Son of the Morning

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Now the organ began again, softly. Now the choir began to sing.

  He paced about the platform restlessly, calling them to him. They listened, and shuddered, and could not resist. Already the first of the converts were making their way down the steps to the ground, their movements tentative, their expressions dreamlike. The Lord God called them out of their seats and they could not resist, they did not dare resist. The sick. The ailing. The weary. The frightened. The lonely. The sufferers in silence. The bewildered ones, who cry aloud each day: Why was I born? Those who are burdened with their own sins, their own offenses against the Lord. Those who fear death, knowing they will be cast down to hell . . . For it is impossible but that offenses will come: but woe unto him through whom they come! It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about this neck, and he cast into the sea . . .

  One by one they came, and in small faltering groups, their eyes wet with tears and their lips murmuring prayers. Slowly they made their way forward out of the tiers of seats, slowly the streams became one large, formless stream, pressing forward. Nathan called them to him and they could not resist. The Lord God called them and they could not resist.

  You are all Seekers for Christ, are you not? From the day of your birth until tonight, the hour of your awakening? You are all my children, are you not? Shaking yourself free of the terrible weight of sin . . .

  So they came to him, several hundred altogether. And he greeted them individually, hungry to seize their hands, to welcome them in the name of the Lord. They shuffled forward, their faces transfigured. Not a one was ugly! Not a one was haggard, or exhausted, or drawn with age! One by one they made their commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, one by one they gave their names to him, and he repeated their names, his voice beginning to crack but his face still ecstatic. My brothers and sisters in Christ! My dear ones! Now you are come home at last, now you are come home . . . !

  Middle-aged men in sports clothes and pregnant young women in billowing dresses and boys in white shirts, their eyes damp with fear; men leading their elderly, crippled mothers down the steps and across the grass, slowly, slowly, making their way to Jesus; the young, the old, the dreamily smiling, the quick, brisk, exuberant ones whose hearts were already with Jesus: so they came to him for they could not resist. He seized their cold perspiring hands in his, and rubbed them together in triumph, a smile of sheer joy transfiguring his face. And sometimes he grasped their heads as if he meant to embrace them violently, welcoming them in the name of Jesus. There were those who stumbled to him, and pushed themselves in his arms; there were those who collapsed in tears before him. Some shrank from his touch involuntarily, and staggered as if they would fall, and then came to their senses; and were welcomed in the name of Jesus. And God was all in all: and there was nothing that was not God.

  (Except there came before him a panting, full-bodied woman, her face rounded and shining, her hair fixed in a plump, glossy chignon from which stray tendrils escaped; and her expression was both desperate and cunning. So close to hysteria was she that others stood aside to let her pass, and one of the staff members helped her forward, staggering in her high-heeled shoes, so that she could stand before Nathan Vickery and make her commitment to Christ and accept His blessing. But she merely stared at him, and raised her hands to him. Nathan? Nathan? He gazed upon her with the radiance of Christ’s love, but did not offer to take her extended hands. Nathan? Don’t you know me? He smiled at her, his single good eye shone with love for her, and recognition of a kind; but it was clear that the woman was hysterical and must be led away, for she was no one Nathan Vickery knew.

  Nathan? Don’t you know me? Don’t you forgive me?

  Close about him stood his highest associates and, in plain clothes, several security policemen, and when the woman sought to press herself forward into Nathan’s arms, she was immediately held back. Sobbing, sobbing helplessly and angrily, she tried to sink to her knees before him, and made a gesture as if to clutch him about the legs—but this too was prevented, and she was hauled to her feet and led to the side. Nathan! Please! I only want—But he knew her not, he knew nothing of her, and in the next instant he was welcoming in the name of Christ a young man of about nineteen who was so agitated he could barely stammer, and who, when Nathan Vickery laid his hands upon him, began at once to weep like a child.

  And so the woman was led away, gasping and muttering, around and behind the raised platform and toward a rear exit, where several others had been led, gently but swiftly. He does know me! He loves me! Let me go, let me go to him—

  They let her say what she wished, but walked her to the exit nonetheless.)

