by G. H. Holmes
She was really here—in the flesh.
“I think I got mixed up about ten or ten-thirty.” She relaxed her rigid posture. Shifting her weight onto one leg, she smirked and said, “Looks like somebody didn’t want me here.”
He blew the steam off his coffee.
She looked around. “I didn’t expect your church to be so big.”
“We rent the whole top floor now.” He put down his cup.
“And below’s a factory?” Her wide eyes probed him and she pointed down.
He nodded. “With machines and guys in overalls.”
“Good thing they don’t produce on Sundays.”
“Never have.” He studied the veins in the gray marble of the table, tracing them with his finger. He felt her eyes.
“Now,” he said, “you know what you did when you lifted your hand today.” He looked up at her.
Her face was serious, her eyes still wide. She nodded.
“You gave your life to Jesus. That means that now you’re born again spiritually; you received God’s nature and eternal life. Your sins are forgiven and the past is past, yes?”
Gina nodded again. Words weren’t necessary to confirm her experience. The size of the crowd, the music, the excitement; Stark’s loud and insolent preaching, the roaring laughter and the shouts of amen… all that had made a huge impression on her and she’d responded to his altar call with a desperate desire, with the eagerness of a starving person to partake of the feast, to be part of that vibrant, singing crowd of true believers, cult or not. They were alive, they didn’t have a care in the world; God was with them and she wanted him to be with her too.
“You’re saved now; you’re transformed.” Stark’s tone was solemn. “Jesus lives in you. You’ll find that you have new desires now, desires of the spiritual man that you didn’t have before. You’ll want to read God’s word; you’ll want to pray. Now,” he leaned forward on his elbows, “it might be that Ralph doesn’t understand how you’ve changed. It might be that…”
Tom kept on talking and Gina nodded every so often, until a voice broke in: “Need more coffee, Pastor?” Elsa, a Bistro volunteer stood next to them, thermos in hand. Glancing at Gina, she giggled self-consciously.
Stark looked around and noticed that he and the carpenter’s wife were the only ones left in the café. Baffled, he checked his watch: 12:35 PM. He’d been babbling for thirty minutes! He looked down at Elsa. Her offer of more coffee was sincere, no doubt. But her interruption also served as a reminder of the time.
“That’s kind of you,” Stark said, “but no thanks.”
Elsa giggled, stole another glance at Gina, and trotted off toward the kitchen.
“One last thing.” Gina slung her purse over her shoulder. “Bert Müller—”
“Who’s that?” He sounded like an interrogator.
“You know…”
He frowned. “I see… Yes, go on.”
“He said, he’ll kill himself if I convert,” she whispered, smiling shyly.
Stark grinned too. “That’ll be the day,” he said, figuring she enjoyed being the center of Müller’s universe. That was going to change, of course.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be off. We’ll see one another at the fest? You still coming?”
“We’ll be there,” he assured her.
“I sure hope Ralph’s not mad. He said he’d come with me this morning, but then he chickened out, and the kids wanted to stay home too… Anyway. At least I don’t have to cook. Maybe they’re already on the grounds.”
Stark checked his watch again. “See you in an hour.”
“I’ll reserve seats for you.” Then she was gone. He heard her heels click away on the granite of the hall outside.
Today, Elmendorf celebrated the dedication of its first official church building. The small chapel was committed centuries ago, sometime around 1768, but that didn’t keep the good villagers from celebrating the occasion every third Sunday in July with umpah-music and beer from barrels and bratwurst and steaks and grilled chicken, all sold from stands within a tent set up on the new soccer field down by the lake. There were also games for the children, sponsored by the volunteer fire brigade, which hosed the kids down occasionally, and endless rows of tables and beer benches on which the adults sat, drinking and yakking and brawling and yakking and drinking, until they were either too hoarse or too happy to carry on. Then they went home. It was like that every year.
It was early afternoon when Ralph sat down next to Romy. Both were subdued in their mood.
