Peace Shall Destroy Many (32 page)

And Hank Unger! She had rigidly resisted the pull of her look towards the door where the younger men stood: only after the program. But as item after item slipped smoothly by and success drew towards triumph, her mind, aroused, began to tense under that pull. If he really was that Hank from the air-base! What did it matter, a few minutes. As Linda Giesbrecht recited “The Shepherd’s Welcome,” Razia turned abruptly from her prompting papers—Linda never made a mistake—and fingered a slit through the side curtain. The door was twenty feet away—and Pete Block, staring about for her, smitten as a moon-calf. She barely smothered a laugh at his remembered stutter on her doorstep a week before. Where had he groped up the nerve to sneak away from his father that late at night to—then the edge of her eye caught, she shifted, and there he was.

As she remembered him: face sharp, clipped blonde hair, but the ribbons were now like the scar of gigantic potency across his chest. Knowing him unconscious of her look, his manhood ranted through her. After a time, she realized that the clean boyish lines of his face seemed smudged, somehow, by the weight of what he had encountered. He had done his share, and more: twenty-seven German planes shot down. What a welcome he’d get here! A small hand twitched her dress, “Miss Tantamon’—” and she could barely restrain from brushing it away as she would an insect. What a beautiful man! She forced herself to let the curtain slip, and turned.

Linda stepped behind the curtain. Thom shifted his position against the door in the pause that lengthened to hurried scurrying on the closed stage. It must be the “Surprise” under which Hal had laboured so manfully. Block was leaning forward in his chair, face as ever noncommittal. Consummate!
After a moment, Razia stepped through the curtain and Thom jolted his mind to concentrate on her words.

“Dear parents and school friends, we have what we think a special attraction for you tonight. The children have tried not to speak about it at home, though it was hard for them. Instead of the usual type of short play, we decided to write one completely on our own, and, with the whole school working at it—and everyone very hard, I assure you—we wrote a play which we call ‘The Star and the Three Kings.’ ” She paused, everyone held by her smile. As the people understood the title, Reimer, near the front with Block nodded to Pastor Lepp beside him, smiling. Thom, glancing back at the green figure, saw her look sweep over the schoolroom and waver for one instant toward the door. But she did not see him, of that he was certain. Her glance seemed to hesitate on some man before him and in that flick of time he thought her face was transformed. He blinked, puzzled, but then her look was away again and she announced, her voice slightly roughened, “The Star and the Three Kings, written by Wapiti School.”

She vanished. The curtain opened slowly on a transformed stage. The Mennonites, never having seen a real stage show, and content, in their short teaching plays, to imagine all the properties, since the front of the church in which these were usually held could allow no rea
l setting, were bewitched in one glance. The stage was a room in a palace. Blanket rugs hid the floor. A palm of crepe-paper reached in through a huge window. The walls were hung with blanket tapestries. In the centre, bright paper flared like flames in a short-legged grate.

But what held everyone’s eye were the three men in long robes and beards, their turbaned heads stirringly strange. One
squatted while poring over a thin scroll rolled out on his knees, another made careful measurements on a map of the stars stretched wide against the wall, while the third looked steadfastly through a long mounted telescope past the reaching palm-tree into the farthest distance of the heavens. There was no sound, until slow whispers in the audience revealed that some mother had recognized her son. And only then did the bundle near the grate stir to show, fleetingly, Hal Wiens’s face, now calm as if in sleep beside the fire. They were in the Far East.

The silent figure at the telescope turned to the others. “I cannot believe it. It cannot be true.”

“But see here—the record in the scrolls. It is the Star. How can you doubt?” The man seated on the rug spoke with the conviction of his soul.

“It would seem to be so,” the other bearded patriarch left the stars mapped on the wall. “There is no other star possible in that region. Never has a star been seen there before. It would seem to be as the old scroll says.”

The first left his instrument and went towards the window, staring out into the heavens. He stood alone with his doubt. The audience could barely h
ear his murmur, “So bright, even to the naked eye. As no star has ever been! Why so bright? Why?”

