“If he got on the train to kill at random, why did he kill only B?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one victim was enough. Maybe no one else was handy the way B was handy.”
Bonnie said, “What’s your boss’s name? The guy who sent you here?”
“Fr. Lulfre.”
“Maybe Fr. Lulfre had him killed.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Didn’t he send you here to find out if B was the Antichrist?”
“Well, just to keep it simple, suppose he did. Then what?”
“Then maybe he decided B was the Antichrist.”
I shook my head. “He certainly couldn’t have decided that on the basis of what he heard from me, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have responded by having B murdered. You watch too much television, Bonnie. Fr. Lulfre is an archaeologist and a psychiatrist, not a Mafia don.”
Bonnie smirked as if I were being incredibly naive—or deliberately stupid.
No one seemed to have anything else to say.
• • •
Sitting there in the midst of all these silent people, I began to wonder if I’d interrupted a meeting of some kind—a meeting to which I’d not been invited. I decided this was something I had to know and was pondering how to phrase the question when a medley of footsteps sounded on the circular staircase from above. I looked around to see if newcomers were expected but had the feeling they weren’t. Everyone held tight until a troop of five finally emerged. They were assorted ages, teens to middle age, dressed in a ragtag style ranging from early hippie to late punk. They paused on the staircase to give us a good long look, as if we were museum specimens. Then, after passing a look back and forth among themselves, they clambered the rest of the way down and made their way through the jumble to where we were assembled.
“Have we come right?” asked the leader, a bearded gent in his forties. “We are from Sweden, and we are told to go to the theater in Radenau and down in the basement, and there they are meeting.”
As we continued to stare dumbly, he gave each of us in turn a smiling, hopeful look. Finally, still smiling (though now somewhat doubtfully), he said, “Which of you is the one they call B?”
Since no one else seemed inclined to, I took it upon myself to say, “B is not here.”
“Oh shut up, you stupid man,” Shirin said. Then, standing up and turning to the newcomers, she spoke three words that I instantly knew were going to rip my life to pieces:
“I am B.”
Friday, May 24 (two A.M.)
Stalling
One of the things decided yesterday is that B will speak publicly tomorrow night. This is viewed as “getting back on the horse that threw you.” No one asked my opinion, which is that scheduling the same talk a week later would serve the same purpose and allow a little time to get the word out. I said I’d help put up posters, but I’ll have to renege on that if I’m to get any sleep (which I am, come what may).
Time is running out for me here. My passport was returned a few hours ago, and I have to assume that Fr. Lulfre will know this almost immediately, since he has his own sources of information here. I can put him off for a few days (but not much more) by claiming that the police have asked me to stick around in case they find Herr Reichmann, the old gentleman who first put me onto B and who boarded our train in Frankfurt the night of B’s murder. If it occurred to them, they probably would ask me to stick around for that purpose—or some purpose.
Shirin; Jared
After putting me in my place, B spoke for an hour or so to the Swedes. (To be honest, I would desperately rather call her Shirin, but to do so would be to ally myself with outsiders, like, say, her mother or her doctors; it seems to me that to deny that Shirin is B would be to deny that Charles was B.) She gave them a basic orientation to the teachings of B and promised to meet with them again on the morrow. Then she shooed everyone away so the two of us could talk.
It didn’t immediately go well between us. I didn’t know what she wanted to discuss, and she didn’t seem to want to tell me. After a few minutes it was obvious that she didn’t want to talk to me at all, and I asked her why she was bothering to do it. The question gave her some focus, because it made her mad.
She said, “A while ago I called you a stupid man, and I really have to say that you’re one of the stupidest men I’ve ever known. Do you understand why?”
I admitted I didn’t.
“I’ve known a lot of men who were less bright by a long shot—a lot of men with no mental equipment to speak of—but I’ve never met one with so much mental equipment being put to so little use.”
I laughed at that—one of those reckless, bitter laughs that Bertie Wooster used to specialize in. “You sound just like my faculty adviser in graduate school,” I told her. “You have no idea how much you sound like him.”
She sighed, and I could see the anger drain away from her. Unexpectedly, she apologized for losing her temper. “I have to adjust my own thinking to this, Jared. You see, what I find maddening about you is just what Charles found useful. You’re able to hold information in your head for an incredibly long time without drawing a conclusion. To me, this looks like stupidity. To Charles, it looked like … something else.”
“You mean it takes me a long time to get things.”
“That’s the way it looks to me. To Charles, it looked like you had a terrific capacity for not jumping. For resisting the temptation to understand too quickly. For resisting the temptation to grab onto something, even if it wasn’t what he was saying.”
“Wow,” I said. “What a fabulous thing to be good at.”
“Don’t knock it, Jared—and I’ll try not to knock it either. But where it kills you is in dealing with someone like Fr. Lulfre. You think pawn to queen four is a brilliant first move, but while you’re shoving up that pawn, he’s bringing out both knights, both bishops, and has castled. He’s always eight moves ahead of you.”
