ELIAS’S FENCE
A NOVEL BY
ANNE STEINBERG
& NICHOLAS TOLKIEN
ELIAS’S FENCE
Copyright 2014 by Anne Steinberg and Nicholas Tolkien
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Other Novels by A.N. Steinberg
Every Town Needs a Russian Tea Room
An Eye for an Ear
The Cuckoo’s Gift
First Hands
Manroot
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Even though Anne Steinberg was a high school dropout, she knew deep in her psyche that she was born to write stories, and she set out to prove that dreams can come true. While living in England, she wrote short stories and submitted her first novel, Manroot “over the transom.” Her unsolicited novel was miraculously discovered in a room-sized slush pile and published by Headline Review in London. Manroot was heralded as an important first novel in 1994 and included in the Headline Review’s prestigious “Fiction without Frontiers,” a new wave of contemporary fiction that knows no limits. Eight modern storytellers were featured: Anne Steinberg, Margaret Atwood, Iain Banks, William Gibson, Peter Hoeg, Roddy Doyle, and E. Annie Proulx.
Anne went on to write several acclaimed novels, Every Town Needs A Russian Tea Room, the story of a wealthy socialite who falls in love with a penniless young Russian immigrant who is haunted by a bizarre shameful secret, The Cuckoo’s Gift, First Hands, and An Eye For An Ear.
The Russian-speaking daughter of immigrant parent, she left school at sixteen and went on to have a wide variety of jobs, ranging from hatcheck girl to radio presenter, antique expert and counselor at a crisis centre. Anne was a partner in the world famous vintage clothing store, Steinberg & Tolkien, on Kings Road in Chelsea. After a successful run for over 20 years, the shop closed, and she returned to the US, where she now writes, reads, and studies antiques, American Indian history, animal welfare, mythology, and folklore legends.
Nicholas Tolkien is a film director, screenwriter and author. He is the great-grandson of JRR Tolkien. Born and raised in London, when he was seventeen he moved to California to pursue a film career. Tolkien went on to direct four films including the comedy Masquerade, premiered at the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and the WWII drama Terezin that premiered at the 2013 Bel Air International Film Festival. Tolkien divides his time between filmmaking and creative writing, including poetry and novels. Tolkien's poetry has won several competitions including the prestigious Foyle's Young Poets of the Year award. Elias’s Fence is a collaboration between Tolkien and his Grandmother Anne Steinberg.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Prologue
I hunger for victory. Like the cattle tick in the umwelt I grow weary of waiting. From the wheel of time I select a warrior - he that almost succeeded. No, not him, his seed newly sown. The father's seed will transfer the gift that he will need. I spin the wheel of time, for time is circular. Let those that will, believe it is linear.
I hunger.
I hunger!
Chapter 1
On November 10, 1890, Elias Jacob Pogue was born. He was the second son of Hiram and Abigail Pogue. Their first son, Adam, was born a cripple; his twisted body and rigid hands would not be capable of inheriting the forge, so Elias trained early. His strong arms swung the hammer on the anvil with more power than his father before him. He was a large awkward child. Deep in his skull, under the straw colored head of hair, and behind his calm blue eyes there was no light. The sense that could see possibilities was blind, as his right brain slept a slumber so deep it had never awakened. He lived his childhood that way - a calm stream that did not ripple, but moved him smoothly to adulthood.
On his parents' death he inherited the forge, the house, and with the burden of his brother he was keenly aware of his need for a wife.
He courted the only spinster in the district - Sarah Elizabeth - passed over by others as too plain, too frail. Saturdays found him sitting on her porch, rocking slowly in the swing. Over lemonade and cookies he weighed the possibilities of her worth. The samples of her cooking were adequate, her person was neat, her clothes clean and pressed. The drawback was her hips - too slim. He was not sure strapping sons would issue from her.
Still, there was Adam and dirty dishes and laundry piling up and she was the only unmarried woman in the district. They were suited to each other, both being colorless, calm, and without any passion for life; it was just another burden to be endured.
Their marriage changed nothing in Sarah's life. She traded one kitchen for another. Elias's life improved, for by chance he heard of the church needing a handyman and in desperation they accepted his brother, the inept cripple. Elias was aware that the favor would be called in some day and he regretted the decision when, in the second week, Adam, learning the duties of bellringer, inadvertently stood in the largest bell's path and quickly and without suffering was, according to the nuns, invited to God's house.
Sarah Elizabeth's presence had changed the house. The trunks, the lace curtains, the sewing baskets and messy little things she needed had to be sorted and kept track of. Elias resented the intrusion, but the necessity of her work made the trade acceptable. He had no desire to tend to the chores of everyday living - the cooking, the cleaning, the incidentals of housekeeping. He was the Smith. He was comfortable in his forge overlooking the hillside.
