Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [42]
She imagines them, these sad souls, leaving towns and cities; listless tributaries flowing from state to state, reaching this town, this street, just another stage on a journey. Some of them, at least, have a goal: the White House. Men who fought for their country, now desperate. And among them, Ben, carrying a dead brother on his back, trying to prove something to himself.
What’s to become of us all? she wonders.
Once, she might have found comfort in prayer, but though they still attend the local church as a family, Nancy is unable to open herself to the consolation of penitence; she has too long held within herself knowledge of a transgression that sets her apart from the good people around her. They could count on God’s mercy, but she continues to live with an old and festering guilt; she finds it impossible to ask for forgiveness of her sins.
She prays aloud, when ordered to do so, but when the prayers move into silent communion her thoughts circle, refusing to rise, heavy as unleavened bread. Her life is divided into Before and After, like a terrain bisected by dark water. On the far side all seemed sunlit, flowers grew, there were family picnics, laughter; a landscape of innocence. On the After bank, an ominous cloud casts shadow on the dry ground; there is a sense of withering away. Between the two lies an ocean, a sea crossed and re-crossed, a moment when innocence was lost for ever and she was expelled from the Garden.
This week, breathing in the familiar church blend of wax polish and flowers, with her parents on one side and Joey tucked close next to her, for once she was lulled into a sense of peace; the service itself seemed infused with a glow of lost innocence; the preacher evidently perplexed as he spoke of men from Oregon camping out in Washington, making demands. As a law-abiding citizen he recognised they should have obeyed orders, stayed home, trusted in their representatives to speak for them. But as a man who had seen their problems at first hand, their children hungry, he could only pray their voices would be heard.
‘Remember: God will comfort, guide and forgive every person, no matter who they are or what they’ve done.’ Amen.
Amen to that, Nancy silently echoed. But could she depend on it?
May 30th Memorial Day. ‘Dear Nance, well, we finally got here . . .’
Before he left, she had given Ben a notebook with shiny black covers, a batch of stamped envelopes and two sharp pencils.
‘Write. Even if you only manage a few lines. Save them up. Mail them when you can.’
He promised to keep in touch.
‘There must be 20,000 of us here, vets, wives, kids, you can hardly move in the streets. The plan is to hand in the petition, get their voices heard . . .’
Once they had been hailed as heroes. Now they saw from the newspapers that the President had given them new labels: ‘Hoover’s calling us bums, pacifists, radicals. He’s locked the White House gates. Some of the guys have moved into downtown blocks about to be demolished, the rest of us are setting up camp on the Anacostia Flats across the river . . .’
The ground was hard, baked by the sun. Ben’s shovel hit the dry, cindery earth as though striking steel. Further off, kitchens were being set up, children warned off, as makeshift cooking stoves smoked and crackled. Huts and shanties, put together from junk and cardboard and scrap iron debris, began to spread, confronting the President with the biggest Hooverville in the country.
‘Dearest Nance, I’m taking a break from digging latrines. We’re putting up a regular