by Alex Palmer
Harrigan found himself sitting in complete blackness. He became still, listening and waiting, a prickle of apprehension at the back of his neck. There was the collective noise of those in the room breathing, and then a shuffling, scraping noise, the sound of someone who had become disorientated and had dropped something. In the darkness, there was the suspension of any sense of place. Then a woman’s ghostly and untrained voice was heard, singing: Praise you the Lord in the heavens,
Praise him in the heights,
Praise him all his angels,
Praise him all you stars of light,
Praise him all who live in darkness,
Praise him all who dwell in day,
Let them praise the name of the Lord.
There was silence. Then Harrigan heard the preacher’s voice, disembodied and echoing against the high ceilings of the hall: ‘We are in the darkness, you and I. Come with me and I will show you the way to the light.’
As he spoke an image began to take shape slowly on the screen at the back of the hall: a figure in a long white robe, seven small glittering stars balanced over his outstretched hands. The preacher stood in silhouette against this image, his shadowed face edged with light. Pale wall lights appeared around the auditorium, illuminating the faces of the watching congregation.
‘Welcome to you all, my blood brothers and sisters in Christ. Please stand and link hands,’ he said. There was a rustle as each person took the other’s hand. Harrigan grasped the hand of an elderly man on one side and a woman of indeterminate age with vague blue eyes on the other. ‘As we stand here on the edge of eternity, I ask you to remember this, my brothers and sisters. You and I are one flesh, one body. Yes, and we love each other, as parent and child, brother and sister, so we love. Close your eyes. Think on this. We are as one. Repeat after me.
We are as one.’
‘We are as one.’ The response came strongly, fully voiced.
‘We are as one,’ the preacher said again.
‘We are as one,’ the crowd responded.
‘We are as one.’
‘We are as one!’
In the shadow and light, a sense of anticipation continued to grow.
Harrigan, perhaps the sole person in the room who had not closed his eyes as requested, glanced from one person to the next, and then to the preacher. The preacher was also open-eyed and watching, looking at him directly or so it seemed. He gave the impression that everyone in the room was within his sight.
‘Please be seated,’ he said.
There was another rustle as the participants let go of each other’s hands and sat down again. The preacher began to speak without emphasis, almost without emotion, moving from one person to the next in the circles of chairs. Those present turned their heads to watch him, straining towards him. His voice took on the quality of a chant, unremitting and at an even tempo.
‘We know, do we not, that Jesus loves us, even beyond death. His blood is the blood of life, one drop of it has the power to redeem us.
To wash us all clean of the grievous weight of life. That is the depth of his love. But do we return that love?’
He stopped in front of the man who spoken about the breakdown of his marriage. ‘I ask you this, Martin. Do you cry aloud in the night for God’s love? No?’
The preacher leaned towards the man and spoke softly, although his voice was heard throughout the hall. ‘You must. You must hunger beyond life for the love that God can give you. Until that hunger consumes you, you will never be satisfied. No one …’ He paused and stood upright, then continued moving. The silence was intense. ‘… no one can deny God and live. Do, and in your heart there will be only death. And then? Oh, my friends, I only tell you this, these are the end-times and Jesus will come for you now on any day, at any hour. He will come with terrible speed and there will be no time for you to say, Oh, I must do that before I go. When we push open these doors to the streets, will the storms that presage the end of the world be raging outside? How do we know they will not? In the next day, the next hour, will it be you who stands on the bridge to all eternity with the abyss of Hell beneath you? Will there be a way across for you? Then the fear of God will come to you, and oh, yes, it will raise up the hairs on your head and a cold black wind will drive you down to Hell for all eternity, to a world without end.’
As he listened, Harrigan had the strange sensation of feeling cold down his spine. That needle along his backbone was genuine fear. It was the second time the preacher had had this effect on him. He glanced at others around him, some of whom sat with open mouths, waiting on every word.
‘But fear not,’ the preacher became soft and soothing. ‘No, fear not, my brothers and sisters. Because you will stand before God and say: I fought against the unnatural and the perverse. I stood between the murderer and the unborn. Satan walked abroad in the world but I defied him. Remember the words of Saint John of the Revelation. Be you faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life. Now, I know you will reach into your hearts and each of you will find in there the love that is God and the strength to go out and to do His work.’
He returned to stand in the centre of the circle and there was a release of breath, a communal sigh.
‘I ask of you now — tell us all, my brothers and sisters, what is it that you will do that will bring you forward as Christ’s witness, that will place you in the company of the saved at the end of time? Paul.
You are new to us today. What will you do?’
Curiously Harrigan heard his name called almost with relief. As he stood up the crowd turned to look at him, their faces still partially shadowed in the half dark like the preacher’s. Others among them would have preferred to have been chosen. They were hungry to speak, he could see it in their faces.
‘Like you say, I’m here for the first time. Why don’t you tell me what you think I should do?’
‘Go and close down an abortion mill today. That’s what the police should be doing,’ the man with creamy skin said, seated near the centre of the circle and smiling aggressively. His face was almost silver in the light.
