Eden West

by Pete Hautman

Onan is Taylor’s seven-year-old son, a shy boy who takes more than his share of teasing from the other children. Taylor often lets his son help him in the garage. He is as patient and kind with Onan as he is with me. I have envied the boy at times.

  “I had a dog,” I say.

  “Did you? What was its name?”

  “Spots.” I haven’t thought about Spots in a long time.

  “That’s a good dog name. I suppose you had to give him away when you and your folks moved here.”

  “I suppose so,” I say. “I don’t remember.”

  “That is harsh. A boy should not have to give up his dog.”

  It sounds perfectly natural and innocent, what Brother Taylor is saying, but as always it is unsettling to hear Father Grace’s judgment questioned.

  I do not reply. Taylor goes silently about his work, as do I. Minutes later, we hear the sound of an approaching vehicle. Taylor and I step outside the garage to watch as a shiny silver SUV comes into view.

  “That’s a Cadillac Escalade,” Taylor says. He knows the names of many cars.

  Elder Abraham, Brother Enos, and my father have gathered before the Hall of Enoch to greet our visitors. Three men and a woman step out of the SUV. The men are wearing dark suits. The woman is wearing a blue dress with a matching jacket.

  I immediately identify the tallest man as Congressman Raney. He wears his gray hair like a helmet and stands with his chest thrust out and his bright-white teeth bared, looking over his surroundings as if surveying his own personal domain. Already I do not like him.

  Three more vehicles are coming up the road: two SUVs and a pickup truck.

  “Jacob,” Taylor says, “finish your task. There will be time to gawk later.”

  Reluctantly I limp back into the garage and continue wiping down the Jeeps.

  I finish quickly. By the time I get back outside, our visitors are being guided into the Hall of Enoch. I see a man whose collar identifies him as the priest, and a man wearing a two-tone brown uniform and a handgun at his hip. He must be the sheriff. The others are dressed in various combinations of colorful clothing. I catch a glimpse of a light-haired young woman wearing a denim jacket. I only see her from the back as she enters the hall, but her hair is exactly the right color. My pulse begins to pound in my throat.

  “Brother Jacob!” It is Sister Naomi, coming around from the back of the hall. “When you are finished here, Sister Dalva requests your help with the food service.”

  I look at Taylor, who quickly inspects my work and pronounces it good.

  “Go,” he says.

  Eagerly, I comply.

  I enter the Hall of Enoch through the back. Several women are bustling about, setting out stacks of plates and bowls on the serving tables. Dalva looks askance at my cane.

  “With that leg, you will be of little use,” she says.

  “He needs no leg to fill bowls,” Naomi says.

  I glance out through the archway into the hall proper, where the chairs have been arranged around several long tables. Our visitors are seated, along with the Elders, the Archcherubim, and most of the Higher Cherubim. Several of the married Sisters are there as well. All together there are about forty people seated at four long tables, men and women mixed haphazardly. Beryl and Angela are moving along the tables offering herbal tea and water. I can’t see everybody from where I’m standing. I move closer to the archway. The rest of the hall comes into view, and I see Lynna seated beside a ruddy, large-featured man with a clay-colored felt hat tipped back on his head. Facing him is a black-haired man wearing a similar hat, but his is set level on his head, and it has a band of polished silver disks. I cannot see his face.

  “Well, Brother?” Naomi says. “Can you help ladle soup, or would you rather stand and gawk?”

  “I can ladle,” I say. She sets me up at one of the serving tables with stacks of shallow bowls and a steel kettle filled with thick corn-and-leek chowder.

  As I fill the bowls, they are whisked away by the Sisters and carried out into the hall. The smell of the chowder should be making me hungry, but my stomach is unsettled. As I fill each bowl, I wonder if it will go to Lynna.

  Sisters Louise and Rebecca show up carrying between them a kettle of lamb stew so enormous that I am certain it contains an entire sheep. More bowls are filled; the stew is presented with small loaves of seed bread. The service goes quickly. Although I cannot hear what they are talking about in the hall, I sense that it is both formal and awkward. The Worldly folk are here to learn about us, to judge us. Father Grace says that they fear us and would destroy us, but what I feel most is their curiosity.

