The Language of Paradise: A Novel (26 page)

Poor as the drawing was, the movement of his hand recalled to Gideon’s mind the Hebrew letter that became a house, and how he had penetrated its façade and entered in. In the first weeks after his illness, he had been desperate to retrieve the experience; he had questioned Sophy over and over about his delirious ramblings, combing her memories for clues. But as his health improved, practical concerns dominated his thoughts, and he had stopped asking. The remnants he clung to faded, and soon he was left with nothing more than a misty impression. The deeper reality that he had glimpsed began to seem illusory to him. It struck him as pure irony that he had lived these last months in a state of normality he once would have scorned, with a wife and a profession and an acquired family. Life, the consuming mass of it, had overtaken him, and he had forgotten what he saw.

The memory came back to him now. It came back whole, in a continuous flow, as he had lived it.

Again he slid headfirst through viscous white, a slow fall such as Hedge claimed had been reserved for the angels. The ether filled his eyes and ears, erasing all his senses. In a blind panic he flailed, arching his body like a fish’s, trying to right himself; then surrendered, becoming nothing but the velocity of the fall. He woke, as if from a long, deep sleep, and opened his eyes to a cutting clarity. At first it was like staring into a celestial jewel case, the world coming at him in hard, brilliant chunks. He couldn’t look at it for long, but neither could he look away, and with each glimpse the scene around him became more legible. He made out a clearing, set about with flowering bushes and trees, rising to a small hill. A recognizable landscape, but superearthly: each blade of grass shining separate; the foliage throbbing with life, its green a pulsing energy; the ground beneath his feet firm but resilient, upholding him even as it sped him forward. He was perfectly at home, though he knew he had never been here before. The land seemed to open before him, ever widening, offering up its features for his delight. His vision had expanded so that he saw the whole picture and its parts: the veins of individual leaves on each tree and the harmonious vista the trees made together, some standing singly while others clustered at measured intervals, their laden branches arcing toward each other with formal grace like the arms of ballerinas. He came to the hill, and as he gazed at its gentle slope, had the notion that he should climb it, put his new powers to use by discovering what he could see from the top.

That had been his last conscious thought until he opened his eyes on that fateful afternoon to Sophy doing needlework at his bedside.

The present return was more jarring. Gideon was disoriented, unsure of where he was, or how he had arrived in a place so cold and colorless. He huddled deeper into his shawl, peering at the crude drawing before him, trying to make sense of it. A hieroglyph it seemed to be, of a creature native to these shores where he had, unaccountably, washed up. He was aware of fending off some unpleasant knowledge, to which the drawing held a clue. In a spasm of distaste he pushed the paper aside, and remembered, as his wrist swung out, that he had made it himself.

Reality flooded in on a tide of grief. He had resurrected an experience that had been dormant for months, but the passage of time had not dimmed it. The brief exposure left him torn with loss, his heart like a shackled slave in a ship’s hold, keening for his motherland. He was in exile! They all were, whether they knew it or not: his Sophy, and Micah of the crippled tongue, and down-to-earth Fanny, and poor Mrs. Jennings; yes, even that Leviathan of self-righteousness, Mendham. In exile from their true home, and clinging to a forlorn hope that they would be delivered to a better place after death. Gideon had never felt the slightest call to be a missionary, but he felt it now. He had glad news to bring to his suffering flock; he had traveled to a country more real than Heaven, more accessible than they dared to dream. He must banish from his mind thoughts of how he would be received. His only obligation was to tell what he had seen. He flipped the paper over, jettisoning whale and sermon notes at once, and began to write.

We are accustomed to think of Paradise as a realm utterly foreign to our own: white light, billowing clouds to cradle the weightless feet of angels, an atmosphere bleached and floating and insubstantial. Imagine, if you can, that just the opposite is true
. . .

CHAPTER 22

____

PREACHING PARADISE

S
OPHY IS ANXIOUS. GIDEON IS HAPPY. ON A SUNDAY MORN
ing he is happy, and has been since he woke up, humming as he dressed for church and brushing her hair for her, as if within an hour he didn’t have to stand before the congregation in his armor of stiffness and deliver the message he has labored over all week, polished phrases and closely reasoned arguments that will fly right over their heads. She wonders if he will break forth in some way. Loose his real nature at last. She has been expecting an outburst for some time, but thought it would happen privately, that she would go to the study and find a scrawled note, Gideon fled in search of the destiny she interrupted. Sometimes, Sophy imagines that he asks her to come with him. The two of them walk up the road holding hands, she in her shawl and he in his old hat, as free of possessions as the birds that careen above them. The road vanishes into the hazy distance, her imagination having failed to provide them with a destination.

They are walking up that same road now, but Mama and Micah and James are with them, forming the customary procession to church. Their blacks and grays rebuke the brilliance of the morning. Sun dazzles their eyes as it glances off the snow, and every branch and bush is sheathed in ice. The trees glitter like chandeliers in a grand ballroom. When wind agitates their branches, Sophy hears glasses clinking in pine-scented rooms where, tonight, Sabbath or no, revelers will raise cups of punch to toast the New Year. She has always nursed a secret envy of worldly folks who defy winter with warming spirits and light talk and laughter. Papa said that those who chose to celebrate the beginning of the year by addling their brains with drink were worshiping Janus, the two-faced god, whether they knew it or not. But, remembering how Papa longed for festivity at the end of his life, Sophy wonders if under the skin he was as pagan as her mother was. As she suspects herself to be.

They walk quickly because of the cold. She has to skip to keep pace with Gideon, who strides ahead like Papa used to, instead of lagging behind to brood over fine points of his sermon.

