The Alliance (15 page)

“In this,” she says, her voice shaking, “in this alone, I would have to agree with Charlie. Not only are we depleting our storehouse by feeding the refugees; we are putting our own families at risk by opening our gates.”

This does not sound like Leora at all. Thinking she’s setting aside her own charitable efforts to keep her family fed, I say, “We have the Suburban. We could use it to go out and find or barter for supplies around town, so we can—”

“You mean
steal
supplies. You’re the one who said that whatever food grocery stores used to carry is long gone by now.” I know Jabil’s the one speaking. I turn and our eyes lock over the heads of the people, and I can feel that fierce tug in this: our battle of wills. And I have to wonder—looking over at Leora, whose eyes shift between the two of us—if we are not only battling wills, but battling over her.

“Look—” I spread my hands—“we’ve got a family of refugees right here from Liberty. Why don’t we ask them what it’s like in town?”

The man rises to his feet, then reaches down for his seated wife’s hand. Their toddler-age little girl is on her lap with a cotton dress and messy pigtails, sucking her thumb as
hard as Henri, beside me, is chewing on his piece of straw. The couple’s around my age, but their regular features—brown hair, brown eyes, slim, runner builds gravitating toward gaunt—are lined with exhaustion that makes them appear older than their years.

Since the riot a week ago, this family has been recuperating in the
dawdi haus
, where some cots have been set up and curtained off for privacy. Other than Charlie, I don’t think any of us are going to have the nerve to send them out into the streets even though the father is mostly recovered. Our first discussion sounded good to our ears: giving the refugees food and water and then booting them out the door. But it’s so easy to forget that discussion when you come face to face with those who are hungry—whose lives might be sustained, if not saved, with a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.

I call out to the father, because it’s clear he’s at a loss for where to start, “How bad was it? Did you have to leave things behind?”

The man drags his free hand across his face. “Had to.” He sighs. “Didn’t have time to do anything else. About two weeks after everything crashed, it seemed that law and order fell apart. Violence was growing so that people were getting robbed over a simple can of beans or—or a pair of shoes. That’s when Tammy, my wife, and I decided to leave, figuring we’d be better off on the move rather than waiting
around to see what was going to happen. We packed everything we could in two bags and tied them on our backs. We tried going around the edge of town, thinking that’d be the less populated route. But by the time we got to Burt’s, the shelves were empty . . . carts gone, and we saw a bunch of people exiting town just like we were doing.”

He looks at his wife and daughter. “The gangs were flushing us out of our homes. It was down to join them or run. There’s no doubt there’s a lot of food and valuable items still left in town. But it’s all being controlled by the gangs.”

I thank the man, and he takes his seat. I let his words sink in, and then I stand and look at the group. “Is it really stealing to reclaim what’s been taken by criminals and use it to help the needy—most likely some of the very ones who it was stolen from in the first place? If we are careful, I’m sure a few of us could go into town and make it back with supplies of some sort. And from what he’s just said, I think we need ammunition as much as food. If we’re well armed, we won’t be as vulnerable when these gangs finish cleaning everything out in town and come knocking on our gates, trying to steal whatever we have left.”

“I take it you’d like to lead this operation?” Jabil asks, a bite to his voice.

I jam my fists in my pockets. “I sure wouldn’t have to, but I think I could.”

“Where do you suppose you’re going to find this food and ammunition?”

Charlie replies to Jabil, “I don’t know about food, but there’s an armory in town . . . over near the old T-shirt factory.”

Jabil continues, speaking to both Charlie and me. “And how are we supposed to know you all will keep your end of the agreement and won’t use unnecessary force or violence?”

I make no effort to hide my irritation. “If you’re so concerned, Jabil, why don’t
you
go with us and see? You could keep a gun trained on me at all times and shoot me dead if I start using force you deem ‘unnecessary.’”

To my surprise, Jabil says, “All right, I’ll go.”

Then he seems to think twice because he glances over at Bishop Lowell for permission, who nods his head with the air of a king. “But make sure any houses are visibly abandoned before you enter,” Bishop Lowell instructs. “And abide by our community rules, even if you are beyond our border. Don’t shoot at anyone, Moses, unless they shoot at you first.”

I nod, of course, and Jabil does as well—though he would literally rather die than shoot someone. Needless to say, I do not feel as compelled.

