“It was their insight,” Beckheim continued, “that the earth was not permanent. In this sense, we must understand that Heaven, rather than being a place spatially removed from earth, is actually the universe which will follow when our earth has been destroyed. We know, from the Bible, that after death, all souls wait for the Last Judgment, that their beings are in a state of suspension; that is, no time, during which there is no duration, no change for them.
“Heaven, rather than being above, is ahead. Heaven will be manifested here, not somewhere else. In essence, Heaven will be manifested everywhere; Hell itself, all regions which are not Heaven, will be swallowed up. It will not be meaningful to speak of Heaven’s location, since there will be nothing else.
“The transition from our world to that which is coming will be marked by violent cataclysm. The transition will be a time of torment and vast upheaval. This is one of the signs by which the advent is known. This, more than anything else, was the key by which the ancients anticipated the Second Coming. They knew that before this first earth perished, vast forces of almost limitless dimension would be unleashed. They prepared themselves for that day; but in their lifetime, it did not come.
“In our lifetime the signs point to a more imminent appearance. We have entered the period in which preparation must be made, in which all men are witness to the convulsions of their world, in which every man must make his choice.
“This choice, which once seemed abstract and theoretical, almost philosophical, is now vivid and pressing. It cannot be avoided. Every atom of our world is aligning itself for the great struggle ahead; every inanimate particle of matter, without wit or conscience, is moving to one of the two sides.
“These witless particles, blown here and there by forces which utterly control them, have no choice. Their side is predetermined for them; they are helpless to alter in any respect whatsoever the final disposition that is made of them. A gun, in the gun rack of an armory, is totally helpless to prevent a soldier from grabbing it down and hurrying it out to battle. It is not free to complain, to prefer the other side, to change over, to swear allegiance to the foe. For it, the foe is whatever army faces it; for it, the friend is whoever grips its stock.
“But human beings are not witless particles. The spark of God is in every one of us. Like witless particles, we can be hurried willy-nilly from this side to that; we can allow ourselves to become instruments in the hands of whoever gives us a shove. But we can also decide for ourselves; each one of us has the moral capacity to make an individual decision. And once having made that decision, there is no power in this universe or in any other that can force us to change our stand.
“Consider what this means. It means that ultimately, even God cannot decide for you. The choice is in your hands; therefore, and this is crucial, you must answer for your choice. It will not suffice to plead that you made no choice: that in itself means, like the gun in the hands of the soldier, that you allowed yourself to be carried into battle by whoever grabbed you from the rack. In that case, you have made your choice, whether you will own up to it or not.
“This struggle which forms now on all sides of us will be total. It will involve every atom in the universe, every physical particle and every living being. Looking back into history, it is easy to see the progression toward this point. Total war was a concept unknown at the beginning of our lifetimes. Try to imagine what will be meant by the term a century from now—if there is still an earth a century from now. There will be war of such totality as to be beyond any present imagination. If you doubt this, I ask you to consider with what accuracy an ordinary citizen living in 1852 could have imagined the napalm and A-bombs of the last world war.
“When I say that we may have a century before us, I do not mean that I predict one way or another how much time is left. I don’t know; no one knows. The lessons of the past are clear: it is not possible to predict, from our limited position, when future events will take place. Even exceptional insight will not give us exact information, the day, the month, the year. Do you understand what the prophets were? They were men gifted with this exceptional insight, this special sense, an ability to perceive future occurrences, to remember them as we remember events of the past. The impact of great things yet to come impinged on their minds. Everything they saw will come about; but these events were of such foreign and awesome nature that only by rendering them in elaborate poetic imagery could they translate them into the diction of the times, and represent the events to themselves.
“I ask you to picture a prophet of biblical days, a simple agrarian farmer, suddenly witness to the Korean War, with its planes and tanks, its huge guns, its battleships, its elaborate radar screens. How would he render this understandable to his own people? How would he make it understandable to himself? Picture yourself, then, suddenly witness to a world two thousand years from this date. You possess only the words, the terms, the concepts of the present; everything that you see must be rendered in those symbols.
