Eden West

by Pete Hautman

  “It’s the altitude,” I say as we move slowly up the path. “You will become accustomed to it, Lord willing.”

  “Yeah, well, the Lord can relax on account of I don’t expect to stick around here that long,” he says.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Costa Rica.”

  I know that Costa Rica is a tiny country in Central America. Brother Benedict has drilled us well in the geography of the World. But I cannot imagine going there, for it seems as unreal and distant as the moon.

  “My dad lives there. With his girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend!” I say. The concept is both thrilling and disturbing.

  “I had a girlfriend,” Tobias says. “Back in Limon. Only we broke up.”

  Much as I want to hear more about his girlfriend, I say nothing and start walking again.

  “What about you?” he asks. “Do you have a girl?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Sister Ruth. We will marry soon.”

  “Ruth. Is she the skinny one with the long nose and the zits?”

  “No!” He is describing Rebecca.

  Tobias laughs. “I was kidding. I bet I know which one’s Ruth. The one with green eyes, right?”

  “They are the color of honey, with green flecks.”

  “Yeah, I know who you mean. I was looking at her when we were up on that stage last night. She’s hot!” He laughs again. “I mean, she has a cute face — I don’t know what else she’s got under all that stuff they wear. For all I know, she’s got three boobs or something. . . . Hey, what’s the matter?”

  I have stopped walking. I turn on him. “You will not speak of her that way.” My voice is tight, and my face is hot.

  “What way? I just —” He steps back and holds up his hands. “Whoa, take it easy!”

  The fear in his face stops me. I loosen my fists. Was I about to strike him?

  “I get it,” he says. “Ruth is your girl. I get it! Jeez! I was kidding!”

  Suddenly I am embarrassed. I turn away and start walking quickly. Tobias runs to catch up with me.

  “Wait up! I’m sorry!”

  I do not trust myself to speak.

  “Look, back in Limon —”

  “We are not in Limon.”

  “I’m just saying, back in Limon, all the guys kid around a lot. The girls don’t mind. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “You should not say what you do not mean.”

  I walk faster, almost running. Behind me I hear him muttering his Worldly curses. Soon, he is far behind me, and for a time I walk in peace. My thoughts go to Ruth, and then, oddly, to Lynna. I stop and wait. Tobias catches up, panting.

  “I know another girl, too,” I say. “A Worldly girl.” I don’t understand why I am telling him this, but it comes out of me. “She lives on the ranch to the north. Her name is Lynna.”

  “So you have two girlfriends?” He laughs. “I guess it makes sense, what with Father Grace being married to three women.”

  “That is not what this is,” I say, startled by his suggestion. “I just know her — that’s all.”

  “Is she cute?”

  I see Lynna’s face in my mind.

  “She is very beautiful,” I say.

  “Maybe the three of us could hang out sometime,” he says.

  “I don’t know her that well.” I wish I hadn’t mentioned her.

  The path takes a sharp turn to the right, then climbs a hillock. We are close.

  Tobias says, “What’s that noise?”

  “You will see,” I say.

  The trees become smaller and more sparse, and the carpet of needles gives way to bare rock. We leave the last of the trees behind to face an enormous outcropping of gray stone: a boulder more than thirty cubits across, its sides mottled with lichen and moss, its top scrubbed smooth by the wind.

  The sound is much louder now. I scramble up the side of the massive boulder and stand on top, leaning slightly into the wind. Tobias joins me. Together we look down into the gorge. He gasps.

  It is said that there are men and women who believe the Almighty does not exist. I would bring them here, to this place. From the Knob, one can look straight down past layer after layer of ancient rock to the roiling, rocky silver ribbon that is the Pison. Here the hand of the Lord sliced through stone like a knife through ripened cheese, tearing a slot for the river to pass through the ridge. Below us, the Pison bellows and thunders, using the walls of the chasm as its megaphone. Who could stand here and deny the magnificence and truth and power of the Lord?

  Tobias is struck nearly, though not entirely, speechless.