Because it’s the Sabbath, we are not supposed to work but have a day of rest. How are we supposed to rest, I wonder,
when we know a gang is devouring the town only ten miles up the road? How long until they pick the town’s carcass clean and then scuttle over here to discover what else they can find? The idea is especially disturbing, considering we do not have enough manpower or firepower to hold back a large crowd. But I can tell the bishop is trying to establish a sense of harmony by encouraging the community to do the types of activities they did every Sabbath before the EMP. So we rearrange benches and chairs around tables carted over to the pavilion from the soup kitchen. Bishop Lowell leads us in the silent prayer, and we begin to eat. The soup is more watered down than it was yesterday, each slice of bread not as thick.

I’m using crust to soak up my broth when Leora comes and sits down across from me. “You should come to the singing tonight,” she says. “The distraction would be good for you.”

Her warmth and invitation catch me off guard, since she’s not said more than three words to me all week. “Maybe,” I say, giving my best noncommittal shrug. “But I’ve got to change the tire on the Suburban for tomorrow and go over some tactical stuff with Charlie.”

She looks down, tracing the table’s wood grain. “About that supply run to town you’re planning. . . . If you find some ammunition . . . I might need some.”

“Ammunition? For a pacifist?” My smile disappears when
I see her face. “Sorry, that was a bad joke. But all the ammunition in the world isn’t going to bring Melinda back.”

Leora sits on the bench with her hands knotted. “This is not about Melinda.”

“Well, I’m sorry—” I toss my spoon into the empty bowl—“but I can’t help you unless you tell me what this
is
about.”

Red blotches mottle Leora’s neck, revealing her discomfort even more than her clenched hands. “I need you to help me find ammunition because this—this is about revenge.”

Any shocked expression I had before was just a warm-up to what must be registering in this instant. I glance around the pavilion and see that no one’s paying attention as they are too busy consuming their meals. I lean across the table and lower my voice, just in case. “When I first came here, you told me your nonresistance was founded on stories of martyrs who died for their beliefs. That, no matter what, they never took up arms to defend themselves or their families. And now you’re telling me you want to take revenge?”

Leora smiles—as if she knows full well how preposterous she is sounding—but tears pool in the corners of her eyes. She says, “I guess you could say I’m having a crisis of belief.” She pauses, reaches for my hand. “Will you help me, Moses? You know about guns and ammunition; surely you must know about revenge.”

“Revenge,” I murmur. “Yes, I’d say I know it well.”

In the distance, at the edge of the pavilion, I see Jabil standing in half sun, half shadow, watching us with eyes like two cups of ink. I push back my chair and rise with my bowl. I set it down on the tray and walk up the lane. But when I pass the
dawdi haus
, I turn and look back, seeing that Jabil is now sitting on the bench . . . sitting beside Leora.

Unknowingly absorbing the darkness in her that I have just left.

Leora

T
HE
A
UGUST AIR
holds the first hint of autumn’s chill, causing me to hunker lower in my cotton wrap that my own fingers have spun. Yet I cannot enjoy this shift of the seasons as I wonder—skirting the firelight and scanning the faces of those I’ve known for years—if someone in the community molested my sister last week. Or if someone, deep in the shadows, is biding his time until he can strike again. I am not sure which thought fills me with more rage.

It may be imprudent, but imprudent or not, I have asked Sal not to tell anyone about the attack because I do not wish to evoke more fear in our community, which has been on tenterhooks since the shooting. But my main motivation is not selfless. I simply do not wish for my sister to be treated like an untouchable more than she already is. If it’s discovered that I took a life to avenge my sister’s, I will be untouchable. Yet Anna will continue to be ensconced inside the community, where, I pray—devoid of her attacker—she will remain safe.

I walk toward the refreshment table, heaped with a bounty of apples in every color our orchard provides. Olga Beiler has made apple pies, apple dumplings, and wassail. The spices waft on the air like a promise that life will be
unsullied again. Though in the aftermath of last week, that can never be the case. I fill a heavy stone mug with the beverage, simmering in a cast-iron pot suspended over the fire. Olga smiles at me and asks how I am doing. I reply that I am fine. All the while, my heart is a drum beating high inside my ribs.

I glance around the bonfire, searching for the face of an
Englischer
I know I wouldn’t be pursuing if he didn’t possess the knowledge of corporeal retribution that I need to learn. But I am not pursuing him for his knowledge alone. No, I remember sitting across from him beneath the pavilion and feeling such a connection to his brokenness that I wondered if the two of us, together, could become one perfect whole. Is this, then, what draws people to each other? Not the combination of perfect selves, but the mirrored fragments we see reflected?

