Confusion always accompanied Communion. Evelyn had seen golden scissors, a broken clock, animal bones, rusted farm implements and an orphaned puzzle piece on this day alone. All held high by proud hands attached to brows heavily knitted with wonder. Inside each brown paper wrapped package was an object with a lesson for the individual who chose it. Everyone knew that until the lesson was learned, the name would not be called again to receive Communion and no advancement would be made within the Church.
When brother Ovid had finished presenting the delicate, fractured spectacles he had received, he looked with a nervous, half smile to Evelyn standing next in line. She looked to her feet and moved timidly toward the box. She did not raise her eyes, but as she reached inside she could feel the moist, gentle breath of the White Elephant towering over her. Evelyn felt her hand drawn to the package intended for her by a soft, breathing warmth that radiated from it.
She sensed the curious eyes of the congregation, of Reverend Godwell upon her as she hastily tore at the brown paper beneath the knowing gaze of the Elephant. The sight of the object bared was difficult for everyone to believe. She held it up for all to see, hope sparkling within her as the Great Hall was blanketed with gasps and murmuring.
No one had seen such a thing since the purification. Every last one was supposed to have been destroyed in the pyre. Yet what Evelyn held by its supple, plastic leg was undeniably a doll, a baby doll.
Everyone knew how she dreamed of having a child of her own. Even though she didn’t have a suitor really, her thoughts that weren’t spent in worship or prayer, were consumed with caring for a baby. A healthy, beautiful baby. Suckling it, cuddling with it, singing it to sleep cradled in her arms. But since the plague of deformed, goat-like children and the tragic disease that befell their mothers, the Church had forbidden any attempts at pregnancy, even among long married couples.
The Reverend Sarnhim Godwell had learned from the White Elephant of the curse on the town of Hatry, of the demons that tempted the flesh to take strange forms here. The congregation must be vigilant, he preached, against any manifestation of the weird wills of these creatures that invaded the walls of their very homes. This was the necessity of the purification.
Evelyn was there, that day in the Great Hall when the White Elephant, Itself had spoken. Before then Godwell had been Its only voice. But that day the air grew an eerie stillness and the hearts of all attending beat with a clean, new rhythm as the soulrending pipe organ of Its voice fell upon them like a baptism. She felt strings like deep memory, plucked within her by the wisdom of its fingers.
It spoke of the horrible sadness of those who waste their lives away wanting, staring at pictures, playing with toys. They listen to demon promises whispered from walls and from dolls, seeking desperately for the false to be made real. That was why they turned against each other, and themselves. And this strange want for inhumanity allowed that very thing to creep into their bodies, into their offspring. Causing the womb to coat with an agar, feeding the sinful wills of the flesh to distort itself from its rightful design and natural uses. Everyone understood this was how the goat children had come to be. And this was why they had to go.
The faithful of the congregation had to rid themselves of these things, of anything that led one’s thoughts to the objectification of humanity. Lest the brothers become perverts and rapists, the sisters whores and bastard factories.
The White Elephant had spoken that day and not again. No one questioned Its holy words. The necessity of the purification was understood. The brothers carried out the more unpleasant work, though Evelyn and many of the other sisters had stood watching the fire, scarves covering their noses from the acrid stench of burning hair and cloth, of flesh and plastic and photographic emulsion. Their hands hiding their ears from the terrible bleating.
A sort of status was gained among the sisters who brought their dolls to be burned. The older, the more beautiful, the more cherished the doll, the greater the show of loyalty, of faith when they threw it to the flames. Evelyn watched dear friends from her childhood, many of porcelain, wood and cloth, catching, bursting with light. Even family heirlooms and pieces from her own hope chest purified to safe, sterile ash. Each one had a name, was a sacrifice and gained her a new measure of respect to be enjoyed in the eyes of her newfound brothers and sisters.
Those same eyes that now looked upon her and her plastic infant with fear and mistrust. Even her friends, Beatrice Darvy and Grizelda Orr, standing next in line respectively, looked upon her with a scantily subdued revulsion. Her hopeful smile outwardly faded as she lowered her arm and her head and walked down the side aisle back to her seat. But as she settled into the pew, she cradled the doll close to her. She could hardly keep her eyes from it, barely raised them to see the plain, white porcelain mask Beatrice had received, or Grizelda’s glass eye. And she was not the only one.
She bowed out of conversation apologetically to the few who tried to speak to her after the service, wanting to hurry to her house, to secret herself away with her treasure. At home, she sat in the privacy of her bedroom and ran her fingers along its plump curves, stroked its dark hair, the cheeks of the feminine face. Evelyn looked into its painted green eyes and knew her name was January. Those painted green eyes that seemed to be looking back at her. She thought she understood. She thought she could do it. She could prove she would be a fit mother, prove it to Beatrice, to Grizelda, to all of them. She would show the White Elephant how much love she could give a child, how much she deserved it.
