Day by day, one or more took to bed. Bob, now in his second week, lay tossing in delirium, a grim indication of the long road all the others must follow before they could grow better. Already those still on their feet were being worn down by the strain of nursing.
They had scarcely time to give any thought to fear, and yet fear lay all around them, daily drawing its circle closer. There had been no deaths as yet, but neither had anyone passed the crisis of the fever. As in earlier years each birth had seemed to force back the circle of darkness, so now with each newly stricken one the darkness moved a step inward, bringing annihilation with it. Even if they did not all die in the epidemic, the loss of any large number might break, it seemed, the communal will to live.
George and Maurine and Molly had taken to prayer, and some of the younger ones had joined with them. They were afraid that God was exacting retribution upon them for the death of Charlie. Ralph was just on the point of taking his family, as yet not stricken, and fleeing off somewhere. Ish dissuaded him, for the moment at least, arguing that any of them might already be infected and that to be taken sick as a small and isolated group would be much more dangerous than to share with the whole community.
"We are close to panic!" thought Ish, and then the next morning he himself awoke—depressed, feverish, and half-prostrated. He forced himself to his feet, made light of Em's inquiries, and avoided her glances. Bob was very bad, and took most of Em's time. Ish tended Joey and Josey, who were both in the early stages. Walt, they had sent off to help in one of the other houses.
In the afternoon, leaning over Joey's bed, Ish felt himself collapsing. With his last effort he managed to get to his own bed, and fall upon it.
Hours later, it seemed, he came to himself. Em was looking down at him. She had managed to undress him and get him into bed.
He looked up at her, feeling small. He gazed as a child might have gazed—above all, fearing that he would see fear. If she was afraid, all was lost!
But in her face he saw no fear.
The dark, wide-set eyes looked calnily at him. Oh, Mother of Nations! And then he slept.
In his days and nights of delirium, he knew little of what happened. Through his fever the great vague dream-shapes moved in and pressed upon him from the dark outside—horrible, inchoate as fog, not to be combatted. Then sometimes he called out for someone to bring him his hammer, and he called the name of Joey sometimes, and again (worst of all) the name of Charlie. But also in his terrors he called sometimes on the name of Em, and then it might be that he awoke at the pressure of her hand and looked up. Always he looked for fear, but there was no fear.
Then there was a week when he lay quieter but so prostrated that at times his life seemed to him to be fluttering weakly to take flight and go—and he cared little. Only, when he looked up and saw Em, he felt courage and strength move out from her, and he held his lips hard together, for he thought life itself pressed close behind his lips and that if he opened its mouth it would escape like a butterfly. But as long as he looked up at Em, he knew that he would have strength to hold that little, faintly struggling thing within him.
Only, when she had gone, he said to himself, now that he could think a little, "She will break! Some time she must break! She may not get the fever. We may hope for that good luck! But she cannot carry the burden for all of us."
Now he realized more of what was happening. There had been deaths, he knew, but not who or how many. He dared not ask.
Once he heard Jeanie come, wailing hysterically at the death of a child. Em said little, but strangely the spirit moved out from her, and Jeanie went away with courage to fight on. George came, unwashed and filth-smeared, a terror-stricken old man—Maurine had suffered a relapse, and their grandchild lay gasping. Em said nothing about God, but again a spirit went out from her, and George walked away with head high, and saying the words, "Yea, though He slay me...." Thus even when the shadows drew in most closely and the little candle seemed flickering and smoky, she knew no despair and sustained them all.
"It is strange," thought Ish. "She has none of those things on which I used to count so much—not education, not even high intelligence. She supplies no ideas. Yet she has a greatness within her and the final affirmation. Without her, in these last few weeks, we would have despaired and lost hold of life and gone under." And he felt himself humble beside her.
At last one day he saw her sitting near him, and on her face was such great weariness as he had never seen on a face before. He was appalled. Then suddenly he was happy, for he knew that she would never have sat there and let her weariness show unless the future was safe. Yet it was such a weariness as he scarcely thought could exist. Suddenly he knew that behind such weariness must also lie great grief.
At that moment too he realized that he himself was now on the road to convalescence, probably less weary than she, able to share the load.
He looked at her and smiled, and even in her weariness she smiled back.
"Tell me," he said gently.
She hesitated, and he was thinking wildly. Walt?—no, Walt was not sick. He brought me a glass of water today. Jack?—no, I am sure that I have heard his voice; he was very strong. Josey would it be? Or Mary? It might be more than one.
"Share it with me," he said to her. I am well enough now." And still he was thinking wildly. It must not be that one. He was not strong, but the weakest often endure illness the best. No, not he!
"Five—up and down the street—five are dead."
"Which ones?" he said, bracing himself.
"They are all children."
"What—about ours?" he said, knowing that she was sheltering him still, his fear suddenly dominating. "Yes, five days ago," she said.
Then he saw her lips start to form the word, and he knew, even before he heard the sounds: "Joey."
