A Jest of God

by Margaret Laurence

  Reaching River Street and passing the locked and empty stores, I can see myself reflected dimly, like the negative of a photograph, in the wide glass of display windows. The white coat stands out, but not as handsomely as I’d hoped. To my passing eyes it looks now like some ancient robe around me, and the hood, hiding my hair, makes my face narrow and staring. As in the distorting mirrors at a fair, I’m made to look even taller than I am. I have to pass myself again and again, and see a thin streak of a person, like the stroke of a white chalk on a blackboard.

  At the foot of River Street, past the shopping part and down the slow curve of the hill, the old olive-green house stands, high and angular, encrusted with glassed-in porches, pillars with no purpose, wrought-iron balconies never likely to have been used except in the height of summer, a small turret or two for good measure, and the blue and red glass circle of a rose-window at the very top. It was built by some waistcoated gent who made good, and then made tangible his concept of paradise in this house. Whatever family once owned it, they’ve moved now, shrugged it thankfully off their shoulders, I expect. The sign extends the full width of the house, and is well lighted. The crimson words are plain to see.

  Tabernacle of the Risen and Reborn

  People are going in, knots and clusters of them. I haven’t seen a soul I know, thank God. But I can’t go in. I won’t. Now I want to turn and run. But Calla is beside me.

  “You’re looking very smart tonight, Rachel, in spite of the rain.”

  “Oh – thanks. I’m glad you think so.”

  “Well, c’mon,” she says encouragingly, taking my arm, “let’s get inside. I feel like a drowned rat. What a filthy night, eh? Never mind, we’ll soon be in the warm. This way, kiddo.”

  The room is larger than I remember it, almost as large as though the place had been a proper church. The chairs are in semi-circular rows, the same straight, thickly varnished chairs one used to find in every school auditorium, but replaced there now with lighter ones which can be stacked up, and the old ones probably sold to establishments such as this. The painted walls are heavy with their greenish blue, not the clear blue of open places but dense and murky, the way the sea must be, fathoms under. Two large pictures are hanging, both Jesus, bearded and bleeding, his heart exposed and bristling with thorns like a scarlet pincushion. There is no altar, but at the front a kind of pulpit stands, bulky and new, pale wood blossoming in bunches of grapes and small sharp birds with beaks uplifted. The top of the pulpit is draped with white velvet, like a scarf, tasselled with limp silver threads, and on the velvet rests a book. The Book, of course, not jacketed severely in black but covered with some faintly glittering cloth or substance impersonating gold, and probably if the room were dark it would glow – or give off sparks.

  “Let’s sit near the back.”

  “Oh, okay, if you like,” Calla is disappointed, but willing to make any concessions because she’s actually got me here. We push our way past feet, past coats containing people whose faces can’t be seen because their heads are bowed. Then we’re sitting in the middle of the row, and although I would have preferred the end, I can’t move now.

  I can’t move, that’s the awful thing. I’m hemmed in, caught. On one side of me sits Calla, bunched up in her gabardine trenchcoat, and on the other side an unknown man, middle-aged, or so I’d guess from his balding head. He is leaning forward, head down, his large-knuckled hands clenched on his knees. He is a farmer, I think, for the back of his neck is that brick red that gets ingrained from years of sun and never fades, not even in the winter.

  I must focus my mind on something, and not think of this meeting hall and everything around me. I must go away, pretend it isn’t. When I first came back to Manawaka, Lennox Cates used to ask me out, and I went, but when he started asking me out twice a week, I stopped seeing him before it went any further. We didn’t have enough in common, I thought, meaning I couldn’t visualize myself as the wife of a farmer, a man who’d never even finished High School. He married not long afterwards. I’ve taught three of his children. All nice-looking kids, fair-haired like Lennox, and all bright. Well.

  The two ceiling bulbs are bare, and can’t be more than forty watts. The light seems distant and hazy, and the air colder than it can really be, and foetid with the smell of feet and damp coats. It’s like some crypt, dead air and staleness, deadness, silence. The scuffing of incoming shoes has stopped. They are all assembled now. Perhaps they are praying.

