Son of the Morning

by Joyce Carol Oates

  He began softly, even conversationally. Welcoming them—expressing his gratitude—asking them to join him in a prayer to bless the evening. Then he went on to speak of Christ’s love and sacrifice, and the necessity of humbling oneself, opening oneself fully, to God; and then, his voice growing stronger, he began to speak of the possibility that the Final Days were approaching—given the evidence of war, and riots in the cities, and assassinations, and crime, and divorce, and alcoholism and drug-taking, and immorality of all sorts; and Japheth sat listening as if he were hearing all this for the first time. There were beasts abroad, and angels of death. And devils. Demons. The signs were unmistakable. There were false prophets in the established churches, and unbelievers—mockers of Christ—in positions of power. Government, business, education were contaminated. Good was mistaken as evil, and evil as good. Many feared that the Kingdom of God was at hand and yet they did nothing—knew not what to do, even to save themselves. What a horror it would be, what a chaos! The bravest men and women had become cowards, eager to placate Satan and his manifestations, turned aside from the Lord though they knew very well the wrath that lay in store. They knew, they knew very well! Yet they pretended not to know. And it was his duty, Nathan Vickery’s duty, to call them back to their senses, to shout into their faces the truth of God’s love. Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear Him, which after He hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him.

  And then, suddenly, Nathan fell silent.

  He stared out at them, as if alarmed. Japheth was shocked. Was something wrong? Had something gone wrong? Around him people were murmuring. A few seats down, Reverend Lund glanced toward Japheth suspiciously; he must have believed Japheth knew what was happening.

  Nathan stepped forward, peering into the crowd. He brushed his hair out of his eyes in a simple, disarming gesture, like a man who has become suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t think I can continue this evening,” he said. “I feel the force of the demonic so strongly, coming from certain individuals here in this church. I feel it. I can’t go on—I can’t speak of Christ and love and forgiveness and Heaven and the Holy Spirit awakening in you unless these evil spirits are driven out—unless you surrender them to me and allow me to drive them out . . . Do you understand?”

  Japheth felt waves of alarm and panic run through the church. He felt, in that first instant, a sensation of sheer guilt: as if Nathan had looked into his very soul and had discovered evil there, where he himself had not known it dwelt.

  “Do you hear? Do you understand?” Nathan was saying in a singsong voice, as if he were speaking to stubborn children. “I feel the evil in certain individuals here. I can see you—I can see into you. You’ve come here tonight because the Holy Spirit has led you to me, because it is ordained that tonight you are going to be made well and brought into my church. You didn’t know: maybe you came out of curiosity, but the Holy Spirit was guiding you. And now you are here. And now I know you. And I am telling you that some of you can be saved and some of you can’t be saved, because it is God’s will. If you are sick at heart, if you are ailing, physically or mentally or spiritually ailing, you must surrender yourself to me—and if it’s God’s will I can exorcise the principle of the demonic from you and make you whole again, as you were as a child. I can do it with God’s help. God can do it with my help. I had intended to preach as usual tonight and to call for the saved to come forward and be welcomed into my church, but I can’t continue—I can’t go on. You can’t go on. There’s no point in my addressing you as if the majority of you were healthy and free of evil influences—God has allowed me to know I can’t continue as I had planned. Some of you are seriously sick—deathly sick! And you know who you are! And I know! And God has given me the power for only tonight to drive the sickness from your souls and make you well—He has called me to a healing ministry right here before you—He has instructed me in all that I must do—in the works that I must work during my time on earth—”

  For the first several minutes there was confusion, since no one had been prepared for Nathan’s pronouncement. Japheth himself sat stunned, hardly attending to the whispering and murmuring among the Seekers. Was Nathan speaking to him? Had Nathan discerned a certain lack, a certain unhealthiness, in his soul? Somewhere toward the rear of the church a woman began to sob, and at once others joined her, and Nathan’s organist began to play—lurchingly at first, so that it was several bars before “Thus Christ Approaches” was recognizable.

