From a distance came the muffled sound of other voices where the old men had gathered at the edge of the field, their faces illuminated by a low cottonwood fire. It was their task to tend it, and from time to time a shower of sparks signaled that they'd heaped another log upon the flames. Nearby a cluster of children stood in dutiful guard over a bag of seed bigger than themselves. The fields, they knew, were filled with thieves: birds, and mice, and hungry yellow corn worms. To lose a single kernel meant bad portent for the crops.
Farther off the windows of the little farmhouse were ablaze with light, and from the kitchen, where the older womenfolk were busy with their special preparations, there came the sound of voices raised in hymn. Between the farmhouse and the field jutted the squat shape of the low cinderblock outbuilding, its windows dark. Close behind it, like an impenetrably black wall, rose the encircling woods.
Suddenly the air contained a new voice, a low and distant rumbling from the east. At first it had been barely distinguishable from the wind in the trees; now it was growing deeper, in lazy waves of sound, like the drone of some gigantic insect.
In the fields the women fell silent. The older men kept to their steady pace, eyes pointedly averted toward the ground, but a few of the younger ones surreptitiously scanned the horizon and found at last some small red winking lights that climbed among the stars. Miles above the woods and fields a shape like a great silver crucifix was streaking across the planet heading westward.
The women stirred themselves. 'We've got corn to plant,' said the pregnant one. She peered into the darkened furrows at her feet, searching for a place to drop the seed. The others again took up the counting rhyme, but Deborah stared wistfully at the moving lights. Each Friday night the jet passed overhead, a jarring reminder of the world they'd shut out. 'Wonder where it's going,' she said, almost to herself. Her words were lost amid the chanting, the smell of moist black humus, the ancient and laborious routine. There was work to do, and her husband might be watching; she turned back to the corn seeds and the earth.
Ahead of her one of the men continued to gaze awestruck at the eastern sky. 'So many stars up there,' he remarked to his companions, 'and so little light down here! You're a hard worker, Sarr, and a good God-fearing man, but I sure do wish you'd been ready when the rest of us were. Leastways we had a moon we could see by.'
Poroth peered dolefully upward, aware that the other was right. Just above the trees the half moon reminded him of something damaged or broken, but the elders had assured him that, on the contrary, it was a most favorable omen for the crops: waxing larger day by day, it presaged an abundant growth and harvest. 'It wasn't possible to get these fields plowed by the appointed time,' he said, hurrying to keep pace with the others. He remembered the weeks of backbreaking labor, struggling with a balky tractor rented from the Go-operative. 'A month ago the ground we're walking on was covered by scrub and trees. This land hadn't been worked for seven years.'
'We know that, Sarr,' said the first man. 'We know what this farm means to you, and what it must've cost. We respect you for it. 'Tisn't every man takes to the land so late.' Coming to the edge of a row, he turned in unison with the rest and reversed his staff, using the alternate tip. 'You're bound to make a few mistakes at first, but with the Lord's help you'll come out all right in the end. That's why we're here tonight, and why Brother Joram made his wife come along. She's sure to bring good portent.'
There it was again, the omnipresent reverence for signs. A pregnant woman ensured good crops; a widow might bring disaster. Poroth knew that a cousin of his, Minna Buckhalter, was working in the kitchen side by side with women twice her age, his own long-widowed mother among them. Though Minna was strong enough for the outdoor work, she was considered unfit to bury seeds because last month she'd laid a husband in the earth.
Were the Brethren superstitious fools, then? Poroth didn't care. He'd had more education than the rest, and he'd lived for a while in the place that called itself the modern world – yet he was a believer, his faith unshaken. Fertile women meant fertile crops; their long straight hair meant long straight stalks of corn. Primitive symbolism, perhaps, but it worked; he was certain of it. Jets flew high above the earth, where angels played; there was room up there for both. Thunder was a collision of molecules, and also the voice of God; both might be true. The Lord was in His heaven, whatever name you called Him, as assuredly as there were demons here below, whatever faces they wore. Him you worshiped, them you wrestled; it was as simple as that. The only trick was not to lose your faith. The nature of the belief didn't matter, Poroth knew; what mattered was its intensity. He had a high regard for superstition.
