KIRBY AND ELLEN STOPPED at a huge shop to buy me an exercise book, pens and clothes.
‘Not trousers,’ I said, hanging back in the car. ‘Not yet. Please.’
Kirby said, ‘Okay. Just very bright, very short skirts. Sleeveless tops and shoes with five-inch heels.’
‘Esther!’ I wailed — and she ran off laughing.
They came back after half an hour and tumbled a heap of plastic bags into my lap. I didn’t want to look at the clothes, but the pens enchanted me. They’d bought me black, blue, red, green and silver ones.
‘Thank you. Thank you so much. For everything.’
Kirby turned around in her seat and grinned at me. ‘Even the clothes?’
‘Only if you bought me shorts and a bikini top,’ I retorted, delighted when she shouted with laughter.
That night I sat up in bed and wrote my questions in the book.
Will I go to the torment of eternal damnation when I die?
Some days, I was certain hell awaited me. Those were days when I missed Rachel and the others so badly I ached.
But the day after my second session with Edwin I found myself writing:
Will the Children of the Faith be the only ones out of the whole world to go to heaven?
It comforted me to know my family would go to heaven, but I woke at midnight and with the red pen wrote:
If it’s true, hell will be rather crowded.
Malachi would be there with me, burning away. Kezia too. Mara also, but that wasn’t right or fair — she didn’t deserve to suffer torment.
At three in the morning, I took the silver pen:
I don’t think it can be true.
I showed Edwin on my next visit. ‘Hmm, good points. So what do you think can’t be true, Rebecca?’
Did I dare say it? Oh, why not? If hell was real, I’d be burning bright the second my soul left my body. What did one more sin matter?
‘I don’t think hell and damnation are real. Are they, Edwin? Please tell me, I really need to know.’
‘Come on, Rebecca. You can do better than this! Think about it — how can I, or anyone else on the face of the Earth, tell you what happens after we die?’
THE SESSIONS CONTINUED until Christmas. Edwin said, ‘I’ll be away till mid-January. Don’t freak out, kid. You’re doing great. In the break, think about what you want to do with your life. Dig down deep. Be true to yourself.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ I told him. ‘I don’t think I’ve got a self any more.’
He laughed at me. ‘Want to bet?’
‘A bet? You’re asking me to gamble?’
He grinned. ‘I’m betting you’ll find a good tough self if you dig hard enough. If I’m right, you get a chocolate-dipped ice cream.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘Ah! I won’t be wrong. Merry Christmas, Rebecca Pilgrim. Go forth and have fun.’
I went out into the street to wait for the bus. Kirby had taught me how to use it, and how to get around the city by myself. I liked being out among the people — in a way, it was like being back at the market, except that here the people dressed more formally and I didn’t see any alpacas, or dogs with dreads. This city was windy, though, and I got tired of my braid getting blown around. Maybe one day I’d be ready to cut my hair. Miriam’s was short compared with mine. It still came past her shoulders and she often wore it tied back.
The bus route took me past a church. It was smaller than the temple in Nelson but more attractive with its wooden walls and small spire. I hit the bell, got off at the next stop, and walked back to the church. But I was frightened of going in. Worldly churches were evil and the god their leaders preached about was false.
Use your brain, Rebecca.
But my brain didn’t know what to think. I stopped walking, closed my eyes, and made a huge effort to cast Elder Stephen and the Rule out of my mind. It didn’t work. So, instead, I found myself cupping my hands and imagining the Rule crushed into a small bundle. I carried it forward, stepped through the church door and dropped it on the floor.
I felt stupid but nobody else was around.
This church had wooden pews, not the chairs I was used to in the temple. They weren’t comfortable but I sat on one halfway towards the front. I didn’t try to pray or even to think. For now, it was just enough to be there. If the Lord smote me on the way home, so be it — at least then I’d know Elder Stephen and the Rule were right.
CHRISTMAS IN THE WORLD was so different from what I’d been used to. Jim woke us all up in the morning by galloping round the house singing a song I remembered from school in Wanganui — ‘Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer’. Then he sang, ‘Get up, family! It’s Christmas!’
When we emerged from our rooms, we discovered he was wearing reindeer antlers on his head.
‘Dare you to wear them to church,’ Miriam said — and laughed at my horrified face.
Jim patted my hand. ‘If you come with us, Rebecca, I won’t wear them. I’ll behave properly.’
Nina said, ‘Please come, Rebecca! I know it’s blackmail but I truly don’t want to be seen with a reindeer.’
I didn’t want to go, but I did want to. I missed worship, I missed the presence of the Lord in my life almost as badly as I missed Rachel and my family. ‘Okay. Yes, I’ll come.’
They were pleased, not that they made a big thing of it. We had breakfast, then hurried to get ready in time.
I chose a plain dark-blue skirt, black stockings and a long-sleeved blouse. I tied a scarf over my hair. Miriam pulled it off.
‘D’you really think the Lord will strike you dead if you go bare-headed?’
‘Go easy on her, Miriam,’ Daniel said.
Miriam stamped her foot. ‘It’s all just so unnecessary. Those old men, they get off on controlling people, especially women.’
He laughed at her. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Kirby.’
That made her laugh too. ‘Sorry, Rebecca.’ Then she sighed. ‘I just wish …’
Yes. All of us wished the Faith hadn’t split our family apart.
We arrived at the church a few minutes early. People were cheerful, smiling at the family and greeting them by name. Miriam introduced me to a hundred of them. The names washed through my mind, snagging on my surprise at the way many of them were dressed. There were girls in skimpy dresses that showed the flesh of their shoulders and arms. Women wore trousers — some of them brightly coloured. Not one of them covered her hair.
