I Am Not Esther (5 page)

She just stared at me, then at last she said, ‘Miriam went to the discipline room and then she died.’

Shock ran through me. Had she killed herself? I hugged Maggie. ‘I promise I won’t die!’ I grab bed a pencil and paper from the desk. ‘Look, I’ll draw you a picture.’

‘No!’

I’ve never heard anything more eerie. The hair prickled on my scalp and the twins stirred in their sleep. Maggie’s face had gone dead white and she was shaking. I grabbed her and held her tight. ‘Look, it’s okay, kid! All right! I won’t draw anything. I promise.’ She couldn’t read. What could I do? Write her a note anyway? ‘Watch, Maggie! This is a letter. Will you remember what it says?’

I felt her head nod against my shoulder. ‘Great! Now watch.’ She turned her head slightly. I read it to her as I wrote: I am in the D room. I am being sOOOO gOOOOd.

I drew smiley faces in all the Os.

‘Now if you get worried when you wake up, you look at that and remember I’m being an angel.’ I hugged her again. ‘See you, button nose.’

It made her giggle. They didn’t use nicknames in this family. Rebecca turned over in the top bunk and muttered in her sleep. Would she like it if I called her Bex, or Becky?

I made my bed and went out, blowing Maggie
a kiss on the way. Another puzzle. Why had she freaked out about drawing a picture, for God’s sake?

Aunt Naomi put three pieces of plain bread on the table beside a glass of water. ‘This is your breakfast. I will bring you more at lunch time and dinner time.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I bet Mum’s refugees would be thrilled to have all this. I’ll think of them and give thanks while I eat it.’

That ought to slide the ground out from under her feet — and the wicked uncle’s — when she told him.

She ignored me and just said, ‘I will take you to the bathroom three times during the day. Your uncle has put the study you are to do on the table in the discipline room.’

They were going to lock me in?

I ate my ‘breakfast’ and then toddled off to the discipline room behind Aunt Naomi’s swishing skirts. She opened the door next to my uncle’s study. The room wasn’t much bigger than a cupboard with a little table in it. I sat down on the chair. There was no window and the light fell on the table in a pool, leaving the corners in shadow. I’d go mad if they locked me in. But when I looked after she’d left, there didn’t seem to be a lock on the door. I got up and turned the handle, pushing it open to make sure. So, I was here on trust.

I sat and thought about my alternatives. If I ran away, Maggie would be devastated. Where would I
go? Auckland was a long way from Wanganui. And Uncle Caleb was the only one who knew Mum’s address. The same old problems. Wait till school starts, Kirby. Be patient. Spend the time working out why Mum left like she did. There has to be a reason.

I looked at the stuff on the table. It turned out that my Bible study was to learn a psalm and apparently I had to find it first because there were no page numbers given.

Well, this was a new experience, ratting around in a Bible. But I’m smart and I found it, all seventeen verses of it. And it wasn’t your modern rubbish either. This version was full of
thee
and
thou
and
thy
. ‘For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.’ I hadn’t seen much mercy so far, only a lot of hell.

The next verse was even better and I felt it was talking directly about Uncle Caleb. ‘O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul.’

I planned my day. I would learn the psalm before lunch. I’ve never found it difficult to learn things. Mum and I used to do it for fun. She said poetry was part of my heritage. I knew heaps of it. In the afternoon, I would work out my next move in my search for Mum.

I wrote the psalm out on a bit of the paper and then I started learning. When I learn things, I stride around the room. I shout out like a town crier. I’m noisy.

I forgot Uncle Caleb had his office right next door.

The door of the discipline room flew open just as I was standing on the chair and yelling, ‘Preserve my soul, for I am holy.’

‘Silence!’ he thundered. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘I’m doing my Bible study,’ I said. ‘I always learn things like this.’

His face went from grey to dark.
I’ll beat you at this game
. ‘Uncle Caleb, isn’t this just wonderful! The words! So beautiful! I’d never realised before, but then, I’ve never even opened a Bible before. Thank you!’ I beamed at him, waving the paper around.

He actually smiled at me. ‘Our dearest prayers are being answered, Esther. God does indeed work in mysterious ways. Continue your study, child, but if you could moderate the volume until I leave for work I would appreciate it.’

He went out and I was so gobsmacked, I plopped down in the chair. He really meant all this stuff. It mattered to him that I was turning out to be a Godly woman. I felt a bit guilty and that made me mad. He had no right to impose his wacky beliefs on me. No flaming right at all.

I sat at the table and wrote, ‘My name is Kirby. I am not Esther.’ I was me. Not some robot they programmed.

