The morning sun lit the sanctuary of Nidaros Lutheran Church through the stained-glass windows, like a tabernacle of golden cobwebs. Pastor Judith Hardanger-Hansen looked out at the 8:30 congregation. Almost half full. Not bad. Attendance had been dropping for years, but Pastor Hardanger-Hansen was a woman of principle. She would not sell her integrity for popularity, like those unspeakable, sheep-stealing Baptists and Pentecostals. Who would soon get their come-uppance.
Nothing could depress her this morning. Not while the memory of Friday night's ceremony glowed within her like brandy in the throat. She could feel the goat's hot heart jumping in her hand never before had she comprehended the words, "Washed in the Blood of the Lamb." How childish, how pitiable, her Sunday School notions seemed now!
"The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from the book of John, Chapter Five, verses 19 through 26." She read:
"So Jesus answered them: I tell you this in all sincerity the child cannot do anything of her or his self, except what she or he sees her or his parent doing: for what the aforementioned parent does, the child does too. For the parent loves the child and shows her or him whatever she or he does, and she or he will show her or him greater achievements, to your amazement. For as the parent revives and inspires people, so also the child will inspire you. For the parent doesn't impose his personal morality on anyone.... I tell you this in all sincerity whoever hears about what I stand for and affirms it participates in something transcendent.... For as the parent is the ground of being, so she or he has also given the child meaningful existence...."
She bowed her head to compose her thoughts, knowing there was no need of prayer, because the Goddess was within her. Or rather all of life was a prayer, and mere words presumptuous.
Should she open her heart now declare the wisdom in her heart? What a glory if the congregation heard and understood to see them leaping and dancing in the aisles in praise of the Goddess, lost in the rhythm that is the tides, that is the blood, that is Life Herself.
But no. Not yet. She remembered the words of her seminary mentor the day she had come to him troubled, telling of her confusion, frightened that she was losing hold of the Jesus she had loved as a girl.
"You're growing up in the faith, Judith," he had told her, smiling, his eyes understanding, his white hair a corona in the window light. "Every soul that passes to true maturity must abandon the Jesus of childhood. It seems hard, but you'll find you can only keep him if you give him up. Who was the historical Jesus after all but a well-meaning enthusiast, a country preacher with strange pretensions? He died, his words were lost or muddled; we cannot know him. But the spiritual Jesus you are learning to follow can never be lost, for he is being formed each day within you. Believe in him, and your potential is unbounded. He will make you truly free."
"But can I say this to a congregation?" she had asked.
"No." He shook his head, his smile was sad. "We have to teach them in figures and parables. Lead them step by step. It's the great task of the Church in our day, to dismantle the faith of the laity without panicking them.
"Get them to make small compromises, one at a time. Never use reason. Use feelings, for feelings are the only truth of the soul. There are just two kinds of people, you know idea people and feeling people. It's the idea people who've gotten the world into the mess it's in. So if they try to pin you down with logic, don't be ashamed to resort to the weapons of the heart. Like tears. Most people, especially most Lutherans, would rather surrender any principle than cause a scene.
"Remember our gospel is not about statements or ideas of any kind. It is about the person of Christ, who is of course whatever we say he is."
Wondering, she had asked, "We don't know anything about God, do we?"
"We're creating God. Create wisely, Judith."
It had been hard to give up the Jesus who "loves me, this I know." But she had followed the way of integrity, and what freedom, what joy she had found in return!
She was strong. She could wait. She would bring her flock in easy stages, like a good shepherd.
"In the Name of the Parent, and the Offspring, and the Sustainer Spirit," she said.
Martell sat on his sofa in his underwear, looking at a Sunday morning cartoon program. A commercial made his stomach hurt, and he switched the channel on his remote. A preacher with a face like a pit bull's was saying, "JESUS SAYS you must be born again! I didn't say it! Jesus said it! You can come to me and say, 'Well, Brother Corey, there's nothing wrong with my life! I got a nice home, I got a '"
"You're sincere, Brother Corey," said Martell. "I just wish it were that simple."
