Edgar Doctorow - All the Time in the World

I’m prepared to share the cost.

Thank you, that won’t be necessary. I don’t need to tell you, but my life has been hell lately. This is good coffee, but you don’t happen to have something to drink, do you?

Sarah going to a wall cabinet. Will Scotch do?

Joshua, sighing, leans back in his chair. I could use something myself.

THE SITUATION NOW: my cross dismantled and stacked like building materials behind the altar. It won’t be put back together and hung in time for Sunday worship. That’s fine, I can make a sermon out of that. The shadow is there, the shadow of the cross on the apse. We will offer our prayers to God in the name of His Indelible Son, Jesus Christ. Not bad, Pem, you can still pull these things out of a hat when you want to.

What am I to make of this strange night culture of stealth sickos, these mindless thieves of the valueless giggling through the streets, carrying what? whatever it was! through the watery precincts of urban nihilism … their wit, their glimmering dying recognition of something that once had a significance they laughingly cannot remember. Jesus, there’s not even sacrilege there. A dog stealing a bone knows more what he’s up to.

A phone call just now from Joshua.

If we’re going to be detectives about this, we start with what we know, isn’t that what you did? What I know, what I start with, is that no Jewish person would have stolen your crucifix. It would not occur to him. Even in the depths of some drug-induced confusion.

I shouldn’t think so, I say, thinking, Why does Joshua feel he has to rule this out?

But as you also said something like this has no street value unless someone wants it. Then it has value.

To an already-in-place, raging anti-Semite, for example.

Yes, that’s the likelihood. This is a mixed neighborhood. There may be people who don’t like a synagogue on their block. I’ve not been made aware of this, but it’s always possible.

Right.

But it’s also possible … placing that cross on my roof, well, that is something that could have been arranged by an ultraorthodox fanatic. That’s possible, too.

Good God!

We have our extremists, our fundamentalists, just as you have. There are some for whom what Sarah and I are doing, struggling to redesign, revalidate our faith — well, in their eyes it is tantamount to apostasy. What do you think of that for a theory?

Very generous of you, Joshua. But I don’t buy it, I say. I mean, I can’t think that it’s likely. Why would it be?

The voice that told me my roof was burning? That was a Jewish thing to say. Of course, I don’t know for sure, I may be all wrong. But it’s something to think about. Tell me, Father—

Tom—

Tom. You’re a bit older, you’ve seen more, given more thought to these things. Wherever you look in the world now, God belongs to the atavists. And they’re so fierce, these people, so sure of themselves — as if all human knowledge since Scripture were not also God’s revelation! I mean, is time a loop? Do you have the same feeling I have — that everything seems to be running backward? That civilization is in reverse?

Oh, my dear Rabbi … where does that leave us? Because maybe that’s what faith is. That’s what faith does. Whereas I am beginning to think that to hold in abeyance and irresolution any firm conviction of God, or of an afterlife with Him, warrants walking in His Spirit, somehow.

MONDAY. The front doors are padlocked. In the rectory kitchen, leaning back on the two hind legs of his chair and reading People , is St. Timothy’s newly hired, classically indolent private security guard.

I am comforted, too, by the woman at Ecstatic Reps. She is there, as usual, walking in place, earphones clamped on her head, her large hocks in their black tights shifting up and dropping back down like Sisyphean boulders. As the afternoon darkens, she’ll be broken up and splashed in the greens and pale lavenders of the light refractions on the window.

So everything is as it should be, the world’s in its place. The wall clock ticks. I have nothing to worry about except what I’m going to say to the bishop’s examiners who will determine the course of the rest of my life.

This is what I will say for starters:

“My dear colleagues, what you are here to examine today is not in the nature of a spiritual crisis. Let’s get that clear. I have not broken down, cracked up, burned out, or caved in. True, my personal life is a shambles, my church is like a war ruin, and, since I am not one to seek counsel or join support groups, and God, as usual, has ignored my communications (let’s be honest, Lord, not a letter, not a card), I do feel somewhat isolated. I will even admit that for the past few years, no, the past several years, I have not known what to do when in despair except walk the streets. Nevertheless, my ideas have substance, and, while you may find some of them alarming, I would entreat — would suggest, would recommend, would advise — I would advise you to confront them on their merits, and not as evidence of the psychological decline of a mind you once had some respect for. I mean, for which you once had some respect.”

That’s okay so far, isn’t it, Lord? Sort of taking it to them? Maybe a bit touchy. After all, what could they have in mind? In order of probability: one, a warning; two, a formal reprimand; three, censure; four, a month or so in therapeutic retreat followed by a brilliantly remote reassignment wherein I’m never to be heard from again; five, early retirement with or without full benefits; six, defrocking; seven, the Big Ex. Whatthahell! By the way, Lord, what are these “ideas of substance” I’ve promised them in the above? The phrase came trippingly off the tongue. I trust You will enlighten me. What with today’s shortened attention span I don’t need ninety-five, I can get by with just one or two. The point is, whatever I say will alarm them. Nothing of a church is shakier than its doctrine. That’s why they guard it with their lives. I mean, just to lay the “H” word on the table, it, heresy, is a legal concept, that’s all. The shock is supposed to be Yours but the affront is to sectarian legality. A heretic can be of no more concern to You than someone kicked out of a building cooperative for playing the piano after ten … So I pray, Lord, don’t let me come up with something worth only a reprimand. Let me have the good stuff. Speak to me. Send me an e-mail. You were once heard to speak:

You Yourself are a word, though deemed by some to be unutterable,

You are said to be The Word, and I don’t doubt You are the Last Word.

You’re the Lord our Narrator, who made a text from nothing, at least that is our story of You.

So here is Your servant, the Reverend Dr. Thomas Pemberton, the almost no longer rector of St. Timothy’s, Episcopal, addressing You in one of Your own inventions, one of Your intonational systems of clicks and grunts, glottal stops and trills.

Will You show him no mercy, this poor soul tormented in his nostalgia for Your Only Begotten Son? He has failed his training as a detective, having solved nothing.

May he nevertheless pursue You? God? The Mystery?

WHEN BETTY TOLD ME SHE WOULD GO THAT NIGHT TO Walter John Harmon, I didn’t think I reacted. But she looked into my eyes and must have seen something — some slight loss of vitality, a moment’s dullness of expression. And she understood that for all my study and hard work, the Seventh Attainment was still not mine.

Dearest, she said, don’t be discouraged. The men have more difficulty. Walter John Harmon knows that and commends your struggle. You can go see him if you wish, it is the prerogative of husbands.

No, I said, I’m all right.