'God's my witness,' he said to the other men, 'I know we've had our differences, but that's all past. Deborah and I are going to make you proud of us, you wait and see. You won't recognize this place!'
In the distance light spilled from the kitchen doorway of the farmhouse; moments later came the slam of the screen door, echoing across the field.
'By Michaelmas,' he went on, 'I'll have every acre planted, clear back to the stream.' He smiled at the thought. 'You wait and see. This land's going to look like the Garden of Eden!'
The one called Joram paused and looked his way. If he was smiling, the darkness concealed it. 'Mark you, Brother Sarr,' he said softly, 'the Gospels speak of another garden.' They knew he meant Gethsemane.
From beyond the fire came the faint clanging of a bell. Joram held up his hand. 'It's ready,' he said. 'Come.'
They followed him from the field.
The Village was alive tonight. The shoe stores and overpriced boutiques that lined both sides of Eighth Street were already closed, their windows dim, but the crowds were out in force and the food stands and novelty shops were packed. Comic T-shirts, zodiac posters, pizza slices, frozen yogurt: there was something for everyone, and everyone had a gimmick on display. Carol passed a fat girl in dirt-farmer overalls; a goateed black with a gypsy headdress and an earring; a young couple with leather pants and shiny blue streaks in their hair, the girl wearing a wristband ringed with spikes.
Perhaps it was her mood, but she found herself disliking almost everyone she saw. It did no good to narrow her eyes and view the world through a veil of lashes; the faces still swam at her out of the shadows, only now they were distorted, as in a waking dream. From a doorway a dark figure made explicit sucking sounds and hissed something at her in Spanish; a group of heavy-set blond boys staggered past, football types from the suburbs, drunk already and raining blows on the one in front, nearly shouldering her off the sidewalk. Dodging a black selling incense and a party of teenagers arguing where to go next, she slipped into a bookshop just off Sixth Avenue and killed some time by leafing through the fashion magazines. They had foreign editions of Vogue here, and photo annuals from Japan. Glossy sullen-faced women in shiny dark lipstick pouted across the pages. She tried picturing herself as some of them, and for the first time the idea didn't seem so far-fetched. St Agnes's seemed far in the past; or maybe it was just the prospect of more money to spend and her close brush with the young man at the library.
Leaving these fantasies on the rack, in magazines selling for five dollars or more, she journeyed back out onto the sidewalk, up the block, and around the corner to the relative quiet of MacDougal Street. It was less noisy here; ahead lay the darkness and trees of Washington Square, as if she'd come to the edge of the city. It was time she got some food in her.
That was not going to be easy, unless she was willing to stand at a counter eating vegetable tacos or falafel or a greasy wedge of pizza. She had only seven dollars in her wallet, with perhaps two more in change. This might well have to last her till Monday; Rosie's expense check was useless for the moment, and – if her supermarket refused to cash it – would remain so all weekend. Her roommate never had any money either; she got men to pay for everything. It was an arrangement that, at this point, Carol would have welcomed.
With a hand on her pocketbook and an eye peeled for strangers she wandered farther south, lingering a minute or two before a shop off the park, where she stared pensively at a slinky blue dress in the window and tried to imagine herself in it. Afterward she considered a more modest transaction – treating herself to cappuccino and a croissant in one of the coffeehouses along Bleecker Street – but a dollar eighty-five seemed a foolish price to pay for a cup of coffee. Besides, all the seats were taken in every place she passed; couples waited morosely by the open doorways, peering inside for vacancies, while others sprawled over tables set up cafe-style on the sidewalk. Movement here was only partially impeded, but farther west the sidewalks were completely blocked by street musicians. Standing behind open guitar cases or hopeful-looking upturned hats, they played wherever the crowds were thickest. From every side their music filled the night.
Carol fought her way past the crowd surrounding a Jamaican steel drummer and felt her exhaustion returning; somewhere soon she would have to rest. She was just crossing the street to avoid an even larger mob near the corner, flute music issuing from its midst, when, among the knot of spectators, their backs to her, her eye was caught by a bit of movement and a flash of red. It was a red canvas bag, swinging back and forth at the end of