He switched around and found some news.
"Reaction continues today to the Supreme Court's refusal to consider a challenge to the DRA, the Definition of Religion Act. This leaves standing the government's new criteria by which such privileges as tax exemption and freedom of assembly will be restricted for sectarian groups. In response to charges that the law permits Washington to strip basic civil rights from anyone it disagrees with, Senate bill co-sponsor Lennon Murietta of California said:"
"DRA will not affect any responsible American religionist. This law is a tool necessary to protect the people from con men and cults who would attempt to exploit them.
"For a long time a conflict has raged in the country over the nature of the Constitution. Narrow left-brain thinkers see the Constitution in a static, literalist way, ascribing the force of law to its actual contents. Fortunately most Americans have rejected constitutional fundamentalism to embrace the dynamic Constitutional Penumbra we've come to hold so dear.
"In the past, black-and-white thinking has taken the First Amendment to mean that all Americans have the right to think and speak as they please. Well that was a very sweet idea, and it may have worked in simpler times. But this is the 21st Century.
"Some time back the courts, understanding the nature of the times we live in, accepted the establishment of a new class of law the Hate Crime. This was their first official recognition that there are some ideas that simply cannot be tolerated in a free society; that it is our right and duty to root out certain kinds of thought.
"America is like a rose bush. Certain buds must be sacrificed if the best blossoms are to flourish. Our precious culture, built on the Penumbra of the Constitution, designed on the principles of moral relativism, offers the world its best hope for peace and security. We cannot allow a small group of moral absolutists to divide us and spread their hate. To allow such people to vote, assemble, publish or hold office would violate the sacred principle of separation of religion and state. Such people despise the very basis of our society, and have already forfeited all civil rights. At worst they are hateful bigots who must be locked away for the good of everyone. At best they are sick, emotionally repressed victims who require institutionalization.
"The people want DRA. We have given it to them. It's the right thing for America today."
Martell thumbed the remote control again, and found a popular stand-up comic doing his most famous routine. It consisted of reciting the names of well-known public figures who were unpopular in Hollywood, then sticking a finger down his throat and vomiting into an on-stage trough. Newsweek had described his act as "brilliant, but disturbing".
Martell wondered if he should get a satellite dish. Or throw the set out altogether. But then he'd have to think of something else to do to numb his mind.
It was a little after 11:00. He hadn't slept until after 2:00 a.m. He'd gone for a night walk to compose himself, to consult Cerafsky, but the comet was silent as ever, and he had found himself frightened of shadows. He'd thought he saw ravens everywhere. It brought back memories of childhood, and old phobias. When he had slept at last there had been the dream.
He'd been lucky Friday night, caught up in Roy Corson's miseries. Fuddled with compassion and alcohol, he'd collapsed on the sofa without a thought of Elaine or Sigfod Oski.
Elaine. He hadn't wanted to think about Elaine. Elaine demanded action, the thing he was least able to give.
Of course Oski wasn't Odin. The force of the man's personality could bowl you over, even give you nightmares, but no sane person could believe such a claim. Oski thought he was Odin though Martell was sure of that and he was mad and ruthless.
I'm no match for him.
True, but winning wasn't necessary. Not if a Noble Death was to be the climax. Oski had said he wasn't a coward now that was a terrifying thought.
In bed his thoughts had run like a loop of recording tape: He's stronger than me; I have no stomach for confrontations; she never loved me anyway.
As a boy he used to lie awake at night and try not to think about a man casting with a fly-rod. Because whenever he thought about a man casting with a fly-rod, the rod would start whipping forward and backward in his imagination, and he couldn't stop the motion. And when you're lying in bed alone at one in the morning, there are few distractions to rescue you from an obsessive thought.
Last night had been like that. He had tried to read, tried to watch TV, but he couldn't stand it. Exhaustion had pulled him under at last, his thoughts still whipping, and he had dreamed, and feared to sleep again.
