The Language of Paradise: A Novel (10 page)

Hedge busied himself at his desk, taking no notice of them as they straggled out. Gideon considered stopping to ask him one of his rehearsed questions, but thought better of it. He was just about to step into the hall—sun-drenched after the murky classroom—when a thin voice hooked him and reeled him back. “Mr. Birdsall.”

Gideon turned, blinking. “Yes, sir?”

“Mrs. Hedge has asked me to inquire whether you will be joining us again this Sunday.”

“This Sunday? I didn’t know—I hadn’t assumed—”

The Reverend went on as if Gideon hadn’t spoken. “It occurred to me after our interesting discussion that you might be willing to assist me with my Hebrew Lexicon. Only the most minor tasks, of course—copying, organizing notes, and the like. I would prefer to do it all myself, but you are well acquainted with the demands on my time. Lately, I have been turning over in my mind the possibility—say, rather, the necessity—of employing an aide to speed my project along. An amanuensis, if you will.”

“A-man-u-en-sis,” he said, lingering for a fraction of a second between each syllable, letting the last glide like syrup off the tip of his tongue.

“Should you have an interest in such a position, I am prepared to compensate you in a modest way. I am not a wealthy man, but what I can’t supply in dollars, I have no doubt my Consort will make up for at table.” Hedge gave a dry, barking cough that Gideon interpreted, a moment late, as a laugh. “No need to decide right away. You have until the Sabbath to mull over my little offer.”

CHAPTER 7

____

AMANUENSIS

T
HE FIELD HAD LOOKED SERENE FROM A DISTANCE, DOTTED
with wildflowers, tall grasses waving gently in the wind, but as soon as he set foot in it, he began to stumble. Dense, knotty undergrowth had entrenched itself in the soil and was rapidly taking over. Wiry tendrils thick as vines wound about his ankles; it was all he could do to stay upright. He would never make a trail through this midget jungle with only his hands to clear the way. A scythe was what he needed. Across the field he could see Sophy, a basket on her arm, gazing in his direction. It seemed to him that she stood on a placid shore, waiting, while he wrestled a choppy sea to get to her. With all the breath he could muster, he called out her name. Somehow the frail sound reached her: she tented her eyes with one hand and waved. He lifted his arm to wave back, but the distraction broke his concentration. He tripped, falling forward, his arms flung out helplessly, hungry vines arching up to meet him even before he hit the ground. Within seconds he was immobilized, tangled in roots.

Gideon woke in a sweat, the coverlet twisted around his legs. He kicked it aside and fell back against the damp pillow. His eyes were open, but the dream still clasped him—not its drama, which was already fading, but its atmosphere of paralysis and slow dread. He was late for an appointment—that much he remembered. He felt a muffled urgency, yet he could not persuade his limbs to move.

A gust of wind blew the curtains apart; there was a pause like a sucked-in breath, then the hollow boom of thunder. Another wet day, the sixth in a row. After a hot, dry summer, the rain had come all at once and with a vengeance. Osgood groaned in unconscious protest and turned over on his back, discharging a fusillade of snores. The noise jolted Gideon into clarity. It was Sunday. He was due at the Hedges to expedite the momentous transition from
Aleph
to
Beth
. The Lexicon awaited.

HE HAD BEEN ASSISTING
the parson for nearly two months. Seven Sundays, and by now he was a fixture: yet another domestic improvement, obediently slipping into the niche that had been prepared for him in a corner of the study. Gideon could imagine the parson pointing him out to a visitor. “And here we have my amanuensis. A simple device, but adequate for my purposes.”

His function in the household continued to mystify him. He supposed he was a sort of apprentice scholar, a rung or so higher than a clerk. Reverend Hedge was always hovering, finding his way back to the desk in the midst of whatever activity engrossed him to check on Gideon’s progress, assess his efforts, send him scurrying after another source. The primary Hebrew roots—sturdy three-legged stools on which all manner of meaning could be stacked—were only the beginning. Samaritan, Phoenician, Arabic, Syriac—Gideon’s head swarmed with ancient alphabets. Scripture references had to be hunted down, derivatives traced to their furthest reaches. His adventures with translation had led him to believe that the quest for a word’s essence would be vertical: a clean dive into deep, still waters; the gem, half-buried, gleaming in the silt. The reality was more like the noxious plant of his dream, spreading relentlessly outward in every direction.

