Virgin

  “Jesus had nothing to do with it.”

  “I know, but … anybody we know?”

  Finally, José looked up from the soup. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  “Sure, sure, and I appreciate that, but we’ve got close quarters here. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Sure I do. But you can’t catch AIDS sitting next to someone. It doesn’t jump plate to plate.”

  “No kidding. But it does jump vein to needle and needle to vein, and not a few of our guests have been known to shoot up when mood and opportunity permit.”

  José shook his head. “Can’t tell you, Fitz.”

  “I don’t want names. Don’t tell me who, just tell me how many HIV positives in and out of here.”

  Dan wasn’t looking to ostracize anyone, but it certainly would be useful to know who was positive. A lot of St. Joe’s guests regularly fell or got into fights. It was a common occurrence for one of them to stagger in hurt and bleeding—amazing how much blood could pour out of a minor scalp cut—and either he or Carrie would clean them up. He wasn’t so worried about himself, but Carrie …

  “I don’t have to look at any faces to tell you that you’ve got HIV positives here. The homeless population is loaded with them.”

  Dan knew that. He just wished he knew who.

  “So when do I put on the rubber gloves?”

  “Whenever you see red.” José took the other half of his bread slice and dipped it into his soup. “By the way, how’s Sister Carrie?”

  “You just missed her.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s in the back. Want me to get her?”

  “No. Don’t bother her. Just wanted to say hello if she happened to wander through.”

  Is that the only reason people come here? Dan thought. To see Carrie?

  First Hal asking about her, now José. Like puppies, panting for a glimpse of her. No lascivious ogling here—no curves in those asexual, baggy clothes she wore—just a simple desire to bask in her glow. He knew their love for her was the unrequited, worship-from-afar kind, and he should have been used to it by now, but he wasn’t.

  After all, Dan loved her too.

  I knew a place for her, a small cave set far back on the ledge above the tav rock. Together we prepared a bier for her and placed her upon it.

  And then we sealed her in, carrying rocks that one man could not lift alone, and choking the mouth of the cave with them.

  It will take many men to reopen her Resting Place. But they shall not touch these stones. They shall have to deal with me first.

  from the Glass scroll

  Rockefeller Museum translation

  SEVEN

  Paraiso

  As Emilio wheeled the black Bentley limo through the iron gates on the rim of his estate, Arthur Crenshaw sat alone in the back seat and closed his eyes, praying for guidance in the coming confrontation with his son.

  Charlie, Charlie, what are we going to do about you?

  He’d been up all night praying over the problem. And during the six-hours alone in the passenger compartment of his Gulfstream II, four-and-a-half miles above the country he prayed would elect him its president, he’d continued praying for an answer.

  Thank the Lord for prayer. He only wished he’d discovered it sooner in his life. He’d never been much for it in his younger days. In fact he remembered secret sneers at the breast-beaters, the bead-pushers, the doe-eyed heaven-gazers who couldn’t solve their problems on their own and had to beseech some Santa Claus in the sky to bail them out. He’d always considered them fools and losers.

  Until he ran up against a problem neither he nor anyone else could solve: Olivia’s cancer.

  The tumor had started in her left ovary, growing insidiously, worming its way out into her pelvis. By the time the first symptoms appeared—subtle even then—it was seeded throughout her abdominal cavity.

  What a vicious, ruthless, perfidious disease, a spreading army of militant cells causing no pain, no visible lumps, no blockages, covertly infiltrating the abdomen until it had gained a foothold upon every organ within reach.

  Even now Arthur suppressed a moan as he remembered the moment in the hospital room when they got the news. Too late, the doctors said. They’d give it their best shot but the prognosis was bleak.

  Still fresh in his mind was the look on Olivia’s face—the panic and terror that raced across her features before she controlled them and donned the brave mask she wore to her grave. For the timeless instant between the devastating realization that her lifespan was numbered in months, and the determination that she would not surrender to the tumor, her innermost fears had lain naked before him.

  Olivia, God bless her, never gave up. Together they tried everything. When traditional therapies failed, she volunteered for experimental protocols. When the cancer resisted those, Arthur took her around the world, to the sincere quacks and out-and-out charlatans who offered hope to the hopeless. Arthur spent a fortune—perhaps two fortunes—but it was only money. What was money? He could always make more. But there was only one Olivia.

  And brave Olivia, she withstood the endless array of tests and scans and pills and needles and baths and rubs until she could stand no more.

  Because none of it was working.

  And then, for the first time in his adult life, Arthur Crenshaw began to pray. Not for himself—he swore he’d never stoop to praying for himself—but for Olivia. He resented the need to pray. He knew now it was pride. He’d always been the problem solver, always the one who managed to find the needed answer. But he’d already done everything humanly possible; now the only place left to seek help was beyond the human.

  He went to a church and spoke to a young minister who told him to put Olivia’s problem in God’s hands and pray to Him to save her.

  Arthur did just that. He prayed and he forced himself to let go, to step back and trust in the Lord. To his dismay, despite his prayers, his agonized cries to Heaven, Olivia continued her downward course.

