‘Please continue, Father,’ said the Mayor.
‘It is rather difficult, Colonel Lorraine, for I do not feel that I have, as yet, started. Not only that, but I am not at all certain where one begins, other than it is at this particular part of the Bible.’ Father Benoir stopped speaking. He was obviously uneasy. Alphonse Joliot fumbled for a moment and then slid a small box across the table to the priest.
‘Have a pinch of snuff, Father. It clears the mind.’
Father Benoir shook his head. He looked slowly round the table at all the men. He knew them all fairly well. Few of them could show much in the way of education. They were mainly men of considerable practical ability - which was as it should be, he thought, in a village community. They were voted into the council because the villagers accepted them for what they were: level-headed; sane, if perhaps sometimes eccentric; good churchmen and, above all, reliable and honest.
He mentally appraised them as his eyes passed. Edouard Ravelle, the timberman; Toto Barbusse; Alphonse Joliot, dairy farmer; Pierre Flambert, grocer; Henri Laplace, baker; Yves d’Arle, butcher; and Mayor Lorraine who was retired, but who had been a colonel in the élite desert cavalry.
‘I spoke with God, yesterday,’ said Father Benoir, measuring each word. ‘The phone call I had in your bar.’ He looked at Toto Barbusse who raised both his bushy eyebrows until they merged with his hairline.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a pinch of snuff, a large one?’ whispered Joliot with a knowing look at Toto Barbusse.
Father Benoir scowled.
‘Order, order,’ said Mayor Lorraine, firmly. He banged his gavel again. ‘Why not let the young Father Benoir speak?’
Father Benoir frowned as he spoke, and looked down at the table. ‘I talked with God,’ he repeated, then crossed himself. The council members copied him automatically. ‘I didn’t ask to speak with him, he spoke to me. He told me he had important work for me to do. And I need your help to carry it out.’
‘Naturally, naturally,’ said Mayor Lorraine.
He wondered what help the priest would be needing. Money for church restorations; assistance on Thursday evenings with the church youth club, a new set of crockery for the weekly women’s circle. It would be something like that. It always was with the young. He sighed. Why didn’t Father Benoir put his request forward in a less formal manner than by calling an official council meeting. And why use God’s name as a lever? It wasn’t as though they were ever unwilling to help the church. That was the trouble with men of the cloth - speaking from pulpits made them theatrical. He smiled benevolently at the priest.
‘If you have important work to do, then you can count on us all to assist you. We are all pleased to be able to help our church, Father.’
‘An extra loaf or two? More wafers? ‘ asked Henri Laplace, the baker.
Toto Barbusse grinned. ‘A little more of my fine wine for Communion, perhaps, my lad? I mean, Father … ‘
‘More wood to heat the church stoves?’ Edouard Ravelle was always amazed at the amount of wood the fires of God consumed, almost as much as one would have expected from the opposition.
Father Benoir shook his head vigorously. ‘No, no, no, but thank you. Nothing like that, at all. Much more important. I want you to help me to build an ark.’ He looked piously upwards at the ceiling. Alphonse Joliot’s crossed eyes tried to follow those of the priest. He noticed the cobweb in the corner Father Benoir seemed to be looking at. He was brought back to the reality of the council meeting by Mayor Lorraine’s tremulous voice. ‘Ark ... A.R.K. A ship kind of ark?’
‘A ship kind of ark,’ repeated Father Benoir.
Toto Barbusse’s face brightened. ‘Ah, of course, an ark, for a pageant, eh, Father? An ark as a centre-piece. Neatly carved by our craftsmen, something that the children will appreciate in the tableau.’
Henri Laplace looked puzzled. ‘Pageant? Tableau? ... A fête! Yes, that’s a good idea. A sort of village festival. One that might bring in the tourists.’
‘Like Oberammergau,’ mused Mayor Lorraine. ‘An excellent notion, Father. We will arrange a village festival and tableau. It will bring in business as Monsieur Laplace says.’
‘Not a small ark,’ said Father Benoir, softly. ‘The ark that I have in mind, that God has in mind, is a real ark. A full-sized ark.’ He glanced at the slip of paper wedged into the pages of the Bible. ‘One hundred and seventy metres long. Thirty metres wide. Eighteen metres high. An ark big enough to carry everyone in the village.’
