As he stood in the circle of onlookers, nervously chewing a hangnail, Robbie heard one of the reporters say, “This is what life is going to be like all day, every day, if these crackpots actually try to rebuild the damned Temple.” Another answered, “No, it’ll be worse, because they’ll be using bombs and grenades instead of just fists.”
“Why?” Robbie couldn’t help asking the men.
“Don’t you know where they want to put up the Temple?” The first man was smoking. He talked out of the side of his mouth, like Clark Gable in an old western.
“Yes, of course,” Robbie stammered. “In Jerusalem, in the place where the old one was.”
“And you know that’s a holy site for the Moslems, right?” The reporter pinched off his cigarette just below the glowing end and stuck it in his windbreaker pocket. “So if these nutcases start building on the Dome of the Rock, the next thing you’ll see is World War Three in the Middle East. This here is just the first skirmish.”
Junior or Arnie would have pointed out that they themselves were among the so-called nutcases the reporter was condemning, but Robbie only flushed and turned away. Pastor Nabo often proclaimed that God was not a pacifist, especially when he was talking about Lara’s mother and other anti-war protesters. Pastor would rub his hands in glee over the coming fight of Good versus Evil. Just this morning, he had preached on one of his favorite themes, how the coming war with Islam would destroy half the people of the earth.
Was that really what God wanted? Robbie wondered. For World War III to break out over rebuilding the Temple? Would that herald Jesus’ return in glory or would it just mean more misery, with people like Chip Grellier getting killed and people like Lara breaking their hearts over the dead?
Look at Junior right now. If you asked him, Junior would say he was fighting for the glory of Jesus’ name, when Robbie knew his brother only ever fought because he loved beating people up.
The yeshiva boys were fighting hard, but the Christians were definitely winning this skirmish in the war of salvation. Reb Meir and the other yeshiva teachers seemed to realize this because they called out to their students in Yiddish. None of the onlookers knew what they said, but the Jewish youths, their clothes torn, their faces cut and bruised, pulled themselves unwillingly out of the melee and slouched over to stand next to their teachers.
Junior and his cohorts yelled abuse at them, but when the yeshiva students started to shout back Reb Meir and Reb Ephraim silenced them with raised hands.
“It’s good for the Jews to learn how disciples of the Prince of Peace behave in public,” Reb Meir said to one of the reporters. “Now that we see what they want to do with their calf, we can’t be involved.”
The reporters surged around Reb Meir. “Does this mean you don’t think she’s the perfect red heifer you need for the Temple?”
“I think if the Schapens are this violent, there is every reason to suspect they have abused the heifer and that she is no longer sanctified, or pure enough, to use in ritual sacrifice.”
Robbie could see his father’s face register first fury, then worry: he was counting on Nasya to make their fortune. If the rabbis said she was blemished, the crowds would evaporate, along with the money he was taking in, as well as the recognition the heifer was starting to bring him.
Arnie never found it easy to be conciliatory, but he walked over now to Reb Meir and said, “Look, boys will be boys, whether they’re Jews or Christians. They all got carried away, but I promise you this kind of behavior has never taken place in Nasya’s presence. We have respected her in every way, even making sure we put obsidian under her pen the way you told us to.”
Reb Meir nodded slowly. “I’m willing to treat this as an aberration, but you must let me examine the heifer to make sure the crowds haven’t molested her.”
The two men shook hands, both looking as though they were swallowing live beetles, but the television cameras caught the clasped hands and fake smiles: that’s what would matter tomorrow morning. The reporters began bombarding the pair with questions.
“Have the crowds hurt Nasya, Reb Meir?” “Arnie, what do you mean by ‘the dead letter of the law’?” “Does your church say the Jews are going to hell?” “Why does it hurt Nasya for people to look at her?” And from the women, fuming over their lack of access: “She’s female. You’re men. You’ll do her more damage than we could.”
Reb Meir held up a hand. “We don’t know what shape the calf is in; we haven’t seen her since all this disturbance began. Of course, yesterday was the Sabbath—it was impossible for us to drive over to keep an eye on her.”