‘Fight against those things which are an abomination in God’s sight,’ the preacher replied without hesitation, ignoring the man who had spoken. ‘You, Paul, are privileged, you have the force of the state behind you. We do not. We stand here as a lone voice. We exercise no earthly power. And if you come here, Paul, as you say you do, seeking hope, why have you not done more with the powers vested in you already? Are you afraid to? Or will you not answer me?’
‘I work within the law, Graeme. I have to.’
He sat down.
‘Abortion is against the law.’ The man with creamy skin spoke again.
‘Indeed it is. But no one wants the law enforced, so people flout it without fear,’ the preacher said. ‘So we protest. But unlike you, Paul, none of us need fear anything from anyone. Even if protest is all we have. With our protest, we have God’s backing. Nothing can stand against that.’
‘I have done that. I have protested,’ said the woman in the dark suit, louder than everyone else among the shouted responses. ‘Every day I know the Minister for Health is going to be out in public somewhere, I’m waiting for her. Wherever she goes, I’m behind her. As long as she allows the unborn children of this state to be murdered, I’ll be there. I’ve told her what she is.’
‘I write to the politicians,’ the man with creamy skin said. ‘I tell them that what’s happening in Australia is a sin against God. I say to them, there’s no such thing as a gay lifestyle, it’s a deathstyle, it corrupts everything it touches. But what do they do about it? Nothing.
They don’t even write back to me.’
Harrigan considered it was just as well that he hadn’t sent Trevor down here.
‘None of that is enough,’ said the woman who had sung, Bronwyn.
She had been standing at the back of the hall throughout proceedings, not far from where Harrigan sat, next to a small table on which stood a projector. ‘We
have to give everything we have.’
‘What does that mean — giving everything you have?’ Harrigan asked. ‘How far do you have to go?’
She looked at him a little startled, a plumpish figure with long slightly curling hair and wearing a silver medal of a baby’s tiny feet around her neck.
‘We must go as far as it’s possible to go,’ she replied quietly. ‘Here, we have nothing to lose. Those who stand against us only make us stronger. Because we have no ties, no obligations other than to God, there is nothing anyone can take from us. The only obligation you can ever have is the one you have to Him and you have to do anything that is necessary to fulfil that.’
‘I’ll tell you what it means,’ the pale man said. ‘The way things are today, you have to make a choice. You have to fight back. And if people get jack of it so much that they start to use force, then the only people who’ll be surprised are the ones who never listened in the first place.’
‘But you have to understand, we wouldn’t do that because we wanted to. We accept the role given to us by God. We’re not about death. We’re about life. We’re not the killers,’ Bronwyn said. ‘But the doctors in the family planning clinics are. And that’s what being homosexual means. They infect everything, they’re diseased, they’re destroyers. We offer life. But we keep being attacked because we’re the only ones brave enough to stand up and say so.’
There was a waiting silence as she spoke. She moved forward into the circle, her voice carrying throughout the auditorium in the colourless light. ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Everyone here believes that. The only law we are obliged to obey is God’s. And we must obey that law, no matter what we face. Graeme taught us that.’
‘Bronwyn,’ the preacher said, ‘it’s time to move on. If you could change the slide?’
The figure with seven stars above his outstretched hand disappeared; the image of a simple white-robed figure, which Harrigan assumed to be a depiction of Christ, took its place. It bore no relationship to the complex images he had studied and lived with throughout his boyhood.
‘Perhaps we should return to ourselves and to the present now, and speak of the peace that can be found from faith in God. You, Martin,’
the preacher spoke to the divorced man, ‘remember that while you are here, you are among your family. Speak to us now about what is in your heart.’
Harrigan sat for another hour while those around him detailed and wept over their personal heartbreaks, until the preacher said at last,
‘Bronwyn, would you open the doors, please.’
The main lights flickered on, the doors were opened. Glancing out onto the inner city street, Harrigan’s first sight of the outside light gave him a sense of disorientation, it appeared as something momentarily less real than the shadows in the dark room. The congregation filed out, the preacher said goodbye to each one and shook their hands as they went. Fredericksen, Harrigan noted with some surprise, did not ask his congregation for any money. He watched as the preacher shook the divorced man’s hand and said he looked forward to seeing him again.
‘You’ve given me heart,’ the man replied.
Harrigan was the last one out of the hall. The preacher offered him his hand and he shook it against his wishes, feeling that same weak, sliding grip.
‘Paul,’ the preacher said, ‘thank you for joining in the way you did today. I hope you didn’t find our approach to things here too confronting. But there is so much in the world these days against which we need to speak out. I speak from the heart, I’m afraid; it’s got me into trouble before today. I do hope we’ll see you here again.’
Harrigan wondered if he should question whether there was a point to the invitation, if the world was likely to end in the very near future.
‘It was no problem, me being here, Graeme. Thank you for the insight. I notice you didn’t take up a collection.’
‘No. No one who comes here has any money. I don’t take what little my people have. Why? Would you like to make a contribution? We’d certainly be most grateful.’
‘I wanted to thank you for your generosity. It’s unusual these days.
