The Widow and Child

It was almost dark when he left this inspection and began trudging back through town to his burro.  He was walking along deep in thought, immersed in the problems of transporting large loads over pathless hills.  Whether it was a sound dimly heard or just chance, he glanced to his right at one of the last houses along the way and noticed the door slightly ajar and some quick motion at eye level behind it.

“Who’s there,” he called out, “show yourself.”

The door opened a little more as he walked up to it and a woman in an obvious state of fear stood there poised as if ready to shut it again in his face.

“What are you doing here” he said in a gentler voice.  “Open the door and let me see you.”

Timidly the woman complied.  She had her hood up and a scarf drawn across her face.  Only her eyes were visible.  From the wrinkles in their corners Jonathan guessed she was in her early forties, or thereabouts.

“Let me in” he said again, quite close now.  “I have some questions for you.”

“Oh, I know who you are.  Forgive me Father,” she said, lowering her gaze and moving out of the way.

“Now, now” said Jonathan, as he stepped into the dim room, “just tell me who you are and where everyone else has gone.”

“The officials came, oh please sit down, I’ve been at a frightful loss.”  As she said this she offered him a chair.  Just as he sat he noticed a movement in the far corner of the room.

“Who’s there!” he yelled, reaching for his pistol.  But before he drew the gun a little girl scurried across the floor to hide in the deep folds of her mother’s robes.

“My daughter” exclaimed the woman, fearfully.

“Are there any others here?”  Jonathan asked, looking at the two.  He received no reply.  “Come, sit at the table and tell me your story” he said calmly.

The woman seemed to compose herself and sat across from him placing her daughter on her lap.  The girl was a slender child of six or seven, with long, bleached bangs almost hiding her eyes, timid as a mouse.  She tried to bury her head in her mother’s arms but kept peeking at Jonathan with sidelong glances.

“If you remember who I am, you know I come from inland” began Jonathan, “but I find no one here and need to know what happened.”

“They came” she said, “some two months ago and brought word that we would all have to leave.  On the day the great ship came my daughter and I were separated.  I came back here and found her but we missed the ship.  I’m a widow and have only one child in the world.  My husband was purified in the town square the first time you came here.”

It took a minute to put her words together but all of a sudden it came back to him with a shock, as he pictured the fat cleric and his own agency in that poor fellow’s death.  It deeply embarrassed him for a moment but he went on to ask her, this time in a much gentler tone of voice, “who were the men that came, and where were all the people taken?”

“High officials.” she went on, “Then there was a fight between our new head priest and another group of priests.  Some were burned in the square just like my husband.  We were told to pack all the belongings we could carry.  Then the ship came to carry us to the capitol.  It’s not forever, they said, just until more holy paint can be brought, then we would be returned.  But my daughter, on the day the ship was to leave , lost her cat and went after her.  When I realized she was gone I also slipped away and found her here.  By the time we returned the ship was sailing away.  Now we’re waiting until the others come back.”

Jonathan sat there in silence, wondering at this strange story.  He was looking straight at her pretty face and mumbled out, almost unconsciously, “but what if they never return?  Then you would die here.”

Only when the woman let out an audible gasp did Jonathan realize the full import of what he’d just said.  The daughter also seemed to shudder, as if their worst fears had just been prophesied.

“Don’t fret” he told her, “I can provide for you until they come back.  We have a sanctuary which I’m sure you’ve heard about.”

“O yes!” she added excitedly, “and the miraculous spring and the prize winning youths.  We were at the ceremonies.  Don’t you remember, Flower.”  She looked down at the girl and shifted her around to face Jonathan.  “Don’t you remember the great man with his staff, who sat beside our old father at the priest’s table and the great games?”

The little girl simply looked at Jonathan curiously.  He was again deep in thought, staring down.  The woman saw this and remained silent.  After several minutes she quietly moved away from the table and pretended to be about housework, straightening out the sheets of a small cot against the wall of that room.  The little girl was sitting in the vacated chair, staring across at Jonathan, almost as statue-like, but without the frown upon her face.

Suddenly he started up and looked about and noticed the woman fluffing pillows nearby.  “Can I stay here the night?  Have you any food?”

“Yes” she replied promptly, “we would be honored by your stay.  I have been borrowing from the gardens, enough for dinner.  There is so much going to waste there.”

“Thank you,” said Jonathan, “You’re blameless for taking what you need.  Pack your bags later tonight and tomorrow we’ll set out for the colony.  There you can be with six of your towns folks.  They’re married now and have two new babies already.  You’ll both be happy there.”

“Oh thank you so much,” she smiled, greatly relieved from her worries.  “I’ll make dinner for you.”

