Origin of the Brunists (49 page)

She fingers each perfect fragment, turns it in the light: reds golds shadowy browns and soft brassy greens. She listens to its subtle music clashing somewhere in another century, watches astonished as it spills tumbles dives leaps in her trembling hands, flashing forth its bold prophecy of love. He takes it from her with strong hands, fastens it around her throat. An aroma present as of sacramental ashes from altarfires. His eyes from under dark brows gaze down upon her, burning her lips. She explains awkwardly, brokenly, how she loves him, accepts the benediction of his mouth. Do not be afraid, she tells him. His hands search

her body, found it trembling with a kind of wild excitement wherever he touched, her breast heaving against his, hands gripping his neck, pelvis thrust forward in immolation. Be careful! he told himself, but his hand, advancing on its own, glided down her thigh's side, then up the back, passing between her legs to animating focus and combing the cleft above it, then grasped in its broad spread the whole width of her vibrant waist. There, unheeding, his fingers poked down between blouse and skirt, seeking flesh—she reached down to one side, unhooked the skirt, and it fell to the floor at their feet. “Marcella, wait!” The plant was empty, but impulsively he pulled away, put the hook on the jobroom door, arguing with the bold thrust of his own wishbone, then turned

to face her. He looks strangely like a small boy. As she unbuttons her blouse, her flesh is stroked by his hallowing beseeching eyes. Not for one moment does she fear, not even when, as though confused, he again asks her to wait. She drops the blouse, momentarily chilled by the pace of distance between them, but the collar warms her. She encloses herself in his arms once more, pulls out his shirt so as to run her hands up his strong back

The shirt sliding up out of his trousers felt like the uprooting of his entire control system. Stop her, you ass! he cried, but their mouths were locked and his own hand was coursing hungrily down the sleek gloss of her taut and trembling hips, his nostrils filled with the sweet odors of a recent bath. No! he argued, as the couch received them, soughing gratefully. His eyes fell on a copy of the night's paper not three feet away, but his hands had already stripped her, found the place: wet with its own hot supplication. Wait! show her the goddamn paper! he shouted, as he removed his own clothes over her excited gaze. He kissed the hard erect nubs of her breasts, feeling her hands chase like a curious breeze over

his body, erect, strangely tense. She cannot believe it. She stares at it, trying desperately to understand, trying not to see the shadows gathering in all corners. “But what does it mean?” He seems drawn, spent, fearfully dark. “It means I'm leaving the cult, Marcella.” Again he embraces her, but now, in terror, she shrinks from him. “It has been a mistake. But now I'm trying to undo that mistake. And I want you to undo it with me. I want you to marry me, Marcella. Right away. Tonight even. I know it will be hard at first, but—” She twists away from his grasp, her body damp with fear, cold with the shadowed wind. “But, but you promised!” she manages to cry, tears tickling her cheeks. She pulls on the skirt and

blouse, buttoning a couple buttons hastily without tucking it in, grabbed up her other things, ran barefoot to the door. He tried to block her. “Marcella, wait! I love you! Please! We'll leave together! We—we'll get a nurse for your brother—
Marcella!”
She was past him.

She runs, but her balance has been thrown, she falls, skinning her legs. Shadows chase, eyes watch, driving her forward. Rocks bite at her bare soles. She cries out, but nothing emerges from her throat. Elan and Rahim receive her, frightened—they have copies of the paper, bear them trembling. They clasp their arms around her and hold her tight, take the clothes she carries from her, lead her up to her bed. Later, Rahim brings warm soup
.

Dressing, he discovered a sock she had left behind. He picked it up, squeezed it tenderly in one hand: soft and white, spongy. A small foot. A child's foot.

He went to the house, but it was locked and no one would let him in. He felt somehow oddly old and tired: where have I taken us? he wondered. The smells of her young body lingered with him still. People stopped him to talk about the Brunists. Some protested, some laughed, some were curious, some indignant. The full Easter moon was up early in the twilit sky, but it clouded over. In his pocket, he gripped her sock. With the threat of rain, the streets gradually emptied.

One caustic star lights the black hill and a wind creeps by like death. She stands there in her tunic, silent and forever removed. Something in Marcella Bruno has revolved a final turn. Crowds gather to taunt. A cloud comes
.