Their awkward coupling in the dark produced two stillborn sons. She was too old and dried up - beyond the time of a fertile womb. Elias's disappointment in her was expected and he did not dwell on it, for his house was well kept, the food was adequate, and his clothes were clean and mended.
Elias knew nothing of the woman that shared his bed. She tolerated his mounting of her body with her lips tightly clenched in the dark, for since finding religion she was sure this was sin when there was no chance of issue. When finished he simply felt like he had completed another bodily function, like eating or elimination.
He knew she rarely laughed, but neither did he. He knew she had cried twice - at the time of her sons' deaths - and he wondered at the tears for he had never felt their release himself.
The years slipped past routinely, the various holidays marked by fruitcake at Christmas, ham at Easter, one season dissolving into another - Winte
r, Spring, Summer, Fall.
Elias spent his time shoeing horses, doing iron work on commission - balconies, fences, statuary. He was an adequate smith, offered more work than he wanted, and turned many away.
There came a time when Sarah Elizabeth had the house immaculate, the bread made, the clothes clean and mended, and in idleness the hunger came. Ravenous, she asked permission of Elias, went down the hill to the church, and found her emptiness filled. Here she was finally happy. Religion promised and she believed. To be worthy, she threw herself into the church work - endless quilting bees, bake sales, collections for the poor. Sarah Elizabeth became known as a do-gooder. Elias had no idea what prompted her, what motivated this activity, but it was fine with him - like everything else.
When Sarah became ill, it was mundane, routine. She took to her bed and a procession of nursing nuns and local women came to assist. They bothered Elias not in the least. He had his work. His hammer rang on the metal while below in the house the women did whatever needed to be done in this time of dying.
Elias's house was still clean, his meals were adequate, and his clothes were clean and mended. The only change was that he slept in the outer room and exchanged polite words with Sarah.
"Are you feeling any better?" Her answer was always predictable.
"About the same."
One thing he could say - she did not nag, or weep, or complain. Her dying took four months and Elias's life did not change. The woman from the town came each morning and left after supper. He exchanged wages and brief words with her. He never really saw her, nor did it matter.
At fifty-five, Elias's life had a routine, as it always had, but he took less work, worked slower, and spent more time sitting in the chair by the window at the left end of the forge, overlooking the green hills. He had fallen into a routine of waiting. He was not ill, not unhappy, not uncomfortable.
As he looked down over the green, the trees, the blue of the sky, he could not pinpoint what he really thought about. It was a sort of limbo - no different than the limbo of his entire life.
Then one day in early spring they came, like a flock of dark geese, the wind flapping their veils and trains, the meld of their excited voices and soft laughter, a group of five or six nuns, picking their way carefully over the wooden bridge and up the rock path. He watched them like he would have watched anything on the landscape. They veered and passed the house, taking the path. They were coming to the forge.
It was their last stop, the end of their six month journey to the Bishop, the Cardinal in St. Louis; their excited flurry of correspondence; permission given; permission waited for. At last they had it - approval for the fence. Eight hundred running feet of fence and gate combined. An iron fence, commissioned to go around, enclose, keep safe, their hospital infirmary - "Sisters of Mercy".
They thrust at Elias dimensions, specifications, pricing; never thinking that he might have no interest in making their fence.
The fence was to be eight feet tall, one foot sunk into the ground, made in ten foot sections, each bar twelve inches apart, and each bar at the top a spike - a lethal pointed spike to prevent climbing of any kind. It was a preventative, safe fence to keep their charges at the "Sisters of Mercy" safe from something.
Elias was given the drawings - the papers spread upon his table.
"Oh, such a fence would take a year, perhaps two." His words, meant to discourage only refortified the importance of the fence.
"Of course," said the old nun, "and here," she continued, "each section is to have an angel at the top. How proud your wife would have been that you are making the fence. Do you know that Sarah crocheted all the doilies for the alter? And your brother, Adam, he would have been so proud also."
He nodded, not sure of how he should begin his refusal of the commission. They left in the same noisy mess as they had ascended on him, leaving the papers, the dimensions.
The next morning, as he arose, he saw workmen carrying supplies up to the forge. Somewhere in the papers was a bid, the amount the Church had agreed to pay. He understood how they worked. He knew they hoped he would donate his services, then they could mutter in mock surprise, "Oh God works in mysterious ways." It would be something else to include in their prayers - something else to thank God for.