Gina took her place across the table beside Tom. She was delirious with giggles and snickers, and her face shone as if a light had been turned on behind her eyes. Ralph, out of the loop, sat in awkward silence while his wife praised Tom and his church and his music and his service and his workers and his preaching without ceasing, hitting his shoulder with her fist in a playful way, and touching his arm every so often.
“I’ll convert,” she said. “I’ll unregister with the Church and join yours.” She turned to her husband. “Ralph, is that okay?”
Delors shrugged. “Do what you want.” To Romy he said, “That’s what she does anyway.”
She tried not to hear him.
Tom reached into his breast pocket and took out his shades, put them on, and looked at Gina, who laughed and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Tom, what does one have to do to become a member of your church?” she asked.
Delors’s eyes shifted toward the pastor in an otherwise unmoving face.
“You need to come on a regular basis,” Stark said matter-of-factly.
“But how do I register?” Gina said with an almost sensual undertone.
“No need,” Tom said, imitating her inflection. Is she’s trying to be Sharon Stone? He’d seen Stone once. In half a movie.
Sharon blinked behind her veil of curls, confused.
Delors echoed, “No need?”
“What good does it do to register somewhere if you never show up? I’m more interested in your attendance than in having your name on file. I don’t need card-file attendants.”
“Hmm,” Gina said, admiring the wisdom behind his simple words. They were revelations, deep as Solomon’s. “That’s right.”
“But that can’t be all,” Delors said.
“But it is,” Romy confirmed.
“And how do you… finance yourself?” Ralph inquired rather shamefacedly.
Stark had anticipated the question. He had to tread carefully now. “You see…” he said, shifting in his seat, “we receive donations.”
Gina nodded knowingly, brushing the hair out of her eyes again.
“We don’t believe in church taxes. They’re a silly thing. Actually, Napoleon invented those after he lifted the Church’s possessions and secularized its estates.” He rubbed his forehead. “In Eighteen-oh-three, I think.”
Delors’s head swayed ponderously; he was listening.
“But Napoleon was an imperialist and not a man of God. He wanted to weaken the Church and strengthen the state. All dictators are like that. That doesn’t mean that the Church didn’t have it coming. It was corrupt to the bone—much like today. Full of hypocrisy.”
People around them fell silent and listened in on Stark’s comments.
“The tax-solution makes the church a debtor, even a warden, of the state. But the Church of Jesus Christ is second to nobody—“
“You a Mormon?” a woman’s giggly voice asked from a neighboring table.
Tom turned toward her. She was one of the several Mrs. Gillichs of Elmendorf, a stout woman, elderly, with short black hair, eager eyes, and a noticeable mustache. Stark knew vaguely that she was the wife of Gina’s mother’s husband’s brother. Or so.
He smiled as he watched her whiskers expand across her face. She had new teeth. “No,” he said, “Evangelical. What makes you think I’m Mormon?”
“You mentioned the Church of Jesus Christ—“
“—of Latter Day Saints?�
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She giggled and nodded.
“No,” Tom said. “We’re the normal Church of Jesus Christ.”
Now her husband—Anton—spoke, “And the Catholics are not?”
Stark tried to discern the old farmer’s nuance while Romy sighed inaudibly. “Some of them are,” he said. “Some of them aren’t.”
“Langenbach has almost a thousand people every Sunday,” said Mrs. Gillich, referring to the populist priest of Saint Elmo’s in Schweinfurt.
“With all due respect, Mrs. Gillich,” Stark said. “But he’s an all-inclusive universalist.”
Her nose went up. “Uuuh,” she said, fully enlightened.
Tom explained. “He believes that all religions come from God, and that there’s—”
“Well, don’t they?” said a man Tom’s age.
Stark stared at him for a second. Then he said, “No. Jesus said: I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to God but through me. He didn’t say Allah or Shiva or Buddha were fine too. Jesus said: I’m it, and that’s all there’s to it. Not even Mary counts.”
The silence spread to more tables.
