Early Warning

Janet stood up from her chair and walked down the narrow hallway, which was bright now (it had a skylight, the feature that had made Janet like this place in spite of its proximity to the railroad tracks). She made sure she had both arms under and around Emily — she was a big baby. She tried not to stagger, just to balance carefully on each foot as she made her way toward Jared. He would be very surprised to learn about the massacre, and even more surprised to learn that Janet had had anything to do with these people. She had told him a few things about her life in California — that she had a long-term boyfriend who was in a band, that she worked in a wonderful restaurant and learned to love authentic Italian food, that she lived in a communal arrangement. She let him tease her about being a hippie — he was from Rochester, Minnesota. It could be that she was the only person in Iowa who knew any of these people, or who had ever been inside the Peoples Temple. Cat. Jorge. Janet’s face was wet, and by the time Jared sat up in bed, she was standing over him coughing and choking with shock. Being Jared, he reached up, ever so tactfully, and took Emily out of her arms.

Jared said, “What’s the matter?” Janet intended to reply, but found she couldn’t say anything. She went over and collapsed on her side of the bed. Jared sat holding the baby in the bright morning light, staring down at her in alarm; then he said, “Are you okay? Did something hurt you? Did you fall down?” Janet shook her head. She closed her eyes for a moment, but she knew there was only one thing to do, so she got to her feet, went to the kitchen, and brought back the paper. She handed it to Jared, who was sitting up, holding Emily to his shoulder, and took Emily. She lay down, set Emily beside her, and put her to the right breast again. She pressed against Jared; his hand on her hip, he kept reading, then said, “Oh my God.”

Lying between the two of them, Janet felt safe enough finally to focus on Lucas. Until right now, she would have said that she had worked through her feelings about Lucas. First off, he had been incredibly attractive, so talented and joyous and good-looking. And, as Aunt Eloise had said, unself-conscious in a strange way. Anyone would be attracted to him, and lots of women and girls were. Second, telling Lucas what to do was the same as telling him what not to do — if he identified something as an order, he resisted. This perversity Janet found to be both daring and sexy. Third, their last year in the Temple had been fraught with conflict, and, she understood now, they both hated conflict. It was as though the Reverend had infused them with alien personalities, and to what end Janet still could not understand. All the things she knew about the Peoples Temple were contradictory — that people were happy and unhappy, that people loved one another and felt tormented by one another, that Jones was a preacher and an atheist, that he loved his followers and hated them. That they had been alive and were now dead. Aunt Eloise had said, in her cynical way, “Sounds like God to me,” and maybe, Janet thought, the Temple was just the world, concentrated and sped up so that you gave up understanding it and bowed your head in prayer. But Lucas. Was he dead?

Jared laid the paper on the floor. “Well, that’s a piece of news. Amazing. Lots more to come. I guess the CIA got Congressman Ryan after all.”

Janet said, “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, you know, Ryan. Didn’t you ever see him? He was from San Fran. He authored the Hughes-Ryan Act. Ryan was after Jones for years, and finally made it so they had to report covert ops to Congress. Now they must have—”

“You sound so detached.” Jared had a thing about the CIA; another thing Janet had not ever told him was about her uncle Arthur.

“Well, I am detached. I mean, it’s shocking, but you had to see it coming. Jones was a nut.”

“I did see it coming,” said Janet, not quite knowing what she meant. She had told Jared only that she had gone to the Temple a couple of times — everyone did — and had known people who were really into it. Now she looked down at Emily, her savior. She had gotten pregnant the first time they went out, simply because she was too lazy to get up and find her diaphragm, simply because she hadn’t expected to end up with Jared Nelson, computer programmer, in her bed. They had gotten married when she was four months along. She had lucked out, or buyer’s delight had kicked in — he was right for her, good for her, after wandering in a dark wood, she found the path back to the village. In the village, the streets were clean and straight, gardens were planted, the villagers friendly. Little Red Riding Hood didn’t have to say where she had been — they fed her, gave her a job, and laughed about the Big Bad Wolf, what a monster he was, so self-involved and grandiose, just stay away from that guy. And then the bonus — Emily Inez Nelson, perfect baby.