Father Elijah

by Michael D. O'Brien

  “You look more prosperous, Monsignor, than the last time we met.”

  “And you still look like a rabbi with a bad haircut. Wow, the hair’s white, what’s left of it.”

  “Getting old, getting old.”

  “Looks like they ruffled you up in Customs.”

  “Do they treat everyone this way?”

  “Nope. Special treatment for clerics. I thought for sure my boss told your boss to send you in civvies.”

  “He did suggest something like that. I argued against it and won. I wish I had lost.”

  Billy took his suitcase and said, “Let’s get out of here. You’re getting more hate stares than a sensitive lad like me can stand.”

  On the way to the main entrance, they passed an illuminated kiosk displaying a poster of a nude man and woman embracing. It was an advertisement for perfume.

  “That is astounding”, said Elijah, looking away from it.

  “Ooh, you’re in for some big surprises, Davy. That’s nothing. Take a look at the other side.”

  The reverse side of the kiosk was an advertisement for cognac. Displayed on it were two nude men lying on their backs in bed, arm in arm, gazing into each other’s eyes, both sipping through straws from a single brandy glass.

  “Am I seeing correctly?”

  “You are. You are”, grumbled Billy. “Maybe I should blindfold you till we get out to the parking lot.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll keep custody of the eyes.”

  Billy laughed humorlessly.

  “Now, there’s an antique expression”, he said. “You’ve no idea how refreshing it is to hear that. Most of the clerics I know say we shouldn’t be so puritanical; we should be grown-up.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I say it’s a damn hard thing to see a naked woman and pretend she’s an umbrella stand. Better not let me see a naked woman. That way I keep my vows.”

  “What’s that?” said Elijah pointing at a kiosk near the exit.

  “Don’t look.”

  “Has the world gone mad?”

  “I’m afraid it has, old lad.”

  “But why are they displaying this! This is a horrible crime and they advertise it as. . .”

  “As entertainment.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a play. Well, actually it’s a sort of art happening. The theatre company has rights to the abortuary dumpsters. They’re used for the evening show. It’s called. . .”

  Elijah stared at Billy and walked through the door into the blast of the Italian sun.

  “It’s the Colosseum all over again”, muttered Billy as he unlocked the door of a dark green Jaguar.

  “What has happened to the world?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I have read nothing about this.”

  “What you been reading? Theology? Spirituality? I hear you still dabble in archeology too. I’ll bet that’s all you pay attention to.”

  “We receive a synopsis of the world news. And L’Osservatore Romano tells us much about the state of things. But this, this is unspeakable.”

  “I’m afraid the unspeakable has become the ordinary, old boy.”

  “I can’t have been away from the world so long that it has changed this much.”

  “I don’t want to jar your innocent nervous system too soon, but you should be advised that it gets worse.”

  “What could be worse than this?”

  “You’d be amazed.”

  Elijah shook his head.

  “The pace of change is accelerating too. That’s one of the ominous parts.”

  Billy drove the car out onto the highway and turned north toward the city.

  “Are we going to the Vatican?”

  “We have an appointment there this evening.”

  “With whom?”

  “With my boss. I’m taking you to my apartment first. You can have a shower, and while you’re doing that I’d better go out and get you some clothes.”

  “No, I don’t wish to. . .”

  “It’s camouflage. You’re a walking target the way you’re dressed.”

  “If persecution comes, are we to cease to be what we are?” Elijah asked in a quiet voice.

  “You’re under obedience on this one, Davy. That’s the way the Secretary wants it. Sorry.”

  “But we are priests of Christ!”

  “I know. But there’s more at stake here than getting spit at or punched up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I’d better let the boss tell you.”

  Elijah watched the hills of the city roll over, and when the dome of Saint Peter’s came into view his heart gave a jump. He sat forward and stared.

