The 19th Wife (26 page)

THE
19
TH WIFE

CHAPTER NINE

Secrets of the Faith

Not long after I turned sixteen, I fell ill with a malady that remains unexplained to this day. I took to bed with a sodden chest and fever. After three days my mother sent word to my father about my condition. They had lived separately since my father’s conjugal spree four years before, he in Salt Lake switching beds among his wives, and my mother and I alone on a small, productive farm in South Cottonwood, about ten miles outside the city.

When my father saw my true condition, he accused my mother of neglect for not having called a doctor. They argued for some time at the foot of my bed over how to improve my health. Finally she conceded her prayers were no longer adequate and sent for the one man she believed could restore my condition—Brigham Young. Brigham decided I should receive my Endowments—a sacred honor bestowed on few youths outside his immediate family. For the first time since I fell ill, my mother’s face sparkled with joy. For a woman with a faith as deep as hers, this was as high an honor as one can hope for while on Earth.

The Endowment Ceremony is a ritual so secret that a Saint risks expulsion from the Church, and even death, should he reveal its contents; it is so esteemed that Saints speak of it as second in glory only to their promised ascent to Heaven. Up until this point, I had spent little time pondering theological truths. I accepted everything I was told about God, Christ, and Joseph and his Revelations, and Brigham’s Divine authority—for everyone I loved told me these were true. If you were to ask me at this age if I considered myself devout, I would have enthusiastically replied, Yes! I prayed, attended services, sang the hymns with full lungs, and tried to live by the Articles of Faith and all the other wisdom Brigham imparted in his sermons on Sundays. I never once wrestled over any metaphysical questions for myself, for Brigham’s churchly system, all-inclusive as it was, left no open territory in the theological landscape to mull over. Thus, I believed my Endowment Ceremony would be the highlight of my young spiritual life. Yet now, so many years later, I understand I believed all this simply because I had been told it was so.

The next morning at seven o’clock, still under the spell of fever, I entered the Endowment House. In those days it was the most sacred site in all of Great Salt Lake, and the most secretive. Those who had been inside were forbidden to speak of it. Such secrecy encouraged every kind of rumor; some described the interior as a simulacrum of Heaven itself; while others suggested it was as dark and dank as a crypt. The Endowment House is said to share architectural traits with the Freemason’s Temple. As a young man Joseph encountered Freemasonry, and perhaps joined a Lodge, and thus some of his detractors have declared the Endowment Ceremony a derivative of Freemasonry’s ritualized meetings. Both utilize secret grips and pass-words, a structured order of personal development based on degrees, and other symbolic gestures and signs. Yet having little personal knowledge of the Freemasons’ organization, I cannot verify these claims. However, I can reveal to my Dear Reader that the only exoticism inside the Mormons’ Endowment House is the unusual number of bathing tubs.

Once through the doors I was met by Sister Eliza R. Snow, one of Joseph’s many widows whom Brigham had married shortly after his martyrdom. Sister Snow led me into a vast bath-room with a row of zinc tubs divided by a long green curtain. I was not the only one present—five other women, all unknown to me, had come for their Endowments as well. In addition to them a dozen women, most years past sixty, stood around, for what purpose I did not know. The old women, buttoned up in blackcloth, stared at me intently, and when it came time for me to strip my clothes, they chose not to avert their eyes.

“First we must cleanse you,” Sister Snow explained, helping me out of my dress. In a matter of seconds she had me crouching in a steaming bath. Sister Snow had a heavy, downward appearance. The skin of her cheek looked as if it might slide off the bone. The old woman bathed me with great enthusiasm, scrubbing as if sudsing the flank of a horse. There is an indignity to such submission, especially with others looking on. Yet, given the circumstances, it was difficult not to hope—not to believe, I should say—that this ancient woman, with her raw red hands, could scrub away my mysterious malady.

