The Best People in the World (27 page)

“I ran away at thirteen, fourteen. Each time, they caught me and sent me back. I made up names. I was Steve the Swede. I was Button Yurlip. Tanto Tanto. Charlie Tuna. I hitched. I road trains. I tramped and squatted. I spent six weeks in a mansion outside Scottsdale, Arizona—me and this other kid, we watched TV, drank Chivas Regal, and at night we took this brand-new Pontiac out of the garage and drove through the desert outside town. And then we got it in our heads to pawn all these trophies, but the pawnshop owner, of all people, had a conscience. I spent three months in a work camp and then I saw a chance to light out and that's what I did. Yard bulls caught me in Joliet, beat me up, and locked me in a train bound for Tijuana and I probably would have been dead long before I got there, but in Missouri we got diverted for a military train and a real, genuine guardian angel saved my life.”

“Who was the guardian angel?”

“Just some person who saved my life and didn't ask for anything afterward.”

When we came across a snare, it was usually triggered and empty. Shiloh'd get down on his knees and carefully reset them. He carried a bunch of our withered carrots to use as bait.

“Why did you ever return to our town?”

“They say birds figure the first thing they see is their mother, doesn't matter if it's a cat or a bicycle. That's how it is for me. It's hard-wired in my brain. I smell that water and I just want to curl up and go to sleep. Tell me it's different for you.”

I didn't want to talk about what I'd walked away from. And wasn't
it true that if you knew a place well enough, you could take it with you anywhere?

“I was just a kid. I expected the fuzz to come by any day and round me up. Children's services or what have you. People assume that you can hide from people by living on the periphery, but my experience has been just the opposite. If you ever want to disappear somewhere, get a job, show up and punch your card every day. I've been ignored, but I've never been invisible. I'm not knocking it. I had a place of my own. I knew where to get my food. I was there fifteen years. I might never have left, but in the middle of the night, some abject motherfuckers tried to burn me out.”

“Fran said you beat up five guys.”

Shiloh stopped in his tracks. We were on some twisting game trail. It was the middle of the day, but the sun stuck close to the horizon. “Does that sound like something I could do?”

“He said you used an ax handle.”

“Then tell me why I left. If I had just beat up five guys, why did I light out?”

“Maybe you thought they'd retaliate.”

“I wasn't alone when those guys came by, Thomas. It wasn't me who hurt them.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Because the person I was with told me I had to.”

“It still doesn't explain why you left.”

Shiloh reached his hands up and pulled his hair back from his face. With his low forehead and his cue-ball chin he wasn't conventionally attractive, but he seemed comfortable in his skin. That was worth something. “He was a cop.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You understand?”

“But is he the one you were in love with?”

“He was just there.”

“I want to know about the one you were in love with.”

“I don't know how to tell a love story. I've been locked up for vagrancy, sodomy, drunkenness, having no clothes, and having the
wrong clothes. My whole life I caught one break. I won't march it out like some trained bear, just to entertain you.”

I felt embarrassed for us both.

I said, “Mary thinks you're the one who crashed the police car against the floodwall. She said the police are looking for you.”

“I'll let you in on a secret—that car crashed into the wall of its own accord.”

I thought he was trying to make me laugh, but he kept a hard set to his face.

We'd come to one of the snares. A little figure-4 he'd carved out of wood scraps was supposed to act as the trigger mechanism. He poked the trigger with a stick, but nothing happened.

“My ideology is less forgiving than yours,” said Shiloh.

“What's ideology?”

“Ideology is how you live your life.”

“Why is yours less forgiving?”

“Because if I had knocked a hole in the wall, it wouldn't have mattered to me if the whole town drowned.”

“You don't mean that.”

“Who are you to tell me what I mean?”

The trigger's precarious geometry undid itself. The stick jumped at the end of the wire.

I
n Zaire they had spoken with a boy who claimed he'd been swallowed whole by a hippopotamus and returned to the world unmarked. They interviewed an expatriate Welshman in the later stages of cirrhosis who, so his neighbors claimed, had the ability—though rarely the inclination—to cure nodding disease with his touch. And they determined that a nun who had impressed her superiors by undertaking to write down all the names of the people in heaven was actually in the process of reproducing a copy of the London telephone directory. Finally, there had been an afternoon wasted when the men had traveled many hours into the bush to listen to a very depressed man tell them that his donkey possessed the spirit of his late wife.

