Ollie's Cloud

by Gary Lindberg

  “You must be very still now,” Isaac says, irreverently repeating Jonathon’s instruction. “How many seconds today?”

  Jonathon holds up fingers. Isaac nods and makes the picture. Everyone laughs when it is over, even Jonathon, for he has never had his own picture taken. “I don’t like it much,” he says, “having to stand still.”

  Chapter 35

  No sooner have the Crenshaws settled into the Reverend’s comfortable house but another wedding seems to sprout from the moist April soil, this event much simpler than the last. Alice has decided upon a small family wedding and on her special day she descends Ollie’s creaking staircase in a brownish-green pelisse—a spartan day-dress with a high neck and long sleeves—and a dark green bonnet. A veil clouds her face like a puff of her father’s cigar smoke.

  For just a moment, the veil whisks Oliver back to Bushruyíh and the magnificent image of his veiled mother reposing on silk cushions in the anderun.

  Reverend Crenshaw presides over the short service, with Jonathon as Best Man and Phebe Crenshaw as Matron of Honor. Oliver and Alice stand before the Reverend as Isaac sings the Twilight Hymn. The boy has perfect pitch and an angelic voice that astonishes Oliver, who has never heard the boy sing. In this atmosphere of expectation for the imminent Return of Christ, the words of the hymn provoke shivers in all present:

  Yes, when the toilsome day is gone,

  And night with banners gray,

  Steals silently the glade along

  In twilight’s soft array,

  I love to steal awhile away

  From every cumbering care,

  And spend the hours of setting day

  In gratitude and prayer.

  I love to meditate on death!

  When shall his message come

  With friendly smiles to steal my breath

  And take an exile home?

  I love by faith to take a view

  Of blissful scenes in heaven;

  The sight doth all my strength renew,

  While here by storms I’m driven.

  When the hymn is finished, the Reverend turns to his daughter and reminds her that she is the Bride of Christ. “In Revelation 19:7 we are told that the bride makes herself ready for the marriage and the marriage supper by providing herself a garment of good works,” he says; this is the only part of the sermon that Isaac will remember in future years.

  “My dearest daughter, all Christians do not work for Christ, therefore all will not be the bride. The absence of this garment will cause an unfaithful Christian to be ‘put away’ as it were, in the darkness outside the wedding feast. It is the darkness outside the feast where the unfaithful will be, while those who have been faithful will be enjoying a communion and fellowship not shared by all. Be faithful always.”

  To Oliver the Reverend says, “My son, you have brought great joy to my daughter and to our home. This marriage may last only a day, perhaps just an hour, because Jesus is coming soon to take us all from the earthly storms that are driving us, as that stirring hymn reminds us. But in heaven your marriage is eternal. You will be together always.”

  Afterward, Jonathon photographs the wedding party. He does not believe that Jesus is coming, and he suspects that Ollie and Alice will cherish the picture in their old age on earth. Anyway, if Jesus does come and abduct his friends from earth, Jonathon is quite certain that he will be left alone to care for the farm. This picture, then, will be a memorial to his friendships after they are gone.

  A wet April quickly becomes a hot and muggy summer. Now that school is out, Isaac is free to pester Ollie with his newfound passion—learning Farsi, his father’s native tongue. On evenings when Ollie is not traveling to gather material for his articles, Isaac demands lessons. He wants to be like his father. He wants to communicate with him in the language that was Ollie’s boyhood language. He wants nothing to be lost in translation.

  At first he finds his mouth and tongue ill-suited for the foreign sounds he tries to duplicate, but before long he has mastered the odd nasals and glides, the unfamiliar labial stops and palatal affricates and high-back rounded vowels. His early vocal gymnastics make Ollie smile, but bemusement soon changes to pride as Isaac’s harsh New York accent melts into the caramelized textures of the Farsi tongue. An incessant exchange of utterances becomes a secret language between father and son. The intimacy and exclusivity of it strengthens a bond that neither of them has ever experienced before. By autumn, Isaac and Ollie are speaking to each other primarily in Persian, with Alice defensively picking up a few words here and there to fling into a conversation, often inappropriately.

