by Nan Cuba
“Why are we doing this?” I asked, raking a finger across my cheek. “I mean, what’s the point?” I stepped out of the smoke’s grimy path. “I’d be glad to pick some up at the store.”
“Sarah, I know this is unpleasant. It’s filthy and exhausting and—”
“And it stinks.” I covered my nose and mouth with my sweater.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Instead, would you bring me a bowlful of pine needles?”
“What for?”
“Just go.”
I admit that I stayed longer than necessary in the kitchen, boiling needles. The next day, according to his instructions, I mixed the cooled pine water with four cans of lye, a mixture that to my delight grew hot, the odor: Christmas trees. While I stirred with the wooden paddle, he poured a thin stream of our lye solution into the fat, all the while describing St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus. “To ecstasy,” he told me she wrote in her autobiography, “I prefer the monotony of daily toil.”
“The girl was seriously deranged,” I said.
Later that month, Sam came to check things out. Walking along the pathways, I had to keep glancing to make sure he was actually beside me. While we toured the main buildings, I introduced him to whomever we passed, enjoying their expressions when I said his name: Sam. My brother, Sam. The one I told you about, Sam. Then we sat on a bench in a clearing at the edge of the woods. He asked about my classes, my job, the food, the people. When he asked about Saul, I described my ordeal making soap, and as if summoned, Saul appeared.
“I hope I’m not interrupting, but I wanted to welcome your brother.” He extended his hand. Sam stood and shook it.
“What a great place,” Sam said. “Man, you’ve got it made.” He glanced at me then returned to Saul. “You can actually breathe out here.”
Saul kept dipping his head. “Yes. It is peaceful.”
“And you get a great view of the stars, I bet.”
I stood between them. What was Sam up to?
“Yes, quite,” Saul said. “We’ve got a group that studies them, in fact. I’d be happy to introduce you to the members.”
“Outstanding,” Sam said, nodding then taking a step back, looking at me.
“I have to get back to the office in about twenty minutes,” I said, thinking he’d signaled a request for rescue. “I thought we could sit here awhile then you’d go with me.”
“You don’t mind, do you? I’d really like to talk to these guys,” he said while looking at me, nodding again, then turning to Saul and back. “Why don’t I meet you at the office in about an hour? Saul can show me.” He looked serious.
I sat on the bench, watching them disappear. While Saul talked, his index finger tapped his left palm. Sam shoved his hands in his jeans pockets, looked at his feet, listened.
I didn’t talk to Sam until the next morning when he came to my office. The night before, he’d invited me to join them, but the stargazers’ talk was longitudinal/latitudinal gibberish. Now, it was Saturday; I worked until noon. “Hey, stranger.”
“Sorry about yesterday,” he said. “When are you through here?”
“They told me I could leave early. What do you want to do?”
“Breakfast?” He gave me his arm.
While he ate his fried eggs in the cafeteria, he asked questions about some of the people he’d met. We laughed about the guy with Elvis sideburns who had two Chihuahuas and a marijuana patch, and the four-foot tall woman who sang country music like a pro and used to be a Siamese twin. He described a teenage girl with braces, who quoted Marianne Moore: “The whirlwind fife-and-drum of the storm bends the salt marsh grass, disturbs stars in the sky and the star on the steeple; it is a privilege to see so much confusion.”
“You’re making that up.”
He said, “How long are you planning on staying?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Why? What are you thinking?”
“It’s a cool place,” he said, pushing his plate away. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m impressed, and the people are interesting. I like Saul, too. I know that’s important.”
“Come on, Sam. You don’t like it. I can tell.” A week before, I’d been a complainer. Now, I was being defensive. Which was it? Sarah, the whiner; Sarah the Christian. Sarah, the baby sister.
“Okay then, here it is: This place scares me. It’s too comfortable, too easy. It’s like falling in a rabbit hole. Alice in Wonderland.” He leaned into my face. “You got to get out of here.”
I held his hand. “I know why you think that, and it makes me feel good that you’re worried. But don’t. I’m not going to stay here forever, but for now, it’s where I belong.”
