The Celestial Wife, page 12
Saffron’s comments about settling down and moving beyond her vagabond lifestyle made me think of the time we travelled together in Jean’s van on our way to Nkwala and she filled me in on her past.
* * *
Saffron had dramatically opened her hands wide. “Meet Miss Linda-Ann Cranston. Only child of middle-class parents from Calgary. Mom’s a housewife and Dad sells life insurance. We lived in the burbs, went to church every Sunday. We did not listen to music, dance, drink, smoke, or eat any food with a spice in it. Favourite TV show? The Andy Griffith Show with Opie and Aunt Bee. If I hadn’t left and become Saffron, I’d have died of boredom.”
I’d laughed. “I like Saffron way better.”
“So do I.”
* * *
I looked at Saffron curled up on Hardeep’s couch. “I don’t know what kind of job I could get,” I said.
“It’s not hard here. There’s plenty of places that need help but not many people looking for full-time work. No one wants to commute from Kelowna. The ferry is expensive and too much of a hassle.”
I shrugged.
“Cheryl, that dark-haired girl with the groovy clothes who works at the Apple Dumpling? She told me she’s going back to school in the fall. There’ll be a job there.”
“I don’t know.” A whole new world of fears opened up inside my head. I didn’t think I was ready for a full-time job in the outside just yet, but at the same time, I felt the lure of the money, not for the things I could buy, but for the freedom and independence it offered. Besides, I couldn’t camp outside in the winter. I’d have to pay rent somewhere. I changed the subject. “What kind of job are you trying to get?”
“Not trying to get—will get. Working for BC Ferries, using the radio to manage ferry traffic in the bay. I think I’m going to put on my old Linda-Ann clothes from my past life and apply. Linda-Ann will knock their socks off. I have all the requirements: I’m an adult, a Canadian citizen, and I speak perfect English. There’s just one minor glitch.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know anything about radio systems. Like ship-to-shore, shortwave, CB, all that.”
“I know.”
Saffron whirled from the window, her big blue eyes bulging. “You do?”
“It was my job back in Redemption. I can show you if you like.”
“Linda-Ann would definitely like that, and Saffron would owe you one.”
“No problem,” I said. I’d been waiting for a moment like this. I’d wanted to tell Saffron the final details of my past—about plural marriage and sister-wives and marrying at fifteen—but I’d always held back. I was insecure and I felt shame. Before I told her, I’d wanted to be sure I could trust her not to tell anyone, and to understand with no judgment. It was time. And who better to understand what I was running from than Saffron, who saved me from abduction by the Bishop’s men?
* * *
On my second night of freedom, after I’d cleaned up my chili, I’d settled down near Jean’s small fire. Saffron and the others were sleeping off their mushroom tea again, but I couldn’t sleep. Lucky, I guess. Because soon I was startled by the roar of an engine.
I sat up to see the headlights of a truck as it turned off the highway and parked nearby. The driver killed the engine and two men got out. I knew them right away by their look. They were dressed the same: black pants held up by white suspenders, black T-shirts, and matching ball caps with a bright red R on the front. They were the Bishop’s private security team. Everyone in Redemption called them the God Squad because of their reputation for being ruthless in the name of the Lord. I scrambled to my feet and ran.
I wasn’t thinking. I just ran wildly into the woods, with no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I was never going back. Not after what Tobias had said to me that night on the bridge. I knew that going back to Redemption would kill me one way or another.
Tree branches swiped at my face and body as I stumbled along in the semidarkness, keeping low in case my ash-blond hair caught the moonlight and gave me away. My foot snagged on a large tree root, and I went forehead-first into the thick spongy bark of a large ponderosa pine. The world spun for a moment as I lay stunned, feeling warm blood trickle down my cheek like a tear.
When my head cleared, I heard voices. Jean was saying something; he was talking to the men with the truck. They would tell him lies: that I was a spoiled, willful teenager running away from a loving home; that my parents were desperate to have me back; that my poor mother had been crying for days, so my father hired private detectives to find me. I couldn’t hear what Jean was saying, but I prayed that he wasn’t falling for it.
