Saints (21 page)

So when Mother came home, Charlie barely grunted a goodnight. Anna contemplated him for a few moments, then reminded him that work came at the same time in the morning no matter how late he went to bed. He muttered his usual “I know” without really hearing her. He was reading about how Alma and Amulek, a prophet and his friend, were forced by the enemies of God to stand at the edge of a pit while men and women and children whose only crime was believing in God were cast into a fire and burned alive. “Why doesn’t God strike his enemies down?” Amulek asked, and Charlie echoed the anguished question. Alma said, “The wicked must be allowed to do their wickedness. The ones who die find that death is sweet to them.” True, true, Charlie cried out silently, that’s how it must be, our enemies are cheated because however they try to hurt us, the pain is sweet to us for the sake of our faith!

He did not recognize that sometime during the night he had stopped thinking
they
and started thinking
we
, just as Dinah had done while Heber was speaking. He also did not notice the passage of time, only the passage of the tale. After the wars, which Charlie’s imagination let him experience virtually in the flesh, there was terrible destruction—earthquakes and fires from heaven and huge waves and awful storms. Then silence, and darkness, and Jesus Christ spoke from the heavens. He had just been crucified in Jerusalem on the other side of the world, and where was he going? Why, straight to America to visit his people there. It was so far from the standard sermons about the harrowing of hell and the mystic, unintelligible union of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost in an indistinguishable trinity that Charlie found himself nodding and whispering yes, yes, for this was surely what it meant when the scripture said that Jesus came to
all
men, not just to the Jews in Jerusalem.

After Christ left, the people lived in peace for two hundred years. Then the wars began again, all because some people had to be rich when others were poor; they couldn’t stand to share. All because of ungenerosity and greed, and finally the Lamanites were allowed by God to destroy the Nephites entirely, except for one lone man, Moroni, who finished writing on the golden plates and then buried them so Joseph Smith could find them and translate them a thousand or so years later. Charlie closed the book and couldn’t bear for it to be over. He had lived in the world of the book and didn’t want to leave it. He had been Nephi and Alma and the brave young sons of the Ammonites. He had touched the wounds of Christ’s crucifixion and wept when he blessed the children. He had grieved with Mormon for all that the Nephite people had lost through their own sins.

And finally, when Moroni told his readers to ask God if the book was true, Charlie found himself saying: I don’t need to ask, I know already. This was not written by a man. It was written by God, who knows the truth about the sufferings of children and younger brothers, who knows that those who have more money through luck or inheritance or profits are really just stealing the things of the earth that should belong to all men equally.

It was not all joy, finding something that sounded true to him. There was pain, too: the shame of realizing that he had never really forgiven Robert the way that Nephi forgave his brothers for even worse crimes; the frustration of knowing that by the time Nephi was Charlie’s age he was already a prophet, writing scripture and calling upon angels. Yet what had Heber said? The worthy Saints all had the priesthood, the power of God. They all could speak and, if they had the faith and the need, the very elements would obey them. There were mighty works to be done, great works of faith, and Charlie wanted to be part of them. Wanted to be at the heart of them. Wanted to act without getting the counsel of any other soul. This time, God himself has called to me, and I don’t need Robert’s ridicule or Dinah’s advice or Mother’s worried glance.

Charlie got up from the divan and walked quietly into his bedroom. Heber was snoring softly, sprawled not under the blankets but atop them like a vast, untidy dog. Charlie went to him and touched his shoulder.

It startled him how quickly Heber awoke, how alert he was when he did. “It’s not morning yet, Charlie,” he said. “What do you want?”

“Heber, if I become a Mormon, will you give me the priesthood?”

Heber suddenly gripped Charlie’s arm. “I was dreaming, Charlie, when you came in here. I dreamed I saw you sitting beside the Prophet Joseph, and he was dictating the words of the Lord and you were writing them down, and when you were through Joseph put his arms around you and said, ‘Charlie, the Lord surely loves you.’”

The words coming the way they did, like prophecy, with Heber’s voice husky with sleep—it sent chills along Charlie’s back, and he shuddered. “Will it come true?” he asked.

