by Pete Hautman
The Convocation to celebrate Father Grace’s return is to begin immediately after supper. I wash with the other men, too hurried to keep my scabbed back safe from their eyes. Brother Will notices, but he makes no comment. We are all sinners. As we dry ourselves and don our meeting robes, the bells calling us to Convocation begin to toll.
The Hall of Enoch is large enough to hold thrice our number, and one day it may well do so. We gather, all of us, from Sister Mary’s youngest, born in August, to Sister Agatha, mother to Enos, small and bent hard over her walker. We are one, crowded at the front of the hall, as Father Grace enters and mounts the platform, followed by his entourage.
Father Grace is a large man, standing a hand above four cubits. His black beard, shot with streaks of gray, spills over his vast trunk. Long gray hair falls straight and thick to his broad shoulders. His right eye, black as his beard, scours our faces. The left eye, pale gray nested in a whorl of scar tissue, gazes upon Heaven, blind to this World of dust and dross.
The Archcherubim Enos and Caleb take their places to either side of him. Father Grace’s three wives arrange themselves to Enos’s left, sitting with their hands folded in their laps, smiling over us with alert, self-satisfied smiles.
It is said that Father Grace has eighty years, though my mother once told me that he is only a few years older than my father, who is fifty-eight. Whatever his true age, Father Grace’s vigor is vast. As he takes his place behind the pulpit and raises his long arms, one can imagine that he could gather all of us together in one mighty embrace.
And so he stands silent before us, as is his custom, arms thrust out, his glittering black eye raking across us, seeing into our stained and spattered souls. I stare straight ahead, imagining with all my might the angel Zerachiel astride his steed of ivory. I wish I had beaten myself harder.
Father Grace holds knowledge beyond the ken of ordinary men. He has been known to foretell a Grace’s sins, and to offer penance for deeds as yet undone. Once, as he was striding past the prayer wall surrounding the Tree, he stopped suddenly and pulled Sister Mara from the wall and struck her a great blow. I heard this from Brother John, who was present at the time.
“Father,” she cried, “what have I done?”
“It is what you would have done,” said Father Grace. He then embraced her and forgave her for her uncommitted sin. Later, Sister Mara confessed to lusting after a man who had been seduced by the World and who had left Nodd some months earlier. Father Grace’s actions had prevented her from following the apostate and dooming her soul to an eternity in Hell.
The Convocation is dead silent, without so much as a rustle of cloth, when Father Grace opens his mouth to speak.
“Brethren,” he says, “it is the Lord’s day.” Father Grace’s voice is not the voice one might expect from a man so imposing and hirsute. It is as light as beaten cream. With closed eyes, one might almost imagine him to be a woman. Nevertheless, his utterances possess the force of thunder. We listen as he relates the story of Moses in the desert and of the prophets Enoch, Jesus, and Joseph. He follows this with his own tale of redemption, of his struggles as a young man to find his Faith. It is a tale he tells often, and of which we never tire.
As the familiar words roll across us, I let my eyes stray to the women’s side of the temple, searching for Sister Ruth’s dark curls, but I cannot pick her out from the mass of identical clay-colored headscarves. I force my attention back to Father Grace.
“And though I had but twenty years, I had tasted all the false religions of the World and found them wanting: Catholics worshipping both graven images and the pope, who is in truth the Antichrist; Lutherans, Baptists, all wallowing in the glorification of their tarnished selves; Jews with hearts of avarice and greed; pagans writhing, painted and naked, at their unholy rites; Muslims eating their children and bowing to the false god Mohammad. Even the Latter-day Saints, who raised me, twisted the Words of the Almighty to suit their mercenary agenda. I was lost, searching the faithless wilderness for the Truth. I rode upon my motorcycle from church to church, from one false prophet to the next, and found my hopes dashed again and again. I even sought wisdom from the American savages. It was then that the Lord struck me down.