What is the good of anything? (So he thought, and he asked nothing more.) The Chosen One! The rest might have followed; he only could carry the light. The Child of the Promise! Then he closed his eyes, and lay still.
* * *
Chapter 9
The weeks of his convalescence dragged along. Very slowly, his physical strength came back to him. Yet, even behind his physical strength, his mental vigor lagged. Looking in a mirror, he saw his hair now showing streaks of gray. "Am I old already?" he thought. "No, not really old!" At least he knew that in some ways he would never be the same. Some fine youthful courage and confidence had faded.
Always he had prided himself on being able to think honestly, to face intellectually whatever must be faced. Now he found his mind swerving off when his thoughts drew near to certain subjects. Well, he was still weak; after a while, he would go ahead once more.
Sometimes (and this frightened him) he found himself refusing to admit the actuality, making plans as if Joey were still there, escaping into the happiness of fantasy. He realized that he had always had something of this tendency. At times it had been an advantage, as when it had enabled him to readjust imaginatively when he had first been left alone. But now he was escaping because the reality seemed too bleak to be faced. Repeatedly a line of poetry, from the wide reading of all those years, came into his head when he tried to breast reality:
Never glad confident morning again!
No, never again! Joey was gone, and Charlie's shadow lay over them, and the all-necessary State had arisen, with death in its hands. And everything that he had tried to do so hopefully in that glad morning had failed. He questioned why. Then often in mere despair he fled into fantasy.
When he could think more calmly, the irony of all things impressed him more and more. What you were preparing against—that never happened! All the best-laid plans could not prevent the disaster against which no plans had been laid.
Most of the time he had to be alone. Some of the others still needed care, and what strength remained in Em had to be devoted to them. He would have liked to talk to Ezra, but Ezra too was not yet out of bed. Except for Em and Ezra, now that Joey was go
ne, there was no one to whom his heart really went out.
One afternoon he awoke from a nap, and saw Em sitting near his bed. With only half-opened eyes, he looked at her. She had not yet noticed that he was awake. She was still weary-looking, but no longer with the terrible weariness that he had seen before. There was grief too, but a calm covered it. There was no despair. As for fear, he no longer even thought of searching for that!
She looked at him, and noticed his opened eyes, and smiled quickly. Suddenly he knew that this was the time when he must face it.
"I must talk with you," he said, though his voice was scarcely more than a whisper, as if he were still asleep. Then he paused.
"Yes," she said quietly, "I am here.... Go on.... I am here."
"I must talk with you," he repeated, still afraid really to begin. He felt himself humble before her, the child who must ask questions of the grown-up, the frightened child trying to drive fear away and renew confidence. Yet, not being really a child, he feared that even she could make no answer that would bring that security.
"I want to ask you some questions," he went on. "How is it..." he began bravely, and then paused again.
She only smiled at him, realizing his weakness, but she did not tell him to wait till another time.
"This is it!" he said desperately. "Is this the way of it? I know what George is thinking, and the others perhaps too! I heard something, even through my fever. Is it... is it a punishment?"
Then he looked at her, and for the first time in all those terrible weeks he saw in her face something which was fear, or might be. Even I have failed her, he thought in panic. Yet he knew that now he must go on, or else a wall of doubt and dishonesty would arise between them forever.
So he blurted on: "You know what I mean! Is it because we killed Charlie? Did something—did God—strike back at us? An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth! Is this why they all—why Joey?—died? Did—what it was—He—use the disease that Charlie was carrying—so that we should all be sure how it was meant?"
Then, as he paused, he saw that her face was contorted with horror.
"No, no!" she cried. "Not you too! I faced the others so often alone when you were sick! I knew no arguments, but I knew that it could not be so. I could give them no arguments. All I could give them was my courage!"
She paused, as if the sudden vehemence had exhausted her.
"Yes," she went on, "I felt courage flow out from me like blood! It flowed out to them all, and I grew weaker as it flowed, and I wondered 'Will there be enough? Will there be enough?' And you were talking of Charlie through your fever."
She was silent again, but he could say nothing.
"Oh," she cried, "do not ask me for more courage! I do not know the arguments. I never went to college. All I know is that we did what we thought best. If there is a God who made us and we did wrong before His eyes—as George says—at least we did wrong only because we were as God made us, and I do not think that He should set traps. Oh, you should know better than George! Let us not bring all that back into the world again—the angry God, the mean God—the one who does not tell us the rules of the game, and then strikes us when we break them. Let us not bring Him back! Not you too!"
Then she stopped, and he saw that her face was between her hands, so that he could not tell whether or not there was fear in it. But he knew that she was crying.
And again he felt small and very humble before her. (Once more she had not failed him.) But most of all he felt calm and peaceful and reassured. Yes, he should have known. He, among them all, should not have doubted. Reaching out, he took one of her hands.
"Do not be afraid," he found himself saying, though for him to be saying so to her was ironic. "You are right; you are right! I shall not think such things again. I know the arguments. But when there is death and a man has been very sick, he is weak. Yes, you must remember, I am still—not quite myself."