The reporters also wanted to know whether having a red heifer meant the Jews were ready to start rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. “She’ll be three before you know it. Will the Temple be ready by then?”
“No,” Reb Meir said. “Assuming she’s still unblemished in three years, we can sacrifice her according to Torah precepts and store her ashes in an appropriate container—which we have already created, in accordance with Torah precepts—until the Temple can be rebuilt.”
“And when the Temple is rebuilt, then Jesus will come again and destroy it, isn’t that right, Mr. Schapen? He’ll cast the Jews and Muslims, and even Christians who don’t believe the same way you do, into outer darkness while whisking you to heaven, isn’t that right?” Ashley Fornello was feeling aggressive after spending two days in a barnyard, getting her story secondhand from the men around her.
Arnie shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like having these things spelled out so plainly in public, not while he still needed Reb Meir to help him look after the calf. “I’m not any kind of theologian,” he finally managed. “I’m just a simple Kansas farmer God entrusted this special calf to. So I think I’d better let Reb Meir look at her, make sure she’s doing okay with all this excitement. If he gives us the go-ahead, we’ll start letting people back into the enclosure.”
The excitement died down while Reb Meir and his colleagues examined the heifer from stem to stern, so to speak. Nasya moved restlessly around her pen, worn-out by so many strangers and unhappy—or so it seemed to Robbie—with the way they were touching her to make sure her virginity was intact. When Reb Meir finally gave Nasya a clean bill of health, Robbie relaxed. He’d been afraid of what Junior might have gotten up to with Eddie when they were in the enclosure Thursday night.
He went back out to the yard, hoping to make his escape, but Myra was there and jumped on him, dragging him back to the money table. He thought they were acting like the money changers Jesus had driven from the Temple, but when he mentioned this Myra’s face turned mahogany.
“And the damage to the pen, and to the yard, you’re going to repair that yourself, Robbie? If you’re too squeamish to touch money, you can go inside and heat up another five gallons of cider.”
“Nanny, I need a break. I have to start milking in another hour.”
“Your brother was standing up for the farm while you gawked like a girl on the sidelines, afraid to get your hands dirty. You go in the kitchen with the other girls, and I’ll take care of the money you’re too pious to touch.”
Robbie went into the kitchen, into the crowd of church women washing cups and gossiping. “Nanny says could you please heat up some more cider?” He was astonished to hear the words coming from his mouth, and even more surprised when he found himself moving quickly to the front of the house, out the unused front door, and down to the road. He started to run, jumping out of the way of the cars heading to the farm, praying as he went. Not for the Second Coming or the sanctity of the heifer, but for something more simple: that Jesus would keep Lara in the X-Farm until he reached her.
Thirty-Eight
COLD COMFORT FARM
BETWEEN TELEVISION, YouTube, and text messaging, the Schapen heifer quickly turned into global entertainment. As pictures of Nassie flooded the Net, Islamic leaders threatened jihads that would “make Iraq look like a kindergarten picnic” if anyone, Jew or Christian, tried rebu
ilding the Temple on the Temple Mount. The Israeli consul general for the Midwest held a press conference to assure the world that rebuilding the Temple was not part of Israeli government policy. He added that Reb Meir and his yeshiva were an extremist fringe of Judaism that misunderstood Torah. Reb Meir startled his Christian supporters by replying that Israel should not even be recognized as a country because a state of Israel could not exist in the absence of the Temple.
Dashiell Goode, professor of Near Eastern languages and literature at the University of Kansas, explained that the sacrifice of the red heifer mentioned in Numbers didn’t have anything to do with cleansing people from sin. “The passage is obscure and hard to interpret, but it seems to treat a class of impurities connected to handling dead bodies. It’s only recently that a small group of would-be millenarians have started conflating the sacrifice in Numbers with Christian teaching about Jesus’ blood sacrifice on the cross. Raising and slaughtering a perfect red heifer serves no textually grounded religious purpose today.”