And now it was day, and time to do things.
Why me?
He pulled his teeshirt from his chest. It was clammy; he assumed it stank.
He thought of making breakfast but the thought turned his stomach.
He thought of leaving town, running alone. He couldn't get his savings out of the bank on a Sunday, but he could run now and worry about that later.
He thought, "Am I like that?" Oski had said he was no coward. It had rung true. But he was no hero either.
He shook his head and concentrated on a cartoon cat on television, pulling a fish skeleton out of a garbage can.
He remembered, for some reason, his father and the welding torch. He remembered his father saying, "I can make the weld stronger than the piece was before it broke."
His father and mother had died in an auto accident while he was in college. He wished he could call them now and ask them what to do.
Maybe there was someone he could ask, though. A man with influence. One last sane recourse. Maybe he could shower, and try to eat something, and make a visit in the afternoon.
Rory Buchan knocked on the alley door of a Main Street tire store. A man in a ski mask let him in, and he found himself in the shop area. It was a cramped room, not built for auto service. Piles of tires and tools large and small left little floor space. A light fuzz of black, dusty oil covered every surface. Thumb, in his black mask, sat in a battered office chair by the workbench.
"Good afternoon, Brother Rory," Thumb said. "Quite a town you got here. From what I hear on the radio you had suicides, and fights, and attempted murder, and rape, and all kinds of vandalism, and two or three fires last night."
"It's been crazy," said Rory.
"Well maybe we can do something about it, Brother. The power of Satan is strong in Epsom, but you and us, we can fight it. We have the weapons. Did you bring the key?"
Rory said, "Yeah," but he kept it in his pocket.
Thumb looked at him. "Are you looking back from the plow, Brother?"
"Maybe, some."
"Nobody's gonna make you do something you don't want to do. But I got to remind you that what we're doing here is mighty important. Maybe the most important thing in the history of America."
"I've been praying about it, and thinking about it," said Rory, "and I just can't get my thoughts straight. So here's the best I can figure it out. I'll give you the key. But I won't go along with you tonight."
"You got to work?"
"No, this is my night off. But I'm going out to W.O.W. myself, before you do. I don't care what happens to the rest of them, but there's one person there I've got to talk to. Maybe I can bring her out, like Lot's family."
"If that's the way it's got to be, Brother Rory," said Thumb, holding his hand out. Rory laid the key in it. It had a wrinkled yellowish tag on a string that said, "ChURCh." "I wish you'd come with us, though. We'd be proud to have you."
"I'll pray for you. Pray for me," said Rory, and he left.
Carl Martell stood outside President Lygre's house in the early evening, shivering in the chill wind. The forecasters said possible snow. He walked around the block a couple times. There seemed to be a lot of people out; a lot of cars on the streets. He could hear voices raised; once or twice there was a shot. He walked some more, making up speeches and rejecting them.
He feared Saemund Lygre, as he'd always feared anyone in authority. It was a symptom, colleagues in the Psychology Department had informed him, of the Authoritarian Personality. Psychologists, while agreeing that Right and Wrong were culturally determined prejudices and therefore purely matters of personal taste, also agreed that an Authoritarian Personality was nevertheless a very bad thing to be.
If he went in to talk to President Lygre, he would be taking a stand, choosing a side. He hadn't taken a stand on anything in a very long time.
But cowardice was no longer an option. Besides, he'd phoned ahead.
He squared his shoulders and walked to the door. He pushed the bell.
Ruth Lygre answered. He thought, as he always did when he saw her, what a lovely woman she was. He thought she must have looked like a Pre-Raphaelite angel when she was a girl, or a willow in spring. He felt cheated that he'd never found such a woman for himself. But he probably hadn't really looked.
"Come in Carl, how nice to see you," she said, letting him in and taking his coat. "I'm so glad you came. We don't see nearly enough of you."
"Thank you," he said. "I'm sorry I'm a little late."
