The Poisonwood Bible
Page 24
I peeped up from my book. Oh, dear Lord. He was staring directly at me. My heart palpitated fiercely.
“The Lord will forgive you if you ask,” he said, very disgusted and quiet, the tone of voice that makes me feel worse than any other. “Our Lord is benevolent. But that poor African bird can’t be relieved of what you’ve taught it. It’s an innocent creature that can only repeat what it hears. The damage is done.” He started to turn away from us. We held our breath as he paused on the steps and looked back, right in my eyes. I burned with shame.
“If there’s anything to be learned from this,” he said, “it’s about the stink and taint of original sin. I expect you’d better think about that while you do The Verse.” Our hearts fell. “All three of you,” he said. “Book of Numbers, twenty-nine thirty-four.”
Then he walked off abruptly, leaving us like orphans on the porch.
The thought of spending the rest of the day copying out the tedious Book of Numbers sobered me deeply as I watched my father go. He directed his stride toward the river. He’d been going down there nearly every day, tearing his walking stick into the elephant-ear leaves that curtained the riverbank. He was scouting out baptismal sites.
I already knew how Numbers 29:34 came out, as I’d gotten it before.The hundredth verse winds up at 32:32, with how when you sin against the Lord you get found out, and to watch what proceeds out of your mouth.
I hadn’t even considered the irreversible spoiling of Methuselah’s innocence, which just goes to show I have much to learn. But I’ll admit I prayed that afternoon that Father had taken Rachel’s apology as a confession, so he wouldn’t think the sin was mine. It was hard, accepting his accusations by keeping silent. We all knew very well who’d been the one to yell that word Damn! She’d said it over and over when she wept over the wreck of her useless cake mixes. But none of us could let him in on that awful secret. Not even me—and I know I’m the one to turn my back on her the most.
Once in a great while we just have to protect her. Even back when we were very young I remember running to throw my arms around Mother’s knees when he regaled her with words and worse, for curtains unclosed or slips showing—the sins of womanhood. We could see early on that all grown-ups aren’t equally immune to damage. My father wears his faith like the bronze breastplate of God’s foot soldiers, while our mother’s is more like a good cloth coat with a secondhand fit. The whole time Father was interrogating us on the porch, in my mind’s eye I was seeing her slumped over in the kitchen house, banging in mortal frustration against that locomotive engine of a stove. In her hand, Rachel’s Angel Dream cake mix, hard as a rock; in her heart, its heavenly, pink-frosted perfection, its candles ablaze, brought proudly to the table on that precious bone-china platter with the blue flowers. She’d been keeping it a secret, but Mother was going to try and have a real sweet-sixteen party for Rachel.
But Angel Dream was the wrong thing, the wrong thing by a mile. I’d carried it over in my own waistband, so it seemed like some part of the responsibility was mine.
Adah
HOLY FATHER, bless us and keep us in Thy sight,” the Reverend said. Sight Thy blessed father holy. And all of us with our closed eyes smelled the frangipani blossoms in the big rectangles of open wall, flowers so sweet they conjure up sin or heaven, depending on which way you are headed. The Reverend towered over the rickety altar, his fiery crew cut bristling like a woodpeckers cockade. When the Spirit passed through him he groaned, throwing body and soul into this weekly purge.The “Amen enema,” as I call it. My palindrome for the Reverend.
Mama Tataba’s body next to mine in the pew, meanwhile, was a thing gone dead. Her stiffness reminded me of all the fish lying curved and stiff on the riverbanks, flaking in the sun like old white bars of soap. All because of the modern style of fishing Our Father dreamed up.The Reverend’s high-horse show of force. He ordered men to go out in canoes and pitch dynamite in the river, stupefying everything within earshot. Shot ears. Now, where did he get dynamite? Certainly none of us carried it over here in our drawers. So from Eeben Axelroot, I have to think, for a large sum of money. Our family receives a stipend of $50 a month for being missionaries. This is not the regular Baptist stipend; Our Father is a renegade who came without the entire blessing of the Mission League, and bullied or finagled his way into this lesser stipend. Even so, it is a lot of Congolese francs and would be a Congolese fortune if that were that, but it is not. The money comes in an envelope on the plane, brought by Eeben Axelroot and to Eeben Axelroot it mostly returns. Ashes to ashes.
