Quatrain (5 page)

“Good-bye! Good-bye! Come back to us!” the girls cried out, waving even more furiously and wiping tears from their cheeks.

The angels flew higher, then performed a showy maneuver, sweeping around in formation and diving toward the ground again, merely to bedazzle the mortals watching. But they plummeted so rapidly and skimmed so close to the lawn that a few people shrieked and most of them scattered, ducking their heads and covering their eyes. I heard the windy, ruffled sound of their wings beating in perfect time.

When they lifted themselves skyward again, one of them had acquired a burden. Saul had snatched Neri up in his arms and was carrying her with him, back to Windy Point.

T
he weather continued exceptionally fine for the next two weeks. Like everyone else, I made excuses to get out of the kitchen, into the gardens or even all the way to the nearest field, merely to inhale that rich, dense, fertile
green
smell of growing things. Untroubled by clouds, the sun was exuberantly warm—uncomfortably so at times—but no one complained of the heat. No one complained about the aggressive, oversize insects that burst out of the dried mudslicks and feasted on livestock and humans alike. The rain had been chased away. What else mattered?

Neri’s dramatic departure had been a source of endless speculation for the first week after the angels’ visit, and I supposed it would continue to be a topic among the younger girls for the rest of the year. On the part of the older women, sentiment was almost evenly divided between shock and envy, though I had the sense that even some of those who professed shock secretly experienced a little envy. To have snared the attention of an angel so completely that he could not bear to leave you behind! To have been claimed by an angel in such a public fashion! Surely Saul was infatuated with our Neri. Surely he would shower her with all sorts of gifts and lavish upon her an intense and poetic affection.

It was impossible to live in our society and not be aware of the fact that angels were notoriously inconstant lovers, and no one, not even Neri’s mother, voiced the hope that Saul had found a soul mate whom he would cherish for the rest of his life. But surely he would treat her well, for a time at least, and she would live in idle luxury among the angels at Windy Point. Perhaps she would have the supreme felicity of bearing an angel child, an event so rare and so longed for that to accomplish it would elevate Neri’s status forever.

I said nothing during all these discussions. But I knew that Saul did not love Neri, that he would not treat her well, and that if she managed to get pregnant, she was far more likely to die in childbirth than to bear a living angel infant.

I thought it probable that none of us would ever see Neri again, and if we did, we would hardly recognize her because she would be so changed. Beaten down and used up and nervous and hopeless and disappointed and ashamed.

That was how most angel-seekers ended up, and those who spent any time in Windy Point were the most broken-down and wrung out of all.

I was glad when the common conversation in the kitchen began to turn toward the festival in Laban, which was now only a week away. Hope Danfrees and her family were not the only neighbors who were planning to attend. It turned out that Thaddeus’s whole family would be going, and he had made it known that any of the farmhands were welcome to take a short holiday as long as enough people were left behind to care for the crops. Maybe a dozen of the laborers and kitchen staff had decided to undertake the half-day trek to Laban, and now there was a great deal of jockeying for a place in one of the carts and wagons that would be pressed into service. David had already secured Sheba’s promise to ride with him. He was one of the few young men I trusted, and so I would not insist on sitting in the wagon with them for that whole long ride, but would accompany Hope as I had originally planned. That would leave room for Ruth and Hara—and perhaps a couple of their young men—to join David and Sheba. All in all, it was shaping up to be a most agreeable outing. Even I was looking forward to it.

“Do you suppose there will be dancing at the festival?” Hara asked one afternoon as nine of us worked in the kitchen on baking day. Someone had asked this question every day for the past five.

“
Surely
there will be dancing,” a girl named Adriel replied, as someone had replied every day. “There’s that big central square in Laban. Surely they’ll turn it into a dance floor.”

“I’m going to buy red ribbon,” Sheba said. “Narrow ribbon and wide ribbon and ruched ribbon. And I’m going to make a white dress and cover it with red bows.”

“I’m going to find a bakery,” Lazarene said. “I want one of those sweet cakes with the creamy filling.”

“I want to buy a necklace,” someone else said.

“I’m going to get scented cream. Look at my skin—you’d think I was harvesting crops with my bare hands.”

“Do you suppose Jansai merchants will be in Laban?”

“Do you suppose there will be Edori traders?”

“Do you think any angels will come?”

I looked up at that last question, not sure if Ruth or Adriel had been the one to ask. Laban was not all that far from Windy Point. I didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me before that angels might fly down from the mountaintop to enjoy the festival.

“Maybe there will be
dozens
of angels in Laban,” someone else said.

“Maybe Neri will be with them.”

So then, of course, the conversation returned to our missing friend.
I wonder what Neri is wearing today. Do you suppose Saul has bought her rings and necklaces and beautiful new dresses? I wonder what Neri is eating. I bet Neri doesn’t have to work in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables and frying the meat! Maybe Neri is reclining in a chair, and Saul is singing to her, and someone is brushing out her hair, and someone else is rubbing lotion onto her hands and feet. . . .

I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had been sitting at the huge center table, rolling out pie dough, but now I came to my feet and swept the whole room with one irritated glance.

“You think it is so romantic to take an angel as your lover,” I said. “You imagine being caught up in an angel’s arms and carried all the way to Windy Point. Have you ever been at the angel hold? Have you ever been picked up and flown halfway across the province? Do you know what it’s like? No?”

