief, unburdening these worries at last. “What shall we do? The children are malnourished. I can hardly get the chores done alone. These girls, they don’t know how to work. Too soft.”
“What, pray tell, do you recommend?”
“Oh, that’s not for me to decide.”
“Certainly it is. So many problems. What’s the answer?”
Tarry This Night Page 9
