The Cult of Loving Kindness

by Paul Park

  Cassia, stupefied by alcohol and ignorant of the legends of St. Abu Starbridge, sat back with her hands around her knees. The story, indeterminate and vague, nevertheless lulled her to a kind of peace, for it seemed to speak about the triumph of goodness and simplicity over a large and complex evil. Above her, Paradise was climbing toward its zenith, its rays diffused behind thick layers of clouds. Yet its power every moment seemed intensified, a fine mist that filtered down upon her head. Its light was in the air she breathed.

  She closed her eyes. She seemed to feel its heat upon her face. She felt its heat upon her lips, as she listened to the words rise up around her:

  “Though he was not subject to our laws, still he came down to live among us, and to die. ‘Kindness is the only thing,’ he said. ‘How can our hearts be dirty, if our hands are clean?’ he asked. So he dispelled the myth, and showed us all the way to Paradise, which is not reserved for one or two, but for all men and women. When he went into the church at Beggars Medicine, he broke the chains of those condemned to death. In their place he offered himself up, and he was put in prison in their place. He was put into a cell with seven hundred others, in that dark black Mountain of Redemption, and even though they had no right to hold him, still he stayed there of his own goodwill, and he put his sacred hands upon them, and he gave them candy and good things to eat, and especially the children. And he taught them hopscotch and the jumping rope. In the place of judgment when they offered him his freedom he refused it. And a third time he refused it in his cell before his execution when Lord Chrism Demiurge had gone down on his knees. For he knew the chain, once broken, could never be reforged. For he knew the rope, once broken, could never be retied. For he knew when Starbridge blood was smoking on the altar, only then the oath could be renewed.”

  Cassia felt the heat upon her cheeks. And she saw fluctuations in the light: She opened her eyes. Nearby, the cooking fire had burned up bright, and people were dragging limbs of trees into the circle and building up a bonfire. As her senses came back to her, she could smell the smoke and hear the snapping of the twigs. She could see the flare of the pine needles and the pitch-soaked pinecones.

  Also nearby she could see a man who passed among the ranks of seated pilgrims—a tall, broad, bearded man, dressed in a red shirt. He too seemed to know everyone; a swell of murmured voices followed him around the glade, and he would often stop and squat down next to some dark huddled form. As he came closer she could see him clearly in the firelight, his thick black hair and heavy hands, his trousers and black boots. But especially his hands, for his palms were covered with some kind of luminescent paint, which caught the firelight and reflected it back. As he spoke to the people he made wide, expansive gestures with his hands, and Cassia could see the circles of light that his hands left in the air, a golden afterimage of his golden palms.

  Now he was kneeling between Mama Jobe and Servant of God. Both of them were still repeating the catechisms of Prince Abu Starbridge, but their voices dwindled slowly until only their lips moved. The man had put his hand upon the cripple’s shoulder, and he had bent to whisper in his ear, but his eyes were on Cassia, and he stared at Cassia from under bloated eye ridges and black brows. He had a brutal, crushed, repulsive face, until he smiled. When he smiled, it was as if his face had cracked open to reveal some soft interior, soft fruit inside an ugly bark. He reached out one gleaming forefinger to touch her hand.

  “I am Brother Longo,” he said.

  And that was all. But something was about to happen. Servant of God sat up suddenly, and Mama Jobe raised her head to the sky. The bonfire was burning brighter, and Cassia put up her arm to shield her face from the glare. The smoke made her eyes water, but Brother Longo was smiling at her, and then the expression of his mouth and eyes took on a quality of vagueness as his gaze slipped over her head into the crowd. His knees creaked as he got to his feet.

  Behind Servant of God a sharp pinnacle of rock protruded from the soil, not more than three feet high. Brother Longo stepped up to the top of it, and such was the power of his presence, and such was the sense of expectation in the crowd, that the whole chaotic mass of people seemed to reorient itself subtly, until it seemed that almost without moving they reorganized themselves around him in concentric rings. The fire burned at his back, and in a moment the area around it and on the far side to the clearing’s edge was bare, except for a few tents, as people rearranged themselves in front of him to listen. Cassia, at his feet, squinted up into the light.

