Vivien reached out and touched Beatrice, who was still in front of her, on the left shoulder. “Before we go in,” Vivien said, “can we talk about this personal testimony thing for a minute…? Am I supposed to do anything other than stand up and talk about who I was before, and why I joined the order in the first place?”
“That’s all,” Beatrice said.
“Then couldn’t I do it here, in front of the trainees, instead of back in Hyde Park? I don’t know why, but I think I’d be more comfortable talking to recruits I won’t see every day instead of … you know, some of the brothers and sisters in our community are so pious, they make me nervous…”
Beatrice stopped walking and looked over at Vivien. “I think that would be all right,” she said at length. “Yes, I’ll talk to Brother Terry about it.”
“The sister I’m about to introduce to you,” Brother Terry said to the assembled trainees, “is devoted, caring, deeply talented, and absolutely indefatigable… Recently Sister Beatrice has been leading our effort to expand our Hyde Park community in downtown London. Brothers and Sisters, it gives me great personal pleasure to introduce one of my role models to you this evening. It is an extra delight that I have been chosen to tell you, and her, that the city of London late this afternoon announced approval of our Kensington Gardens expansion.”
There was no applause. The order did not prohibit it, but clapping was frowned on at religious functions. A smiling Beatrice approached the microphone at center court and gazed out at a sea of eager faces.
“Thank you, Brother Terry,” she began, “both for inviting me here today to share a few minutes with all these wonderful new recruits, and for informing me of the success of our expansion project. I pray that God will guide us in this new- endeavor, and that we will be able to reduce significantly the pain and suffering experienced by the two thousand more people who will eventually live in our expanded community.
“What I would like to do this evening,” Beatrice said after a brief pause, “is offer some insight into the greatest undertaking of your lives, an undertaking which, if followed through to commitment and ordination, will irrevocably alter your entire perspective of yourself, your fellow men and women, and even the planet on which you live… You are embarking on a great journey with God as your helmsman. All humanity, not just those wearing the blue robe of our order, are passengers on this voyage. Your task, should you decide to accept God’s call, is to dedicate your life to serving the other passengers, to distribute to them the resources and love they need so that their minds and hearts can clearly see God’s plan for all of us.
“These lofty objectives may not always be apparent as you proceed through the day-to-day activities in your six weeks of training here. You may sometimes wonder just how the Bible studies, meditation exercises, lessons in religious history, culture, and foreign language, group discussions, physical activities, and all the therapy sessions contribute to your preparation. Believe me, nothing in the curriculum has been included without a specific purpose. What is done here is modeled, as are all our training programs, on the preparations for ordination suggested by St. Michael himself in the months before his death.
“Those of you who successfully graduate from this program will be temporarily classified as novices in the order. You will be given both a specific assignment and an individual sponsor for the remainder of your tenure as a novice. Between sixteen and twenty weeks after you leave here, you must make a commitment decision. If you decide not to become ordained, you will come back to Wimbledon, claim your possessions, and return to what we call ‘outside life’ with our blessing. If you do choose ordination, and have both fulfilled the prerequisite requirements and received the recommendation of your sponsor, then you will be admitted as a priest or priestess to the Order of St. Michael.
“Your ordination vows are very simple. You swear an oath to God that you will dedicate your life to the service of mankind. You also promise to God a life of chastity and poverty. It was St. Michael himself who established these two promises as cornerstones of our order. When one of his early disciples asked him why he was so adamant about these two vows, Michael replied, ‘Nearly every human I have met has an overwhelming passion for either sex or material possessions or both. To give them both up, forever, requires a painful sacrifice. It is impossible to subdue one’s selfishness, and truly achieve the oath of dedication, without enormous self-discipline. Willingly accepting chastity and poverty indicates that the new priest or priestess understands the demands of the life that he or she has chosen.’
“On the day that you are ordained, all of your possessions become the property of the order, to be used in whatever way best serves our objectives…”
Vivien was no longer listening to Sister Beatrice’s speech. It had seemed simple enough, half an hour earlier when she had suggested the idea, to perform her personal testimony here. Now, as the time when Vivien would speak was fast approaching, she was having difficulty controlling her nerves. What was she going to say? Should she admit, in front of everyone, that after all this time she still had doubts about her ability to make the required commitment?
“…I am often asked by people,” Beatrice was saying, “why it is necessary for members of the order to have a new name, one that is different from the one by which they have been known all their lives. That policy also derives its origin from St. Michael himself. He believed that the achievement of a life of dedication to others required a total rebirth. What better way to symbolize that personal renaissance than with a new name…”
Vivien had heard Beatrice speak often enough to know that she was nearly finished. She began to panic. Vivien had still not organized what she was going to say.
Suddenly Beatrice was looking at her. Vivien had not even heard her name. She walked forward slowly, tentatively, into the brighter lights in the center of the open arena.
Vivien had thought of some witty opening lines, but as she fingered the microphone she could not remember them. She glanced around for help. Beatrice was smiling at her and making small nodding movements with her head.
“Hello,” Vivien said finally, the echo from the mike making her even more jittery. “I’m Sister Vivien… and I would like to make my personal testimony.”