She said it didn't matter and asked him if he cared for coffee. He said no, thanks. She left him in the living room and he found himself alone with Dr. Lygre. He wasn't sure whether the man had just walked in or had been there when he entered. His brown suit faded into the panelling like a prairie bird's protective coat.
"Well Carl, what's on your mind? Sit down."
"I I had a visit from Sigfod Oski yesterday."
"Excellent. Excellent. He told you then?"
"Told me?"
"That he wants you for his assistant on his new project. He didn't tell you this?"
"No. It didn't come up."
"Oh well, perhaps he had a reason. I guess I've let the cat out. He wants to write an epic poem about the Vikings in America. He especially asked for your help in the research phase. I said I was sure you'd be honored to cooperate. You'd get credit in the final publication, of course, and we'll be happy to adjust your schedule, reduce you class load and so forth. It will call for travel, and of course there's some money involved."
Martell stammered, "It's... it's quite an honor."
"I should say so. You'll accept, I assume."
Martell took a deep breath.
"I don't think I can," he said, avoiding Lygre's eyes.
"I'm not sure I understand, Carl."
"I'm afraid I can't work with Sigfod Oski. That's why I'm here tonight. To tell you I don't know I think he'll be bad for the school."
"I see. How do you mean, bad for the school?"
"I mean... he's a very... I'm not sure he's quite sane. Sure, you expect a poet to be a little mad, but I think he may drag the college along into something that'll hurt it, and hurt a lot of people. Nothing can make him look bad people will say, 'Well, that's Oski, the crazy Viking poet.' But Christiania can't afford to look foolish."
"Do you have any specific foolishness in mind?"
"He told me well, he as much as told me that he's a sort of reincarnation of the god Odin. That he's bringing in a new age. He believes this. He's going to promote it, from here. Do we want to be associated with a crackpot religion, or some kind of Fourth Reich?"
Martell looked up into Lygre's eyes and found them distinct, cold and blue.
"I had thought better of you, Carl," he said.
Martell cast about for words.
"I thought you were mature enough to work in a great man's shadow," said Lygre. "Apparently I was mistaken."
"Now wait "
"No, you wait! If you can't bear to stand beside a man who's taller than you, the least you can do is to be honest about it. Don't muddy the waters with this drivel about his religion. These aren't the Middle Ages, Carl. We do not practice bigotry at Christiania."
"That's not the point "
"Oh I think it is the point, Carl. We hired you under the New Horizons program. We explained that we were breaking up the Christian ghetto. You told us you were an agnostic.
"But you don't teach like an agnostic. You talk about 'moral law' and great men. You cultivate Harry Gunderson, of all people.
"You're a closet Christian; we all know it. Your conduct has been obstructionist and hypocritical. Not to mention ungrateful."
"Ungrateful?"
"To Sigfod Oski. You can't tell me you didn't know it was his influence that got you out of that sexual harrassment complaint?"
"I Oski wasn't even here then!"
"No, but he had written ahead to say he wanted to work with you. We couldn't very well have you under a cloud for his arrival, could we?"
"But but I was cleared. Julie took it all back "
"Don't be naive, Carl."
"You mean I wasn't cleared? You let me off just to accommodate Oski?"
"Carl, these are hard times for small colleges. Did you know we seriously thought about closing the whole thing down last spring? Sigfod Oski is our salvation. What you did or didn't do is of no importance beside that."
"But suppose I'd been guilty? What about Julie?"
"One of the alumni made a substantial settlement with the family. Out of court, so to speak."
"Dear God. You think it's true!"
"For Heaven's sake, Carl, grow up. This the real world. Appearance is what matters. Perception is reality. If you want to talk about religion, that's what religion is, at bottom.
"You've got to break out of this black-and-white paradigm, Carl. It's always the believers in Truth who end up running inquisitions and death camps. You think you'd be different, but you wouldn't. You carry the seed. Until humankind frees itself from all creeds, we'll never be rid of evil. Open your mind, Carl!"