  When the stew is eaten, our guests are presented with trays of pastries and sweet huckleberry tea. The women must have used every dried huckleberry in our larders to make so much tea. Naomi has run out of things for me to do, so I find a place to stand where I am out of the way but can see into the hall.

  I am certain the man sitting to Lynna’s right is Max Evert, her father. His features are large and coarsened by a lifetime of sun and wind, but he has her eyes. He has the same way of holding his head. He says something to the black-haired man sitting across from him. The man laughs and turns his head slightly so that I can see his face, and I realize with a start that he is one of the dark-skinned Lamanites from the Fort Landreau Indian Reservation.

  My father and Brother Enos are moving through the hall, stopping at each table to visit. My father’s face is contorted into a smile, an expression wholly unnatural on him. Father Grace has not yet made an appearance. Nor has Tobias.

  Tobias’s mother and sister are sitting with a heavyset, pink-faced man with sandy, reddish hair. He is wearing a dark-blue jacket over a shirt that is the same color as his face. I’m guessing he is Tobias’s uncle. I wonder whether Tobias will be allowed to speak to him.

  Congressman Raney and his group are seated at the center table with Elder Seth. Enos approaches them and exchanges a few words with the congressman, then moves to the table where Lynna is sitting.

  I fear that he might ask her about the note she left on the fence, but Enos ignores Lynna and speaks to her father and to the Lamanite. While they are talking, Lynna sees me and she waves. To my considerable relief, Enos does not notice, but Lynna’s father looks sharply in my direction. I step back out of their view.

  Soon the meal is over and people are rising from their chairs. Brother Peter has arranged to take our visitors on a tour of the High Meadow, though I do not know why these Worldly folk would want to look at sheep and grasses.

  Congressman Raney and his companions remain seated. They are joined by Enos and my father, one sitting to either side of the congressman. The rest of the visitors, including Lynna and her father, file out of the hall. When they have left, Enos draws a manila envelope from within his robe and places it on the table. The congressman glances at it, then turns away from Enos and engages my father in conversation. One of the congressman’s aides slides the envelope off the table and slips it into his small leather briefcase. The moment the envelope is out of sight, the congressman turns back to Enos and smiles.

  I sense that something significant has just occurred, but I am not sure what.

  Behind me, the women fall silent. I turn to see Father Grace coming in through the back entrance. I go rigid with astonishment. He is not wearing his usual robe but rather a Worldly suit of smooth beige fabric. His beard has been neatly trimmed, his hair is tied back, and he has covered his blasted eye with a patch the same color as his suit. This must be the face he shows to the World, the Father Grace that Tobias met in Colorado Springs.

  With him is his eldest wife, Marianne, who is dressed normally. I look past them expecting to see the other wives, but it is only the two of them. They enter the front of the hall, and Father Grace greets the congressman as an old friend, clasping his hand with both hands and smiling a broad smile such as I have never seen on him. The congressman returns the smile and introduces him to his aides. Father Grace introduces Marianne. I feel li
ght-headed to see so much smiling. Even my father and Enos are showing their teeth.

  “Brother, you are in the way.” Sister Naomi, carrying an armload of dishes, is glaring at me.

  “Apologies, Sister.” I take the opportunity to slip out through the back entrance. I follow the walkway along the outside of the Hall of Enoch, leaning hard on my cane. My ankle is throbbing after standing for so long. The visitors who left the hall are climbing into the Jeeps, one of the SUVs, and Peter’s ATV. I do not see Lynna.

  As the vehicles pull out and head north along the High Meadow Road, I hear laughter coming from around the corner. It sounds like Lynna. I move forward and peer past the buttress. Lynna is standing in the shadow of the hedge, near the east entrance to the Sacred Heart. Tobias stands before her, hip cocked, holding a bucket in one hand, grinning. He says something in a low voice. Lynna laughs and pushes her hair behind her ear. I feel myself growing angry.