Next Sister Snow raised a horn above me, declaring it to represent the horn of plenty. Olive oil filled the horn, and in a swift motion similar to how a butcher slaughters a pig, she pulled my head back, exposed my throat, and dribbled oil across my brow. “Sister, I ready thy head for glory.” The oil ran into my eyes and ears, and yet I did not fidget or break the solemnity of the moment despite feeling like a slab of meat being dressed for the broiler. “Sister, I anoint your mouth.” She poured the oil across my lips. “Sister, I anoint your breast.” The oil was slimy upon my chest and flowed down the flesh in between.

Sister Snow continued: My stomach, my thighs, my loins! Soon I glistened in oil. I was miserable, and yet this was supposed to be the greatest day of my life. I wanted to ask: Did Jesus intend this? But I dared not. Sister Snow was so certain in everything she did, I knew my doubts had to be wrong. And so I stood naked, golden and slick, while the line of old women ogled and prayed. I glanced to my oiled companions in this ritual, but each woman, as naked as I, had shut her eyes.

I had deduced what was transpiring on the other side of the green curtain: several Brothers were receiving their anointments. I could hear them sloshing in their baths and the slurping oil trickling into their unthinkable regions. Reader, recall I was sixteen: Find me the girl of this age who does not giggle when imagining fat old men greased up like pigs!

Cleansed and anointed, I was ready to dress for my Endowment. Sister Snow handed me two undergarments, each made of plain muslin. The first was similar to a sleeping-set, the shirt and drawers of one piece. Sister Snow explained that I must always wear it until I entered my grave. “It will keep you safe,” she said. “And protect you from the assassin’s bullet and the enemy’s sword. If only Joseph had been wearing his at Carthage.”

The second garment was identical to the first and was its replacement. When I needed to wash one, I would remove half of the first and cover myself up again with the second before removing the rest of the first. This way I would never be naked again. If Mormondom’s young men rebel against the Church’s restrictions against alcohol and tobacco, the young women rebel against the sacred undergarment. I have known many girls to secretly trim theirs with lace, satin ribbons, and other frippery. Oh, were Brigham to discover this concealed truth, would he be angry or pleased?

Atop this unpleasant item, I was dressed in a white dress and a secondary skirt, bleached stockings that bunched at my ankles, and soft linen slippers. Over this I wore my Temple robe—a baggy item with a strip of linen belting it in place. For a hat, Sister Eliza tied a small flag of Swiss muslin to my head. I looked like nothing so much as how a school-mistress would dress a child in a pageant of angels. I felt silly and very much like a little girl; and yet none of the women around me seemed to share my sentiments. They held out their arms, letting the Sisters pull on their clothing as if they were corpses being prepared for burial. (In fact, these were the garments we would be buried in, whenever that grim day came.) These women were older than I, certainly more knowledgeable, and I was ashamed of my own lightness of spirit in comparison to theirs. I told myself I must stop thinking the way I was. I prayed to God to reveal the magnitude of the moment.

Next the curtain dividing the bath-room was pulled back in a dramatic fashion, similar to how a theater’s curtain swiftly reveals a new scene. Standing opposite were six men dressed in their own white robes and caps. Men are generally less capable of tolerating discomfort, and for the most part they fidgeted and looked to their feet. Anyone could see they were embarrassed to stand before their friends and neighbors in outfits suitable for a doll.

We were ushered into an empty interior room. Two male voices from above interrupted the silence. At first I could not understand what they were saying, but then, as if they had moved in closer, their words became clear. Elohim was talking to Jehovah, who was growing more elaborate and excited in his chronicle of the origins of the world. I thought I recognized Jehovah’s voice as Brother Allan’s. An Apostle, Allan is the barber Gilbert visits and possesses a grand baritone. I knew I should surrender to the fantasy, as the others were doing. I told myself to concentrate and to believe. And yet, as you no doubt know, no one can force belief. Even so, for the next two hours, I tried and tried, draining off the last of my energy in the effort.