  How can Calla sit there, head inclined? How can she come here every week? She is slangy and strident; she laughs a lot, and in her flat she sings with hoarse-voiced enjoyment the kind of songs the teenagers sing. She can paint scenery for a play or form a choir out of kids who can’t even carry a tune – she’d take on anything. But she’s here. Don’t I know her at all?

  Will there be ecstatic utterances and will Calla suddenly rise and keen like the Grecian women wild on the hills, or wail in a wolf’s voice, or speak as hissingly as a cell of serpents?

  Stop. I must stop. This is only anticipating that worst which never happens, at least not in the way one imagines. Nothing will happen. Yet my hands are clasped together more tightly than those of the quiet man beside me. What is he thinking? I wouldn’t want to know.

  A man has risen. A stubby man, almost stunted, an open candid face, nothing menacing, nothing so absurd that it can’t be borne. He goes to the pulpit. He welcomes one and all, he says, one and all, spreading brown-sleeved arms and smiling trustingly. Now I’m ashamed to be here, as though I’d gatecrashed, come in under false pretences.

  Singing. We have to stand, and I must try to make myself narrower so I won’t brush against anyone. A piano crashes the tune. Guitars and one trombone are in support. The voices are weak at first, wavering like a radio not quite adjusted, and I’m shaking with the effort not to giggle, although God knows it’s not amusing me. The voices strengthen, grow muscular, until the room is swollen with the sound of a hymn macabre as the messengers of the apocalypse, the gaunt horsemen, the cloaked skeletons I dreamed of once when I was quite young, and wakened, and she said “Don’t be foolish – don’t be foolish, Rachel – there’s nothing there.” The hymn-sound is too loud – it washes into my head, sea waves of it.

  Day of wrath! O day of mourning!

  See fulfilled the prophet’s warning!

  Heaven and earth in ashes burning!

  I hate this. I would like to go home. Sit down. The others are sitting down. Just don’t be noticeable. Oh God – do I know anyone? Suddenly I’m scanning the rows, searching. Seek and ye shall find. Mrs. Pusey, ancient arch-enemy of my mother, tongue like a cat-o’-nine-tails, and Alvin Jarrett, who works at the bakery, and old Miss Murdoch from the bank. How in hell can I get out of this bloody place without being seen?

  Rachel. Calm. At once. This isn’t like you.

  The lay preacher is praying, and I can’t hear the words, somehow, only his husky voice, his voice like a husky dog’s, a low growling. Beside me, the hulked form of the farmer sits crouched over. They all seem to be crouching, all of them, all around me, crouching and waiting. They are (of course I know it) praying. It’s not a zoo, not Doctor Moreau’s island where the beastmen prowled and waited, able to speak but without comprehension.

  Then the lay preacher’s voice forms into words in my hearing and I realize what he’s talking about. The prayer is over, and he’s addressing the congregation.

  “Soon, very shortly, my brethren, I am going to read to you from The Book of Life, The Counsel of Heaven, the true words written by Him on High, He the sole Author. All things shall be made clear, and the doubts of the doubters shall be laid low. We have doubted, yes. We have been infirm, yes. We have failed to trust the gifts given freely and fully by the Spirit. Did not Saint Paul chide the Corinthians for the same weakness? And it is through his letter to these people, these Corinthians, that marvellous first epistle, that thrilling document of the holy word of God, that all our doubts shall pass away and we shall ent
er the peace of His spiritual fullness, for in the words of Saint Paul, that great and mild apostle, God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.”

  His voice is creamy as mayonnaise. He makes Paul sound like a fool. What – Paul, mild? When he says thr-illlling it sounds like a Technicolor movie, one of those religious epics.