I had the prayer or psalm or whatever it was
learned by lunch time, but I decided I wouldn’t tell anyone I could learn it that quickly, or next time I might get three times as much.

Daniel brought me ‘lunch’. ‘Gee, thanks,’ I said. ‘Sure you can spare it?’

He put down the tray and pulled one of Aunt Naomi’s big biscuits wrapped in wax paper from his pocket. ‘The diet gets a bit monotonous in here.’

‘Thanks!’ I looked at him as I munched. ‘How would you know?’

‘I know twenty psalms off by heart.’

‘I’m impressed! How can one boy be that wicked?’

But he didn’t tell me. Instead he said, ‘You did not tell my father that I told you where to find your mother’s things.’

‘How do you know I didn’t?’

He smiled slightly. ‘My father would have mentioned it to me.’

Of course he would. And there would have been a family prayer session over it. ‘Why did you tell me where they were?’

He looked somewhere over my head. ‘Sometimes, I believe my father is not always right.’

I stared at him. He was quite gutsy in his own weird way. ‘How’s Maggie?’ I asked.

‘Magdalene is a little quiet, but she started smiling when she heard you — er — speaking the psalm so loudly.’

I grinned. I would let rip again a few times this afternoon, just to let her know I was still alive.

He went away and Aunt Naomi came and let me go to the toilet, then I was on my own for the afternoon.

It was the longest afternoon of my life. I tried to think constructively about Mum but I couldn’t and if I could’ve painted my thoughts, they’d have been dark red and black and they’d be slashed onto the paper with thick, ugly strokes.

I hate her, I really hate her
.

I’m so frightened
.

I ATE MY THREE PIECES of bread for dinner. The smell of roast lamb drifted down the passage. My stomach rumbled. I was allowed out for family prayers after dinner. I was hungry and steaming mad which I decided was heaps better than being frightened and miserable. They always had a Bible reading in the evening, nine million prayers and a couple of hymns.

‘You did not die,’ Maggie whispered.

Bloody hell.

I’d never joined in before, but I thought, why not? I held Maggie’s hand and raised my voice in song. I sang loudly and cheerfully and just a bit out of time and a bit out of tune. But I looked happy and holy. My uncle and aunt smiled encouragingly, the kids giggled and Daniel actually raised an eyebrow at me and smiled.

I got to recite my psalm, which I did with great expression and one hundred per cent correctness.
Even so, I got sent back to the discipline room for the evening. I whispered to Maggie, ‘I’ll put another message under your pillow when I come to bed.’ She didn’t smile, but seemed to relax.

Back in the discipline room I wrote Maggie her message: I am gOOd.

This time, I drew little faces in the Os, with big round mouths so that they looked as if they were singing.

Then I wrote to Louisa and Gemma. I wrote about what it was like here and how miserable and worried I was about Mum.

I feel betrayed. You wouldn’t dump a scraggy old cat the way she dumped me. I HATE her. She must’ve been crazy to leave me here. This is the most idiot religion. Half the time I don’t believe it’s for real, it’s so unbelievable. I have to watch what I say all the time because if I say something they don’t like the whole family gets hauled in and they pray about me. It’s bloody lucky they can’t read my thoughts. They’re trying to change me, but they won’t. I won’t let them. I won’t be Esther. I’m going to keep on being me. Kirby
.

How could I send it? I had no stamp or envelope and my uncle would read it and tear it up and pray over me. I started again:

Dear Louisa and Gemma,

I have surprising news for you. Mum has gone to Africa to work with refugees and I am staying with her brother and his family. I was surprised to find she had a brother but she hasn’t seen him since she was sixteen. They live 
very holy lives and are teaching me lots of prayers and songs. I like the language of the Bible they use. My aunt made me new clothes because the women in their faith always wear skirts
.

My uncle has Mum’s address if you want to write to her. Write to me, I miss you heaps
.

Love and hugs
,

Kirby

Aunt Naomi smiled when she read it the next day.

‘Your uncle will post it today, Esther,’ she promised.

Maggie didn’t say anything about her message until we were making our beds after breakfast (a thing I’d never done in my life B. P. — Before Pilgrims).

‘It made me laugh,’ she said. She smoothed her hand across the paper. ‘Miriam drew pictures.’

‘What did she draw?’ I asked carefully.

‘She drew me,’ Maggie whispered. ‘My father was very angry. She had to go to the discipline room …’ Her voice trailed away.

‘Is that when she died?’ I kept on making the bed. I didn’t want to do anything to stop her talking.

‘Yes. She drew my picture and then she went to the discipline room and then we went to the study for two days and then she died.’

