Origin of the Brunists (53 page)

The white bird: image of light and grace and the Holy Spirit, signal, as Eleanor Norton learned upon asking the One to Come, of a new life, another age. Has so radical a wonder ever happened before? Have mortals before been invaded by beings from higher aspected spheres? Or, as a reasonable man might ask: have men, known to be basically so reasonable, ever before anticipated with such unreasonable assurance such unreasonable events, behaved with such unreasonable zeal to obtain such unreasonable ends? A thoughtful question, and the sort that a reasonable man like Mortimer Whimple, the much-harassed public servant of this quiet reasonable little community, might fairly ask. Or Theodore Cavanaugh, that most reasonable businessman, whose cornerstones for the great community are old-fashioned hard work, good will, and common sense. Or a fellow like Vincent Bonali, that good-willed hard worker of incomparable common sense, whose only request is the right to earn a decent wage and live in peace with his fellow citizens. And so another man, until now
thought
to be reasonable, Justin Miller of the West Condon
Chronicle
, has presumed to answer them with wild tales (probably invented) of literally hundreds of white bird and Virgin Mary and other spectral visitations; of ecstatics who claimed to be the living incarnation of the Holy Ghost, marrying themselves to statues of the Holy Virgin, consummating it by the nearest available proxy, and substituting their own bathwater for the blood of Christ in the Eucharist; of a multitude of monks and minstrels with their own “messages from the tomb” that led thousands to their enraptured ends; of hermits who shook empires as resurrected kings; of well-to-do folks like you and me who took to whaling themselves with barbed whips and living in nude communion, the editor's descriptions of which were rather excitingly graphic, and therefore probably obscene; of “third ages,” in short, at least five or ten times a century and literally dozens of times already in this one, the so-called modern or scientific age (the editor's humorous and belittling references to messianic Marxism did at least seem reasonable to these reasonable West Condoners, if little else the editor wrote about did), with a conclusion on the Saturday before Easter to the general effect that all Christians were, in truth and by definition, as mad as March Hares, proving the editor to be, in the end, the most unreasonable man of all. Which probably explains and excuses the smashing of all the
Chronicle
windows on the night of Easter Sunday, the black cross swatched on the front door.

In the confusion of escaping the Mount, Elaine Collins and her Ma have somehow got separated, and in Carl Dean's car there are only she and Colin Meredith. By some agreement Elaine has not been privy to, Carl Dean stops for a moment on a side street just inside town and Colin gets out to take a walk. “We better go on,” Elaine says, feeling a little bit afraid in such dark circumstances with nothing but this thin tunic and her underwear on, and her Ma absent.

“They won't notice if we're just a couple minutes late, Elaine. Anyhow, I got a big bunch of feathers, and we can say we stayed to pick up the last one.” Carl Dean's arm slides past her neck and he grips her back kind of at the armpit. “We don't never get any time alone together. Your Ma's always watching.” The cloth of her tunic is such that there doesn't seem to be anything between her back and his fidgety hand, and it keeps coming to her mind about Jesus asking them to stand on the Mount with their clothes all off, and how Carl Dean had looked at her that moment. “I—I just wanted to tell you, Elaine,” he stammers, “that, well, I think you're just beautiful in your tunic.”

Her heart jumps in excitement and he kisses her. She is scared, but she lets him, because she loves him. From the beginning, they have been in love. They have a lot in common and have always talked together about it all. The only trouble at first was that Carl Dean said he didn't know if it was really true or not, and then both of them suffered powerful doubts. But, in the end, they both believed, and they are glad that religion has brought them together. When he puts his other hand right smack on her leg, though, she jumps back and stops him. “I don't like boys to do that,” she says, a little breathlessly, though in truth no boy ever has before. Her heart is going like crazy.