Professor Goode also pooh-poohed Reb Meir’s claim that Nasya was speaking ancient Hebrew. “No one knows how to pronounce the secret name of God. It was an oral tradition among the high priests, who passed it on to their successors in private. The Name was too holy for ordinary people to use in ordinary discourse. When the last of the high priests was killed during the great rebellion against Rome in 70 C.E., the pronunciation of the secret Name died with Phannias ben Samuel.”
Arnie, Pastor Nabo, and various authorities from Full Bible Christian seminaries countered Professor Goode’s “blasphemous, atheistic beliefs.” Other scholars weighed in on every aspect of the debate, from how you knew a heifer was perfect—itself a subject of debate: could she have three white hairs, five, or none?—to whether the Second Coming of Jesus would even be noticed by most people. As a result of all these arguments, sightseers flocked in ever-larger numbers to the Schapen farm to get their own view of the calf.
Arnie was so proud of his heifer that he gave Robbie fifty dollars to spend however he wanted—“Even on more of that catcall music you like, son”—an act of generosity that made Myra fume.
Robbie was touched by the gift, but it was the only pleasure he had out of the calf’s popularity. Just as his dreams of Lara had miraculously turned into reality, he had no time to see her. They couldn’t get together at school, not if they wanted to keep their relationship hidden from their families. And now, on top of his work with the cows, Robbie had to help Myra tend to the visitors. He would grab a few feverish moments with Lara, slipping away to the X-Farm when he finished the afternoon milking, only to endure his grandmother’s relentless bitterness when he reached home again.
“Where have you been, young man?” she would demand. “I was looking for you all over to take charge of the cash receipts so I could make a bit of dinner for your father. And for you, I might add, although why we bother to feed someone who doesn’t pull his own weight around here—”
Arnie astounded Robbie by sticking up for him—really, twice in one week, if you counted the fifty dollars. “Now, then, Mother, you know he does two milkings a day as well as keeping up with his studies and the church youth group. And we wouldn’t have the calf at all if Robbie hadn’t bred the mother.”
“All the more reason for him to stick around and do his share.” Myra glowered.
Robbie reported his woes to Lara Thursday evening, as they huddled among the drooping sunflowers at the X-Farm. “And then she went on and on, the way she always does, about what a loser I am.”
“I’d think your gram would be happy as a pig in mud right now with all the attention your farm is getting in the news.”
“Yeah, but nothing makes her happy. Except maybe Junior beating up people. It was practically like Jesus coming again in glory to hear her talk about Junior pounding those Jewish boys from Kansas City on Sunday. ‘And what about you, Robbie? You were sitting around like a schoolgirl in tears not helping your brother at all. Just what I’d expect from Kathy Sheldon’s son.’ Then came the usual earful about how my mom was a harlot and I was a harlot’s son, and it was practically like Junior didn’t even have the same mother as me.”
“Your gram sure has a thing about mothers—she hates mine and yours both. Maybe she’s really a space alien. Maybe she brought Junior with her from outer space, so she hates human women who can have babies.”
Robbie laughed dutifully but burst out, the darkness a shelter behind which he could speak: “I keep wondering what’s wrong with me. Why would my own mom go off like that? She—I always thought she loved me. We played games, we named the cows together, and then—whammo!—she disappeared without a word, not even a birthday card.”
“But she did want to take you with her,” Lara said. “Don’t you remember the day she left? She came out for you, but your dad forced her off the land.”
“I was there when she drove out,” Robbie said angrily. “Nanny said she came to pick up her clothes and never even asked about me.”
“Robbie, that’s not true!” Lara sat up in the twilit field. “I was only nine, but I remember her driving over to our house and crying for, like, an hour because your dad locked you and Junior in the barn. And when she tried to get into the barn, he shot at her. And Mom and Dad even tried to talk to your father, but he wouldn’t listen. You know my father, he doesn’t talk about stuff much, so he won’t talk about Arnie—I mean, your dad—so I don’t know what happened when my folks went over. But, cross my heart, your mom really wanted to take you with her.”
