World of Trouble (The Last Policeman #3)(33)

I clear my throat. “No,” I say, and cough. “No, sir, no ma’am, I am not afflicted. Can I please come out of the room now?”


*

If there are any Amish people in the state of New Hampshire I’ve never come across one, and so my entire concept of Amishness is from culture, the cartoon version: black hats, black beards, horse-drawn buggies and candles and cows. Now she opens the door, an old woman in a faded purple dress and black bonnet, and beside her the old man, just as formidable a presence in daylight: tall and wide-bodied in a white shirt, black pants, and suspenders. Estimable chinstrap beard, black with streaks of gray. Broad forehead and large nose, eyes wary and staring above a carefully set mouth. The woman meanwhile has one hand clasped to her mouth in startled joy that I am alive, that I am well, like I am her own long-lost child.

“Come now,” she says warmly, beckoning me forward, “come on. Come along to everyone.”

I trail along behind her down a sunlit wood-floor hallway, and she is speaking quietly in English the whole way, thanking God and murmuring praise, but not the old man—he’s just a pace behind me, and when I glance at him he just looks back at me wordlessly and grave, his silence an unspoken warning. Quiet, boy. Hold your peace. The house smells like cinnamon and bread, warm and welcoming and calm. We pass three doors, two of them open to neat bedrooms like the one I was in, one closed tightly shut with a light on underneath.

Our destination is a vast sunlit kitchen, crowded with smiling people in plain dress, and as soon as I enter with the older couple everybody gasps.

“He’s okay!” shouts a little boy, no more than eight years old, and then the woman standing behind him bends and hugs him around the neck and says “Praise be to God,” and then the packed room explodes in celebration, everybody hooting and clapping their hands. “He’s alive!” they call, and clasp each other tightly. “Thank God!” Older men, younger men, girls and women, a legion of chattering children in long pants or long plain dresses, everyone embracing and gazing at me with excitement and frank fascination, their hands fluttering at their sides or raised high toward the rafters. Everybody singing out the happy news to each other, repeating the words “Alive!” and “Awake and well!” the news of my good health tossed joyfully about like rice at a wedding. The men seize my hand, one after another, young men and middle-aged men and one ancient doddering grandfather. The women don’t approach, but smile warmly, ducking their heads in murmured prayer.

I stand, quiet and confused, like an idiot savant, mute among the ruckus, unsure what I’m supposed to do. After a minute or so I raise one wrapped hand slowly, palm out, give a sort of awkward wave, and then lower it again. It’s strange, it’s so strange, there is an undeniable Twilight Zone quality to the whole thing, like here I am, a visiting god set down in an alien land.

“Sit now,” cries the old woman merrily, the one who first came to fetch me, raising her voice among the group, shooing the whole tribe into the adjacent dining room. “Let us eat.”

I let myself be guided through the bustle to a seat; I am smiling at everyone, playing up my exhaustion and confusion but paying careful attention—watching the old man, watching him watch me, my mind churning and rolling and popping. I am wondering about the pair of Asian men, the quiet immigrant laborers that Sandy described. They’re a secret is what I’m thinking, one of my new friend’s secrets. Wherever they are, they’re not invited to lunch.

Everyone arranges themselves around the circular tables in the long dining room adjacent to the kitchen. Napkins are spread on laps, and water is poured into cups from wooden pitchers. The women in their bonnets and shawls and ankle-length dresses, the men in plain white shirts without buttons, black shoes, beards. Everyone smiling at me, still, from all over the room, peering at me in my exhaustion and dishevelment.

Lunch is served: a sparse meal, loaves of bread and cooked vegetables and rabbit, but it’s food. I try to tabulate the people, sort out the relationships: the old man, my captor; three men in their late forties or fifties, who would be his sons or sons-in-law, a generation younger, same beards and coats, same stern faces, not yet grayed and lined. And women of that middle-aged set, the wives and sisters—five of them? Eight? Daughters and daughters-in-law, slipping in and out of the kitchen, carrying out platters and plates, pouring water from wooden pitchers, whispering smilingly to each other, straightening the bonnets and collars of a seemingly infinite number of small children. One bright-eyed six-or seven-year-old with big funny ears is gaping at me, and I turn and waggle one thickly bandaged hand and say “Hiya.” He smiles like crazy, turns away and rushes back over to his siblings and cousins.

Everyone at last is seated, and, suddenly, at no announcement or signal that is apparent to me, the room becomes silent and everyone closes their eyes and bows their heads.

We’re praying; we’re supposed to be praying. I keep my eyes open and look all around the room. I can see into the nearer corner of the kitchen, where there is a butter churn, wood-paneled and sturdy, the handle poking out of the basin, drops on the sides showing recent use. Eggs on the counter in a wooden bowl. It’s as if I found an escape hatch after all—you just have to travel back in time to a colonial village, where the death of our species is still four hundred years into the future.

One of the girls, I discover, is doing the same thing as me: a young teenager with red cheeks and strawberry blonde hair in simple braids, peering around the table with one eye open while everyone else prays. She catches me catching her, blushes, and looks at her food. I smile, too. You never really think of Amish people as being people, they’re this weird otherworldly category and you lump them all together in your mind, like penguins. And now here they are, these specific human people with their specific human faces.