“Just so you know: I’ll be checking.”
“Noted.”
“Now, can we get out of here and find a movie?”
In March, I went to the Sunday service as usual. The sanctuary was a one-room hall with floor-to-ceiling windows behind the altar. As Elijah, draped in a purple and maroon cloak, spoke and gestured from the lectern to our congregation of close to two hundred, pine trees swayed, snippets of lambent shadows stroking the glass. Saul sat like an android propped on a folding chair, nature’s commotion behind him.
“I am the wife and the virgin. I am the barren one, and many are her sons. I am the silence that is incomprehensible. I am the utterance of my name.”
Was he saying that God is a woman? I pictured the deity I’d been taught to envision, white-bearded, enthroned. The woman next to me whispered to her husband.
“In the name of Jesus, son of Father of All and Mother Holy Spirit.” Elijah crossed himself, folded his hands at his chest. Saul made the sign of the cross and surveyed the hall.
I thought of Mary Magdalene, St. Therese, and, then, of Tlahzolteōtl with her legs spread—all figures arresting, essential. I recalled my mother dismounting my grandfather’s horse, tossing the reins at him. Women of power.
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you,” Elijah urged. “If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Behind him sat Saul, framed by pines, stirring.
Beat your breath, something whispered.
“Move beyond what is in any book,” Elijah said.
A man in front put his arm around his wife.
Be a cornstalk, I heard.
The Aztecs waited ten years for the maguey to mature, the sap welling from its pierced heart to yield the “honey” associated with semen. That nectar became pulque, the milk of She with Four Hundred Breasts. Man and woman—sacred, united, fecund.
That night, Saul asked if he could help wash my portion of the dinner dishes.
“Are you avoiding ecstasy?” I teased.
He plugged the sink, turned on the faucet, rolled his sleeves. “Asceticism devalues the spiritual significance of pleasure.”
“If you’re saying too much religion can spoil your love life, you’re smarter than I figured.”
Saul laughed. His hands seemed focused through a zoom lens. He used a cotton rag to stroke the inside of a water glass. First the lip, the soapy water dripping onto his bare arms. Then inside the glass, finally rinsing under the faucet, the steam floating about our necks and through our clothes, the water splashing.
He reached for another glass, the water sloshing against the porcelain sink. Then again, the rubbing.
“Do you have any family?”
He draped a cup towel over his shoulder, leaned on the counter. “When I converted, they disinherited me.” He submerged the glass. “I’ll follow anyone who sacrifices himself out of love for me.”
Turning, he held out the towel in one hand, the glass, still dripping, in the other.
Stepping in between, I leaned my chest against his. He smelled earthy, ripe, human. Not a brother. Not a god.
CHAPTER 14
1966-1968
IT FOLLOWS THAT SINCE I prefer being alone, I haven’t been inundated with requests to hop in the sack. Fifteen y
ears ago, except for my classes, I began avoiding groups. Relationship became a technical term, used in much the same way as patriarchy or materialist. Finally, I stopped feeling available. My body could’ve been covered in bison skins.
Sex still interests me—the pleasure of arousal, the joy of coming—but the odds of getting lucky grow smaller each year. Once, I almost married an aging hippie who built movie sets, a carpenter, but certainly not Christ-like. He stayed with me between jobs, our fucking fooling us into believing we were well matched. I’ve considered trying the personals on the Internet, but I’m not brave enough for that.
My last offer happened two years ago. A persistent colleague (his Jack London specialization should’ve been warning enough) took me to dinner, then drove to a city park, of all places, and stopped under a tent-like pecan tree. He talked; I listened, noticing his bottom row of small teeth.
“Why is it,” he said, staring out my window at the grounds, “that with our life expectancy at seventy-point-two years, we spend ninety percent of our time stuck in a chair?”
His cynicism almost won me over, but he spoke in numbers. Who could be charmed by that?
“Joke,” he announced. “Two vultures boarded a plane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess stops them and says, ‘Sorry sir, only one carrion per passenger.’”