  BE YE IN the world and not of it.

  Tough and fibrous the root forced itself up out of the earth, and grew strong and powerful and majestic as a tree, pushing defiantly upward, straining upward into the sky. It was gigantic: no longer a tree but a tower. A day and a night Nathan gazed upon it, in helpless rapture. He could not move. He could not think. His mind was broken and gone, his very being sucked out of himself. Be ye in the world and not of it, You cautioned him.

  The sun blazed and the winds blew hotly across the curve of the earth, yet the tower remained firm.

  He saw the immense desert spaces of the earth stretching out before him; he saw strange desert birds flying close to the cracked ground, ungainly creatures, solitary and triumphant. In his ordinary life he had gazed upon birds and animals and his fellow human beings, yet it had not been granted to him to see; nor had he felt the profundity of their separateness, their stubborn and inexplicable reality. Now You allowed him to realize the otherness of these creatures, and of all creatures, and You gave to him dominion over them, over all manner of life that crept about the face of the earth. There were the great sunless darkly heaving oceans of the earth, beneath their surfaces choked with life, and over this life, which swam and coiled about itself and devoured and excreted itself constantly, You gave absolute dominion to Nathanael Vickery: for he was the root, the tree, the living tower that held together earth and heaven. The birds of the air, the creatures of the deep, and all life that sprang out of the earth, including man, You placed under his dominion. For he was the seed, the stem, the blossom; the gigantic tower that heaved with life, and that no earthly power could overcome.

  He was allowed to see, then, at the base of the tower that was himself, the Tribulation that was to be the fate of ordinary men and women. Seven years it would rage, seven chaotic years, and there would be great suffering, and weeping and gnashing of teeth, and he must steel himself against pity: for pity for mankind would melt his bones and he would be lost, as Jesus of Nazareth was lost. Be ye in the world and not of it, as Jesus was of it; his worldliness cost Him His life. In you I am come again. In you I will not fail.

  After the seven years’ horror there would be visited upon the earth the warm bliss of Your love, and the new Saviour would descend, and for one thousand years would reign; and the Chosen of the Lord would rejoice, and the dead would be resurrected, and all would be well. The Saviour would walk upon the earth as if he belonged to the earth. But he was Your son: Your being: the heavenly tower itself. And this heavenly tower was Nathan, who gazed upon it in rapture, his soul drawn out of his body in a swoon of bliss. In you I will not fail, the voice declared.

  Nathan whispered: O Lord I am not worthy—!

  But You brushed away his doubts. You stooped to him and whispered in his ear I am thy salvation, I and no other, and he stirred, he threw himself about, he groaned to wake and embrace You: for he wished suddenly, greedily, that he could press You against his body and make his claim upon You, as You made Yours upon him. But he was the radiance that forced its way out of the earth, he was the tree, the great tower, the fortification that reached to heaven itself, and he had no human body, only the semblance of a body . . . his very soul that had gone hard with rapture, linking earth and heaven, the earth of mankind and the heaven of the Lord. And so no human wishes were granted him. No human desires,
or gratifications. Be ye in the world, the voice cried, and not of it.

  Jesus of Nazareth had failed, but Nathan would not fail: so You allowed him to know.

  Many were the false prophets and lying Messiahs, and the bitter, broken Christs out of Galilee. Many were their unsubstantial images, blown about the face of the earth, reduced to ash. Fraudulent signs and wonders, spurious miracles, idols and creatures of straw: none of which pleased You. But Nathan would please You. In Nathan You descend again to the earth, in Nathan Your Kingdom touches the earth once again, and brings the heartbeat of history to a stop.

  Knowing this, he groaned and thrashed about, hardly able to bear such joy, such pleasure. His backbone seemed to come alive of itself: exploding with radiant light: he could not bear it, could not bear it! That he gazed upon the wondrous tower and yet was the tower, was himself the tower—he could not bear it! Yet You whispered to him, and comforted him, allowing him to know what no other man had ever known. You and I are one. You and I have always been one.