Tiger Miller's April eighth Brunist special hit the streets of West Condon like a blow in the gut. Reading it, Vince Bonali couldn't sit down. Kept jumping up, slamming his fist into his palm, making speeches at nobody. Man! it was like somebody had dropped a bomb right on Easter, right on Christ Himself! Cavanaugh called him. “Yes, Ted, I read it. It's awful.” He didn't know the half of it. Cavanaugh clued him in on the stories appearing everywhere all over the goddamn country. “Jesus, Ted, it makes you sick!” But he'd never felt better. Nervous, pitched too high, feeling every minute like he had to hit out at something, but very goddamn good. Strong. In there. Knowing what he had to do. Everything seemed to be happening at once: the Committee, the Brunists, Red Baxter leading his hopped-up holy rollers all over town, Holy Week, and, as if to top it, Charlie's expected return on Good Friday. Etta had cleaned the house all over again, fed Vince and Angie on potatoes and sausage, so she'd have money for a big Easter spread. Vince was on the move all the time. He had been appointed by the mayor to head up a special subcommittee to visit the homes of miners and disaster widows, anyone in the community apt to be contacted by the Brunists. He had had Sal and Georgie and Guido Mello to help him, along with the First Baptist minister and a couple young fellows off Main Street. They had worked hard, harder than the other three subcommittees put together, had managed to visit over sixty families in a week, getting a hundred percent firm commitments from them to turn any proselyters away from their doors, and several of them had agreed to send letters to the mayor and the newspaper. Everyone thought their subcommittee was doing a whale of a job. Ted Cavanaugh had been by his place almost every day or else had called him on the phone, mainly to post him on developments, call a few new plays, and to tell Vince what a goddamn good job he was doing. Reminded Vince of those benedictory slaps on the ass Ted used to give him on the way back to the huddle after a good offtackle play, and sometimes, talking to Ted, he almost felt his butt tingle with the great sense of inclusion. Once, Vince had happened to be out making house calls when Ted had stopped by, and afterwards Etta had told Vince that Ted had chatted with her a few minutes and that apparently he had “great hopes” for Vince. “It was those speeches did it,” she said with a big smile. She was proud as hell, Vince could tell. He had spoken at every meeting, reporting on calls and so on, and they always applauded after like hell.

Now, with the
Chronicle
special in the picture, Vince was invited to an emergency meeting of Committee leaders that Wednesday night. They all decided they had better try to break up the Brunists before they could get to their goddamn end. Mort Whimple refused to make any arrests yet, so Cavanaugh said they'd better go see each of them, one by one. Start day after tomorrow, Good Friday, with the weakest ones. The Halls, the Cravens and Harlowe widows, maybe Ben Wosznik. Vince went along with the idea, but he was sweating. Said he'd be tied up: Charlie was coming home that day, and, uh … But Ted said they needed him. What could he say to that?

Thursday interlude.
Giovedì santo
. Ninth of April. The Church was a flickering white, massed with lighted candles and white lilies. Together, they prayed to the Host. Murmur of sorrowful worshiping voices like a gently rocking sea. Angie, kneeling in simple pure white, prayed fervently at his side. Vince watched the words form in her mouth, slip through her moving lips. Their baby. She's a good girl, God. He prayed in silence for his daughter. Barest fragrance of incense, low hum, altar radiant. Somehow, it felt to Vince like all his long life, from his boyhood to now, was wrapped up in this moment, he was all himselves at once, here, facing the Divine. Etta placed her hand gently over his. Slowly, half-forgotten words broke in on him, caught on Mama's accent. Shadow of the priest moving among the candles, head bowed, God hovering above in the high dome like a reaching cloud. I've come back, Mama, he said to the cloud.
“E non ci inducete nella tentazione ma liberateci dal male. Così sia.”

Outside, he was encircled by a clique of dark old ladies, anxious and peering up at him, almost like he was the priest. “I don't know,” Vince said gently, “I ain't superstitious. But you're right, there sure is a funny coincidence about the disaster and Bruno's operations.”

“Eresia!”
whispered one.
“Negromanzia!”
muttered another in an old masculine rattle, and the other women bobbed their shawled heads solemnly, fingered their rosaries.

Vince was still inventing excuses, when Ted Cavanaugh's Lincoln pulled up out front the next day. Even considered beating it out the back door. Etta went to meet Ted at the door, called to Vince from the front room. Well, hell, face up to it, he thought. Wages of sin and all that shit.