  Only one person appeared to benefit from his prayers: Arthur Crenshaw. It left him feeling buoyed, lighter than air, filled with an inner glow that could only be the Peace of the Lord.

  He could imagine the facile rationalizations the unbelievers in his circle would offer to explain his sudden inner tranquillity: Giving over responsibility for Olivia to God had relieved him of an awesome psychological burden. What he interpreted as Divine Grace was merely his psyche rebounding after being released from the crushing weight of accountability for Olivia’s cure.

  Nonsense.

  God had willed him to be tranquil so that he could fully concentrate on being with Olivia. Which was exactly what he did.

  And when Olivia died in his arms in their bedroom in Paraiso, they were both at peace.

  But Arthur hadn’t stopped praying then. Prayer had become a habit during Olivia’s illness and so he’d continued a ritual of starting and finishing each day by talking with the Lord. And when he’d been troubled by problems with the company, when a solution eluded him, he’d pray. And, praise the Lord, not long after he prayed the answer would come to him.

  He was well aware of the non-believer’s rational explanation for that, as well: When you gave a problem over to God you stopped gnawing at it; you relaxed your stranglehold on its elements, allowing them to reassemble into new and different configurations. The fresh perspectives afforded by those new configurations, the different light in which you saw the problem, allowed you to arrive at a solution. Nothing divine about it. The same thing happened with Transcendental Meditation. With self-hypnosis. With standard mental relaxation techniques.

  Again, nonsense. Arthur came to realize that the Lord had become an integral part of his life and was working through him. To bind himself closer to Him, he went to Bible study groups, prayer meetings, healing sessions, immersing himself i
n the new Christian Fundamentalism and becoming one of its more visible members. And when he sold his company and decided to run for the Senate, he discovered that his new beliefs guaranteed him a huge, ready-made constituency eager to help propel him to the Capitol.

  Surely anyone with half a brain could see the hand of God at work in all this.

  He opened his eyes as he heard the rattle of the bridge timbers under the wheels. He leaned against the window and stared down over the edge of the narrow, one-car span. Afternoon sunlight dazzled and danced on the cascading surface of the brook one hundred feet below.

  Emilio guided the Bentley from the bridge onto a path that wound through the pines for half a mile, then they broke from the shade into the light. Before them stretched a lush garden of flowering fruit trees surrounded by sprays of forsythia and rhododendrons and azaleas. Wild flowers bloomed in the interstices. No grass. Just ground cover and natural mulch. Arthur spent tens of thousands of dollars a year to keep the garden looking wild and untended and yet perfect. Beyond the garden stretched the western sky. And two hundred feet straight down—the Pacific Ocean.

  Emilio pulled into the bower that served as a carport. Arthur opened his own door—he disliked being waited upon—and stepped out. The fresh, salt tang of the on-shore breeze felt marvelous after the fumes of New York.

  Every time he returned from a trip he appreciated anew Olivia’s wisdom in naming their home Paraiso.

  Then he thought of his son and his mood darkened. Yes, their home looked like a paradise. If only it could be a paradise.

  “Where’s Charlie?”

  “He was still asleep when I left,” Emilio said.

  Arthur nodded. Time for the showdown. He didn’t want this. And when he’d left New York he hadn’t known what to do. But during the flight he’d prayed and placed the problem in God’s hands.

  And praise the Lord, by the time the Gulfstream had landed he had the solution.

  He strode toward the low dome that was the only part of the house visible from the garden. He tapped the entry code into the keypad and the door swung inward. He passed the door of the waiting elevator, preferring the extra time the spiral staircase would afford him. As he descended to the top floor, the endless grandeur of the Pacific opened before him.

  Arthur had built the house downward instead of up, carving it into the rocky face of the oceanfront cliffs. It hadn’t been easy. When he finally found a suitable coastal cliff south of Carmel that was an extrusion of bedrock instead of the soft clay that dominated the area, strong enough to support his dream house, he ran up against the California Coastal Commission. Many were the times during his epic battles with those arrogant bureaucrats that he’d wished he’d never started the project. But he was determined to see it through. After all, he’d promised Olivia. It took threats, bribes, and in one case, plain, old-fashioned blackmail to get all the permits. It was during that period that he learned the power of government, and decided that the only way to protect himself from it was to join the club and wield some of that power himself.

  But Paraiso was finally built, exactly to his specs. The entire front was a dazzling array of floor-to-ceiling windows, enticing the sky and the sea indoors, making them part of the interior. From the sea, Paraiso appeared as a massive mosaic of steel and crystal—a three-story bay window. At night it glowed like a jewel set into the cliffside. On sunny weekends the waves below were acrawl with a bobbing horde of boats, private and chartered, filled with sightseers pointing and gazing up in open-mouthed awe.

  Within, the ceilings were high, the rooms open and airy. The dining room, the kitchen, Arthur’s office, and the bedrooms made up the two lower levels.

