Son of the Morning

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “I’ve frightened them but not you, eh?” Nathan laughed. He passed a hand over his face, which felt surprisingly warm, almost feverish. When he drew it away time seemed to have passed, and it was much later, and yet his host and the others were staring at him as before. He felt Your strength begin to ebb in him, dropping slowly from the base of his skull and into his spine, and down his spine by inches . . . and it was with an effort that he resisted a sudden convulsive shivering that would have shaken his entire frame.

  “Yes,” he murmured carelessly, “it’s playfulness . . . it’s foolishness, as he so shrewdly noted . . . Like Paul, I am a fool for the Lord and can’t help myself. So I hope you will forgive me.”

  The chaplain hurried to him and offered to shake hands, smiling in his exuberant red-blond beard, his eyes creased and wary. And Nathan did shake hands with him, and apologized again, in a slurred, careless manner, as if he were suddenly very tired. The others rose and milled about, eager to show that nothing was amiss, that they were not frightened, not at all. (Yet Nathan noted to his amusement that they obviously wanted to run after Frank, or at least to check the sidewalk in front of the house, to see if perhaps he had collapsed—when there was no likelihood of it at all, since Nathan had been merely joking, and the Lord God merely joking.)

  “There’s nothing to forgive! Nothing to forgive!” the chaplain said with slightly hysterical laughter. He stared at Nathan with teary, doglike eyes. “It’s been our honor to have you here tonight, and we hope you’ll come back soon, and—”

  “That I can’t promise,” Nathan said rather sharply.

  And so the evening ended, and Japheth led him away, and he felt an extraordinary lassitude drawing him down, as if his feet were lost in shadow and the candlelit room and the faces of the others had never existed, had never come into being, except as Your phantasmal dream.

  XI

  Where You have once been, and have departed, there is mere devastation: the tangle of uprooted things after a violent storm, the brute shapes of things once living.

  Muddy abysses no more than a few inches deep into which one may sink, nevertheless, forever!

  I wake before morning, before dawn, when there is neither sun nor moon to guide me. My mouth is bitter and toad-spiteful. Should I dare touch my face, I would be alarmed indeed, for a gargoyle crouches atop my shoulders and twists my soul out of shape. God of radiance, God of dark, I pray, but my mouth twists in mid-prayer, and surely You will never hear me.

  When the floodwaters recede there is a jumble of things: broken parts, fragments, coils and loops and shreds. Shall I seek myself among them? Shall I seek You among them? God-intoxicated am I, or only stubborn? Or defiant? Calling to the one least like me, to the One Who has swallowed me up and forgotten me. Who gave birth to me, and devoured me, and excreted me into the drifting, clamoring world. God-mad, God-infatuated am I, calling to the one least like me, to the One who will never reply, who has turned away from me forever . . .

  NATHAN ATOP HIS tower, which was himself, yet more than himself: Nathan in his God-trance: spying upon the world, which did not very much interest him. Nathan ascendant, and I prostrate on the ground. Nathan who was nourished by Your grace those many years; and I who languish for love of You. You coursed along his veins and arteries, it was Your voice that throbbed so passionately in his own, Your spirit that fed his spirit constantly. (So that he easily comprehended the nature of addiction, and was warmly and in a sense insatiably sympathetic with those followers of his, young men and women, occasionally no more than teen-aged boys and girls, who were addicted to drugs, and who credited Jesus Christ and Nathan Vickery and the grace of the Holy Spirit with their ability to free themselves of their habits: all of which brought highly favorable publicity to Nathan’s church in the early seventies.) Nathan richly and ceaselessly nourished by Your presence; and I skeletal with hunger. Nathan moving through a universe that was melodic, beating with a blood-heavy rhythm, opaque and yet transparent, its outlines lovingly blurred, softened, Nathan in love, Nathan the living vein that linked earth and heaven; and I alone in my rented room in a city whose name I have forgotten, if I ever knew. Nathan in constant communication with You (and shifting reluctantly to the other, drably real world: where he might find himself sitting at a gleaming conference table with people said to be vitally linked with him and his church, his closest associates among the Seekers, and certain outsiders who were attorneys, tax specialists, accountants, bookkeepers, and stenographers: wanting from him responses he could not proffer, though he gave every appearance of listening, of listening critically and even suspiciously, and when he signed his name to the documents they presented him it was always with a gesture of reluctant finality, as if he knew very well that these terms could be better, but—! He would accommodate himself to the world to please the world, and not himself.) And I in communication with no one.