“It happened on a Monday, what we now call Heavenday. I had been riding all night toward the land of the Hopi, my mind clouded with false tales of ancient wisdom. I still had hope, even after my many disappointments. The sun had yet to rise; the mesas were a dark slash against the slate-gray sky; the wind tore like eagles’ talons at my face, and it was then that the Lord sent Zerachiel to smite me, first in the guise of a white coyote in the road before me. I swerved to avoid the beast. The tires of my motorcycle lost purchase. I flew through the air and landed hard in the ditch, where I lay stunned amidst the scraps of shredded truck tires, beer cans, and plastic shopping bags fluttering in the wind.
“The heavens opened. Raindrops the size of cherries pelted my body. I rose to my feet, bruised and in pain but without serious injury. My motorcycle had not fared so well. As I stared down at the twisted metal, the raindrops hardened to become hail. I looked around, seeking shelter. There were no buildings, no trees, only patches of brush and cactus. I saw a rocky outcropping a few hundred cubits away. With no promise of shelter elsewhere, I ran for the rocks. By the time I reached them, I was being beaten by hailstones the size of walnuts. The rocks provided partial shelter. I was able to squeeze beneath a shallow overhang to wait out the storm.
“I had been there for but moments when the Lord struck. The rock exploded. Lightning lanced through my eye and into my soul. I was thrown from my rude shelter and landed upon my back.
“There is much I do not remember of that night. In the morning, I awakened in agony, unable to move, the desert sun piercing my flesh. For three days and nights, I lay on my back staring up into the heavens, my blasted eye throbbing with the sublime torment of seeing Heaven in all its plenteous and unstinting glory, even as my untouched eye wept with sorrow for all the sinners, not least of all myself. And as I lay there in misery, with scorpions crawling over my body and the sun cracking my skin and vultures circling high above, I was visited by an angel whose features were too bright to look upon, and he named himself Zerachiel, and he told me I was to bear a message of salvation.
“‘I cannot,’ I said. ‘I am dying.’
“‘You will not die,’ Zerachiel said. ‘You have work to do.’
“But even with this promise, my body would not obey me. ‘Why me?’ I cried out.”
Father Grace pauses, as he always does at that point, with upthrust arms, both eyes seeking Heaven. Slowly his arms drop to his sides and his chin comes down until his black eye once again falls upon us.
“And Zerachiel, whose face was brighter than the sun, looked down upon me and said, ‘The Holy Scriptures contain much truth, but that truth is veiled. The Lord has chosen you to lift that veil.’”
Father Grace stares down at us from the pulpit.
“As he has chosen each and every one of us. And today we rejoice, for the Lord has brought us four new souls.” He holds his hands out toward the front of the room, and a moment later, three figures climb onto the platform to stand before him: an older woman, a younger woman heavy with child, and a boy of perhaps fifteen summers. They have not yet donned the garb of the Grace. The older woman is wearing a long black skirt and a green sweater. Her graying hair hangs unbound on either side of her face. She is smiling but clearly nervous. The younger woman has on stretchy blue jeans so tight I can see the bulge of her thighs. Her belly, swollen with child, presses out against a loose short-sleeved blouse. She looks tired.
The boy is also wearing jeans, but his are loose and puddled over his athletic shoes. Printed in orange upon his blue hooded sweatshirt is the word BRONCOS. He has short reddish-blond hair and freckles. His small eyes dart from face to face until they land upon me, and a flat smile creeps across the boy’s broad cheeks.
The boy is called Tobias. He is from a town c
alled Limon, in Colorado. Brother Enos has charged me with helping him to learn our ways.
“This will be your cell,” I tell him, showing him where he will sleep.
“Cell.” He wrinkles his stubby nose at the pallet. “Great.”
I pull open the wide drawer beneath the pallet. “For your garments. Brother John will provide you with four changes of clothing. Two for work, one for meetings, and one for daily wear.”
Tobias looks me up and down. “Which is that?”
“This is my meeting robe. It is made of wool from our sheep.”
“It looks like a dress. You look like a long-haired, fuzzy-faced girl,” he says.
“It is comfortable and clean,” I tell him.
“It’s the color of mud.”