Olga studies me as she leans over the fire and stirs the wassail to keep the spices circulating. Bishop Lowell has encouraged this singing, accompanied with refreshments, because he wants to keep his people’s spirits up, especially since they know the truth regarding our supplies. But how much longer can we indulge in extravagances such as this?

Olga strikes the spoon against the top of the pot. Her fleshy arm wobbles as she points to the outskirts of the gathering. “Jabil’s over there,” she says in Pennsylvania Dutch.

“Danke,”
I murmur without looking in his direction.
I move away from her with my cup. Square straw bales have been circled around the fire. The hex symbol on the Snyders’ barn behind us is composed of jewel-toned triangles, as intricately patterned as an auction quilt. Above the barn’s roofline—almost obscured by the weather vane—the moon is so thin, it’s outshone by the firmament’s plethora of stars.

I do not take a seat on a bale, as I am afraid Jabil will claim his place beside me as he has done at every other singing for the past three months. Instead, I stand near the fire, sipping the too-hot wassail, just grateful for something to occupy my hands.

I don’t admit to myself who I am waiting for until Moses appears on the other side of the fire. There must be fifty members of the community gathered here, but they fade into the background until all I can see is him. The two of us continue to stare—the fire moving like a sentient being between us—until Jabil breaks the spell and comes to stand so close to me, the fabric of his pants brushes against my dress.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

I nod stiffly and pull my wrap up to cover my head. Jabil draws me away from the fire and over to the barn, his hand burning his possession into the small of my back. A hymn that I have heard since infancy begins, the lyrics acquired more through osmosis than effort. But listening to
Ausbund
112 now—“The one who lives in God’s love is a disciple of Christ and knows the truth. Love is kind and friendly and does no one harm”—the meaning resounds in my spirit more than ever before.

Am I truly going to walk away from everything I’ve been taught?

My Anabaptist forebears suffered far worse than anything my sister might have suffered last week, and hymns like this germinated from that bitter seed of hardship. Yet they persevered; they turned the other cheek and prayed for those who persecuted them. And here, at the first test, I am planning to take revenge.

Jabil turns me toward him, maneuvering my body as if a prop on a stage. We are shielded between the slats of the barn and the boughs of a heavy pine that was probably planted back when this community was founded in 1988. Cracked corn, left over from where the Dutch bantam chickens have feasted, crunches beneath our shoes. Somewhere in the woods, a lone wolf howls as if trying to harmonize with the community. Jabil’s fingers seek mine. I am surprised how cold and callused they feel. My head pounds.

“I would wait for you forever, Leora,” he murmurs, voice quaking, “if I just knew I weren’t clinging to false hope.”

I should cut him loose once and for all; I know this. I remain silent. Truth is, I do not want him to stop waiting
because I fear this would make me want him. Like my
vadder
at his worst, I am only attracted to what I should not have.

“Leora?” The three syllables of my name are fraught with a thousand questions.

I look up at Jabil. Those benevolent dark eyes, the waved dark hair lapping over his collar, the sharp angles of his shoulders, cheekbones, and nose. His steadfastness without my giving him anything in return is a testament to his faithful heart. Jabil Snyder would be a good husband to me and father to our children. This has never been in question. What
has
been in question is if there is more to this life than steadfastness.

I peer over Jabil’s shoulder and see Moses, the almost-feminine sweep of his pale lashes contrasted with that unkempt beard as he stares unseeingly into the flames. The community members are singing all around him—their faces joyous despite the looming tribulations—but his own countenance remains somber. Is he thinking about his broken places? Is he, I dare ponder, thinking about me, wishing he could be here in Jabil’s stead?

“I’m sorry,” I tell Jabil. “Everything in me wants to tell you that you are not clinging to false hope . . . but I can’t say that. Not yet.”

Withdrawing his hand from mine, Jabil flexes his fingers as if he is going to reach out to me again, but then he folds
his arms, squares his shoulders, and I can almost perceive some tender place within him hardening against me. “Not yet?” he says. “Is it because of what we are facing as a community, or because of the person who’s now inside it?”

