When the English Fall Read online

  WHEN THE

  ENGLISH FALL

  A NOVEL

  DAVID WILLIAMS

  ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL

  2017

  To “Uncle Bob” Margrave,

  because good English teachers make a difference.

  Contents

  Memo

  September 2

  September 3

  September 4

  September 5

  September 6

  September 7

  September 9

  September 10

  September 11

  September 12

  September 14

  September 15

  September 16

  September 18

  September 19

  September 20

  September 21

  September 22

  September 23

  September 24

  September 25

  September 26

  September 28

  October 1

  October 2

  October 3

  October 4

  October 5

  October 6

  October 8

  October 9

  October 10

  October 11

  October 12

  October 15

  October 16

  October 17

  October 18

  October 19

  October 20

  October 21

  October 22

  October 23

  October 24

  October 25

  October 26

  October 27

  October 28

  October 29

  October 31

  November 1

  November 3

  November 5

  November 12

  November 17

  November 19

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About Algonquin

  Memo

  DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY

  JOINT EMCOM REGIONAL HEADQUARTERS

  U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE, CARLISLE BARRACKS

  REPLY TO THE ATTENTION OF:

  COL. T. MARKER, FACULTY INSTRUCTOR

  TO: Dr. J. Ernestine, Dept. Sociology, U. Penn.

  SUBJECT: Diaries

  Per agreed-upon material-handling protocols established at the Joint EmCom/War College/U. Penn. meeting, enclosed with this memo are a set of five leather-bound notebooks, handwritten, retrieved from an abandoned Old Order farmhouse (PA Agricultural Reclamation Zone 7). These fit the criteria for original textual documentation, per your request to EmCom and the outputs of the aforementioned meeting with Joint EmCom and War College representatives.

  The point of contact for this action is the undersigned, at secmail [email protected].

  Terrence E. Marker

  Col., Joint EmCom

  Faculty Instructor, U.S. Army War College

  [attached note]

  Jeanine:

  Hey, it was great seeing you, and maybe when I’m up your way later in the summer I’ll bring by that bottle of scotch we talked about. Glenmorangie, eighteen years old. Not much of that around anymore. I’ve been saving it. Special occasion, which I’m sure it’ll be.

  The diaries are, well, I’ve read them. They appear to be exactly what you told me you’re looking for. The right timing, both pre- and post-event. Some odd details. See what you think.

  Look forward to seeing you again. —Terry

  September 2

  I hold her, tight in my arms, and she screams.

  It is the morning, it is dawn, and the red sun fills the bedroom with late summer heat, and as she strains I hold her tighter, and still she screams. Her eyes are wide and unseeing, and her arms lash out, a dress on a clothesline before a storm.

  I feel her body, my little bird, my little Sadie, her back pressed to my chest, taut as bent wood. I feel my arms, tired from the holding. My ears ring. And still she writhes and bucks, her head casting back and forth.

  This is a long one, the worst seizure in weeks. I do not know how long it has been, but it was night when the cries began, and now day has come.

  Hannah was with us, for a while, but now it is morning, and there is much to be done. Jacob is helping Hannah, I am sure. The tasks of the day play across my thoughts. The horses. Preparing the field. That unfinished chair. But I cannot focus, not even enough to pray.

  There are words in her screaming, and names. Some I understand, though I do not know why she calls them out.

  “Danny, oh God, Danny, oh God, oh God.”

  I do not know a Danny.

  Her voice rasps, flayed and weakened, but still she cries out. “Doe Wah Jew Say Oh! Doe Wah Jew Say Oh Han Nan Neem!” Not English, not Deitsch. Words with no meaning, just sounds.

  And always, always, she screams that they are falling. “They fall! They fall!” And about the beautiful wings. And about the angels. It is beautiful and horrible, whatever it is she sees with those unseeing eyes.

  Her voice stills, and she pants, breath rapid, in and out, in and out.

  And then, just as sudden as the first cry in the night, she shudders.

  Then her voice, familiar, like sand, like dust.

  “Dadi?”

  She turns, and her eyes are tired. “Oh, Dadi.”

  That was how today began. And then the labors of the day came, and I am so tired now that I can barely write. But I write just the same.

  September 3

  I should not be writing this tonight. That thought is in my head right now.

  I should pray. I should sleep. I especially should sleep. I should not write, for it is wasteful and prideful. Or so whispers my uncle’s voice, from long ago. So chides my father. His voice is stronger.

  But still, I write.

  It is a prideful thing, that I sit here in the faint light alone. So the echoes of my past tell me. Around me, the house is asleep, as I should be. I like the sound of it, this sleeping house. It is not empty, because even though I can barely hear it, the softness of breathing fills the house like goose feathers.

  Jacob barely stirs, strong boy that he is becoming. Sadie, oh, Sadie. She sleeps well, soft and safe tonight so far, thanks be to God. I pray, O God, that she will sleep tonight.