I couldn’t stand it. I threw my arms round her and held her tight as she sobbed and sobbed. ‘It isn’t your fault she died,’ I cried. ‘She would have been very glad she was able to draw you before she died.
She loved you.’ And why somebody didn’t talk to this poor little kid about her dead sister was more than I could figure. It was criminal and totally not Christian. But I couldn’t help wondering how she’d died, and the thought that I couldn’t get out of my head was that she must have committed suicide.

I took the little ones to the park in the afternoon, my scarf coming off the second we turned the corner away from the house. I changed the route we took so we could walk past a dairy. The only way I could think of to find out what was happening in the world was to read the newspaper billboards. Today’s had an earthquake, but it wasn’t in Africa.

I made the boys take off their shirts and godawful trousers when they played in the water. Luke gasped but Abraham ripped his clothes off and jumped in so Luke followed. Maggie just wanted to sit beside me with her bare feet in the water. I put my arm round her and she leaned against me while I sat and thought. I had to get Mum’s address. If I could do that, then somehow I’d find a way of writing to her.

The next day, as soon as Uncle Caleb had gone to work, I went to the toilet, but on the way I dived into his study. There was a filing cabinet in the corner behind the desk. I opened the top drawer. Letters. My heart thumped. Airmail letters. I pulled one out and nearly cried aloud with disappointment. It was some religious thing from Nelson all about how the men should demand
obedience from the women. I shoved it back, eased the drawer shut again and crept out of the room.

I sat on the toilet and thought. Mum’s address had to be in there somewhere. All I had to do was find it.

The next evening, after family prayers and my fantastic singing, Uncle Caleb informed me he’d had a letter from Mum. She was well and she sent her love, and no, it was not necessary for me to read it.

I stormed out of the house without asking. Daniel and Maggie found me in the park an hour later. Maggie threw her arms around me.

‘She was sure you were dead,’ said Daniel.

‘Well, if somebody would talk to her about Miriam, then she wouldn’t be worried all the time,’ I snapped.

He looked upset, but instead of answering, he handed me a letter. An airmail letter! In Mum’s handwriting! I stared at him, my mouth open. ‘I collected the mail today.’ He often went to work with Uncle Caleb. ‘I did not give this to my father.’

‘Oh, Daniel! Thank you so much!’ I let Maggie go and gave him a bear hug.

He looked a bit startled. ‘If my father saw you do that, then you would have to marry me!’ Was he joking?

I tore the letter open, reading it greedily. Then I sat quite still, the page moving gently on my lap. It was a nothing letter. It could have been written
by a fence post. She’d had a good flight. The people she was working with were very dedicated and very kind. Conditions were appalling. She was well and she hoped I was, too. Love from Mum. There wasn’t even an address.

‘Read it.’ I held it out to Daniel. ‘It doesn’t tell me anything. I still don’t know why she left. Or where she is.’

He took it and remarked, ‘My father says she repented and has seen the light.’

I hugged Maggie hard. ‘Daniel, that’s crap! Something happened. She was ordinary one day and the next day she was off to Africa. It was like she was running away.’

He didn’t say anything and if he was going to keep going with the repenting bit then he could keep on saying nothing. But after a while he asked, ‘There was no clue at all? Nothing that was different?’

I shook my head. ‘No. She’d been busier than usual, but that had been going on for several months …’ I stopped, staring at him.

‘There was something?’ Daniel asked.

‘The men,’ I whispered. ‘Louisa — she’s our neighbour — said creepy men kept coming to visit Mum when I wasn’t there.’

Daniel gave me a twisted smile. ‘Would she think Elders of The Children of the Faith were creepy?’ He looked at the ground for a moment. ‘It could have been them. I know they travel a lot, but the
children are never told why.’

I put my hands over my face. Maggie threw her arms round me. ‘Do not cry, Esther. Please do not cry.’

Daniel turned the letter over. ‘There is no stamp,’ he said. ‘It has been franked but I cannot read that or the postmark.’ He frowned over it. ‘It might be a Z on the postmark, but the rest is too smudged to read.’

‘What countries start with Z?’ I knew so little about Africa.

‘Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe.’ Daniel stood up, handing the letter back to me. ‘Wait. She has written something here and then crossed it out.’

Together, we stared at the crossed-out writing. ‘I can make out
sorry
,’ I said at last.

‘And I think the rest is
I can’t think why I
and that is it.’ Daniel looked at me. ‘She is sorry about something.’

I felt light and almost happy. ‘She’s sorry she ran off and left me with …’ I stopped. I couldn’t very well say ‘the mad relations’ in front of him.