Martell stared, speechless. Forsythe's words screamed in his brain: "I do not say you're a child-killer, Martell, but...."
Panic rose in his stomach. He had to run from here.
"Of course we understand that you've had a rough time, Carl. You're not a tough-souled man. When we hired you, the University sent us your psychological abstract we understand your limitations. It's all right a man who killed his own brother is bound to have them."
Martell gaped. No, no, no, no, no! What was the man talking about? Killed my own brother? Every muscle in his body tensed for flight.
"Now what I want you to do, Carl, is to go home and get some rest. You look terrible. Then you can be fresh and sharp tomorrow morning to begin your work with Oski. We'll pretend this conversation never happened. And it won't have."
Dr. Lygre got up and faded out of the room. Ruth Lygre came in with Martell's coat and escorted him to the door. He followed like a trained animal.
"Don't think too harshly of him," she whispered as he reached for the door handle. "He used to believe. But they wore him down. You know how it is. People call you a fascist and a bigot over and over, and the temptation to adjust never lets up. Finally he stopped saying what he believed, and in the end he forgot he'd ever believed it."
Her words made no impression on him. Without a word he walked out into the night. It was dark now, and the wind turned his sweat to ice. There were noises and voices everywhere, like New Year's Eve, and a buzzing from somewhere that sounded like a chainsaw.
He whispered, "My brother I never "
But he couldn't lie. He had had a brother.
"Remember, you're the oldest; you've got to watch out for Marty," his mother had told him.
He recalled how unjust it had felt, a strong six-year-old tied to a stumbling baby of two. "I hate you," he had whispered to the child.
A day had come when he had decided to take a run through the pastures. His mother would have said no if he had asked to go out there so near supper, so he hadn't asked. And Marty had followed, as he always did. And Carl had run as fast as he could, as far as he could, to leave the small shadow behind. But he had relented at last, and stopped to let his brother catch up. But Marty never caught up. Carl had run back over the hill to look...
He did not remember the body floating in the stock tank, but he remembered hiding in the haymow all night, shivering with fear and horror, unable to go to his parents, while they and all the neighbors searched for both, then one, of the lost boys.
And now he could do nothing but bring the monstrosity out and look at it.
"I killed my brother," he whispered through clenched teeth.
LIE! The pain bent him over.
He stood bent, gasping for breath. What was happening? He had spoken the single truth he'd hidden from all these years, and it had come back at him like a face-slap, rejected.
"I did kill him! I could have protected him, and I didn't."
Better. But not precisely true.
"Then what is the truth? I was responsible!"
You were six years old.
"I could have saved him."
If you had been incredibly mature for your age. You were guilty of a child's thoughtlessness, not a man's viciousness. All six-year-old's are irresponsible. Most get through it without anyone dying. You were unlucky. Your parents tried to explain this to you, but you wouldn't listen.
It couldn't be true. It was too easy. It was... irresponsible.
Look at the truth, Martell. You must.
He had no way of avoiding the awful vindication. It was the hardest thing he had ever done to bow to mercy, to accept compassion, to be made free by the truth.
All your life you have tried to shoulder a mountain of responsibility. When you failed as Truth's Defender, you could not bear the shame. When you failed as the Defender of Innocence...
["It was your FIRST TIME?" he had said, looking in shock at Elaine's glowing face.
"Sure. What's the big deal?"
And he had looked at her, smiling and golden in his bed, appalled by the knowledge that he had deflowered a virgin. "I'm responsible for her now," he had thought. "I must love and protect her always."]
His whole life had been based on a lie, a vainglory of guilt.
Stumbling, he began to walk, the rags of his history dragging at his ankles.
He saw, without emotion, a burning house. There were firetrucks on the lawn, and he stood with the crowd to watch. Occasionally a screeching rat ran by him, fleeing the fire. Nearby two men in hunting clothes drank beer as they looked on, the flames reflecting in their eyes, the wind whipping the hair below their caps.
"Been a freakin' lot of fires last couple days," one of them said.
