Marilynne Robinson - Gilead

So I said, “Glory talked to me about all that. I told her not to judge, that there might be more to the situation.” “Thank you.”

“I understand why you have to leave, I really do.” That was as true a thing as I have ever said. And I will tell you, remarkable as it seemed to me, at that moment I felt grateful for all my old bitterness of heart.

He cleared his throat. “Then you wouldn’t mind saying goodbye to my father for me?”

“I will do that. Certainly I will.”

I didn’t know how to continue the conversation beyond that point, but I didn’t want to leave him, and in any case, I had to sit down on the bench beside him on account of my heart. So there we were. I said, “If you would accept a few dollars of that money of mine, you’d be doing me a kindness.”

He laughed and said, “I suppose I could see my way clear.” So I gave him forty dollars and he kept twenty and gave twenty back. We sat there for a while.

Then I said, “The thing I would like, actually, is to bless you.”

He shrugged. “What would that involve?”

“Well, as I envisage it, it would involve my placing my hand on your brow and asking the protection of God for you. But if it would be embarrassing—” There were a few people on the street.

“No, no,” he said. “That doesn’t matter.” And he took his hat off and set it on his knee and closed his eyes and lowered his head, almost rested it against my hand, and I did bless him to the limit of my powers, whatever they are, repeating the benediction from Numbers, of course—”The Lord make His face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” Nothing could be more beautiful that that, or more expressive of my feelings, certainly, or more sufficient, for that matter. Then, when he didn’t open his eyes or lift up his head, I said, “Lord, bless John Ames Boughton, this beloved son and brother and husband and father.” Then he sat back and looked at me as if he were waking out of a dream.

“Thank you, Reverend,” he said, and his tone made me think that to him it might have seemed I had named everything I thought he no longer was, when that was absolutely the furthest thing from my meaning, the exact opposite of my meaning. Well, anyway, I told him it was an honor to bless him. And that was also absolutely true. In fact I’d have gone through seminary and ordination and all the years intervening for that one moment. He just studied me, in that way he has. Then the bus came. I said, “We all love you, you know,” and he laughed and said, “You’re all saints.” He stopped in the door and lifted his hat, and then he was gone, God bless him.

I made it as far as the church, and went inside and rested there for a long time. I believe I saw in young Boughton’s face, as we walked along, a sense of irony at having invested hope in this sad old place, and also the cost to him of relinquishing it. And I knew what hope it was. It was just that kind the place was meant to encourage, that a harmless life could be lived here unmolested. “There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for every age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.” That is prophecy, a vision of the prophet Zechariah. He says it will be marvelous in the eyes of the people, and so it might well be to people almost anywhere in this sad world. To play catch of an evening, to smell the river, to hear the train pass. These little towns were once the bold ramparts meant to shelter just such peace.

***

Your mother seems to want every supper to be my favorite supper. There is often meat loaf, and always dessert. She puts candles on the table, since dark is coming early now. I suspect she has brought them from the church, and that’s all right. Often she wears her blue dress. You have outgrown your red shirt. Old Boughton’s family have gathered, except the one his heart yearns for. They pay their respects and invite us for dinner, but these days we three love to be at home. You come in reeking of evening air, with your eyes bright and your cheeks and fingers pink and cold, too beautiful in the candlelight for my old eyes. The cold has silenced all the insects. The dark seems to make us speak softly, like gentle conspirators. Your mother says the grace and butters your bread. I do wish Boughton could have seen how his boy received his benediction, how he bowed his head. If I told him, if he understood, he would have been jealous to have seen it, jealous to have been the one who bestowed the blessing. It is almost as if I felt his hand on my hand. Well, I can imagine him beyond the world, looking back at me with an amazement of realization—“This is why we have lived this life!” There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.

I promised young Boughton that I would say goodbye to his father for him, so I strolled over there after dinner when I knew the old fellow would be asleep, and when the room was empty I whispered a few words. My good friend is so nearly gone from the world that the clouds have settled over his mortal understanding. And his hearing has been doubtful for years. I knew if I spoke that name to him while he was awake he would struggle to gather himself, he would be avid to understand, and I’d have created an eagerness in him that I could not then, could never in my life, by any means placate. As if anything I could say could resolve any part of his great mystery for him. He would be alone in the confusions of his grief, and I just did not have the strength to witness that.

I thought how good it would be if he could be like ancient Jacob, the cherished son who had been lost to him bringing for his blessing the splendid young Robert Boughton Miles—”I had not thought to see thy face, and, lo, God hath let me see thy seed also!” There was a joy in the thought of how beautiful that would have been, beautiful as any vision of angels. It seems to me that when something really ought to be true then it has a very powerful truth, which starts me thinking again about heaven. Well, I do that much of the time, as you know. Poor Glory put a chair for me beside Boughton’s bed and I sat with him a good while. I used to crawl in through the window of that room in the dark of the morning to wake him up so we could go fishing. His mother would get cross if we woke her, too, so we were very stealthy. Sometimes he would just not want to quit sleeping, and I’d pull on his hair and tug on his ear and whisper to him, and if I thought of something ridiculous to say sometimes he’d wake up laughing. That was so long ago. There he was yesterday evening, sleeping on his right side as he always did, in the embrace of the Lord, I have no doubt, though I knew if I woke him up he’d be back in Gethsemane. So I said to him in his sleep, I blessed that boy of yours for you.

I still feel the weight of his brow on my hand. I said, I love him as much as you meant me to. So certain of your prayers are finally answered, old fellow. And mine too, mine too. We had to wait a long time, didn’t we?

When I left I saw Glory standing in the hallway, looking in on all the quiet talk there was in the parlor, her brothers and sisters and their wives and husbands and their children, grown and half grown. Trading news and talking politics and playing hearts. There were more of them in the kitchen and more upstairs. As I was leaving I met five or six who had been out for a walk. It shames me that I had not thought till then how hard it must have been for her to have Jack gone, and to have been left alone in that orderly turbulence of fruitfulness and contentment, left alone to tolerate all that tactful and heartfelt kindness, with no one there even to smile with her at the sheer endlessness of it. And no one there for her to defend — which is the worst kind of abandonment. Only the Lord Himself can comfort that.