“The Holy Bible,” he said in a strong voice as if he were issuing an edict.
I didn’t recognize the name. “The Good book?” I asked and he smiled nodding. “Can I see it?” He handed the book over and stood watching me as I turned it over in my hands. It was intensely dense with thin crispy pages that rustled against one another as I moved it and were bound in smooth soft red leather that was cold to the touch. It looked as if it was kept swaddled in wool and only brought out on occasion. I opened it and the small precise words that proceeded across the page in unyielding order left me with no doubt that this was the same book that my mother had carried with her throughout her life. I was staggered and felt as if someone had walloped me upside the head. Indiscriminate tears slipped down my face splattering the page. I wiped it ashamed.
The old man said, “It’s ok son,” but I ignored him entranced as I flipped through the pages struggling to read as my mother had taught us long ago. As a child learning to read had been fun, a game filled with stories of giants and magic, and then as I grew I loathed it as a waste of time, but now I realized that she hadn’t taught me for my own good. Just as the chapel didn’t serve any survival purpose and just as she always made us meet with and help other men, teaching us to read was her way of reminding herself of civilization and of trying to preserve that civilization in some small way. Eventually I found a passage that my mother had often recited to us, not even needing to consult the book that she held in her lap as we sat around a fire or walked down a deer path.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As I read the verses my eyes filled even more with tears so that the world blurred around me. I closed the book and handed it back to the old man murmuring my thanks. He took it and stood awkwardly looking at me as if he didn’t know what to do with me. The night was clear and cool. I walked towards the chapel leaving the old man behind in the square until he continued along his way. I felt as if my mother was with me again and smiling as if her spirit had settled into the white walled building. As we’d roamed the land together, we’d often visited churches we’d discovered along the way. Their steeples had collapsed, and their stained glass lined the floor in rough granules, but my mother had spoken lovingly of singing hymns and eating potluck meals as we’d walked somberly through the aisles. She’d told us that in the time before men had worshipped in those churches, but she never prayed or sang or worshipped when we’d walked through them. She’d only gingerly laid her hand on a fallen cross or a pew and bow her head silently. When Mary had finally finished cleaning up in the kitchen after the village’s dinner, she’d found me sitting on the steps of the little steeple sitting in a daze and murmuring to myself. I didn’t notice her until she sat down beside me and slipped her arm around me. Her body was warm against my side and brought me out of my grief. She lay her head against my shoulder and held me tightly not saying anything just shivering with me as the night grew colder.
On the next morning, the Sabbath, my stomach was clenched so tightly that I could hardly eat, and my nerves were shot. I forced myself to eat a hardboiled egg and some grits. I spoke as little as possible not trusting myself to maintain the surface calm that Mary had helped to establish. Emotions roiled inside me; grief over the loss of my mother, suspicion of the preacher, warmth at the thought of Mary sitting across the aisle from me and sadness at my brother’s unwillingness to attend with the men and women who followed him unquestioningly. The men grumbled loudly when they heard rounds being fired on the hillside. The vampires were drilling again and the men and women who attended the services spoke loudly