  Arthur paused on the first landing and surveyed the sprawling expanse of his favorite place in the world, the pride of Paraiso—the great room that occupied the entire top floor. The afternoon sun beat through the glass ceiling; he adjusted a switch on the wall to his left, rotating the fine louvers above to reduce the glare. He gazed outward through the convex expanse of glass before him and watched the whitecaps flecking the surface of the Pacific. Carved into the living rock of the room’s rear wall was a huge fireplace, dark and cold. He and Olivia had planned to spend the rest of their days entertaining friends and family in this room. Since her death he’d converted it to a chapel of sorts. No pews or crosses or stained glass windows, just a quiet place to pray and contemplate the wonder of this majestic corner of Creation. It was here that he felt closest to God.

  Be with me, Lord, he thought as he tore himself away from the view and continued toward the lower levels.

  He found Charlie in his bedroom, its walls still decked with the Berkeley pennants and paraphernalia leftover from his undergraduate days. He was sipping coffee from the lunch tray Juanita had prepared for him. He looked up and slammed his cup on the tray. His eyes blazed.

  “Damn you to hell.”

  Arthur stood in the doorway, unable to move, unable to speak, staring at the son he hadn’t seen in nearly two years.

  Charlie looked awful. The old gray sweatsuit he’d worn to bed hung around him in loose folds. He looked a decade older than his twenty-five years. So thin. Cheeks sunken, face pale, his black, sleep-tangled hair, usually so thick and shiny, now thin and brittle looking. His eyes were bright in their deep sockets. The dark stubble on his cheeks accentuated his pallor.

  “Charlie,” he said when he finally found his voice. “What’s happened?”

  “What’s happened is I’ve become the Prisoner of Zenda.”

  Charlie had never been a sturdy sort, but now he looked positively gaunt. Arthur wanted to throw his arms around him and tell him how much he’d missed him, but the look in Charlie’s eyes stopped him cold.

  He sat on the foot of the bed, carefully, so as not to upset the tray.

  “You know better than that. This is your home.”

  “Not with turnkey Sanchez around.”

  “Charlie, I brought you back for your own good. That’s not the kind of life for you. For anybody. It’s an abomination in the eyes of God.”

  “It’s my life.” Charlie’s eyes flashed.

  Arthur had never seen him so defiant.

  “It’s a sinful life.”

  “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—isn’t that what a United States Senator is supposed to protect?”

  “I want to help you turn your life around.”

  “Just in time for the primaries?”

  If only it were that simple, Arthur thought. If that was all there was too it …

  He shuddered as old memories surged to the fore. Violently he thrust them back down into the mire where they belonged.

  No. This was not only for himself. Charlie’s sodomite urges were a test. If Arthur could help his son out of this moral quagmire, he would prove himself, he would … redeem himself. And God would know what a weapon he had in Arthur Crenshaw.

  “Do you like the life you’re living, Charlie?”

  “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “It has its moments.”

  “In the wee small hours, Charlie … when it’s just you and God and the dark outside the window … how do you feel?”

  Charlie’s gaze faltered for the first time. He fiddled with a slice of toast on his breakfast tray.

  “I wake up at three or four in the morning, shaking and sweaty. And I sit there thinking about how I’ve failed you. I remember how Mom never put me down, but every so often I’d catch her watching me and there’d be this unreadable look in her eyes. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I have to assume I disgusted her. And I know what you think, Dad—you’ve always been up front about that. So I sit there in the dark thinking about the revulsion I sparked in the two most important people in my life.” His voice fell to a whisper. “And I feel like such a loser.” r />
  Arthur felt his throat tighten. He had to help this boy. He reached out and put a hand on Charlie’s arm. Dear Lord, it was so thin.

  “You can’t be judged a loser until you’ve given up trying, Charlie. And that’s why I brought you home. I want you to try.”

  Charlie looked up at him again. “Try what?”

  “To change.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

  “It is, Charlie,” he said, gently squeezing his arm. “With God’s help and the right doctors, you can do it.”

  Charlie’s laugh rang hollow against the walls. “I think God must have lots of concerns more pressing than my sexual orientation. And really, Dad, if it’s the election you’re worried about, relax. No one connects me with you. And even if they did, it could actually work to your advantage. We’re a pretty cohesive voting block now. We proved that in the last election.”

  We … Arthur shuddered at Charlie’s casual alignment of himself with the likes of Act Up and Queer Nation and the pathetic human mutants and aberrations that marched in those Gay Pride parades. If getting elected depended on their votes, he’d rather not run.

  But public knowledge of Charlie’s homosexuality was only part of the real threat.

  “I won’t deny the election is important to me. You know that. There’s so much good I can do for this country if they’ll only let me. I have plans. I can make us great again.” He didn’t just believe that—he knew it. “But if I can’t help my own son back on the right path, how can I expect to do it for an entire nation?”

  “Dad—”

  “Give me a year, Charlie. One year of prayer and therapy. That’s all I ask. You’re young. One year out of the rest of your life is not too much for your father to ask, is it? If there’s been no change by the end of that time, and if I see you’ve made a sincere effort, then I’ll accept your … the way you are and never bother you again about it.”

  Charlie was staring at him. “Accept me? I don’t think you can.”

  “If you can try, I can try. One year.” He thrust out his hand. “What do you say?”