Knife Fight and Other Struggles Read online

  THE RADEJASTIANS

  We three ate lunch outside in the springtime. There was a picnic table under a small tree, well out of sight of the loading docks, and it is there we met: Viktor and Ruman and I. We had all come from the old country, the same old country, and I suppose that marked us . . . not in the same way, but as the same, all the same.

  Viktor had not been there since he was a child, which was forty years ago, and had worked the warehouse for a decade. The mark was faint on him. Although I had been back more recently—a year earlier—for the solstice festival, I had felt like the alien there, walking the cobbled streets of Radejast alone, among the dancing virgins and the yowling monks in their woven-straw masks . . . the vendors who sold the long, blackened apple dolls of saints I could no longer name.

  Ruman, now.

  For him, the mark was fresh, for he had just arrived a year and some months ago. His family still lived at home in the smelting town in the southern mountains, waiting for word that he was established enough that they might also make their escape—and profitably join him here.

  Maybe he shared his mark; infected us with it too. Maybe that mark pushed the others away from us: or drew us together, and so away from the others.

  Maybe this, maybe that. We had a half hour for lunch, and on those fine days that were neither humid nor frigid, the sun only so high at noon, we spent it out of doors. We talked only a little. For truly, we had little in common between us, save our mother tongue and dimming recollections. The conversations we had during that time stand out like horsemen on a plain.

  “I am thinking that I am going to be saved,” said Ruman one Tuesday in April. The sky was clouded over us. But Ruman was the greyer.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, and Viktor interjected: “He means he’s going back to that church.”

  Ruman shrugged and stirred his soup so the colour of beets deepened in it. “I must think of my soul,” he said.

  “Shit, Ruman,” I said. “Don’t do it. Those ones will only rob you.”

  “No, no,” said Viktor, “they will not rob you. When I came here, I tried a church like that one. No one robbed me. What I gave, I gave. How it went, it went. But I don’t think it saved me.”

  Ruman looked up. “You are here, aren’t you?”

  “Not because it saved me,” said Viktor.

  “Well this is a different church,” said Ruman. “They have a great cross, visible from the motorway. The building is shaped five-sided. And they are all virgins, the women there. The unmarried ones, of course.”

  “Ha! Now we come to it!” I said, and Ruman’s grey flesh went a deep red.

  “Wife at home,” said Viktor, finger wagging, “wife at home.”

  “I just think it’s time to be saved,” said Ruman. And that was the end of that conversation.

  Ruman went back to the church.

  Did that place save him? I saw no evidence that it had, as we gathered each day in the growing shade of our tree, at our table. Perhaps that is because he did not speak of it. But that was not the only thing. Ruman brought a little pamphlet that he set out one day—it had a painting of a brown-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, spreading his hands over a multitude of sinners, the light spreading around him as though it had substance.

  But he displayed it almost with embarrassment, and when Viktor and I spared it only a glance before setting in to our sandwiches, he pulled it back to his lap with something like shame.

  After that, the pamphlet was gone. And so we would eat, and sometimes Viktor would talk, I would answer, and in the end we would return to the shadow of the loading bay doors.

  And as the days went by, I found I wondered with rather more urgency: did the church save Ruman?

  He came to us a thin man, with the long face and dark brows of our kind, pale of flesh and bent of back. Was his colour any deeper, was there more certainty in his eyes as the days went on? Had he put flesh on in his time there? If anything, he seemed the opposite: thinner, his outer layers honed away.

  But could I say? And as I considered that, I considered this: could I say how it was that I wondered so, after the health of Ruman’s frail soul?

  As the summer deepened, we left the bench to the women from the front office who appreciated the sun more than we. Viktor was so unappreciative that he took the night shift, which he said he preferred in the heat of high summer. As for me—I hefted crates from shelf to belt, and soaked in the heat as it soaked me, and watched Ruman, as he did the same—thin, and bent, and strangely resolute.

  And so it was one Thursday afternoon in July that I quietly spoke to Ruman, and the following Sunday, drove with him to church.

