Elders

by Ryan McIlvain

  “He is the Lord indeed, brothers and sisters. I testify of that. And I testify that in the meridian of time He came down to earth and gave Himself as a sacrifice for all of us—the unblemished Lamb of God—so that the destroying angel might pass over us, too, over our houses and over our hearts. Christ’s blood is a memorial to us, and a sign. We eat bread and drink water each week during the sacrament in remembrance of Him and His atoning sacrifice. This is our weekly Passover.

  “But what of our sacrifice? What is the sacrifice required of the people of Christ today? The Law of Moses has been fulfilled in Christ, remember; we are no longer required to offer up animals. So what must we give to the Lord to show Him that we are indeed His people?” Passos looked up at the clock again: more than fifteen minutes remaining. “I want to end with one more scripture, in the Book of Mormon, and I know I’m ending early, but—”

  Elder Passos jerked away from the microphone as if stung by it, as if the sudden explosion of shouting from outside, the first of several warlike bangs, grew not out of sheerest pleasure and celebration but pain and surprise. The game. He had nearly forgotten. Passos smiled, and the smile grew wider as the noise built. His companion in the back caught his attention, mouthing Goooooooaaalll, and big Maurilho closed his eyes and nodded several times as if to acknowledge an answered prayer. An excited murmur pulsed through the whole congregation, but then the noise outside began to fall—the game must not have been over—and President Mason turned around, roving his head from side to side at the congregation, showing a pursed warning look, turning it on Passos, a straight line in the middle of a round face. Passos stepped back to the microphone and gripped the pulpit even harder now, as if to tame it. He raised his voice to charismatic volume. “In the third book of Nephi, chapter nine, verses nineteen and twenty, we read”—and here he closed the book, reciting the verses from memory, the heat filling him—“ ‘And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart … him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost.’ Brothers and sisters, I testify to you—”

  Another explosion rocked the street, and this time the cheer sustained over the sounds of fireworks and firecrackers and air horns and car horns dragging their long Doppler tails behind them, just like he’d imagined, a million bagpipes. Passos smiled again, but only for a moment, because he still had a talk to finish and because the frown on President Mason’s face was deepening as a loudspeaker outside blasted samba and a sound car motored by—“BRAZIL WINS ON GOAL IN THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH MINUTE! BRAZIL WINS ON GOAL IN THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH MINUTE! BRAZIL TAKES THE TITLE IN A MIRACLE!”—and as the very members of the congregation snuck miniature flags from their lapels, waving them in tight arcs, moving their shoulders to the bouncing music. Passos leaned into the microphone to testify as loud as he could that “the Lord requires of us obedience and sacrifice, these things, and out of the firstfruits of the heart we produce our offerings, in the bright light of a new day, indeed, brothers and sisters, a better day”—as all the people outside drowned him out, or maybe they seconded him with their own raucous chorus of Amens, and as Passos finished he outright yelled now—“in the name of Jesus Christ, amen!” and the congregation yelled back, in one accord, “Amen!”

  The bishop hurried up to the pulpit after Passos sat down. He thanked all the speakers for their wonderful, wonderful talks, then he dismissed church a full two hours early.

  “We’ll resume our normal schedule next week,” the bishop said in a voice as loud and resonant as any Passos had heard from him. The man smiled like a lighthouse—big, shining eyes. “Next week we’ll be able to hear ourselves think. Until then, God bless you. And God bless Brazil!”

  After the closing prayer Elder Passos descended the dais and passed President Mason going up it. The president shook Passos’s hand, said, “Good job, good job,” but he looked past him to the bishop, that same tight line in the middle of his face.

  In the hallway Passos met up with Maurilho and Rose, and Josefina and McLeod too, all of them matching his smile inch for inch.

  “Great talk, companion,” McLeod said. “Especially the end.”

  “Could you hear it?”

  “Nobody heard it,” Maurilho said, “but it was the greatest talk I’ve ever not heard!”

  “Is that the talk?” Josefina said. She pointed to the folded-up page in Passos’s hand.

  “Sort of, yeah,” he said. “Did I hear it right that they scored in the eighty-eighth minute?”

  Maurilho pulled a thin black bud-capped wire out of his collar, letting it droop down like a wilted flower stalk over his tie. He smiled. “Yes. I can confirm that.”

  Rose shook her head at her husband, though she smiled too. Elder McLeod threw his head back and laughed.

  “The eighty-eighth minute,” Passos said. “Man! Can you imagine if we hadn’t come to church today?”

  The group moved in loose concert down the hallway, walking toward the glass double doors that gave a view onto the river of yellow and green rushing by. It looked even better than it had in Passos’s daydreams. He felt a wave of gratitude lifting him, then a hand on his shoulder.

  “Elder?”

  When he turned around he saw Josefina and a look of startling earnestness. “I wanted to hear the end of your talk,” she said, “but then all that happened.” She gestured to the scene beyond the doors. “I was wondering if you’d let me borrow what you wrote down—your notes?—so I could read them and study them. I could give them back to you tomorrow.”

