Eden West (7 page)

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.

A gush of blood spills from Will’s nose. Tobias seems shocked by what he has done, but only for a moment, and then Will is swinging his thin arms, pummeling Tobias about the neck and shoulders. He is taller than Tobias, but Tobias outweighs him. Tobias strikes back, hammering a fist into Will’s cheek. Will lurches back; Tobias kicks him in the knee. Will lets out a howl and collapses. Tobias kicks him again, this time in the face. I throw myself between them and wrap my arms around Tobias; he falls backward and I land on top of him. Men are shouting and Tobias is struggling mightily. A pair of strong hands grabs my shoulders and pulls me off him.

The fight lasted only seconds, but the noise was enough to bring Brothers Jerome and Benedict at a run. It is Jerome who holds me now, his grip painfully tight. Benedict is bending over Will, assessing his injuries. Tobias climbs to his feet, uttering more curses. Benedict gives him a shocked look.

“Brother, seal thy lips!” he says.

Tobias tells him to go to Hell, a terrible curse that causes Brother Benedict to blanch.

Jerome releases me and attempts to take Tobias by the arm, but Tobias shakes him off. “I want my clothes and my stuff back. Now!”

“Peace on you, Brother.” Jerome speaks softly, as if coaxing a skittish calf.

“Piss on yourself! I’m not anybody’s brother!” Tobias squares his shoulders and clenches his fists as if expecting Jerome to attack him, but Jerome simply sets his features in a flat smile.

Brother Benedict helps Will to his feet. His nose is already swelling; there is a cut on his cheek. “We had best see Brother Samuel,” Benedict says. “Can you walk?”

Will nods, but when he tries to put weight on his left leg he nearly collapses. Beads of pain sweat appear on his forehead.

“Lean on me,” Benedict says, and they hobble off together on three legs. Tobias looks scornfully after them.

“Your Worldly goods are safe with Brother Enos,” Jerome says.

“Where do I find this Enos guy?” Tobias is sounding less frightened and more confident. He believes he has power, that he is different from the rest of us. I am sorry for him, but also discover within myself a trickle of unclean joy at the price he will pay.

“I will take you to him,” Jerome says.

All through the day, as Luke and I repair fences in the south meadow, I am beset by feelings of anger and guilt over the events of that morning. I did not need to show amusement at Tobias’s discomfiture. I could have calmed him, perhaps. Still, it was he who struck the first blows. I think of Will, his nose stuffed with cotton, lying in his cell with ice packs on his swollen knee, and I blame him, too, for laughing at Tobias, and for failing to defend himself. We are all sinners.

It is late afternoon when Lynna slips into my mind, and I realize that I have not thought of her in many hours.

“Brother!” Luke calls to me. He is struggling to reset a damaged post. I go to him and hold the post steady. As he pounds the soil firm around its base, I send up a silent prayer of thanks. The Lord has sent Tobias here for a reason. Before his arrival, I had been beset by thoughts of the Worldly girl, but now I am thinking of Tobias, and Lynna seems unreal and distant.

“I wonder how he is,” I say.

“Who? Brother Will?” Luke gives the post a shake.

“My thoughts were of the new boy.”

Luke gives me a curious look. “It was Will who was injured. Samuel says he may never fully recover from the damage to his knee.”

“Tobias does not know our ways,” I say. “He was frightened and confused.”

“A few days in the Pit will do him good.”

“Perhaps.” I think of Tobias in the Praying Pit beneath the Tower, a bare cubicle used voluntarily by some penitents, and more rarely for the punishment of the unrepentant or dangerously disturbed. The last time the Pit was used for involuntary detention was four summers ago, when Brother Von, Father Grace’s son, sneaked into Womenshome and hid in the rafters above their bathing pool. Von was not right even then. He could learn neither numbers nor writing and could handle only the simplest of tasks, but he was happy, always full of laughter and joy, a boy in a man’s body. His attempt to spy on the women was but the curiosity of a child.

Von was seen by Sister Louise. The women chased him out of the building, where he was subdued by several Higher Cherubim. Father Grace directed that Von, who had seventeen summers at the time, be confined to the Praying Pit. For several days, Von’s cries and moans could be heard from beneath the Tower. It was a dark and disturbing time in Nodd. Finally Father Grace took Von to the infirmary, where Brother Samuel, our healer, performed an exorcism, and Von’s anguished cries ceased. A few weeks later, Von was returned to Menshome with two livid scars beneath his brow. Some of the young men whisper that he is also missing something between his legs. I do not know if that is true, but he has troubled no one since that day. Nor has he laughed.

“We had best get moving lest we miss supper,” Luke says.

I nod and sling the tool bag over my shoulder. As we continue our journey along the meadow fence, I wonder whether an exorcism might be performed on Tobias. The thought disturbs me as I think of the scars beneath Von’s brow and the emptiness in his eyes.

I will pray for them both at Evensong.

The Cherubim are talking in low voices as Luke and I enter the dining area. Luke goes to sit with Jerome and Gregory. I set my tray near Will and Aaron. Aaron is talking about Tobias.

“He should be banished.” Aaron is but a Lower Cherub, yet he makes this pronouncement as if he were already an Elder.

“I hope he is,” Will says, his voice distorted by his swollen and bandaged nose.

“What about the sister and mother?” I ask.

“Father Grace would not wish to lose them as well,” Aaron says.

“I would not miss them,” Will says.

Aaron shrugs.