“The final stages of the Great Battle may not arise for many centuries. We have still a puny concept of time and space; it may be thousands, even millions of years, before the total transformation has taken place. Perhaps it will be gradual—perhaps abrupt. For us that does not matter. For us only one thing is important: the polarization into sides is, in our time, visible. That is sufficient. Not that the battle is close or far ahead—but that the sides are being drawn: that is the thing we must pay attention to. That is what concerns us. The two hosts are drawing themselves up in clear and unmistakable fashion.”
Gazing out across his audience, the great black man told them:
“No living man can hide his head and pretend the formations of these legions do not lie spread out on the plain before his eyes. No man can say I do not see them. It is a lie—and God cannot be deceived. No man can stand immobile on the sidelines, saying This battle does not concern me. He has no choice: it does concern him, because in this battle the fate of his eternal soul will be decided.
“Fifty, a hundred years ago, there was confusion. There were signs—there have been signs for three thousand years—but it was difficult to decipher them. Many sides struggled in the arena. Each side claimed I am on His side. Conflicting claims competed for fealty; the conscientious individual was confused. God understood this confusion—a man could be deceived by the Devil’s false claims.
“But today no such confusion exists: the Devil can no longer claim to be anything but what he is. From the smoke and fire of this eternal, ceaseless struggle, the real forms of the combatants are emerging. They are unmistakable. They cannot be confused. At this moment, the last pretensions are being dropped. The flimsy protestations of piety and sanctity are being discarded: no one is fooled. The visible marks show, the terrible brands. By their fruits shall ye know them!
“We know the signs by which the Devil can be identified; they have been familiar for millenniums. Are these signs presently visible? Are they in evidence?
“We see hatred, cruelty, violence, on all sides. We see each nation of the earth preparing itself, girding its loins, to destroy whosoever stands to its left or right. Naked, brute force, the power of the armed fist, has emerged within every nation of the earth: the disguise of law is gone. And naked force is the sign by which ye shall know him—the Evil One branded by the mark of God, cast out of Heaven, hurled into the lake of fire!
“In this final struggle the signs are clear. Spread out on this world, on the surface of this planet, are the hosts of Satan. Can there be any doubt? Does any man in his sane mind imagine that in the Final Battle, God’s standard will be carried forward by A-bombs and napalm, armored tanks and heavy artillery? Does any man believe that He Who made this universe could also manufacture mustard gas and bacteriological warfare?
“By their fruits shall ye know them. The mark is upon them! Pretense is gone—the filthy, hairy shape stands naked for all to see. He calls them in his own name, and to that name they respond. There is no shame, no horror
: they have made their choice. They will fight for him, and when he falls for the second death, they will fall beside him. Many will go down with him; it is written already. Many will perish in the lake of fire: ‘And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever…’ ‘And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to his works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea…’
“Many will perish: that is the writing that is written. But not all will be destroyed. The cities will be leveled; the plain will become endless ash; radioactive particles will fall like hot rain; the crops will wither and die from poison clouds; deadly bacteria will be carried by hordes of insects; the earth will tremble and split open from vast bombs: the oceans will writhe with the impact; the air itself will become polluted and foul; the sun will disappear behind black clouds of dust; all this has been written: all this will come about.
“But some will live. Some will be saved. God will not allow all mankind to perish: those who forsake the armies of the plains, the cities of the plains, will sit with Him in paradise. He has promised this: and the promise of God is not a promise that can be broken, like the promise of a man. God has seen all this; to God it has already happened.
“Those who will save themselves must act. They must seek to save their lives; if they do not act they will be brought down, destroyed with the others. Those who will sit with God must renounce the Devil, refuse to support him. They must turn upward, toward God’s side. They must turn their backs on the Devil’s works, his armaments, his guns and ships, his tanks and planes, his mighty infernal legions. On this planet, great hosts seek to grow larger than each other; they strut and boast and arm themselves more and more. The forces of the Devil are mighty; but before God they will wither and be destroyed. And cast into the lake of eternal fire.
