Reuben got up from the table and walked around to her. ‘I have a name for the baby,’ he said putting his arm around her shoulders, his head pleasantly resting against hers.
That cheered Lisbet up. ‘Really, Reuben? A family name, I hope. Perhaps Silas or Meyer?’
‘Wycliffe. I’m calling him Wycliffe after the great Protestant martyr.’
His mother frowned. She’d never heard the name before and it took her several goes to get the spelling right.
Alice liked the name. It had a ring to it. She repeated it several times.
‘Mother,’ Reuben said, standing tall, ‘I am alive and I am going to be a better man. Surely that’s all that matters.’
‘I’ll try to focus on that but I do think I’m going to miss the old Reuben.’
Later that night Reuben came into Alice’s room and whispered love into her ear. She never asked him where he had been or what he had done in all those months he was missing. She didn’t want to know. She was just glad that at last she had a real husband.
Reuben had run from the house a madman. He had stood in that room with his new child in his hands and seen everyone’s souls: Mary, who he had taken in her tiny cast-iron bed in her maid’s room, her soul was open to him, wanting more than he could give; his mother’s soul, yearning for a life she hadn’t had; Alice’s soul, damp and crinkled with disappointment, growing something unhealthy; his baby’s soul, fresh and new. He saw what he had done to all of them. He rushed down the stairs and he saw Ryan’s soul as Ryan opened the front door for him. Ryan, who was so faithful in his service but really hated them all. He saw Pevensie’s soul full of bliss as he bent over the roses, his soul intertwining with the earth. He saw the souls of the trees, fluttering, shimmering, speaking to the angels.
In his head the voices pounded, ‘Talk to us, Reuben!’ Over and over they called. The guns boomed and the earth split open and barbed wire tore at men’s flesh.
‘I’m talking! Let’s discuss this reasonably. Just tell me what’s next!’ he yelled over the noise.
He took the car, cranked the motor and drove until the petrol ran out. It was night by the time he stopped. The voices continued to yell at him as he rested his head on the steering wheel and fell asleep.
‘Reuben, talk to us,’ called the voices of God and Satan. Behind the voices he could hear the bombs exploding and men screaming for their mothers. In the morning he abandoned the car and walked with his hands over his ears, trying uselessly to block out the clamour. He had no idea how far he had travelled or where he was. He just walked. He would go into the first synagogue he came to. Maybe in a synagogue God and Satan would tell him what was next. If they would just be reasonable, maybe he could do a deal with them and they would leave him alone. He stumbled through a field and saw a small timber chapel. It had an awning over the door and two plain windows at the front and sat alone in the field on the edge of the village as though someone had left it for a moment and forgotten to come back for it. Apart from the cross perched on its roof like a weather vane, it was little more than a timber barn. Reuben walked through the long grass and up the front steps and tried to open the door but it was locked. Reuben hated God and Satan then for keeping him out, they were being so unreasonable.
‘He hates us,’ said Satan to God.
‘Sometimes,’ said God.
How dare they bring him all this way only to lock the door in his face! He swore and banged on the door with both fists. He banged louder than the bombs, louder than the screams of dying men, but not louder than the voices of God and Satan.
‘You’re going to punch a hole in my door,’ came a new voice.
The sounds of dying men and an irritable God and an overbearing Satan faded off into the distance. He turned around. The man was tubby and had a baby face. Reuben couldn’t trust someone who looked so innocent; who looked too young to have experienced the war.
‘You’re not a rabbi,’ said Reuben.
‘No, I’m not, son,’ said the man, whose voice was old and fatherly, ‘but God can still speak through me to ease your burden. I know what the war does, I know the burdens you carry. I’ve heard many confessions.’
Reuben looked at the man’s clear young eyes and realised they were set in an older face. His eyes travelled from the man’s face to his chest, and sure enough there was his soul, red and fervent, eager to spread the word. The man was in fact very elderly and had experienced many wars and many deaths.
‘Just let me go and get the keys for the chapel. I live next door in the manse,’ said the Reverend, indicating a cottage about three hundred yards away.
‘No! I can’t wait. Now! I need to finish this now! I can’t stand a minute longer of this,’ demanded Reuben. The Reverend looked worried; was he dealing with a madman? Should he call the police to take him away? Reuben felt the Reverend’s mind turning over, deciding whether to run for the constable.
After a long moment of consideration, the Reverend said, ‘Why don’t you kneel there on the steps?’
And Reuben did. He hoped the man knew what he was doing; he had to stop the racket in his head.
‘You have to repent of your sins,’ the Reverend said.
‘All of them?’
The Reverend