  Isaac’s linguistic immersion floats above the strong ebb and flow of religious emotion. Expectation of the rapture causes tension, even among those who long for it. At times the anticipation manifests joy and euphoria, but sometimes—usually in the stillness of night—emotion turns to anxiety, even fear. The thought of being snatched up bodily, plucked like a ripe orange from the tree of life, separated from all that is familiar and known, to face the fearsome countenance of God—this can be terrifying. What will it feel like? Will sins be exposed to everyone? What if I am left behind?

  Mornings, of course, can be even worse than the nights.

  On a Wednesday morning in late October, as Isaac prepares for school, Alice suddenly awakens alone in bed. Panic-struck, she screams and runs from the bedroom, pale and trembling. Seeing Isaac downstairs, she cries out, “No, Isaac—not you, too!”

  Alice stumbles down the stairs and Isaac rushes to her. “Ollie’s been taken!” she shouts. “He’s been taken and we’ve been left!” She seems still to be dreaming.

  Isaac grabs her shoulders and shakes, but she starts sobbing and repeating the words, “My God, Isaac, we’ve been left behind!”

  Isaac turns at the sound of a door creaking open. Ollie, who has been drinking tea on the porch, has entered.

  “It’s all right, Alice,” he says. “I’m here.”

  Confused, Alice turns to Ollie and says, “You’ve been left, too?”

  “We are all here, Sweetheart. All of us,” Ollie replies. “The time has not yet arrived for any of us to be taken.”

  Alice stares at her husband and tries to gather her thoughts. Isaac releases her. She rakes her fingers through her matted hair and shakes her head as if this will encourage clarity. “Oh,” she says weakly.

  And then they have a nice breakfast of tea and eggs.

  Several weeks later, on a Thursday evening, the Crenshaws come to the Chadwick’s farmhouse for dinner, an occurrence that takes place several times each week. Phebe brings a freshly baked chocolate cake. After dinner, Phebe retires to the living room to read her magazine while the Reverend reports statistics about the number of recent local converts to Alice and Ollie.

  “Five more souls to join us on the day of rapture,” the Reverend declares. “Old man Fogarty is still a hold-out, however, despite the efforts of his entire family to save him. Tough old coot. Satan’s got a firm grip on him.”

  “That’s wonderful news, Papa,” Alice says. “I mean about the five converts, not about Ben Fogarty.” She looks unusually plump and happy. She leans and burrows into Ollie’s chest on the sofa. Ollie wraps his arms around her.

  “Any day now,” the Reverend says somberly. “It will happen soon, I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Maybe it’s your arthritis,” Jonathon says, teasing the old man.

  “You should take this more seriously, Jonathon.” The Reverend puffs out his chest and his voice takes on the officious intonation of the preacher. “In these last days, I tell you all, we should be tireless in our efforts to save every soul that can be saved. I’m afraid that we may be holding up Christ’s return because there are souls to be saved that we have not yet reached. Alice, we need you back in the pulpit.”

  “Papa!” Alice cuts off her father with a gentle word. “God has called me to another purpose right now.”

  “My dear, no other purpose can be so noble as to u
se your gifts for evangelism…”

  “Papa, listen to me!” The smile is gone from Alice’s face. She pulls away from Ollie, arches her back, and then takes Ollie’s hand. With a tender glance at her husband she says, “I’m going to be a mother.”

  Ollie is as surprised as the Reverend.

  Isaac grins radiantly.

  “Are you sure?” Ollie asks.

  “I saw Doctor Malcomb. There’s no doubt.”

  Ollie sits, dazed, as the Reverend springs from his chair and lumbers to his daughter, embracing her.

  “That’s wonderful news, my dear. But it’s early—I’m sure that God will give you the strength to…”

  Alice interrupts him again. “The Doctor said that I have a very frail framework—as he put it—and a constitution that, for whatever reason, will make bearing this child somewhat risky for both the baby and me. He cautioned me to eliminate physical and emotional stress wherever possible. I think that traveling and preaching is out of the question for now.”

