‘I knew at once you didn’t like her,’ Thea said, as we walked along the fence line that separated the Pasches’ land from my father’s. It was snowing heavily, white slowly covering the dun of the bare fields.
‘I never said that,’ I said. ‘She just . . .’ I hesitated, wondering how to explain that I yearned for Christiana’s approval and yet hated to be in her company. ‘She makes me feel . . . I don’t know. As though I am nothing.’ I took a deep breath. Cold air flooded my lungs.
Thea blew on her fingers and shrugged. ‘She sounds awful.’ We were standing in the Pasches’ rye field, snow catching on the stubble of the ground. ‘Where should we go?’
‘I can show you the other houses. Or I can take you to the river. It’s a bit cold.’
Thea shook her head. ‘Take me there.’
I turned and saw she was pointing to the church spire, empty sky showing where the bell used to hang.
‘It’s locked,’ I said.
‘Take me anyway.’
It is strange to think of that old church in Kay now that I am surrounded by sunlight and birdsong and the rustle of gum leaves. It seems a dead thing, in my memory. Even before it was locked, I remember it as dark and cold, as having nothing to do with God. I never mourned the church when it was forbidden to us – the forest was the more magnificent cathedral – and I never understood my father when, in a rare mood of despondency, he would reminisce about Sunday mornings of worship held there, the sound of voices echoing off the ceiling, still blue and gilt from an earlier life of Catholicism.
No doubt the church in Kay is in use again. I pity the faithful who attend it. Why do men bother with churches at all when instead they might make cathedrals out of sky and water?
Better a chorus of birds than a choir. Better an altar of leaves. Baptise me in rainfall and crown me with sunrise. If I am still, somehow, God’s child, let me find grace in the mysteries of bat-shriek and honeycomb.
Thea and I stepped through the graves, wooden crosses tilting in the frozen ground in various attitudes of age, and reached the heavy doors of the church. The varnish was peeling, snow sticking to the wrought iron spidering out from the boards. A heavy chain was looped through the handles.
Thea lay her hands flat on the doors and turned to me. ‘Shall we go inside?’
I pointed to the chain.
‘Here.’ Thea cast about to make sure no one was coming past, then pushed her shoulder against the door. After some resistance, the doors groaned apart, the chain jolting tight. Cold air reached us from within, smelling of stone and dust.
Thea glanced down. ‘Do you think you could squeeze in the gap?’
‘No.’
‘Try.’
I bent down and poked my head into the space. ‘Don’t let go now,’ I called out to Thea. ‘That door will crush my neck.’
‘Hurry up then,’ I heard Thea say.
I wriggled in further, turning sideways to squeeze my shoulders painfully past the wooden edge, and managed to haul myself forwards, my clogs falling off my feet. For a moment I lay prostrate in the aisle, eyes raised to the altar, before the door creaked closed behind me and the light was extinguished.
‘Thea?’ I stood and felt my way to the door, pressed my ear against the boards. The awful thought that she had left me in there, had trapped me as some kind of trick, dropped through my stomach. ‘Thea?!’
Silence, and then I heard her voice, muffled, on the other side. ‘Pull the handle!’ A fist, thumping.
I found the iron grip and yanked with all my strength. The door eased open again, daylight striped across the wooden pews, and I saw Thea’s red headscarf appear in the gap. I stood to one side as she wriggled in on her stomach.
‘You can close it now,’ she said, rising to her feet, grinning.
‘No, it’s pitch-dark when it’s shut.’
Thea looked up and noticed the boards covering the windows, then took off a wooden clog and jammed it in the doorway. I let go. Dust rose in the narrow belt of daylight.
‘I can’t believe we’re in here,’ I whispered.
‘Why not?’
‘It’s . . . sacred.’
Thea walked down the aisle towards the altar, outstretched fingers brushing over the backs of the pews. ‘Sacredness is in the gathering of believers who come around God’s word,’ she said, voice echoing. ‘Wherever that may be. Not in a building.’ She turned around. ‘What happened to this place?’ she asked.
‘The commissioner came a few years ago,’ I whispered. ‘We all stood in front of the door and sang hymns until he left. But then he sent soldiers to come and arrest Pastor Flügel. My father and the other elders barred the way and read scripture to them while the pastor fled.’ I shivered, remembering my father’s mouth, wide with the word of God, the horses’ nostrils flaring inches away.
‘Did that work?’
‘No. They broke through. When they realised the pastor had gone, they let their horses shit in here. I remember cleaning it up afterwards, all the women singing hymns.’ I sat down in a pew on the women’s side. ‘Now, whenever I hear “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott”, I smell manure.’
Thea sat down next to me.
‘They came back,’ I added. ‘They came searching for Pastor Flügel and ransacked homes. Then they arrested people and chained the doors of the church.’
We were silent a moment.
‘Do you hear anything in here?’ she asked. ‘Singing?’
I shook my head. ‘Only outside.’
The snow on Thea’s headscarf was melting. She took it off and shook the water from it, then balled it in her lap. In the low light her hair seemed to glow. ‘You know what you said about Christiana earlier?’ she murmured.
‘Mm.’
Thea leaned against me in the pew. ‘Well, I don’t think you’re nothing.’
Blood rushed to my face. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
We stayed in that church abandoned to dust and mice droppings, talking in hushed voices, finding empty swallow nests and tracing our fingers over the engravings in the dry baptismal font, until the light began to dim. When I suggested to Thea that she ought to go to ensure she could return home before nightfall, she went to the door and bent down to retrieve her clog.
She looked up at me, alarmed. ‘I can hear voices.’
I froze.
‘Quick,’ she said, pulling her shoe free. ‘Close it.’
I pushed the door shut and the church collapsed into darkness. Sinking to the floor, I felt Thea find my hand and hold it, hardly daring to breathe. From the other side of the door came the faint suggestion of women’s conversation.
‘Did you see who it was?’ I asked, bending my mouth to Thea’s ear.
‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘The Radtkes. Probably coming back from your house.’
We waited in silence. In the thick darkness I was aware only of the fading murmur of voices outside, Thea’s fingers entwined with mine and then, when we could no longer hear anything, when we creaked the door ajar and glanced out, faces pressed cheek to cheek, our bodies seizing with laughter and relief.
giblets and bacon