  And then everything fell into place: the aisles were jammed with people pushing their way forward: a few of the Seekers, quick-witted enough to know they must help, got to their feet and stood ready.

  “Is God present? Is the Holy Ghost present? Tonight? Now? Here? In us?” Nathan cried. “I think so. I feel that it’s so. Don’t hold back, come forward, come to me, I can help you, come to me—yes, like that! Is God present? Is the Holy Ghost present in us? I feel so many wonders in me! So many marvels! My head is filled to bursting with them! Such power! Such love! Yes, like that, yes, come forward—we’ll help you—come forward, come forward—you will be baptized in the Blood of the Lamb—your sins will be washed from you and your soul will be clean as a newborn child’s—you will belong to the Lord forever and He will never neglect you—you will belong to us forever—we will love you and take care of you and never, never neglect you—”

  Japheth would have liked to help but the situation terrified him. Many of the men and women were perfectly ordinary churchgoers—Pentecostals, probably—with their grim, hopeful, seedy faces and their cheap dress-up clothes; but here and there Japheth could see people who were genuinely not well—some were crippled, some were very weak, some had the shrinking glittering look of madness. All were pressing forward. The organ’s massive wheezing chords and the near-hysterical singing and clapping and, above all, the call, the cry, of Nathan’s voice drew them irresistibly forward. “Is God present? Is God in me? Am I God? Tonight? Now? Here? I feel His power in me! To the very tips of my fingers! I am filled with strength, with marvels—”

  And yet, when he considered the situation afterward, Japheth had to admit that Nathan had been in complete control all the while. There was the appearance of ecstatic chaos, of near-danger, and certainly there were a number of hysterical people, men and women both, but Nathan controlled them wonderfully with his voice and his gestures: drawing them forward, greeting them one by one, laying hands on them and gazing into their eyes with a peculiar intensity, as if he were seeking someone, looking for someone he knew. It was evident that Nathan could tell in an instant whom he might help, and who was beyond his help. He knelt before an aged, badly crippled woman who had been led forward by her daughter and, taking both her hands in his, he pressed them against his forehead and prayed in a loud, plaintive voice that she would forgive him, for he could not help her, he had not the power to help her. And as he leaned forward to greet a young blond man Japheth saw his expression shift, his good eye narrow: and this man too was beyond his help. (The man was in his twenties, very thin, with a skimpy beard and a trembling head and a keen, gaunt look that frightened Japheth for no reason he could have said: Was the young man insane? Was he dying?) Nathan gripped him close in an embrace and then stepped back and begged to be forgiven, and in his confusion the young man stood there for a moment, blinking, trembling, until someone else pushed up close behind him, and one of the Seekers—Reverend Lund himself, it was, perspiring freely—gripped the young man by his arm and pulled him aside. It was necessary to keep the aisles clear, to keep traffic moving.

  But those he could help Nathan spent some minutes with, his hands on their shoulders, his face brought close to theirs. He spoke to them cajolingly, murmuring that the Holy Spirit had led them forward and was now descending into them, flowing from him and into them, bringing them strength and purpose and well-being and love. Did they feel it? Did they feel it?
At times he cupped a believer’s face in both his hands and the look that passed between them was one of urgent, almost terrified love: of recognition and love. He prayed for them in a whining, pleading voice, his own face hotly pale, damp with sweat, his eyes glittering. What devils could withstand his power, the power of the Holy Spirit! What cloudy devilish thoughts could withstand his power! After a brief while the believer began to sway from side to side as if losing consciousness, and his head rolled on his shoulders, and still Nathan gripped him tight and stared into his eyes, and it happened in several instances that the person shrieked and began to fall and was caught in Nathan’s arms. As the service continued and the air became more and more highly charged, Nathan had to do no more than merely approach a believer, or touch him—a woman collapsed with a groan, a red-faced man of middle age fell heavily sideways and would have struck his head against a pew if Japheth himself hadn’t caught him, a girl of about fifteen began weeping uncontrollably and slipped to her knees at Nathan’s feet.