The beam of a flashlight swept past me, just over my head. I lay perfectly still until it arced away from me, and then I took off again, running in short spurts from tree to tree.
The land suddenly sloped downhill, so I tried sliding on my bum on the loose scree, but I soon gathered too much speed and lost control of the descent. Gravity took over and I tumbled like a limp rag doll until I landed at the bottom of a long slope, scraped and bruised. I knew that the crunching sounds of the sliding rocks might have attracted the men, so I stayed as still as I could and listened.
My heart was like a drum in my ears, and I had to wait for it to calm down before I could hear anything. The noises around me didn’t seem manmade, but that brought me no comfort. Scurrying, scratching noises came from the scree slope and from the bushes nearby, and something smelled gut-churningly rank.
I felt dampness beneath me, and I could hear water trickle nearby, so I wondered if I was smelling the carcass of a steelhead trout on the riverbank. I didn’t want to think about bears, but I knew there would be plenty around here.
I crawled away to dry land and must have slept. I awoke with the first rays of dawn. Looking around, I found myself near the edge of a little stream. I washed as much dirt, grime, and blood off my face as I could. I took off my pea jacket and splashed ice-cold water on my raw and stinging scrapes. I cupped my hands and took great greedy gulps of the clear, cold water.
With the full light of day, I saw that I was on the side of a small mountain that sloped down into a green, irrigated valley. I hiked down to the nearest bluff and looked out over the patchwork of farmers’ fields below. I could pick out a narrow deer trail that led down towards the farms and what looked like a small cluster of buildings. I made my way over to the trail and began walking.
Late afternoon the next day they got me. I’d let my guard down and didn’t see it coming. I was walking along a road headed west when a black pickup truck pulled up beside me. A man inside opened the passenger door and jumped out. He grabbed me in a headlock, clamped a hand over my mouth, and shoved me into the middle of the cab. He jumped in beside me, slammed the door, and the driver hit the gas.
It took me a minute to grasp what was happening, but when I did, I fought for my life. I jammed my elbows as hard as I could into the ribs of both men and felt the truck swerve before the driver recovered. Diving for the door handle, I managed to pull the lever. The door swung wide.
The driver swerved off the road and yelled at the other man to get me out of the truck.
The guy who’d grabbed me off the street hauled me out of the truck after him and we stumbled together onto a recently plowed field. The black soil gave off the overwhelming reek of decaying mushroom fertilizer. I gagged but managed to hold on to last night’s dinner.
The driver joined us and together they held me by the arms. When I struggled, the driver shot his hand out from his side and slapped me hard across the face, sending me reeling into the rotting pulp below. I sat in the mulch, my face stinging ferociously, too stunned to move.
“You will come with us and do as you are told,” the driver boomed. “You, woman, are infested with Satan’s spores. You should be grateful that the Bishop cares enough to save you. Especially after what you did to him.”
My brain began to work. What had I done to the Bishop? I’d hit him twice with the shovel, but he was moving when I’d left him. Had I injured him permanently? Would God forgive me?
“I didn’t do anything bad to the Bishop. He hit my mom. I was just trying to protect her.”
The driver’s face turned purple in the low twilight. “Nothing bad? You call that nothing? You cracked his skull!” He could barely contain his fury.
The other man broke in. “Some say he don’t get revelations from God no more. That crack in the skull did it.”
I started to shiver uncontrollably. This was so much worse than I could have imagined.
“If it were up to me,” the driver said, leaning in close, “I would deliver the Lord’s ultimate punishment on you, right here, right now, in this putrid farmer’s field. You don’t deserve the Bishop’s love and forgiveness.”
As the guilt poured into me, the fight went out of me. When the men told me to get back into the truck, I followed their instructions like a lamb. We bumped along the highway, driving long into the night.
