Paul Hoffman: The Left Hand of God

By the time he was back on the floor, the other two were already plundering the food with the skill of long-practiced scavengers. They took only one thing from each place and rearranged the gap so it appeared that nothing was gone. They couldn’t resist a few bits of chicken or bread, but most of what they took went into the forbidden pockets that they had stitched into their cassocks to hide any contraband they came across that could be easily stolen and hidden.

Cale felt sick with the rich smells that seemed to surge in his brain and make him want to faint, as if they were baited with strange vapors.

“Don’t eat. Just take what you can hide.” He was instructing himself as much as the others. He took his share and hid what he filched, but there were few pockets to hide it in. They had no need of many hiding places, the pickings in their ordinary life being so thin and scanty.

“We have to get out. Now.” Cale walked toward the door. As if they had been woken from a deep sleep, Kleist and Vague Henri began to realize how much danger they were in. Cale listened at the door for a moment and then eased it open. It was a corridor.

“God knows where we are,” he said. “But we have to find cover.” With that he pulled the door open and walked out, the others warily following.

They moved quickly, keeping close to the walls. Within a few yards they came across a staircase leading upward. Cale shook his head as Vague Henri made his way over to it. “We need to find a window or get outside and see if we can find out where we are. We have to get back to the sleepshed before candle out or they’ll know we’re gone.” They moved on, but as they approached a door on the left it began to open.

In an instant they turned and fled back to the stairs and ran to the top. All three flattened themselves on the landing as they heard voices pass beneath them along the corridor. They heard the sound of another door being opened, and Cale raised his head, only to see a figure heading into the kitchen from which they had just come. Vague Henri moved beside him. He looked confused and afraid.

“Those voices,” he whispered. “What was wrong with them?”

Cale shook his head, but he too had noticed how strange they were and felt a peculiar movement in his stomach. He stood up, scanning the place where they were hiding. There was nowhere to go except through a door behind them. Quickly he turned the handle and eased into the room behind it. Except that it wasn’t a room. It was a balcony of some kind with a low wall ten feet or so from the door. Cale crawled toward it with the others doing the same until they were all crouched behind the wall.

From the space overlooked by the balcony there was a burst of laughter and applause.

It was not just the laughter that spooked the three boys-for all that laughter was something rarely heard in that place and never in such volume and with such easy joy-it was much more the pitch and sound of it. Like the voices they had heard in the corridor a few moments before, it set off an alien thrill deep inside them.

“Look and see,” whispered Vague Henri.

“No,” mouthed Cale.

“You must, or I will.”

Cale grabbed his wrist and squeezed.

“If we’re caught, we’re dead.”

Vague Henri, reluctant, eased back against the balcony wall. There was another burst of laughter, but this time Cale kept his eye on Vague Henri. Then he noticed that Kleist had moved onto his knees and was looking down, fascinated at the source of so much careless joy. Laughter for an acolyte was something droll, laconic, bitter. Cale tried to pull him back, but Kleist was much stronger than Vague Henri, and it was impossible to budge him without using so much force that they would have revealed themselves instantly.

Cale slowly raised his head over the balcony wall and looked down on something far more shocking and disturbing than the sight of the food in the kitchen. It was as if everything inside him were being battered with a hundred of the Redeemers’ nail sticks.

Below in a large hall were about a dozen tables, all covered in the same food they’d seen in the kitchen. The tables were arranged in a circle so that everyone seated could see each other, and it seemed obvious that two girls dressed in pure white were the cause of this celebration. One of these girls in particular was striking, with long dark hair and deep green eyes. She was beautiful but also as plump as a cushion. In the middle of the circle of tables was a large pool full of hot water, mists of steam clinging to its surface. It was the half dozen or so girls in the pool who froze the wide-eyed expression on Cale’s and Kleist’s faces, a look as shocked and bewildered as if they had come upon a sight of heaven itself.

The girls in the pool were naked. They were pink or brown according to their origin, but all were curved and voluptuous. But it was not their nakedness that so amazed the boys so much as the fact that they had never seen a woman before.

Who could capture what they felt? The poet does not exist who could put it into words, the terrible joy, the shock and awe.

There was a gasp, this time from Vague Henri, who now was beside the two others.

The noise brought Cale back to his right mind. He slumped down and rested against the wall. In a few seconds the others, pale and distraught, did the same.

“Wonderful,” whispered Vague Henri to himself. “Wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful.”

“We have to go or we’re dead.”

Cale slipped onto his hands and knees and crawled to the door, the others following. They slipped out and crept to the edge of the landing and listened. Nothing. Then they made their way down the stairs and began to walk down the corridor. Luck was with them because there was nothing left of the skilled and cautious boys who had made their way to the balcony and the shocking scenes beneath. But in this shaken and enraptured state they made it to a doorway that led to another corridor. They turned to the left because they had no better reason to go to the right.

Now the three of them, with just half an hour to get back to the sleepshed, broke into a run, but in less than a minute they came to a sharp turn. It was twenty feet long, and at the end was a thick door. Their faces fell in despair.

“Dear God!” whispered Vague Henri.

“In forty minutes they’ll have the Gougers out looking for us.”

“Well, it won’t take them long, will it, stuck in here.”

“And then what? They won’t let us tell what we’ve seen here,” said Kleist.

“Then we have to leave,” said Cale.

“Leave?”

“As in go away and never come back.”

“We can’t even get out of here,” said Kleist, “and you’re talking about escaping from the Sanctuary altogether.”

“What choice do we-” But Cale’s reply was cut short by the sound of the key turning in the lock of the door in front of them. It was a huge door and at least six inches thick, so there were a few seconds for them to find a hiding place. Except that there wasn’t one.

Cale signaled the other two to flatten themselves against the wall where the opening door would hide them, if only until it was shut. But they had no choice: to run back was to be stuck where they were until their absence was discovered, followed by quick capture and a slow death.

The door swung open, the result of some effort if the swearing and groan of irritation were anything to go by. Accompanied by more bad-tempered muttering, the door moved toward them and then stopped. Then a small wedge of wood was forced under the door to keep it open. More cursing and groaning followed, and then there was the sound of a small cart being pushed down the corridor. Cale, who was on the edge side of the door, looked out and saw a familiar figure in a black cassock limping away as he pushed the cart and then disappeared around the corner. Cale signaled the others out and moved quickly through the door.