This may not be a sanctioned lesson, but Stephen is still curious, and I’ve never limited my teaching to the hours designated for school.
“Well, we barricaded ourselves from the outside world, Stephen.”
“Because of the Rovers?”
“Partly, although the local Rover population had been drastically reduced. No, what really drove us into isolation was Lassa fever.”
“Isolation? What do you mean?”
“Just that we made ourselves entirely self-sufficient so we wouldn’t have to go out among other people for any reason. We were already nearly self-sufficient. We had land and water and livestock. We pooled our money to buy everything we’d need to keep going for—I don’t know. A year or so. We never committed ourselves on the length of our retreat.” And never imagined it would, in a sense, be permanent.
“What kind of things did you buy?”
“Well, nonmotorized farm implements, for one thing, like the plow we still use. Of course, training Silver to pull it wasn’t so easy. We bought seed, everything from clover to squash, canned goods by the case, flour, rice, and beans by the sack. Canning jars, kerosene, gasoline—for the chain saw, not the van. Medicines, veterinary supplies, clothing, and many more things I can’t remember now. In a way, the preparation for our siege was good for us. It gave us something to take our minds off the grief, and we needed that, especially Rachel.”
Stephen’s dark eyes are clouded. He nods and pulls in a deep breath. “How long did it take you to make all your preparations?”
“About a month and a half. By then the edge was off our grief, and even in our isolation, life returned to a kind of norm. There was more work without Connie and Jim to help, but I still did some writing, and Rachel did some painting. It was an oddly peaceful hiatus, yet we were never free of fear. We were living through the death throes of a golden age.” I look down at the blank sheets of fine rag watercolor paper, and Stephen waits patiently.
“It was reaching critical mass, Stephen, all the deadly factors coming together. We still had our window on the world. The television. We knew about the riots and revolutions and the cities surrendered to anarchy. We knew about the failure of the monsoon in India for the third year in a row, the locusts in the Mediterranean and Africa, the killer smogs in Europe and on the East Coast of this country, about the Sino-Russian War, the nuking of Jerusalem, the droughts all over the world. And, of course, there were always stories about the Lassa epidemic and starvation. It was falling apart out there, and yet Rachel and I kept hoping. Now I can’t imagine why. It was too late for hope.”
Stephen seems to be watching the children, but his frown tells me his thoughts are elsewhere. “Miriam says it was prophesied, all the… falling apart.”
I make no comment on prophesies. “We were also aware, through our window, of the crisis over that Russian fishing fleet. Some American admiral decided they were too close to our coast and sank all twenty ships. There was a furor in the circles of power, and all the charges and countercharges had nothing to do with the fishing fleet. In fact, we’d been on fairly good terms with the Russians for a long time. But most wars began with a triviality. What was really happening was a kind of mass madness—the same kind of madness that developed in animal studies when a confined population increased past a crucial point. But we were supposed to be smarter than white rats. And yet… it finally happened.” I feel my eyes ache with tears even after all these years. That grief can’t be salved by time, not for those of us who lived through that ultimate human catastrophe.
I wonder how many of us are left in the world now.
Stephen asks, “What was Armageddon like here at Amarna?”
I look out at the clear, brilliant sky. “September fifteenth. Indian summer. That evening, Rachel and I watched the six o’clock newscast—the one that came to us via the new Federal Information Broadcasting System. I always wondered what bureaucrat came up with that title, if there was one among them who had a sense of humor. I mean, I can’t believe no one realized it would inevitably be abbreviated FIBS.”
Stephen smiles, but uneasily. “What did the newscast say?”
“Well, FIBS lived up to its acronym. Two days before, it had reported that cities were being evacuated in Russia, but on September fifteenth, Rachel and I—and the rest of the nation—were assured that negotiations were under way with the Russians, that the crisis was in fact over. So, we went out to the garden to pick zucchini and butternut squash. I remember a storm was coming in over the ocean from the southwest, but the sky was still clear in the east.”
“What did you see? How did you know what had happened?”
“We didn’t know. We only assumed. First we heard the FEMA warning siren from Shiloh Beach. It was so far away, we could barely hear it. Then suddenly it stopped. That’s when I looked at my watch. My digital watch. It had stopped, too. The numbers vanished. And in the eastern sky we saw the strange colors.”
“What… what were they like?”
I hesitate, trying to call up the words for those evanescent colors. They were no more amazing than what I see now in this sunset sky and in the mirrors in the sand. But before I can speak, I hear hurried footsteps behind me. Stephen turns, and I watch wariness take shape in his face.
“Stephen, what are you doing here?”
I look up at Miriam, and she looks down at me. She seems to expect me to answer the question. I remain silent, and Stephen rises.
“I’m just talking to Mary.”
“I can see that. You don’t have a lesson today. It’s the sabbath. Anyway, it’s time for bed. Go out and tell the other children.”
He nods, glances uncertainly at me as he goes to the door. When it closes behind him, Miriam asks, “What were you talking to him about?”
“About the End,” I answer flatly. “About Armageddon.”
“What do you know about Armageddon?”
She’s thinking of Saint John, of course. “Miriam, I know a great deal about it. I lived through it.” And she was born of the next generation. What I lived through is to her as much a legend, a mythic event, as Saint John’s revelation. To her it is Saint John’s revelation, whatever our Elder says, and however difficult it might be to explain the obvious discrepancies between revelation and reality. I wonder how she explains the fact that I survived. Only the blessed were supposed to survive her Armageddon.
Miriam’s lips part to speak, and I read in her eyes a rankling rage unmasked. I don’t know what I expect her to say, but I am for a moment afraid.
But it is never said. The rage is hidden behind cool indifference.
The children are coming in, faces flushed from their games. They each pause to wish me good night and kiss my cheek, then hurry past the kitchen and through the dining room to the basement door. Miriam turns and follows the children. I watch her until she disappears beyond the door, then I close my eyes to listen to the sounds of voices from the kitchen, the grinding of Bernadette’s pestle, the crackling of the fire, but there’s no warmth or peace here now.
At length, I look out at the beach. The color is almost gone. And I think about Stephen’s question: what was Armageddon like?
I don’t know what it was like anywhere else. I can guess, but I don’t know. Here, it was a day much like this one, except at the other end of the year.
And it was a day of terror beyond comprehension. After all these years, I still grieve for it.
But I don’t understand it. I will never understand it.
Chapter 10
Every one of these hundreds of millions of human beings is in some form seeking happiness…. Not one is altogether noble nor altogether trustworthy nor altogether consistent; and not one is altogether vile. Not a single one but has at some time wept.