  “First time in Rome?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people are disappointed by Saint Peter’s. It’s huge, of course. Biggest church in Christendom. Crammed to the gills with priceless art. Awesome. But it doesn’t come near what you feel in the catacombs of Saint Calixtus, outside of town. That’s the real foundation of the Church. That and Peter’s tomb. I touched his bones, you know?”

  “You touched his bones?”

  “Uh-huh. They opened the tomb last autumn during some renovations of the shrine under the main altar. You know, it wasn’t at all like I expected it would be. I was looking forward to pious passions and ecstasies. There was nothing of the sort.”

  “Can you describe it?”

  “I guess I can try. When I touched the bones there wasn’t anything macabre about it. It was so simple, like here was the big fisherman, the guy who ran away. The guy who denied Jesus. The guy who came back again. I felt it, Davy. I felt the timelessness of the Church. As if time didn’t exist. There was a stillness like you wouldn’t believe. It was beautiful. And peace. Yeah, a peace so odorless, tasteless, and soundless you wouldn’t think it was there. But it was there. Here’s the rock, I said to myself. This man, this rough, humble, big man was just like me. Jesus looked at him and loved him. Peter looked at Jesus and said, Get away from me, I’m a sinful man. A dumb guy from Galilee named Pete. Jesus made him into Bishop of Rome, chief of the apostles, the foundation stone. Christ built a Church on all that weakness. That’s what hit me most of all, the weakness. Inside the weakness was a terrific secret.”

  “That is an extraordinary grace.”

  “Yeah, it was. You hungry?”

  “I’m afraid I lost my appetite at the airport.”

  “Don’t worry. I know a little restaurant where you just walk in the door and start to drool. Pasta. Seafood.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “Okay, but what say we go there later for a sip of vino? Cool of the evening and all that. It’ll relax you for your debut at the big house.”

  “All right, Billy.”

  Billy’s apartment was a twenty-minute walk from Vatican City, in a street full of parked sports cars. It contained a public garden, a fountain, and a dozen children playing sidewalk games. He lived in an old palazzo broken up into private flats. The steps to the third floor were marble, the hallways olive green, the walls sweating and heavily defaced with graffiti.

  “Home sweet home”, he said, unlocking two door locks and a padlock.

  Inside it was cool and modern. The tiled floors were white and the walls were painted a pale blue. Through an open window came children’s laughter, radios, someone practicing a cello, and beeping car horns, the entire symphony underscored by the whisper of Lombardy poplars in the park across the street.

  “Viva Roma!” said Billy.

  He went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Perrier water and two glasses. It was ice cold and Elijah drank it gratefully.

  The living room was lined from floor to ceiling with books. There was a polychromed carving of a Madonna, late Gothic, a French impressionist landscape, an African crucifix, a signed photograph of the Pope, a stereo set. Off to the side, parallel to the kitchen, was a bedroom alcove, containing a single c
ot, functional, austere. A wooden rosary dangled from a peg by the pillow. A small panda bear, missing one ear and sprouting straw, sat on the headboard.

  “My cell.”

  “It’s charming.”

  “Do you remember Andy?”

  “I remember him well.”

  “Say hello to him.”

  “Hello, Andy!”

  “Andy says hello back at you.”

  “He has aged.”

  “He’s been through a lot. British Customs buggered him.”

  “Customs people seem to have become rather unfriendly during the past two decades.”

  “They have indeed. If they were half as nasty to terrorists as they are to flaming Catholics like you and me, we’d live in a safer world.”

  “No place is safe for our kind.”

  “You’re right. Thanks for reminding me.” Billy turned the stereo on low—traditional hymns sung in operatic style.

  “Placido Domingo”, he said. “I prefer him to Pavarotti. How about you?”

  “They both sound miraculous.”

  “Look, Davy, I think I’ve got a fairly good idea of your sizes. I’m going to go buy you some pants, shirts, sport jackets. You’ll need a real suit and tie soon, but we can get that fitted sometime during the next few days. Right now we’ve got to get you into camouflage.”

