A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel [62]
Gone are my friends
From the cot and fields away
Gone from this earth
To a better land I know
I hear those gentle voices calling
Old Black Joe
I stood on a chair to sing it. For some reason everyone laughed. I don’t know why. It’s a sad song—a very sad song. It made me think of Eldar. I was young and gay there and I had friends in the fields and on the cots. I wasn’t forced to go to that horrible kindergarten.
After Gone Are the Days I sang We’ll Fly Away. When I said the word Fly I jumped off the chair as if I was flying to Neverland. Come to think of it my brother David used to call me Tinkerbell.
Neverland
Dori
Hannah got a present in the mail. It’s a doll that stands with a dress made of three layers of sponge—pink and pale yellow and pale green. They’re not Pioneer colours and it’s not a Pioneer doll. In Eldar we don’t have that kind of doll. The kind that’s more for decorating than for playing with.
Hannah put the doll on the table next to her bed and she won’t let anyone touch it. She put it there to show us that she has it and we don’t. She could have kept it in her father’s Room.
She keeps saying this is mine don’t touch it. She wants us to be jealous.
I might bury this doll too.64
Thy Neck with Chains of Gold
RICKY
Rita, listen to me … we had a dream, it was my dream
and yours. We had enemies inside ourselves, and all
around us. So we cast a mold to keep from falling out.
But we don’t all fit perfectly. So we stretch and pull and
weep with pain. But whenever I close my eyes, I see the
skeletons of those dry bones, the ones in Ezekiel. That
vision of the dry bones rising—the homeless, the wan-
derers, two thousand years old … they need us to give
them life and dignity and flesh.
RITA
I can only think of myself. I have nothing left for them.
RICKY
You have! We’ll find our dreams again. We’ll build and
create like we said we would. If I lost you for a while, it
doesn’t matter now. I forgive you.
(eli comes running in)
ELI
It’s Michael—he’s had an accident on guard duty—
RITA
What are you saying, Eli? Where is he?
ELI
It’s okay. Everything will be okay.
Dori
Mummy tells me we’ll be leaving Eldar in a few days. We’re going back to Canada. We’re going by airplane this time. On an airplane when you touch your earlobe it buzzes.
I say for how long? and she says I don’t know exactly.
I hope it’s not a long time. I love Eldar.
Diary of a Young Man
20 September 1924. I spent a few weeks away from the commune, travelling through the country. I’d woken one morning and felt that a “bad mood” had come over me. I felt I had to get away for a while and see the rest of the country.
I didn’t say anything to anyone, I didn’t even inform the roster managers. I knew they’d understand that I left on account of my bad mood; they too experience these things from time to time.
On that day, the number of bad-mood travellers reached eight.
Dori
I’m seven today. I have a birthday party but mostly we run around. It’s my first birthday without a dress.65
Gilead gives me a white belt folded into a circle. It’s patent leather. Now I have something to put in my drawer.
My brother David has a Tin Tin book. I love Tin Tin. David looks at it with me and tells me the story. I don’t really understand the story and I can’t think of any other story to go with the pictures but I don’t care. With colours like these the story isn’t important.
Our First Year
13 January 1950. Tremendous preparations now under way for the celebration of Year One at Eldar. Most of us agree that it’s been a good year. It didn’t go precisely according to plan, we didn’t realize everything we wanted, but never mind, there’s another year ahead. We look forward to expansion in almost every field. Here are some of the important provisions in the coming year’s plan:
• In future years, when we’ve solved the water problem, we’ll try producing fruit here that cannot be grown in any other part of the country. We will continue to