Mayor Lorraine stroked his beard. He didn’t want to appear unkind to the young priest. ‘Father Benoir,’ he began, ‘are you sure that is what you want? What you mean? It’s a most surprising request. Unusual. In fact, I don’t personally understand ...’
Father Benoir interrupted him. ‘I know what you all must be thinking. I’m young . . . probably mad . . . it’s what I would think myself.’
‘You’re quite right,’ agreed Joliot. ‘You’re probably a bit insane due to drinking Barbusse’s cattle piss.’
‘Shhhh, Monsieur Joliot, remember, this is a council meeting,’ glowered Mayor Lorraine.
Father Benoir looked about him, almost in desperation.
‘You must believe me, even though it sounds strange. God really did speak to me . . . no, no, Mayor Lorraine . . . please discount my age, there was Saint Bernadette, she was a child . . . lots of other young people.’ He began to feel that his argument was losing its point within his own confusion. ‘It was a request. . . no, it was an order, from God. From Heaven.’
Edouard Ravelle glowered at Father Benoir. ‘Then, I believe that someone up there, or someone down here, is . . .’ He twirled his index finger near his temple. He stopped himself, then began again. ‘Well... what are we to do with it if we build it? Invite Zsa Zsa Gabor and the Pope - maybe - even the Burtons for a sailing weekend? We’re over a hundred and fifty miles from the nearest sea.’ He looked sideways at Yves d’Arle and raised his eyebrows.
Father Benoir looked studiously at the Bible in front of him. ‘I thought that this was my purpose, a village priest . . . doing the Lord’s good works. I did not consider myself needed for any other purpose . . . until yesterday, when I spoke to the Lord. He spoke to me, and said that this, the ark, the saving of His people was my purpose. He wants us to build an ark for when He floods the earth - as He did once before, in Noah’s time.’ Father Benoir stopped speaking. The room was so quiet that he could hear when Barbusse’s deep breathing suddenly halted.
The bar-owner stiffened. ‘You mean it really was God on the telephone? I didn’t believe Him when He said He was.’
‘Yes,’ said Father Benoir.
‘You’re asking us to believe this?’ asked the Colonel.
‘And you’re quite certain it was God you spoke to?’ asked Barbusse, looking hard at the young priest.
‘Absolutely certain. As certain as I am that we are all sitting here.’
‘I’ve never heard so much rubbish in my life,’ snarled Edouard Ravelle. ‘A maniac telephones in the middle of the night, says he’s God, and comes up with some cock and bull story, and everyone falls for it. You’re all behaving like children. You ought to know better.’
Mayor Lorraine banged his gavel on the table. ‘Let me bring the meeting back to its point,’ he said. ‘I have been sitting here, thinking. We have a young priest ... I’m sorry, Father, it isn’t meant as an insult, but you are, at least by my standards, almost a boy. And suddenly you call us together to inform us that you have spoken with God on the telephone. And more . . . that God has told you he intends to destroy the population of the earth.’
‘Yes, a boy,’ said Ravelle. He thumped the flat of his hand on the table. ‘What nonsense!’
Mayor Lorraine looked across the table at the timber-merchant. ‘So, there it is. The fact that it is a boy who tells us all this makes us regard it as nonsense.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ravelle.
‘Well . . .’ Mayor Lorraine leant forwa
rd. ‘I disagree with you, Ravelle. Suppose Father Benoir had been my age ... almost eighty years old ... would we have believed him? Suppose he’d been with us here in the village, all our lives? Yes, I’m sure we’d all believe him then. So it’s partly because he is young that we doubt him. Well, on reflection, I have decided to believe him . . . because he is young.’
‘Because he is young?’ Joliot looked quizzically at Mayor Lorraine. The Mayor nodded, produced his monocle from his pocket, and polished it.
‘Yes. Because he is almost a boy. Because he is at the beginning of his life ... at the beginning of his chosen career. And because ... if I were God . . . forgive me, Father ... I would choose youth to lead in these circumstances.’
‘All our officers were young,’ said Barbusse. ‘In the paras, they had to be young. The old ones always broke their limbs.’ ‘Be quiet,’ snapped Ravelle. He turned to the Mayor. ‘I see the point you’re making, Colonel. But are you certain your views are not being coloured by Father Benoir’s relationship to your old friend, our President, Admiral Dordogne?’