“Renounce, refuse—do not allow yourselves to be dragged along. Throw down the gun when it is offered you. Turn your back on the instruments of death when they are pressed on you. Those who kill will lose their eternal souls. Those who will not kill, who stand firm in God, who do not fear physical death, will sit with Him in paradise.
“Those who forsake the accursed cities and machines of men, the factories and buildings, the streets and weapons, the bombs and air-raid shelters, the sirens and tin helmets, who flock out into the high mountains, will be saved.
“And no one else!”
PART TWO
Afternoon
The baby was a boy, and his name was Pete.
Pete lay in his bassinet and gobbled at sunbeams. He covered himself with bits of the sun, sneezed when they got into his nose, dribbled saliva down his chin when he tried to chew on them, and then became irritable and wet his diapers.
The July morning was warm and friendly; all the windows of the apartment were wide open, curtains blowing drowsily as gusts of fresh air billowed inside and swirled from room to room. In the kitchen Ellen Hadley sat at the little chrome table facing Jim Fergesson, a cigarette between her lips, a bowl of strawberries in her lap.
Jim Fergesson leaned against the sink, his arms folded. Because it was Sunday he did not wear his double-breasted blue serge suit. Instead, he wore a colored shirt with short sleeves, an old pair of canvas work trousers, and garden shoes. It was clear that he was getting bald and fat. Between the buttons of his shirt his paunch rolled out, heavy and solid. His round, wrinkled face was red and moist with summer perspiration.
“Do you think,” he asked plaintively, “I could have a beer?”
“Certainly,” Ellen said, hulling one last strawberry before getting to her feet.
“I’ll get it,” Fergesson said quickly. Always, in the girl’s presence, he was gauche. “Tell me where the damn thing is—in the reefer?”
Ignoring his nervous protests, Ellen placed the bowl of strawberries on the table and crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator. Since she no longer carried the baby, Ellen was again slim and light. Since it was summer she wore one of her husband’s white cotton shirts, with the sleeves rolled up, sandals, and a polka-dot dirndl skirt. Her brown hair tumbled freely over her arms and shoulders as she bent to rummage in a drawer for the can opener.
“Let me do it,” Fergesson murmured. “I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”
As she poured beer into a tall glass, Ellen said: “Maybe I’ll have some, too. Can I have what doesn’t go in the glass?”
“Yeah,” Fergesson agreed, gratefully accepting the foaming glass. “But you know, if you pour it against the side, there won’t be so much left over.”
Ellen wrinkled her nose at him. “I see what Stuart means about you.”
“Is that so.” Flushing, Fergesson wandered uneasily around the small kitchen. In his embarrassment he floundered deeper and deeper; the presence of the young mother made an uncertain fumbler out of him. “You ought to rip out this linoleum,” he said, indicating the sink. “Put in tile; it won’t rot away.” He indicated the fixtures. “For God’s sake, get Stumblebum to put in a mixer faucet! He can fix things if he wants. He could fix up this whole apartment if he didn’t have his damn head in the clouds.”
Ellen sat down at the table and took up her bowl of strawberries. “Mister Fergesson, you’re a hard man.”
At that, Fergesson blanched. It was the term mister that shook him; he remembered, all at once, where he was and what he was doing. He got out his handkerchief and wiped steamy sweat from his red-puffed face. “By the way,” he said in a low voice, “where is he? That’s what I came over for.”
“Stuart?” Ellen shrugged. “Out buying junk for the baby, I suppose.”
“On Sunday?”
“Well…” She reached over to collect her cigarette from the ashtray on the table. “Maybe he drove up the peninsula with Dave Gold. Some of the big highway toy shops are open on Sunday; he’ll find one if he keeps looking long enough.”
