“I say anybody who doesn’t believe in Genesis doesn’t believe in God!”
“What kind of god would ask—”
She pounds her fist on the table in cadence with her words: “If there was no Garden of Eden, there was no fall from grace, and if there was no fall from grace, there was no atonement, there was no redemption, and there was no resurrection!”
With the candlelight glittering hectically in her eyes, she waits for me to answer her pronouncement. Instead, I ease myself down into my chair, and my response is addressed not to her, but to Jerry.
“I don’t understand why Miriam has such a niggardly vision of God, why she thinks the generous, loving, and merciful god of whom Jesus spoke would be so grudging and petty.”
“I never said God was—”
“You don’t have to say it! Your idea of god is part of your mean little scheme of things, and anything that doesn’t fit into it is evil. You don’t know your god, because you don’t know the incredible dimensions and richness of the universe you say you believe your god created. That’s what I want the children to understand! You’re worried about their souls? I’m worried about their minds. Human beings have been given astounding capacities to create, to understand, to love, and if we don’t use them, if we lock ourselves in cages of dogma, then we are no longer human, we are nothing more than talking animals capable of cruelty. I want to teach the children so they won’t become caged and vicious animals. I want to teach them because I love them. You don’t love anything that doesn’t fit into your myopic, colorless concept of the world. The children deserve more, and they will have more!”
She is—for the moment—silenced. Like Jerry and the other women, she stares at me, amazed. Perhaps she didn’t think the old woman had it in her, all that passion, all those words.
Again, I address myself to Jerry. “Your father sent you to Amarna, to me, and didn’t you promise—swear by all you hold sacred—to let me teach the children?”
He frowns, uncertainty still written large in his face. “Yes, I… made that promise.”
Miriam stands trembling, her hands still in fists. “You didn’t promise to let her teach the children blasphemy! Jeremiah, you can’t be held by any oath you swore to her!”
He only seems annoyed by the distraction. “Be quiet, Miriam.”
“I won’t be quiet, and I won’t let you give in to this—this witch!”
He ignores that, looks down the length of the table at me, then his frown deepens as his gaze shifts to the books. He hasn’t made up his mind yet. “Mary, I did promise you could teach the children, but—”
“No!” Miriam looms over him, her face contorted into ugliness. “The Lord help us, she has you trained like that dog of hers! All she has to do is blow on that silver whistle, and you come running. And you call yourself Elder of this family!”
Jerry rises so abruptly his chair tips over behind him, and Enid gives a strangled cry of alarm, a startled cat skitters out of the room. Yet with Jerry’s every muscle straining against his rage, Miriam can’t seem to stop.
“Jeremiah, if you give in to her, we’ll all know what kind of Elder you are! You never did have any backbone. Even when we were children, you couldn’t—”
“Miriam!” His hand comes up in a shaking fist, but he doesn’t strike her. He says between clenched teeth, “Sit down!”
She sags into her chair, finally aware of the depth of his anger. The husky tautness in his voice sends a shiver up my back.
“Miriam, you’ve gone too far! I am Elder, and I will decide whether Mary is a fit teacher for the children. I gave my sacred oath, and I will not break it. That is my decision. School will go on tomorrow morning as usual, and Jonathan, Isaac, and Deborah will be there!”
So. I have won this battle.
Yet I feel neither the elation of triumph nor even relief. Jerry made his decision for the wrong reason. Nothing is resolved.
And Miriam hasn’t surrendered yet.
She says coldly, “School may go on as usual, Jeremiah, but my children won’t be there!”
“Two of your children are also mine, and all of them will be there!”
“Or what?” she demands. “What if I choose to protect our children from what that woman teaches them?”
He picks up his chair, slumps into it, doubt slackening his features. At length, the doubt turns into bleak conviction, and he says, “There is no place in this family for anybody who defies the Elder.”
Those words create a palpable silence, and the moment seems to expand, holding all of us motionless, all staring at Jerry, while he looks down at the double fist of his hands resting before him on the table.
No place in this family.
That means exile.
Jerry, you fool. No, it’s Miriam who is the fool. She forced him into this. She turned her philosophical disagreement with me into a challenge to Jerry’s authority. She gave him no choice but to unsheathe this, his ultimate weapon—the threat of exile.
Grace bursts out, “Jeremiah, you couldn’t do that to Miriam!”
And Esther: “It would leave her children motherless.”
And Enid, “But where would she go?”
“I don’t care,” Jerry says dully. “South, I suppose, to find the other survivors from the Ark.”
Miriam is silent, staring at her half-brother as if he were a stranger who had just slipped a knife between her ribs. Jerry doesn’t waver, but neither does he look at her. He says to the rest of us, “This meeting is over. Let us pray.” And he raises his locked hands, bends his head over them. “Almighty God, we pray that you will guide us in the ways of your love, that you will help us find understanding, one with another, that you will succor us in this our time of need. Amen.”
That is undoubtedly the briefest prayer he has ever spoken, and the women are caught short with their amens. He doesn’t seem to notice. He looks up and repeats, “This meeting is over.”
It is still a few seconds before that pronouncement has any effect. Bernadette rises first, reaching for one of the candlesticks. She hasn’t said a word throughout this confrontation, but the dispassionate curiosity that typically glints in her eyes has gone dull. She glances at me, shakes her head wearily, then: “Come on, Enid. Let’s go to bed.”
Enid is dazed and at first seems deaf. Finally, as if she were weighted with invisible chains, she pulls herself to her feet and picks up a candle.
Grace, still indignant, starts to say something to Jerry, apparently thinks better of it, and gives me a look no doubt meant to be withering. “Miriam, you’re not alone, Sister.” With that she joins Enid and Bernadette, who are already on their way out the backdoor.
Esther comes to her feet, silver tears streaking her bronze cheeks. Without a word, she picks up a candle and goes to the basement door. I hear her footsteps on the stairs as Miriam silently rises.
She takes a candle, turns to leave, and Jerry speaks. She stops.
“Miriam, I will conduct morning service tomorrow.”
That is not only foolish, it is inexcusable. He wasn’t driven to that.
Miriam’s only visible response is the marble pallor of her face. Her voice is uninflected, pitched low as she turns to Jerry. “I’ll pray for you, Jeremiah.” She goes to the basement door, closes it softly behind her, leaving Jerry and me sitting at either end of the long table in the flickering light of the two remaining candles.