  Tobias says something else, serious now. Lynna’s eyes widen and she leans toward him. Tobias points toward the Tower. Lynna shakes her head and replies. I think she is saying “No way!”

  He points at the bag she is carrying over her shoulder. Lynna opens the bag, comes out with a pack of cigarettes, and shakes one out. Tobias sets the bucket at his feet and takes a cigarette. Lynna then takes one for herself and lights them both.

  I step out from behind the buttress. Lynna sees me and waves. Tobias looks over. His face freezes. I limp toward them.

  “Jacob!” Lynna calls out.

  I stare at her stupidly. She is wearing jeans that are tight around the hips but loose in the legs, a pair of pointy boots, and an open denim jacket over a black shirt with red printing across the front. I can’t see all of the letters because her jacket covers part of them.

  Tobias gives me a bland look. “Brother Jacob,” he says. He takes a puff from his cigarette.

  I stare back at him, furious. This is the old Tobias. He has been acting this whole time. Lying to me. I believed that he had repented, and now I feel foolish.

  “So you guys know each other?” Tobias says.

  “Sure,” Lynna says. “Me and Jacob are old buds.” She puffs self-consciously on her cigarette.

  I still do not trust myself to speak. A tendril of smoke from Tobias’s cigarette snakes toward me. I slash through the smoke with my cane.

  Tobias flinches. “Whoa!” he says. “You’re dangerous with that thing.”

  I glare at him.

  “What happened to you?” Lynna asks, looking at my ankle brace.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Doesn’t look like nothing. Seriously, did you break something?”

  “I fractured my ankle.” We look at each other for what feels like a long time, but it can only be seconds. “What are you doing here?”

  “My dad wanted to come to see the cult.” She laughs. “I mean, since we’re neighbors. You know?”

  “Of course I know!”

  She gives me a puzzled look. “It’s just an expression. Anyway, I asked him if I could come. Because you didn’t show up Tuesday like you said.” She points with her cigarette at my ankle. “I guess you got an excuse.”

  Tobias, looking back and forth between Lynna and me, says, “So that’s what you do when you’re supposed to be patrolling the fence? You guys hook up?”

  I don’t know what he means by “hook up.”

  “Tobias was just telling me he’s being held prisoner here,” Lynna says.

  “No one is a prisoner here,” I say.

  “Oh yeah?” Tobias’s face darkens. “What do you call it when you lock a guy up in a dungeon for a week?”

  “You are not locked up now,” I say.

  “You really lock people in dungeons?” Lynna says to me.

  “We have no dungeons,” I tell her. “Tobias was secluded for a few days because he became violent and injured Brother Will.”

  “I got in a fight because you took all my stuff,” Tobias says, growing angry.

  “I didn’t take anything. And neither did Will.”

  He sets his jaw and clenches his fists, and for a moment, I fear he will become violent again, but an instant later he relaxes and opens his hands.

  “Well, Enos did, or somebody. It doesn’t matter. Just living here is like being in prison. Nothing to do except work and pray. No phones, no TV, can’t even get online. And since they stole my iPod I’m suffering from, like, terminal music deprivation.”

  “Wow,” says Lynna. “You guys should come over sometime. I got like a thousand songs off the Internet.” She says it as if it is nothing. As if we could just stroll blithely out of Nodd to inflict Worldly music upon our souls.

  “Where do you live?” Tobias asks.

  “Three miles that way.” She points north. “Four if you take the road. Seriously, you guys should come over.”

  “I would in a second,” Tobias says. “But I’m out of here.”

  “Out of where?”

  “Out of here. Enos is meeting with me and my uncle later. I’m going to Denver with him.”

  The thought of leaving Nodd for the chaos and evil of the World seems insane, but I am not surprised. “You will not be missed by all,” I say, thinking of Will.

  Women’s voices are approaching from the hall.

  “We must not be seen,” I say.

  Tobias laughs. “Right, because we’ll all get tossed in the dungeon.” Tobias picks up his bucket. I see it is empty, but I get a whiff of a strong chemical odor. My mouth opens to ask him what was in it, but he is already walking away from us, toward Menshome. He rounds the corner of the hedge and is gone.