Just as a matter of interest — are these people your people? Is that how they see themselves?’
‘Yes, they are. They come to me because I am the only one who takes the trouble to care about them. I show them the way to peace of heart. The way Christ did. He went out to the lepers, the sick, the outcast and he offered them life. You must try and understand me, Paul. I have said to you that I love people and that is true. I am someone who is very sensitive to the needs of others. I can see into the heart. These people — they’re ordinary people, lost people, looking for hope. Like you. You’re not a happy man, Paul. I can see that. If you came here to me and genuinely opened your heart, I would find you happiness. I would give you hope.’
‘You know, Graeme, even if that was true, I’d have to say that was my problem, not yours, and I don’t think I’d care to share it with you.
I’ll see you again. When I find Greg. Because I do intend to find him.
That’s a promise.’
‘I don’t doubt that. I hope indeed you find him very soon,’ the preacher replied, smiling.
Sydney air had never smelled quite so sweet to Harrigan as when he stepped out onto the street. As he drove away, he turned off his recording device and called Trevor.
‘How’d it go?’ Trevor asked.
‘They owe me more money after that, Trev,’ Harrigan replied. ‘I’m on my way back in now.’
‘See you when you get here. We’ll be ready to go for this afternoon.
We’re just waiting for the film.’
‘All right. I’ll be there shortly.’
Harrigan drove through the slow traffic considering what he had just seen. He could call it cheap theatrics, ask whether — for the preacher — it was a case of stamina or addiction, and question who fed off who, but it would make no difference. The preacher’s congregation believed in the man; the man believed in himself. Some of those people were capable of being dangerous, but how dangerous? Nuisances and harassers rather than arsonists and murderers. How much was just talk? The preacher had let his congregation put themselves on display and they had willingly done so. He had not displayed himself, he had made no threats, barely offered an opinion that you could not hear any day from the shock jocks on the radio.
Harrigan drove back into the city, deep in thought. In the houses across the street from the Temple, the backup officers collected their belongings and left by the back way. The photographers and surveillance teams remained in place, watching everyone who came and went, twenty-four hours a day.
22
Lucy sat out on the back doorstep smoking, wrapped in her old coat, thinking that nothing existed except this time and this place.
She would just take each minute as it was now, give it no other meaning than the sight of the light in the sky, each breath she took, each beat of her heart.
She was waiting to see her father. As the time came closer, she wondered why she wanted something quite so much as this. Her memory of him clung to her with the strength of a baby’s grip. She wanted to cut him loose and then just to live, in each instant, without any connection to the past or the future, without weight. Just to exist in pure, unending light. When her phone rang, she thought, someone is chasing me. Why? I haven’t anything to give them. I have nothing.
All I do is exist.
‘Lucy,’ the preacher said in an angry voice. ‘How are you?’
‘I told you not to call me, Graeme,’ she replied, uninterested. ‘I said I’d call you.’
‘I had to call you, Lucy,’ he said, ‘I have some very bad news for you.’
‘What?’ She was suddenly frightened.
‘I can’t get there tonight. You will have to wait until tomorrow when I can put some other arrangements in place.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I am being watched by the
police.’
‘How do they know about you?’ she asked.
‘Through Greg, Lucy. How else? You had to tell him what you’d done. And because of that, they are at my door. They believe I’m involved. Which is all they need to think to make themselves troublesome.’
‘Well, you are involved, aren’t you, Graeme? So they’re not wrong there,’ Lucy replied with a grin. ‘Anyway, how do you know they’re watching you?’
‘Because one of them came down here today. He sat in the congregation, he insulted everyone, he was so much better than the rest of us. He thinks he is so clever. He will find out that he is not. He has no power, whatever he thinks. You go and find yesterday’s paper, Lucy.
You’ll see him in there. Swollen with arrogance like the sons of Belial.’
Lucy’s hands were shaking, she swallowed fear.
‘In the paper,’ she said, mechanically.
‘Yes. You look at that face and you’ll see the son of the devil.’
‘You don’t know that. He could be anyone. He could be someone’s father for all you know.’
‘It doesn’t matter who this person is, Lucy, he is still our enemy. He is someone who does not deserve to live. You know who people are when you see who they consort with. Now you listen to me, I am telling you this.’ Lucy was silenced by the fury that came across the line. ‘I have seen who they are. I have been there. I have walked into their den, I have sat and talked with them. I have seen who works there. I met one and I knew her. I knew her face, I knew that name. Because I know who these people are, I make it my business to know. And when I got back to the Temple I searched our catalogue of witches and yes, there she was. That is who we are dealing with, Lucy. With the — ’
‘I don’t care about any of that just now, Graeme.’
She cut him off ruthlessly.
‘There’s only one thing I care about now and that’s Greg. I’ve got a car now and some money and I just want to get hold of Greg and go north, go away, wherever. So you don’t have to worry about anything, because I am just going to go away and forget about you all. And you had better let me do that. Because I really don’t care what happens to me. But I bet you care what happens to you. I’ll see you tomorrow night. You be there. You can do it.’