Not one, but many. Older than old.
‘This must be it,’ Friedrich said, setting the trunk down on the track and taking the hat from his head. Thea and Anna Maria paused, breathing hard. A flock of parrots burst out of a nearby tree and they smiled at each other.
‘We’re here, then,’ Anna Maria said quietly, taking in the valley. ‘A new home.’
Thea swung her burden onto the ground. ‘Someone is coming.’
I turned and saw my father wading through the high grass towards the Eichenwalds. My heart leaped to see him, although I was struck by the way his shirt hung from his shoulders.
‘Welcome, pilgrims,’ my father announced, removing his hat and lifting it in greeting. He wiped his palm on his shirt before shaking Friedrich’s hand. I noticed the dirt sunk deep into his nails. ‘Welcome to Heiligendorf.’ He turned and, fingers to mouth, whistled hard. Soon after, I saw Matthias, followed by Hans, pushing through the grass towards them.
‘Here, boys,’ Papa called, nodding at the Eichenwalds’ belongings. ‘Give them a hand, would you?’
Matthias and Hans greeted Friedrich and Anna Maria, smiled at Thea. She seemed as shocked as I was to see how lean they were. I threw my arms around my brother’s neck as he stooped to pick up the rope handle on the side of the Eichenwalds’ trunk and breathed deeply of him. He looked like Gottlob but smelled as I remembered, of grass and chaff and sweat. I ran a hand down the side of his face, feeling the beginnings of a beard beneath my fingers.
‘Hello, Thea.’ Hans heaved the other side of the trunk into the air and he and Matthias began carrying it along the track. Papa picked up the bundle from Thea’s feet, swinging it onto his shoulder.
Friedrich indicated the nearby campsite. ‘How many are here?’
‘Most now. The first of us settled a month ago, in March. The heat! You remember? But the day we found this paradise, the creek was still flowing . . . Here, you must see what we prepared.’
The Eichenwalds followed my father, looking about them at the campsites spaced regularly along the track. Papa veered left, heading towards a small shelter slouched under a crooked gum tree. It was scarcely more than a shepherd’s hut, made from latticed branches thickened with dried mud and straw.
‘What is this then?’ asked Anna Maria as she ducked her head under the low entryway. It was dark inside, despite the open doorway and the sunlight coming through gaps in the daub. I looked up and saw that a sheet had been pinned in lieu of a ceiling. Someone had painted it with stars.
Papa set down Thea’s bag at the entrance. ‘We began work on it as soon as we finished our journey. The day we first arrived, we raised our hands to the sky and thanked the Lord. The Holy Spirit moved amongst us and we agreed that a church must be built as soon as we had collected all our belongings, before the surveyor had even marked out the allotments, before we had built our own shelters.’
Hans glanced up at the bedsheet, then at Thea. Mirth twitched at his mouth.
Papa noticed. ‘It’s not much at the moment,’ he admitted, ‘but we shall improve it. Imagine . . .’ Papa said, turning to Friedrich and trailing his hand through the air as though presenting a miracle. ‘Imagine the spire that will rise here, the bell that will call us to work, will call us to rest and worship!’ He seized Friedrich’s hand once more. ‘“Rejoice, ye who act in faith. The Lord shall reward thee.”’
‘Very fine,’ Friedrich said, smiling. He glanced sideways, to his wife. ‘Has Pastor Flügel seen it?’
‘We’ve sent word for him to come and dedicate the church. He will move between here and Neu Klemzig every six weeks or so. We must find him a horse so that we do not have to hold all our weddings and funerals at once. The dead do not like to wait.’
Hans grinned at Matthias. ‘Neither do the betrothed.’
‘It is Sunday tomorrow –’ Friedrich began.
‘Christian Pasche will deliver the sermon,’ my father said, interrupting him.
‘My father has delivered all the sermons thus far,’ Hans added.
‘And did Herr Pasche suggest the name Heiligendorf?’ asked Anna Maria.
‘That was me,’ my father said, finally turning to her. ‘A fitting name for a place where all seek to walk in Christ’s footsteps. Our holy village.’
Anna Maria smiled without showing her teeth.
Papa turned back to Friedrich. ‘I’ll fetch the surveyor so that you might draw your lot of land. But first, let us give thanks for your safe arrival.’ He waited until all was silent. ‘Dearest God, I thank you for giving us this rich and fertile land so that we may prosper and serve you in freedom. “Truly, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”’
‘Papa, I may turn into a tree at will,’ I said and kissed him on his slumped eyelid.
‘Amen’, said Papa. ‘Amen.’
The land rented by the congregation had already been subdivided, the layout of the village drawn up as a Hufendorf, a horseshoe of narrow homesteads that surrounded the crooked gum, the wattle-and-daub church and the place for the school that would one day be built. The surveyor, a pleasant man of some education from Züllichau, explained to Friedrich and Anna Maria that each family or married couple in the congregation would receive an equal share of one acre, enough for a house, garden and small farm, and that they would all have access to some communal land for grazing. Each allotment was numbered and corresponded to small folded pieces of paper that the surveyor kept in a chipped milk jug. He had tried to be as equitable as possible in terms of land size, fertility and access to water, he explained, but it was clear from my father’s expression that the number Friedrich drew from the jug was one of the better allotments.
‘The soil here is unquestionable proof of divine blessing,’ Papa said as he led the Eichenwalds to their land. ‘Here, this is where you will live. I am just beyond, where all those trees are. Your allotment is already mostly clear.’ Papa kneeled down and parted the tall grass with his hands, looking up at Friedrich with his good eye. ‘Here is God’s providence! Look.’ Papa pulled up some of the grass, showing Friedrich the soil beneath. He pinched some with his fingers and spread the rich, dark earth across his palm. ‘There is at least three feet of topsoil in some places. Three feet! It makes me pity those who decided to stay on at Neu Klemzig. May God bless them. Trying to grow cabbages out of that gravel pit.’ He wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘It’s soft. Spongy. You can feel the goodness under your feet. God has given us a park. Truly, we have much to thank Him for.’
‘Captain Olsen, too,’ added Friedrich, bending to the ground to examine the earth.
‘Yes, he is the Lord’s agent. Wait until you taste the water here.’
‘Pure?’ asked Friedrich.
My father laughed and threw his hat in the air.