Mayor Lorraine’s face reddened. He pressed his monocle into his eye and glared fiercely at Edouard Ravelle. ‘I do not boot-lick. I form my own decisions without prejudice. I believe that God did speak with our priest... and, young as he is, I am proud to call him our priest. And I will support him.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ said Barbusse. Father Benoir stared at him. ‘Nor me - unless God turns Barbusse here into a block of salt as proof,’ said Joliot.
Henri Laplace nodded his head so violently in agreement that small clouds of fine flour drifted out of his hair and surrounded his head like a misty halo.
‘But God did give you proof ... a sign, this morning. Wasn’t that enough for you?’ The young priest said anxiously.
‘A sign? ‘ echoed Henri Laplace.
‘Yes. This morning, in the square. You all saw it.’ The council members looked bewildered. ‘Grand Admiral Dordogne’s statue ...’ Father Benoir paused for a second, then spoke with some exasperation. ‘The statue ... the pig on the statue ...’ Toto Barbusse grinned again, his white teeth large between his lips. ‘The pig was a sign? From God? ‘
‘Yes, the pig on the top of the statue, Barbusse. How do you think it got there? Do you think it climbed up with its little hooved feet in order to get a better view of the valley? Perhaps Madame d’Arle put it up there for a joke?’
‘She wouldn’t do that,’ said Yves d’Arle, firmly. ‘She hasn’t got that much of a sense of humour.’
‘Then?’ asked Toto Barbusse.
Father Benoir peered through his glasses at the council members. ‘It flew there,’ he said, dramatically. ‘It flew the seven metres up to the top of the statue.’
Toto Barbusse burst out laughing, his face wrinkling. ‘Flew? ‘
Father Benoir glowered at him. ‘Yes, flew. It was God’s sign to me. He said something about the possibility of making a pig fly.’
There was silence as they all considered this statement. At last Henri Laplace spoke. ‘I can think of no other way a pig could get up there, unless it was capable of carrying a ladder, and even then, pigs can’t climb ladders very easily.’
‘Oh, my God,’ said Yves d’Arle, softly. The others looked at him.
‘What’s the matter, Yves? ‘ asked Alphonse Joliot.
‘The pig ... the holy pig ... that wonderful creature you say was touched by God’s hand, the first pig ever that really flew.’ ‘Well?’ The councillors looked at him.
‘I slaughtered it,’ moaned d’Arle. ‘This afternoon.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ announced Barbusse, unexpectedly, after a long silence. He glared sideways at his fellow councillors still seated around the council table. ‘You say that God wants us to build an ark, like the one Noah built, here in the village. And, if we build the ark, then it is for us to use . . . the villagers . . . me . . . Josephine . . . even Joliot, here. All of us.’ He paused and took a deep breath. ‘Well, why us? Why not, say, oh, well, anyone else? ‘
Mayor Lorraine scratched his ear. ‘I wonder about that, too. Some of God’s feelings I understand . . . I’ve travelled, seen much and have often been sickened by the sights. Death, bloodshed, violence, fraud, avarice. I doubt if we are much better than others. It would be a sin to assume that we were.’
The council members nodded.
‘We’re no better,’ said Father Benoir, quietly. ‘But somehow, I think we are a little innocent. Up here, in the mountains, we are children. True, we have our businesses, we have our small troubles, but . . . perhaps, somehow, we have avoided becoming too tainted.’
‘And you think that’s why God chose us? ‘ asked Yves d’Arle. Father Benoir adjusted his glasses. ‘I thought about this. All last night I thought about it. I wondered why me, and why here? Only God knows what God is thinking, or even wanting.’ He smiled. ‘It occurred to me that perhaps we are to be saved because we are sinners . . . perhaps God chose us not because we are perfect, but because we are imperfect, and that we qualify because, somewhere, within all of us as a community, there is some redeeming factor. Perhaps we have the facility to be perfect in the eyes of our dear Lord. I don’t suppose this has anything to do with it, but only this morning I realized something else about us, about St Pierre-des-Monts ... For instance, how really self-contained we are . . . one butcher, one baker, one grocer, one potter, one timber-merchant, one dairy farmer, one general farmer . . .’
‘And one bar,’ said Toto Barbusse, proudly. ‘Come to think of it, we’ve only one Protestant, too. Mind you, that’s a relief ...’