I stepped up to Adriel and, grabbing a handful of her long brown hair, I whipped it around her eyes and face. “When you fly with an angel, he clutches you tightly against his chest because he would not want you to fall several thousand feet to your death. He’s holding you so close that it’s hard to breathe—but you’re afraid to protest because you don’t want him to let you go. He flies so high above the land that you’re utterly freezing. You can’t feel your toes and your face is streaked with tears and you can’t wipe your nose because you can’t get a hand free, and you know you have never looked so ugly in your life. But you don’t care, because you’re so terrified you can scarcely think. You can’t look down or you would start screaming. The world is so far away and the wings holding you aloft are so fragile. You cannot imagine that you will survive the flight.”

I moved away from Adriel and came to a halt in front of Ruth. “But you do. You land at Windy Point and you collect your thoughts and you look around. This is an angel hold! It must be a place of wealth and luxury and comfort and ease! But no one comes to greet you or show you to a room. No one tells you where the kitchens are or when the meals might be served. You’re an angel-seeker and everyone here despises you.” I smoothed Ruth’s cheeks as if I was applying rouge; I straightened her shirt as if helping her dress. “You must fend for yourself. You must try to find a protector among the angels or a friend among the mortals. You must try to please the cooks, so they will be willing to feed you, and work in the laundry so that you have a way to clean your clothes. You must learn how to live among these people.”

I spun around to point at Hara. “But you’re thinking, ‘I’m a pretty young girl! There will be plenty of angels who like me, who want to take me to their beds.’ And maybe that will be true.” I bent over to murmur in Hara’s ear, though I spoke loudly enough for everyone else to hear. She sat frozen in her pink-and-blond state, clearly unnerved by my performance. “But perhaps you’ve never slept with a man before, and you’re not sure how it goes,” I said, my mouth so close to her hair I was practically kissing it. “Perhaps your angel lover might ask you to perform an act that you find degrading—or painful—or frightening. Can you refuse him? Are you strong enough to push him away if he insists? Will anybody help you if you free yourself from his arms and go running out into the hold in the middle of the night?”

I straightened up and glanced around the room again. All the women were staring at me with varying degrees of horror, depending on how good their own imaginations were—or how comprehensive their memories.

“Don’t think the angelica will give you aid,” I said. “They say that Raphael’s wife is rarely seen in the halls of Windy Point these days. Long ago she withdrew to her own suites, as far from the Archangel as she could manage. Was she revolted by the acts he asked her to commit? Did she feel betrayed when he began importing angel-seekers the very week that he married her and brought her home? Does she hate him? Fear him? Love him still? No one knows. Leah never comes out.”

I spread my hands. “But you are thinking, ‘I do not need the angelica’s help. I will give any angel my body, any way he wants to take it. I can be happy at Windy Point.’ And maybe you can. If you can learn to endure the wind.” Now I flung my hands in the air. “All day, all night, there is never a silent moment at the hold. It seems like the rocks are groaning or sobbing or begging for mercy. In a storm, the whole place howls as if it holds the soul of every creature that has died in Samaria, and each last one is in unending torment. Some people have gone mad before they have been there a week. Some people will do anything to escape those voices. Now and then desperate men and women have flung themselves off the top of the mountain, just to escape the sound of the wind.”

I started and looked behind me, as if someone had asked me a question. “Why did they jump? Because there’s no other way off the mountain—unless an angel will take you. And sometimes, I’m sorry to say, the angels of Windy Point find they have more interesting ways to occupy their time than ferrying weeping young girls to and from the hold.”

I took three steps and I was standing right where I had been heading this whole time—in front of Sheba. She watched me with a carefully neutral expression, but I could read her face and its subtle blend of humor and irony. She knew, maybe all of them knew, that this entire performance had been for her benefit. I put my hands on either side of her face and tilted her head up so we could stare at each other.

“‘But Salome,’ I can hear you thinking,” I went on. “‘All of these hazards, all of these travails, will surely be worth it if only I can bear an angel child. And then I shall live in comfort and ease for the rest of my life, honored everywhere I go by angels and mortals alike.’”

“I should like to have an angel baby,” Sheba said, her face utterly calm, her voice serene.

I dropped my hands and glanced around the room, but I stayed where I was. “Do any of you know a woman who has had an angel child?” I asked. I could tell by the startled expressions on their faces that none of them did. “Do you know what happens to girls who get pregnant by angel lovers? A very high percentage of them miscarry, because angel blood mixes badly with ours. Nine times out of ten, if the pregnancy goes full term, the child that is born will be mortal—of no use to anyone, or no more use than any other child. And, believe me, your angel lover will have no interest in helping you figure out what to do with the baby who is suddenly demanding all your time.”

I did one slow, complete pivot, making sure I met the eyes of every young girl in the room—each one still young enough to be fertile, stupid enough to dream. “And if the child in your womb is angelic? If you have been fortunate enough to conceive the most precious bit of life there is? Why, you have won the prize. You have achieved the pinnacle. You are the among the luckiest women in Samaria.” I glanced down at Sheba. “You are also likely to be dead soon. At least one out of three women die giving birth to angel babies. And if the healers have to choose between saving the baby’s life and saving the mother’s—well, you ought to be able to guess which one will live through the night.”

I took off my apron and laid it across the back of the empty chair next to Sheba. “You’ll pardon me if
I
don’t spend my energy hoping there will be angels at the festival,” I said. “It wouldn’t make me unhappy if I never saw an angel again for the rest of my life.”

As it happened, of course, Laban was full of angels. I spotted the first one when we were still a few miles out from town, riding in the Danfrees’ comfortable carriage. I paused in the middle of a question I was asking Hope, and I stared out the window at the lyrically beautiful sight of an angel swooping out of the sky like a messenger from Jovah himself.