  As if just now coming out of a trance, Ollie stands and shouts, “Did you hear that Isaac? Jonathon? I’m going to be a father!”

  He steps to his son and his friend. They shake his hand and pat him on the back as the Reverend retakes his seat, somewhat sadly.

  The Reverend says, “Such joyful news, and yet—”

  “And yet what, Papa?”

  “And yet… what’s the point? Surely we’ll all be taken into the arms of Jesus before the child will be born.”

  The group’s joy drains away.

  “Oh Papa, surely there is a reason that I was given this gift.”

  The Reverend’s expression turns even sourer. “Oh God, why do you test us in this way?”

  “In what way, Papa?”

  “This child of yours is conceived in sin. You know the Psalm. It says, ‘Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.’ Until baptism, a child is condemned to suffer the consequences of humanity’s sins. If Jesus should come before it is born, it cannot come with us.”

  Alice had not considered this complication.

  “But Grandpa,” Isaac says, “it doesn’t seem fair that an unborn child could be condemned to hell. How can a child that’s not even born be held accountable?”

  The Reverend is too invested in his theology to invoke common sense, yet he makes an attempt at logic when he replies, “The unborn child, the infant, and young children have not had the time or the life experience necessary to understand the requirements of salvation. Would you agree? I thought so. They are unable to understand the awesome responsibilities of making a covenant with God. Therefore, the spiritual condition of the unborn, the infant, and young children is the same as any unconverted person who has never had the opportunity for salvation.”

  Unhappy with this opinion, Isaac curses in Persian. Ollie glances at his son, wondering where Isaac could have learned such a thing, then remembers the time he ran his shin into a railing in front of the boy.

  “Papa, baptism is surely a way to salvation for children, is it not?” Alice pleads.

  “Yes, of course, but this child is not yet born.” There is a long silence. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting…?”

  Ollie immediately understands the direction of his wife’s thinking. He interjects, “I want my child to be baptized tonight.”

  With an enormous sigh, the Reverend puts his hands to his temples, rubbing them so hard he leaves fingerprints. His brow wrinkles and his face reddens as if he is lifting a heavy weight. Then he says, “This is a rather technical issue.”

  Phebe, silent until now, loudly puts down her magazine and says, “For goodness sake, Theodore, baptize the child. God is the judge here, not you.”

  “I agree with Phebe,” Jonathon says. “Never believed in all this dunking and sprinkling, but unless baptism can be a sin, I don’t see what harm it can do. In fact, if you really believe that Jesus might come any minute, you might hurry it up a bit.”

  And so the Reverend agrees to improvise a baptism ceremony for the unborn child. That evening, the group surrounds Alice, who remains seated on the sofa next to Ollie. The Reverend pulls some random scraps of scripture out of his memory, a few of which relate to the unfolding event. And then he unbuttons Alice’s dress over her abdomen, exposing white skin. Taking a handful of water from a teacup, he drizzles her belly and she coos “Oooh!” as the cool water drips onto her warm flesh. After a few more words from the standard Baptism ceremony and a short prayer, the service is over and Phebe fetches plates of dessert—the “most important part of the ceremony,” according to Jonathon.

  Chapter 36

  The following week is a time of dreams. In a ramshackle house two farms removed from Ollie’s homestead, a nine-year-old girl, Winnie Talbot, is awakened at four oclock in the morning. Running into her parent’s bedroom, she shakes her mother.

  “What is it dear?” Edith Talbot asks. “Another dream?”

  Winnie nods.

  “A scary one?”

  Winnie shakes her head. “Just sad,” she says.

  Winnie’s father, Ed, has had enough of the girl’s nightmares. God has cursed him with a daughter who suffers from a kind of madness. Even though his wife and many of the neighbors (especially the religious ones) think of Winnie as an oracle, Ed knows better. His mother was mad, and his grandfather—both of them subject to prolonged periods of melancholy, like Winnie, during which they would sit and stare speechlessly for days or weeks.