The younger man had noticed that the reporting of miracles followed some larger geopolitical fabric. There had been a rash of miracles in India, for instance, just as the British got out. If a person could imagine a map, then miracles tended to occur along the boundary between the Church and what was not the Church. And, no doubt, this helped to promulgate the incursion of faith. Which was not to say
that there could be no faith without the Church, the younger man didn't mean to imply that. But without the promise of salvation, faith was like a string without a kite.

The older man had a bath towel wrapped over his shoulders while he drank a glass of sherry. The hotel was so new that the air-conditioning still worked. It felt about fifty degrees inside the room. Down on the street, in what passed for traffic, a child led ivory-furred cattle past the hotel's entrance.

“Have you tried the television?” asked the younger man.

“It would not work for me,” said the older man.

“I thought the same thing, so I spoke with the manager this morning. He told me a funny story. It seems the nearest television broadcast is more than a thousand miles away. The builders were quite aware of this, yet when it came time to appoint the rooms, each and every one was equipped with a television.”

“I suppose people find them comforting,” said the older man.

“Yes. I think that was the reasoning. One of the hotel's first guests happened to be the minister of the interior. Because the hotel often hosts state visitors and investors, he was embarrassed by these blank television screens. So now they are in the process of converting one of the rooms into a television studio. When construction is complete a local official will come in each morning to read the newspaper on camera. The rest of the day they intend to broadcast movies.”

“That's very inventive,” said the older man.

“I thought you might appreciate it.”

The phone rang and the older man walked over and answered it. After a moment he returned the receiver to the cradle. He said, “Shame can be a great motivating force.” After a pause he added, “Our car is here.”

The younger man walked to the window and looked down at the street. A black limousine waited at the curb.

 

The route the driver took paralleled a broad river. Shanty houses lined the banks. The road was newly paved. On a couple of occasions,
their driver seemed to veer toward oncoming bicyclists until the riders made for the curb. Soon there were small houses, then small houses with yards. Finally, stone or brick walls, just the tops of trees visible on the other side.

The younger man and the older man exchanged a look.

The driver put on a cap. He turned his head around quickly. “Very close. Very close.”

Up ahead a number of vehicles had been parked along the side of the street, delivery vans, mopeds. A group of men played cards on a handkerchief that was spread on the hood of a Mercedes sedan. There was a break in the wall where a wrought-iron gate had been left open. The driver took them up the cobbled drive. As the path wove through a topiary garden, now and then the two men caught glimpses of a large white edifice. It was a tremendous house, poised on a bluff above the river. Their driver stopped the car beside a splashing fountain. He sprinted around the car and opened the door for the two men. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.” In the next moment he was back in the car and driving off.

A valet came out of the foyer of the house. He wore an ivory suit, oxblood English boots, and an exaggerated smile. “Pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to meet you. Welcome. I wish I could give you a tour, but the cardinal and his guests are repasting.” He exhibited a pained look. “May I show you to the library?”

“That will be fine,” said the older man.

The three of them entered the house. The hallways were as wide as an airport concourse. In some unseen corner of the house, a string quartet played.

“How many guests are there?” asked the younger man.

The valet explained that they were forty-three. By occupation, more than three-quarters of the guests were local clergy, but there were also a few ambassadors, some members of the business community, some representatives of the government, and two poets.

“Two poets?” asked the older man.

“A local poet and with him a Scottish woman preoccupied with translating his work.”

They entered a large chamber. From the center of its high plaster ceiling, a silver-and-crystal chandelier hung like a glass parachute. The walls were covered with the spines of books. Polished wooden ladders ran on tracks. Rows of chairs had been set before a study table.

“Your audience should file in shortly. Once the cardinal has taken his seat, you may begin.” After making a crisp bow, the valet left the room.

The older man set a leather valise on the table.

“I think it suits you,” said the younger man.

The older man looked up at his colleague. “There was nothing wrong with the briefcase it replaces. My father gave me that case when I received my first appointment.”

“Quite a generous gift, I'd expect.”

“Replacing the old with the new serves no purpose but to please time.”

The younger man had been turning toward the wall to see if he might make a cursory inspection of the books, but his colleague's comment had the effect of interrupting his plans. “How do you mean that?” he asked.

At that moment a pair of oak doors at the side of the room swung open. The two men were unable to continue their conversation. Their audience had arrived.

The older man took a seat facing the assembly and the younger man followed suit.

While the Church had successfully made inroads into Africa, a quick glance at the audience confirmed that Africa had yet to make inroads into the Church.

