The Language of Paradise: A Novel by Barbara Klein Moss

while she was washing the dishes, making sheep-eyes and talking in a fluting voice. “ Oh, Mr. Birdsall, won’t you please sit in my rocker? I do believe it’s the nicest one of all! ” Mama shushed him, but with a smile. “I’m glad you spoke up, Sophy,” she said. “It’s about time you acquired some conversation.”
    She has at last escaped to her easel, and is trying to lose herself in the English country scene that she started last week. The charm of the picture was all in her mind: her greenery is muddy, her thatch-roofed cottage is a woodshed wearing a wig. Usually she expends some Christian zeal on her poorer efforts—ye downtrodden one, I will lift ye up—but this afternoon her attention strays. The painting’s flaws are no match for the shining countenance of their guest, whose blue eyes have surely dwelled on celestial vistas.
    The day has been filled with revelations. Sophy has read in the Bible that angels walk among us in the guise of men, but where is it written that they have surnames and hearty appetites? She’d fled from him this morning, hardly knowing why, and when he reappeared at church and spoke to her, she was like Micah, words frozen in her throat, thawing finally in humblest form. Asparagus was all she could offer, laying it at his altar like the poor gawking farmers at the Manger, giving what they had. It took all the courage she had to look into those eyes, but once she did, she knew they’d keep each other’s secrets: he would never tell about her dancing and she would never tell about his disguise. On the way home, Papa preached at his prize pupil, making a public show of him, and she thought, O foolish mortal, you know not who comes to your door.
    The grace he said moved her to tears. Papa’s students usually rambled on and on, adding dollops of Scripture to impress the professor, but Mr. Birdsall’s words had been simple and sincere. She had been touched by the image of the poor wanderer gazing with longing at lighted windows. Who would imagine that a higher nature could be lonely for the homely comforts of ordinary men? But how poignant—how piercing to the heart—that it should be so!
    His appetite at dinner stirred her in another way. He had devoured two plates of stewed chicken and a thick slice of pork, and sampled every dish that Mama offered him with fervent thanks. (Very mannerly, Mama had called him afterward.) Sophy isn’t sure why watching him eat was a cause for wonder. The sensible part of her knows that if Mr. Birdsall relishes food, he must have, inside his ethereal casing, innards and organs like other men. Yet, he wears his body as carelessly as he wears his clothes. After years of Sunday sermons, she’s learned to distrust words like “spirit”—limp and thin like much-fingered cloth—but if anyone possesses the elusive quality, Mr. Birdsall does. It’s as though he deigns to hunger, and having been humbled with needs, takes an innocent delight in their satisfaction.
    Sophy will never understand what prompted her to speak to him at dinner. Mama seated him directly across from her, and every time he looked her way, she blushed to think that he’d seen her as no one else ever had—as shameless as Salome and, in one sense, nearly as bare. After their awkward exchange in her garden, she’d tried to make herself invisible, but the words were out of her mouth before the thought was in her head. Her rocking chair, of all subjects. He’d asked her to point it out after dinner. A casual gesture, requiring minimal motion on Sophy’s part, yet since she’s been sitting here, she’s contrived at least eight different ways to accomplish it.
    Sophy gazes out the window. Over two hours have passed since Papa took him to the study. A half-hour is the usual allotment, measured to the minute by the Reverend’s pocket watch, and then the dazed scholar is sent on his way, laden with books and cautions. A sobering thought comes to her. Mr. Birdsall probably left