He wished desperately that they had never come. They interrupted his solitude and the money meant nothing to him - he had no need for it, no children to leave it to. There was nothing in any of the stores that he wished to buy - he had food, clothing, and shelter. But that had been just the beginning of their pilgrimages up the hill with drawings, pictures, verbal descriptions of the angels that were to be made - the angels that were to preside over every ten feet of the fence.
He began reluctantly, but soon he worked with a fury, the forge roasting with heat. He began the bars, each a single rod of iron spiraled to a sharp point at either end. The ringing of the metal resounded on the hillside and the stack of rods grew as he laid them aside. Neighbors who knew of Elias's relaxed pace of working smiled. They guessed that the nuns had inspired him or that he worked so long, so hard, in the memory of Sarah, who had done so much for the church. None would have guessed his total irritation, his dislike for these holy women, these brides of Christ, who came disrupting his landscape, leaving papers on his tables and echoes of "Hail Marys".
In all the years of his marriage, Sarah Elizabeth had never come the forty feet up the hill to the forge and he had preferred it that way. Now these nuns were about and underfoot, coming at all hours and odd times. His smooth life was ruffled, interrupted. Elias wanted to finish, at all costs, their damn fence and then be left alone.
It was the question of the angel - unsettled at the moment - that still sent them scurrying over the bridge and up and down his hill.
The total of his commission was eight hundred running feet. They would need eighty angels and that was more then enough to fortify and refortify their indecision as to what sort of angels. Pictures were brought - torn out of books - and then they insisted that Elias come down to the church to see a Saint in the stained glass window. So he dressed in his only suit, put on a tie, and was ushered down the hill to the church in Florissant.
Their excitement and indecision corrupted even the quiet sanctuary of the church.
"See there," the Mother Superior pointed, "the Saint on the right - the waves of golden hair. Can you remember our angel is to have that hair?"
He tried to explain that the molten statues that were to adorn the fence were to be small and it would be difficult to incorporate all the features they desired in such small figures. But again, the dominant Mother Superior coaxed, "But Mr. Pogue, we have seen the hitching post you made. Why, only yesterday I had the opportunity to call on Mr. Anthony from the bank and we couldn't help but notice the hitching post you made. The detail was marvelous. We have faith. God will inspire you, Mr. Pogue. God will guide you, have no fear. Your angels will be to His glory."
Elias couldn't help but feel she would have made a great carpetbagger. She could have sold bottles of snake oil by the dozens. Again the sense of irritation quickened within him.
All this talk of God - he wasn't, and never had been religious. If he were to make their angels, it would have nothing to do with divine inspiration, or God. It would be purely an expedient to have them finished and all of these creatures in black that fluttered and chattered and interrupted his solitude gone.
The forge rang and Elias worked at a furious pace. The poles mounted, the stacks grew. He had not made the mold for the angel as the nuns had not yet reached a final decision.
He worked hard that winter and they came less often in the cold. He was glad that the cold kept them at the convent. He did not have to hear their genteel arguing or be brought into it with: "Well, Mr. Pogue, what do you think?"
The posts mounted and he made the cross bars, which would have to be soldered at a later time. He had never done better work. He intended that once their fence was done, they would have no reason t
o come back. At the forge his awkwardness left. He was a meticulous, skilled worker who would make them a fence that would last for centuries. It would have no flaws, no irregularities.
When the weather thawed, they came again, but quieter somehow. Maybe they, too, were weary of the hill, the fence, the indecision. They stood before him - a small semi-circle of black.
"We have decided on the design for the angels," the Mother Superior stated. He nodded. It had been seven months since they first came.
"Here." She thrust into his hand a picture. "This is the gown - long and flowing, Mr. Pogue - and the hair long and waving like the Saint in St. Roses’ stained glass window. Do you remember?"
He nodded.
"If you're unsure," she continued, "we could go take another look."
"No," he protested. "I remember it perfectly."
"And the face..." she said quietly, "the face..."
The tight group of black parted and the young nun was brought forward to stand before him.
"...the face is to be like Sister Gabriella."
The young nun stood before him, her face a perfect oval; skin unflawed and white as snow; her eyes downcast, the mouth full yet bow-shaped, the nose aquiline yet in perfect symmetry with her face. Mother Superior turned her.
"See the profile. We cannot be exact, Mr. Pogue, that would be sacrilegious. Change something slightly. We leave it to you." She turned the girl to face him. Her eyebrows were gentle, soft arches of black, the lashes thick and fluttering, shielding her downcast eyes.
Mother Superior babbled on and the girl looked up, her eyes meeting his. They startled him. He got the full impact of her gaze - not timid as he had expected. Her large black eyes with pinpoints of light reminded him of the darkest night with brilliant stars. He had seen eyes like that - bold and brazen - before.
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