The second leaped up as no old man had ever leaped, but the audience heard only his words: “We must go. The scroll tells us that when the Star appears, the Saviour of Mankind will have been born. We must go to worship Him, bearing gifts with us. Up, we must go! Samuel,” stirring the sleeping bundle by the fire, “out with you! Get the camels watered and the men to load the packs.” The little boy uncoiled and ran
out, bare feet padding on the blankets. The third man turned with the second and all three stood in their slender robes, gazing steadily out into the heavens. The third said, in a deep voice, “Yes, we must follow the Star. Wherever it leads.”

As the curtain closed, Thom saw the Deacon, face shining, looking up beyond the ceiling. He looked away, but the point of that first scene pierced him. A man must live on something. And Truth must be followed as a Star, though the road is sometimes superhumanly difficult. But did Block have this Truth—from the fathers? Abruptly, Thom could not avoid the conviction that Elizabeth had faltered; his compulsion against Block could not forever hide the fact that, despite her father’s rigidity, she still had to consent personally to that act. If she was not really responsible, then Block was not either, because then he also had been, helplessly, moulded by his training. Following that back, you arrived at Adam: what then? You blame God. And you go through life doing what you do because you can do no else. No. There was no need to follow your body with its every impulse, or acclaim yourself a murderer before your fellow men and brandish ribbons and medals like scalp-l
ocks strung across your chest. So where was the Truth that must be followed? Was there only the old Block or the young Unger way?

The curtain was opening. Erect by the half-opened door, he saw the long journey of the Kings and slowly, as he saw, he began to follow, praying unconsciously in his longing. He followed the three step by step as they plodded where they could see only the stretching misery of land and sand before them; while they crouched in their kingly robes exhausted under the tents at night as the storm raged about; while their men deserted them and they grew deathly weary of the quest, the
very end of which was unknown, while they doubted but struggled on. Finally, he was with them in Jerusalem where the murderous Herod gave them their last directions for a divine reason he himself would have scorned to understand. And then, the final scene.

The curtain opened to an empty stage. There was an outline of hills and domed houses in the background. In one corner stood an old barn that appeared about to collapse at any moment. A hole gaped in one of its walls, and light shone from inside upon a scattering of straw that led from the hole. There was nothing else for a moment, and then the Three Kings entered, bedraggled now and footsore in their walking, with only little Samuel to accompany them. But there was a holy look on their faces and each carried a gift carefully held before him. As they approached the building, they hesitated, gazing up at the sky and then back at one another, questioning. There was a stir inside the hovel, and then, bending low, a young shepherd emerged and stood before them, his crook in his hand. The firs
t man said, quietly, “Is this the place?” And the shepherd—Thom recognized Jackie Labret—smiled and said,

“It is. Enter with me, O Kings—and kiss the feet of God.”

And bowing low, they followed him, one by one, with little Samuel entering last of all.

The listeners awoke slowly to reality. They stared before them, as if still gazing at remembered holiness. For Thom the marvel that Razia should initiate such a play was drowned in his own conflict. He could follow the Kings in their quest, but when they bent and entered he was blocked. They found the answer of their search in that barn in Bethlehem, but his answer? He needed it—this evening—in Wapiti. The War was there before him. The huge German breakthrough back into
France would demand a vast recruitment of those eligible to receive calls; his own letter could not but already be in the mail. What—and as he raised his head, his eye centred on old Moosomin, face folded in the same inflexible lines. There was more than one war to be faced in Wapiti.

On the instant the door jerked wide behind him and a dumpy red figure whooped as it crashed in. Santa Claus. As Thom tried to move aside, the curtains opened to the pupils on the platform, smiles as wide as their faces would stretch, Razia behind them, face enraptured. Santa bulled his way through the crowd, dragging his bulging bag and laughing to burst his seams. In a moment, all was confusion of laughter and talk.