I dozed off, only to waken to the men discussing our route. The Bishop had instructed them to make a show of my arrival and that meant not arriving back at Redemption in the middle of the night. They decided to take a long route back, going west for a while, then circling back around to arrive mid-morning.
At dawn we stopped at a public campground and pulled up to the free toilets and showers.
“Get out,” the driver said to me. “You stink. Get yourself cleaned up.” He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a long, pastel-peach dress. I knew it at once. It was my wedding dress, carefully cleaned and mended. I felt the bile rise in my throat.
“Put it on. The Bishop will consummate your marriage first, clearing your path to redemption with your rebaptism. Then the real punishment begins.”
With the weight of the world on my shoulders, I grabbed the dress and hauled myself into the lady’s washroom. There was only one entrance, and the truck was parked right in front of it, so there was no way to run. I tossed the dress on the counter, went into a bathroom stall, and sat dejectedly on the toilet.
How had it come to this so quickly and easily? After all I’d been through, to have them just drive up and grab me off the street? I should have been more careful. I’d never felt so low in my life.
As I sat staring at the scarred cement floor, fighting tears, someone entered the washroom and sat in the cubicle beside me. Looking over, I recognized sandaled feet and ten toenails painted different colours. I gasped.
“Saffron?”
Chapter Sixteen
I’d just finished “explaining” to Saffron about the men waiting for me outside, the ones “sent by my strict parents to find me,” when the door to the washrooms was yanked back on its hinges and at least a dozen girls trooped in. Talking and laughing excitedly, they were dressed in an odd assortment of outfits. I was struck with how carefree and genuinely happy they all seemed compared to the girls in Redemption.
I tried not to stare as they lined up at the mirror, applying makeup and doing their hair. A familiar cloud of sticky-sweet hairspray filled the air and I stared transfixed for a moment until Saffron gave me a push towards the showers. “Hurry up, this gives me an idea. We’re going to try something.”
When I’d dried off and dressed in my underwear, Saffron dug into her huge purse and pulled out a long paisley shawl with a fringe. She tied it at one of my shoulders, letting it hang to my knees like a dress. Next, she fastened a silver chain-link belt around my waist to hold the shawl in place.
She pulled the big floppy sun hat off her head and helped me tuck all my hair up under it. Finally, she fished around again in her bag until she found a pair of oversized sunglasses and handed them to me. I was transformed. I could pass for any one of the girls in the room.
I could see what she had in mind, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to try it. I didn’t want Saffron hurt. “You don’t have any idea how bad these men are,” I said. “They think they’re doing God’s work and they’ll stop at nothing.”
Saffron looked at the red welt forming on my cheek. “They’re a couple of real shits if they have no problem hitting a girl, but they have to be careful. We’ve got a lot of witnesses here.”
Before I could say anything more, she asked one of the girls if she could borrow a little pancake makeup and used her fingers to spread it over my red, aching cheek. Her finishing touch was lavender-coloured lipstick that made me look like a model in Seventeen magazine.
We tossed my torn clothes and shoes in the garbage, and I headed for the door in bare feet. At the last moment I grabbed my old wedding dress and hung it on a nail by the washroom door. If the men glanced in through the opening, they’d see the dress hanging there and assume I was still in the showers.
“Whatever you do, don’t look at the men. Stare into my face like you’re fascinated by what I have to say. Let me do all the talking. We’ll pretend we’re deep in conversation and couldn’t care less about Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Got it?”
I nodded with a confidence I didn’t feel and felt my knees weaken. Saffron linked arms with me, pulled me close, and threw open the door to the outside.
We stepped into the bright sunlight, directly in the path of the man who’d grabbed me off the street. Saffron suddenly erupted in laughter and pulled me even closer to her. “Isn’t that just the craziest shit you’ve ever heard, Judy? So, I said to him, Who you tryin’ to kid, man? I’m not falling for that old trick.” She laughed loudly again.