  A quarrel in another flat, downstairs; in the basement; a man’s voice raised, a woman’s shriek; the shock of utter silence. I stand barefooted by my door, whimpering with the cold (it is January, an infinite merciless seamless January) or with apprehension, or with shame at my own cowardice. (For I have heard these people quarreling in the past, usually late on Friday evenings, and I have done nothing to interfere, not a thing; not even shout down at them as certain of the other tenants do. The police arrived one night and so someone must have telephoned them but it was not I, I have no telephone, and anyway no courage, no wish to interfere.) Where Nathan Vickery was so courageous as to alarm his disciples, I know myself a coward, and take no pleasure in the knowledge; where Nathan Vickery possessed—somehow, no one knows how—a remarkable physical strength, I know myself a feeble, diminished, broken creature, prone to headaches and humiliating bouts of the flu, one of my molars decaying, my left leg stiff in damp weather (which is near-constant in this climate). Where Nathan Vickery was, in his prime, strikingly attractive—not handsome, perhaps, but striking indeed, with his bony, hawkish profile and his intent stare and his dark hair, shot weirdly with gray, silver, and bone-white, falling to his slender shoulders; his movements that were, without logical transition, graceful and jumpy and somnambulistic and threatening, like those of a giant cat; his musical, raw, whining, cajoling, lulling voice (or voices)—where he was a remarkable creature to gaze upon, I know myself utterly ordinary, even ugly, and if it happens that people do glance at me when I venture out, to buy a few groceries, or to wander listlessly about the streets with the aim of exercising my aging muscles and perhaps overhearing conversations (for I forget, if I keep to myself, how people in the world do talk to one another; it’s substantially different from the conversations one hears on the radio), then they glance at me merely with curiosity, or pity; it cannot be said that they gaze upon me, for certainly I am not that intriguing.

  A door is slammed downstairs. Someone runs out noisily. A woman screams after him. She is drunk, she is evidently swearing, but the words are slurred, indistinct. The door is slammed again.

  I stand here shivering. Blows and screams like that indicate passion; indicate love. Is it so? Must it be so?

  Blows. Screams. Rage. The desire to murder. Then again caresses, love-whispers, love. The desire to complete oneself in the body of the beloved. A riddle: a riddle in which I am drowning.

  NATHAN TOO WAS the object of passion. He felt it keenly, he could not escape it: the realization that another person wished to complete himself in his body.

  He recoiled in disgust. In disbelief at first, until You allowed him to know that it was indeed true; and that he must purge the world of such uncleanness. It was lust, it was filth, there was nothing sacred about it. Leave me, he would say, mouthing the words in private, leave me and make no attempt to return. But for a long while he held back, out of disgust. For it was a terrible insult to him, and to Your spirit that dwelt in him, that another person should desire him in the flesh.

  You allowed him to comprehend that Jesus of Nazareth was a form of Yourself crucified
by the world upon the cross of the world, the fleshly axis of the world. A soul crucified upon its own body. A spirit crucified upon its own animal desires. It was Nathan’s belief, and soon became one of his principal teachings, that suffering of all kinds was to be experienced with resignation, even with joy, for it was a means of subduing the flesh, and of testing the soul’s strength. (It happened that this aspect of Nathan’s teaching was misinterpreted by certain enthusiastic but impetuous disciples, and there were instances of fasting to the point of near death, and self-torture, and even beatings of one church member by others: in Seekers’ communities in the Southwest, and in Southern California, and in northern Minnesota, and even close to church headquarters in Windigo Falls, where it might have been thought his teachings were better understood.) The euphoria a Seeker experienced when the Holy Spirit came into his heart was an endless source of strength, and could be drawn upon at any time, even when unexpected blows or pain or grief descended. So Nathan taught, and so he believed.