Although the work Gideon was doing went far beyond the basic tasks that the parson had described, Hedge was never satisfied with his progress; each week he badgered him to stay a little longer, do a little more. “We are engaged in
sacred studies
, Mr. Birdsall,” he would exhort, neatly skirting the command to rest on the Sabbath. “To probe the language of the Lord is to journey into the very heart and bowels of Scripture.” Gideon suspected that Hedge, for all his criticism, was willing the Lexicon into being through him. He had not gotten very far with it on his own. Twenty-one letters remained: a whole continent of words still to be plumbed, enough work for an army of secretaries. In Gideon’s first flush of excitement after receiving Hedge’s offer, he had consulted his dictionary about the word “amanuensis” and found that it derived from a custom of the scribes of old, who signed documents they had been ordered to copy. Its literal meaning was “slave at hand.” Flexing his cramped fingers after hours at the desk, Gideon found it all too easy to envision a life spent in lexical servitude, submerged like a galley oarsman in endless repetitive labor.

This morning, as he threw on his clothes, he reminded himself that he was a free man; he could plead the pressure of his studies and leave whenever he wanted. But if he did so, he would lose all connection to Sophy. Gideon had assumed that proximity would increase the intimacy between the two of them; had even contrived some promising remarks that might develop into the philosophical conversations she longed for. Just the opposite proved to be true. He saw her at church and at dinner, always in company. He was Hedge’s property now. He barely had time to put down his fork before the Reverend herded him off to the study, discoursing along the way on his errors of the week before.
You have slighted the Arabic, Mr. Birdsall. Do not be seduced by easy solutions!
In Gideon’s state of fatigue and frustration, it was easy to see a Machiavellian plot behind it all. Hedge was too sharp not to have sensed a budding attraction between Sophy and his student, and had devised this devilish scheme to smother it in its infancy. Instead of banishing Gideon, which might lead to lovesick pining on Sophy’s part, he had installed the admirer as a permanent cog in the household machine, thereby rendering him commonplace.

Or worse, invisible. Sophy hardly ever favored him with her musing glance these days. Their relationship seemed to have regressed to formality. After the service they exchanged a few stiff words; he asked about her garden, and she replied with a precise inventory of the state of her plants, those that were flourishing, those that had faded. Gideon was reduced to mining this unpromising material for hidden meaning; his mother, he remembered, had owned an old French book about the secret language of flowers. In his lowest moments, he doubted they would speak at all once the growing season was over. She seemed different now—not so much changed as muted, her vivid presence watered down to a faded pastel. From Mrs. Hedge he learned that there had been an argument over the design Sophy had planned for the clock face, an elaborate arrangement of the signs of the Zodiac, copied from an almanac. The Reverend had judged the images unsuitable, and he had prevailed. Mrs. Hedge had no idea why Sophy had taken it so hard.

“He was well within his rights,” Fanny said. “Can you believe the girl put the constellations in place of numerals? She would have us consult Aries to see whether it is time for dinner and Capricorn for supper. And in the center, the phases of the moon, all in a ring. Even a cathedral clock would have trouble accommodating so many heavenly bodies! She means well, but she can’t see past her fancies, and if they are thwarted, she sulks.”

Gideon’s own theory was that Sophy had run away without leaving. At dinner she sat with downcast eyes, lost in her own thoughts as conversation eddied around her. But as the weeks wore on and her withdrawal persisted, he began to wonder if the exuberant dancer of his imagination had ever existed—if, after all, he had dreamed her.

The talk at table was all of James’s autumn nuptials. James had purchased land and was drawing up designs for a house, to be built by the brothers and overseen by the Reverend; until it was finished, he and his bride would live at home. They were likely to be in residence for some time. Each week the plans grew more elaborate, as James, by nature a modest, sensible fellow, added features that had clearly originated with his fiancée.