  “Oh Josefina,” Passos said, and for a moment it was all he could do not to hug her. “Josefina, you are golden, did you know that? Here, take it, keep it. Show it to Leandro. I want you to have it. In fact, I wanted to talk to you. Well, we wanted to talk to you …” He looked up at the hall as Maurilho and Rose and McLeod reached the front door. Maurilho made excited explanatory gestures as McLeod nodded, laughed a little, nodded again. The three went outside, the doors opening and shutting. An envelope of brighter louder air came rushing down the hall to Passos and Josefina; it passed just as quickly.

  “About the date for my baptism?” Josefina said.

  “That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. We just wanted to talk to you. And Leandro. We wanted to talk to the both of you. Do you think there’s any chance he’ll be home later tonight?”

  “Is it about my baptism?”

  “Yes, among other things. Can we come by and talk more tonight? Say seven?”

  “When am I going to be baptized, Elder Passos? The Lord told me. He answered my prayers. When is my baptism?”

  “Soon,” Passos said.

  “You mean this week?”

  Elder Passos looked for his companion through the door, couldn’t see him. He looked around for anyone, but the corridor had emptied out like the last day of school.

  Josefina hadn’t taken her eyes off him. “It’s going to be this week, then, right? You said the paperwork would take a few days. So this week?”

  Passos said, “Okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. We’ll talk about it more tonight.”

  The elders walked all the way home with Maurilho and Rose and Josefina. Rose had invited them all for a late, celebratory lunch. Passos demurred on account of another appointment, and at first Josefina demurred, too. When Rose insisted, Josefina lit up like a carnival game and said how thoughtful they were, how kind. She’d have gone back to an empty house, she was sure of it. Who knew where her husband was in all this chaos?

  The streets still writhed with people, some of whom noticed them all in their Sunday best and shouted, “God is Brazilian! God is Brazilian!” At Rose and Maurilho’s outer gate Rose asked Passos if they couldn’t reschedule their appointment, or be a little late for it. Passos was afraid they couldn’t. He said goodbye to Maurilho and Rose and told Josefina they’d see her at seven o’clock
that night.

  “So you’re a liar now?” McLeod said after they left the group.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Easy now, Eyebrows. I’m mostly kidding. But why did you say we had plans?”

  “Oh, that,” Passos said. “I figure it’s better for Josefina if we’re not around all the time. Let her make friends with the members independent of us.”

  “I guess you’re right,” McLeod said.

  They went back to the apartment and ate and decided to stay in for the rest of the afternoon, since who could work in that generalized clamor anyway? Car horns swept the neighborhood. Odd firecrackers, shouting, and of course samba—pounding, ubiquitous samba. Elder Passos closed the bedroom window and lay down for a nap. McLeod tried to follow his lead, but after several minutes Passos heard him sigh with impatience. His companion cleared his throat, stage-whispering across the space between their narrow beds. “Passos? You asleep over there?”

  “Almost.”

  “How can you sleep in this?”

  “You get used to it,” Passos said. He kept his eyes closed, but a slow smile spread across his face. “When you win this many titles …”

  He held that smile into the evening, he and the rest of Brazil. At the first reddening of the sky the elders started for Josefina’s, still on foot, and every face they saw in the street seemed caught up in the same private lovely thought. It almost made Elder Passos forget what he’d said. That they’d baptize Josefina this week. She’d backed him into it, and now what? He could tell her that the paperwork was taking longer than expected, or that the mission president was out of town, or something. But of course then McLeod would know, and Passos wasn’t in the habit of lying. Maybe he should explain it to Josefina. Or maybe Leandro would actually be there. Maybe now that the championships were over he’d take more interest, he’d soften. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. On a day like today almost anything was possible.

  They passed barzinhos letting out a fairly steady stream of revelers. Car horns still pierced the air now and then. On the other side of the street Passos spotted a family of Pentecostals walking, he assumed, to Sunday-evening services, the father in a dark suit, a Bible under his arm, and his wife and two daughters following close behind him. They all walked bolt upright, like a phalanx of imperial soldiers, but even they appeared to be smiling. Passos watched them turn off the main street with something close to tenderness. He started whistling, unconsciously at first, but then he matched the words to the tune and it made sense. We are all enlisted till the conflict is o’er. Happy are we, happy are we …

  Was that what he thought it was? Was that—He listened as the melody dropped down into the chorus, marching, marching, a martial line. It was. Elder McLeod hated the hymn, always had. His companion continued his quiet whistling, quiet yet clear, a sharp stream of air that cut through the reveling noise around them. Passos started into another verse and McLeod said, “Do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Knock that off. I can’t stand that hymn.”

  “ ‘We Are All Enlisted’?”

  “It sets my teeth on edge. Seriously.”

  “Ah, it’s a great hymn, Elder. It’s a great hymn.”

  Passos kept on with his whistling—down into the chorus, then up into yet another verse—as if McLeod hadn’t said a word, as if he’d actually encouraged him. More terrible-hymn whistling, please. Louder! But in fact he’d meant what he said and he’d said what he meant—no sarcasm, no trifling. At the edge of the fourth verse Elder Passos stopped his whistling. McLeod muttered a thank-you, but his companion didn’t acknowledge it. Passos had stopped his walking too. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, straining his eyes at something ahead of them. “No,” he whispered.

