Stone Lake: part 35

A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg

Chapter 12 continues

The story so far: Allen visits Auntie and Uncle on the farm.

The Baptist service pleased him no more than the Lutheran service. He respected, certainly, the congregation's willingness to share their church with the woodcutter and his wife, who huddled together in a pew up front. And the enthusiasm of the minister and the congregation — shouts of "Praise the Lord" and "Hallelujah" — surprised him with its intensity and spontaneity. But the emphasis on hell and all of its torments, as it had with the Lutherans, turned him off. Had he not been with Dave and his wife, he might well have gotten up and left.

Among the congregation he spotted a couple of his students, Molly Walters, the fashion editor of the school paper, and Bruce Dunne, fullback on the football team. He would not have expected them to be Baptists. But of course they'd had no choice — no more than Ishmael did when he signed aboard the Pequod, or George Babbitt when he became a realtor. But Dave Meyers and his wife? Had they stayed with John Calvin of their own volition?

He thought that when he returned to the city he might try out the Quakers and the Unitarians. If he carried out his hopes to travel to the Far East, he might discover within himself an affinity for Buddhism or Hinduism.

What bothered him most at the moment, however, was that church and school stood in opposition to each other. What good did it do to teach the wonders of life in the classroom if in church they taught the horrors? Instead of stepping out of history to live in timeless harmony with nature, one stepped out of history to timeless torment in hell.

A week later he received another letter from Mary Zane, much longer than the previous ones, four finely written pages, blue ink on blue paper again. She told him about her routine at the infirmary, her relationship with the other nurses, her long walks, her hope to be of service to mankind.

It was a very serious letter, somewhat unlike her, and he wondered if she was unhappy. Earlier he had written to Greg about her hot fudge letter and when he was in Minneapolis the two of them had had a good laugh over it. Now he regretted it.

She told Allen that although she received letters from her mother and grandfather regularly, his were tops with her. She looked forward to getting them and hoped they would never stop. She signed her letter, as she had done at the beginning of their correspondence, "Love, Mary."

So he wrote her a very serious letter in return, free of any ironies and high-handedness. He told her that, though he applauded and envied her desire to be of service to mankind, he was not certain of his own future as yet and had not made any real commitment. He would like to travel. He would like to go back to school. At the same time, he would like to continue teaching. Above all, he wanted to continue his relationship with her, hoping it would grow. He repeated to her some of the things he had said to his classes, that although it was noble to venture out and become a citizen of the world (he loved the phrase), it was just as noble (despite Auntie and Uncle's experience) to stay home and help one's neighbors. He told her, too, that with her energy and passion for life she could succeed at anything, whatever her choice might be. He was not sure, now that winter had come to Stone Lake, that he had the same energy and passion that he'd had before. But he valued her advice, as he valued their relationship.

He wondered if he should tell her that he loved her. Instead, he said that he was very fond of her and signed his letter, "Love, Allen."

He remembered, in school, the way her eyes followed him around the classroom, the way they looked down when he turned to her and then rose shyly — sometimes almost fiercely — to his. He thought of her pale face, her body lean as a poem by Ben Jonson or Emily Dickenson, her small hands, her intelligence, her sensitivity. He imagined her as a young poet, not yet discovered. He imagined her as a background face in a Renaissance painting, one of those marvelous faces he had seen in the oil paintings hanging in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

They talked of mundane things. He asked her about her family. She told him that her father was a lawyer, the only lawyer in town, and that her mother had been a nurse when she was young. Her older brother had started college at Bemidji that fall and she had a younger sister at home. They were both very smart. As for herself, she didn't know what she wanted to do — probably next year she would go to Bemidji too.

He suggested that if she went to Bemidji she should spend her first two years looking around — she might find something she was very interested in, something she hardly knew existed now, something she'd be very good at.

She said she wasn't sure she would be good at anything.

He told her that, as her teacher, he thought she would be good at anything.