  “I’m glad your words have come back, Winnie,” Edith says, stroking her daughter’s hair. “Care to tell me about it?”

  “There was a man standing under a palm tree.”

  Edith considers this. Confused, she says, “And the man was sad?”

  “No,” Winnie says. “He was happy. But I was sad.”

  “Why were you sad, Winnie?”

  “Because he is going to die.”

  “When, Winnie—when is he going to die?”

  “On the last day of the year.”

  “Then why is he happy?”

  “Because the one he has been waiting for will come soon after.”

  Edith Talbot has no idea what this dream means, but surely Reverend Crenshaw will know. And possibly old lady Peterson on the far side of town, and Felix Shims at the Methodist Church, and... Many people who will want to know that Winnie has had another dream.

  At the precise time of Winnie’s dream, it is noon in the Ottoman Empire. Once each year, Siyyid Kazim, the leader of the Shaykhis, visits the tomb of the Imam Husayn, and this is that special day. Traveling with more than twenty students, he stops at a large palm tree to perform the Muslim noonday prayer. The faithful gather around him while a grizzled shepherd, who was sitting on the stony ground near the tree when they arrived, watches from a few paces away.

  “Join us if you wish, my friend,” Siyyid Kazim says to the shepherd, who seems astonished at the presence of the Siyyid and nods timidly.

  After devotions, Kazim stands and stretches. The students sip from their water gourds. Kazim is not yet fifty, but his bones feel as if he is eighty. A constant pain in his stomach keeps him up most nights, and life itself seems to be seeping out of him one drop at a time.

  The shepherd shyly approaches Kazim. “I believe that I have a message for you,” he says.

  “For me?” Kazim says, surprised..

  “If you are Siyyid Kazim, yes.”

  Kazim is bewildered. How could this shepherd know his name? “Who sent this message?’ he asks.

  The shepherd bows suddenly. “The Prophet Muhammad,” he answers. “I cannot understand why He chose such a lowly creature as me. I must be mistaken.”

  The shepherd’s words catch the attention of the group. Siyyid Kazim takes the man’s hand and lifts the shepherd to his feet. “You were seated here before we arrived. You were expecting me. How is that possible? Even I did not know that we would offer our prayers at this spot until we stopped here.”

  The shep
herd’s dark eyes, folded into deeply set wrinkles carved by years of squinting, seem to brighten. “It is too much for an old man to believe that God would speak to me. I waited here to prove that my dream was just an old man’s fantasy.”

  “I have had dreams, too,” Kazim says. “Tell me about yours.”

  After a deep breath, the shepherd begins to speak. “Three days ago I was tending my flock in the field over there.” The shepherd points beyond the palm tree to a stony meadow. “As my sheep were grazing, I reclined against a large stone and fell asleep. A dream came to me, and in this dream I saw Muhammad, the Apostle of God, who spoke to me. The prophet said, Give ear to My words, and treasure them in your heart. For these words of Mine are the trust of God which I commit to your keeping.”

  The shepherd is suddenly overcome with emotion. He drops to his knees and says, “Forgive me if this dream if not of God!”

  Kazim kneels beside the old man. “You said the message was for me,” he says. “You must deliver it.”

  The shepherd rubs his face with dusty hands, shakes his head, and calms himself with a whistling exhalation through cracked lips. “The Prophet told me to stay near this tree. On the third day after this dream, He said, a descendant of My house, Siyyid Kazim by name, will alight at the hour of noon beneath the shadow of the palm tree. As soon as your eyes fall upon him, seek his presence and convey to him My loving greetings.”

  Kazim touches the man’s shoulder, and the warmth of his hand seems to soothe the shepherd. “What were His greetings?” Kazim asks gently.

  “I am to say, on behalf of the Prophet, Rejoice, for the hour of your departure is at hand. When you shall have performed your visits to the tomb of the Imam Husayn and returned to Karbala…” The old man stops, looks up at Siyyid Kazim with great sadness and then continues: “…there, on the day of ‘Arafih, you will wing your flight to Me.”