Page 41 of Kiwi Sin
Whatever the case, it was past time for Gabriel to marry, and he was living in a flat now with other men, probably going on dates, or just having relations with girls after parties, since “dates” seemed to exist only in books, according to what I heard at Otago Girls. That was sad, because “dates” sounded so romantic, but the world didn’t seem to be much like what books and films said. Gabriel hadn’t seemed like he knew anything more about that than I did, but he wouldn’t exactly share it with me if he did, would he? Men had needs. I didn’t have to be sent off to Wanaka to know that.
Now, Frankie and I were riding in the back of the car, with Gray and Daisy in front, as we rounded the final curves that would take us to the gate of the compound. Frankie had got more stiff and still with every one of those curves, her hand like a block of ice in mine, and it was time to focus on her.
Daisy had asked, back at Honor’s house, “Are you still sure you want to come, love? You can stay here instead, and welcome Prudence when she gets here. I’ve been back so many times, with all that sneaking in, and it won’t bother me to go today. The first time I came back, though, it was awful. I felt like the Prophet could reach out his hand and pull me in again. I’ve never been more terrified.”
“But you came back anyway,” Frankie said. “If you could do that, in the middle of the night, with the electric fence and the dogs and all, I can goonce,during the day, with everybody around me to keep me safe.”
“I had to,” Daisy said. “You don’t. We’re here to do it instead.”
Gray didn’t say anything. He just stood there, big and patient, and waited. Honor, though, said, “Sometimes it’s good to face your fear, and the people who made you feel it. Makes you realize they don’t have power over you anymore, eh. It’ll hurt, though. No shame in not wanting to hurt.”
Frankie lifted her chin, her eyes blazing and her face white, and said, “I want to go.”
“Fair enough,” Gray said. “We’ll be beside you all the way.”
Frankie’s husband, Gilead, wasn’t there anymore, because he’d been sent to prison back in August, but everybody at Mount Zion knew who’d put him there. Frankie, and Daisy, to whom he’d done it all first.
It was odder than anything else, Aisha had informed me, that my sisters had both been married to the same man, as soon as they’d turned sixteen. Daisy had run away and got a divorce, and Gilead’s second wife had died in childbirth, so the Prophet had given Frankie to Gilead.
Aisha’d said, “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard of, and my family’s fromPakistan.”I’d had nothing to say in reply.
No army today, and no cameras. Just Gray and Honor and—the others.
Uncle Aaron and Aunt Constance were coming, too, and they had Gabriel with them. I hadn’t seen him. I’d heard, that was all, and I’d tried hard to let it not matter. Raphael and Uriel hadn’t wanted to come, and I imagined their wives had wanted to do it even less. The people who’d left over the past six months had told us how the Prophet had raged at them, had damned them when they’d announced their intentions to go. They were shaken even afterward, and said that heaps of others had changed their minds and decided to stay.
It's not fun, being told that you’re damned. It’s not fun to lose everything.
The most surprising departure had been of the Prophet’s grandson, Valor Pilgrim. We’d all been shocked when Valor had walked out the gate, because like Uncle Aaron, he’d been one of the Prophet’s favorites. He hadn’t even announced beforehand that he was going. He’d just downed tools and walked out.
He wasn’t here today for this latest confrontation, and who could blame him? I didn’t want to be here myself, but I couldn’t do anything else, not when Prudence was inside the gates still, and not when Frankie was coming. Somebody had to hold Frankie’s hand, somebody who knew what she was feeling, what it was like.
Daisy, you’re thinking, but Daisy was so competent, so confident, it was hard to be weak around her. Daisy had left first, and she’d left hardest, with no support at all, after being punished by her husband the first time she’d tried in a way I couldn’t bear to think about. And yet shehadcome back, sneaking in every three months for years on end to inject birth control into arms in a storage shed, in the faint light of a torch, giving women a break from constant pregnancies.
I’d run from that shed myself. I’d run with my father chasing me, and I couldn’t even imagine going back to face that again, let alone with the kind of resolute calm Daisy would be showing today. Her only regret was not being able to keep up the birth control. Instead, she and Gray and Uncle Aaron would appear outside the gates at nine o’clock on the first day of every month like clockwork, announcing their presence with a loud-hailer, then standing silent for an hour, ready to accept anybody who wanted to leave. Only nine more people had chosen to go since Uriel and Glory and Patience, but nine was a start.
I was thinking all that, and then I wasn’t, because I was climbing down in front of that gate for the first time since I’d left, then taking Frankie’s hand once again as she trembled.
Somebody moved up to stand on Frankie’s other side, and it was Gabriel. He was the other one who’d come every time. When Uriel had walked out, he’d walked not just to his father, but to his elder brother, too.
I tried not to look at him, or to think about that, the solidity and the strength and thekindnessof him, because if I thought about it, I got sad again. That was all right, though, because I could tell he wasn’t looking at me.
He’d saved somebody’s life on the day he’d walked out of Mount Zion. Me? I’d beenterrifiedon my own leaving day. I’d been so far from pulling anybody out of a burning car. It had been all I could do to run! I certainly hadn’t come up here each month with Daisy and Gray. I’d just have been terrified again. I was terrified now.
It was hard to believe it was really happening, that Prudence could really just walk out. I still remembered the look of her standing there, her arms at her sides, watching us go. That look, and the tears I’d seen on Dove’s face, had haunted me for almost a year, but today, for Prudence, it would be over.
But, oh, how I wished we could take Dove, too. How I wished for my mother’s arms around me, for her to be there when the work was done, the way she’d always been, small and quiet and loving us even when we weren’t good. Most people only loved you when you did what they wanted, it seemed to me. My mum, though—she’d loved us no matter what, like we were still part of her body and she couldn’t help it. She loved like an alpaca, steady and quiet and forever.
The loud-hailer, then, Uncle Aaron calling for Prudence to come out. Gray holding up his phone, recording. Frankie getting even more tense. And nobody answering. Nobody appearing.
It wasn’t the first of the month. Maybe Prudence hadn’t believed we’d come. Or maybe she’d been locked up to keep her here, the same way Frankie had.
What had the Prophet done? Or was it my father?
And what did we do now?
17
KITCHEN BREAK