‘I have been wondering why she did,’ Daniel said, taking Maggie’s hand and starting to walk. ‘It has never happened before that a dissident has repented and commended a child not brought up in the Rule to the care of the Fellowship.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘I would have to be the first.’ And probably the last since I was determined not to be a success story from their point of view.

He smiled. ‘Come on. We had better get back.
It will be the discipline room for you again tomorrow, I am afraid.’

I groaned. ‘I’ll leave you another message under your pillow,’ I promised Maggie.

We walked home, swinging her between us. Just before we got to the house, we stopped and walked like good little Pilgrims and I put on the scarf they’d brought with them.

Daniel was right about the discipline room. I wrote Maggie her message and the Os had their eyes shut and their mouths open in big yawns.

I had to learn psalm 27. I learned it in the morning, shouting out, ‘When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.’

One of the twins walked past and I heard her giggle.

Aunt Naomi brought me my three pieces of bread at lunch time. ‘The children and I are going to the Circle of Fellowship this afternoon.’ She put the tray down. ‘You would have enjoyed it, Esther. You would have been able to meet the two girls who will be going to school with you.’

School! Wow and yippee! Escape.

I heard them all leave the house. They went with Uncle Caleb and Daniel after lunch. I listened until I couldn’t hear the car any longer. They had to be brain-dead if they thought I’d stay in the discipline room all afternoon.

The house was quiet when I tip-toed into Uncle
Caleb’s study. I could hear cicadas screeching outside.

I stood for a long time, looking at the desk, the filing cabinet and shelves. Somewhere in here there might be Mum’s address. There might be the letter she had written to Uncle Caleb. I shook my head crossly. Did I want to find out, or not? I’d never get a chance like this again. I started searching. I opened the top right-hand drawer of the desk. A religious book and religious papers. The second drawer. Letters. I grabbed them, skimmed the top one.
The Fellowship wishes to commend your efforts in the great experiment. We have prayed and it has come to us that this is a Godly test case, and that if it is successful then we will bend our efforts to return others to the Fellowship of The Children of the Faith. We pray for you in your travail and ask you to endure the Godlessness of the child in the meantime. Know that the Fellowship remembers you and yours each day in prayer
.

Now what the hell did that mean? I looked at the date on the postmark. The day before yesterday. Were they talking about me? Was I the child? And if so, then what was the experiment? Return others to the Fellowship? I stared at the words, concentrating so hard that I didn’t hear the sound of the car. But I did hear the footsteps. I raised my head, my breathing suspended. No! Let me be imagining it!

Then the door opened behind me.

Oh God, I was dead! Better for me if I was — standing there with the letter in my hand.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift my head. I
stood frozen, waiting for the words to blast me from the universe.

‘Hello, Kirby.’

Daniel?
It was Daniel, not my uncle? And he’d called me by my own name. I collapsed into the chair. ‘Is Uncle Caleb here?’ I whispered.

‘Are you still alive?’ he said, smiling and lifting his eyebrows.

I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think I died of fright.’ And what was he doing here?

‘My father wanted some papers. I offered to get them for him. I thought it might be a good idea if I came instead of him.’ He picked up a folder from the desk.

‘Thanks, Daniel. Thanks a heap.’

‘You are welcome,’ he said. ‘But he will probably come to check on you himself.’

‘Thanks. Daniel, look at this.’ I was still shaking as I held the letter out to him.

He didn’t take it. ‘It is my father’s letter,’ he said. ‘It is not my place to read it.’

Bloody hell. ‘It’s about an experiment,’ I gabbled. ‘About returning people to the Fellowship and enduring the Godlessness of the child. Me.’ I took a breath. ‘Do you know anything about it?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Such matters would be decided by the Elders at their regular meetings. They might inform the adults, but the children would never be told.’

‘Do you think …’

He smiled at me. ‘I think I had better leave, or my father will come to find me. I know nothing about it, Kirby. I am sorry.’

How could he stand it? How could he be so bloody obedient and be so happy to know nothing? I watched him drive away in a red minivan. This family seemed to have a different car every week. Would God approve, I asked myself.

I went back into the discipline room.

Twenty minutes later, Uncle Caleb showed up. He stuck his grey head round the door. ‘You are studying, Esther?’ he asked in his grey, flat voice.

To hell and back with you. ‘No, Uncle Caleb. I’m missing my mother and I need to know why she left.’

So what did the old buzzard do? He got down on his knees and prayed. It took a thousand or so years before he left. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Maggie would have been so upset, I reckon I’d have taken off right then.

Maggie was going to be upset when I did leave. But not even for Maggie could I stay here forever. I choked back a sob. At least I knew a little more now. Mum must be part of this great experiment. They wanted her back and they’d visited her and visited her and she hadn’t told me.