  “The church of the apostles, the church of Peter, the church of Paul, the church of Philip who converted Simon the sorcerer, this very church, the church of the ancients, our brothers in faith, this church did indeed practise and enjoy to the fullest extent every gift of the Spirit. This church did in all knowledge know there was a place, and a holy place, for all the gifts of the Spirit, each and every one of the gifts of the Spirit. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom – to another the word of knowledge – to another the gifts of healing – to another prophecy – to another divers kinds of tongues –”

  My hands are slippery with perspiration. Around me, the people stir – uneasily? Calla’s face is withdrawn, absorbed, not her outgoing look, something fixed and glazed, and I cannot look at her any more. Will she? Imagine having to see someone you know, someone you are known to be friends with, rise in a trance and say – what? What would she say? I cannot bring myself to think.

  The preacher has grown in stature. He actually seems taller. The pulpit has another step, maybe, and he has mounted it. Can that be it? He is all fervour now, and yet his voice is not loud. His arms are stretched, as though he knew there were something above and if he strained he might reach it – or else pull it down to his level. His voice no longer growls – it reaches out like arms of strength, to captivate. I must leave. I cannot stand this. But I cannot move. I see myself having to say “Excuse me – pardon me,” scraping and bumping past the other people in this row, feeling them glare at my discourtesy, having to push past this boulder of a man next to me, past his solid pillars of legs and the huge unmoving hands clenched there. I can’t.

  “Saint Paul advises moderation – of this we are well aware. And that the gift of tongues should not replace the more usual forms of worship – of this we are well aware. But if we speak of ecstatic utterances, my friends, we must ask – ecstatic for whom? In the early Church, the listeners were ecstatic. Yes, the listeners as well as those gifted by the Spirit. Thus can we all participate – yes, participate – in the joy felt and known by any one of our brothers or sisters as they experience that deep and private enjoyment, that sublime edification, the infilling of the Spirit –”

  I feel so apprehensive now that I can hardly sit here in a pretence of quiet. The muscles of my face have wired my jawbone so tightly that when I move it, it makes a slight clicking sound. Has anyone heard? No, of course not. Their minds are on the preacher and – the hymn. The hymn? I can’t stand. I seem to be taken to my feet, borne ludicrously aloft, by the sheer force and weight of the rising people on either side of me.

  In full and glad surrender,

  I give myself to Thee,

  Thine utterly and only

  And evermore to be.

  Can we at least sit down again, at last? Thank God. But someone will utter now. I know it. How can anyone bear to make a public spectacle of themselves? How could anyone display so openly? I will not look. I will not listen. People should keep themselves to themselves – that’s the only decent way. Beside me, Calla sighs, and I can feel my every muscle becoming rigid, as though I hoped to restrain her by power of will.

  A man’s voice. Suddenly, into the muffled foot-shuffling and the half silence, a man’s voice enters, low at first, then louder. I don’t know where he is. I can’t see him. He hasn’t risen. He is sitting somewhere in the blue-green depths of this room, and he is speaking. His voice is clear, distinct, measured, like the slow careful playing of some simple tune. He speaks the words like a child learning, imitating. Slowly, stumblingly, then gaining momentum, the pace and volume increasing until the entire room, the entire skull, is filled with the loudness of this terrifyingly calm voice. For an instant I am caught up in that voice.

  I see him. He is standing now. He is not old. His face is severe, delicate, and his eyes are closed, like a blind seer, a younger Tiresias come to tell the king the words that no one could listen to and live. The words. Chillingly, I realize.

  Galamani halafaka tabinota caragoya lal lal ufranti –

  Oh my God. They can sit, rapt, wrapped around and smothered willingly by these syllables, the chanting of some mad enchanter, himself enchanted? It’s silly to be afraid. But I am. I can’t help it. And how can anyone look and face anyone else, in the face of this sinister foolery? I can’t look. I can only sit, as drawn in as possible, my eyes willing themselves to see only the dark-brown oiled floorboards.

  He has stopped. I can’t stand for a hymn. I’ll stay sitting. But that would be too obvious. The decision is taken out of my hands as once again I’m lifted by the unasked-for pressure of elbows.

  Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

  Shall come to thee, O Israel!

  All I can visualize are the dimly remembered faithful of Corinth, each crying aloud his own words, no one hearing anyone else, no one able to know what anyone else was saying, unable even to know what they themselves were saying. Are these people mad or am I? I hate this hymn.