  A day and a night the vision endured, yet when he woke no time at all had passed. A rivulet of perspiration ran down his side, and the back of his neck was damp, and the skin of his face was feverish; but no time had passed. Between one heartbeat and the next You had spoken and Nathan had been snatched out of himself and flung far, far distant, and yet his body had remained in its seat, and his voice had continued, and no one could guess that You had shown Your face at last.

  About the long candlelit table Your creatures sat, gazing upon Nathan, seeing Your radiance in him, and in honor of him they chattered as always, in the harmless melodic sounds of human creatures, looking to him for his judgment. Who were these people? Had he known them in another lifetime? He, who had been shown the secret axis of the earth, he who was the very axis himself, was expected to take them seriously and to reply to their childlike questions . . . ! He laughed aloud with the absurdity of it. He laughed, that these people should imagine he shared a common language with them, or dwelt in his body as they in theirs, a stranger to You.

  Echoing voices. The sound of silverware, china. A half-familiar voice that was—whose?—commenting upon the strong, warm, exhilarating atmosphere of the college. (For it seemed that earlier that day, a thousand years ago, Nathan Vickery had held a prayer meeting in a gymnasium, and hundreds of young people had crowded in, curious about him, some of them skeptical, some of them eager. So long ago! He had braved their bold, frank, inquisitive eyes, he had spoken slowly and quietly of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of their own apartness, and gradually his voice had risen to passion, and gradually, very gradually, the atmosphere in the overheated room had quickened: and he knew he had them: not all of them, but the great majority. He knew; and so it came to pass. He led them in a prayer that was childlike in its simplicity, and he told them that this prayer, and this prayer alone, was suitable to people like themselves, who lived at the very tops of their heads, overly conscious, overly wakeful, in utter isolation from one another and from the Holy Spirit. And so they must make themselves as little children again, they must break and humble themselves, saying again and again Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me . . . Their voices rose, the gymnasium vibrated and echoed with the prayer Jesus loves me, half mournful, half hopeful, a droning chant that forced a considerable number out of the building—and these Nathan followed with his stern, knowing gaze, and he sensed their dislike of him, their outraged contempt, that he should have hypnotized so many young people with Jesus loves me, reducing them to piteous infants in the name of the Lord. He knew, he sensed his enemies’ accusations; and yet he forgave them, even as they made their way noisily out of the gymnasium. You are beyond my reach now, he called to them, but there will come a time when you will grovel at my feet . . . )

  The root of all life, the stem, the tree, the tower: the magnificent tower reaching from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth. He felt is power throbbing in his veins, beating in his head so emphatically that his right eye began to ache . . . What was Japheth Sproul talking of, punctuating his remarks with nervous bursts of laughter? He was seated beside a diminutive, soft-spoken gentleman in his sixties, a professor of philosophy whose name Nathan could not recall, for it seemed he had been introduced to these people, these warm generous kindly inquisitive people, many years ago. The university chaplain was trying to make conversation with him, with Nathan, and a thin, intense young woman with fashionably angular glasses was turned to him as companionably as if they were old friends, smiling at him, addressing questions to him, while about the table others chatted in the rhythms and nuances of human speech—quite as if the human world were not nearing its completion, its final disaster. The university chaplain’s first name was Rick; he had been a professional football player for a brief while; though he was about Nathan’s age—thirty-two—he looked considerably younger, with his thick red-blond beard and his engaging smile. Nathan returned that smile as he returned all human smiles, out of courtesy, for the Lord God Himself would not be discourteous, not even to self-deceived fools. Rick was saying that the afternoon session had been a wonderful, wonderful experience, that a dozen or more young people had crowded into his office afterward, talking excitedly of Nathan, and of the decisions they had made for Christ, and of how they firmly believed their lives would be transformed. “One of them is a boy I’ve been very worried about,” he said, shaking his head in simple awe. “Brilliant kid, a physics major in his senior year with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship for graduate school, a fellowship he’d been thinking of turning down, actually . . . can you imagine? Wonderful, brilliant kid! But so troubled. His parents are both Methodists and I gather fairly old-fashioned and of course he . . . and he’s in love with a girl . . . and . . . Well, this afternoon has turned his life around, he says. His face was glowing, it was an astonishing sight, I almost wish we’d had room to invite him to dinner tonight so that he could talk with you a little further, but my wife drew the line at . . . and you might want to relax a little, Mr. Vickery . . . Nathan . . . Isn’t that so? You must be exhausted after meeting with that group this morning, and then the afternoon session lasted almost three hours . . .”