I eat my stew quickly and mechanically, hardly tasting it. When I have finished I go to Tobias’s cell. As he said, all his possessions have been confiscated. On a hunch, I reach my hand into the space behind his mattress and run my hand along it until I feel something hard. I lift out a small red-and-white cardboard box bearing the inscription
Marlboro
. Inside are six cigarettes and a green plastic lighter. The pounding of my heart feels hollow, as if my viscera has been replaced by nothingness. I close my eyes and focus on breathing until my heartbeat slows, then tuck the cigarette packet into my sleeve, take it to my cell, and hide it at the back of my drawer. It is most strange, to watch myself perform these acts. I wonder whether I am possessed, and if so, what demon or angel has attached itself to my soul.

Evensong is lightly attended that evening. Father Grace is not present, nor are any of the other Elders save for my father, who leads us in prayer. On the women’s side I see Sister Ruth sitting with her mother, Sister Naomi. The eldest Sisters are present, as always: Agatha, Yvonne, Marianne, and the widow Dalva, all sitting at the front. My mother is there as well. On the men’s side are Peter, the youngest of the Archcherubim, who manages our livestock and crops; Caleb, who teaches us numbers; the Higher Cherubim Jerome, John, and Taylor, and a half dozen Lower Cherubim, including myself. Von is sitting off by himself, munching on something he has hidden in his sleeve. Will has chosen not to come, for which I cannot blame him, as he must still be feeling poorly.

I follow the prayers automatically. I tell myself I am there to pray for the souls of Tobias and Brother Von, yet even as my mouth forms the proper words, my thoughts drift. I think of cities and oceans; I think of airplanes and cars and trains; I think of the moon. I think of Tobias casting his cigarette butt into the gorge; I think of Sister Salah. I think of Worldly girls with sun in their hair. Was it only days ago I spoke with Lynna?

I open my eyes to find myself back in the Hall of Enoch. My eyes drift to the right and touch upon Sister Ruth. As if sensing my thoughts of her, she turns her head and looks at me. Her teeth flash white. I feel the blood rush to my face, and elsewhere.

After Evensong I return to Menshome. Most of the men gather in the common room to share stories and gossip. I retire to my cell and lie on my back, arms rigid at my sides. I close my eyes and see Ruth’s smile. My hand rises, reaching for her, and for a moment my fingers feel the soft skin of her cheek, and her hair slips from beneath her scarf. It is not the wisp of chestnut brown I have glimpsed before but a thick shock of sun-bleached blond.

“No.” My own voice startles me. I open my eyes. I am alone.

I think of Brother Von hiding in the rafters of Womenshome, looking down upon the bathing pool, waiting for the Sisters to reveal their secrets, and I imagine that I am him. Was it such a terrible thing he did? Perhaps it was, for while I sometimes follow my mind deep into those places, I do not go there in the flesh. Is that all that separates me from Von? That paper-thin moment when sinful thought crosses over into sins of the flesh? What then of Lynna, the Worldly girl? Though we never touched, though we are separated by miles of chain-link fence, I feel her presence.

I force myself to mouth a silent prayer of cleansing and abstinence. The Lord must hear me with one ear because when I close my eyes again, Lynna is gone. Instead, the image that hovers before me is that of Tobias.

I lie awake until all the others have retired, and the lights are out, and the symphony of their snores echoes from the rafters. When I judge all of Menshome to be dreaming, I rise silently and take the package of cigarettes from my drawer and let myself out, even as I pray for forgiveness for the sin that I am about to commit.

The Village on this moonless night is still and silent as a cat in ambush. A low light flickers from one window in Elderlodge. Elsewhere the compound is all deep grays and pitch-black. I make my way past Elderlodge to the Tower, where I kneel outside the low, barred window at its base. I hear the scurry of some small creature in the grass: a vole, or perhaps a wood rat.

No sound issues from within the Pit.

Brother Benedict has taught us that there is a point in every mortal transgression when the mind, the heart, and the soul clash. I never understood that before, but now I feel the battle raging within as I kneel before the low window and peer into the darkness.

“Tobias!” I whisper.

Nothing. Then a rustling sound, and I see the shadow of his face looking out at me. “Who’s that?” he asks.

“Brother Jacob.”

I hear him breathe in and out.

“Get lost,” he says. But he keeps his voice low, and his fingers curl around the bars.

“I brought you something.”

More breathing. “What?”

I remove the cigarette package from my sleeve and hold it out to him. He takes it.

“You smoke any?” he asks.

“No,” I say. I hear him fumbling with the cigarettes, then a flare of light illuminates his face as he thumbs the lighter. I smell smoke. Each time he inhales, the tip of the cigarette becomes bright enough that I can see his face.

“How come?” he asks.

“How come what?”

“How come you’re being nice to me?”

I shrug, then realize he probably can’t see me. “I thought you might need them.”

“I don’t need them. I can quit anytime.”

“I am sorry that you are here in this place.”

“They can’t keep me here forever.”

I think of Von. “You must repent.”

“Repent for what? They took my stuff!”

“Did Brother Enos speak with you?”

“The dude with the face like a hatchet?”

“Yes.” I almost smile at his description.

“Him and the other guy, the fat one.”

“Brother Samuel.”

“Yeah. They’ve both been talking to me. Reading the Bible and stuff. I think they’re trying to brainwash me. I told them I wanted my stuff back.”

“Do not provoke Brother Samuel,” I say, thinking of the surgery he visited upon Brother Von. “Tell them you are sorry and that you wish to make amends.”