Brother Allan, or, I should say, Jehovah, recounted how God created the Earth and the seas, the beasts and the trees. Behind us, a curtain opened to a stage. The scenes of Genesis appeared in cut-out and costume, as they might in an earnest but budget theatrical production. Adam, or a young man I did not quite recognize playing Adam, took center stage, followed by Eve, played by Mary Jane Cobb. Some said she had recently married Brigham. The Prophet never claimed her as one of his own, although many years later, she and I would become acquainted, and she shared with me a detail of Brigham’s personage only a wife could know.

Before us, Adam and Eve acted out their own familiar drama. Somehow, the unsurprising and long-known denouement terrified the audience. Everyone was enraptured, and two women actually gasped with fear when the serpent—a man in black mask and tail, knee breeches, and hands dusted with coal—slithered onto the stage. Once again I felt alone in my suspicions and blamed myself. Only a weak soul could not share in the terror of Man’s downfall. But the whole event left me numb. I have heard an esteemed medical doctor say that illness is the loneliest state. I would argue that doubt deserves that claim.

Next a second, recessed curtain drew back to reveal Satan. I do not know who played him, but he was a slim, athletic man in a tight black suit with strips of fuchsia and black stockings. He wore a mask meant to be frightening, with two soft little horns, like the fuzzy knobs atop the head of a lamb. I was disappointed that the Church, with its celestial insight, could not conceive the Devil with more originality. Satan danced around, tormenting Adam and Eve, neither of whom was gifted with the art of Tragedy, and then ran among the men and women in the audience. Everyone loves a devil, and this audience was no exception. They made noises like people watching a fireworks display. Meanwhile, I felt I might faint from exhaustion and looked for a bench to sit down.

“Up, up, up, up!” Sister Snow tooted, pulling me back to my feet. This hard little woman supported me in her arms. From whence does such might come?

Thereafter, we filed onto the stage, all the while Satan prancing about. Whoever was beneath that mask possessed a long pent-up desire to dance and flit about like the happiest of bumblebees. Next came a series of visitors, each representing Christianity’s many sects—the Quaker, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Catholic. Each representative claimed his was the way of Christ. They surrounded us, shouting their positions, until a great cacophony overtook us and several members pressed their hands to their ears. For dramatic effect, I will admit, this was the pageant’s highlight, for I came to understand, almost instantly, that for two thousand years men have been claiming there is but one way to God: Mine!

Satan chuckled over this war of opinion. “You see, Man has fallen into my trap!” Although I am not a writer, and this memoir is my only attempt to capture life in words, despite this lack of skill and experience, even I would suggest a revision to Satan’s script.

Thereafter the Apostles instructed us on a number of pass-words to be used as we graduated through the degrees of the Order of the Melchisedec Priesthood; and a set of tickling grips or handshakes that would reveal ourselves as true Saints in the hereafter. Next Sister Snow leaned into my ear, cupping her hand around her mouth, and whispered, “As you enter the Celestial Kingdom, call yourself Sarah, for this is your secret name and shall guarantee your entry. You must never reveal this name to anyone other than your husband on the day of your sealing. Otherwise, take it to your grave. Do you understand?” In my mind I turned over this new name—Sarah!—many times, taking pride in its Biblical symbolism. I promised myself I would protect it throughout my life, as if it were my child and its very life depended on my care.

The woman beside me was a shriveled, bent-over creature; it was clear to all that she would require her secret name sometime soon. Sister Snow leaned into her ear.

“Can’t hear you, child,” yawped the old woman.

Sister Snow attempted a second delivery in a slightly louder voice.

I thought I heard her say Sarah as well, but this would have been impossible. I told myself I had not understood Sister Snow correctly; and that I should not worry. Yet I have always wondered if Sister Snow named the old lady Sarah, and the other women, too; and if in the Endowment House each woman is given the same secret name, its celestial qualities tarnished by much abuse. Once, after my marriage to Brigham, I asked him about this. He reddened in the face and laughed, “You know what I love about you? Your fertile mind. My goodness, Ann Eliza—why are you always prone to the conspiracy?”