“I'm sorry, Elaine … it's just … well, I love you so much … and now … with just a week … just seven days …”

An indefinable anguish wells up inside her and she kisses him again, and, even though it makes her cry, she lets him leave his hand on her leg, and it makes them kiss harder and love each other more than ever. Her Ma was a little cool on Carl Dean at first, on account of she was afraid he wasn't a true believer. And Carl Dean took more interest in Mrs. Norton than he did in her Ma, and that didn't help a whole lot either. Elaine said, if he didn't think it was true, what difference did it make if he catered to Mrs. Norton or to her Ma? But he said he didn't say it wasn't true, he just didn't
know
, that was all, and he had a lot of faith in Mrs. Norton. After all, he knew her first, and even her Ma said she was a great lady, didn't she? But finally he came to believe more in her Ma and now her Ma likes him okay. “We better go,” Elaine says, partly because her leg is starting to hurt, he's grabbing it so hard, “or Ma'll be mad.”

“Just kiss me one more time, Elaine,” he whispers, taking his hand off her leg to wet one finger in the tears on her cheek. He looks at her extremely serious and she looks at him the same way. “So, no matter what, I'll always remember it. It may be … our last kiss before …”

And so she does and feels the anguish in her throat again, and she holds him tight and prays to God to let nothing bad ever happen to him, but suddenly Carl Dean, loving her so much, hauls her right up off the seat and pulls her hard against him and she feels everything just like they were bare naked and his hands are everywhere and not just on her leg either, and that
really
scares her and she twists away and starts to bawl and get hysterical. But he apologizes and lets go right away and doesn't do anything more except kiss her softly on her cheek, and he blinks the lights, and Colin comes back, and they drive straight to Giovanni Bruno's house. As Colin gets out and starts up the walk, Carl Dean whispers, “I love you, Elaine, I really do! I'm awful sorry if …” She smiles a little and tells him she isn't mad. She isn't. Just scared. And worried about what she'll say if her Ma asks her where she's been so long and why her face is all streaked up.

