A Complicated Kindness: Chapter Seven Summary & Analysis

At one end of East Village’s Main Street is a water tower with a painting of Jesus holding out his arms “like he’s saying how the hell would I know? I’m just a carpenter.” At the other end is a billboard saying “Satan is real. Choose now.” Americans often visit the town to observe its “simple ways,” touring windmill and museum village that lie at the end of the town. Nomi says that her town is like a “bunker” where people are killing time until the Rapture occurs and they ascend to Heaven. She has no idea what Heaven will be like, except maybe that you can get punched in the stomach and not feel pain, something that would be fun “for one afternoon.”

At school, when Nomi shares her distrust of the Mennonite principle of eschewing worldly pleasures, her typing teacher accuses her of wanting to do drugs or “writhe on a dance floor.” Having difficulty articulating her thoughts, Nomi says that she just wants to go about her life without wondering if her actions are sinful, and she wants to think about goodness “outside of any religious framework.” She tells her typing teacher that eternal life seems “creepy” and that it’s very risky to “bet everything we had in this world on the possibility of another world.” The teacher leads the class in a prayer for Nomi’s soul and throws her out.

Nomi says that the town minister, The Mouth, is obsessed with shame and “traffics the shit like a schoolground pusher.” Even in childhood pictures he looks stiff and serious. However, everyone in the town knows that as a young man, The Mouth left the community to live as an artist in the outside world. However, he found he couldn’t write poetry or make friends, and the girl he loved ditched him, so he returned to the community of his youth with “a fresh loathing of the world” and new determination that no one be allowed to enjoy themselves.

Once, while walking back from Travis’s house at night, Nomi passes The Mouth’s house and watches him eat a pint of ice cream in the kitchen in his bathrobe. After he finishes, he leans his had against the wall “like a guy completely defeated by life.” A few weeks later, Nomi notices Trudie leaning against the window, watching the neighbor’s dog, in just the same way. She tells Nomi that she envies the dog’s “freedom and obliviousness.”

Nomi remembers standing in The Mouth’s office, reciting Bible verses. She always gets in trouble for saying “In the beginning there was the world” instead of “in the beginning there was the word.” She wishes she lived in New York. On the other hand, Ray never misses a church service. Nomi used to be embarrassed of him, but now she imagines him as the “noble captain of a sinking ship.”

Even the Americans who visit the town as tourists are often disturbed by the reality of teenagers smoking cigarettes and wearing tube tops in the street. Once, a tourist takes a picture of Nomi on the curb and remarks to her husband, “here’s a priceless juxtaposition of old and new.” They debate giving her some money until Nomi tells them she speaks English and they walk away.

It often seems impossible to leave, but if Tash and Trudie escaped, it can’t be that hard. Nomi likes to imagine different exotic possibilities for her mother’s whereabouts; it troubles her to know that Trudie hasn’t taken her passport or packed any warm clothes. Nomi prefers to imagine that her mother and sister are both alive and well, and that her family will all be together again soon. She doesn’t want the sobering facts surrounding Trudie’s disappearance to govern her story. After all, she points out, Jesus seemed to die and came to life again three days later.