“Mary was a fine woman,” Stark continued. “Jesus will forever have only one mother, and she’s it. But she’s no co-savior. Jesus didn’t talk about ‘Me and my mother are way, truth, and life.’ Only Jesus saved mankind on the cross. That’s where Catholicism is problematic…”
Stark noticed that all eyes were focusing on something behind him; he felt a tapping on his shoulder and turned to see. Two abject, deeply tanned creatures, long-haired, and both sporting homemade tattoos, stood behind him, holding almost-empty half-liter glasses of beer in their hands.
“You was saying something about Mary?” said the slightly shorter one. He reeked of tobacco and booze.
“Nothing that concerns you.” Tom’s muscles tensed. A fat bluebottle buzzed through the silent heat and he heard how Mrs. Gillich giggled.
“Frank, what do you think, he should take back what he said about Mary.”
Frank ignored him. Wedging himself in between Tom and the carpenter’s wife, he sat down and struck up a conversation. “Hi Gina.”
Delors frowned.
“What’s up, Frank?” she replied, shading her eyes.
“Did you finally get that tattoo?”
“Uh-huh.” She cast her eyes down.
“Really? What’d you get?”
Ralph swallowed.
“The butterfly,” Gina said.
“Front or back?”
“Back.”
Frank laughed and coughed. “Left or right.”
She hesitated.
Stark became indignant. “Friend,” he said, “you’re really cool with this body art of yours. It’s just that we were talking. Why don’t you run along and get another tattoo?”
Harry staggered closer, snarling, “Hey! He can ask her whatever he wants. He’s engaged to her. Isn’t that right, Gina?”
She stared at the table, an oblique smile on her face.
“He’s not anymore,” Tom said evenly. He put his hand on the drunk’s shoulder. “She’s married to Ralph now and—”
Frank glowered at him. “Take your hand off.”
Stark let go. He noticed how Ralph gnawed on his lower lip. Following Delors’s gaze, he saw a group of bikers swagger closer, clad in black like Frank and Harry.
“You better get going,” Tom said cheerfully.
Frank ignored him. He put one arm around Gina. “You busy tonight?”
“Enough.” The voice again was Stark’s.
Frank cursed him and Harry snickered. “What’cha gonna do, big man?”
“Watch out, guys!” Gina said, enduring Frank’s embrace. “This man’s different.” Her voice almost flipped.
“You don’t say.”
“I mean it. He’s killed people.”
“What?” Mr. Gillich—Anton—turned sideways to have a look at Tom.
“It’s true!” Gina cried.
“Soldier,” Romy said in the direction of Anton Gillich, swallowing while she spoke. “Tom’s been a soldier in Iraq.”
“Iraq?” Harry’s brows went up.
“What the babe say?” Frank said.
Harry wiped his face with the palm of his hand. “He’s been a cotton-picking soldier in Iraq.”
“I don’t believe it.”
Gina piped up, “He got wounded. He’s got a scar right here.” She pointed at her heart. “I’ve seen it myself.”
Ralph asked, “When was that?”
Romy turned toward her husband.
Gina blushed, basking in everybody’s attention. “In Tom’s garden house. When I picked up Raff last week. He didn’t wear a shirt.”
Mrs. Gillich giggled.
“Did he wear pants?” a man asked and some laughed.
“No,” Gina said.
A roar went through the crowd, diffusing some of the tension.
“Did you wear pants?” Mr. Deters yelled over the clamor.
“Meee?” Gina said.
“Yes, you!”
“Neither!” She grinned. The people now whooped and pounded their tables. “I wore a dress,” she clarified, and some booed. “He wore something too. Didn’t you, Tom?”
Stark lifted his hands defensively. “Of course!”
“You leave her alone,” Frank said.
“What’s it to you?” Stark replied.
Frank looked at Harry, who said, “I don’t believe he’s been in Iraq. Germans don’t fight there.”
“I’m American,” Tom clarified.
“Really?” said Mrs. Gillich. “I thought only your wife—”
“War-mongerin’ American.” Harry burped.
“And this guy sits next to my fiancée,” Frank said. “But she’s not going to let you see the butterfly, bud. Nothing. Not a chance.”
