Alice Asks the Big Questions

by Laurent Gounelle

  Sounds like the mutual, incestuous insemination of hermaphroditic snails.

  When you unclothe yourselves and are not ashamed, and take your garments and trample on them, then you will see the son of the Living One.

  Did he want to open a nudist colony? Well, then, why did the church chastise the cardinals seen naked last year in a gay sauna in Rome?

  “Do you have legal problems?” asked Rachid, the colleague who shared Alice’s office.

  Alice shook her head but leaned nervously over her Civil Code. “It’s for a client.”

  “What are you working on now?”

  “An old thing that’s on its last legs and needs updating.”

  “Oh, something ancient. I had one of those. Mine was for Duralex, drinking glasses that had been around for at least forty years with no changes. It’s the worst kind of client you can have. I much prefer getting hold of a scandal—it’s more exciting. How old is your thing?”

  Alice made a face. “About two thousand years old.”

  “Oh boy. Your old thing must be all moldy!”

  Alice forced herself to smile, then continued reading.

  Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.

  At that moment, Arnaud, the head of the Accounting department, came into the office. Arnaud was the kind of unbearable man who was “always right.” With dark hair and blue eyes, he would have been rather handsome if his awful personality hadn’t made him seem so ugly.

  “You made a stupid mistake in your statement for the IKEA file,” he said.

  Alice looked up. She and Rachid had worked hard for at least two months on IKEA’s food scandal, in particular the sale of six thousand chocolate tarts that contained fecal matter.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You declared mileage for days when there were no billable hours,” he said, sounding scornful.

  Silence. Alice and her colleague looked at each other, dumbstruck.

  “We declare the mileage on the days we travel,” said Rachid.

  “Oh, really? You travel on the days you don’t see your client? That’s not logical.”

  That’s not logical was the expression Arnaud always used to make someone feel like an idiot.

  Alice did not reply and tried to concentrate on her reading to keep from smacking him.

  Bless those who persecute you.

  “I don’t know,” said Rachid. “Perhaps we traveled the day before to get to a meeting early the next morning?”

  “You don’t know, you don’t know…So how am I supposed to know?”

  Alice watched him walk away, grumbling, and read out loud very quietly, “Pray for those who mistreat you.”

  “What was that?” Rachid asked, and burst out laughing.

  “Nothing, it’s nothing. There’s a quote from Jesus in the text. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Jesus is one of the five great prophets of Islam, my dear.”

  Great. That was all she needed. Given the present times, that was surely the best argument to get Jesus back in the saddle.

  “Imagine for a minute,” Rachid continued, “that you worked in Accounting and that you had to put up with Arnaud all day long. It would be hell to have him as your boss.”

  “Still, you have to see the team of nitwits he’s got. That would drive anyone crazy.”

  Rachid agreed. “Yeah, ’cause he’s also bad at recruiting.”

  Jesus was also a bad recruiter, Alice thought. Out of his twelve apostles, one never understood anything and even ended up renouncing him; the second one betrayed him; and all the others ran away like thieves as soon as things started heating up! Not a single one remained faithful to him. And he wasn’t a great leader either. He was always complaining about not being able to pass on his faith to his own apostles.

  Alice closed the Bible and pushed it away. She felt totally discouraged. For the first time in her career she felt as though she had taken on an impossible task.

  She sighed. Next to her, Rachid was on a phone call. She swiveled her chair around to face the plate-glass window. From within the gray ocean of Parisian rooftops, a bell tower rose up here and there, vestiges of a dying religion. Strangely enough, somewhere within her she felt a certain attachment to these buildings, beyond their architectural interest, even if she did hate setting foot in them. Probably a holdover from belonging to the civilization she was part of.

  She took a deep breath.

  If she used all her goodwill, took all her courage in both hands, set all her skills to work, could she perhaps manage to accomplish something? After all, she had succeeded in bringing clients back to IKEA’s restaurants after the company had given them shitty tarts to eat!

  5

  Rejoice in the Lord!

  Rejoice in the Lord!

  Sitting at the back of the Notre-Dame Church in Cluny, Alice could barely stop herself from laughing out loud as she listened to the religious songs. It took all her strength to hold back, so much so that her ribs were aching.

  Inspired, the two sanctimonious gossips, Germaine and Cornélie, whose dress sense would have made the Catholics of 1793 Versailles look like riffraff, sang the chorus with great gusto:

  I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

  My whole being shall exult in my God.

  Breathe, keep breathing, Alice thought, to prevent an outburst. Take short breaths, because if your lungs fill up with air, they might let out the echoing sound of laughter.

  Hallelujah, for our Lord God Almighty reigns!

  Sing the glory of his name!

  Jeremy’s depressed expression clashed with the joyful melody of the songs.

  Tell of all his marvelous works.