  He says, “Holy shit.”

  There is a thing I do that frightens me, but I cannot resist. I move closer to the edge, to where the rock curves sharply down, to where the slightest urge might send me tumbling down the sheer stone face, and I imagine my last moments. I think that if I were pure, if I were not soiled by a lifetime of sin, Zerachiel would catch me in his palm and place me gently and unharmed upon this earth. I lean out over the precipice and look down at the Pison and feel the pulse of the heavens beating against my chest.

  Brother Caleb, who teaches us our numbers, once told me that the rapids lie more than two hundred cubits below the Knob. He counted it by throwing a stone and measuring how long it took for the rock to strike bottom. I have tried to repeat his experiment many times since, counting down the seconds, but never yet have I been able to see the stone strike that tumbling, foaming surface. Brother Caleb must have the eyes of an eagle.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  I look back at Tobias. He is standing well back from the edge, his broad face so pale that freckles stand out like scattered embers.

  “I will not fall,” I tell him.

  “I thought you were gonna jump!”

  “I will not jump.” I back away from the abyss to make him more comfortable.

  Tobias shakes his head as color returns to his face. “You’re crazy, you know that?” He slide steps toward the gorge, legs bent, looks over the edge, then backs away quickly. “It must be, like, a mile deep.”

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red-and-white paper packet. I think it is candy at first, but he shakes out a short white tube with a brown tip. I recognize it as a cigarette.

  Tobacco use is not unknown among the Grace. We cultivate a small strip of the weed along the north edge of the vegetable gardens. Most of our tobacco crop is steeped in water for use as a pesticide, but a few of the older Brothers dry a portion of the harvest and smoke it in pipes. Brothers Jerome and John mix the leaves with sorghum syrup and chew them while they work in the fields. I tried it once, but my stomach rebelled, much to Jerome’s amusement.

  While tobacco use is not strictly forbidden, it is frowned upon for younger Grace such as myself. I am shocked to see Tobias set fire to the cigarette with a plastic lighter. He draws the smoke deep into his lungs.

  “I’d offer you one,” he says, “but I only got half a pack. I got a feeling cigs are hard to come by around here.”

  “You would have to go to West Fork,” I say.

  “How far is that?”

  “About twenty-five miles. I have been there. Once.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Almost twelve years.”

  “And you’ve only been to town once?”

  “Yes. To take a test.”

  “What sort of test?”

  “Numbers, history, reading, and such. The Worldly powers demanded that we demonstrate the efficacy of our education. We performed well. Brothers Benedict and Caleb were sinful proud.”

  “Whoop-de-do for them.” Tobias takes a few steps toward the edge and looks down at the river. “Anybody ever jump?”

  I tell him the story of Sister Salah.

  I had the story from my mother, who knew it from Sister Agatha.

  Salah was Father Grace’s first wife, a woman of great beauty and intelligence, but with a crack in her soul. It was she who helped Fathe
r Grace to establish his first ministry, it was she who toiled by his side when Zerachiel led him to the Tree growing alone and neglected in the heart of Montana, and it was she who bore him his first son.

  In those distant days, the Grace were few: Father Grace, Brothers Seth, Andrew, and Caleb, Sisters Salah and Agatha, and the children Mary, Yvonne, and Peter. It was they who harvested the trees to build the Hall of Enoch, who mortared the stones of the wall surrounding the Tree, and who excavated the underground shelters beneath what is now Elderlodge and Gracehome. It was they who dug the first well, and built the roads, and planted the first crops, and slaughtered the first lamb.

  On the night of the full moon, in the month Abib, in the Hebrew Year 5741, a child was born to Salah. The child was called Adam, and Adam was well loved by all, and the Grace rejoiced.

  The child grew quickly, walking at nine months, speaking at one year, and reading at four. By his seventh summer Adam had memorized Genesis. At the age of twelve he began preaching at the Grace Ministries, drawing great crowds of the curious and the devout. It was during that time that the number of Grace grew rapidly and Nodd began to flourish.