“You weren’t my fiancé,” Gina said. “You drove me home from the disco once, that was all.”
“He still remembers every moment.” This from Harry.
“Yeah,” Frank admitted. “All three hours. Think of ‘em every day.”
Gina blushed again.
“Well, that’s been a long time ago,” Tom said. “Right now she’s happy without you and doesn’t care to be reminded of—”
Frank ignored him. His face moved drunkenly toward Gina’s ear. He purred, “Gina, marry me.” Pointing at Ralph with an unsteady finger, he snarled, “What you looking at?”
Ralph grinned.
“You mean just because you’ve got money means you get all the good women too? Forget it, man. She’s mine.” Frank saw Stark’s hand appear on his shoulder again.
“This ‘picker…” Standing, Harry suddenly lunged out and smashed his beer glass on the table’s edge next to Tom.
Romy started and Ralph ducked as the splinters scattered. Harry’s glass now had sharp edges.
A man said, “Now, guys…”
“Shut up!” Frank said. “Man, he’s a war-mongering foreigner and wants to tell us what to do.” He turned to Tom. “Go home to Dubya Bush, man.”
A voice behind Tom said, “Bush? Bush’s a grand—” Harry was pulling back his fist, his face contorting into a vicious mask—and was suddenly lifted off the ground. He arched backwards, gracefully, until his pointy boots slid by, on one level with Frank’s eyes. For a second he hung suspended in midair, then he slammed into the withered grass, flipping over until he lay in a heap in front of his biker-friends.
An admiring murmur rolled through the crowd; a few of the men stood.
Frank sat motionless while Stark stood and rubbed his knuckles.
“You got an urge?” Tom asked.
Seconds went by until the thug reacted. He got up. “Take it easy, man. C’mon, Harry. Hey, you’re bleeding. Harry…?”
Harry got up on his knees, feeling his nose.
Manfred Gillich, the Bürgermeister, stood and shouted, “Order! Enough already. Sit back down everybody and hold your peace.”
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“Tom!” Gina was close to being raptured when Stark sat back down.
Romy’s face was in her hands.
Ralph said nothing.
“That the way you Protestants solve problems?” Fritz Gillich asked.
Tom still rubbed his knuckles. “Sometimes.”
“Very seldom,” Romy said sweetly. “Actually, almost never.” She shook her head. “Never. This is the first time ever. I don’t know what got into him—”
Frank and Harry staggered away without looking back.
“You Americans are a violent bunch, you know,” said a voice.
“Oh, be quiet,” said pudgy Mrs. Wagner. “He didn’t start this.”
“That’s right.” Mrs. Gillich giggled. Her face shone.
Stark remembered that he’d been talking to Ralph. “About money…” He shoved the shards out of the way, making room for his elbows. “Those church taxes. Now, the Church of Jesus shouldn’t depend on the state. A church dependent on the state is nothing but an extension of the state while the state should actually be the outgrowth of a enlightened community. By ‘enlightened’ I mean privy to the counsel of God. Otherwise it’s putting the horse before the cart.
“In the long run the democratic system will only work in a nation whose people walk in the fear of God. All others will sooner or later vote their pocketbook, as Marx so aptly put it. Without God officials will become corrupt and the people dependent on the goodies that the state doles out, until they can’t afford their welfare system anymore. And once they’re broke, they’ll call for a strong man to get them out of their fix. Then we’re back at square one.”
Many eyes were on him.
“All I’m saying is, God’s kingdom is not of this world, meaning, the Church is second to no earthly government.”
“But without taxes the priests would live hand to mouth,” a man said.
Stark folded his hands. “According to the Bible, individual members should finance their individual churches—plus missionary efforts beyond their own doors.” He reflected for a second. “Hitler came up with the church-tax idea and cut a deal with the Church in Thirty-three. He kept them rolling in the dough and, by doing so, bought their silence.” He frowned. “The silence of the sheep.” His fingers danced on the table.
A man asked, “You saying the Nazis are responsible for church taxes?”