Robert Coover - Origin of the Brunists

“But do ye beware, my friends, of false prophets, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ!”

Clara turned, looked, appalled. The room, as though itself a living body, shocked and terrified, fell silent, its whole breath caught. Abner Baxter stood, shook his head, the red hair wild as a lion’s mane, and glowered down upon her. No doubt: it was she he meant! Something empty and hollow bloomed and began to grow in her. Five minutes remaining still, and what was he—?

“But be not deceived: God is not mocked!”

“Abner!” She could hardly believe it. “Abner, they’s jist five minutes! Don’t close your heart agin the Spirit, Abner!” Her voice was hushed and faltered. “Ely said—”

“ I tell you what the Lord says, woman! He says: ‘Woe unto the foolish prophets that follow their own spirit and have not seen nothing!’ Now you listen, Sister Clara! The Lord He has not sent you , and you’ve made all these here people trust in a lie!” He paused, this man blessed by Ely’s love and lifted up by Ely’s blood, paused: for the dread hour was near upon them.

“Who are you to judge another’s gifts?” asked a gentle voice with a calm, a mildness, strange to this awesome hour. With unbelief, Clara saw that it was Mrs. Norton who had spoken.

Abner Baxter glared, astonished, at the little woman by Giovanni Bruno’s bed. “You shall see for yourself!” he bellowed, and taking his wife Sarah brusquely by the arm, he turned to leave the room. At the bedroom door he halted, spun on them once more. “This day shall end and the false prophecy shall be disgraced! Do you hear me? You will be put to shame, Clara Collins, and so will they all who stay here with you!” And, with Sarah, he departed.

Roy and Thelma Coates hesitated just a troubled second, then followed them out of the bedroom. The clock began to strike the hour. “Wait!” Clara cried. “In the name of Christ Jesus, wait!”

But none had waited, not a one. With each throbbing chime of the midnight hour, they had stood and left her, slowly at first, uneasily, lacking conviction, then, as though somehow fearing to be in the house after midnight, more and more hastily, until at the end they were running, the men clumsily light-footed out of their mining boots, the women scraping and clacking their heels across the wooden dining room floor, carrying their coats, Clara running after, pleading, and Abner’s chastisements roaring back at her from the front door like a terrible tide she had to struggle against, until, with the last hollow knock of the hour, she found herself alone, alone and weeping like a child, betrayed, crushed down, and for a long time, as she lapsed lifeless on the sofa, the last peal of the clock echoed and resounded in her head like a mockery of trumpets. Alone. Alone and forsaken in a foreign place. Forsaken even … even by Ely.

The voice, then, was in the air, speaking, before she heard it. She stored its syllables in her despairing mind, then contemplated them. “Have you forgotten, Mrs. Collins, what the Bible says? ‘Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,’ it warns, ‘nor lose courage when you are punished by Him. Consider Him Who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.’” The woman stood in the open doorway between the living room and dining room, the light at her back, only a pale bluish flicker from the television playing on her face. Elaine crouched stricken near her against a wall, soft sobs barely audible breaking from her small chest like fitful punctuation. “Now, will you please come back? Giovanni has asked to show something to you.”

She lacked all strength to resist. Mechanically, walled in by her grief, Clara lifted herself from the couch, took Elaine’s frail shoulder, followed Mrs. Norton back, through the dining room, into the bedroom. It was empty, but the heat and odor of an anxious massing were still present. Giovanni lay, as before, on his bed, propped by pillows, but now a Bible — Clara’s own Bible — rested in his lap. With his finger, he was pointing to a passage. At Mrs. Norton’s urging, Clara approached him and read. It was the Gospel according to John, chapter one, verses ten and eleven: “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not.”

“Giovanni, to whom do you mean this to apply?” asked Mrs. Norton. “To Mrs. Collins?” Giovanni Bruno nodded solemnly. “Indeed perhaps, each in his own way, to all of us here?” Something in her voice of awe, a kind of God-fear sound, when she spoke to him. And again he nodded. Mrs. Norton turned to her, and Clara observed now a patience, a compassion, in her face, a face, she saw instantly, that had known hurt and suffering like herself. “As Jesus is said to have told His disciples, Mrs. Collins: ‘If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.’ Marcella dear, is there any coffee?”

The girl smiled openly. “Yes, I’ll get some. Do you take cream or sugar, Mrs. Collins?”

“No, but Elaine—”

“We’ll bring everything.” The girl took Elaine’s hand, and together they went to the kitchen.

“I … I’m sorry,” Clara said, addressing no one in particular, except God Himself maybe. Her eyes were still full of tears, but she felt all cried out. “I don’t know. I don’t understand. I thought … but, well, you seen it. I jist don’t—”

“Giovanni Bruno, hear me!” The woman was again addressing the sick man, and again that hollow sound to it. Clara watched, not knowing quite what to make of it, yet fascinated just the same. “Is there any reason why … why nothing has happened tonight?” Again: the solemn affirmative nod. “Is it because … is it because there were perhaps hostile forces of darkness present?” Giovanni Bruno nodded. The woman relaxed, sighed, turned again to Clara. “It may be, Mrs. Collins,” she said, “that our night is not yet over.”

The two girls returned, smiling as though at something just said, Giovanni’s sister bringing the coffee, Clara’s daughter Elaine following with a tray of cups and cream and sugar. For the first time since the mass exodus, Clara was reminded of the other presence in the room: Mr. Norton, chubby and humble-spirited, stepped out of a corner and came over to accept a cup of coffee. He smiled cordially at Clara as he spooned three heaps of sugar into his coffee and added cream. “I hope you’re feeling better,” he said.

“I’m feelin’ a mite like a fool,” Clara confessed frankly.

He smiled again at that. “Well,” he acknowledged in a familiar drawl, “I don’t know anybody who has expressed himself more eloquently on being a fool for the truth than the apostle Paul himself.”

“Well said, Wylie!” avowed his wife, and Clara had to admit, too, that it was so. She sipped the hot black coffee, finding it good. The girl Marcella helped her brother, lifting a cup to his lips. He was apparently still very weak. It was a little curious how he had got ahold of her Bible, in fact. Elaine, sitting meekly by the Bruno girl, smiled over at her, and Clara smiled back. “Who is this Mr. Baxter?” Mrs. Norton asked. “Do I understand that he is the minister at your church?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Clara said. “Now he is.”

“But your husband was the minister before.”

“Yes.” She felt the tears returning, concentrated on the coffee.

“What does the Bible say, Mrs. Collins? I confess, I’m not very good at quoting it offhand. But doesn’t it say something about those who preach from envy and rivalry?”