"That's straight. We got a firebug in this town."
"Could be. Some kid, probably."
"Like to find that kid."
"Yup. Fix him."
"String him up."
"Yah."
"You bet."
A police siren sent up a space-movie wail somewhere in the distance.
He walked some more. There were a lot of people on the streets this Sunday night, walking, cruising in cars. Loud people, laughing, shouting. Keyed up. Waiting for something to happen.
He passed three young men leaning on a car, drinking beer. They were students from one of his classes.
"Hey, Mr. Martell! Have a drink."
He looked at them as if he didn't understand the language they spoke. "What?" he asked.
"Have a drink! What's the matter, you too good to drink with us?"
He recognized his surroundings then this was some bad movie he'd wandered into. The next shot called for him to refuse the beer. Then they would beat him up.
He spoiled the continuity by taking the offered can, drinking it, thanking them and wandering off again.
Somewhere, another fire siren howled.
Responsibility.
If it was true that his own actions weighed so little, then he need not be as careful in the future. His options would be greater, his choices harder. He'd have to be... more responsible.
This would take some thinking about.
He hardly noticed the hunting party of Native Americans, in breechclouts and buckskin shirts, carrying bows and arrows, who passed him on Third Street, or the beer wagon, pulled by a pair of Percherons, on Moss Avenue.
At last he found himself in front of Harry's house. It was after ten now. There were still lights on.
For some reason he had avoided this house. He felt vaguely that to enter it would be an irrevocable step, as with a man in a tale who enters a fairy mound and comes out to find thirty years passed in a night. He shivered. The wind seemed to have gotten into his ear canals.
A farmer in overalls and a gimme cap, quite drunk, came lurching down the sidewalk at him. He walked up close, caught Martell by the sleeve and breathed in his face.
"What I wanna know is, where's my dog?" he demanded.
"I don't know anything about your dog," said Martell.
"Ain't just my dog," the man went on. He chose his words carefully, his face full of concern. "Lotsa dogs been disappearin' the last coupla days. My dog, Howie Benson's dog, Ivan Munson's dog lotsa dogs."
"Maybe you should go to the police."
"Whadda you know about it?" The man stalked off.
Minna answered Martell's knock and told him he could wait in the front room. Harry was talking to Stoney Berge. He sat on an old sofa and resigned himself.
It came to Rory Buchan, as he drove out to the W.O.W. farm, WEEP playing on the radio, that he couldn't be a party to what the Hands of God was planning. Maybe, when in doubt, the thing to do was to be merciful. You might be wrong, but you'd never sin against the Holy Spirit by showing mercy. He pulled the car over and stopped it.
The police, he thought. I'll tell them about the Hands of God. They'll protect Laura.
He was looking for a driveway to turn around in when he heard his Sunday night stand-in announce a new record. He was surprised at that. He usually premiered new releases himself, on Saturday nights.
"We've got a brand-new one for you from the Beaurivoir Brothers," the announcer said. "This is a goody, and I think it's gonna be a real big one for them. You see what you think. It's called, 'Why Don't You Finish What You Started?'"
Rory stiffened. Here was the sign he'd waited for. As he had always believed they would, the Beaurivoir Brothers had reached out in his moment of need to tell him what he was called to do.
#
Harry Gunderson came storming out of his room and stumped down the hall, pulling his overcoat on. Stoney loped behind him. Harry paused by the front room arch and looked in at Martell.
"I just dropped in " Martell said.
"Well come along. We'll talk on the way. Stoney here tells me something fishy's going on at the church."
"Maybe I should come back another time."
"Nonsense. Come on. It could be interesting. We might have to roust some people out."
"What?"
"Stoney picked up a rumor that there's a meeting at Nidaros tonight. Only there's nothing scheduled. Everybody knows Lutherans don't come out on Sunday nights."
Martell followed them out.
"People goin' crazy these days," Stoney observed as they stepped into the wind. They heard an ambulance siren. "Ever since they started cookin' with microwaves."