Soon (13 page)

Was it possible? Paul had become so convinced that Ranold’s newfound faith in him related to the letter that he had abandoned any thought that it might be genuine. Old paper could be scrounged up. Old ink could be procured by the agency, no doubt, and there was probably a way to fade it. But the handwriting matched—“definitely,” Angela said.

Still, it was difficult for Paul to think the letter had actually been written by his father. That he was not the hero Paul so desperately wanted to believe in, but a flagrant, fantasy-worshiping Christian. That he spoke the same incendiary language as the bombers in Pacifica and the firebugs in Gulfland, pledging allegiance to ideals that caused the murders of Coker, his team, and Donny Johnson—and, very nearly, of his own son.
Because of the
very beliefs you tried to foist on me, I am blind.

Paul had worked his way through the New Testament discs a couple of times. He still suspected that the book of Revelation held the key to the Christian uprising, but so far he hadn’t managed to tease it out. In fact, he’d had trouble concentrating on Revelation because it was so richly detailed and graphic. In a few weeks without sight, he hadn’t yet learned to absorb as much by listening as he would have seeing a printed page.

Now he skipped again to Revelation, hearing the familiar introduction in which John, in exile, receives a visitation from a man with “a voice that sounded like a trumpet blast” and feet “bright as bronze.” He held “seven stars in His right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from His mouth.”

What was the code—the hidden message?

13

BY THE FIRST OF MAY
Paul was home and into a routine that did not endear him to Jae. Straight visited every day, and they spent hours playing chess and talking. Occasionally Straight would bring his sax, and if he was still there when the kids got home from school, they seemed fascinated by his music. At least a couple of nights a week, Straight took Paul to chess clubs.

Often Jae felt relieved to have Paul out of her hair, occupied and relatively happy. She was grateful for little things Straight did around the house, such as minor repairs. But most of the time she felt terribly alone. It was as if Paul were using Straight as a distraction to avoid confronting his blindness, and as a buffer to keep his distance from her and the children.
He acts more like a
guest than a father and husband.

Twice a week, Jae drove Paul to the doctor. She had come to dread those trips because they inevitably led to arguments. Paul refused to let her come in the examining room or even talk to Dr. Bihari. “Iamnot that weak, Jae. I don’t need you calling the shots.”

“Don’t I get some say in your treatment?”

“Treatment? Bihari still doesn’t believe transplants would make a difference. And there’s nothing else to try.”

“Why not get a second opinion?”

“To give me false hope? Or to confirm I’m a lost cause?”

“I’d think you’d want to investigate every possibility.”

“Don’t forget, I have more of a vested interest than you. It’s my life.”

“Isn’t it
our
life?”

Paul shrugged. “Not necessarily.”

“What are you saying?”

He hesitated. Then, “No one’s making you stick with a blind husband.”

“Have I said a word about leaving?”

“You don’t have to. I can hear the ‘poor me’ in your voice.”

Jae changed the subject. “We never did get your mother’s basement cleaned and the house fixed to sell. Why don’t I go see what’s left in there?”

“No. Don’t.”

“There’s not that much left. And it’s already May. Summer is probably the best time to put the house on the market.”

“Jae, I said leave it. I don’t want anyone poking through my mother’s stuff. When I’m able, I’ll sort the rest of it.”

“I could move the boxes here. There ought to be room for them in our basement.”

“What’s your problem with the house, Jae—money? You want to sell it because you’re saddled with a husband who will never work again?”

“Of course not.”

“Then let me worry about the house and my family’s affairs.”

In truth, Paul couldn’t bear the thought of Jae discovering the letter from his father. Paul weighed that disillusionment on the same scale as losing his sight. Of course, the blindness was the more devastating—profoundly altering every aspect of life—but strangely, there was a challenge in fighting to master new skills, gauging the compensations made by the other senses. He could measure his progress and regain some sense of control. But the virtual loss of the father he’d thought he had left a hollowness, and there was nothing to fill it but rage.

One afternoon Paul came across something exciting in the New Testament. At the beginning of Revelation, John’s visitor offered an appraisal of the different Christian cells or churches in the ancient world. Each was promised its own reward if it remained faithful. In Sardis, believers were told, “All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life.”

Paul’s heart raced when he remembered Stephen Lloyd’s medallion, which was imprinted with a palm frond and a book. And Lloyd had worn a white T-shirt and light-colored pants, which even at the time had struck Paul as inappropriate for the dirty work of a roughneck. Obviously these were symbols. The Christian underground was communicating using the imagery of Revelation!

Sardis was also the name of Johnson’s oil company, which was harder for Paul to compute. But surely it was no coincidence. Maybe the name inspired terrorists to target it
. Poor
Donny. His own corporate logo may have gotten him killed.

But even if Paul had stumbled onto the key to the Christian code, he was still stymied by their potential plots—their so-called appointed tasks. The book of Revelation was filled with page upon page of acts of judgment from heaven—twenty-one in all, from famine and disease to stinging locusts and horses’ tails with the heads of snakes. The bomb in San Francisco was arguably an effort to simulate an earthquake, but with so many scourges it was hard to guess where or how the subversives might strike next. In the hated letter, Paul’s father spoke of “punishment and suffering beyond anything we can imagine or have ever managed to inflict upon each other.”