  McLeod followed Passos’s gaze to a huddle of men in front of a barzinho across the street, all of them nursing dark bottles, some nodding to the music. One man in particular, dark brown, lanky, cocked his head drunkenly back at them. He separated himself from the group, steps hitching, starting across the street. At the first sound of his voice—“Elders?” he shouted. “Is that you?”—he became Leandro. “Elders! Oh Elders! Wait for me!”

  Passos had started walking again, and McLeod couldn’t tell if he intended to hurry to Leandro or past him. He followed behind as Leandro veered onto the sidewalk ahead of them, and Passos abruptly stopped. Josefina’s husband looked looser, shufflier in his walk, as if he’d been deboned in the legs and arms. He moved in ways that seemed to surprise even him.

  “Oh Elders!” Leandro said. He closed the last yards between them holding a sad-looking brown bottle shorn of its label. McLeod could hear what was left in the bottle sloshing from Leandro’s movements. He wore a faded yellow Brazil jersey, mesh shorts, rubber sandals. He looked even tanner than the last time they’d seen him, rangier, his goatee gone to seed. That he worked construction seemed suddenly fitting to McLeod: it looked as if a loose jumble of two-by-fours was sidling up to them, was smiling at them, laughing a loud stupid laugh.

  “Oh Elders,” he said, “you see the game?”

  Leandro’s breath shocked of foul cachaça. His pink eyes swam in their sockets.

  Passos stepped forward and gestured his hand at McLeod as if to keep him back—something tender in this, McLeod felt, but also patronizing. His companion ducked his head, tracking Leandro’s. “How much have you had to drink, Leandro?”

  “I’m talking about the game,” Leandro said. “The game! Did you see it?”

  “Missionaries aren’t allowed to watch TV,” McLeod said. “Remember?”

  Passos turned to him and shook his head—I’ll handle this. He turned back around just as Leandro swung his left arm over Passos’s shoulder. Leandro lifted his other arm, disjointed and exultant, waving the cachaça bottle like a flag. “We won!” he shouted. “Again! What joy to be Brazilian!”

  Elder Passos slipped Leandro’s beery embrace like a prizefighter, ducking under and out with such agility that Leandro lost his balance, listed left, then right, overcorrecting. The brown bottle sang as he threw out his arms for support. Passos took Leandro by the shoulders, steadied him. “Why don’t you come home with us?” he said. “To your home. We’re on our way there to visit your wife. Leandro? When’s the last time you were home?”

  “My wife! Of course! Hey guys,” he shouted, wheeling around to address his huddle of friends across the street, which had since dispersed. “Guys, where are you? These are the kids I was telling you about. Guys?” He visored his forehead with his left hand and bent a little, straining his gaze in the direction of the bar. “Ah, fuck,” he muttered. He turned back to the elders. “Of course you’re going to visit my wife. You love my wife, don’t you? Especially gringo here.” He jerked a thumb past Passos to McLeod. “Don’t you, Elder Gringo?”

  McLeod thought he hadn’t heard him, or understood him. But his face began to burn. Leandro swung his arm around Passos again and said out of the side of his mouth, “He comes to our country, eh Passos, and tries to steal our women, eh?”

  Passos ducked out and under again. “You’re drunk, Leandro. Go sleep it off.”

  “Go home,” McLeod said. His voice sounded hoarse all of a sudden, obstructed.

  And all of a sudden Leandro straightened, clamped his eyes on McLeod. “What are you doing with my wife?” He shouted, “Are you fucking my wife?” Leandro lunged and threw a loose, waving punch at McLeod, narrowly missing. His body pitched forward with his arm’s momentum, landing him facedown in the street.

  Adrenaline fired in every cell of McLeod’s body. His heart thudded high up in his throat. Passos put a quick hand under McLeod’s chin. “He didn’t get you?”

  Leandro tried to lift himself from the street, collapsed. He tried again and collapsed again. He writhed like a catch in its throes, struggling for something it no longer has the means of. Escape. Dignity.

  “Help!” Leandro wailed into the pavement. “Help me up, for Christ’s sake! Elders!”


  Passos moved McLeod back another step, then bent down and rolled Leandro onto his back. The man blinked several times, his right cheek coated in dust. Passos held out his hand. “Come on.”

  Leandro took the hand and mocked, “Come on, come on. Let’s go fuck Leandro’s wife. That’s what you do when I’m not there, right? Just like your Joseph Smith. The church of the wife-fuckers.”

  Passos wrenched his hand away and sent the jumble of a man back down to the dusty street. Leandro tried to prop himself up from his back now—his legs spread, crablike—but he fell back. Elder McLeod stepped forward and his companion said, “No. Leave him where he is.” He took McLeod by the wrist and upper arm and rushed him off down the street as Leandro screamed after them, a torrent of imprecations that Passos covered with a low, rapid voice in McLeod’s ear: “Leave him where he is, in the dirt, in the filth, just leave him, don’t even look back …”