I was glad when the service started, but the shocks kept coming. The preacher was a woman. She was cheerful too, and she spoke of a loving god. During the whole hour she didn’t utter one threat of eternal damnation. There was no hint of disappointment from her or anyone else who spoke. The readings from the Bible were weirdly familiar but slightly wrong and I couldn’t work out why.
As we stood to sing a Christmas carol, Daniel whispered, ‘Stop frowning, Rebecca. You’re not losing your mind. It’s a modern version of the Bible. Easier to understand but not nearly so poetic.’
I stumbled out into the day feeling bludgeoned in my head and heart and soul. Again the questions plagued me — what to believe? What was true?
Daniel took my arm. ‘It’ll get better, little sister.’
He drove us home to where Ellen and Kirby were preparing a meal, and where there were presents to open.
Nina raised her wine glass. ‘To Rebecca, who is learning to live in the world.’
Jim said, ‘It’s great to have you with us — all three of you. It’d be a miserable time for us otherwise.’ Their own three children were all far away. One was in New York, one in Canada and the other was travelling through India.
Early in the new year, Kirby would be going to Japan. And I had just learnt how to catch a bus. Small things, Rebecca. One step at a time.
‘Presents!’ Kirby said. She sat on the floor by the tree, handing them out. She threw one to me. ‘Catch, Rebecca.’
That made me cry, because I missed my family whose day would be so different from this one. I’d never been given a present before and I hadn’t thought to give gifts to the others.
Jim gave me a hug. ‘Open it.’
I did so — and laughed. It was a packet of handkerchiefs, brightly coloured and patterned. I dried my tears with the tartan one.
There were more presents — felt-tipped pens from Miriam, a book about science from Daniel, two novels from Kirby and Ellen, and a swimsuit from Nina and Jim.
I held it up and gasped. It was indecent. I loved it. ‘Thank you! I’ll wear it — I’ll swim in the sea and I’ll imagine Elder Stephen’s face if he saw me.’
‘Atta girl,’ Ellen said. She raised her glass again. ‘To absent friends and family, especially Rory.’
Who was Rory? I didn’t like to ask, even though I knew I could. It was harder than I’d ever dreamed to break the rules of a lifetime.
But Ellen was watching me. ‘You can ask, Rebecca.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s okay. I don’t need to know.’
Daniel said, ‘Maybe not, but you do need to practise asking for knowledge.’ He smiled at me, my once so-serious brother. ‘Go for it, little sister. You can do it.’
They were all smiling at me, all encouraging me. Yes, I could do this. ‘Ellen, please will you tell me who Rory is?’
She cheered, and the others clapped. But her story was nothing to cheer about. ‘I was thrown out of the Faith on my sixteenth birthday because my father discovered I was pregnant. I’d been raped regularly for two months by an Elder who ordered me to submit to him. I didn’t even know what was happening. Rory is the child of that pregnancy. I had him adopted out.’
Kirby took up the story. ‘That’s why she sent me to live with you guys. She freaked out when Rory contacted her, and she ended up in a psych ward with severe depression. That’s why I couldn’t find her.’
We were all quiet. It was hard for me to believe an Elder could transgress so sinfully, but I did believe it. I heard the truth of it in her voice, and in Kirby’s.
At last, I said, ‘Thank you for telling me.’ I didn’t say any more, didn’t ask the question battering at my mind.
Kirby tilted her head. She looked at Miriam, who pulled her mouth down and nodded. My cousin said, ‘You don’t know what rape means, do you?’
My sister said, ‘They still aren’t telling girls the secrets of the marriage bed, are they?’
I let out a breath. ‘No, I don’t know what it means. And no, they’re still not telling us a single damned thing!’
They shrieked, all of them, even Ellen. Miriam gasped and said, ‘Progress! I bet that’s the first time in your life you’ve said a bad word.’
I was astonished at myself. ‘Yes. It felt good, too. Now I know why people swear.’
They laughed again. My sister went out of the room and came back with drawing paper and pens. ‘The facts of life, with illustrations coming up, Rebecca. Pin your ears back.’
The adults got to their feet. ‘Christmas dinner will be ready when you’ve finished.’
‘Wimps,’ Kirby said.
‘Guilty as charged,’ Jim said. They scurried from the room.
Miriam drew pictures of naked men and women. She explained, with help from Kirby and Daniel, exactly what the secret of the marriage bed was. Rachel and I had been right — it was all about the differences between males and females.
I stared at the drawings, trying to shut out thoughts of Elder Stephen. But I couldn’t shut out the reason he’d been so determined to keep me ignorant — what 16-year-old girl would willingly do that with an old man she feared and disliked?
He must have suspected I would run. How ironic that I’d have married him if he hadn’t sent Elder Hosea to guard me.
Nina called us to a table laden with food. They talked as they ate, but I was quiet, my mind somewhere different.
‘Rebecca? You okay?’ Kirby asked.
‘I know what I want to do next year. I want to go to school. I want to go to a proper school and have proper lessons.’
The whole family clapped and cheered.
I turned to Kirby, but called her by her Faith name. ‘Esther, will you cut off my plait for me?’
It seemed the others all knew the story of how she’d hacked off her own hair in protest when she’d been sent to live with our family, because they nodded, and Ellen said, ‘Appropriate.’
Kirby said, ‘Sure will, kid.’
Miriam fetched Nina’s big sewing scissors, and with a couple of clacks of the blades Kirby chopped off half the length of my braid.
I shook out the rest. For the first time in my life, it floated free around my shoulders.
I could do this. I could live in the world.
That night I looked at my reflection in the mirror. I no longer saw Rachel looking back at me. It wasn’t just the hair — it was something about how the girl I was watching looked at me as if the world interested her, as if she knew she could learn, ask questions, use her mind.
I went to bed and wept again for my sister.