Nineteen Days

Day 2. At Sea. Morning

DAY 2. AT SEA. MORNING

Sometimes, when she woke early, she could pretend for a moment that it never happened. She’d let sleep linger, putting off the second when she’d need to open her eyes, dismiss the traces of dreams, and face her new reality that Noah had gone. But this morning she was instantly awake. Through the cabin window, she admired the watermelon pink of sunrise, then dressed quickly to meet Thomas. He was sitting in the same chair on the deck. A plastic mask linked to a tube and an oxygen tank covered the lower half of his face. Of course, Genevieve realised he would struggle to breathe. Even a few steps of that massive body, driven weakly by a heart surrounded by fat, would strain his lungs.

He indicated with his fingers. Two minutes.

‘Get you a coffee?’

‘Yes,’ he nodded.

She brought the two coffees with milk and sugar on a tray and pulled a table over. When the coffees were ready, he took off his oxygen mask.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, indicating the oxygen tank.

‘Yes, fine. I always wheeze a little in the mornings, and it’s compounded on the ship. My cabin’s quite a walk to the elevators, then the wait for the lift, and finding a chair that’s comfortable. I came early hoping the good ones wouldn’t be taken.’

‘Ah! Now, she thought, he’s giving me an opening. Does he want to talk about his obesity? But no. He had a book for her.

‘Did you find anything to read?’ he asked. She’d complained the day before about the sparse collection in the ship’s library.

‘No. Soon I’ll be down to old copies of The Lonely Planet.’

‘Oh dear!’ That was the way he spoke. There was something of the village parson about him, a formality that reminded Genevieve of Victorian novels. He reached into his voluminous pocket and put a book on the table in front of her. It was Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

‘Have you read it?’ he asked.

‘Yes, twice.’ It was one of her favourite books.

‘What do you think of it?’ Genevieve loved conversations about books. She thought before she responded with her views. Thomas nodded as she spoke.

‘I won’t lend you this copy then,’ he said, reaching for the book.

‘Please, I’ll read it again.’

Suddenly, the empty days ahead had become more bearable.

‘It’s the word pictures in it. And that strange, backward family, full of secrets and anger.’

He nodded at that, but paused, then spoke softly, almost a whisper.

‘There are families like that in Australia, too.’

‘How do you mean? Rural families as in the book?’

‘No, secretive families, families at the edge. Families with strange ways of living.’

‘Do you mean communes? Communities trying to get back to nature?’ Genevieve prompted.

‘More sinister than that. There are secretive cults, weird religious groups. They appear in the media occasionally.’

‘Like Jonestown?’

‘Ah, that was an extreme example. But even in our seemingly benign, secular nation they exist.’

Not sure where the conversation was going, Genevieve nodded but was silent for a few moments.

Then he said: ‘I grew up in one of those groups.’

She’d only known him for a day, and it seemed early in their friendship for such confidences, but here they were, two lonely people with a day to fill. He wanted to tell her, so she didn’t interrupt.

‘My family belonged to a quasi-Christian evangelical cult. About thirty families lived together in a rural area in one community. They believed all other Christian groups had lost their way, that they were the only path to salvation. They saw themselves as a righteous subculture that would bring about the destruction of the old world and the birth of the new.’ As he often did, he used his fingers to show quotation marks around righteous subculture.

‘Evangelical?’ Genevieve asked.

‘Yes, dancing and singing in the Lord. Speaking in tongues. A literal approach to the words of the Bible. Obligatory prayer and testimony.’ The quotation marks were there again with the world testimony.

‘What do you mean by testimony?’

‘Witnessing to your thoughts and struggles before the community, when called upon by the leaders. Confessing your sins in public.’

Genevieve was interested now.

‘Was it a recognised denomination?’ she asked.

‘No. None of the regular Christian denominations were trusted. It’s a very structured community. The leader is called The Prophet, and he has complete power. Under him are the acolytes. There are twelve of them, based on the twelve apostles in the New Testament. They’re all celibate and take orders from The Prophet. They lead the worship and call members of the community for public testimony when they’ve done something wrong.’

Laughter and shouts rang across the deck from the right, as a couple entered the steaming hot tub. Thomas stopped and smiled in their direction.

‘Public admission of faults? How barbaric. What are the consequences once they admit the transgression?’ Genevieve asked.

‘The sinner is given the “silent treatment”, excluded from community activities, for a period.’

‘So The Prophet and the acolytes. Where do families like yours fit in?’

‘At the bottom of the ladder. They live close to each other and the males work “in the world” to financially support the community. Some boys in the families are selected to train to be acolytes.’ He paused, as if he had already told her too much.

‘Who selects the boys to be celibate acolytes?’

‘The Prophet, of course. He is the one and only decision maker. The boys are identified young and given to understand they are privileged.’

‘Does the boy have any say in it?’ Genevieve asked.

‘Try to imagine. Any boy selected by The Prophet is the pride and joy of his family. If he rejects the call The Prophet has told him he has, he is a sinner. No boy would ever reject it.’

All of this sounded abhorrent to Genevieve, who had always taken a broad approach to religion and spirituality.

‘What was life like within your family?’ she asked.

‘Well, most of the families were large, because we were going to begin a new kingdom on earth, so they had to produce future members of this kingdom. It was very insular. We were only allowed to mix with the children of the families in the community and then segregated by gender. There was no school.’

‘No school at all? That’s against the law.’

‘We were home schooled after a fashion,’ he said. ‘The only regular instruction was in the Bible, of which we learned whole slabs by heart. I’m an expert on that.’ He smiled at her with the smile of a charming boy.

‘But you’re articulate and well read.’

‘Thank you. That came later. My teenage years were agony. I was a dumb, seething mess of contradictions. Fidelity to the community, hatred of it, guilt, longing to be free but afraid of freedom. Puzzled by girls and tormented by them. Aware they were taboo.’

‘A controlled and repressed family life?’

‘Yes, but not just for me. My sisters had to wear long dresses, no skin showing, and veils in prayer and testimony. s****l purity was everything. The devil, they told us, would do anything to lead young people into s****l sin. I was the only boy in my family, and if I was angry, I can’t imagine how my sisters felt. There was no opportunity for them except marriage. At least they expected me to find an occupation “compatible with the faith.”

‘What occupation did you find?’

‘You can probably guess. When I was sixteen, I took up the only occupation my parents would approve.’

‘What was that Thomas?’

‘I obeyed The Prophet when he told my parents God had chosen me to be an acolyte.’

‘How did you feel about that? Is that what you wanted? ’

‘I didn’t know what I wanted. I wanted to obey The Prophet. I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I wanted to be somebody, in my own eyes and in the eyes of the community. I wanted to stop thinking about girls.’

‘Did you think being an acolyte would solve the girl problem?’ Genevieve asked.

‘I did, but I was wrong.’