  Her desire to laugh was good for her, given the unease she felt every time she went into a church. It was a disagreeable feeling of being out of place, along with an internal conflict: to make the sign of the cross and behave like a hypocrite, or not do it and feel judged as impious.

  Come now and behold the works of God,

  How wonderful he is in his dealings with humankind!

  Her father had wanted Alice baptized at birth, more because of tradition than out of true faith, and despite the great reluctance of her mother, who retained a hatred of religion she had inherited from her own mother. Brought up by nuns who themselves had suffered the abuse of power of a poisonous Mother Superior, her grandmother remembered nothing but the bad times. Alice’s contact with religion had come to a halt after the baptism. No catechism, nothing. Naturally, she had grown up an atheist.

  Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

  Lord, I am yours.

  An idea suddenly came to Alice, and she took out her Civil Code to check it. It took her a little while to find the passage she was looking for, even though she had read the New Testament three times to immerse herself in it—one of her old work habits. It was in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6, verse 6. Jesus advised people to pray alone at home and not in places of worship. And moreover, he hardly went to them himself: “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” So why did these believers in Jesus go to pray all together in a church? Bizarre.

  Jeremy then led the parishioners in the recital of a psalm:

  Have mercy on me, O God,

  according to your unfailing love;

  according to your great compassion

  blot out my transgressions.

  Wash away all my iniquity

  and cleanse me from my sin.

  For I know my transgressions,

  and my sin is always before me.

  Against you, you only, have I sinned

  and done what is evil in your sight…

  He went on to give a sermon on original sin and man’s sinful nature, which resulted from it. But Alice was positive: not once in the Bible did Jesus speak of original sin. He didn’t even allude to it. Not once. Why this discrepancy?

  F
rom the back of the church where she was sitting, she had a full view of the nave and choir. When she looked up, she could see a good number of faces carved into the stone. One of them was famous in Cluny: Pidou Berlu, a figure with three faces beneath a single crown.

  The parishioners were a tiny handful of people lost in this enormous space. Behind them stood numerous rows of chairs that were disappointingly empty. To the right was an old, dusty confessional made of dark wood. Just the sight of it made Alice feel uncomfortable, without her knowing why.

  Directly behind her, religious leaflets were piled up on a table. One of them had a photo of the pope beneath the golden dome of the Vatican.

  Jesus had fled when people wanted to make him the king of the Jews, and later on, he had said to a Roman: “My kingdom is not of this world.” The Vatican officially claims to be a state, and the pope its sovereign, with a court, subjects, and riches. Its kingdom is truly of this world.

  She suddenly remembered that when Jeremy had arrived outside the church, his flock had each greeted him with a “Hello, Father,” which had caught her attention. She leafed through her Civil Code and quickly found what had surprised her. Jesus had counseled: “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.”

  Alice frowned. Curious, this religion that strived to do the opposite of what its messiah had said.

  Lord, our Lord,

  How majestic is your name in all the earth!

  The singing began again. Alice continued leafing through her Bible. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 6, verse 46, Jesus asked his disciples: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

  * * *

  After the Mass, Alice and Jeremy walked through the center of Cluny to the town hall garden that overlooked the ancient abbey. Hundred-year-old cedars stretched up toward the blue sky, their majestic branches leaning down to the earth as if bowing in reverence to passersby. They walked in silence, their feet lightly brushing the grass with a barely audible sound. The air had the lovely scent of springtime, making them eager to breathe in deeply. Yet Alice held back, feeling more and more cornered by the mission she had given herself. The wild laughter she had suppressed was a distant memory. Now that she was thinking about her task again, she was once more overwhelmed by a feeling of impotence. How could she coax modern-day people to go and participate in the kind of gatherings called Masses? It seemed beyond her capabilities. The chants were silly, the sermons left you feeling guilty, and the rest was deadly boring. And all of it, with poor Jeremy’s look of depression, against a backdrop of sadness.

  A squirrel leaped across a bit of grass in front of them and scampered up a cedar tree.

  Okay. Let’s start at the beginning.

  “What is your goal as a priest?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What is the point of all that? The Mass, everything you do.”

  He took a deep breath. “To spread the Good News.”

  “What Good News?”

  “The Gospels.”

  “And…if you had to explain that in plain language?”

  Jeremy frowned.

  She continued, “What exactly do you want to give people?”

  “I want to deliver all the truths that Jesus spoke about and that his disciples reported in writing.”

  “Good. Okay. And…what would be the benefits for people?”

  She nearly slipped up by saying “consumer benefits,” an occupational hazard he would not have appreciated. It was really much easier with the owner of a business. If he made dishwashers, she could easily research why they were useful: they saved time, saved water, and produced sparkling glasses. But with this, she was in much less tangible territory.

  By pushing Jeremy to answer question after question, she managed to come to a conclusion that was completely personal, though she was very careful not to verbalize it: if people could internalize Jesus’s message, they would be happier. Difficult to believe, of course, especially after having read the Bible, but all right. Fortunately, she was never responsible for the ultimate satisfaction of the customer. In the end, whether the dishwasher made the glasses cloudy or broke down after three months was not her problem.