  “Really, my friend, is it as bad as all that?”

  “Yup, as bad as all that”, said Billy soberly.

  He went out, locking up behind.

  Elijah sat on the couch and listened to the noises from the street. The tension of his body gradually eased. He gazed around the apartment and saw that Billy was still an eclectic: there was an Australian flag pinned to the ceiling, a Bavarian beer stein on an antique sideboard, a balsawood model of a racing sloop half-completed on the desk, a Texan ten-gallon hat tipsy on the plaster bust of a Roman matron. Billy had retained his boyish enthusiasm, his love of novelty, while time had seasoned Elijah into a slow-moving pedant.

  At L’École Biblique, they had become friends and had remained friends. He had often asked himself why he liked Billy so much. There was an intellectual rapport, of course. But more than that, Billy was one of the few people he had met who did not hold his own ego in high esteem. He loved to clown to the point of silliness. He seemed undamaged by tragedy. His zest for life and his lighthearted temperament were a perfect foil for Elijah’s own somber, rabbinic cast of mind.

  But Billy was not liked by everyone. He was rich and brilliant, which earned him enemies. Over drinks one evening, a group of professors and students had discussed the little Englishman and pronounced him unsuitable for theology.

  “That Stangsby!” a Frenchman expostulated. “What an idiot!”

  “Charity, charity”, said a Dutchman. “Let us say rather that he is an idiot savant.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s smart”, said another. “But he’s always joking. It palls.”

  “Billy has a great seriousness inside him”, said Elijah.

  “He is never serious.”

  “He is a confused personality”, said the Frenchman. “He is always saying yeah like the Americans.” Several of the students laughed.

  “That’s not exactly a damning fault”, interjected an overly serious young priest named Smith. He was a convert from Episcopalianism and spoke with a distinctly British accent. He was from Idaho. “Billy’s approach to things is Chestertonian”, he added.

  “But you, Smith,” said the Frenchman, “you are a dour Bellocian. Complete with the accent!”

  “Thank you.”

  The ensuing banter strained for joviality, but there were barbs in the commentary.

  “Stangsby talks like an American and Smith like a Britisher”, said the Frenchman. “Why do English-speaking clerics always want to be something other than themselves?”

  “Perhaps we do not assume that our native culture is superior”, said Smith coolly.

  “That is not very patriotic.”

  “We are not as blessed with one-dimensionality as certain continental Europeans”, Smith added.

  “Ah, yes, your famous melting pot. Come to Paris and study next year, Smith. She is the Queen. She will teach you the meaning of culture.”

  “Your attitude reeks of national chauvinism, Jean”, said a German. “I think Berlin merits that crown.”

  But this remark was greeted by an uncomfortable silence, for the guilt of Germans was a subject that few wished to explore.

  An Italian eventually saved the situation by pantomiming himself and saying with a clownish grin, “But there is no debate on this matter! Roma is the undisputed Queen.”

  “It is a fascinating phenomenon”, said the Frenchman, unimpressed, “that the fault-line of the northern Reformation corresponds more or less to the old frontiers of the Roman Empire. Civilization and Catholicism to the south; barbarians, and hence Protestantism, to the north.”

  “That is facile”, said the German. “You are forgetting the Russians.”

  “Ah, yes, the Russians. Savages entranced by the glitter of Byzantium.”

  And so it went for a while, until the Frenchman brought it full circle.

  “Paris, Paris. Queen of Europe. Smith, abandon your infatuation with the British, who after all are merely displaced Normans.”

  “I would sound quite silly affecting a French accent, Jean. I much prefer my ancestral roots.”

  “King George would approve.”

  “The American Revolution was a long time ago”, said the Dutchman. “Billy and Smith are merely seeking their missing parts, like orphans.”