“The world is wearing all its diamonds,” she says. “It doesn’t know today is Sunday.”

Gideon laughs and takes her arm. “Fortunate old world. I’ll do my best not to depress its spirits.”

AT GIDEON’S REQUEST
, the choir has opened with a hymn, instead of a Psalm. It is a stirring hymn—
Glorious things of thee are spoken, Sion, city of our God
—and perhaps this accounts for the spring in Gideon’s step as he processes down the aisle. He looks confident, Sophy thinks. He is always handsome, but she has observed that the men, sensing his discomfort in the role of church leader, regard his fine features as the outer sign of an inner weakness. Now that he is married, ladies who once coveted him for their daughters don’t spare him the jaundiced eye. She is almost grateful for the gaggle of girls who flock together after service, watching him and whispering, lingering to babble nonsense to him at the door. Sophy doesn’t mind that they ignore her, though she stands each week in her rightful place by his side. She is happy to see him admired, even by these featherbrains.

The parishioners offer the choir their usual patchwork support, some opening their mouths no wider than a penny bank, while others, like old Mrs. Campbell, whose trembling soprano has wandered athwart of the tune for years, sing louder than they ought. Just as Gideon reaches the end of the aisle and turns to face them, the second verse rings out, triumphant, filling the church:

Who can faint when such a river Ever will their thirst assuage?

Grace, which like the Lord, the giver, Never fails from age to age.

There is a moment when the congregation rallies as one, basking in the illusion that it has made a joyful noise. Sophy is among the first to follow Gideon’s gaze to the tall man in the rear pew, who slipped in while they were singing and lent his powerful baritone. For a few seconds he and the choir carry the third verse on their own while the parishioners swivel their heads to stare at the newcomer.

Sophy can’t blame them. Leander Solloway cuts a striking figure. He is not the common run of Ormsby schoolmaster. His height alone would set him apart in any company; he looms over Moses Apthorp, who exceeds six feet and sits in the back out of consideration. Solloway looks like a man who would be more comfortable wielding an ax in a wilderness than correcting grammar. He is bareheaded, his coarse black hair slanting untamed across his broad forehead and culminating in a full beard. He has dressed for church in a long, shapeless coat of some crudely woven cloth, under which a patterned vest can just be glimpsed, and has tied his cravat in a drooping bow. He arrived in the village only two months ago, when school commenced after the harvest, and already rumors are circulating. That he has never been seen in church is the least of them. He seems not the least disturbed by the stir he has caused, and goes on singing with full-throated vigor, his head thrown back.

Gideon moves briskly through the prayer and morning Psalm, emanating an ease he has never shown in the pulpit. And something more: a radiance she hasn’t seen for months, the angel in him rampant. The change has come on too suddenly for her to trust it. Usually she gives only half an ear to the rote parts of the service, but now each word of prayer, even his peculiar choice of Scripture passage—the first chapter of Genesis, read by Elder Sims in a tone so flat as to reduce the milestones of creation to a list of morning chores—seems to mask a hidden message about his state of mind. Sophy chances a sidelong glance at her family to see if they have noticed. Mama wears the Sabbath face she has forged over years of Sundays, conveying a polite tolerance of any wisdom the minister might bring forth, however dubious, and James is gazing vacantly at the prayer book in his lap. Only Micah is alert. He senses Sophy looking at him and briefly meets her eyes.

Gideon keeps his calm until the moment arrives to deliver the sermon. Sophy hopes that no one else observes how pale and set his face has turned as he looks out over the congregation, how his hands grip the sides of the pulpit so tightly that the knuckles show white. His eyes rove over the pews from front to rear, gathering his flock as one. She knows what he sees from his high perch: a few faces uplifted in expectation; others stony, enduring the cold and discomfort; the lucky few with foot-stoves hoarding their ration of warmth, perhaps anticipating a doze. “Brothers and sisters,” he begins. His voice is strong.

“Some of you may have wondered why I departed from custom to choose Genesis for the Scripture reading this morning. Granted, the Roman calendar proclaims it the first day of the new year, a time when tradition dictates that we put aside old habits and begin afresh. Yet, given the losses we have endured as a community over the last months, a passage from Job would surely have been more appropriate. We too have seen those whom we loved taken from us, we too have lifted our voices to Heaven and cried out, ‘Why?’ How often have I sat in your parlors, wordless, helpless to do more than share your grief, and wished that I could supply an adequate answer! To that end I have shut the door of my study many nights and submerged myself in prayer and contemplation. The response I was given, after much seeking, was as uncanny, as remarkable, as Leviathan, that mythical denizen of the sea, must have appeared to Job.” He has been speaking in a natural, almost conversational way, his face frank and open, but now he pauses and takes a deep breath, summoning his forces. Sophy, aware of the heightened expectation around her, feels a hitch in her own breathing. “Brothers and sisters, I believe I was granted a vision of another world. Notice, I do not say ‘next world’ or ‘afterworld,’ but ‘other,’ for I have reason to believe that this place exists parallel to the world we know.”

The church falls silent, the usual coughing and seat-shifting stifled all at once, as if someone dropped a cloth over a cage full of birds. Gideon glances at his notes for the first time and speaks into the stillness.

“We are accustomed to think of Paradise as a realm utterly foreign to our own: white light, billowing clouds to cradle the weightless feet of angels, an atmosphere bleached and floating and insubstantial. Imagine, if you can, that just the opposite is true. That the place we call Paradise is more
solid
than our familiar earth, the foliage more richly green, the sky a more piercing blue, the ground beneath one’s feet more firm. That the air is so pure it goes to the head like celestial spirits, bringing clarity instead of confusion. But how can I describe what I saw when the very words at my disposal are fallen?