There was silence.
Fergesson wasn’t certain if he was getting an evasive answer. It sounded evasive; there was an indifference, a bitter obliqueness that closed the subject tight. Not knowing exactly how to proceed, Fergesson commented: “He sure is nuts about that kid. He’s always wasting time gassing about him on the job. Hanging over the counter with one of those color photographs he’s got. He and some old lady cackling away at it.”
“Yes,” Ellen agreed tonelessly. “He thinks a lot of Pete.”
“Did he really drive up the highway looking—”
“He went up to pick up his sister. He’s bringing them down to see the baby.”
“His sister!” Fergesson exclaimed. “I didn’t know he had a sister.”
“He does,” Ellen said drily. “He wants her to see the baby. He wants her to pass judgment… We’re all waiting on that.”
Fergesson strolled restlessly into the living room. The July heat made him irritable; he slapped at his neck, rubbed his hands together, peered out the window at the orderly street with its green lawns and quiet cars parked here and there, some of them getting their weekly washing. “Since the baby was born,” he said, “Stumblebum’s been different. More calmed down; I think he’s finally growing up.”
“It’s not the baby.”
“What, then? Of course it’s the baby! He knows he’s a father—he has responsibilities. He can’t take off anytime he pleases.”
Still seated at the kitchen table with her bowl of strawberries, Ellen said: “It happened before Pete came. Do you remember when that man was here, that Theodore Beckheim? There was a picture of him in the window of the Health Food Store… I saw it when I was having lunch with Stuart one day.”
&nb
sp; “Oh, that religious sea,” Fergesson said vaguely.
“Stuart went to hear him speak. I remember because we had a terrible quarrel about it. I wouldn’t go and I didn’t want him to go. You see, I knew what was going to happen; I know how Stuart is about things like that. In some ways I know him better than he knows himself. He was so excited… He takes things like that so seriously.”
“Too seriously,” Fergesson put in.
Ellen jerkily stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. In the July sunlight her bare arms were brown and fuzzy, slightly damp with perspiration. “No, not too seriously. Why? Who are you to say he takes things too seriously?”
Abashed, Fergesson answered: “I mean, he should get out more and enjoy himself. Stop worrying—take in a few ball games, go bowling. Take you out, damn it… I’ll bet you never get out to a nightclub or a show.”
“Stuart doesn’t enjoy games,” Ellen said shortly.
“Why not? What’s the matter with games? At the store picnic he was a damn sorehead—he wouldn’t play ball and he wouldn’t pitch horseshoes. All he did was eat and then flop down under a tree and go to sleep. A man shouldn’t be a bad sport; he should think of others once in a while. He’s so damn serious and thin-skinned; he’s always brooding about something.” With a single motion of his hand Fergesson swept in the whole apartment. “I don’t get it, Ellen. What’s wrong with a man like him? He has a pretty wife, a kid, a lovely apartment like this—he has everything in the world and still he’s not satisfied!”
Ellen continued fixing the strawberries. Her fingers flew irritably: her husband had been attacked by somebody outside the family. “He sees something you don’t see,” she flared. “Something none of us sees.”
“What’s that?”
“He sees all this gone. He’s sensitive… Sometimes I think he’s more of a woman than I am. He has premonitions, too. He’s very—mystical. He used to devour all those astrology magazines I brought home; I stopped getting them because of him. He took them so seriously… He pored over them hour after hour. But he never went to church. He never had any religious training. His family was very modern and scientific; he was raised in the thirties, in one of those progressive schools. I suppose they were all Communists…what we’d call Communists today. It was all very natural and expressive. He wove mats and baked little clay bowls; you know how he is, he likes to fool and tinker, he likes to express himself with his hands. They taught him to grow seeds and make ink. They taught him how bread is made and how cows give milk…trips out in the country to see the animals. Acquaint him with nature. That sort of thing…make him healthy. He ate it up.”