  Perhaps there was a special clarity in the air. Or perhaps his words were amplified somehow by the attention of the crowd, so that they achieved a special resonance. Whatever the reason, Longo Starbridge didn’t raise his voice. His words were just a heavy rumble in his chest, at least at first. He stared down at his feet, so that it appeared to Cassia, who sat beneath him, that he was speaking for her only—his beard against his neck, his eyes almost closed. But she imagined that to every person in the crowd he appeared in the same way, and to each person his voice seemed intimate and low.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he said. “Tonight we celebrate the memory of Prince Abu Starbridge, who was martyred in a great fire on the forty-sixth of October, in the eighth phase of spring, in the city of Charn. He was burned alive by that old devil Chrism Demiurge. That same night he came back from the dead. He was seen drinking in the Regis bar, according to the signed testimony of many witnesses. That night also he was retaken by the soldiers. He did not resist them, though he could have freed himself by raising up his hand. He was imprisoned, and questioned, and tortured, and tormented, until he had beaten that old devil in the silent struggle, and the revolution came. Nor was he freed, but he was questioned again under the new government, and again he was condemned to die, so that it could be said of him, according to the retroactive prophecies of Freedom Love, ‘Every hand was raised against him, whether of the right or of the left.’ On the seventy-second of November he was buried alive with two others, a princess and an antinomial, so that it could be said of him, ‘He was a comfort to the king in his high place, and also to the garbage of the earth.’ ”

  As he spoke, Longo Starbridge put his arms straight out to either side of him, and his phosphorescent palms were shining, silhouetted by the darker firelight. Also he raised his face up to the sky, and in his new position his voice flowed louder, unimpeded.

  “In the blackness underneath the ground, he met and talked with our great teacher Freedom Love, who was the founder of our New Society of Loving Kindness. This was in a dream of darkness, which is described in Retroactive Prophecies, and written down when Freedom Love was living in a cave beneath the streets of Charn, when he too was an outlaw in the revolution time. In his dream he spoke to Abu Starbridge, and took him on a journey through the underworld, and showed him all the wonders of the darkness which existed in those days. He showed him the Morquar Dam, which held back good from evil. He showed him the King’s Walk. He showed him the Snake of Relativity. He showed him that old Satan of the ancient days, who was called the White-Faced Woman, and who held the chain of winter in her hands. Then for five days in the darkness Abu Starbridge fought with her, and pulled her to her knees, and broke the chain under the earth, so that the rain came down, so that the world turned toward the sun, so that the babies climbed down from their mothers’ wombs, so that grass and flowers, leaves and trees, and all the comforts of the earth broke free out of that bondage.”

  Now Longo Starbridge changed the position of his arms again. Keeping his left arm stretched out to his side, he raised his right arm straight above his head, and pointed to the zenith with his shining forefinger.

  “This is part of the vision of our great teacher Freedom Love, and like all truth it has two parts. For Freedom Love did take refuge in the crypts of Charn during this period of turmoil. In secret chambers underneath the city, most of which are now submerged under the waters of Lake Nineteenth of May, he lived with the first converts of the New Society. And it is true—he rescu
ed condemned prisoners from the burial pits. It is true—there seems to have been also a female spirit who lived at that same time, the ruler of a black tribe of the underworld. For there were catacombs in Charn that stretched for miles. There were villages and towns that never saw the light—all gone now, all submerged.

  “But do not think, because of these facts, that the importance of Abu Starbridge lies only in the symbolical part. It is true—spring came to Charn, but it comes every year. The lying tyrants, Chrism Demiurge and his false Starbridge followers, were overthrown, but that required no act of God. It was the season of rebellion. And I have heard others say of Abu Starbridge that he opened up the gates of Paradise to the poor and weak, to anyone who loves him. They talk about the laundry girl who seized him by the legs when he was going to his place of execution: how he raised her up and kissed her, and said, ‘Among a hundred thousand I will know you.’