  I say that I must stay awake until my heart is stilled, and I say that I must stay awake to listen for Sadie. But Hannah knows. She knows that I need to write.

  Hannah is so kind, to understand. I should be in our bed with her, and I will be. But soon.

  Today was good, a blessing, like every day is a blessing. I suppose that is why I still write here, to remember the blessings. And all things are blessings, even the hard things.

  Memory is why I began to write. It was why I wrote as a boy, to remember my dreams and the hopes I had. I read back those old books now, written in secret. I am still that boy, I think.

  But I needed to write, too, all those years ago when I was out in the World, out among the English.

  I wanted to remember, to remember what I thought and felt and knew. It was so different, amazing and terrible, and I wanted to remember. Others left with me, when the time came for our running around. Some came back. But others didn’t return, not to the hard coldness of the community where we had grown up.

  Atlee fell into drinking, and then he was gone. Martha, with her laugh, with that twinkle in her eye. That twinkle was gone when I last saw her, and her laugh was hard like brass. So many terrible things in the world.

  And Simon. Simon had never liked the Order, never been at ease with the life of the plain. I should not miss him, but I do miss him, his mischief, his joyous playfulness like a young goat. He chose rightly. He was at home in the world.

&nb
sp; I was not. Though I could not stay in the Order that my father had taught me, neither was the world for me. The world made me sick.

  Not with hate. Not sick with hate. Just sick. It was wildness, churning chaos. It upset my soul, making me dizzy like a little boy spinning circles in the field. The spinning is fun at first, but then you cannot stop, because if you stop, you fall and your stomach turns inside out.

  I haven’t ever liked that. And I like spirit sickness least of all.

  She stirs now. A little cry. O Lord. Now more. I must stop.

  September 4

  Mike came by today with an order. We have not had an order in a while, because the English are struggling, so Mike says. So this is good. He is a funny one, Mike is, so talkative. Big and loud. So large, his truck barely holds him.

  I do not ask him any questions, not about the world, but he always talks to me about the world anyway. I try not to listen, but Gracious Lord, does that man talk. He is so angry about the president and the government and the Congress, and he uses words he knows I would rather not hear.

  I think he forgets, or he says it because he knows he can and I will forgive him. I can’t say.

  But the order is a big one, bigger than I had hoped. I will need help with it. So many pieces! I remember how large the houses were, the houses of the very rich. Funny, that the very rich want such simple, handcrafted things. So much, for one house. But Mike says it is just one order, from one person.

  There will be much work. My hands are eager for it.

  ISAAK VISITED IN THE late afternoon, before dinner. We sat and shared some lemonade, and talked about what he thinks he will preach on this Sunday. He likes to talk to others before he speaks, to hear what they have to say. He is a good friend.

  September 5

  I am very tired tonight. Today was very busy, and my hands and back are tired. Four chairs, perfect and complete, rest in the shop. This is good. It was a good day, even though I am tired.

  I also walked the farm today, all of it, all the way around. I do this, just to see how things are. I could ride Nettie, and that would be quicker, but I choose not to. It lets me stop, to see things that I would otherwise miss, to feel the grass against my pant legs. We have forty-eight acres, about all we can manage, being such a small family. Five or six we rotate in and out of use for planting, there are a few patches of trees for windbreaks, and a stand of trees on about two acres to the northern corner of the property. That is good for firewood. The rest we have as pasture for our small herd of cattle. Thirty-five head, some for milking, but most for beef. It is not a long circuit, although the day was hot. And from what I see, things are well. The fields look fine, ready for the plowing and planting for the fall.

  I worry about the fields. Not this year or the next, not now when we are still strong. But it will be hard as Hannah and I grow older. Around us, our friends are a help, but it is odd to have so little family around us. No sisters or brothers, no cousins. It was a hard choice to come here.

  But my father’s settlement? The settlement of my uncle and all of my family? Though my blood was there, my spirit could not stay there. It could not, not if my soul was to survive. Hannah, too. It was so much worse for her. Even now, I can feel the memories of it pressing on me.

  And now I am awake, and it is late.

  Hannah tells me that I must sleep, that the care of Sadie is for her to do as my helpmate, and I tell her that she is right, and that I am a fool. But still, I am her husband, and when I say my heart is moved for our sweet, strange little bird, that I am her father and my strength must be hers, she cannot say no. I see the tiredness in her eyes, too.

  I tell her that we are two together, made stronger just as Solomon said in his wisdom, and that Sadie is no burden but is a blessing to test and strengthen us, and other things I remember from worship.

  “You are a fool,” she says, and those words were never spoken with such love.

  My prayers are all about Sadie, in the morning and the evening. I should be better about praying for others, but I cannot think of much but her. I read back across these pages, and it has been nearly a year now since it began.

  I did not understand, not at first, the strangeness that overcame her that morning. She woke, but did not dress, and did not do as she was asked. Hannah came to me, and at first we together were stern.

