In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [35]
Lola Johnson and her husband, Pete, lived in the Circle. They had attended Cardiff Spur Mission for years, and they themselves were active missionaries: whale baleen and ivory decorated their walls and shelves. Their house, with its second story and separate dining room, seemed enormous, populated by four boys and one girl, Cynthia, whose room I longed to lounge in and never leave—pink everything, ruffles everywhere, wallpaper with the tiniest rosebuds I had ever seen. Even the sun slanting in through her dormer window, filtered through lace, softened to a delicate and powdery light.
Before the Langs came to Cardiff and my parents began spending more and more evenings at their table, we had spent a great deal of time with the Johnsons: late-night sledding parties, taffy pulls, dinners of exotic dishes Lola had learned to cook from one native tribe or another. Cumin and curry wafted from her kitchen, and I thought I had never inhaled anything so foreign and rich, as though a hole had been dug in the earth, releasing secret and mysterious smells.
I remember their easy laughter and their patience with me when I asked to set to ticking the only metronome I had seen in my life. I remember afternoons when my mother and Lola drank coffee at our kitchen table, leaning into their whispered conversation with the intensity of message bearers. And I remember my mother, many months later, standing at the sink, crying as she read the letter Lola had sent—an explanation maybe, perhaps a plea for my mothers intervention, but nothing I can imagine now as a confession.
From the beginning, Lola had voiced her disapproval of the Langs’ ministry, casting one of the few votes against their bid for pastorship. After their arrival she continued to play the organ during service as she had always done, but now Sister Lang had a place at the piano, playing with modest composure the unembellished chords she had taught herself. Lola, a teacher of music, made the organ an instrument of exuberant praise.
I see now how she brought judgment upon herself. She prayed louder than most men, twirling in the aisle until the long fall of her auburn hair loosened from its bun and flowed around her shoulders. Sister Lang said once she had seen her at revival dance out of the sanctuary and into the foyer. “I peeked around the corner,” she told us, “and there she was, smoothing her hair and checking her teeth. Then here she came back out, singing and swaying. She thinks she’s got us all fooled, but she ain’t fooling nobody.” I remembered all the times I had heard Lola sing in the Spirit and prophesy in tongues. Even in shapeless skirts and high-necked blouses, there was something unfettered about her, something beautiful. Maybe it was this that caused Brother Lang to dream.
I sat one night in the parsonage kitchen with my parents, listening transfixed as he told of his vision: a chipmunk with eyes like obsidian rode his shoulders, whispering in his ear an evil seduction. He said that each time he reached to pull the harmless animal from his neck, it would turn into a lion. In fear, he would release his hold, and the demon would resume its original form.
He mimicked the motions, grabbing the air behind him as though dragging the thing from his neck, his eyes widening in surprised horror as he described the lion’s foul breath and glistening fangs. We felt its weight on our own shoulders as he hunched in his chair, breathed out our own relieved sighs when the monster metamorphosed back into its small squirrel body.
Finally, he straightened and opened the Bible he held in his lap, one finger marking the chosen passage:
“He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that