“How does Fr. Lulfre come into this?”
“He comes into this by way of you, of course. He dropped you into this action two weeks ago and can pull you out whenever he pleases.” She cocked her head to one side. “Unless you’re ready to walk away from your vocation.”
“I’m not.”
“Then here’s what you have to face right now: Fr. Lulfre knows you at least as well as I do. This means that, consciously or unconsciously, he chose you because you won’t leap ahead to conclusions he wants to reserve to himself.”
“Now I have an inkling,” I said, “of how a retarded person must feel when he finally realizes that he is retarded.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I have a question I’ve no business asking but that I’m going to ask anyway. What was your relationship with Charles?”
She gave me a frozen look, which I returned. “You didn’t dare to ask Charles that.”
“That’s right.”
“But you dare to ask me. Why?”
“Because you’re the one I want to hear it from.”
“Why is that?” she demanded, glaring.
“If Fr. Lulfre is eight moves ahead of me, then you must be at least four moves ahead, in which case you already know why. I’m still at move one, trying to figure it out.”
B gave me a long look in an effort to sort through this mess. I’m not sure whether it was beyond her or she just decided to pretend it was beyond her. In any case, she said, “B and I were not lovers.”
“I see. Nothing to add to that?”
“We were exactly what you saw. What part of that do you need to have explained?”
“None of it,” I said. “I just didn’t realize I was in the presence of a miracle. Friendships like yours are one in a billion. You were damned lucky—the two of you.”
She sat through a full minute like a rock, refusing to let me see the tears welling up in her eyes, and if I’d been foolish enough to say a word or reach out a hand, she probably would have flattened me. At the end of it, she brushed the
tears away, not minding my seeing her do that, because it was over.
“Characteristically,” I said, “I don’t know what’s going on. What are we doing here?”
“I’m picking up your education where Charles left it off.”
I stared at her for a while then asked why she would do that. “I know why Charles would do it, I just don’t understand why you would do it.”
“You probably won’t like this answer,” she said after a moment’s thought, “but it’s the only one I have. You see this education as a favor we’re doing you, not as a necessity. We see it as a necessity because we’re playing four moves ahead of you. Can you accept that?”
“I guess I have to.”
“As soon as you catch up, you’ll see the necessity for it yourself. You won’t be in any doubt about it.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t like that answer.”
Defending the gap
“When Charles started, we thought we had weeks. With his assassination, I now think we have days, maybe hours.”
I asked her what Charles’s death had to do with it, but she just shook her head and went on. “Charles’s approach had to be his own, of course, but to be honest, I thought it was too cerebral and too circuitous. I have to begin at a more elemental level.”
“Okay,” I said doubtfully. Then: “Are you talking about starting right this second?”
“Do you have another appointment?”
“No, of course not.”
“If you’re waiting for me to go into mourning for a month, that just can’t happen. Not now. Not in these circumstances.”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
“Charles didn’t want to carry you across the gap, Jared. He wanted you to leap across it yourself, that’s why he proceeded as he did. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Are you talking about the leap I have to make to reach the conclusion he wanted me to reach?”
“That’s right. Every sentence he spoke was designed to extend the road for you by a centimeter. He was closing the gap pebble by pebble, hoping you’d eventually make the leap by yourself.”
“But I never did.”
“You never did. I don’t have the patience to follow that procedure, Jared—the patience or the time. I’m going to throw you across the gap. I’m going to start with the conclusion.”
She waited for me to respond, and I guess I could have said okay or “That sounds swell,” but it didn’t sound either okay or swell to me. To me it sounded like the end … which is of course exactly what a conclusion is.
“Okay,” I said. “That sounds swell.”
She gave me a doubtful look, as if she didn’t any more believe me than I did. Then she went on: “Here is something I want you to tell me, Jared. You’re a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. You understand what the ministry of Jesus was all about, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Do you or don’t you?”
“I understand it.”
“Tell me in three words what Jesus came to do.”
“In three words?”
“You, tell me or I’ll tell you. In three words, what did Jesus come to do?”
“To save souls.”
“That isn’t just the Roman Catholic take, is it? You could carry that around to every Christian denomination there is, and they’d all sign off on it, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes, I think so. That’s probably the only statement they all would sign off on.”
“He didn’t come to save the whales, did he?”
“No.”
“He didn’t come to save old-growth forests or wetlands, did he?”
“No.”
“Now tell me what you think we redoing here, Jared. What is this all about?”
“What do you mean by ‘this’?”
“I’ll say it a different way. We know what Jesus came to do. What did B come to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said, alarmed.
“You do know, Jared. What is the subject of our conversations here? What is the subject of all our talks?”
I shook my head.
“Take the leap now, Jared. The gap’s about two inches wide. Three words will bridge it.”
I stared at her, frozen solid.
