Robert Silverberg: Thomas the Proclaimer

I knew he was in our county and I had to get to see him because he was the one who made all this trouble for me. So I went to his headquarters, the place where the broadcasts were being made that week, and I saw him standing in the middle of a group of his followers. A very handsome man, really, somewhat too dirty and wild-looking for my tastes, but you give him a shave and a haircut and he’d be quite attractive in my estimation. Big and strong he is, and when you see him you want to throw yourself into his arms, though of course I was in no frame of mind to do any such thing just then and in any case I’m not that sort of woman. I went right toward him. There was a tremendous crowd in the street, but I’m not discouraged easily, my husband likes to call me his “little bulldog” sometimes, and I just bulled my way through that mob, a little kicking and some elbowing and I think I bit someone’s arm once and I got through. There was Thomas and next to him that skinny little man who’s always with him, that Saul Kraft, who I guess is his press agent or something. As l I got close, three of his bodyguards looked at me and then at each other, probably saying oh-oh, here comes another crank dame, and they started to surround me and move me away, and Thomas wasn’t even looking at me, and I began to yell, saying I had to talk to Thomas, I had something important to say. And then this Saul Kraft told them to let go of me and bring me forward. They checked me out for concealed weapons and then Thomas asked me what I wanted.

I felt nervous before him. Such a famous man. But I planted my feet flat on the ground and stuck my jaw up the way Dad taught me, and I said, “You did all this. You’ve wrecked me, Thomas. You’ve got me so I don’t know if I’m standing on my head or right side up.”

He gave me a funny sideways smile. “I did?”

“Look,” I said, “I’ll tell you how it was. I went to Mass every week, my whole family, Church of the Redeemer on Wilson Avenue. We put money in the plate, we did everything the fathers told us to do, we tried to live good Christian lives, right? Not that we really thought much about God. Whether He was actually up there listening to me saying my paternoster. I figured He was too busy to worry much about me, and I couldn’t be too concerned about Him, because He surpasses my understanding, you follow? Instead I prayed to the fathers. To me Father McDermott was like God Himself, in a way, not meaning any disrespect. What I’m trying to say is that the average ordinary person, they don’t have a very close relationship with God, you follow? With the church, yes, with the fathers, but not with God. Okay. Now you come along and say the world is in a mess, so let’s pray to God to show Himself like in the olden times. I ask Father McDermott about it and he says it’s all right, it’s permitted even though it isn’t an idea that came from Rome, on such-and-such day we’ll have this world moment of prayer. So I pray, and the sun stands still. June 6, you made the sun stand still.”

“Not me. Him.” Thomas was smiling again. And looking at me like he could read everything in my soul.

I said, “You know what I mean. It’s a miracle, anyway. The biggest miracle since, I don’t know, since, the Resurrection. The next day we need help, guidance, right? My husband and I, we go to church. The church is closed. Locked tight. We go around back and try to find the fathers. Nobody there but a housekeeper and she’s scared. Won’t open up. Why is the church shut? They’re afraid of rioters, she says. Where’s Father McDermott? He’s gone to the Archdiocese for a conference. So have all the other fathers. Go away, she says. Nobody’s here. You follow me, Thomas? Biggest miracle since the Resurrection, and they close the church the next day.”

Thomas said, “They got nervous, I guess.”

“Nervous? Sure they were nervous. That’s my whole point. Where were the fathers when we needed them? Conferring at the Archdiocese. The Cardinal was holding a special meeting about the crisis. The crisis, Thomas! God Himself works a miracle, and to the church it’s a crisis! What am I supposed to do? Where does it leave me? I need the church, the church has always been telling me that, and all of a sudden the church locks its doors and says to me, Go figure it out by yourself, lady, we won’t have a bulletin for a couple of days. The church was scared! I think they were afraid the Lord was going to come in and say we don’t need priests any more, we don’t need churches, all this organized-religion stuff hasn’t worked out so well anyway, so let’s forget it and move right into the Millennium.”

“Anything big and strange always upsets the people in power,” Thomas said, shrugging. “But the church opened again, didn’t it?”

“Sure, four days later. Business as usual, except we aren’t supposed to ask any questions about June 6 yet. Because they don’t have The Word from Rome yet, the interpretation, the official policy.” I had to laugh. “‘Three weeks, almost, since it happened, and the College of Cardinals is still in special consistory, trying to decide what position the church ought to take. Isn’t that crazy, Thomas? If the Pope can’t recognize a miracle when he sees one, what good is the whole church?”

“All right,” Thomas said, “but why blame me?”

“Because you took my church away from me. I can’t trust those people any more. I don’t know what to believe. We’ve got God right here beside us, and the church isn’t giving any leadership. What do we do now? How do we handle this thing?”

“Have faith, my child,” he said, “and pray for salvation, and remain steadfast in your righteousness.” He said a lot of other stuff like that too, rattling it off like he was a computer programmed to deliver blessings. I could tell he wasn’t sincere. He wasn’t trying to answer me, just to calm me down and get rid of me.

“No,” I said, breaking in on him. “That stuff isn’t good enough. Have faith. Pray a lot. I’ve been doing that all my life. Okay, we prayed and we got God to show Himself. What now? What’s your program, Thomas? Tell me that. What do you want us to do? You took our church away—what will you give us to replace it?”

I could tell he didn’t have any answers.

His face turned red and he tugged on the ends of his hair and looked at Saul Kraft in a sour way, almost like he was saying I-told-you-so with his eyes. Then he looked back at me and I saw either sorrow or fear in his face, I don’t know which, and I realized right then that this Thomas is just a human being like you and me, a human being, who doesn’t really understand what’s happening and doesn’t know how to go on from this point. He tried to fake it. He told me again to pray, never underestimate the power of prayer, et cetera, et cetera, but his heart wasn’t in his words. He was stuck. What’s your program, Thomas? He doesn’t have any. He hasn’t thought things through past the point of getting the Sign from God. He can’t help us now. There’s your Thomas for you, the Proclaimer, the prophet. He’s scared. We’re all scared, and he’s just one of us, no different, no wiser. And last night the Apocalyptists burned the shopping center. You know, if you had asked me six months ago how I’d feel if God gave us a Sign that He was really watching over us, I’d have told you that I thought it would be the most wonderful thing that had ever happened since Jesus in the manger. But now it’s happened. And I’m not so sure how wonderful it is. I walk around feeling that the ground might open up under my feet any time. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us all. God has come, and it ought to be beautiful, and instead it’s just scary. I never imagined it would be this way. Oh, God. God I feel so lost. God I I feel so empty.