“Vanity is a sin.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ll wear my own clothes, thanks. Wool makes me itch. Besides, this place could use a little color.”
I doubt that he will be permitted this conceit for long, but I say nothing.
He says, “And what’s with all the hair?”
“What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t anybody ever get a haircut? Or shave?”
“It is not our way.” I wonder if I am being tested.
“What about that bald-headed dude? What’s his deal?”
“That is Brother Von. He is . . . special.”
“Yeah, he looks special.”
“You must turn your mattress every morning,” I say. I do not want to talk about Von.
“Yeah, yeah.” He looks around the cell. “I’ve been in bigger closets. And what’s with the no door? You don’t believe in doors?”
“Why would you want a door?” I ask.
He shakes his head, looking at me as if I am a mindless fool. He is so disdainful. I want to impress him, to show him something that will strike him deep and hard. My first thought is to take him into the Sacred Heart, to show him the Tree. But I am loath to show this Worldly boy our most sacred place, at least not right away, so I suggest we take a walk up the Spine.
“Spine?”
“That which separates the Meadows from the Mire.”
“What’s on this spine?”
“You will see. We will go in the morning.”
“Whatever,” he says with a shrug.
I awaken Tobias near the close of the morning meal service. He is not happy. He thrashes aside his covers. He has slept in his clothes. He mutters something about it being still dark out.
“The sun is rising,” I say. “It will be full light by the time you finish eating.”
“I’m not hungry,” he says.
“We have a long walk. You should eat.”
Grumbling, he follows me to the dining area. We have the tables to ourselves. Everyone else has already eaten and gone about their tasks. I show him how to serve himself. This morning, we have oatmeal, bread, and apples. There were egg cakes earlier, but they have been eaten. He wrinkles his nose at the oatmeal, but he loads his plate with slices of bread and several spoonfuls of huckleberry preserves. I make no comment.
“Aren’t you eating?” he asks me.
“I have eaten,” I say.
He grunts, bites into a slice of bread, chews, scowls.
“Sour,” he says. “Don’t you have any regular bread?”
“This is our bread.”
He eats the rest of his slice, then half of another, and declares himself done. I show him what to do with his plate. I wrap his uneaten bread in waxed paper and hand it to him.
“You may want it later,” I say.
“I doubt it.” But he takes the packet and shoves it into the belly pocket of his sweatshirt.
“Are you ready?” I ask.
He nods glumly and follows me out of Menshome.
I turn up the pathway leading west, toward the Spine. Tobias follows me for a few paces, then stops, looking up at the Tower, which stands behind Elderlodge.
“Weird-looking silo,” he says. “I never seen one made out of rock.”
“It is not a silo. It is the Tower.”
“What’s it for?”
“It is a lookout.” The Tower, made of stone blocks cut from the walls of the Pison gorge, stands thirty cubits tall.
“Lookout for what?”
“Whatever may come.”
“Weird.” He turns a slow circle, surveying our surroundings: the Tower, Elderlodge, Menshome, and the tall hedge enclosing the Sacred Heart. “It’s kind of like a little pretend town.”
“There is no pretending here.”
He makes a sound that is half laugh, half snort.
Irritated, I start walking up the pathway without looking back. After a dozen or so long paces. I hear him run to catch up. He may not be impressed by our dress, our food, our grooming, or our buildings, but it is my hope he will be roused by what lies at the head of the Spine.
On the north side of the Low Meadows, the land rises steeply to form a twisting ridge that separates the Meadows from the cedar bog we call the Mire. The Mire is the least favored of our lands, good for collecting mushrooms and medicinal mosses but little else. The Spine itself is a tree-studded, rocky hump that snakes to the west for more than a mile, climbing slowly, then ending abruptly at the Pison River. From the rocky outcropping high above the gorge, the place we call the Knob, one can see, on a clear day, the teeth of the western mountains nibbling the horizon.
But this day is not clear. The sky is low and gray; a chill wind cuts through the loose weave of my woolen tunic and my cotton shirt as we follow the trail west. Tobias puts up his hood and tucks his hands in the front pocket of his thick sweatshirt. I pretend not to let the cold bother me, though a part of me envies him his heavy, colorful garment.
