Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [41]
Enoch knew, of course, that previous prophets of the End had come unstuck by getting the date wrong. Because the book of Revelation gave the number of the Beast as 666, there had been widespread panic, and rapture, toward the end of AD 665. But the following year had passed without incident, as far as global destruction was concerned. Then the idea took root that mankind’s term on earth was a thousand years. So Christendom was seized by terror and joy in the year 1000. There was anarchy, in fact. Lawless mobs roamed Europe, looting and pillaging and raping on the grounds that they were doomed anyway, so what the hell. But the sun rose, as per usual, on the first day of 1001. (The Muslims, who worked to a different calendar, laughed up their sleeves at the foolish Christians.)
Nevertheless, the dread of dates with zeroes in them persisted. (Enoch’s younger brother, Amos, was among many who came to believe that AD 2000 was the cutoff date. He became a vegetarian in the hope that he would live long enough to be a witness to the cataclysm. To his great disappointment, however, he would die in 1998.) Other dates had come and gone. The American prophet William Miller had announced that the Last Day would occur in 1843. When annihilation failed to occur, the date was revised to 1844 — October 22, to be precise. October 23, 1844, eventually became known as the day of the Great Disappointment.
Despite all this, Enoch Hoseason believed that the recurrence of particular numbers throughout the Bible, especially those in the book of Revelation, would, as the angel had promised, give him a date. The fact that earlier prophets had got it wrong did not daunt him. That men had failed to discover a thing did not mean that it did not exist. Australia, for example, had been there all the time. So, neglecting work, food, and rest, he made abstruse calculations on sheet after sheet of paper. Eventually he came up with the five numbers 2, 8, 10, 6, and 2:October 28, 1962. Soon. Very soon; hence the urgency of the vision. Hosanna!
The date of the End, the search for it, had not blinded Enoch to the other message of the Scriptures: that there are those who will be saved, those whose penitence and purity of heart will pluck them from the fire and seat them upon the white pews surrounding the eternal throne of the Lord. Obviously — because the angels had appeared in his, Enoch’s, forge — the Brethren were the Chosen. While this was joyous, it was also a problem. Should they be told? If they knew, might they become complacent? Might they cease to spread the word, cease to labor in the sour fields of sin, sowing the seeds of salvation? Might they — God forbid — slacken into sin themselves?
Enoch prayed energetically for guidance, but none came. He was not disappointed; he understood that the vision brought with it hard responsibilities. So at last he summoned the Brethren to his house and shared the revelation, swearing them to secrecy. Their joy and their fierce resolve assured him that he had done the right thing. Amos wept glittering tears of delight and beat upon his breast repeatedly. Jonathan Eldon uttered inspired words. Win Little rocked in her seat, hugging her stout old body, thanking the Lord for releasing her, at long last, from slavery and whoredom. Not to mention a bleddy uppity son-in-law.
Enoch Hoseason was a big man. Not tall, but wide and powerful; a compressed giant. On the Saturday after he’d shared his vision with the Brethren, he carried the massive anvil from his forge, hugging it to his chest, and set it down in the archway facing the marketplace. Those who happened to witness the feat were mightily impressed. He was accompanied by Amos and Jonathan. Each carried blackboards painted with ominous passages from the Scriptures. They positioned them on either side of the arch. Enoch began to preach to the small but swelling crowd of onlookers. He punctuated his sermon by smiting the anvil with a heavy, long-handled mallet.
“Ye shall die. Be certain, ye shall die.”
CLANG!
“And