Gideon was ignored during these discussions, and not displeased to be so. It was sufficient that his mind was in bondage; he had no wish to be conscripted for months of hard labor. Taking advantage of his invisibility, he piled enough food on his plate to carry him through the lean week ahead, and applied himself to it as Micah did, with steady, reverential concentration. He felt justified in his generous helpings. Although the parson muttered about setting his wages, he had paid him nothing yet. Last week, Reuben, whose rough humor bordered on bullying, suddenly took notice of him. Pointing his fork and knife at Gideon like a pair of pistols, he’d said to the company at large, “Look at what this weedy fellow puts away! He has quite an appetite for a man who spends all day in a chair. How do you work off all that beef, little preacher?” Gideon had blushed red. Mrs. Hedge was quick to come to his defense. “You leave Mr. Birdsall alone,” she scolded. “Do you suppose he doesn’t need his nourishment as much as a great ox like you? Anyone can see how hard he is thinking!” The well-meaning woman seemed puzzled by the hilarity she’d generated. Even Sophy had smiled.

The only one who paid him any real attention was Unsworth, who was moving out at the end of the month to make room for the newlyweds. If the schoolmaster had once shunned Gideon as a rival, he now treated him as a comrade, in need of sage advice from an older and wiser friend. He waylaid Gideon at every opportunity, monopolizing him after church and appearing out of nowhere as he set off for seminary, clinging close to his side for the first mile or two. Gideon had never trusted the man, and took no pleasure in his company. The worst of it was that Unsworth forced him into the position of confidant, a receptacle for all his accumulated grievances against the Hedges. The longer Gideon listened to this vitriol, the more ashamed he was of his own festering thoughts.

“I suppose you haven’t seen any money yet,” Unsworth said late the previous Sunday afternoon, having met him on the road a quarter-mile from the house. “You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. The parson likes to pretend he’s living on good works and turnips, but it’s a sham. He’s as well-off as any banker. Interests, you know, properties and the like, and he never spends a penny without putting three back. He depends on free labor—his family, the odd parishioner who’s in his debt, bright young fellows like you. I don’t see that it’s all that different from what’s happening in the South, except his slaves aren’t fettered and locked up at night.”

“That’s an odious comparison!” Gideon was genuinely outraged, in part because he’d indulged in similar hyperbole himself. “The Hedges have more than repaid me with their kind attentions. I consider it a privilege to work under a brilliant scholar like the Reverend, who gives me the equal of a private tutorial each week. How can I attach a price to the knowledge I am gaining?”

“No need to take offense,” Unsworth said, panting from trying to match Gideon’s pace. “My eye for exploitation is perhaps too keen these days—God knows there’s enough injustice to hone it on. I was only thinking of your welfare.”

Gideon had to bite down on the “None taken” that sprung to his lips—the legacy of a lifetime of training in good manners. They strolled along in silence for a few minutes, Unsworth with his hands behind his back, staring intently at the ground between his feet as if a trail of pebbles had been laid out for him to follow. From the mulish expression on his sallow face, it was clear that he considered himself the injured party. Gideon walked even faster, hoping that his companion would finally turn tail, but the schoolmaster seemed determined to continue their parallel trot until he got some satisfaction out of their conversation.

At last Gideon said, “You have no regrets about leaving, then.”

“None at all. I’ve reached a time in life when I require more private accommodations.” Unsworth glanced at Gideon out of the corner of his eye. “Well, there is something I regret, if I’m to be honest. Have you seen the beauteous Miss Mills? James is a lucky fellow, don’t you think? I tell you as one bachelor to another, I wouldn’t mind gazing at that confection across the table each night. I haven’t had anything so fine to feast on for many a month. Meager fare at the parson’s. Scrawny, undergrown—but that’s only one man’s opinion.” He winked, showing one thick palm in a facsimile of carefree farewell, and scuttled off in such haste that Gideon could only stare after him, open-mouthed.