  At the time Elijah had mused on this last comment and thought there was some truth in it. Billy, an extroverted Englishman who sounded like a bit player in an American film, and Smith, an introverted prairie boy who sounded as if he had graduated from Oxford? Was there indeed something essential missing in the composition of their characters, a fracture in the psyche left by violent revolution? One might live comfortably within such a chasm if there were compensations—power, for example, or wealth, space, and frontiers. But the globe had shrunk drastically since the War. Rule Brittania and the brash pragmatism of Pax Americana had both been eclipsed. Was that it? But it was not only the Americans and the British who had suffered from the revolutions of the past three hundred years. What of the French themselves? And the Germans? What of the great blow dealt to the consciousness of the West by the Reformation? No, take it farther back to the split between the Church of the East and the Church of the West. Perhaps even farther.

  Was there a missing component in all human beings? The rural masses seeking the metropolis; the urban young fleeing to the woods. Women pretending to be men; men becoming more like women; everyone aping divinity in his desperation to escape creaturehood? Western youths seeking the Orient; orientals seeking capitalism? Monks abandoning their monasteries; married men pining for solitude. Liberals seeking to demythologize the Scriptures in an attempt to flee the exigencies of biblical faith; fundamentalists seeking to fill the empty places in their religion by a return to the Old Testament, fleeing the tasks of the baptized intellect. Was the promise always to be found elsewhere, always just beyond the next horizon? Why this persistent need for signs, wonders, new pillars of fire, arks of covenant, tablets of stone—anything other than the demands of raw, laborious, darkest faith?

  At the time he had asked himself, ruthlessly, if his conversion to Christianity was a variation on the dynamic of escape—a kind of pseudo-transcendence. There was no doubt that he, a child of the Diaspora seeking God in the New Testament, was in flight from the horror of the past. The birth of Israel had not dispersed his abiding sense of victimhood. Terror had merely been replaced by rage, and he knew that both were reverse images of each other. He was still shaken by the events that had brought him to Catholicism—his childhood, Ruth’s death, his long wrestling match with the black archon of despair. Eventually he saw that he had been running to Christ, and the flight from the past had been one of t
he means used by God to propel him forward. But when he met Billy in Jerusalem he was still young in the Faith, still largely impelled by fear, still struggling with chronic self-doubt, still questioning everything, even those things that at some other level of his being he believed. He was a fractured man.

  “There is a secret smile on the face of God”, Billy once told him. It was a thought so alien to Elijah that it had startled him. Life was a grave business. A large majority of the people he had loved had died violently. A secret smile? Really? What sort of smile?

  Billy had caught him on the hook of this intriguing idea, had made him doubt his doubt, question his questions, taught him to smile (secretly), and eventually to laugh. Now they were old in the Faith, it seemed. Each had continued the search for his missing part. Elijah had gradually learned to dig deep for the well of joy; and Billy had grown reflective beneath his comedy.

  Elijah stretched out on the couch. The CD finished its repertoire and shut itself off. His mind, long accustomed to the gentle routine of prayer and labor, rest, and solitary meditation, was swarming with jagged shards of brutal imagery. He could not shake the poster of the murdered children from his thoughts. It was only midafternoon, six hours since his departure from Ben Gurion, but it felt as if days had passed. He was exhausted. Closing his eyes he slipped past the screen of horror into sleep.

  Two hours later he woke in a semi-stupor, staring at the wall. His lips were dry and his eyes ached. He saw a middle-aged man seated at a desk. The man was staring down, reading a file that lay open before him. He was dressed entirely in black clericals. He was lean and ascetic, but in a way that was cold and thoroughly alien. His eyes were intelligent, even dedicated. Elijah could not tell if the visitor was corrupt or an ideologue of some kind. He knew only that he was evil. But the evil was of a quality that was new to Elijah. There were no traces of vice on that proud and guarded face. On the contrary, the man radiated virtue, character, and nobility. But all of these qualities were without charity, and the cumulative effect of so much good turned to some undefined ill was to invoke fear—rather like a dazzling arch that lacked a keystone.