Worry: indeed, what night in West Condon ends without it? Certainly Easter Sunday looking toward the prophesied end of the world is no exception. Worry is the universal dread tempered by hope, prolepsis of pleasure and pain alike, and so intrinsic to the human condition, that humanity has on occasion been defined by it. And so, tonight, fathers worry about their daughters, wives about their husbands, ministers about their flocks, doctors about their patients, Brunists about how they will meet the End, doubters about the truth, the mayor about the embarrassment and the shame and the next elections, businessmen about the slump and miners about the unemployment, children about their aging parents, and just about all West Condoners worry a moment or two, unless they have dropped off blissfully before the TV, about their health or their virility or their weight or their period or their happiness or when and how they're going to die. Abner Baxter's particular worry concerns the reluctance of his Nazarene congregation to recognize the real majesty and breadth of his vision, their almost womanish bickering about what to do and when to do it, instead of simply following him in faith—in short, their galling blindness. The newspaper publicity has frightened them. Yet, he is grateful for it. In the end, it will inspire them. Ralph Himebaugh, approaching total poverty—surprised to discover that it is an ascent, not a descent—also worries, like Baxter, about the willpower of those about him, and so he is also grateful for the publicity, much as he despises the publicist, convinced that, in the end, it will commit them utterly. Meanwhile, he is alert to the least sign of weakness, the least hint of retreat, the least flush of fear or faintness of heart. At nights, he doesn't sleep at all. Nor, for a long time tonight anyway, does the banker Ted Cavanaugh. His dreams of a revivified community spirit, sprung from the Common Sense Committee, now seem doomed, thanks mainly to the
Chronicle
editor's ruthless and unscrupulous exploitation of this insignificant cult. Passions in the Committee, as a result, are much higher than he had ever intended, and elements are taking over that he had hoped to keep excluded, and he wonders now if anything constructive can ever be salvaged from it after next Sunday. Probably not. He would like to turn it off, but knows he is unable. He is caught like the rest, and the most he can hope to do is to moderate somewhat the Committee's zeal and pray for a small turnout next Sunday. As for the editor, on the other hand, there are some retaliatory steps that might be taken, that might even get rid of the bastard for good. Contemplating these, his other worries are momentarily forgotten, and he is able, finally, to sleep. The editor's employees also worry, torn between conflicting loyalties. The devoutly Catholic Girl Fried Egg Annie Pompa, for example, has been called upon almost daily by friends who find much to criticize in her continuing assistance in the production of that paper. And today, even the priest has spoken to her. The police chief Dee Romano is worried that he may have to use his pistol. He has spent the afternoon at target practice, now methodically cleans it. In all his years on the force, he has never fired it at a man. Barney Davis, mine supervisor at Deepwater No. 9, is worried about the announcement he must make, now that Easter week is over, ending the Company's pledge to Ted Cavanaugh. He himself has been offered a job with the Company elsewhere, yet he feels the pain of unemployment here as if it were his own personal affliction. He stares off, through his bedroom window, at the night sky. The worries of Wally Fisher, owner and operator of the West Condon Hotel and presently prostrate on his back on the floor of the Legion Hall, contrarily, are the happiest he has had in three months. Must remember to stock in some after-hours booze. Increase his fire insurance. Locate something to use as an annex, for already the room reservation requests from newsmen and TV people have surpassed the hotel's capacity. What else will these newsguys want? Get some women from Waterton lined up. Keep the coffeeshop open longer somehow. And then the brainstorm hits him. He breaks into a delirious giggle, stretched out all alone there in the Legion Hall, terminating in a coughing fit. Tomorrow, he will call Barney Davis. If he lives that long. Somehow, incredibly, Eleanor Norton has cut the Mount of Jupiter on her left hand with a paring knife, and worries about the portent of it. On Eleanor's hand, this rise is shifted toward the base of the middle finger, indicating, as one might expect, a tendency toward mystical religion, though principally, of course, it is ambition and the desire to command others that is read here. Can it omen the proximate loss of control over the movement she has mothered? Wylie asks her how she cut it, and she admits she doesn't know. Betty Wilson, poor soul, faced with imminent judgment, worries about having fallen into the sin of envy and covetousness, insofar as she covets Ben Wosznik who seems to have become the private property of Wanda Cravens. Wanda has been taking special privileges in their group, moreover, just because Lee was with Ely and Giovanni Bruno when he died, but, after all, wasn't her own Eddie a saint and prophet too? She has tried, humbly, to suggest this, but Ben seems less impressed. She is getting nowhere and is miserable. She decides to talk it over with her best friend Clara Collins the first thing tomorrow morning, and meanwhile sings herself to sleep with Ben's new ballad. Battista Baglione frets about the correctness of the excommunication proceedings he has initiated against his former altar boy Giovanni Bruno. He does not doubt the heresy, of course, which he perceives as really a further fragmentation of Protestantism, heresy being, as he knows full well, a straight-line regression from the Mother Church … and the further, the faster. He is worried, however, about the wording, about the aptness of each charge, about the accuracy of his knowledge of pertinent Church history. His own future within God's Kingdom on Earth may well depend on it. Although most of his flock worry conventionally, one who worries hardly at all is little Angela Bonali. She is almost literally afloat. She must be about the happiest luckiest girl in the world, her only worry being that this luck and happiness might end. Perhaps, in fact, it is inevitable. And her joy is not just because Christ is risen or because her Daddy has become so important, though she's glad about these things, but because she is hopelessly beautifully unbelievably in love, and her love loves her. Ben Wosznik, in a comparable circumstance, though tempered by thirty or forty years more of experience, a man's more defensive perspective, and a lifetime of obeying his own gift for practical common sense, worries about a possible proposal of marriage in the event they are disappointed Sunday. He's afraid she may see something improper about it, though of course Christ Jesus Himself, just before His own death, emphasized that the risen dead did not live in wedlock in heaven. And he sure does admire her, he's never met a woman her equal, yet he understands it won't be easy to make her forget. He decides, practicing his new song, that maybe he ought to talk to her about it before Sunday, so she'll know it's on his mind and won't run off afterwards without having had the opportunity at least to consider it….