  A number of the newly converted did faint, but came around again almost immediately, helped by members of Nathan’s staff. They babbled in delight, clutching at strangers’ hands, declaring the Holy Spirit was in them and they were well, perfectly well, Nathan had cured them, Nathan had brought them God. Japheth crouched over a woman in her mid-thirties who was lying on a pew, breathing rapidly, on the verge of hyperventilation; she gripped both his hands so tightly he had to steel himself against crying out in pain. “My God! My God!” the woman wailed. She was amazingly strong for her size, and with her eyes shut tight and her cheeks wet with tears she put him in mind of a woman in childbirth: the ecstatic abandon, the strength of her hands, the almost inhuman expression on her face: giving birth to—birth to what? Japheth’s teeth chattered with excitement, or perhaps it was with fear. He tried to calm the woman. It was his responsibility to get her name and address and to find out from her whether she was a regular churchgoer, who was her pastor, was this the first time she had heard Nathan Vickery speak, did she intend to become a Seeker for Christ, did she wish to become a full-time member of the church or a part-time member, and how large was her family . . . ? But it was nearly twenty minutes before she could reply coherently to his questions.

  The service lasted for hours. At the end Japheth was staggering with exhaustion. He squatted in the aisle beside a man in his late forties with a closely shaved head and an odd pattern of purplish-red birthmarks on his left cheek and for some minutes Japheth could not tell which of them was sobbing, which of them was babbling wildly about the Holy Spirit and Christ and Brother Nathan and some bad, some very bad, bad thing, that had happened back in 1939. Was there forgiveness, the man wept, would Brother Nathan forgive him if he knew . . . ? “I did it with full knowledge of how sinful it was! It wasn’t the Devil, it was me! It was me alone! I did it and knew it was wrong and never, never told anybody and now it’s too late!” he cried. And Japheth managed to comfort him. Of course he was forgiven: hadn’t the Holy Spirit descended into him, wasn’t he like a newborn child, washed and cleansed and pure?

  The man turned his contorted, weeping face to Japheth and would have hugged him had Japheth not kept his distance. Despite his exhaustion Japheth had the clear, penetrating, triumphant thought that in his Master’s name he had done good: had performed a kind of miracle: for the man would believe anything he was told in that mental state, and so he was indeed absolved of his sins. How could there be any doubt of that? Hadn’t Nathan Vickery touched him tonight, bringing him the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

  ON THE SECOND night of the Crusade nearly everyone who had attended the first night returned, bringing others with them; the crowds were such that a number of people had to be turned away. But Reverend Lund made the promise that another, larger church would be rented, which could accommodate everyone. And so on the third night hundreds of people showed up, many of them converts from the first two nights; and so it was with the fourth night, and the fifth . . . (The Crusade was so successful that it was extended for a full week.)

  There were newspaper reporters and photographers, and even television cameramen and their equipment, and the Seekers were violently divided about them: should they be allowed inside the church to witness the services, though most of them were unbelievers and some were probably outright enemies . . . ? Or should they be turned away? Since Nathan Vickery kept to himself for the entire week, speaking to no one at all—not even to Japheth, who was surprised and hurt—they could only speculate about his wishes. Many of the Seekers wanted the reporters banned, but Reverend Lund pointed out that it was only through publicity that the church could attract members—and, strangely enough, it didn’t seem to matter whether the publicity was good or bad. An article so hostile as to have been nearly libelous had appeared the summer before in an upstate newspaper, yet attendance at Nathan’s subsequent meetings had been higher than ever, and membership in the church itself continued to climb.