  She had always been so bright, so light. But now that brightness burned, and the lightness was brittle. Nothing made sense, nothing she said, and her hands danced like fires as she jabbered and moved about the house.

  I chastised her at first. What did I know, O Lord? Sometimes anger rises up, as it did with my father. I am not so different, as much as I try to be. So the words came out.

  “Do not be lazy! Do not speak such idle talk! Listen to me!”

  But my words were unheard, and when I realized her eyes did not see me, my fatherly anger melted to fear.

  And then she fell hard on the hard wood floor, and her body drew up like a bow, and her eyes rolled back, and she was choking on her tongue.

  It was a terrible sound, like blood in the throat of a slaughtering pig. I remember it so well I can hear it.

  I can still hear it.

  September 6

  Jacob was a great help today. His hands are still so young, but he strengthens. He is growing, up to my shoulders now. More important, his mind is sharp. He takes to the craft so swiftly, so easily. The chest of drawers for Mike will be done, and even sooner and better than if only my own hands had done it. Only five more pieces. A blessing, indeed, is a son who honors his father with the labor of his hands.

  Hannah tells me it was not so good with Sadie today, not good at all. She did not sleep last night, that I know. And she was so distressed today, Hannah says. There were no seizures, but she is so unhappy.

  She broods, and will only sleep, or talk in strange circles, as she has since it got worse.

  But now it is only one thing she can seem to think about. She talks about the lights, and about the darkness. The skies are bright with angel wings, she will shout, suddenly. The English fall! The English fall! Again and again she says this. The skies filled with angel wings, about the English, and about the fall. We give her the medicine, and it quiets her, but the quiet passes more quickly.

  I confess I am troubled, and I am praying much over it.

  Sadie was always different. Before the doctors told us there was something wrong, before the seizures, she was different. She was born with a caul, which means nothing. I have seen calves born with cauls, and there is no magic I can see in them. They get eaten, just like all of the other calves. Their jerky tastes no different from regular jerky. But sometimes the old women still talk, Hannah tells me.

  The angel’s touch, some said she had. And the folk still remember what she said about Bishop Beiler, before even the first signs of the cancer. And about the Hostetler girl. And about that calf. It was strange, and Bishop Schrock had many talks with me about the whisperings that should not be part of the Order.

  “There is no Christ in this,” he said. “This seems the Devil’s work,” he said.

  I nodded, but told him she was a good girl, because she was, even if she did say strange things. I felt anger, too, for Bishop Schrock can be a hard man. Of the bishops in this district, his heart turns most quickly to discipline. But prayer and more prayer returned my heart to the grace of Christ.

  And now she moans in the night, and I hear her whisper. Every night, every night for a month, as I read back.

  And every night, it is the same thing.

  The angel wings, and the sky, and the English. And the fall.

  Though she is my little girl, barely more than a child, the hairs rise on my arms as I write this. It is just a sickness, I say to my soul. Just a sickness of the mind.

  But I do not believe myself when I say it. I cannot but worry that something bad will happen.

  September 7

  Worship was good today, but it was very hard for Sadie. In
the singing, she is fine, but the first sermon she struggles, and the main sermon is difficult for her to manage, and the long silence as we pray together is very very hard. It strains her. And as hard as it is for Sadie, it’s harder for Hannah. She watches her. She worries. Even when Sadie seems calm, she worries. The medicine stilled her enough for the day, but things got worse after the sun set.

  Tonight Sadie hurt Hannah, but she does not want me to tell the doctor or the deacons. Sadie’s arm lashed out as she cried and shouted and flailed. She bloodied Hannah’s nose and bruised her eye. She did not mean to, I know she did not. It was like she did not notice her mother was even there.

  I had to hold her, and hold her, until the medicine and the strength of my arms stilled her. So thin and frail she is now. I feared bruising her, but I was afraid she would hurt herself even worse.

  It was hard on Hannah, good mother that she is. I don’t want them to take her away, cried Hannah. I cannot lose my baby, cried Hannah.

  She remembers how David, the second of the Sorensons’ children, became. So angry, so hateful. They tried to care for him, and prayed, but though he had chosen to return, his soul was broken and shattered. It was like keeping a wild dog in the house, and they had to think of their other children. Just twenty-one. Such a young man. The English call it skitzofrenia, I think that is the word, I am not sure.

  I mean, I know that is how you say it, but I also know that I am spelling it wrong. I will look in the dictionary later.

  Jacob will be our last. Just Jacob and Sadie, both blessings in their own ways.

  Sarah died inside Hannah, and it was then the Lord’s desire to close her womb. We don’t want to lose Sadie, our first, to have her leave the house to be treated among the English. We lost Sarah. We lost the promise of a full house, of children to work by our side, to be our strength when age takes us. This would be a third loss. With God’s help we would bear it, but it would be hard.

  We prayed together, and with Jacob, that the Lord might bring Sadie healing. We say these prayers often. I know God hears them. The time will come. We have to be patient.