Visions of Liberty Part 5

Rebecca sat in her bed. Esther stood over her with a sponge. They thought she had a fever of some sort, but Rebecca looked like she had recovered already. She smiled when she saw me and apologized.

"I'm feeling much better now," she said. "I think it has pa.s.sed."

"Well, let's make sure," I said. "Have you had any other dizzy spells?"

Rebecca chewed her lip.

She had.

"Are there any strange lumps on your body?"

The quizzical look in return sank me. I ran through the questions. And then under the watchful eye of her father I ran my hands over her pale white body, looking for the intrusions. She sucked in her breath slightly when I ran my fingers up the sides of her ribs.

"Your hands are cold," she said.

I didn't look at her face, but continued. It was bittersweet that the first time I touched her body was for medical reasons.

And that I found what I knew I had to find.

My lovely Rebecca had breast cancer. Maybe if she were more aware of her body, she would have been worried sooner. But even then, what could I have done on this world that permitted her the freedom to die in agony? It was advanced, metastasizing no doubt, spreading throughout her entire body.

When I stood up David Yoder caught my eye and nodded me out the door. We walked down through the kitchen to his porch.

"You know what's wrong," he said. It was not a question.

I nodded.

"Well?" he demanded.

"She has cancer."

I sat on the bench, leaned my head against the rough plank wall, and blinked. My eyes were a bit wet.

David didn't say anything after that. He stood near me on the porch for a while, then went into the house.

Ben came out.

"Dad says to use one of our horses. I'll take you out to the barn."

I didn't reply. Ben sat next to me and clapped my shoulders.

"It'll be okay," he said. "G.o.d will protect her."

I looked the boy straight in the eye. Was he really that naive?

I woke up numb. The alarm clock rang until I slapped the switch down, my motions every bit as mechanical as the clock's.

The bed creaked as I sat on its edge. Two days' worth of half-open books lay all around me, some of them buried in my covers.

Candle wax dripped over the edges of a plate on my bed stand, the translucent stalact.i.tes almost reaching to the floor. I picked the nearest book up. The margin had a scribble in it:DY-99 . Underneath it I had written a single question mark.

"Brother Hostetler?" came the strong shout of David Yoder from my front door. "Are you awake?

"Yes."

I stood up and pulled on my clothes, tying my rope belt off in a quick knot. A faceful of cold water dashed away my morning fuzziness. David's buggy waited outside, the horse looking as impatient as David was to get going.

Raisings were probably the most popular depiction of the culture among outsiders. Maybe it was just that it was a very attractive picture of community, and that was something they had in abundance. Many hands make light work, and there were many hands here at the edge of Yoder's property. Tables held food, lines of breads, preserves, and fruit juices. Soups simmered in iron pots. Women chatted and kids ran around, dodging around legs, tables, chairs, and whatever else served as a convenient obstacle course.

And the men gathered around the foundation of what would become Ben's home. We set to building his house together. It was more than just a community event, but a gift. When we were done Ben would have a home. A beginning.

We toiled together under the sun, hammering joints, then pulling walls up with ropes. Time pa.s.sed quickly. The frame was up at lunch, and we broke to eat. Then we continued. At some point in mid-evening I stepped back, sweaty and out of breath, and looked up at a complete house.

They could have ordered a pre-fab, of course. It would have gone up faster and lasted longer. No law against it. But . . .

At the meal, when all the men sat in rows at the tables and ate, I walked over to David Yoder's house.

Rebecca sat on the back stairs, looking out over the fields at the gathering. She had her skirt tucked neatly under her legs.

I sat next to her. We could just see the picnic tables over the rows of wheat shifting with the changing directions of little wind gusts.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Much better," she said.

"Why aren't you out there, then?"

"Father told me to stay here, and rest myself."

I reached over and held her hand. She looked down at it.

"When you touched me . . ." she began. She caressed my hand. "I liked that." Suddenly she blushed and looked away.

We sat there silently for a long time, watching the stalks of wheat dance, running our fingers each over the other's.

"Are you frightened?" I asked at last.

"I was mad," Rebecca said. "Now I'm scared. I've done everything right. I go to church. I respect my parents. I do my best to be kind to all. Why is G.o.d punishing me?" She squeezed my hand, and pulled it to her cheek. "I don't want to die."

DY-99, I thought.

"You don't have to."

Rebecca looked up at me, curious, hope in her eyes.

"You know a cure?"