She froze. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Vivien felt as if she were going to faint. She grabbed the microphone again out of sheer desperation. “I’m really scared,” she said, “so it may take me a few minutes to get going.”
Vivien backed up and took a deep breath. “I’m twenty-nine years old,” she heard herself say a few moments later. “I lived in Essex with my parents and younger brother until seven years ago, when I moved to London.” Again she paused. “My father was a banker, and also managed the family estate. He had been a confirmed bachelor until he met my mother, when he was almost forty, during a weekend outing in London.”
It was becoming easier. Vivien looked over at Beatrice and imagined that she was having a private conversation with her sponsor. “My mother was a cabaret singer from Jamaica almost twenty years younger than my father. She was also black, as you probably guessed from the color of my skin.
“I had a wonderful childhood, although I’ll admit that at the time I did not realize how fortunate I was. My parents loved my brother and me, and they adored each other. They indulged us, especially me. I can’t recall ever wanting something that they didn’t provide for me.
“Looking back,” Vivien said, “I see that I was a very selfish young woman, completely wrapped up in my own life. I went to the university at Essex, but I didn’t really work very hard at my studies. By that time I had discovered men and, probably more importantly, they had discovered me. As you might imagine, I was something of an exotic item in Essex.”
Vivien didn’t like the way the last phrase sounded, but she tried to forget it and continued. “When I came to London after university, I went to work for one of those temporary services agencies. I did secretarial work, bookkeeping, a
nd odd jobs, usually working no more than three or four days a week by my own choice. That was back before the Crash, when jobs were plentiful.
“I loved London, particularly the nightlife. I went out often, drank too much, experimented with drugs and sex, and ran my credit accounts up to the maximum by buying clothes and jewelry. When the depression hit London hard, I couldn’t pay my bills. Collectors started bugging me. I probably should have asked my parents for help, but I was too proud. A girlfriend of mine, who was also having money trouble, introduced me to a woman who ran an escort service.”
Vivien backed briefly away from the microphone and gathered her thoughts. “I lived the next three years of my life as a high-class prostitute, although I certainly didn’t think of myself in those terms at the time. The money was good, the hours easy, the bill collectors were paid off. But I was depressed most of the time.
“I started therapy, I went down to stay with my parents more often, I tried going to church… Nothing made me feel worthwhile. That was when I began to think about joining the order. Still, I hesitated for four months, reading everything I could about St. Michael and attending seminars and other public functions of the order. During that time I also continued to work for the escort service and enjoy the life of the London playgirl.
“Why did I finally decide to join? That’s not an easy question for me to answer. There were many reasons, I’m certain, but the one that stands out in my mind is that I had a desperate need to be at peace with myself. I thought perhaps that by performing service for others, the gaping hole inside me would be filled.
“I now like myself, and I feel that my life has some meaning. Nevertheless, as I stand here before you, I have not yet been able to make the lifetime commitment to the order. Why not? I don’t know for sure. I’m afraid of making a mistake, I know that… But I could make a mistake either way. No matter what I decide, however I can tell you that my experience with the brethren of St. Michael, to use Sister Beatrice’s well-chosen words, has irrevocably altered my life.”
Vivien’s passage to the storehouse where the household goods and personal effects were kept was temporarily blocked. Brother Andrew didn’t see her. Vivien was standing off to the side, out of the light, and he was busy directing the pair of trainees who were moving the cars.
“Two more ought to do it,” Brother Andrew said to the young man in jeans climbing out of the car that had just been left among the jumble of automobiles temporarily filling the lane between the headquarters and the storehouses. To Vivien’s right, over a hundred cars were parked in close ranks, side by side, nose to rear, on a large open field. Another car pulled out of one of the lines and jerked to a halt in the lane not far from Vivien.
“I’m sorry, Sister,” a lanky girl said when she opened the driver’s door. “I didn’t know you were there.”
Brother Andrew heard the girl’s comment, noticed Vivien, and came over beside her. He introduced himself. “Thanks for your personal testimony this evening,” he said. “It reminded me of my last days as a novice. I, too, had a hard time with my final commitment.”
He turned around as another car entered the lane. “Careful,” Brother Andrew shouted at the young recruit who was driving. The car, a luxurious new sedan, narrowly missed hitting one of the other automobiles. “That one will bring thirty thousand pounds,” he said to Vivien.
“Is there another way to Storehouse Eleven?” Vivien asked, not wanting to wander through the maze of cars.
“Yes,” said Brother Andrew. “But if you’ll wait another minute or two, I’ll drive you over. It’s really quite a walk.”
Vivien glanced at her watch. The train departed from Wimbledon Station at 1920. She had roughly half an hour before she was to meet Beatrice at Brother Timothy’s office.
“That’s the one,” Brother Andrew was shouting. “Pull it out over here, next to the green coupe.”
A black Japanese sedan, four or five years old, wound through the array of cars, finally emerging and stopping about twenty meters from Brother Andrew and Vivien. “That’s the pair,” Andrew said to the young man. “Now, would you and Sister Edith please put all these cars back where they were … more or less.”