That evening Jonathan enjoyed the good meal with this new company, talking of the beauties of the sanctuary they were about to see. Afterwards he sat on the cot the woman had prepared for him.  Meanwhile, she became quite talkative and busy, having her daughter clear the table while she began packing up a bundle of things, mentioning each item to Jonathan, though she got little response.  Her daughter too was in a glow  of helpfulness.  He was lost in speculations of what was happening right now to the world.  No doubt the church was retracting its boundaries in this hour of desperation.

“If they have less paint” he thought to himself, “they’ll simply move their populations to a few crowded cities.  No more parks or white margins.  And they’re using their tankers to carry the people away.  But that can only go so far.  It’s a paint-saving maneuver, no solution.  Maybe they plan to re-indoctrinate everyone.  They could do that best in a few closed, tightly controlled centers.”

“The fools” he thought at last, “clenching to power despite a changing world, and moving people like so many gallons of paint.  Then again, that’s how they’ve always treated them, like cattle.”

He realized now that he would have to make the journey to the western capitol.  It would be a long trip but he had a burning curiosity to see this great upheaval of society and these antics of the World Church, perhaps in it’s death throes.  Maybe he could help the people somehow.  Whatever the case, he had to try, and he would do it alone.

The woman retired to the other room with her daughter, bidding Jonathan good night.  Before falling asleep he remembered the little boats bobbing in the harbor.  He had sometimes gone sailing as a boy and thought that if he stayed close to shore he could manage one and travel much quicker than by land.  He was glad his plans seemed to fall into place so smoothly.  He would go back with the woman and child the next day and return with Peter and Simon soon after.  Then he would spend several days helping them prepare a cargo of goods to take back over the hills by wagon and instruct them on future loads, and at the same time outfit one of the boats for his own trip.  In the midst of these many details he fell asleep.

The strange house and spinning events and the full meal all conspired that night to give Jonathan a long series of vivid nightmares.  He saw himself and hordes of innocent people being locked into tiny, white cells, with paint being poured on top of them, filling the cells, while they clambered and screamed, struggling to raise themselves up to suck in the last few breaths of sweet air.  Then he was submerged in the liquid and swam through a seaweed of dead bodies, and after much struggle came up in a white sea, all alone.

He felt buoyant in the water and looked around, seeing nothing but limitless ocean.  He began swimming comfortably.  Then came a sleek, white sailboat racing near him, on which he belonged.  He swam furiously to catch up with the boat, but to no avail.  Like the punishment of Tantalus the rudder of the craft managed to stay just out of reach, however hard he swam.  Then he perceived the outline of a boy sitting in the cockpit and looking ahead.  He called out with dwindling strength for help, but the boy seemed deaf.  When Jonathan thought that he was going to drown the boy did finally look back.  He woke up in a sweat, realizing that the boy was himself.

The rest of the night was passed in equally fitful, tossing sleep.  In the bright morning he woke up to see the woman by the cupboard and the little girl standing right next to his cot, as if waiting for him to wake up.  Breakfast was on the table and their bags packed by the open door.  With a quick “good morning” he brushed past them and out into the open air and splashed his face with water at a street faucet, as if it could wash away the memory of those dreams along with his perspiration.  He strolled back with apologies and after a good breakfast he helped make up one more bundle of bedding and kitchenware, threw it over his shoulder and guided the woman and her child to his burro, which was loaded up with everything, including the little girl and the basket she carried containing the mischievous cat.

Along the way Jonathan was talkative, wanting to forget the night before, telling his new companions exactly what they could expect to find at the sanctuary, in such rosy terms as would cheer them.  He still didn’t know what manner of temper or character the woman had.  She seemed to be meek and reserved, and too ready to agree with him.  But considering her helpless condition and still feeling guilty over the role he’d played in her husband’s death, he assured her again and again that she would be a welcome addition to the colony and just what was needed to help the young newlyweds with their infants.  As the day wore on he gained her confidence, and with this her conversation.  Soon she was telling him of her own past, her hopes and how glad she was of their meeting.

Her daughter was pure delight, brimming with joy at the prospect of moving in with two babies.  When she grew restless Jonathan lifted her off the burro and she followed a few paces behind, skipping and talking to herself as she went.  When she grew tired he placed her back on the animal.  She was so slight she could curl up and lay across the two bundles on its sides and fall asleep, while Jonathan held her with one hand, walking alongside, to keep her from falling off.

They camped that night on a hilltop and Jonathan set up the tent and built a roaring fire.  It had been a sunny day and now it was a bright, starry night.  He lay awake through some of it, staring at the heavens, near the fire, happy against a pillow of clothes.  He had been thirty years without such a view of the skies and he was not yet caught up on it.  It gave him a strong sense of being a boy again, out camping for the first time.

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