  The vision had lasted a day and a night, and it was true that he felt rather drained. Yet no time at all had passed: at the end of his fork was a morsel of food that had been raised to his mouth and lowered to his plate and slowly raised again: less than a minute had passed.

  “Yes,” said Nathan, clearing his throat, “but there’s no need to flatter me.”

  The chaplain and the young woman with the glasses looked surprised.

  “Flatter . . . ?” the chaplain said in a hurt voice. “I only meant . . .”

  “The Lord God acts in our hearts, we don’t act of our own volition,” Nathan said. His throat ached; his voice sounded raw, a little too loud for this intimate setting. He made a conscious effort to speak more softly, as people speak to one another in such circumstances. (What was this place? Why was he here? A college in eastern Pennsylvania, a liberal arts college, and there was some connection between Japheth and one of the professors, or perhaps the chaplain . . . Nathan looked down to the far end of the table where his friend was deep in conversation with the professor of philosophy and a rotund, merry person of indeterminate sex, and he perceived that Japheth was behaving out of vanity, that beneath his artless boyish talk of the renewal of faith and the “warm, generous, exhilarating” atmosphere at the college there was the ugliness of egotism: and an unclean inclination to boast of Nathan’s success as if this success were somehow his own. He perceived as well that Japheth, in his awareness of him, of his physical presence, was deluded into imagining that this presence was himself; it might even be the case that Japheth was in love with . . . But of that he did not care to think.)

  “. . . only meant that you’ve helped certain of these young people very much . . . you should hear them rave about you! Isn’t that true, Sandra?”

  “Yes, you should hear them, it would
be . . . I think it would be very gratifying . . . Of course we don’t mean to embarrass you, Mr. Vickery.”

  “But it has nothing to do with me,” Nathan said, forcing himself to speak in a normal voice. “The Holy Spirit speaks to them, and wakes them, and they come forward and make their commitment for Jesus, and I have nothing to do with it: I’m transparent as this glass. See? Transparent as this glass.”

  He raised the water goblet to eye level and rather playfully stared at them through it with his glass eye; he touched the eye to the goblet and there was a tiny clicking sound; but the noise about the table was such that the chaplain and the young woman probably did not hear.

  A third party, a smiling middle-aged man in a vested suit, with mutton-chop whiskers, leaned into their conversation by laying a hand on the young woman’s arm. “Ah, but you must not undervalue yourself,” he said heartily. His accent was guttural; he might have been German. “Modesty is a virtue that is certainly rare these days, but at times it is rather misleading, Mr. Vickery! For if you had not come to Oakville and had not met with so many of our students, if, for instance, the gymnasium had been merely empty today, and no one at all had stood where you stood, there would have been no—no instances of conversion, eh? Or whatever you may wish to call the phenomena some of us observed. Without you, Mr. Vickery, none of it would have come about, and so you must acknowledge your role . . . your responsibility.”

  “Why must I acknowledge anything?” Nathan asked. “Who are you to speak to me like that?” He laid his fork down carefully on his plate. Your wrath flared up in him for an instant, rising from the base of his spine. It was white-hot: he halfway imagined it might be visible. “You look at me and see a certain form, and this form is nothing more than an idea in your head. I am not contained in that form, and still less in your idea. And the Holy Spirit who speaks through me is invisible even to me. And is not contained in me. So you have no right, a stranger to the Lord like yourself, and with that little mocking smile of yours that the Lord is well aware of, and perceived early this morning, in fact—you have no right to speak to me about these issues, or about anything at all.”