  So a number of reporters and photographers were admitted, and on the fourth night of the Crusade photographs were taken of an extraordinary incident: as people were making their way forward to be greeted by Nathan Vickery and given his blessing, a disturbed young man in a canvas jacket appeared suddenly at Nathan’s side and, accusing him of something in a loud, braying voice, made a swipe at him with a hunting knife. Japheth, who happened to be standing only a few yards away, saw to his astonishment that Nathan appeared not at all alarmed: without hesitating, he reached for the knife as if to simply take it out of the man’s hand. His fingers closed ineffectually about the blade, however, and the young man drew the knife back violently, and Japheth saw that Nathan’s fingers were slashed. Yet in the next instant Nathan managed to disarm the man, this time by seizing his wrist. There was a great deal of excitement—the scuffling of Nathan and his attacker, and the screams of witnesses, and the flash of cameras.

  “Call a doctor! Someone call a doctor!” Japheth cried.

  But Nathan turned to him in surprise. He didn’t want a doctor, he didn’t even want the police; everything was under control.

  “But your hand—” Japheth said.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my hand,” Nathan said irritably.

  He held out both hands for Japheth and the others to see—and indeed there was no blood on either hand, no marks at all.

  “But he cut you—The knife blade cut you—”

  “No,” Nathan said. “I’m not hurt.”

  “But I saw—”

  “You’re mistaken,” Nathan said, turning away.

  And so the service continued, and Japheth stood staring, unable to comprehend what had happened. He had seen, clearly enough, Nathan’s fingers close about the blade of the knife—he was positive he had seen the blade slash Nathan’s palm—he had seen blood. Yet there was no blood, there was no wound. Nothing at all. The young man had been led out of the church and his knife was pocketed by one of the reporters (so Japheth believed, and this turned out to be accurate) and Nathan simply continued with the ceremony.

  Much later, when they were leaving the church, Japheth asked nervously if he might see Nathan’s hand again.

  “My hand? Why? What do you mean?” Nathan asked. His voice was hoarse and his skin had gone clammy from exhaustion. He walked like a man in a dream; like a sleepwalker. It was evident that he did not remember the incident, and when Japheth reminded him of it his expression remained blank. “What knife? What man? Nothing happened; everything went as it was ordained. What do you mean?”

  “You took hold of his knife by the blade and he jerked it back and—and your fingers were cut—”

  “I tell you, nothing happened,” Nathan said.

  There were others listening, other members of his staff. They watched him rather timidly, knowing he did not care to be bothered at such times. (Only if he needed help walking out to the car, or seemed about to keel over, would anyone dare to approach him; even Reverend Lund had learned to keep a respectful distance.)

 
“What are you all looking at?” Nathan said. His voice rose hoarsely and cracked. “I tell you, nothing happened, I’m not hurt, I can’t be hurt. Did you think it would be that easy?” He looked at them, forcing a queer, strained smile. Again he showed them his hands, the palms exposed, and they were unharmed—untouched. “Why are you so fearful? Why so anxious? You should have more faith in me after all these years. Don’t you know at last who I am . . . ?”

  IX

  Were You present when Nathan Vickery healed the sick, did You indeed pulse along his veins, breathing in unison with him . . . ? Did You whisper to him who might be saved and who was beyond his ability to save, did You coil about him like a lover, did You strain his heart to the bursting point?

  Do You abide with him still?

  My prayer continues, but now it is without hope. I continue, but without hope.

  There are small tasteless meals to be prepared and eaten; there are interminable nights to be endured; there are thoughts tormenting me that I cannot escape. I live now without hope.

  It must be evident to You that I know very little, that I am as ignorant as certain of Nathan’s disciples, who wanted only to kneel before him in brainless adulation, begging that he allow them to call him Master. (For it was a word that exasperated him.) My efforts to give substance to a wraith cost me a great deal of pain and yet are inadequate, and yet I must continue for I am powerless to bring my prayer to an end . . . to a premature end.

  I am discovering, O Lord, that my prayer is my life: my self.

  To break it off would be to break off my own being.