Then suddenly she was kissing him through warm tears, and had gone from the room. Again, he knew, she was strong. Again courage could flow outward from her. Oh, Mother of Nations!
He also, as he lay there still weak—he also felt courage again, whether he had drawn it from her store or whether her words had merely caused him to build up his own.
Yes, he thought—and did not flee from the thought—yes, Joey is gone. Joey is dead. He will not be back. He will not—ever again—come running to see what is happening. Yet, there will be a future. Though I am gray-haired now, yet still there is Em—and the others—and I may even be happy. It will be nothing like the future I planned—now that Joey is dead. Still, I shall do what I can.
Again he felt small and humble. He felt all the great forces of the world at work against him, against the only man still alive who could think and plan for the future. He had tried to face them head-on, and they had rolled over him. Yes, they might well have been too much, even if Joey had lived. He must plan more shrewdly now, work more subtly, select smaller and more practical objectives, be the fox and not the lion.
But first he must regain physical strength. Two or three weeks more, it would take him. Even so, well before the end of the year, he would be able to do something.
Immediately he felt his mind turn over and start to work. A good mind! He found himself appraising his own brain, as if it were a trusty instrument or machine—old, but still functioning smoothly.
Yet he was very weak, and before he had done much thinking, he slept again.
Perhaps there were too many people, too many old ways of thinking, too many books. Perhaps the ruts of thinking had grown too deep and the refuse of the past lay too heavy around us, like piles of garbage and old clothes? Why should not the philosopher welcome the wiping-out of it all and a new start and men playing the game with fresh rules? There would be, perhaps, more gain than loss.
During the weeks of the epidemic, the few who remained well had been able to give only hasty burial to those who died. After the convalescents were again on their feet, George and Maurine and Molly raised the question of a funeral service.
Ish, and Em with him, would have been glad to let the situation rest as it was. He realized, however, that the others would be happier if a service should be performed. A service might also be of some practical value, to mark a definite end to this period of emergency and fear and death, and signalize a return to a normal and forward-looking life. Although he dreaded the renewal of grief for Joey that such a service might bring him personally, still he felt that after it he could move on toward whatever more modest plans for the future he could finally work out.
So he made the suggestion that the services should be held and that on the day following them all normal activities should be resumed. Although he had not given any special thought to the resumption of school, he found that the others naturally assumed it, and he could only acquiesce.
By common consent Ezra was placed in charge of the services. He chose to hold them very early in the morning.
As in any community where artificial light was inadequate, rising-with-the-sun was a habit, and they did not have to get out of bed much earlier than usual to be standing at the little row of mounds before the light was yet full. The sky was clear, but the western slope of the hills was all in shade. Some tall pine trees standing by the graves did not yet cast shadows.
The season was too late for wild flowers, but the older children, at Ezra's direction, had cut green pine-boughs and covered the mounds. Although there were only five graves, this loss represented a major catastrophe. In comparison with the small numbers of The Tribe, five deaths were more than a hundred thousand would have been in a city of a million people.
The survivors were all there—babies in their mothers' arms, little boys or girls holding their fathers' hands.
Ish stood, feeling the weight of the hammer in his right hand. It dragged him solidly down to the earth. He had started without it, but Josey had reminded him, assuming that he was merely forgetful. The hammer, in the minds of all the younger o
nes, marked a formal occasion. A few months ago, Ish would not have yielded, and he would have made a point of talking to Josey about superstition. But today he had brought the hammer. Actually, he was forced to admit, he himself was drawing comfort from it. He was humbler now, after all that had happened. If The Tribe needed a symbol of strength and unity, if they were happier with the hammer as a rallying point—who was he to enforce rationalism? Perhaps rationalism—like so much else—had only been one of the luxuries which men could afford under civilization.
They had now all arranged themselves in an irregular halfcircle, facing the graves, each family grouped together. From his position in the center Ish looked first the one way and then the other. George was wearing a conservative-looking dark-gray suit, the very one probably that he used to wear to funerals when he had been a deacon in the Old Times—or, if not the same one, its twin. Maurine stood beside him in solid black, with a veil. At least while those two lived, the ancient proprieties would survive. But all the others were clothed in the haphazard but comfortable leavings of civilization. The men and boys wore blue jeans and sport shirts, with light wind-breaker jackets over their shirts against the early morning chill. A few of the smaller girls were almost indistinguishable from the boys, except for their longer hair, but the women and most of the girls declared their femininity with skirts, and lent color by means of red or green or blue shawls or scarfs.
Ezra was walking forward to the center, getting ready to begin. The light of the sun behind the hill was brighter gold now; the hush was deeper. Ish felt his throat full. He was moved, even though he felt the ceremony to be meaningless, and talk in the presence of death to be almost an impertinence. Yet also he felt himself close to something very ancient in humanity, perhaps something also very significant for the future. Suddenly he was imagining himself an anthropologist of thousands of years in the future, one who was investigating the life of people just subsequent to the Great Disaster. "Little is known of their culture," he would write. "From the discovery of certain graves, however, it is known that they practiced inhumation."