  “This is part of the story. But it misses the point. The importance of Prince Abu Starbridge is not only in the realm of myth, or in the supernatural. These stories and these legends—who can be sure? But this I know: Abu Starbridge showed us a new way to dedicate our lives. At the time of the worst decadence, when Starbridge offices were being bought and sold, when the false doctrines of predetermination and the inheritance of grace had sucked the heart out of our ancient faith—this is the importance of Abu Starbridge. He showed us men and women can perfect themselves through their own efforts. He was not a brilliant man. He was not a gifted man. We have no great store of wisdom from his lips. But from the example of his life and death we can see how every one of us, even the most humble, can rededicate himself to the old Starbridge values—that contract from the earliest days which made men into gods. For at the moment when the Starbridge race was sunk in luxury and violence and sin and empty privilege, this simple man rose up to change all that. Tonight I exhort every one of you to take that vow to sanctify yourself, to swear the same oath that our ancestors swore upon the altar of Beloved Angkhdt, on the day when time stood still in the beginning of the world.”

  By the end of this address, Cassia had been lulled almost to sleep. These events had taken place long before her birth. There seemed scarcely a connection between that time and now. So she was surprised to see men and women rising around her in response to Brother Longo’s words; Cassia’s head fell back and she was wide awake. She was awake enough to understand immediately that the scene had been rehearsed, for all the men and women who were getting to their feet—perhaps twenty out of all that crowd—were dressed in the same clothes, in rough white tunics and white pants. Their heads were shaved. All carried unlit tapers. They stepped through the seated audience and gathered in a group beside the bonfire.

  There, a place had been prepared for them around a strange metal contrivance perhaps four feet tall, which Cassia now noticed for the first time. At the summit of it perched a book, which was held open to a certain page by a pair of metal pincers. Below it, three short metal arms stuck out from a central shaft. One supported a small lantern, and one supported a small pail which hung from a wire handle. The third arm ended in a clamp, and at that moment some young women from the mission fussed with it. They were dressed in yellow shirts, printed with the symbol of the mission hospital—two stick figures holding hands.

  One of these young women knelt beside the bonfire, and she was poking at something in the coals. Two others were spreading out strips of white cloth on a tray, and they were rubbing them with unguent from a plastic tube. Another mixed a beaker full of a shining liquid; she held it up and Cassia could see a flash of light from it, transferred or reflected from the bonfire. Then the women poured it in a glowing stream into the bucket hanging from the metal stand.

  “Come to me,” said Longo Starbridge. He had turned around on his small pinnacle of rock, so that his back was to Cassia. The group of supplicants gathered beneath him, between him and the fire. They had dazed and frightened faces. Brother Longo raised his right hand to them and they stared at it like rabbits at a snake; staring with them, Cassia could see that there were lines on Brother Longo’s shining palm, deep lines of red and black beneath the phosphorescent sheen. The pattern was unclear to her. Her own hands itched and sweated.

  One of the orderlies approached him, and gave him a glass bottle. He held it up in his right hand.

  “One night,” he said, “Abu Starbridge and his cousin came down from their tower, and they passed among the shantytowns and slums, distributing food and money, chocolates and medical supplies, which at that time were forbidden to the poor. In return the people told them stories, and they sang and danced. That night Prince Abu’s eyes were opened, and he saw in a new way. He raised up his hand to help them. He raised up his hand below the Harbor Bridge, and there was never any going back. That night the people gave him wine to drink, and he drank the wine which opened up his eyes. Therefore tonight we give you wine, to numb the pain that comes from holding a new life, for there is always pain.”

  The woman who had been kneeling by the fire now rose. She held a glowing metal bulb in a pair of glowing tongs, and with some clumsiness she affixed it to the clamp upon the stand. Now everything appeared to be in place: the book, the lantern, the ointment, and the brand. On its surface, Cassia could see raised orange lines against a deeper red.