  Ruman lived in a house in the eastern suburbs, where he rented a room of his own and shared a bathroom and kitchen with five other men. Too many men in the house, and everyone knew it. Ordinarily, he would take a bus from there, after walking ten minutes through twists of the subdivision to the bus stop at the main road—the neighbours’ eyes burning his back as he came and went. His very home was an affront to them.

  I didn’t pity him. Three years ago, I lived in a place just as bad, and these days, I lived in an apartment only a little better. I had a car but it was old and forever breaking down; and I’m not sure my life was much improved by having it. But I could tell he was grateful for the lift.

  “I thought you might not come,” he said as we pulled away from the house.

  “Why not?”

  “I thought you were afraid,” he said.

  “Afraid?”

  “Like Viktor,” he said. “Men from dark places . . . they fear the Light.”

  “Men from dark places fear the dark,” I said, and he snorted.

  The church was fifteen minutes away from Ruman’s house, in an industrial park like the one in which we worked. And Ruman was right; you could see the cross from the highway. It climbed over the structure on a steel lattice, and at night you could see it would light up. It would glow blue, Ruman explained as I shifted lanes to get off the highway. Why was it called the Good News Happening Congregation, I wondered as we drove past the driveway, looking for a spot on the road. Good News Happening Congregation was stamped out in moveable letters on a sign-board mounted on wheels. Ruman had no proper answer for that.

  We crossed a wide parking lot and approached a large bank of glass doors. There were a great many people clustered inside, and more moving in and out. When the doors opened, a burble of music and conversation and laughter drifted out. I speculated that we might be late and worried at the consequences.

  “Will the virgins be angry?” I asked, but Ruman straight-facedly reassured me: “This is how it always is.”

  He took me through the door and led me inside.

  There is a cathedral in the middle of Radejast. It addresses the approaching pilgrim as a fist of granite and slate and limestone, lifting black iron bells and arches and gargoyles to touch the dangled teat of the soot-cloud that ever hangs low over the land. Within: a forest of stone pillars, some carved with the likenesses of Radejast’s saints, some simply chiselled with the mark of its venerable religion—all surrounding the dome, so high and wide that when emerging from the pillars I stumbled beneath it, madly fearful that gravity might suddenly reverse, fling me from the floor, and smash me against the curved mosaics above the whispering gallery.

  The Good News Happening Congregation’s hall was larger than Radejast’s cathedral by half: a great circular space beneath a peaked roof, lit from high, clear windows on every side. Behind the pulpit stood a crucifix with a painted sculpture of Jesus Christ bound to it, bright lines of blood trickling down his slender limbs from the crown of thorns he wore. Altogether, it was half-again taller than any similar icon in Radejast.

  Surrounding the pulpit, curved rows of folding chairs radiated outward across a floor of polished concrete. Ruman craned his neck in a certain direction and waved. When I looked there, I saw a woman with
short blonde hair, a deep tan, beckoning us over. We moved to join her and what turned out to be a group of five more.

  “That,” explained Ruman as we made our way down the aisle, “is Cheryl and her friends. But I do not know all their names still,” he added, embarrassed.

  “I will introduce myself, then.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are they—?”

  Ruman cut in. “Stop talking about the virgins. I don’t know.”

  But Ruman was wrong. I was not set to mock him, make implications about his wandering attentions, remind him of his wife, as Viktor had that day. Stepping into this vast space, breathing the fresh-scrubbed scent of these pilgrims, I only thought to ask: Are they good people? Because looking across their faces, all of their faces—they seemed like good people to me.

  “Well hello there, sleepyhead,” said Cheryl, as we moved to the seats that she and her friends were saving. “Is this your friend?”

  I introduced myself and held out my hand, and Cheryl took it in both of hers. “I am sorry we are late,” I said. “My fault.”

  “Oh goodness,” said Cheryl. “You’re not late at all. You got Ruman here early.”

  “Cheryl’s just saying that Ruman could use some sleep,” said one of the others—black hair and heavyset in a print dress. “Look at the rings under his eyes.” Ruman snorted, half-smiled and looked away.