  Be ye in the world and not of it. So the body dwelt in the world, and took its crude nourishment from the world, but the spirit dwelt elsewhere, taking its nourishment from God. So the body’s experiences were not truly authentic, not truly real. (It happened that one of Nathan’s more articulate converts, a researcher in neuropsychiatric studies at one of the California universities, went about giving lectures on this aspect of Seekers’ belief—for he was convinced Nathan had an intuitive grasp of a mind-body relationship that eventually would be substantiated by science.) The soul interpreted the body, in a more or less constant, helpless process, but if the soul chose to delimit itself, and to interpret only those aspects of the body it considered significant, then it would triumph over the flesh and its distracting, degrading temptations, and align itself more securely with God. Fasting, celibacy, manual labor in the Seekers’ communities, abstinence from nearly all rich foods, and from all alcohol and drugs and stimulants—these were the conscious means by which a believer delimited his body’s control over his spirit. It should not have surprised Nathan’s observers and critics that young people who had been sexually promiscuous since their early teens, or had been drug addicts, or alcoholics, or had been wandering aimlessly about the country for years were attracted to the Seekers, for it was precisely this disciplining of the flesh and its appetites that such young people craved, though they could not have articulated their craving, and had not sufficient consciousness to understand the gravity of their predicament until Nathan Vickery explained it to them. Be ye in the world and not of it.

  At the foot of the tower there was suffering, seen dimly. It was experienced merely by the body and by the outermost and least significant part of the soul, and so in a sense it was not quite authentic. The repetition of the sacred words Jesus loves me was all one needed to protect oneself against the exterior, ungovernable world: words that might be whispered with every breath, throughout one’s life. So Nathan Vickery taught, and so it was.

  (Rumors arose that many of the Seekers, adults as well as young people, substituted Nathan loves me for the words Nathan himself prescribed. And many of them referred to him as Master. And credited him with various miracles—the curing of incurable illness, the raising of the dead, the calling forth of the Holy Spirit. Before as many as six thousand witnesses an unearthly radiance sometimes played about his face and hands, yet left him untouched.)

  IN A STATE of euphoria he witnessed his own mock-death. For You allowed him to see, a full twenty-four hours ahead of time, how out of the corner of his eye the Angel of Destruction would dart, shrieking gibberish at him, bringing down something on his head—and while he flinched in his imagination, he was not to flinch when the incident took place.

  In July of 1973, visiting a Seekers’ community in White Springs, he was shown several acres of cultivated land—tomatoes growing beautifully, lettuce, carrots, corn—and he withdrew himself from his companions to walk in solitude through the rows of corn, which were nearly shoulder height; and by his act he put himself into Your trust altogether. For he knew his doom was upon him, or nearly so. He knew someone wished to kill him.

  Why?

  He did not ask. He would not question Your wisdom.

  The violence that was gathering must be allowed to break free; it must be allowed to express itself. Otherwise it would fester, and grow ever more poisonous. Nathan knew this, You allowed him to know it. He accepted it. He would not rebel. At the very foot of the tower there must be suffering, and this suffering would inevitably turn into hatred and violence. And sorrow. And grief. One act of violence would cause another and still another, and yet it was Your wisdom that Nathan play his role, not rebelling, not running away in terror. (For with one part of his mind he wanted very much to run away. To break into a desperate, shameless dash through the cornfield back to the safety of the house. To cry out for help. To cry, “Save me! Don’t let him hurt me! Save me! I don’t want to die!”)

  But what was sorrow, what was fear . . . ? His own emotions were of no more substance than anyone else’s and all emotions were wisps, vapors, chimeras. Delusions. No emotion could make itself heard at the top of the tower, which reached unto heaven; it referred only downward, downward, to the doomed land. Your wisdom was imprescriptible and Your faith in Nathan Vickery justified: for he did not run.

  Why must he be killed, or nearly killed . . . ? Why must he suffer violence in his own body?

  On this warm sunny day, and in this sun-warmed paradise!