  Celebrate confusion. Let us celebrate confusion. God is not the author of confusion but of peace. What a laugh. Let the Dionysian women rend themselves on the night hills and consume the god.

  I want to go home. I want to go away and never come back. I want –

  Are we seated? There is a kind of hiatus, a holding of breath in the lungs, a waiting. The quiet man beside me moans, and I’m shocked by the sound’s openness, the admitted quality of it. Has his pulse been quickened or made indefinitely slow? Impossible to tell. But I can see the vein in one of his wrists. Throbbing.

  Calla is holding herself very still. I can feel the tension of her arm through our two coats. If she speaks, I will never be able to face her again. I can feel along my nerves and arteries the squirming and squeamishness of that shame, and having to walk out of the Tabernacle with her afterwards, through a gauntlet of eyes.

  Silence. I can’t stay. I can’t stand it. I really can’t. Beside me, the man moans gently, moans and stirs, and moans –

  That voice!

  Chattering, crying, ululating, the forbidden transformed cryptically to nonsense, dragged from the crypt, stolen and shouted, the shuddering of it, the fear, the breaking, the release, the grieving –

  Not Calla’s voice. Mine. Oh my God. Mine. The voice of Rachel.

  “Hush, Rachel. Hush, hush – it’s all right, child.”

  She is crooning the words softly over me. We are in her flat. The chesterfield is covered with an old car rug, green and black plaid, and it is on this that I am lying. I remember only vaguely our getting here, walking through the streets and the wind, the rain pelting against me and I hardly noticing it at all. As for the rest, I remember everything, every detail, and will never be able to forget, however hard I try. It will come back again and again, and I will have to endure it, over and over.

  The crying has stopped now. Calla hands me a handkerchief and I blow my nose.

  “How long did it go on?”

  “You mean – crying? You started in the Tabernacle, and I took you out right away, and –”

  “No. I didn’t mean that. I meant – the other.”

  “Oh. Only a minute. Less, probably.”

  “You don’t have to be kind. How long?”

  “I’ve told you,” Calla says. “But if you won’t believe me, what can I do?”

  “Was it – was I – was it very loud?”

  “No,” Calla says. “It wasn’t loud at all.”

  I have no way of knowing whether she is telling me the truth or not. She is looking at me closely and questioningly, as though trying to decide whether to say something.

&nbs
p; “Look – it’s okay,” she says at last. “I know it wasn’t – well, you know – a religious experience, for you.”

  I feel absolutely cold and detached from everything. My voice sounds flat and expressionless, nearly a monotone.

  “I guess it’s a good thing you realize that, anyway.”

  “I’m not,” she says with unexpected bitterness, “entirely lacking in all forms of understanding.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “No, but you think I’m a crank for going there. Maybe I am. I wanted you to go so you’d see it wasn’t faked. And now look what’s happened, what I’ve done. Oh, Rachel, I’m sorry – honestly I am. I should never –”

  “You’re sorry?” I can’t understand this. “I was the one who –”

  I can’t go on. I won’t think of it. Calla is looking at me with a pity I can’t tolerate.

  “If only you didn’t feel that way about it,” she says.

  “Do you know what I detest more than anything else? Hysteria. It’s so – slack. I’ve never done anything like that before. I’m so ashamed.”

  “Child, don’t. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “I can’t be hard enough, evidently. What will I do next, Calla? I’m – oh, Calla, I’m so damn frightened.”

  She is kneeling beside the chesterfield, and the grey fringe of her hair is almost brushing against my face. She puts an arm around my shoulders and I realize from the rasping of her breath that she is actually crying. What has she got to cry about?

  “Rachel, honey,” she says, “it practically kills me to see you like this.”

  Then, as though unpremeditated, she kisses my face and swiftly afterwards my mouth.

  My drawing away is sharp, violent. I feel violated, unclean, as though I would strike her dead if I had the means. She pulls away then, too, and looks at me with a kind of bewilderment, a pleading apology, not saying a word. How ludicrous she looks, kneeling there, her wide face, her hands clasped anxiously. My anger feels more than justified, and in some way this is a tremendous relief.