The Language of Paradise: A Novel (45 page)

“I wish it were a laughing matter, Mr. Solloway,” Entwhistle said, finally.

“Dear, brave Mr. Entwhistle, I, too.” Subsiding, Leander wiped his eyes. “One expects such barbarities in Europe, but that the tentacles reach to our artless little village . . . I hadn’t bargained for the scope, the
sophistication
!” Then, taking one of his sharp turns toward the practical: “You’ve told us what we must do, but there is something you can do for us. See our Aleph for yourself and judge whether we mistreat him.” He glanced at Sophy. “Sleeping, is he? We’ll all be very quiet.”

Gideon led the parson on a winding route through the house, making sure he saw the grandest rooms. He knew that Entwhistle, with his well-made clothes and air of refinement, would look beyond their bareness and appreciate the elegant lines. Passing quickly through bedroom musk, thankful for the closed curtains, he opened the door to the conservatory.

It had been perhaps an hour since Gideon left the glasshouse, but the pale morning light had ripened to gold in the noon sun, and he would swear that the plants were taller, that buds tightly furled minutes earlier had burst into flower. Micah, the only witness to the miracle, was dozing in a corner. And in the midst of this fecundity, just as Leander had foreseen, the sweetest bloom, his son. They stood around the quilt, charmed by the picture the baby made on his bed of colorful scraps. Aleph had been sleeping on his stomach, but now he stirred and, turning over, opened his eyes to his mother and smiled. Gideon hoped Entwhistle noticed how full his cheeks were, and how rosy.

The parson put his hands to his heart. “Lovely!” he breathed.

Gideon and Leander walked out with the pastor as he took his leave. Leander was effusive in his thanks, but also urgent. “All we ask is that you tell them what you saw. We live in simple harmony here, and enjoy our own society, and do no one any harm. Seclusion isn’t a crime.”

“I’ll do better than that. I’ll preach a sermon on it.” Entwhistle patted the horse’s nose. “But you will give some thought to baptism? Mine is not the strongest voice.”

LATE THAT NIGHT
, Gideon rose from a restless bed and went back to the glasshouse. In the dark he picked his way among plants until he found the rocking chair. The air was pleasantly cool, and the slumbering greenery breathed out a mineral smell, more of earth than leaf. He sat for a while, letting the quiet enfold him, calm for the first time in hours. He had been angry since the parson’s visit, and his anger had made him impatient—with Sophy for her treachery, born of weakness and yet to be dealt with; with Leander for his infernal optimism. Even Aleph had grated on him, wide awake after his long nap and refusing to go to sleep. All their work—what had it come to? Leander pleading with the parson to intercede for them with his flock of Philistines. Himself begging the merchant for the privilege of educating his lumpish sons.

Once, not long ago, there had been a naïve young man who’d compared the text he translated to a wall, and confessed his longing to penetrate it. How flattered he had been by his teacher’s attention, how eager to confide in the great man, how unprepared when the question came slamming down on him like an iron gate.
Tell me, Mr. Birdsall, what is the purpose of a wall?

It came to him that Hedge had not stopped him. He had persevered, and he had broken through. He was not so young anymore—certainly not so innocent—but there was no doubt that he was on the other side of the wall: a new settler in the country he’d glimpsed through chinks between stones. A foreigner still, not yet fluent in the language nor acquainted with all its ways, but a citizen, with a citizen’s rights. He had overcome Hedge’s moral certitude and his tidy Calvinist exclusions. He would not be evicted now.

If the Reverend were to ask him that same question today, he would have a ready answer. “To discourage intruders, to be sure. But the real purpose of a wall is to keep Paradise intact.”

His purpose also. Closing his eyes, Gideon gave himself over to his new resolution, the swell of it filling his breast and spilling into the room and the sleeping house beyond. In the darkness his own borders seemed to dissolve. He felt immense, invincible. The pettiness that oppressed him earlier—what power did it have against such a will as his?

But when glass shattered behind him, once, twice, he pitched forward as if holes had opened in the back of his head.

CHAPTER 36

____

FORTRESS

G
UNSHOT IS HER FIRST THOUGHT. THE BLASTS OF NOISE
, one after another, followed by silence, then the baby’s broken crying. She flings herself at the crib, lifts Aleph and clutches him to her. He’s wet and frightened, though otherwise unharmed. Gideon is not in bed. She puts the baby back in his crib, still weeping, and lights a candle, her fingers cold and deliberate. The door to the glasshouse is unlatched. Before she can open it, she feels a hand on her shoulder.

Leander, armed with a lamp and a stout log. He motions for her to stay where she is, but she follows him in.

Gideon is sitting in the rocking chair in a litter of glass. He is so still that Sophy runs to him, certain he must be injured, or worse. He squints when Leander lowers the lamp to his face, but gives no other sign that he sees them.

Leander does a quick scan of the damage. “Only a couple of panes gone. Not bad, considering the artillery we provided.” Kneeling, he picks two small rocks from among the shards. “They have some wit, these devils. They use our own defense against us.”

ALEPH SENSES THAT
something is amiss. He screams and reaches for her whenever she tries to settle him. Sophy walks with him from one end of the bedroom to the other, and back again, bone-weary but alert to every sound. Gideon and Leander are out patrolling the grounds. After perhaps an hour she hears them come in and walk toward Leander’s room at the other end of the house, conferring in low tones. Toward morning, asleep on her feet, the baby an inert weight on her shoulder, she lays her burden down on the bed and curls up beside him.

Sun drizzling through a gap in the curtains wakes her. Aleph is still sleeping; he hardly stirs when she moves him to his crib. Even in the shut and darkened room, summer is heavy in the air, defying the window seal and cutting the staleness of the bedclothes. Sophy knows perfectly well that the events of last night were no dream, but a childish belief possesses her as she opens the door to the conservatory. On a summer morning—if it is still morning—anything can be undone, everything is possible.