“Speak, goddammit. Don’t make me say this for you. What’s the subject of all our conversations? What’s the subject of all our talks?”
I managed to get it out as a hoarse croak: “Saving the world.”
“Saving the world—of course. It was right there in front of your nose the whole time, wasn’t it. Now, Jared, we are goddamn well going to get to the Antichrist. Right now. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“That’s what you’re here about, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Now, in the history of the Antichrist, it was always understood that he would be the inversion of the Christ. If the Christ came for the salvation of souls, then the Antichrist would come …”
“For the damnation of souls.”
“Absolutely. If the Christ preached good works and perfection, then the Antichrist would preach …”
“Sin and wickedness.”
“That’s how it’s been traditionally understood. But, as I understood what you told us, more theologically sophisticated thinkers have moved beyond that traditional understanding. They already realize that, if the prophecies about the Antichrist are to be taken seriously, then they won’t be fulfilled by someone preaching sin and wickedness—not in this day and age. What sins and wickedness could any preacher possibly come up with that wouldn’t evoke yawns of utter boredom from an audience of modern television viewers?”
“None,” I agreed.
“The traditional Antichrist as preacher of sin and wickedness wouldn’t even make a ripple in the modern world, therefore …”
“Therefore?”
“Think, Jared. If a preacher of sin and wickedness wouldn’t make it as the Antichrist, then …”
“Then the Antichrist is going to be something else.”
“Then the Antichrist is going to be an inversion of Christ in a different direction.”
She clearly wanted a reaction from me at this point, so I said, “I see that. The Antichrist is going to be an inversion of Christ in a different direction.”
“What other direction?”
“I don’t know.” I really didn’t.
“Come on, Jared. The gap is three inches wide.”
I shook my head.
“We’ll go through it again,” she said. “Christ’s ministry is …”
“Saving souls.”
“But saving souls isn’t B’s ministry, is it?”
“No,” I said.
“B’s ministry is saving the world.”
“No,” I said again stubbornly refusing to see the light.
“You mean yes, Jared. This is the inversion Fr. Lulfre sees. Not saving souls inverted to damning souls but rather saving souls inverted to saving the world. This is why you were sent. This is what makes B a candidate.”
“No!”
“Why do you say no? Charles told you again and again that you would eventually understand why people were calling him the Antichrist. This is what he was talking about.”
“I say no because, if trying to save the world makes you the Antichrist, then Greenpeace is the Antichrist, Earth First is the Antichrist, the Nature Conservancy is the Antichrist, the World Wildlife Fund is the Antichrist.”
“Jared, these organizations aren’t up to the same thing as B. They aren’t up to anything remotely like the same thing. You know that.”
“I don’t know that.”
She produced an exasperated little laugh. “You’re a wonder, Jared, you really are. For you, a three-inch gap might as well be the Grand Canyon.”
A hazardous walk
“I am B,” Shirin said, “but I’m not an experienced teacher. Having announced that I wasn’t going to follow Charles’s practice of trying
to goad you across gaps, I immediately set about trying to goad you across a gap.” She paused and looked around doubtfully at our strange, palatially seedy theatrical cavern. “I think we should get out of here, to begin with—break the pattern.”
I agreed, and we left.
“Do you mind walking?” she asked.
“Not at all, provided we’re not heading for Little Bohemia.”
She smiled. “That was Charles’s hangout, not mine. There’s a little park a couple miles away that might be helpful.”
I wondered why a park might be “helpful” but said that would be fine. We walked through the long twilight.
Back home, I never take long walks with beautiful women on pleasant spring evenings. That would not be thought well of, and I’m not exactly crazy.
It occurs to me to say that I’ve often wished someone would write a useful book about the real life of Roman Catholic priests. I wish for this not because such a book might include things I do know but because it might include things I don’ know. It’s my distinct impression that priests have more fucked-up love affairs than any other group of people on earth, including high-school kids and movie stars. And these are not great, soaring forbidden romances in the manner of The Thorn Birds. These are really dumb, incompetent, bruising debacles, because, by the very nature of things, priests have almost no chance to learn from experience in the normal way. (One thing the book would definitely have to cover is the utterly laughable idea that priests learn all about life in the confessional.)
Let me rush to note right here that I don’t speak of fucked-up love affairs from personal experience. If I’ve avoided romantic entanglements, it’s not because I’m noble and dedicated, it’s for exactly the same reasons I’ve avoided skydiving, hang gliding, and street luging. The invitations to entangle are plentiful, ranging from the open to the barely discernible, not just for me but for all priests. It’s partly that women imagine we’re safe (will not get all demanding and tiresome), partly that they perceive us as a sexual challenge, and partly that they confuse us with the role we play. We’re trained to be, expected to be, and even paid to be attentive, sensitive, understanding, wise, and authoritative, and this is a turn-on for a lot of women—what the hell, a lot of men too.