  “I’m Rose,” she said, and added: “God Bless.”

  Ruman said “God Bless,” and I said so too, and for the first time of many that morning, we all eight of us joined hands and said it again together.

  The morning service went on for some hours. There was singing and some talk from the tall, dark-haired pastor of the congregation, and of course some reading from the Bible. And then came a break, wherein everybody else introduced themselves. There was Rose’s daughter, Lisa; and Mary and Lottie, sisters to one another; and Carrie, who knew Cheryl from high school and had been married to Cheryl’s high school sweetheart until two years ago when he had left Carrie, the city, and the Lord. Both Cheryl and Carrie piously insisted they prayed daily for him. Yet they laughed when I wondered what exactly they prayed their God should do with one such as he.

  “You are bad,” said Carrie, and Cheryl gave my forearm a gentle slap and shifted so her shoulder rested against mine. I felt a pang—for was I not a guest of Ruman, who had introduced me to these women? It is true that he had a wife in the old country, was bound to her in the ways of our people, and so he could lay no claim to any of these women here. Yet in the riot of our lusts, how often do we heed reason and ignore that deeper voice, speaking to us as it does through the ages?

  The pang lasted an instant. Looking past Lottie, I noticed that Ruman was gone. Seeing my confusion, Lottie pointed to the pulpit.

  “Ah,” I said. Ruman had made his way there with some two-dozen others. There was no music playing, but he and they seemed to be dancing, or their shoulders were moving like dancers. The pastor stepped onto the low stage and reached down to help another up: this one an older woman in a long dress, her grey hair tied in a bun. The room dimmed as a cloud drifted past the sun. She held her hands up in the air, waggled her fingers, and began to sway. The pastor said nothing, but held his microphone to his chest, and swayed also. Around me, the congregation began to stand, and Carrie nudged me, and Cheryl tugged my arm as she stood. Beside her, Lottie shut her eyes and began to hum.

  A spotlight came on, illuminating the woman on the stage. She leaned her head back as though bathing in it. Then she too began to speak, to shout. She bunched her shoulders, as though coiling a spring there, and released, her arms spreading from her waist, and she did not just shout—she screamed. The pastor stepped back and held his arms out over her head, fingers spread as though he were preparing to catch her, should gravity fling her high.

  I remember an impulse then, to wrap my own arms around myself. But I could not. Cheryl and Carrie had taken my hands, one each, and held my arms apart. I suppose I might have pulled away, forcefully drawn my arms in. But the fear passed as fast as it came. And like Cheryl, like Carrie—like Ruman, gyrating and babbling with the crowd in front of the pulpit—

  I was swept up.

  When it was finished, we all went for lunch at a pancake place on the other side of the motorway. It was crowded and noisy, and there was no hope of finding a table for all of us. We divided ourselves: Cheryl, myself, Lisa, and Lottie took a table near the window; Ruman, Carrie, Mary, and Rose found a booth not too far off. Cheryl thought it important that no one who had come to church in the same car also sit at the same table.

  “How else are we going to build community,” she asked as we took our places in the sunlight, “if every time we worship, we all sit in our little tribes?”

  “Amen,” I said. I glanced over at the booth. Ruman’s face was obscured by the menu.

  “Aw,” said Lottie, “you miss your friend?” She patted my arm.

  “He seems to like it here,” I said. It was true. We didn’t speak much in the short drive over, but I had never seen Ruman seem so . . . nourished.

  “He does at that,” said Cheryl. “How ’bout you? You think you might join us?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I don’t know about. . . .” I waggled my fingers at my shoulders and swayed a bit in my chair. Lisa concealed a grin. Cheryl didn’t bother. She laughed.

  We ordered: me, a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs; Lottie, a platter of fresh fruit; Cheryl, an omelette. Lisa asked for a big plate of pancakes topped with stewed apples.

  “Did you go to church with Ruman?” asked Lisa, as we waited for our meals. “Back in the old country?”

  “No. Ruman came here just recently. I have been here two years more. I did not know Ruman. We have a job together.”