“The Lord will forgive you if you ask,” he said, very disgusted and quiet, the tone of voice that makes me feel worse than any other. “Our Lord is benevolent. But that poor African bird can’t be relieved of what you’ve taught it. It’s an innocent creature that can only repeat what it hears. The damage is done.” He started to turn away from us. We held our breath as he paused on the steps and looked back, right in my eyes. I burned with shame.
“If there’s anything to be learned from this,” he said, “it’s about the stink and taint of original sin. I expect you’d better think about that while you do The Verse.” Our hearts fell. “All three of you,” he said. “Book of Numbers, twenty-nine thirty-four.”
Then he walked off abruptly, leaving us like orphans on the porch.
The thought of spending the rest of the day copying out the tedious Book of Numbers sobered me deeply as I watched my father go. He directed his stride toward the river. He’d been going down there nearly every day, tearing his walking stick into the elephant-ear leaves that curtained the riverbank. He was scouting out baptismal sites.
I already knew how Numbers 29:34 came out, as I’d gotten it before.The hundredth verse winds up at 32:32, with how when you sin against the Lord you get found out, and to watch what proceeds out of your mouth.
I hadn’t even considered the irreversible spoiling of Methuselah’s innocence, which just goes to show I have much to learn. But I’ll admit I prayed that afternoon that Father had taken Rachel’s apology as a confession, so he wouldn’t think the sin was mine. It was hard, accepting his accusations by keeping silent. We all knew very well who’d been the one to yell that word Damn! She’d said it over and over when she wept over the wreck of her useless cake mixes. But none of us could let him in on that awful secret. Not even me—and I know I’m the one to turn my back on her the most.
Once in a great while we just have to protect her. Even back when we were very young I remember running to throw my arms around Mother’s knees when he regaled her with words and worse, for curtains unclosed or slips showing—the sins of womanhood. We could see early on that all grown-ups aren’t equally immune to damage. My father wears his faith like the bronze breastplate of God’s foot soldiers, while our mother’s is more like a good cloth coat with a secondhand fit. The whole time Father was interrogating us on the porch, in my mind’s eye I was seeing her slumped over in the kitchen house, banging in mortal frustration against that locomotive engine of a stove. In her hand, Rachel’s Angel Dream cake mix, hard as a rock; in her heart, its heavenly, pink-frosted perfection, its candles ablaze, brought proudly to the table on that precious bone-china platter with the blue flowers. She’d been keeping it a secret, but Mother was going to try and have a real sweet-sixteen party for Rachel.
But Angel Dream was the wrong thing, the wrong thing by a mile. I’d carried it over in my own waistband, so it seemed like some part of the responsibility was mine.
Adah
HOLY FATHER, bless us and keep us in Thy sight,” the Reverend said. Sight Thy blessed father holy. And all of us with our closed eyes smelled the frangipani blossoms in the big rectangles of open wall, flowers so sweet they conjure up sin or heaven, depending on which way you are headed. The Reverend towered over the rickety altar, his fiery crew cut bristling like a woodpeckers cockade. When the Spirit passed through him he groaned, throwing body and soul into this weekly purge.The “Amen enema,” as I call it. My palindrome for the Reverend.
Mama Tataba’s body next to mine in the pew, meanwhile, was a thing gone dead. Her stiffness reminded me of all the fish lying curved and stiff on the riverbanks, flaking in the sun like old white bars of soap. All because of the modern style of fishing Our Father dreamed up.The Reverend’s high-horse show of force. He ordered men to go out in canoes and pitch dynamite in the river, stupefying everything within earshot. Shot ears. Now, where did he get dynamite? Certainly none of us carried it over here in our drawers. So from Eeben Axelroot, I have to think, for a large sum of money. Our family receives a stipend of $50 a month for being missionaries. This is not the regular Baptist stipend; Our Father is a renegade who came without the entire blessing of the Mission League, and bullied or finagled his way into this lesser stipend. Even so, it is a lot of Congolese francs and would be a Congolese fortune if that were that, but it is not. The money comes in an envelope on the plane, brought by Eeben Axelroot and to Eeben Axelroot it mostly returns. Ashes to ashes.