Heber shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell a vision from a dream this early in the morning. If it comes true, it was a vision. Now go back to sleep.”

“No. I’ve got to be at work in three hours. We’ll have to hurry.”

“It isn’t morning yet.”

“It’s four-thirty.”

“Charlie, have mercy on a man who walked from Clitheroe!”

“You can sleep all morning after I go to work. But you won’t get any more rest tonight until you baptize me.”

Kimball sat bolt upright, swung his legs off the bed, and began pulling on his boots. “I knew it!” he said. “I knew it, Charlie, I knew it the moment I saw you in the square, I felt it like a fire in my heart. That young man has been chosen for a great work. Did you finish the book?”

“Every page.”

“It ain’t exactly a short book, Charlie. You must be just about the fastest person ever to read enough of it to be converted.”

As Heber put on his coat, Charlie chewed the word.
Converted
. Was that what had happened to him? He didn’t feel any different. Just a small change, really. Just the feeling that God knew his name. Just the feeling that Old Hulme had reached out of heaven and touched him, opened up his heart and said, This is who you are, Charlie Kirkham—now what are you going to do about it?

Charlie opened up his palms in front of him, as if waiting to have a ruler strike him sharply, wake him up and tell him what to do. But there was no stinging slap from a slender piece of wood. Just Heber Kimball’s large, strong hand gripping him and pulling him to his feet. “Before we leave the house, Charlie, I figure we ought to say a prayer together.” Without waiting for Charlie to agree, Heber bowed his head, still holding Charlie’s hands, and said, “Lord, yesterday Charlie Kirkham was so proud and stiff-necked he wouldn’t know a mule if it kicked him. Well, it looks like you kicked him hard enough to wake him up. Now give him the strength to endure the trials and temptations that Satan will put in his way, to block him from performing the mighty work you have prepared for him, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Charlie didn’t lift his head for a moment: he wasn’t used to such brief prayers.

“It’s early in the morning, Charlie. I don’t get warmed up for long prayers until noon. Now come on, Charlie. If you still want to get baptized, the water’s waiting for us.”

Five minutes later they were standing in the cold water of the Rochdale Canal hoping that no barge would come along till they were through. Brother Heber said the words and dunked him under the water. Charlie came up sputtering and Heber laughed and said, “By damn, Charlie Kirkham, I’ll bet you’re the first man ever to come out of
this
water cleaner than he went in!” Then Heber wrapped him in a great bear hug. “Brother Charlie,” Heber said. “Welcome to the fellowship of the Saints.” Then they climbed out of the water together and went home to warm up and dry off. “And I hope we can talk your mother into a few inches of medicinal wine,” Heber said. “Water’s so cold it damn near cut me in two up the middle.”

It hadn’t been half an hour since Charlie set down the Book of Mormon; it hadn’t been eighteen hours since he first saw Heber Kimball preaching in a square in Manchester. And here Charlie’s whole life was changed, turned right around without him ever suspecting it was going to happen till it came. But there was no doubt in his mind: The Lord had sent Heber Kimball to Charlie. The Lord cared what happened to Charlie Kirkham. Charlie was his own man now—let the others do as they liked.

Old Hulme’s face kept dancing before Charlie’s eyes until Charlie said to him, “I belong to you now, I’m yours now, I’m your true son.” Old Hulme smiled and nodded at him. He had done it right. He had answered all the questions right.

Dinah’s madness of the night before was gone by morning, but in its place was an unaccustomed feeling of peace. She awoke looking at her husband’s naked back, but instead of forcing herself not to resent him she felt the memory of her affection for him the night before, and she kissed his shoulder before she got out of bed, forgiving him for being so far short of what she needed her husband to be. For a moment she was even grateful for those good things that he actually was, and she even felt she knew him, and, knowing him, could love him.

