The Land of Decoration

4) He is often angry with me.

5) He is sad because of me.

1) Father doesn’t look at me if he can help it, and when he does his eyes are black. They are actually green, but they look black because he is angry. There is a verse in the Bible where it says God’s spirit is sharper than a two-edged sword and divides even the soul from the spirit, and joints from their marrow, and knows thoughts and secrets of the heart. That’s how it feels when Father looks at me. It looks like he doesn’t like what he sees there.

2) Father doesn’t touch me. We don’t kiss good night or hug or hold hands, and if we are sitting too close he will suddenly notice and clear his throat or move away or get up. Sometimes when we are together, something in the air changes and it is as if we are the only people in the universe, but instead of there being lots of space, as there would be if we really were, we are locked in a very small room and there is nothing to talk about.

3) Father doesn’t like talking to me. This may be because I ask a lot of questions, such as: “What will it be like in the new world?” and “Does God know everything that will happen in the future?” To which Father said: “God can decide what to know and what not to know.” To which I said: “Then He must know what’s going to happen in order not to want to know about it,” and Father said: “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

So I said: “Does God let bad things happen because He can’t see them or because He doesn’t want to stop them?”

“God lets bad things happen in order to prove that humans can’t rule themselves. If God stopped everything bad happening, then people wouldn’t be free. They would be little puppets.”

I said: “I suppose so. But if everything we do is already written out somewhere, are we free to do what we want or do we just think we are?”

Father said: “We can’t understand God, Judith. His ways are unsearchable.”

“Then why ponder them?” I said.

Father raised his eyebrows and closed his eyes.

I said: “Perhaps you can ponder too much.”

And Father said he thought you probably could.

But most of the time I don’t say much to Father and he doesn’t say much to me, and this is the biggest problem we have, because all the time we are not saying things, the air is filled with the things we could. I am always trying to hook one of these things down, but they are usually out of reach.

4) Father is often angry with me. This is because there is a list of things he approves of, which must be done a certain way, such as:

a) speaking (not mumbling)

b) sitting (not slouching)

c) walking (not running)

d) thinking (not daydreaming)

e) saving (not spending)

and an even longer list that must not be done at all, such as:

a) crying

b) playing with food

c) leaving food

d) running around (including hopscotch in the hall, which breaks another rule too; see f)

e) scuffing shoes

f) noise in general

g) leaving doors open

h) not paying attention

And sooner or later I am bound to do one and forget to do the other.

Sometimes, though, I don’t know why Father is angry with me. Once I asked him what I had done wrong.

He said: “You?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You always seem cross.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not cross.”

“Oh.”

“You’d know if I was cross!”

“That’s all right, then.”

He said: “Cross indeed!” And he was angrier than he had been to start with.

5) But worse, much worse than Father being cross, much worse than Father not talking to me or not wanting to look at me or not wanting to touch me, is when he is sad.

Sometimes when I was younger, I used to come downstairs at night to get a drink and the light would be on under the kitchen door. I would see Father through the glass panel, sitting at the table, not doing anything, just sitting there. I stood by the door waiting for him to move, and if he did it was like stepping into warm water. If he didn’t I would go back to bed with a pain in my chest and promise to be better and wait for the light to come.

That was when I thought I could make Father love me, but I don’t anymore. Because the reason he doesn’t happened a long time ago and I can’t do anything about it now, even though without me it wouldn’t have happened at all.

A Voice in the Dark

WHEN I HAD finished writing in my journal, I put it under the loose floorboard beneath my bed. I would have to hide it for now. Until Father came to his senses and saw what was staring him in the face.

I suddenly wondered what Brother Michaels would say if he knew what had happened, and I wished I could tell him how right he had been, that I could make things happen just like he said.

I got into bed. My head still felt hot and I was feeling even stronger than before. I could see myself in bed as if I wasn’t in my body. I’d fainted once and it felt similar. I was thinking about Father and the argument, thinking how surprised he would be when he finally did realize I could perform miracles, but it was as if it had all happened to someone else now, as if the little body lying in the bed and the house and our street and the town and the whole universe was pouring into my head and my head was big enough for it all, but it went on getting hotter and hotter, and it was all so strange I just lay back and let it happen. Then I heard something.

“So, you can make it snow,” said a voice. “What else can you do, I wonder?” Something shot up my spine and into my hair, and it felt like something inside me had melted.

“Hello?” I said, but no one answered. I waited.

Then someone sighed. I was sure of it.

I sat up in bed. I was breathing very hard. I pulled the blankets around me and took a deep breath. “Who’s there?” I whispered.

Everything was silent again. Then the voice said: “I said: ‘What else can you do?’”

I gasped. “Who are you?” I said.

“Now, there’s a question.”

I opened my mouth. I shut it again. “Where did you come from?”

“There’s another.”

I said: “I want to know—”

“You already do,” said the voice. It sounded quite close.

I shook my head. “Where are you?” I said.