I long to tell him I have no idea what he’s talking about, but we would both know I was being dishonest. Jabil no doubt sensed my attraction to Moses from the time he withdrew the pilot’s body from the plane’s wreckage and brought it up to the house, and—despite my misgivings at seeing a partially undressed man—I felt compelled to never leave Moses’s side. If this is true, the fact that Jabil continued checking Moses for injuries proves what kind of man he is. Any woman would be honored to have him as her husband. That is, at this point, any woman but me.

“Maybe I just need time,” I murmur. “We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We don’t even know what we’re going to feed our community in a month. How could we embark on any kind of relationship when faced with such uncertainty?”

Jabil glances away from me, his eyes glittering with suppressed anger or regret. “Love has always prospered in times like these. Don’t blame your uncertainty on the state of things around us.”

Struck mute by his words, I watch his departing silhouette become absorbed by the darkness. I remain sheltered by the pine boughs until the heat once produced by his
proximity is replaced with an arctic wind. Yet even now, I have no desire to return to the warmth of the fire.

Lamplight glows through our picture window as I follow the lane. It must be Sal, but it reminds me of
Mamm
and how she used to wait up for me after every hymn sing, doing a pile of mending or laundry until I came in the kitchen and told her about my night. Only once did she speak to me about marriage, but even before that night I inferred that, deep down, she yearned for me to join my life with someone who would be as steadfast as her husband was inconstant. It is touching, the sort of life she envisioned for me. But I am not sure if such a life is even possible. Or if that is the sort of life I want.

Four years ago, when Jabil first asked if he could walk me home from Mt. Hebron School, where I was attempting to teach students almost the same age as me,
Mamm
seemed certain that our future together was simply a matter of time.

The image of him then—such boyishness in his expressive brown eyes, such a stoop in his shoulders, as if, as an adolescent, he feared the great man he would become—makes me want to weep. I am not the only one the responsibilities of life have changed.

Entering the kitchen, I see no sign of
Mamm
or mending, of course, but my eyes and heart still yearn for one
more glance. The only sign of Sal’s being here is that the supper dishes, which were previously cluttering up the sink, have all been washed and dried. Shrugging off my cloak and bonnet, I set them on the chair and trace the craftsmanship I religiously condition with linseed oil, as if trying to conjure forth the
vadder
who was an artist of inanimate things.

For a month after he left us, I waited, listening for my
mamm
’s nocturnal migration to the couch and the mourning that ensued. I could not sleep until I heard her, and I could not sleep afterward for the anguish evoked by her stifled wails. One particular night, when I feared my
mamm
’s crying would awaken Seth and Anna, I rose from the bed I shared with my sister and padded across the cool hardwood to the living room.
Mamm
’s body was coiled in a fetal position—not a blanket covering her, her slim calves and bare feet pale in the dark.

I could see her mental undoing as if a hidden door had opened and the cogs and wheels of her mind were suddenly made visible. I covered her with the afghan and pulled it up so the braided tassels brushed against her chin. Her swollen eyes opened. I knelt beside the couch and took her hand, though I didn’t want to bring comfort to her as much as I wanted
her
to bring comfort to me. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She was too consumed with her own sorrow to see that she and I were mourning the same man.

She looked up at me with a nearly tangible imploring.
“Just learn from my experience, Leora,” she said, tears coating her voice. “It is better to open your heart to someone dependable than to someone exciting who, in the end, will only make you cry.”

The night I knelt, providing comfort to the woman who had previously done everything in her power to comfort me, I glimpsed beneath the layers and could see that she was not unshakable. Instead of loving her through her vulnerability, I judged her for it. My heart aches with the memory and with the wish that I could turn back time. But I cannot go back. Regardless of what the future holds, I must go forward.

Moses

Charlie and I sat up at the Snyders’ kitchen table late last night—our eyes straining against the muted glow of a kerosene light hanging overhead—and pored over a map of the city, trying to gauge which areas to explore and which areas we’d be better off to avoid. It would’ve made sense to have Sal in on our planning, since she knows this area better than either of us. But the community made a rule that
Englischers
aren’t allowed to interact with the opposite sex after dark. But I remember Leora with Jabil at the hymn sing, their shadowed bodies slanted toward each other and their hands clutched tight. My gut constricts at the memory, and not for
the first time I understand that the Mennonites aren’t being held to the same standard as the rest of us.

“Why you so distracted?” Charlie asks. “You thinking about that skinny four-eyed gal?”