  He did not ask because, in a way, he already knew. And knew he would not lift a finger to defend himself.

  Some months before, he had had to banish one of his disciples.

  “You must leave the Seekers. You must leave me. And make no attempt to contact any of us again,” he had said.

  But why, why?

  The man had pleaded with him to explain.

  Why?

  The man had fallen to his knees before Nathan and begged him to explain. Sobbing, his hands clasped together, his soul writhing in distress and incredulity. Why?

  Nathan had not replied.

  He had been forced to banish the man because You had allowed him to learn, in a dream, that the man harbored a certain lustful secret perhaps not adequately known by the man himself. To utter it would be to defile him, to destroy him. And so it was best for him simply to be banished from the Seekers in order that his craving—his sickly, frenzied lust—might be thwarted and, in time, overcome.

  Love? Desire? Physical love and physical desire?

  Homosexual desire?

  Nathan contemplated the phenomenon as one might contemplate an insect of hideous and yet exotic markings. He held it at arm’s length, unmoved by pity or even disgust; for what was one to make of such a thing? To Nathan, homosexual desire was as pointless and futile as heterosexual desire, and less plausible.

  The thing to do with the insect was to flick it away—to see that it landed somewhere in safety—to get rid of it as quickly and as chastely as possible.

  All this You allowed Nathan to know, and guided his every word. And everything came to pass as it was ordained. Nathan’s peremptory words You must leave the Seekers, you must leave me—the young man’s stunned but guilty expression—the way he fell to his knees, weeping and begging for an explanation—begging to be allowed to remain in the church, at least—clutching at Nathan’s hands, which Nathan suffered him to grasp though the very touch of him was repulsive. Such scenes, such emotions, were of no consequence whatsoever; they were of no more meaning to You and Your design than a fly’s buzzing in an empty room.

  But I don’t believe it, Japheth whispered. I don’t believe you can mean what you’re saying . . .

  On his knees he grasped Nathan’s cold, unresisting hands. And his eyes swam with tears of terror, of reproach, but also (so Nathan saw, to his disgust) of love. For it was so, it was obviously so, that the dream You sent to Nathan of Japheth in the flesh embracing Nathan in the flesh, with no shadow of Your presence between
them, was Japheth’s own dream, which perhaps he had never experienced, and would never acknowledge.

  Love. Desire. Physical love and . . .

  Leonie had knelt before him too. Pleading with him, grasping at him. But you love me! You once loved me! And I loved you: you know I loved you! Oh Nathan will you forgive me—She had knelt before him, and he had banished her. Christ he would honor in her, of course, but Leonie he would not recognize, he felt only contempt for her and the weakness she embodied; he had plucked her from out of his heart long ago, in another lifetime.

  And now Japheth. Pleading for a forgiveness it was not Nathan’s to allow him, since only Your will exists. Pleading and begging and weeping like a child, utterly broken, without pride. Without shame. Nathan, you can’t send me away, I have no life apart from you . . .

  But it did not matter. Such emotion did not matter. It does not reach to the top of the tower and so it is of no consequence. Even Nathan’s trembling on that terrible morning was of no consequence, forgotten in a moment. You flowed into Nathan and in a brief while all was calm and serene and rippleless, and You told him once again that he was sanctified here on earth, that he might do or say anything and it was blessed from all time; for such was Your plan. Was he capable of committing a sin? Not really. No longer. For as You dwelt in every pore of his flesh, in every atom of his being, it was not possible for him to sin. What might be sinful in others was sanctified in him, for he did nothing that was not ordained by You. Like Abraham, he might sacrifice his son or he might not sacrifice his son and neither action was sinful: the only sin for him, as for Abraham, would have been refusing to play his role.

  And so it came to pass that on that morning in July Nathan chose to walk apart from his disciples, brooding over Your design and waiting for it to unfold. Alone in the cornfield he saw a door open at the rear of his mind, and saw a figure suddenly appear, and knew that the figure was that of his murderer—his banished disciple Japheth Sproul: and knew, even as the distraught man appeared beside him, stepping into view, that You would protect him against all harm.