Brother Andrew motioned for Vivien to join him in the sedan. “Both these owners were ordained today,” he explained when they were together in the car. “One in Leeds and one in York. We’ll have them cleaned up and on the lot by noon tomorrow.”
He turned down a dark alley between two tall structures. “I never dreamed when I joined the order,” Brother Andrew said with a sharp laugh, “that I’d end up as a car salesman… God sure works in mysterious ways.”
Vivien thanked him for the ride and climbed out of the car. Storehouse 11 had originally been a pair of outlying tennis courts. The Order of St. Michael had simply put a roof over the top of the courts and rearranged the ground space.
She placed her identification badge in the card reader and then, when prompted, entered the six-digit code that Brother Terry had given her. Vivien heard the door lock click. She opened the door and went inside the dark storehouse. Running her finger along the wall, she found the light switch.
When her eyes had adjusted to the lights, Vivien searched the walls and ceiling for the coordinate identifiers that Brother Terry had given her. As she walked in the direction of her belongings, the video surveillance cameras followed her.
The room was well organized. Furniture and containers had been placed in every conceivable spot, yet there were regular aisles among the pieces and the layout was easy to follow. Bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchen appliances were mixed up and scattered throughout the huge storehouse, arranged by owner rather than by type of furniture. Fancy Oriental furnishings, including some magnificent hand-carved teak, were juxtaposed with everyday plastic desks and tables from the discount store.
Vivien saw her bed first, over against a wall. Actually, what she recognized from the distance was her bedspread, a gift from her parents when she first moved to London. Her pace quickened the final thirty meters as she approached her bed. Vivien sat down upon it, bounced lightly a couple of times, and looked around her. On the right was her chest of drawers, to the left her armoire, both marked in duplicate with the same code identifying her bed.
A thousand memories swam in Vivien’s mind when she opened the armoire. Her dresses were neatly placed on hangers, each carefully identified, and looked as if they had just come back from the cleaners. As she touched each outfit Vivien remembered a time she had worn it, and often even the store at which she had purchased the item. She found her red dress, the one her friend Olivia said made her look “sexier than Cleopatra,” pulled it out of the armoire, and held it in front of her while she looked in the mirror. The contrast between the sleek, low-cut dress and the blue robe she was wearing made Vivien laugh. She considered for a moment putting on the dress, just to see if it still fit, but she decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea.
She walked over and sat in one of the black-and-white living-room chairs. Vivien looked around at the objects that had adorned her apartment. A feeling of sadness began to grow inside her. The feeling strengthened when she stood up and moved slowly around the area, touching each piece of furniture with her hands and fingers.
At length Vivien returned to the armoire and opened its drawers. Her jewelry had been carefully bagged, two or three individual pieces per bag, and marked with the same code that was on her furniture. She pulled out the deep blue Brazilian aquamarine pendant and matching earrings that her boyfriend Ernest had given her on her twenty-fifth birthday. Again Vivien looked at her reflection in the mirror, this time holding the dangling earrings beside her ears with her thumbs and index fingers.
In another small bag she found her gold cigarette lighter with the flowing script V engraved on the back. How she had loved that lighter! She flicked it a few times, as much out of habit as to prove to herself that it still worked. Vivien remembered clearly the American businessman who had bought the lighter fo
r her. They had spent a long weekend together in Brighton, during the early days of her escort work. Cliff had told her that she was too classy a woman to use disposable lighters. They had had a good time together those three days. He had treated her like a queen. Vivien had been both delighted and astonished when Cliff had given her a three-hundred-pound tip.
The memories, vivid pictures flooding into her mind one after another, were overpowering her. Vivien felt as if she were alone in a small boat, surrounded by an endless sea. Turning her back on her furniture, she crossed the storehouse floor to the door. She stood just outside in the cold, dark air, with the door ajar, and lit a cigarette with her favorite lighter.
The memories had followed her outside. Vivien could not escape them. How could she possibly give up everything she had known, she asked herself, for the uncertain life of a Michaelite priestess? There would be no more fancy dresses, no more beach vacations in Brighton, no more beautiful jewelry, not tomorrow, not next week, not ever. And yet, and yet…
She inhaled deeply and watched a set of smoke rings rise slowly in the damp night air. They drifted up near the large electric light on the corner of the roof of the storehouse. As the smoke rings began to break up Vivien noticed an unusual bright cloud hovering near the light on the roof. Puzzled, she walked over to the corner of the building so that she would have a better view.
What was hanging near the edge of the roof was a collection of sparkling white particles, almost like a small cloud of mist, but far more prominent and distinct. Each individual particle, as it gently whirled and eddied inside the collection, was reflecting the light from the bulb on the storehouse. And although Vivien’s smoke rings had already dissipated and been carried away by the light wind, this peculiar bright cloud did not move, as if it were somehow affixed to the edge of the building.
Without taking her eyes off the cloud, Vivien moved to a position where the light was directly behind the particles. From this coign of vantage she could see the entire pattern very well. Vivien was fascinated by the way each particle appeared to be dancing along its own particular path, yet the overall outline of the cloud maintained the same structure.
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