Jonathan Franzen - Strong Motion - A Novel

Renée turned to throw an amused glance at Terry, but he was gone. “What’s your name?” she asked the woman.

“Me? Mrs. Jack Wittleder.”

“Glad to meet you, Jack.”

“Oh, not Jack. Jack’s my husband’s name.”

“Oh. So what’s your real name?”

“My friends and brethren call me Bebe. But that’s not my real, legal name. You see, Dr. Seitchek, I don’t know about you, but in my part of the world, when a woman marries—”

“Yeah yeah yeah.”

Mrs. Jack Wittleder was hurt. She sighed, batting her eyelashes. “I don’t know what you’re doing on my list, if it’s true what you say. This is number 20 Oxford Street? Couldn’t of been a mistake, if it’s Hoffman Laboratories and you’re Dr. Seitchek. I keep calling you and calling you, and no one answers. The phone rings and you don’t answer it?”

“That’s how it works, yes.”

“But there must be some reason why you’re on the list. Did you—? Tell me, when do you believe human life begins?”

“At thirty.”

Mrs. Jack Wittleder shook her head. “It is a far greater sin to mock the Lord than be atheistic, Dr. Seitchek. Now, I’m not an educated woman, not compared to a Harvard-University doctor, but the Bible tells us that we don’t know God with our mind, we know Him with our heart, and we don’t see Him with our eyes, we see Him with our heart, and it may be that my heart knows what’s right and wrong better than a professor’s brain can.”

“Doubtless. But you see, I’m kind of busy.”

“Too busy to think about what’s right and wrong.”

Renée smiled. “You got it.”

“Well. You’re honest. Say that for you. I don’t guess you read the Bible.”

“Nope.”

“Did you know that the truth about human life on earth is in the Bible and nowhere else?”

“Yeah, I understand, you want to draw me in, but—”

“No, Dr. Seitchek. I don’t want to draw you in. I want to take you to the place where I found happiness.”

“Where’s that?”

“In the church that is the bride of Christ. The Reverend Stites’s church.”

“Oh. I see. The bride of Christ is in a tenement in Chelsea.”

“That’s right.”

“And you go around to clinics like this one and try to enlist new members from all your sympathizers there.”

“No. Only when I find an opportunity to plant some seeds in people.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve already been sown.”

Mrs. Jack Wittleder glanced up and down the hall to make sure they were alone. She lowered her voice. “What exactly do you mean by that, Dr. Seitchek?”

The sport drained out of Renée’s face. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

“Come along with me,” Mrs. Jack Wittleder urged. “The Reverend Stites is a kind and erudite young man, he’s helped me so much. I’m sure he could help you too.”

“I don’t need his help.”

“You’re talking to me. Nobody else has given me the time of day. Come along and you’ll see.”

Renée walked up the hall and turned around in front of a giant picture of the earth at a depth of 1,500 kilometers. She came back wreathed in smileyness. “All right, Mrs. Wittleder.”

“Call me Bebe.”

“Bebe, I’d love to come with you. Are you happy about that? I’m going to come with you and see your lovely church. Terry!” she called. “Terry!”

A beard, red lips, and glasses appeared in a doorway. “What?”

“Do you want to go to Chelsea with me? See the famous church? You could talk to the people who’ve been tying up your telephone. Give ’em a piece of your mind.”

Terry shook his head ominously. “If I were you,” he said to Bebe, “I wouldn’t take her. She just wants to make you look bad.”

“Oh, thanks,” Renée said.

“She just wants to get even,” Terry said.

“God, what a sweet guy.”

“You did already lie to me twice,” Bebe reflected.

“Well, I’m not lying now. So just wait here a second.” She went into the console room and copied her new paper onto a 5 1/2-inch tape, inserted a write-protect ring, and left it in a drawer. She stowed the enlargements separately.

Then they went to Chelsea.

All the way to Park Street a Seeing Eye dog observed Renée with a sultry expression. Bebe conferred a condescending smirk on every rider in the subway car — even the blind man got one, and each black person received several — but Renée suspected this was more a product of midwestern insecurity than of arrogance.

“Do you have a pen?” she whispered, nodding at a Planned Parenthood announcement on the ad strip above the seats. “Why don’t you deface that advertisement? Or, wait. Why don’t you just go ahead and tear it down?”

“That’s not right.”

“Oh, come on,” Renée whispered. “Do it. It’s a lesser crime to prevent a greater crime.”

“It’s not right.”

“You’re afraid of what people will say. That means your faith isn’t strong enough.”

“My faith,” said Bebe, touching the brown daisy on her chest. “Is my business.”

It was a long walk from the Wood Island subway stop to the Church of Action in Christ. Chelsea Street traversed a neighborhood of giant cylinders marked with red numbers in white circles. It crossed a drawbridge whose gridwork surface sang beneath the tires of the heavy traffic. Renée looked up at the solid concrete counterweight suspended above her (it was the size of a mobile home) and considered how the glassy wealth of downtown Boston required a counterweight in these industrial square miles, where vacant lots collected decaying windblown newsprint, and the side streets were cratered, and the workers had faces the nitrite red of Fenway Franks. A Ford Escort with Day-Glo green custom windshield wipers crossed the bridge, tailgated by a Corvette that identified itself as an Official Pace Car, 70th Indianapolis 500, May 27th, 1985.

Bebe walked incredibly slowly. She said she’d been in the church for five months. Her day began at sunrise with communal prayers and hymn-singing, followed by breakfast. Missionary work, which was “voluntary but expected,” commenced at eight-thirty. There was a host of sites to be picketed, and members were encouraged to picket on a round-robin basis, in groups of three to six. “Groups of Twelve” were formed when the spirit moved among the community and twelve Chosen members spontaneously resolved to prevent a day’s complement of murders at one of several notorious clinics. Bebe had not yet been part of a Group of Twelve, though she had witnessed the arrest of one and had participated in the daily jail visitations. She told Renée that the last five months had been the most meaningful and light-filled time she’d ever known.

God is . Pro-Life! said the banner over the entrance to the tenement. The building was the last in a complex of brick cubes with small, square windows; as if the building’s architect had foreseen its future as a church, the central clerestory was vertically bisected by narrow windows reminiscent of cathedrals.

Several dozen women were at work in the main hall, a low-ceilinged linoleumed room that had probably once been a community center or nursery. A cheerful smell of tempera was in the air. “My sister will be among us tomorrow,” said one elderly artisan putting the finishing touches on a poster that Renée turned her head to read:

“I’d almost given up and then she called and said she was coming.”

“Praise the Lord, Jesus gets the glory.”

“Amen.”

Your convenience is homicide. Jesus was an unplanned pregnancy. THANKS MOM I LIFE .