She sang cheerfully as she prepared breakfast, and Val and Honor caught the mood and did not quarrel. It occurred to her as Matthew happily gorged himself that she ought to mention something about Heber Kimball and the new religion, but she did not want to spoil the happiness of the moment by mentioning its cause. Matt kissed her passionately and said, “Good-bye love,” and she saw with pleasure that his eyes were a little dazzled as he gazed at her a moment before leaving. We might, she realized, make a happy marriage of this yet.

By the time the children were dressed, she no longer felt the languid contentment of her first waking. She was more vigorous than that. She wanted now to get out into the warm morning sunlight, to talk to someone. Mother, of course, since she did not know if Charlie shared her belief in this American apostle. It was not until she had the children out of the house and they were nearly at the footbridge that she remembered that Heber Kimball would probably still be there, that he had spent the night, that she might actually have a chance to speak to him today. She quickened her step, hoping he had not got an early start.

He was there at the table with his hair wet and sticking out every which way as he made short work of cheese and toasted day-old bread. She stood at the door; the children ran from her straight to Grammum, laughing and talking about the birds they had seen on the way. Dinah only stood there. Heber Kimball looked up at her and smiled.

“Good morning,” Dinah said.

Abruptly the smile left Heber’s face. Or no, did not leave it, but intensified to more than a smile, and he rose slowly from the chair and reached out a hand to her. She walked to him and took his hand. His eyes were very bright.

“Elect lady,” he said softly, “the light of God is in your face.”

She did not understand the words, but did not care about that; she knew that without her having to say anything, he knew all about what she had felt the night before. He had seen it in her face, and so she knew that it was real after all, that it was not just madness or the afterglow of her husband’s love; the God that Heber had brought to her the night before was real.

As quickly as it had come, the feeling faded, and the touch of hands became a handshake. “Your hair’s wet,” she said.

“Took a duck in the canal this morning,” Heber said.

Anna came to the table, trailing children, and took Heber’s empty dish away, saying, “He baptized Charlie this morning.”

Dinah could not speak. In all her life she had not known Charlie to make a decision like that on his own. Charlie, baptized already. It should have made her more confident of her own decision, but instead it frightened her a little. How much power did this Heber Kimball have over them?

“You look surprised,” said Heber.

Dinah shrugged as if to deny it, then nodded slightly to confirm. Or thought she did—usually when speech failed, her gestures also became so slight that no one noticed them. But Heber noticed.

“I was confused, too,” said Heber. “Last night he kept smiling a little at my best words. I figured he thought I was pretty funny, and so I did most of my talking to you, because you weren’t laughing. And now here is a believer, and you—”

“Mr. Kimball, will you baptize me today, too?”

Heber made a face. “I wish you and Charlie had planned this better. My clothes are finally getting dry.”

It was only then that Dinah realized Heber wasn’t wearing his own suit. He was wearing some of John Kirkham’s clothing, left behind when he had quit home years before. It fit Heber no worse than his own clothes, but that was not praise.

“I didn’t know Charlie was going to be baptized,” Dinah said.

“Well, at least you and your mother could have the consideration to do it at the same time. Your mother had a notion of waiting a few days.”

Dinah looked at her mother, and Anna smiled. “I suppose there’s no need to wait, if you and Charlie are so certain. But it’s all so quick.”

Heber laughed. “Quick! Why, you’ve been waiting all your lives for this. Before you were born you knew the gospel was true, and all your lives have been spent trying to see through your disguise and discover who you really are. Well, that’s what the waters of baptism do—strip away the disguises and let you see yourselves whole. Though in fact I hope you won’t mind my asking if we could choose some water cleaner than that canal. I don’t think I’ll ever smell sweet again.”

Dinah was glad enough to avoid the canal—it was too public, and she did not want the eyes of strangers violating the event. “The River Medlock is clean upstream of Holttown, and it gets to be open country up that way. No one to see or—”

“Interfere.”

“Will that do?”

“How deep is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Anna spoke from the hearth. “I know a bathing place on Medlock. I’ve picnicked there before.”

“Well,” Heber said, “sounds fine to me. But you’re not just being baptized, you’re joining a whole church, and it might be nice to meet some of the Saints. Besides which, I haven’t so much as tipped my hat to the other brethren here, which some might think is rather rude.”