"There are many cures, though I have never been permitted to apply them here," I answered. "If we leave, we can go to the s.p.a.ceport. You heard the Englishers' ship land. They haven't left yet. They will study the area for a bit, look around to make sure the s.p.a.ceport is okay, and then leave again. They can take us to a hospital. We can easily cure you there."

Rebecca grabbed my forearm.

"But would they take us up with them?"

"Yes." One of the reasons they kept the s.p.a.ceport cleared, and a regular schedule, was for reasons like this. A small percentage of the inhabitants changed their mind and took the subtle offer.

Rebecca leaned against me. "My parents will not approve."

"They can't stop you," I said. "This is your life we're talking about." I kissed her hair. It smelled of fresh bread and pumpkin pie. "Come with me."

She stood up, letting go of my hand. "The hospital," she said. "Can they . . . really . . . ?"

"Yes. Don't pack anything," I told her. "Just be ready."

"Tonight?"

I looked back down the road we would have to take to get to DY-99. "Later tonight."

Rebecca walked back into the house. I saw her falter for a second, and she held on to the edge of a table for support. I winced.

I approached David. I felt wrong for deceiving him slightly as I asked him about a good deal for one of his horses.

He smiled and stroked his beard.

"We wondered how many more days it would take before you got tired of asking for rides," he said. He named a price and I agreed on the spot. I could have d.i.c.kered a little, but I wanted to go home as soon as I could.

We walked to the stables, and David led my new horse out. He was a st.u.r.dy young fellow. I chose not to pay too much attention, though, as I would be leaving him behind soon enough.

"HerrDoctor," David said. "You still feel badly about young Suderman?"

"Yes," I said. "I could have saved him."

"All the good health in the world would be useless with an empty life, or in a community that had rotted away."

"If there is no one alive to appreciate the community," I said, "then it is all pointless."

"You believe this is all pointless, then."

"No." I leaned my head against the horse, smelling its musky sweat. It shifted. "No. But itis wasteful." I broke into the words of the Hippocratic oath: "Into whatsoever house I shall enter, it shall be for the good of the sick to the utmost of my power . . . and then to also believe in the community and follow our practices."

"Did you antic.i.p.ate being torn like this? Before you came to New Pennsylvania?"

"No," I said. "I was wrong. I thought on a world with total freedom that a doctor would be free to cure the sick."

"But youdo tend to the sick."

"With methods and cures that haven't changed in five hundred years," I said bitterly. "Out there"-I waved my hand at the stars-"they replace hearts and lungs as easily as you replace a torn shirt. Yethere . . .".

"You should have looked deeper into your heart before making the decision to come here."

"Then who would have tried to save Mark Suderman?" I said. "I lose far too many patients, patients I could save anywhere else-but I do savesome ."

"He was saved the day he made the decision to join the church," David Yoder said with a certainty that I wished I possessed. About anything.

"It's getting near dark," I said. "I will be going now."

"Gute nacht."

I pushed the horse to a run after I was out of sight.

I threw two suitcases of clothes together. In my desk I pulled out something I never thought I would need, but had kept anyway. It was a wallet, and inside were plastic cards that on any other world would link me to lines of credit and old friends. I hitched the new horse to my spare buggy and tossed the suitcases in the back.

A horse and buggy turned onto the gravel of my drive. I was sure it was David Yoder, but I was wrong.

Two Elders, Zebediah Walshman and his brother, Paul, pulled aside the storm curtains.

"William Hostetler?"

I walked up to the buggy.

"Yes."

"We talked to Brother Yoder. He feels you are going through a crisis," Paul said.

Zebediah looked over at my buggy. "Are you leaving for a while, William?"

"Possibly," I said.

"You are going to the Englanders?"

I didn't reply.

"We can't deny you that choice," Paul said. "But you will not take Rebecca with you."

They turned the buggy back around and rattled off down the road. My heart pounded, my throat dried with nervousness. I walked back to my buggy and kicked at a wheel with my boot. The pain was briefly satisfying.

The air was chilly, and as I turned up the road toward the house I extinguished the buggy's road lamp. I stopped the horse a bit down from the usual post, tying him to a tree. I patted his neck and jumped the ditch onto David Yoder's farm.

It took me a few long minutes in the pitch black to find a ladder. The notion of it-a clandestine meeting with a ladder in the twenty-third century-struck me as ludicrous. But there was nothing ludicrous about the purpose of it. I walked it over to the point under Rebecca's window and leaned the ladder against the side of the house as gently as I could.

She was waiting. She opened the window, bunched up her skirts, and got onto the ladder. It creaked as she came down step by agonizing step.