I laughed, and then he closed in, rubbing a strand of my hair between two fingers, moving his open mouth toward mine. When I tasted him—sardines—I shoved his shoulder, turned to the window. “Just drive,” I said.
Saul and the School of Jericho Prophets had become my official home. During the day, I answered phones while updating the ledger of school deposits and expenses. Evenings, I attended classes on interpreting the Beatitudes and transcendental meditation. Before going to sleep, I read books from a list Saul had assigned. I was halfway through The Confessions of St. Augustine; each time I finished one, he gave me a quiz. As often as I could, I walked with him to our private spot, a clearing next to a ditch used for the dump, a place not as bad as it sounds, brush covering most of the garbage. Mostly he talked: about political and geographical biblical history, about transubstantiation, about the morality of premarital sex and birth control. God was on our side, of course. We reassured each other by quoting scriptures. Proverbs was our favorite: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” Because we prayed and followed our impulses, our lovemaking was a product of God’s will. Saul loved me and he loved his faith. I basked in his life’s clear definition, one enumerated by dictates I could memorize and quote, proven truths about community and obedience to a benevolent God spirit. I happily succumbed to my new mentor’s influence.
That summer, my parents brought Hugh to our Heritage and Children’s Craft Fair. My father and Elijah had developed a mutual respect, but my mother believed she had evidence that I’d been brainwashed. Instead of making fun of the women, she scowled, openly showing contempt. She jotted observations in a pocket notebook. Earlier, Hugh had said over the phone that she and Kurt had discussed hiring a mind-control expert to kidnap and de-program me, then restore me to the family. I was determined to convince her that Saul was a good catch—my converted Jew, fifteen years older, an assistant to a bed-sheeted man with an assumed name.
Soon after they arrived, Hugh, now a seventh grader, found a choral group in the parish hall. When Saul and I walked in half an hour later, he stood at the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, playing a boogie-woogie version of “I Come to the Garden Alone.” His fingers sped up and down the keys, pounding the chords like a jackhammer; once in a while, his elbow mashed a harmonizing cluster of discordant notes. His audience clapped, bobbing their heads. When he finished, they cheered; a few patted his shoulder. Mumbling thanks, he snapped his head back, flipping his oiled hair. Saul asked if he wanted to join us at the apple cider booth.
“You have talent,” Saul said while we walked. “Where did you learn to play?”
My parents huddled over a handmade cabinet at the woodworking display. A baby cried at the soap-making demonstration; we drifted through a cloud of heat and lye.
“It’s nothing. Easy. You seen him on TV?”
“This may sound strange, Hugh, but we don’t have television here.”
“Sam’s seen him in person, in Waco.” He either didn’t know about Sam pawning our mother’s bowl to buy the ticket, or he’d wisely chosen to omit that part. “You ought to see his impression.”
“Sam plays the piano?” Saul asked, trying to reconcile that image with his perception.
“No, but he sounds just like Jerry.” He raised his hands, grew serious. “Really, you can’t tell them apart.” He shook his head, incredulous. “Sam says I should make a record.” He glanced sideways, checking my face. We knew our parents’ plan for his future, and it didn’t include music.
“That’s a great idea,” I said, and Hugh smiled, kicking the dirt. I slipped my hand into Saul’s. “What do you think of my boyfriend?”
“Okay, I guess,” he said, shrugging. When Saul awkwardly patted Hugh’s slicked hair, he ducked.
My parents had already strolled to the cider booth. Dad handed Mother a glass. Peering over the rim of her sunglasses, she studied Saul.
Dad handed us four glasses of dark cider, cloudy with apple pulp. “Tasty,” he said, nodding. His eyebrows had thickened, grown wayward.
“Saul knows the recipe,” I said, nudging him. “Don’t you?”
“A blend of bittersharp and bittersweet, with a small amount of crab apple.”
“Gives it that kick, I bet.” My father smacked his lips, the lower one faded, the top one folded under as though chewed.