In the weeks that followed, she braved the apprehensive looks of the customers at Horlocker’s General and of the Horlockers themselves as she purchased baby clothes, a crib and a used perambulator. She ignored the gawking of members of the congregation as she rocked her baby in church. Sometimes January cried and Evelyn did her best to quiet her. She woke with her at night and nursed her back to sleep, dreaming that she felt hungry lips quivering at her nipple, the cool plastic softening to flesh.
Evelyn took every opportunity to show what a good mother she was, often mothering in public as much as in private, so that others might see. All over town folks saw her reading to January, singing to her, cuddling her close and cooing her or gently scolding her when she knocked something over or mischievously threw her rattle.
Still, she must have been doing something wrong. She hadn’t been called again for Communion and rumors were starting to spread. She had suspicions that Grizelda might be in on it, but she ran home crying the day she overheard the awful things Beatrice was whispering with some of the other sisters about how she “must not be taking very good care of that baby”.
Evelyn began to grow frustrated and ashamed. She was doing everything she could, everything a good mother would, but more and more she felt shunned, contempted. She watched the Reverend’s eyes admonish those returning to receive, those whose goals had been achieved and were ready for the next step. And she saw how he looked at her with that odd pity, especially when she tended to January. As if he was deaf to her cries, blind to her spitting up.
Her endurance was slowly giving out. She could barely tolerate the constant whispering that followed her. It hurt. It made her angry, made her want to lash out at them. But she knew they couldn’t see how hard she had tried to care for the baby. They weren’t there when January cried inconsolably into the wee hours. They didn’t know how difficult it was to anticipate her needs, her wants. They didn’t have to deal with her unresponsiveness or her needless, unblinking, want-for-nothing stare, so mocking and ungrateful. They didn’t know how it cut her when those eyes seemed defiant, like she didn’t realize all her mother had done for her. They couldn’t possibly understand how bad her heart ached for those baby toes to wiggle, for a smile, a breath.
One night Evelyn could no longer stand it. She had sat on the floor of her kitchen, staring at January in her high chair. For four and a half hours, just staring. Growing a garden of rage in the heartless plastic soil of her face. That stupid, vacant expression, the mute idiot’s whistle of the pursed lips, as if to belittle her. Ooh, Mommy’s mad. Evelyn gritted curses at the thing through her teeth.
“Why don’t you move? Why don’t you breathe? Why don’t you love me?”
Evelyn stood finally, suddenly and grabbed the doll beneath the arms, shaking it, screaming at it.
“You don’t even care do you? You never did! You’re not a baby! You’re not real! You’re just junk! Just plastic junk!”
And she was surprised at how hard she had thrown the thing against the wall, horrified at how its brittle plastic had shattered. What had she done? How could she have done what she had? Her throat tightened with a moan and her mouth fell open from the pain of the tears to come as she looked at the plastic shards still wobbling around the small, ruined body. Her face fell deeply into her hands and she cried herself to sleep on the floor in the thralls of her failure.
In the morning, she gathered the remnants of her lifeless child into a shoe box, worrying over every tiny piece. She felt like a husk, all of her dreams of ideal and wonderous motherhood had been hollowed from her. How could she face them now, knowing how they would look at her? And after such deep want, what might the penance be for what she had done? She thought of gluing January back together, pretending nothing had happened, lying, hiding. But she knew she could not hide from the White Elephant. It could see into her heart. She would have to own up to what she did. Though even her clothes felt heavy with defeat, Evelyn forced herself to get ready for church.
No one was about as she walked down June Street, pitifully clutching her child’s cardboard coffin to her chest. Service had already begun and she was late. The bells sounded the start of Communion and though she was tired, sore and in dread of her penance, she hurried to the Church. The last of the ringing was dying out as she reached the front steps. She hugged the box tightly and said a silent prayer before gently pushing open the large, wooden door. Try as she might, she could not keep it from creaking. There was no sneaking in. The eyes of every brother and sister were on her as she entered humbly bowing her head. As she glanced about their faces, expecting scowls and shock, instead she was met with respectful smiles and looks of approval. The air was intoxicatingly light and Evelyn wandered with small steps, looking at their faces, confused and unsure even if she should sit.
A brief angelic trumpeting issued from the White Elephant, drawing the attention to the pulpit at the front of the Great Hall. Then Evelyn heard the Reverend Godwell’s voice. Calling her name. Calling her, to take her place at the front of the line.