  “You know,” she said after a long moment of reflection, “if you want to attract new people, you would be better off talking less about God during the Mass.”

  “What?” Jeremy choked out.

  “The majority of people nowadays no longer believe in God, so there’s no point in trying to shock them from the start.”

  “Shock them? So what do you want me to talk about? The movie that was on TV the night before?”

  Jeremy, who was usually so reserved, had difficulty hiding his horror, and Alice regretted her tactlessness.

  She continued, but carefully chose her words. “You could emphasize what in Jesus’s message can really bring something to their own lives.”

  Well…if anything can, she thought.

  “I see. A utilitarian vision of spirituality. With personal applications.”

  She confirmed by nodding her head, an apologetic smile on her face.

  They continued walking through the garden in silence. Jeremy seemed to be thinking.

  “The problem,” he finally said, “is that spirituality is the opposite of such an approach. You only find it when you let go of your personal interest to open yourself up to something that is beyond you, something greater than yourself.”

  Alice made a face. “I used to go to dance classes. No one, absolutely no one, could do a split right away. In every case, you started from what you could do and slowly made progress.”

  Jeremy did not reply, and Alice felt she had scored a point.

  They took a few more steps and sat down on a patch of grass.

  “I wanted to suggest something else to you: what if you stopped talking about sin all the time in your sermons? It makes people feel guilty and want to run out of there as fast as they can.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “How could I leave that out when that is exactly why Jesus died: to cleanse us of our sins?”

  She looked doubtful. “Jesus never said that, though he did predict his death on several occasions. And he also didn’t seem as obsessed with sin as you all are. His disciples even described him as someone who enjoyed life, who was rather attracted to food and drink.”

  “You can’t seriously mean a thing like that.”

  She opened her Bible. “I’ll show you. I put Post-its in…Here, listen to this. The apostle Matthew said of him: ‘The Son of Man came eating and drinking.’”

  Jeremy did not reply.

  “And,” she added, “you’ve made him out to be an asexual prude, even though he never advised couples to abstain or show self-control. Quite the opposite, he told them: ‘Do not withhold yourselves from each other’! He even let the courtesans caress his feet with their hair. He didn’t have a problem associating with prostitutes either. Your Jesus was the complete opposite of a hung-up ascetic.”

  Jeremy remained silent. Perhaps he was sensitive to these arguments? Go on. Don’t throw in the towel.

  “I also wanted to discuss the choice of songs.”

  He frowned. “You mean the hymns, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Don’t upset him.

  “I remember hearing some Gregorian chants when I was little,” she continued. “They were beautiful, rousing. Why have you given those up for your…hymns?”

  Jeremy burst out laughing. “You are definitely full of surprises! You go from a mind-blowing desire for modernism to a traditionalist return to the past!”

  “They’re a little more captivating than what you sing today, aren’t they?”

  And besides, she thought, they’re as mesmerizing as can be for shutting down your cerebral skills. Exactly what’s needed.

  “But people don’t understand Latin anymore! No one would understand the meaning of the words.”

  Which would perhaps be better, thought
Alice, who remembered the words chanted during the Mass a few minutes earlier.

  “At least admit that the music you use now is unbelievably lacking in artistic merit. You can’t feel anything but boredom when you hear it. You need some music that you can feel in your gut, music that touches you deep in your soul. Like Bach, for example! If you used ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,’ you would immediately feel drawn into another dimension. Whenever I hear it, it’s so beautiful that tears come to my eyes.”

  Jeremy shook his head again. “We mostly use it for weddings.”

  “Who cares? What counts is that it transports you to another world, makes you believe in another reality. You were just talking about opening yourself up to something greater than yourself. Well, when you listen to that, you have the impression that you are connecting…to the creation of the universe! To the Creator himself! Bach could turn the most materialistic atheists, the most Marxist Communists, into believers!”

  “But—”

  “In any case, you’re not going to raise people to a higher level of consciousness with your silly little songs!”

  Jeremy was hurt for a moment, and Alice regretted getting carried away. She had, after all, promised herself she would not upset him.

  A silence followed that quickly weighed heavily on her. All around her, the garden was empty. Not even a gust of wind to brighten the atmosphere with the rustling of leaves. The tall cedars with their bowed branches seemed despondent on her behalf.

  “Okay for Johann Sebastian Bach,” he finally said.

  Alice smiled with satisfaction, but she also felt admiration for him: not many people would be able to agree to your point of view a few moments after having been upset by what you said. That was certainly evidence of his great soul.

  She looked at him without saying anything. He was sitting sideways to her, and his eyes seemed fixed on the tops of the trees far away on the hilltops. What a shame that a man with such a noble spirit seemed so sad, when he obviously would be unbelievably powerful if only he radiated joy.