“Then why did she disappear? Why didn’t she ever write?” Robbie wanted to believe Lara, but six years of Myra dinning at him that his mother was a harlot who thought more of her clothes than she did her own children was hard to overcome.
Lara stroked his hair. “Have you ever tried to track her down? She grew up in Lawrence, didn’t she? My dad says he went out with her a few times in high school, before she married your dad, so don’t you have another grandmother in Lawrence?”
“No, her people moved away years ago, and I can’t find them. Even though my mom’s family went to Salvation Bible, no one at church will talk about her. It’s like they’re so afraid of Nanny that they won’t even tell me they ever heard of my own mother’s family. I’ve tried Google, but their last name was Sheldon, and there are a zillion Sheldons in America. Of course, I’ve Googled her, too—Kathy Sheldon and Kathy Schapen both—but if she married the man she ran off with, her name would be different. That still doesn’t explain why she never writes or anything.”
“Maybe she does and your nanny burns her letters,” Lara suggested. “Your mom is the one person who knows how scary your nanny is, so she probably doesn’t try to phone.”
“You’re so lucky,” Robbie said wistfully. “You have both your parents with you, and they don’t pretend the crappy stuff they do is for your own good.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you were living with the Zombie Queen,” Lara said. “My mom might as well have run off with someone. Her body sits around the house all day working on some stupid project for occupational therapy while her face is blank, like a turnip.
“These ladies from Riverside Church came out this afternoon, including Ms. Carmody—you know, she belongs to our church—and Turnip Grellier sat staring out the window like they weren’t there. Dad wanted me to make tea, but I couldn’t take it, not the way she sat without saying a single word. I know this is a terrible thing to say but sometimes I look at her and wish my dad hadn’t—hadn’t found her in time.”
She let out a hiccupy sob. Robbie pulled her close, the refrain of a new song flitting through his head: I longed to wash all those heartsick tears away. He could hear the chords, but it would sound better with a fiddle than a guitar.
After a long embrace, when they both knew they needed to go home, Lara said, “You know, Robbie, if it was me I’d look to see if your gram is hiding letters from your mother in her room.”
“Lara! I can’t go into her ro
om. Do you know what she’d do?” Visions of whippings, both verbal and physical, of being thrown out of the house, his guitar smashed to pieces, all the violence and threats of violence that had descended on him since his mother disappeared washed through him and he trembled.
“Not while she’s home,” Lara said. “But maybe your mom left a note or something and your gram is hoarding it and gloating over it. Wouldn’t it be worth some risk to find that out? I’d do it for you if I could get to your house without anyone seeing me.”
“Oh, Jesus, no, Lara,” Robbie said. “Don’t try coming near our place. My dad would probably burn down your house if he saw you going into ours.”
Lara’s cell phone rang: Kimberly, checking on algebra homework. Lara said she’d call her back and hung up, but a second later her father phoned, demanding that she get home for supper.
Robbie scrambled to his feet and ran down the track to the road: if it was time for the Grellier’s supper, it was way past mealtime in his house.
When Lara got home, Ms. Carmody and the other church ladies had left. Jim was in the kitchen, trying to read, Susan in the family room, where she’d taken possession of the long couch, filling it with an afghan she was endlessly crocheting as occupational therapy. Jim looked bleakly at his daughter but didn’t ask where she’d been: he didn’t think he could cope with an evasive answer from her. Instead, he forced a smile, told her there was chili on the stove, and asked if she had done her homework.
“When she was out here this afternoon, Ms. Carmody reminded me that your mother and I both have to sign off on your homework assignments. You still have two problem sets to do before you’re caught up in algebra. And she said you owe her a book report on The Red Badge of Courage compared to The Things They Carried.”
Lara pinched her lips together. “She only assigned those to me because of Chip.”
“Yes, and because she thinks you have the maturity to read and respond to them. She hopes they’ll help you understand what may have been going through Chip’s mind when he went to Iraq. Come on, sweetheart, please.” The last sentence came out as an anguished plea; he hadn’t intended it, his voice cracking from fear.
Bleeding Kansas Page 31