“Has it been pasteurized?” my mother said, inspecting the cider through the side of her glass.
Appropriately swaddled, Elijah then ambled next to my parents. He invited my father to another of their theological discussions and smiled at my mother. She set her full glass on the booth’s counter. Leader as avatar or Messiah, she wrote in her notebook.
Elijah said, “I hope you’re happy with our new match.” He beamed at each of my parents.
Mother quit writing.
“New tennis courts?” my father said absurdly, searching the grounds.
“Elijah—” Saul interrupted.
“I’m referring to our loving couple,” he corrected, patting Saul’s sleeve. “They haven’t asked my counsel, but I’m hoping we won’t have long to wait for a wedding.” He pressed my arm, smiled again, and floated to the next group.
“I see,” my father mumbled, each word dragging disappointment. “Mama, looks like you’ll be getting your wish sooner than we thought.” Kurt, who was engaged, had decided to postpone his marriage until his last year of medical school.
“No, no, no,” I said, waving my hands. “Mom, don’t blow a gasket. I don’t know why Elijah said that.”
“Your daughter and I—” Saul interrupted.
“I don’t believe you’ve ever met Kurt,” my mother said through gritted teeth. “He’s Sarah’s oldest brother.” She flipped to a new page in her notebook. “And I’m going to call him right now.”
“Wait,” my father said, his mouth a slit. “Can we talk about this?”
Once my mother understood I wasn’t getting married, she reluctantly accepted the alternative: a relationship she hoped would go nowhere. Then, mid-summer, Sam and Terezie appeared in the cafeteria during lunch. He asked if I could sit with them in the sanctuary where no one would bother us. He had an announcement, he said. On the walk between buildings, he cupped Terezie’s rear-end, and when she squealed, slapping his arm, he tickled until she giggled, telling him to stop.
Inside, we pulled chairs from the front row, forming a loose circle. Sam alternately held Terezie’s hand and patted her leg. A shaft of light blazed through the windows, falling across the right side of Sam’s face. He angled his shoulder, blocking the glare.
“What’s your news?” I said, sounding more direct than I’
d intended.
“Oh, nothing much,” Sam said, reaching toward Terezie, “except this sexy lady…” he rubbed her belly, “is toasting a loaf.”
When he looked at me, I frowned, thinking, I don’t get it.
“A bambino…a Porky Pig.” He flipped his eyebrows.
“She’s pregnant?” I asked, thinking, This mistake’s too big. What’ll we do this time?
Terezie was acting too happy. “So, this is good news?” I asked.
“Hell yes! Can’t wait to see my girl ripe as a tomato,” he said, nuzzling her.
I shifted, looked at my hands. I didn’t like them pawing each other in front of me and my friends.
“Hey,” Terezie called, “Sarah doesn’t like that.” She pushed him back.
“When’s it due?”
“Not ‘til February,” Terezie said. “But our parents’ friends can count, so the wedding’s right away…July.” When she picked an eyelash off Sam’s cheek, he turned, his odor almond soap, barbecue.
“She’s wearing one of those costumes, with the sleeve things,” he pointed to my shoulder, “and an apron. I love those.” Terezie closed her eyes, shaking her head. “At the Czech Moravian Brethren.”
“What did Mama say?”
“What do you think?” he said.
“My parents—feature this,” she said, “wanted to have the wedding at the capitol, on the front lawn.”
Sam hugged her. “Let’s have our honeymoon there instead.” They laughed then he faced me, leaning on his thighs. “Sar, would you be our maid of honor?”
“Huh?” I said. “Really, I’m sure Terezie wants somebody else.”
“Sweet,” Sam said, “but it was her idea.” He looked at Terezie, and she nodded, about to speak.
“Great. Thanks, Sar. Terezie’s got it all figured out.”
Terezie sighed. “You think I’m ready for this?”
The double doors opened, and Saul walked toward us. “Pardon me for interrupting,” he said. “I won’t stay. I just wanted to say welcome.” He extended his open hand. “Good to see you again, Sam.”