  The women are getting close. In a moment they will see us. Without thinking, I grab Lynna’s hand. Ignoring the twinges from my ankle, I pull her awkwardly along the hedge that surrounds the Sacred Heart. I don’t know what will happen if we are seen together, and I do not wish to find out.

  Lynna says, “You’re acting really weird, Jacob. If they see us I’ll just tell them I got lost and you found me.”

  “You will not be believed,” I say. My body acts before my mind can stop it. I push through the iron gate and we enter the Sacred Heart. I realize I am still holding Lynna’s hand; I let go as if it is burning me.

  Seconds later, the group of women passes by, chattering and oblivious. A moment later there is silence.

  We are alone in the Sacred Heart.

  “It’s pretty in here,” Lynna says, looking around.

  I am rendered speechless by what I have done, bringing a Worldly girl into this most holy of places. The Tree is basking in the autumn sunlight, soaking up Heaven’s radiance in preparation for winter. I half expect to be struck down by a bolt of lightning from the clear blue sky.

  “Is that a fish pond?” Lynna dances across the cobblestones past the Tree, hardly looking at it, and stops at the lip of the pond. A large bright-orange koi breaches the surface, sending out a radiance of ripples. “They’re beautiful!” She grins at me, and she is beautiful, too. “What are you staring at?”

  “You,” I say, because it is true.

  She looks quickly away, her cheeks coloring. I hope I have not embarrassed her. Her eyes move to the flower beds, then to the praying wall that surrounds the Tree, and finally to the Tree itself.

  “What’s with the wall?” she asks.

  “It is the praying wall. It protects the Tree.”

  “The tree? That’s the special tree you were telling me about?”

  I nod.

  She narrows her eyes at the Tree, looking doubtful.

  “This is the tree you guys worship?”

  “We are not pagans,” I say. “We do not worship the Tree.”

  “But it’s this special holy tree, right?”

  “It is the Tree.”

  Lynna shakes her head. “I got to admit, it’s the biggest crab I ever seen.”

  “Crab?”

  Before I can stop her, she hops over the low wall, reaches up, and plucks a fruit from a branchle
t. I gape at her helplessly. I would be no less astonished if she had sprouted horns and a tail.

  She holds up the fruit. “See? Crabapple. They’re too bitter to just eat, but you can make good jelly out of them.”

  “Come out of there!” I am almost shouting.

  “Why?”

  I lower my voice. “You can’t be in there. Please!” It is all I can do not to clamber over the wall myself and drag her out.

  She shrugs, tosses the fruit over her shoulder, and hops back over the wall.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is. We got a crab apple at home.”

  I am speechless. My heart is pounding, and I am dizzy. The Sacred Heart whirls around me. I think I may be sick.

  “Are you okay?” she says.

  I sink to the ground and lean back against the wall and squeeze my eyes closed. The Lord is testing me. It is the same test that Adam failed in the First Garden. This can’t be happening, not here before the Lord and Zerachiel and the Tree and all the Grace. A nose-tingling chemical odor hangs in the air. Is it the smell of brimstone?

  I force my eyes to open. Lynna’s face hovers before me. I imagine her pushing a fruit into my mouth, forcing it down my throat, and I jab at her with my cane.

  “Hey!” She jumps back. “Did you just try to hit me?”

  “Do not touch me,” I hear myself say.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I am not okay. Everything is wrong. My breath is coming shallow and fast, and I am sure something terrible is about to happen.

  “Jacob?”

  She is squatting before me. The faint crease between her eyebrows deepens as she stares intently into my face. I close my eyes and see flames; I see her dragging me with her into the pit of Hell. I see my own flesh blackened and flaking, and the hard, pitiless face of Zerachiel receding as I fall. I see the faces of my father, my mother, Father Grace —

  “Jacob! Breathe!”

  Her voice pierces the curtains of my vision and pulls me back. I take a shuddering breath; Lynna’s face swims into focus.

  “I have damned us both,” I tell her. My voice sounds as if it is coming from miles away.