The damaged areas have already been fitted with boards. Oddly symmetrical, they look like sightless eyes in a comely face as all around them clear panes show off the beauties of the day. Someone has swept up the shattered glass. If it weren’t for the parson’s warning, she might be tempted to dismiss this as a prank, a bit of costly mischief, to be taken up with parents or, at worst, the magistrate.

Sophy latches the conservatory door behind her and tiptoes past the crib. The central rooms are peaceful, somnolent in the sun slanting through the long windows. Not a sound in the house, and she hears nothing outside. After months of being observed, she’s developed a sense of presence: Gideon’s has a different texture than Leander’s. There is a vacancy now that beckons like an invitation. Is it possible they have left her alone with Aleph?

She ought to be nervous after last night, but this sudden respite brings her to a full stop in the middle of the parlor. She could be cautious, feed Aleph a few phrases with his breakfast, bring him outside and risk recriminations if the men come back too soon. Vandals, Sophy! Lurking in the bushes, behind the trees! If you haven’t a care for yourself, think of the child!

Or she could bolt. Leave with Aleph and, keeping to the woods along the road, make her way to town, or stop at a house along the way. She is still the Reverend’s daughter; someone will take them in until she can get word to Micah. Now that the idea is in her mind, she feels that she might actually reduce this enormity to simple steps: put one foot in front of another, grab the baby and a little food, and go. As she approaches the kitchen, she remembers what Mama always said when they were small and hanging back from some errand out of fear: What is the worst that could happen? A moot question in those days, when Mama was always there, a citadel of common sense, to come back to if things went wrong. But she has no time to dwell on misgivings. Intent on her purpose, she can’t immediately comprehend the sight of Gideon in a chair by the hearth, greeting her with a serene smile.

“You must be walking in your sleep, Sophy. You’re staring as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

He has shaved and slicked his hair back and looks as fresh-faced as a schoolboy, except for the dark shadows under his eyes. A different man from last night, she would think, if it weren’t for the rifle across his knees.

“Aleph still sleeping? I came in earlier and the two of you were lost to the world. You looked so comfortable, I didn’t want to wake you. Leander’s gone to town to inform the sheriff, for all the good it will do.”

“For the Lord’s sake, Gideon,” she says. “Where did you find that?”

“Our friend is endlessly resourceful. He told me he got the gun when he first came to Ormsby, to shoot varmints with. Apparently the schoolhouse had rats. I had to beg a lesson, never having touched one. It’s really quite a simple mechanism. I believe I could use it with some confidence.”

“You would put a bullet in someone? You’re not a man for killing.”

“I didn’t think I could, at first—not so much as a squirrel or a rabbit. When Leander showed me how to aim it, my hands were shaking. There we stood in the pink dawn of a tender morning, and braced against my shoulder, none too steady, was this awkward object fashioned to kill. I hadn’t slept or eaten, and I don’t mind telling you the thing unnerved me. But when I thought of all that was at stake, I knew I had to make friends with the old soldier. All morning I’ve been sitting with him, hearing his stories.” His fingers caress the stock. “We’re intimates now. We have an understanding. He’ll help me protect what is mine.”

Sophy can tell at a glance that this old soldier never saw a battlefield; Reuben had one like it to shoot small game. It isn’t the gun she fears, but Gideon’s grip on it, and his eyes. She says evenly, “What do you think you’re protecting?”

“How can you ask me? Our home. The life we’ve made here. After last night, do you have any doubt we’re under attack?”

“The house isn’t ours,” Sophy says. “And the life we have here is no life at all. We see no one, we hide like fugitives, and because we hide, they suspect us. Is this the Paradise you’d raise your son in? An armed camp?”

“The armed camp is out there.” A bold assertion, but Gideon’s voice is barely audible. He shifts in his chair, keeping both hands on the gun. “I suppose you think it would be a kindness to send our innocent lamb to live among the savages and learn their ways.”

“I think this is the only world there is, and we’re meant to make the best of it until we pass on to a better one. Your Paradise is a dream. A
fever
dream. I’ve had enough, Gideon. I’ve abided all these months, out of love for you. I’ve prayed for you to see reason. But I won’t stand by any longer while you sacrifice Aleph to your notions.”

“My notions. Mental trinkets, you mean, that rattle round my brain. Such a racket they make as my little wife waits for me to come to my senses.” Gideon shakes his head slowly. “The real amusement—the amazement—is what I made of you. Holding you up as a superior being. A child of nature, a pure mind. I confided in you—told you things I told no one else. Who better than a wood nymph to comprehend another world?” A bark of laughter. “I was the innocent. What did I know of women? No more than I knew about guns! A more experienced man would have seen you for what you are, if he bothered to give a second glance. A common country girl whose mind is as small as the town she was raised in. As stunted as—as—”

He stands suddenly and with elaborate care props the rifle against the hearth. Advances toward her. Takes a breast in each hand. “I wonder what we’ll do with you when we have no more use for these. The boy will be weaned one day. Poor old milk-cow, what then?” He tightens his grip, and she cries out. Two damp circles spread on the front of her dress.

“Do you think I don’t know that you betray me?” he says, very low. “I hear you talking to Aleph. I hear you!”

The door slams and Leander’s footsteps reverberate in the hall. He strides into the kitchen, mopping his brow with a kerchief. “So! Daniel has returned from the lion’s den, still in one piece.” His eyes move from Gideon to Sophy, and back again. “All well here?”

Aleph begins to wail for his morning meal, and the quiet house fills with noise.

CHAPTER 37

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QUESTIONS