Peter Stamm - We're Flying

When Reinhold took the job a year ago, he had been full of good intentions. He had looked forward to the move to Lake Constance, and thought people in the south would be more open. He had been mistaken. Whatever he turned his hand to had failed. All sorts of things were held against him, the use of bread instead of wafers for Communion, and grape juice in place of wine, altogether the way that he didn’t officiate in the style they were familiar with here. Word was that he neglected the elderly of the parish, while the fact that he was on first-name terms with the confirmands put a few more noses out of joint. He had wrecked things with the lady organist because he let his wife play guitar in the service a couple of times, and with the sexton because he kept too close an eye on the books.

Reinhold drew the curtains and went next door. Brigitte was watching TV. He had stopped telling her about his troubles, she was finding it hard enough to make the adjustment, and becoming a minister’s wife was never her idea. He sat down next to her on the sofa. On the TV there was a little boy who claimed to be able to “read” the letters in alphabet soup with his mouth. Brigitte laughed. Isn’t he something? Reinhold said nothing, he knew what was on her mind.

He lay there in the dark, unable to sleep. He could hear the TV in the living room. He asked himself what he might have done wrong. He had reached out to people, explained himself, and, at moments, been conciliatory. But all that seemed only to whip up the people against him even more. He no longer had the strength to fight, and barely enough to do his job. There was a time when the Sunday service had been the high point of his week, now he dreaded the stony faces and the cold silence with which his parish met him. When he read the Bible, its verses no longer spoke to him, and when he stood in the pulpit, he felt nothing but embarrassment. Twice already he had canceled worship because he was lying in bed with cramps.

THE ALARM WENT OFF at seven, Brigitte must have forgotten to adjust it for Sunday. When Reinhold leaned over her to turn it off, she awoke. She asked him if he minded if she didn’t come to church today. She wasn’t feeling well.

Reinhold shivered when he pulled off his pajamas in the bathroom. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the reflection of his pale, stringy body. Hurriedly he turned away and got under the shower. Over coffee, he went over his sermon once more. He would speak on Romans 9. Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

Then, still far too early, he set off. It was cold and damp. The area had been fogbound for weeks, and the forecast was for more of the same. No one was out and about at this time, only a few tousled seagulls pecked around in the overflowing trash cans in the little pedestrian precinct. The church was still locked. Reinhold was relieved not to have run into anyone. He walked down the dark nave to the vestry. There was an electric heater there, but still it was so cold he could see his breath. Reinhold pulled on his surplice, and read the Luther prayer that one of his predecessors must have pinned on the wardrobe door. O Lord God, dear Father in heaven, I am indeed unworthy of the office and ministry in which I am to make known Thy glory and to nurture and serve this congregation. But Reinhold didn’t even feel unworthy. He sat there, brooding, until he happened to hear the church door fall shut, and a few minutes later a few random notes from the organ. For a long time his only communications with the lady organist had been via email, and the sexton did his job in silence and without looking at him. Reinhold’s hands were stiff with cold. He started marching up and down, to get his blood moving. His predecessor had been in the habit of greeting his congregation at the door, but Reinhold needed these moments of silence, and he only entered the nave during the organ prelude. That, too, was taken amiss.

When he heard the organ, he cleared his throat, gave a little tug at his surplice, and emerged from the vestry. With rapid strides and eyes lowered, he went to his place behind the pulpit and sat down in such a way that the congregation could see him in profile. When the organ finished, he waited a moment for the last echo to die away, then he stood up and walked behind the altar, where the bread and grape juice were standing along with two lighted candles. The church was empty.

It took a moment for Reinhold to grasp the fact. No one had come to Communion. Only the sexton was standing by the mixing console, and up in the loft was the organist, with her back to him. He was sure she was watching him in the little rearview mirror that was fitted up there. He breathed deeply, then he said, Peace be with you. Let us pray. He hesitated, as though waiting while the congregation got to their knees, then he spoke the prayer as he did any other Sunday. Amen, he heard himself say. Let us sing Hymn 127, verses one through three. No sooner had he spoken than the organist began to play, her slight body and head in vigorous motion, though her playing lacked feeling and lacked love. The sexton stood there, holding his unopened hymnal in both hands. Dearest Jesus, speak to us. Reinhold sang loudly, though his voice cracked. If at least Brigitte were here, he thought, but maybe it was better that she wasn’t, to experience this final humiliation.

At the end of the second verse, the organ suddenly stopped, and Reinhold saw the organist get up and leave. Now there was only his own voice to be heard, and the footfall of the organist, hurriedly and not at all discreetly clambering down the narrow flight of steps from the loft. She stopped in front of the sexton, whispered something to him, then slipped on the coat she had been carrying over her arm and left the church. The sexton followed her out, and the door crashed shut.

Dear Jesus, when to you we come in need, allow our prayers to succeed. The last words echoed away in the empty space. Reinhold waited for complete silence, then he leafed through the big Bible to the text for this Sunday, and began to read from the Epistle to the Romans. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not. He stumbled and had to cough. He took a sip of grape juice from the eucharist and continued. I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ.

He had meant to speak on the relations between Christians and Jews, on developments in the Middle East, and on quarrels and reconciliations in general, but now he felt like the boy on TV yesterday, as though he had to laboriously spell out every word, every letter. After the reading he prayed and sang once more. Then he called out, as loud as he could, We are all invited to share in the holy sacrament. And suddenly he felt as though he could see the church full of people, full of the shadows of those who for hundreds of years had celebrated Mass, had been baptized and married here and been given comfort as they lay dying. They arose, they came to him, and he gave them the bread and the wine, an endless stream of humanity. At that moment a bright ray of sunshine fell through the stained-glass windows of the church, and the space was transformed, becoming an explosion of light. The beams cracked and the organ boomed, it sounded like mighty breathing, an awakening from a long sleep.

Reinhold felt the blood shooting to his head. He took the basket with the bread, and he proceeded down the aisle and out of the church. The fog had begun to lift, in one or two places there was a glimpse of blue sky and in the east the sun lit up the earth, as it had on the very first day. In the square in front of the church, various community members stood in little groups. They seemed to have been waiting for him, perhaps the lady organist or the sexton, who were also standing there, had alerted them. Even Brigitte was there.