  One of the supplicants stood forward now, a tall, gaunt, beak-faced woman. She lit her taper from the lantern on the stand. Then, turning, she took the bottle out of Brother Longo’s hand. She swallowed a gulp of it and wiped her lips. The effect seemed instantaneous—her eyes rolled back in her head, and on stiff knees she tottered back and forth. And in a garbled, intermittent voice, she repeated after Brother Longo the words of the first Starbridge catechism:

  “To be more than human,

  that is my vow.

  To suffer without speaking,

  that is my vow.

  To help the weak,

  To speak the truth,

  To live in chastity,

  In loving kindness with all

  men and women,

  That is my vow.”

  There was more, which Cassia never heard. Up until that point she had watched with a sense of curious detachment. She also had drunk some of the wine, and though it was doubtless of a lower grade, it had been enough to relax her and confuse her. It had been enough to allow her to study each small event as it happened, without joining it to others in the past or in the future. But at a certain point, what was going to happen became clear. The gaunt woman was reaching her hand out toward the brand, nerving herself to grasp hold, while around her orderlies from the mission were preparing bandages for her, and stirring up the shining ointment in the pail.

  The wine rolled uneasily in Cassia’s stomach. She looked around at the people near her, at Mama Jobe, at Servant of God, and saw how they were hunched forward, entranced by what was happening; they knew what to expect. They had known it all along. But Cassia jumped up. She pushed her way over the seated ranks, disturbing many. Then she wandered down away into the woods, not turning when the silence in the crowd was broken, and the shouting rose up from five hundred mouths.

  * * *

  That morning after Cassia had left to go down to the stream, Rael had lain down by himself upon the concrete floor. She did not return, and for a long time he had lain upon his stomach with his head in his hands, thinking of nothing. Except he was expecting her, and when she did not come he was possessed by an intolerable, increasing restlessness that seemed to flow in waves, and made his whole body shake until finally he jumped up to pace the length of the tin warehouse, knocking his hands together. An hour passed, then two. Then he ran out of the door and to the stream, following marks in the accumulated blossoms on the path.

  But he was confused by other traces; in the morning as he lay awake he had sensed the presence of other travelers nearby, and when Cassia was gone he had let his hearing dwell on certain sounds: the crack of a stick, the banging of a spoon against a pot, a shred of l
aughter. These sounds suggested motion. People moved nearby, and yet as Rael lay on his stomach he felt none of his usual shyness, none of his usual caution, for everything he heard seemed separate from his world and Cassia’s—the residue of actions performed by ghosts, while he and she were the only real human creatures in the forest. He thought that nothing possibly could interfere with them. So that it was with disbelief that he saw the print of Cassia’s foot mix with someone else’s, with disbelief that he climbed up to the deserted glade where she had met Mama Jobe and the rest.

  He searched for signs upon the trampled earth. The fire had been covered up, yet it was smoking. Cassia was gone. In a panic, he paced in circles around the glade, for it was as if Cassia had stepped away from him into a world of ghosts, of strangers, deeds, and motives. In desperation he ran a little way along the path until it reached a wider way. And there were people. He crouched behind a bush and watched the people walking past, and some were carrying knapsacks and bundles on their heads. He felt that she was gone among the people, and she was disappearing like a drop of water on the surface of a pool.

  A man with a long beard stalked past, carrying a basket full of wood. Rael let him go by, and then he leapt to his feet and rushed back to the tin warehouse, back to the floor where he and Cassia had lain. Already someone else was there—some woman was holding up his blanket. He pushed her down and ripped it from her hands; then he was gone, running to the stream away from the path, running up the slope upon the other side, striking out across the woods, moving close to the ground through the small branches, the rolled-up blanket clasped to his chest.

  And in a little while his mind was clear. Or it was full of forest problems—detours and thorns and biting nettles, insects, swamps, unsteady branches, submerged logs. Cassia was lost beyond these things. He was following an animal trail, perhaps a deer run or even an okapi, for he was picking through a thorn bush that held tufts of striped black fur.