The movement of people and the shouting of children pushing towards their parents erupted into the glory of happiness at Christmas. Caught in the e
ddies of the crowd, Thom, despite his longing to get outside and alone with himself, was jostled farther from the door. Everyone recognized him, he was forced to answer their friendly questions. Then cauldrons of coffee were carried in from the teacherage, and soon all were eating candies and sandwiches and nuts and apples and drinking scalding coffee as faces split in glistening laughter under the hissing lamps. The Deacon inched his way inconspicuously from one family father to the next, speaking a few words and then edging on. When at long last Santa had roared his way into the snow and the litter of wrappings and crunching nutshells underfoot indicated that the evening was drawing to a close, Block, as head trustee, stepped quietly to the front of the stage and waited for the tumult to quiet. Thom had finally, evading all coffee-cups, worked his way almost to reaching the door-knob when he noticed the Deacon. He
stopped then. After an evening such as they could not remember before, the Wapiti people hushed quickly.

“This has been a wonderful evening—an evening such as we will not forget. To be happy at the approaching feast of our Lord, undisturbed by the world, that is when we understand what those words mean, first spoken at His birth.” The Deacon pointed to the tree-top. “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. When, some day, Christ will return and the world have the peace we experience here now, then that prophecy will be completely fulfilled.”

Thom was numbed. To say that!

“We are happy about this evening. Our children have worked hard and have received many presents whi
ch they have already enjoyed.” The smiling munching faces
beamed up at him from among the press. “Now, our teacher, Miss Tantamont, has also worked very hard. She planned one of the best programs we have ever seen. While we sat here, we as trustees decided that we should give her a little present. Christmas is a good time to give gifts—to acknowledge our gratitude to others. Our teacher is new here, and yet has done a good work among the peculiar people that we are,” and the Deacon smiled broadly while pulling a heavy envelope from his coat-pocket. Thom thought, the half-breeds don’t exist in Wapiti any longer. They never have—for him—except when Eliz—he listened. “It was a surprise to you men to be asked to contribute, but in giving you all showed that you enjoyed and received a spiritual blessing from the program given here tonight. So this gift, small as it may be,” the Deacon hefted the heavy envelope in his hand, “comes as a surprise to both giver and receiver—which is certainly the best way it could be. If Miss Tantamont will come forward—” and he paused,
smiling his rare smile. All shifted and craned to see the young teacher’s face as she pushed through the crowd. She did not appear. Block, scanning, repeated in a louder voice, “Miss Tantamont.” Every sound vanished in the crammed building. “Isn’t she here?”

Everyone stared about, smiles frozen, as if looking would suddenly reveal her. There was a scurry at the door, and all turned to see Pete Block slam the door behind him. Thom saw Herb before him, the bachelor’s crooked face registering nothing but a gaping question, and then he noticed that Hank was gone also. He stared about, and Herb, catching his glance, awoke to Hank’s absence at the same moment. As people stood up here and there
, one or other voice aloud with, “Well, what’s this?”, Thom stretched for the door-knob and in two strides was outside. On the edge of the steps he paused, irresolute. Where had Pete gone? And Hank?

It was very cold.

If Hank and Razia—or something—he could not quite think, yet that look kept nagging. The teacherage was lit and two bigger pupils in heavy coats came from it. He called, as the door closed and he sensed Herb behind him, “Hey, is Miss Tantamont there?”

The teen-agers stopped, startled in the moonlight. Then one said, slowly, “Huh? Uh—no, we haven’t seen her.”

There was sound from the direction of the barn.

He and Herb whirled, and both saw the light flick across the tiny window of the barn as if flung in a searching arc, and then they were off the steps and running—Herb slipping in the criss-crossed sleigh-tracks, cursing his shoes, Thom with long moccasin strides soundless in the softer snow. His mind was blank with no thought but the physical necessity of getting to
that barn-door. He could hear the sounds of people behind him as he jerked the door open on its leather hinges. His glance leaped between the two rows of nervous horses to the barn’s far wall. He stood, rocked.

The yellow beam of Pete’s flashlight transfixed a blue figure sprawled limp on the straw and the blonde head of the girl in the green dress kneeling over it. As Thom opened the door, her face jerked back up to the blackness that was Pete. The straw in her hair and the look like acid on her face trapped Pete’s stammer, “I’m sorry that such a brute—” in his teeth. And her voice.