  The next year, many of the Grace were struck with influenza. Young Adam spent hours at the bedsides of the stricken. Those to whom he ministered recovered quickly. Adam was not so fortunate. He took to his bed with a ferocious fever and never arose. The grief over his death was a terrible thing. A leaden pall settled over the land, and there was much weeping in Nodd. The once joyful Sister Salah suffered worst of all. According to Agatha, her joy turned to despair and her will to live crumpled.

  The day after Adam’s body was returned to the earth, Sister Salah walked alone up the Spine and never returned. Her shattered body, scavenged by vultures, was found several days later at the bottom of the gorge.

  All that happened the year before my parents brought me to Nodd. Still, I sometimes imagine I can hear Salah’s final, fading scream beneath the muffled roar of the rapids.

  “I’d jump.” Tobias sucks smoke from his cigarette, then lets the smoke stream out through his nostrils. “I mean, if I wanted to off myself.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  He looks at me. “Lots of reasons. You don’t ever think about it?”

  “No!”

  He laughs. “Me neither.” He turns back toward the gorge and flicks his cigarette out over the edge. “Hardly ever.”

  At supper that night, Jerome approaches and tells me that Brother Enos wishes to see me. My first thought is that Enos has learned of my encounter with the Worldly girl.

  “Now?” I say.

  “After you have eaten,” says Jerome. He returns to his table.

  “Who is Brother Enos?” Tobias asks.

  “Archcherub Enos deals with Worldly matters,” I say. Enos has been of the Grace longer than anyone other than Father Grace himself. “He is our director of security as well.”

  “You mean he’s like the cult cop?”

  I glare at him. He smiles and shrugs. I return to my meal and finish quickly. I am not anxious to visit Enos, but I can see no reason to delay the inevitable. Enos is most rigorous; I fear that my punishment will be harsh.

  Enos is sitting behind his desk, packing a corncob pipe with tobacco from a leather pouch. I watch him carefully tamp down the tobacco leaves, place the pipe stem between his teeth, ignite a wooden match with a flick of his thumbnail, and draw the flame into the pipe bowl. The harsh tang of sulfur from the match is followed by the earthy aroma of burning leaves. Enos puffs until he is satisfied with the way his pipe is burning, then shakes the flame from the match. His dark-brown eyes fix upon me. “Sit, Brother Jacob,” he says. His tone is crisp and flat. Although I know Enos to be the same age as my father, he looks older. His narrow face is all edges and hollows. Where Father Grace is a great sword of righteousness, Enos is the cutting edge.

  I lift one of the chairs from its hook on the wall and place it before his desk.

  “I understand you took the new boy out to the gorge,” he says.

  “It is true,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “I wished to impress him,” I say.

  Enos draws on his pipe, his eyes locked on mine. I can almost hear the sweat coming from my pores.

  “Was he impressed?”

  “He did not much enjoy the walk.”

  Enos nods. “He is a troubled lad.”

  “I do not think he will be happy here.”

  “Be that as it may be, he is here.” Enos sighs and sinks back in his chair, and for a moment I see the weariness concealed beneath his hard exterior. “The boy’s sister may be a problem as well.”

  I feel myself starting to relax. Brother Enos is confiding in me. That is a good sign.

  “The Lord will show us the way,” I say.

  “Perhaps. Still, we may have brought a nest of serpents into our midst.” He frowns into his pipe, fires another match, and relights it. “He will take watching.”

  “He says he will not be staying long. He says he is going to live with his father.”

  “That is unlikely. His father abandoned his family eight years ago.”

  “He says his father lives in Costa Rica.”

  “Interesting, if true. Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

  Again, for a moment, I am certain he knows of my conversation with Lynna, then I realize he is still asking about Tobias.

  “He is angry,” I say. “He clings to his old life. He does not wish to give up his Worldly garb.”

  Enos nods and taps the ashes out of his pipe. “I will ask Brother Peter to use him in the mill. Hard work will set the boy to rights.” He reaches into his desk and comes out holding a small folded paper packet between two long fingers. “Tonight you will bring him sweet tea. Put the contents of this into his cup and see that he drinks it. It will help him sleep.”