Father Benoir silenced him with a cold stare. ‘We can provide all that is ever likely to be needed ... we have the wood to make an ark . . .your timber, Monsieur Ravelle, and we have the skills needed to establish a new civilization.’
Edouard Ravelle looked at the priest pensively. ‘We know it worked last time, but why did He have to make it an ark again? He thought of the huge stocks of timber he had laid, maturing, in his nine seasoning sheds. ‘Just suppose we waste a lot of time on building an ark, such a big ark. It will cost us a lot of money. It could bankrupt the entire area, in manpower and materials. Particularly timber... well, I have certain orders...’ Alphonse Joliot coughed impolitely, and gave the timber-merchant a scornful look. ‘But I have, really, so many orders,’ said Ravelle, almost pleading. ‘Some of the orders have penalty clauses in them. If I don’t deliver, then not only do I not get paid, but I have to give them money. Compensation. Business is like that.’
Father Benoir looked at him steadily. ‘Perhaps, Edouard, he chose us because your wood is the best in the world.’
Edouard Ravelle’s eyes sparkled in the gloom. ‘Bollocks,’ he said. ‘If the Lord wants good wood, then, by God, he’ll have to get it somewhere else. I don’t believe a word of it. Anyway, it seems a lousy business deal. It’s almost blackmail. I’ll want twenty-four hours to think it over.’
Yves d’Arle picked up his Pernod glass and held it towards the yellow light that dangled above Barbusse’s bar. He delicately removed a drunken bluebottle from the milky liquid. ‘This pig business,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking about it. For God’s sake, who ever heard of a holy pig? A pig that God made fly? It’s sheer nonsense. A miracle, said Father Benoir. I ask you ... if you were God, would you choose a pig? ‘
Laplace thought carefully. He shook his head.
‘No, I wouldn’t either,’ said Constable Chaminade.
D’Arle examined his glass again. ‘It worried me at first . . . the pig. But then I remembered a book I once read. About the Egyptians. You know how they erected the great stones of the pyramids?’
Chaminade and Laplace shook their heads in unison.
‘Well, they built ramps of sand, pulled the stones up them, then they took the sand away afterwards. The stones remained one on top of another.’
‘Ah,’ said Chaminade. ‘I see your point. You think the pig built a ramp of sand, then climbed the statue, the
n had the sand taken away, just to make it look as though it flew.’ He paused. ‘Yes, it’s not much of a miracle when you consider it that way. Still, the pig was pretty bright to think of it. I wonder why it did it? ‘
D’Arle sighed and took a swig at his Pernod. He looked wearily at Laplace. ‘D’you think that during the night it snowed heavily, and that the pig climbed up the snow ... and then the snow thawed, leaving the pig up there? ‘
‘It’s logical,’ said the voice of Barbusse from behind the bar.
‘It’s idiotic, Papa. Don’t listen,’ pleaded Claire Laplace, who had been helping Toto Barbusse wash his glasses. ‘If Father Benoir said it was a miracle, then surely we should accept it as such. After all, Father Benoir is a priest and should know about such things.’
Saint Peter sat and fidgeted in the Orderly Arch Angel’s prefabricated office. The seats provided were cheap and uncomfortable. The Orderly Arch Angel himself sat between two banks of filing cabinets, hammering away at a typewriter, composing the duty roster for the next aeon. Saint Peter, who found the Orderly Arch Angel unfriendly, had no doubts that again he would find himself posted as Guardian of the Portals. Standing in the draughty corridors did little to ease the stiffness of his joints. He stared at the sign above the Orderly Arch Angel’s desk. It read: Thou shalt not smoke. Saint Peter sighed.
A small carillon of bells pealed softly on the Formica-topped desk. The Orderly Arch Angel stopped typing and looked up.
‘Okay, Pete, the Gov’nor’s free.’
Saint Peter nodded. He stood, straightened his robes, adjusted his halo in front of the stained glass mirror, stiffened his back, and marched to the door. It opened.
‘Ah, Peter,’ said God. ‘How are you? At ease, man. Take a pew. Like a drink? ‘
‘Fine. I’ll stand. No thanks,’ answered Saint Peter, nervously. It always made him apprehensive when God was so chummy.
God spun himself on his revolving chair. Saint Peter waited until the chair had stopped moving.
Beyond The Rainbow Page 3