I don’t know what else Saffron said. My ears began to roar with the sound of my blood rushing. We passed the Bishop’s man, and I fought the urge to look back to see if he was following us. When I saw Jean’s van parked nearby, I focused all my energy on walking calmly to it.
Saffron raised her voice, but she kept the tone calm. “Jean, start the van.”
Jean was dozing in the driver’s seat. He woke and looked around, confused.
“Jean, start the van.” Saffron’s voice had more urgency this time.
I saw Jean focus on us and then look past us, towards the washrooms. His eyes widened, clearly recognizing the truck and the men from our campsite. I had no idea if they were closing in on us or not—I didn’t dare turn around—but Jean jumped into action. He started the van and stepped out of the cab to slide the side door wide for Saffron and me.
This time I didn’t hesitate in accepting his help. Saffron and I leapt into the van and flattened ourselves on the floor while Jean slammed the door shut behind us. In a second we were off. As the van roared out of the campground, I couldn’t resist lifting my head to peek out the window.
The Bishop’s man stood with his hands on his hips, eyes squinting as he watched Jean’s van disappear down the road.
* * *
Tucked safe in Hardeep’s house, waiting for the helicopter to dry the cherries, I told Saffron what I’d been too scared to confess when she’d rescued me from the ladies’ washroom. I told her about growing up in Redemption, about the child brides and the obsession with having huge numbers of children, about the sham school and the endless work and punishments. Then I told her about my mom and Brighten, and how I missed them and needed to get them out of there. Finally, I told her about my fear of being found again and dragged back.
I didn’t tell her about Tobias. About our reckoning on the bridge, when the truth came out. That pain was still too raw.
“We’ll never let them take you back! That’ll never happen!” Saffron said, slamming her fist on the table, making our coffee cups jump. “I’ll give ’em the ole kung fu.”
I jumped too.
She laughed and said, “Jean and I will protect you. The Bishop and those other assholes can just go pound sand.”
Before long I joined in the laughter, more with the relief of having it all off my chest and imagining Saffron engaging in combat than anything.
Jean came in, his curly hair wet and his clothes soaked through. “What’s the joke?”
“Nothing. You wouldn’t get it. Girl stuff.” Saffron winked at me and waved him away. He helped himself to coffee, and stood with his back against the fire, looking a bit like a half-drowned cat. Staring into his coffee, he seemed miles away. I sensed his unhappiness and felt sorry for him. It must feel awful to lose a parent’s love and respect. I had always had the blessing of a loving, caring mother, at least. Without it I would have been lost.
But what about my dad? I had a father who cared enough to send me early birthday gifts every year. Even if he did leave Mom and me, even if I hadn’t seen him in years, I had a father who thought of me. A father who, like me, didn’t believe in the Bishop anymore.
I shifted on the couch and heard the crinkle of paper in my pocket. Reaching in, I pulled out the library card application form and brochure that I’d picked up at the library the other day. I smoothed out the worst wrinkles and selected an HB pencil from a mason jar on the corner of the table. I’d made a plan, and joining the library was my first step towards a proper education.
I started filling out the application, but before long, I let out a long, slow groan.
“What?” Jean said.
“I need an address, a permanent mailing address, in order to get a library card. I can’t just write ‘Pup Tent Number Two, Hardeep’s Cherry Orchard.’ ”
“Not a problem, use my address at the ranch.”
“Can I?”
“Bien sûr, of course,” Jean said.
“You’ll be official,” Saffron said, nodding excitedly. “You’ll have ID. You’ll be able to prove you belong here. You’ll be a … Nkwalian.”
“Is that really a thing?” I asked.
“Of course not, I made it up.”
* * *
The next day, right after work, I went to the library, my application heavy in my pocket and a lump in my throat. I didn’t know what I was so nervous about, especially since the librarian had been nice to me. I just had this uneasy feeling that I didn’t really belong in a house of learning, that I was an imposter who would be discovered and told to leave. I was fearful of getting into trouble. It was so easy to do, back in Redemption.
