'We know that, Sarr,' said the first man. 'We know what this farm means to you, and what it must've cost. We respect you for it. 'Tisn't every man takes to the land so late.' Coming to the edge of a row, he turned in unison with the rest and reversed his staff, using the alternate tip. 'You're bound to make a few mistakes at first, but with the Lord's help you'll come out all right in the end. That's why we're here tonight, and why Brother Joram made his wife come along. She's sure to bring good portent.'
There it was again, the omnipresent reverence for signs. A pregnant woman ensured good crops; a widow might bring disaster. Poroth knew that a cousin of his, Minna Buckhalter, was working in the kitchen side by side with women twice her age, his own long-widowed mother among them. Though Minna was strong enough for the outdoor work, she was considered unfit to bury seeds because last month she'd laid a husband in the earth.
Were the Brethren superstitious fools, then? Poroth didn't care. He'd had more education than the rest, and he'd lived for a while in the place that called itself the modern world – yet he was a believer, his faith unshaken. Fertile women meant fertile crops; their long straight hair meant long straight stalks of corn. Primitive symbolism, perhaps, but it worked; he was certain of it. Jets flew high above the earth, where angels played; there was room up there for both. Thunder was a collision of molecules, and also the voice of God; both might be true. The Lord was in His heaven, whatever name you called Him, as assuredly as there were demons here below, whatever faces they wore. Him you worshiped, them you wrestled; it was as simple as that. The only trick was not to lose your faith. The nature of the belief didn't matter, Poroth knew; what mattered was its intensity. He had a high regard for superstition.
'God's my witness,' he said to the other men, 'I know we've had our differences, but that's all past. Deborah and I are going to make you proud of us, you wait and see. You won't recognize this place!'
In the distance light spilled from the kitchen doorway of the farmhouse; moments later came the slam of the screen door, echoing across the field.
'By Michaelmas,' he went on, 'I'll have every acre planted, clear back to the stream.' He smiled at the thought. 'You wait and see. This land's going to look like the Garden of Eden!'
The one called Joram paused and looked his way. If he was smiling, the darkness concealed it. 'Mark you, Brother Sarr,' he said softly, 'the Gospels speak of another garden.' They knew he meant Gethsemane.
From beyond the fire came the faint clanging of a bell. Joram held up his hand. 'It's ready,' he said. 'Come.'
They followed him from the field.
The Village was alive tonight. The shoe stores and overpriced boutiques that lined both sides of Eighth Street were already closed, their windows dim, but the crowds were out in force and the food stands and novelty shops were packed. Comic T-shirts, zodiac posters, pizza slices, frozen yogurt: there was something for everyone, and everyone had a gimmick on display. Carol passed a fat girl in dirt-farmer overalls; a goateed black with a gypsy headdress and an earring; a young couple with leather pants and shiny blue streaks in their hair, the girl wearing a wristband ringed with spikes.
Perhaps it was her mood, but she found herself disliking almost everyone she saw. It did no good to narrow her eyes and view the world through a veil of lashes; the faces still swam at her out of the shadows, only now they were distorted, as in a waking dream. From a doorway a dark figure made explicit sucking sounds and hissed something at her in Spanish; a group of heavy-set blond boys staggered past, football types from the suburbs, drunk already and raining blows on the one in front, nearly shouldering her off the sidewalk. Dodging a black selling incense and a party of teenagers arguing where to go next, she slipped into a bookshop just off Sixth Avenue and killed some time by leafing through the fashion magazines. They had foreign editions of Vogue here, and photo annuals from Japan. Glossy sullen-faced women in shiny dark lipstick pouted across the pages. She tried picturing herself as some of them, and for the first time the idea didn't seem so far-fetched. St Agnes's seemed far in the past; or maybe it was just the prospect of more money to spend and her close brush with the young man at the library.
Leaving these fantasies on the rack, in magazines selling for five dollars or more, she journeyed back out onto the sidewalk, up the block, and around the corner to the relative quiet of MacDougal Street. It was less noisy here; ahead lay the darkness and trees of Washington Square, as if she'd come to the edge of the city. It was time she got some food in her.
That was not going to be easy, unless she was willing to stand at a counter eating vegetable tacos or falafel or a greasy wedge of pizza. She had only seven dollars in her wallet, with perhaps two more in change. This might well have to last her till Monday; Rosie's expense check was useless for the moment, and – if her supermarket refused to cash it – would remain so all weekend. Her roommate never had any money either; she got men to pay for everything. It was an arrangement that, at this point, Carol would have welcomed.
With a hand on her pocketbook and an eye peeled for strangers she wandered farther south, lingering a minute or two before a shop off the park, where she stared pensively at a slinky blue dress in the window and tried to imagine herself in it. Afterward she considered a more modest transaction – treating herself to cappuccino and a croissant in one of the coffeehouses along Bleecker Street – but a dollar eighty-five seemed a foolish price to pay for a cup of coffee. Besides, all the seats were taken in every place she passed; couples waited morosely by the open doorways, peering inside for vacancies, while others sprawled over tables set up cafe-style on the sidewalk. Movement here was only partially impeded, but farther west the sidewalks were completely blocked by street musicians. Standing behind open guitar cases or hopeful-looking upturned hats, they played wherever the crowds were thickest. From every side their music filled the night.
Carol fought her way past the crowd surrounding a Jamaican steel drummer and felt her exhaustion returning; somewhere soon she would have to rest. She was just crossing the street to avoid an even larger mob near the corner, flute music issuing from its midst, when, among the knot of spectators, their backs to her, her eye was caught by a bit of movement and a flash of red. It was a red canvas bag, swinging back and forth at the end of an all-but-unseen hand. Regularly it swung out from the crowd, then was lost again from sight, like the pendulum on an overwound clock – or the leg she'd seen swinging in the darkness of the classroom.
It was him, of course; Jeremy, the young man from the library. Even from behind, she recognized the book bag, the stocky build, the rumpled seersucker jacket that hung from one plump shoulder. He seemed to be alone. And as she watched the bag appear and disappear, appear and disappear, she was struck by the crazy, not unpleasant notion that, like an engineer flagging down a train, fate was giving her a sign.
Her first impulse was to hail him, but she stopped herself in time; she didn't want to seem too aggressive. Crossing the street once more, she slipped to the opposite side of the crowd and wormed her way up to the front. At first she could see nothing but the encircling faces; they were gazing toward something on the sidewalk. She looked down. At her feet squatted a diminutive old man with shiny black skin and grimy turban, piping frenziedly upon a wooden flute. Beside him lay a battered black umbrella. Between his knees he gripped a basket filled with loose change, from the middle of which rose a pale, serpentine thing that swayed before his face.