  I want to ask why, but Enos’s tone tells me it is not the time for questions. I take the tiny packet and fold it into my sleeve.

  Brother Enos looks at his pocket watch. He is one of the few Grace to carry such a device. “It is almost time for Evensong,” he says. “G’bless.”

  Evensong is well attended that night; the Grace are all curious to see the new arrivals at close hand. Our voices are many and strong. Tobias and I sit near the back of the hall, across the aisle from his mother and sister. He does not participate, but only sits silently with his prayer book unopened on his lap. Several times I see one or another of the unmarried Sisters turning their heads to look at him. I watch, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ruth. I cannot find her at first, then I spot her near the front of the hall when she pretends to drop her book, reaches down, and as she bends looks back past her shoulder. Her eyes find us, Tobias and me. She looks quickly away.

  Afterward, in Menshome, I bring Tobias his sullied tea.

  That night I dream. I am following Ruth up the Spine. I am calling to her but she will not look back, and her scarf blows off and I try to catch it but the wind twists it from my grasp, and she laughs, and it is Lynna’s laugh, and I see that we are standing at the Knob and it is not Ruth at all, but Lynna, and her hair is loose and her robe is open and her feet are bare, and the roar of the Pison fills my ears.

  When I awaken I find I have spilled my seed onto my nightclothes. I rise and head for the lavatory. With dawn still hours away, I cleanse myself in the cold trickle of water from the basin, then return to bed and close my eyes and silently recite the Prayer of Expiation.

  Forgive me, O Lord, though I am the least of your creatures.

  Forgive me though I have transgressed.

  Forgive me . . .

  My thoughts drift. As the words scroll across my consciousness, I imagine crisp, pine-scented air filling my lungs, the sound of wind in the trees, my feet trodding the familiar, well-worn path, the sun warm on my back, the chain-link fence brushing my shoulder . . . and my thoughts once again become dreams.

  I awaken at first light. Tobias is sti
rring in the next cell. He coughs. I hear him hack and spit. Then I hear him cursing, using words I have never before heard. I walk barefoot from my cell. Tobias is standing naked in his doorway. His loins are nearly hairless. I look away, thinking he must be younger than I had thought.

  “Where are my clothes?” he asks, half angry, half scared.

  “In the drawer beneath your pallet,” I tell him. Last night, after drinking his tea, Tobias had nearly fallen asleep at the common table. Will and I had walked him back to his cell and laid him upon his pallet, fully clothed. Enos must have sent some Higher Cherubim to disrobe him as he slept.

  He goes back into his cell, and I hear more cursing. Several Brothers have awakened and are peering from their cells, their expressions ranging from shocked to amused. I return to my cell and finish dressing. When I come out again, Tobias has dressed himself in work garb, stiff and new. The trousers are several inches too long, as are his sleeves. He is agitated.

  “You will need to roll up your cuffs and sleeves,” I say.

  “What I need is my clothes back!” He practically spits out the words. “And my other stuff, too.”

  “You will have to ask Brother Enos,” I say.

  “My iPod, my knife, my notebook — they even took my toothpaste!”

  “All you need will be provided.”

  “Yeah? Well, I need my stuff right now. Where do I find this Enos guy?”

  I imagine how Brother Enos might react, and I smile.

  “You think this is funny?” He puts a palm on my chest and shoves; I stagger backward and almost fall. I want to push him back, but I control myself. Tobias looks at the other Brothers staring wide-eyed from their doorways. He zeros in on Will. “What are you looking at?”

  Will laughs. I know he is laughing out of nervousness, but Tobias takes it the wrong way. He punches Will hard in the face.

  Fistfights are rare amongst the Grace; I have known them to occur only between the younger boys. When I was but seven I fought with Luke over a toy he would not share. We were made to stand before the entire congregation and beg for forgiveness. It was profoundly humiliating.