  “He said he didn’t like church in the old country.” I could see Lottie trying to shush Lisa, but she made as not to notice and pressed on. “He said he likes this one better. Do you like this one better?”

  Cheryl cut in. “Well, I bet there’s no dancing back in the old church, not like we have,” she said. She waggled her fingers as I had.

  “Oh, there can be dancing,” I said. “They do all sorts of things in our churches.”

  “You see?” said Cheryl to Lottie, as though settling a long argument. “There’s more we have in common than not, even across the wide ocean.”

  The food came, but not all at once. First, Lottie got her fruit, which she left untouched in front of her, sipping at her tea until my eggs and bacon arrived along with Cheryl’s omelette, whereupon Lisa urged all of us to eat.

  “I do like your church better,” I said as I scooped egg onto a piece of toast. “But I did not spend much time inside our churches. We have a different. . . .” I struggled for the word in the new language.

  “Faith?” offered Cheryl, but I shook my head.

  “Obligation,” I said. “Nearer that. Our God demands different things than yours does.”

  “It’s all one God,” said Cheryl, and Lottie added: “Praise Be He.”

  “It’s not all one God,” said Lisa, “when you think about the Muslims and the Buddhists and the Hindus . . . the things they worship. Can’t be. And how can you say God is He?”

  “Oh, cut that out. I’ll tell your mother.” Cheryl wagged her finger and laughed. “It’s all one God,” she said to me, “when you get right down to it.”

  “Okay,” I said and nodded over Lisa’s shoulder. “I think your food is coming.”

  The plate for pancakes was larger than any of ours, and I had to move aside to make room for it. The waitress smiled as Lottie made an ooh-ing sound, and Cheryl said, “Better you than us, kiddo,” to Lisa. “That’d go straight to my thighs.”

  “Enjoy,” said the waitress, and moved off. Lisa just looked at it, hands in her lap.

  “What is it, sweetheart?” asked Lottie. “Bigger than you expected?”
/>
  Lisa looked up at all of us.

  “It’s a miracle,” she said quietly, and pointed to the top of her pancake stack.

  We all looked. Cheryl said she didn’t see anything at first, but she was the only one.

  “It’s the face of Jesus,” said Lottie. Cheryl frowned and looked at it, and then at me. I nodded. There was a face, there, in the apples—strong cheekbones over deep-set eyes, brows of apple crescents, and the yellow sauce spilling down the edge of the pancakes in the unmistakable shape of a beard. It was a bright face, a Holy face—formed from apple on a young girl’s plate.

  Cheryl looked again and gasped.

  “You’re right, hon. It is a miracle.” Cheryl waved at the booth. “Hey! Rose! Come look what the Lord made your daughter!”

  Rose came over, and soon everyone from the other table was standing around, bearing witness to the miracle of the apple face on Lisa’s plate. The waitress stopped by to see if everything was all right, and when Carrie explained to her, she looked and agreed. Mobile phones emerged from purses and recorded the miracle through their tiny lenses.

  Lisa wondered what she should do with it, and it was finally Ruman who settled the matter.

  “You should eat it,” he said, “for God has delivered your Harvest, and it would be a sin to deny His bounty, yes?”

  That made Lisa smile. “Well, I don’t want to be sinning,” she said, and I suppressed a gasp as she cut into the apparition’s cheek with her fork.

  I didn’t have opportunity to speak with Ruman again that day. As lunch finished, it transpired that Rose had offered to drive Ruman home. The offer created complications, displacing one from that car—either Cheryl or Carrie—and Cheryl wondered if she could take Ruman’s place in mine. Of course I agreed.

  When in Radejast, I did not only visit the cathedral and walk at night at solstice. I was there for two weeks’ time, on my own, and the nights were long. I visited the taverns, and one night, I met a woman. She was no virgin, but not a whore either. I think she may have hoped I would bring her back with me, as my bride. But no words were spoken to that effect as we quit the tavern arm in arm, slipped through a dark alcove and into her rooms. When I left, there were no tears. She kissed me on the cheek and touched her forehead to my shoulder and sent me away.