We reach the Meadows and turn north. The land slowly rises. As we walk, I tell him of our sheep, our milk cows, and the harvest. “There is much to do here,” I say. “The fences always need mending, the animals need care, the crops need tending.”
“At least you don’t have to go to school.”
“Brother Benedict and others school us in the winter, when there is less to do. We are very well educated. I have learned writing, and numbers, and the geography and peoples of the World, and the Holy Scriptures.”
“You’re a regular Einstein,” Tobias says.
“What is ‘Einstein’?” I ask.
He snorts. His scorn is palpable; I feel myself growing angry, but I press on.
“The Cherubim are granted many interesting tasks.”
“What is ‘Cherubim’?” he asks.
“All men of thirteen years, if they are pure of heart and willing to work, become Cherubim and move to Menshome with the other unmarried men. Before that, we live in Elderlodge with our parents.”
“So at thirteen your folks kicked you out?”
“There was no kicking. It is an honor to be a Cherub.”
“What about the girls?”
“It is the same. At thirteen, they leave Elderlodge and go to live in Womenshome until they are wed. At eighteen, men who have applied themselves become Higher Cherubim. They have the right to audit the Council of Elders, and to take a wife. Higher Cherubim who distinguish themselves might one day join the Archcherubim.”
“One-Eye — I suppose he’s one of them.”
I stop walking and turn to him. “One-Eye?”
“You know. Father Grace.”
“Father Grace has two eyes.”
“Yeah, but one’s all goofy.”
“His blasted eye remains fixed upon the Heavens, waiting for Zerachiel.”
“In Colorado Springs, he wore a patch.”
I am not surprised; Father Grace covers his blasted eye when he leaves Nodd.
“Father Grace is first amongst the Elders. He lives in Gracehome, behind Elderlodge.”
Tobias snorts. “You guys got weird names for everything, don’t you? What do you call the toilets?”
“The toilets,” I say.
“You really believe all that
stuff about the Apocalypse and all?”
“It is the Truth.”
“Yeah, right. The thing is, the world was supposed to end in 2012, according to the Mayans. Only here we are.”
“The Mayans are Lamanite heathens. The Apocalypse is foretold in the Scriptures.”
He gives me a doubtful look. “Whatever.”
We continue our slow climb. Neither of us speaks for a time. I push aside my irritation at his contemptuous attitude. It is not Tobias’s fault that he is ignorant. His soul is stained by a life of garish colors and Worldly vice. I think of Lynna and once again feel the sting of the cedar switch upon my back. It itches now, a reminder of my own sins.
Tobias, at least, has ignorance as an excuse.
The way steepens. The sun finds a rent in the clouds and warms my side. Soon we are both perspiring; Tobias pushes his hood back and unzips the front of his sweatshirt.
“I thought you said it wasn’t far,” he says. We have been walking for a scant twenty minutes and have yet to reach the trees.
“It will be worth it,” I say.
He grunts in response. We follow a twisting path up a boulder-strewn hillside, and then we are in the trees and everything changes. The foliage filters the sound of the wind, replacing it with the soft, grainy murmur of the high forest. We follow the needle-carpeted path deeper into the trees. Tobias is several strides behind me, but I can hear him breathing. I stop and turn toward him.
“What?” he says, trying to cover up the fact that he is out of breath.
“Do you want to rest?”
“I’m okay.” He looks around. The reddish trunks of the pines rise like the pillars of Heaven. I hear the croak of a raven and the vexed chatter of a pine squirrel. “These trees are, like, huge,” he says.
“They are ponderosa pines.”
“I saw redwoods once, in California, with my dad. They get twice that big.”
I find it difficult to credit his claim, but I do not wish to argue.
“How much farther?” he asks.
“Not far.”
The path along the crest of the Spine is tortuous and uneven, but well trodden and easy to follow. I notice Tobias falling behind again, so I stop and wait for him to catch up. He is panting, not even trying to hide it.