He worked up a careless smile, went in, shook Ted's hand, that of Burt Robbins, the owner of the dimestore. “Ready to go?” Ted asked.

“Sure. Say, you know, Charlie's coming home tonight, I don't wanna get held up or anything, it—”

“Don't worry, this won't take long. Who's going with us?”

“Sal Ferrero and Georgie Lucci. Sal's waiting at home. Georgie said to pick him up at the Legion Hall.” Which was on the second floor over Robbins' dimestore.

“Fine, let's go. We wanted to have a minister along with us, but they're all tied up with the Good Friday services.”

They said so-long to Etta, hurried through the light sprinkle out to Ted's car. On the way to Sal's house, Ted remarked what a terrific woman Etta was. “You're a goddamn lucky man, Vince.” Vince smiled and nodded. Be goddamn lucky to get out of this one, okay. He hoped Wanda knew enough to keep her mouth shut. They also talked about the publicity. The paper last night was even worse than the Wednesday edition, and stories, Ted said, were popping up everywhere.

They picked up Sal and drove to the Legion. The other three waited while Vince went upstairs. Pretty dead, just a few of the bachelors. He found Georgie playing poker with his old section assistant Cokie Duncan, who was as usual pretty drunk, and a few other guys. “Ready to go?” Vince asked.

“Shit, Vincenzo, I'm winning!” Georgie complained.

“Good time to quit, then,” said Vince.

“Well, excuse me, boys and girls,” said Lucci, getting up with a rueful sigh. “Gotta go burn a few crosses.”

Another guy at the table, Chester Johnson, looked up. “Oh yeah?” Split his hillbilly face into a big smile. Bad teeth, spaced widely, gave him a beat-up look.

Vince and Georgie laughed. “Shit, I think he'd really like to,” Vince said. Then he added: “Ain't nothing. We're just paying a couple social calls on some of the Brunists.”

“Well, goddamn, Vince baby! count me in!” said Johnson, scraping back his chair. He turned to the others. “Wanna join the party?” None did. Vince wasn't happy, but decided not to argue.

In the car, Vince outlined the plan as Ted had given it to him earlier. Robbins inserted a couple remarks so as not to be left out. Shifty bastard with a razorsharp nose and tongue to go with it. Vince didn't trust him, didn't like the way he always brown-nosed Cavanaugh. “We don't want any rough talk, any threats, or any wising off,” said Vince, turning his gaze on Johnson. “We just mean to explain in simple common sense why they're making a mistake that is gonna hurt them and is already hurting the community. It's Holy Week, and we wanna use the traditional feeling about it to maybe make some inroads with these people. Mr. Cavanaugh here is taxiing us around, but it's mainly our job. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” said Johnson in that goddamn nasal country twang of his. “Anybody remember to bring the hammer and nails?” Even Cavanaugh grinned.

At Willie Hall's place, they got literally nowhere. They stood in the light rain at the front door and talked through the screen to Willie's wife, who said Willie was not home, while a whole goddamn bevy of women tittered and whispered in the back of the house. “We're all friends of Willie's, Mrs. Hall,” Vince said, “and we just stopped by here for a minute to discuss with you both about this group you people have got that is talking about the end. We thought if we had a little—” And she shut the door in their faces.

Back in the Lincoln, wet and disgruntled, Vince suggested they maybe should have just gone on in there. His buddies backed him up, remarking that Willie was probably in there under the bed, and they could talk him out of anything. Ted shook his head, made it clear in a word that they had to keep calm, do what they could, not worry about it if they didn't succeed. They changed the subject, joked instead about what a big brute little Willie's wife was.

Widow Wilson they passed by, since Widow Collins was living there now. Since the fire. Ted told them Widow Collins had been somewhat deranged by her husband's death and was a hopeless case. Widow Harlowe, who lived in the old housing development, just a couple dozen doors or so around the circle from Wanda Cravens, let them in. She kept a neat little house, in spite of a bunch of little children. “This is Mr. Cavanaugh,” Vince began, “from the bank. Mr. Robbins from Woolworth's. The rest of us worked down in the mine, Mrs. Harlowe. With Hank. We just only wanted to have a little personal talk with you about, about Giovanni Bruno and the … his …”