So far.

Still, a lead solid enough to take to Koontz continued to elude Paul. Stephen Lloyd’s medallion was clearly symbolic, but he had guessed what the book was before he read even a word of Revelation. So it wasn’t necessarily part of an arcane code. He called the nationwide phone directory and was dismayed to find so many Sardis variations listed, including a century-old landmark restaurant in New York. And the light-colored clothes—well, it was Gulfland. He’d been there in March, but in the summer temperatures often exceeded a hundred degrees.

The more he thought about his theory, the more far-fetched it seemed.

Paul had been home a few weeks when it came time to go to Washington for his award. The agency had provided two first-class airline tickets. With Jae along, it would be difficult to connect with Angela Barger—whom he’d been fantasizing about ever since she had written to him in the hospital.

Then Brie and Connor both contracted the Peruvian flu, which had swept through their school. “I’m sorry, Paul,” Jae told him. “I want so much to go to the ceremony. But I can’t see leaving the kids with someone else when they’re this sick.”

Paul pretended disappointment. “What should I do with the extra ticket?”

“Go with Koontz.”

“He’s already there. He had to go early for a conference.”

“Well, we don’t have to use it. I can take you to the airport, and the airline will get you on and off the plane. Daddy will pick you up on the other end.”

Paul had failed to consider the logistics. Could he really manage by himself? He recalled anxious days in the hospital room when he didn’t know who was entering. Flying alone, feeling his way to the washroom, all eyes on him—even imagining it was painful.

“Maybe I just won’t go,” he said.

“Of course you’ll go.”

“Hey, you know Straight said he had family in D.C.”

“So take him, Paul. He’d love it.”

Straight thought it was as great an idea as Paul did. Paul would stay with his inlaws, and Straight would stay with his own relatives.

Paul was surprised how jumpy he was on the plane, though the flight was smooth. With his heightened senses, he heard every whine and knock, wriggled when the landing gear was raised and lowered, and started with every spot of turbulence. By the time they landed, he felt wrung out and disgusted at his own fear and helplessness. All the hopes he had recently entertained of leading a seminormal, somewhat independent life seemed ridiculous.

As they drove from the airport to the Decentis’, Paul became newly aware of the acuteness of his sense of smell. “Cherry blossoms, Straight. Tell me what they look like.”

“Like you remember them,” the older man said. “Cherry trees everywhere, busting out with pink-and-white blossoms. The festival must have been spectacular this year.”

Paul lowered his window and the fragrance washed over him. “That aroma almost makes up for not being able to see them,” he said. “Actually that’s not true. I’m having trouble getting used to this.”

“To what?”

“To life with only four senses. I’d almost trade these four for the one I lost, but—”

“Don’t give up hope, Paul. The doctor just said the time wasn’t right, not that it would never be right.”

“It’s getting to me, Straight. I thought I’d feel good being out, but I don’t. I just feel like more of the world is passing me by. My kids don’t respect me anymore. I’m some invalid they have to treat kindly. Jae can’t accept that I’m blind. She’s always pushing to talk to the doctor, as if she could wring some magic out of him. Life just goes on around me, without me, in spite of me. It’s like I’m a trespasser in my own home. That makes me furious, and when I blow up, I’m just pushing Jae and the kids farther away. I feel worthless and hopeless, and I’m so helpless I can’t even fly on a plane. I was actually scared today, Straight.

“Even this honor is depressing. It’s like a last handshake before the government throws me overboard. They might keep me afloat for a while, but it will be out of charity and, come the next budget crunch, I’m gone. ‘You’ve done enough’—that’s what a medal means.”

Straight let out a huge sigh. “Oh boy, have you got a bona fide case of the blues! Have faith, man. What about all that stuff you’ve been quoting about blindness from that ancient book? Didn’t that healer touch two blind men’s eyes and say, ‘According to your faith let it be to you,’ and their eyes were opened?”

“Yeah, so where’s my healer, Straight?”

“The point of the story is to have faith. Without it, they wouldn’t have been cured.”

Paul didn’t remember quoting Straight that particular passage, but thinking about it cut into his melancholy. For a moment he actually wondered what it would be like to be a Christian. He’d been obsessing about the subversives, listening to his New Testament over and over, trying to penetrate their thinking. What was it that made a person reach toward God? Adversity—well, he had that in spades—though for people like Andy Pass and Paul’s father there was no excuse. Now, as an exercise, he tried to put himself in their shoes.

If I were my father, reaching toward God, what would I expect to
get? What would be in it for me?
Sullenly, feeling foolish, Paul invoked the words of the letter,
If I am seeking the truth, what will I
find? Will God show himself to me? Will I experience a love transcending
all earthly gifts? Will accepting it be the most fulfilling decision
of my life?

He willed himself to believe it, to surrender—just for an instant. Then he snapped himself out of the spell, feeling impossibly foolish. His face felt so hot he believed it would look bright red in the mirror. If he could see.

He cleared his throat to shake his embarrassment. “Uh, Straight, you know I could still get you a ticket to the ceremony. You’d like to see the White House, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, no, no. Now you just have a wonderful time with your father-in-law. I’ve got plenty of things to do.”