A gaunt man in an immaculate white cassock made his way into the room with the assistance of the valet. When the gaunt man had taken a seat, the valet gave the men a quick nod before taking his seat.

The older man took a sip from a glass of water before beginning.

“It is my pleasure, this evening, to have been invited to discourse on the subject of the forensic investigation of matters of faith. This is
a subject with which I have been closely and passionately involved for well on forty years. I will dispense with the formalities that so many rely on to confer authority upon their opinions. In my case that is quite unnecessary as I will not be judged by time or man, but by God.”

On that note, a cross between an invocation and an appeal, the older man paused to allow his audience to get comfortable.

“Our gracious host has asked me to extemporize on the relative criteria for the resolution of an investigation. It is as follows: there must be no explanation short of the direct and intentional intervention of the Lord our Creator.”

The older man looked at his associate.

“Do you wish to add anything?” he asked the younger man.

“I don't suppose I could,” said the younger man.

The audience shifted, collectively, in their seats. The cardinal's valet stood up, brushing his shirtfront with his palms. “Could you, perhaps, entertain us with an instance in which the presence of the divine was without doubt?”

“The most perfect example,” said the older man, “would be the original miracle, that is, creation itself. One can't imagine a more profound or far-reaching miracle. Everything else is just ripples on a pond.”

Many in the audience turned to their neighbors so that they could be seen nodding.

“I don't suppose there is anyone here who would count themselves unmoved by Genesis,” said the valet. “However, we had hoped you might be able to share news of more recent events.”

The audience tittered.

“There was a boy,” began the younger man, “who developed a tumor at the base of his cerebellum. His reporting symptoms included blurred vision, acute headaches, and a loss of appetite. There's no surprise there at all. Due to the location of the growth, his doctors deemed his condition inoperable. His health deteriorated in a manner consistent with models. He lost the sight in one eye and, a week later, lost the sight in the other. In order to counteract the headaches, he
was prescribed a number of painkillers. The boy's decline was rapid and complete. And then one day the boy started speaking. This was noteworthy because verbal communication had been limited after the onset of the headaches. But what was more remarkable was the language that he spoke. A boy of eleven…did I mention this happened in Spain? This happened near La Coruña. This eleven-year-old started speaking in perfect Latin. The subject of his communications was the throne of God.”

The younger man had not expected that he would speak to the crowd and, in the same spirit, he had not foreseen the moment he would finish speaking. He stared at their upturned faces.

“So what happened?” Posing this question was the man they supposed to be the poet—beside him a long-faced woman scribbled notes into a binder.

“The boy died,” said the younger man.

The additional information seemed to depress the crowd.

“One has to wonder,” said the poet, “at least from the boy's perspective, might it not have been a mixed blessing? Surely he would have preferred to have been healed?”

“And what is healing?” asked the older man.

“I suppose it would be the removal of symptoms,” answered the poet, gamely.

“I would submit to you that those ‘symptoms' are not indicators of disease, but, rather, signs of mortal life. In all my scholarship I've never come across an instance of a person who had any success clinging to mortal life.”

“There was a priest in China who had built a small church in the mountains.” Again the younger man surprised himself by speaking. “The provincial authorities decided to make an example of him. After shackling the priest inside, they doused the building with kerosene. While the building burned the front door yawned open. Witnesses described the priest, sheathed in pale blue light, at the center of the conflagration. Yet when the fire ceased, no trace of the priest's body could be found.”

“What, if I may ask”—the poet turned to his host and made an
ambivalent gesture with his shoulders—“is the Church's interest in gathering these phenomena? Is it curiosity? Or are you trying to do what the Greeks did? Are you trying to find your God in the stars?”

The younger man was embarrassed that he'd allowed himself to get drawn into this debate. Handing out wonders like so many glass beads had never been his intention.

“This is an interesting question,” began the older man. “If I understand, you seem to suggest that by identifying the light in the darkness we make an error of extrapolation. To expand upon your analogy, we are using crude instruments—witnesses, hearsay, and legend—in order to prove the existence of God. However, God's existence is in no need of proof. No, we are studying the palimpsest. We are finding God's handwriting. At its core, faith may be reduced to wonder. I would suppose that you know this, but it is only because you and I call this wonder by a different name that you are chafing. Consider an insect trapped in amber. What a humble wonder that is, but one must not forget to consider the tree that produced the sap and the roots that drew the water up and the sun that fed the leaves and that the insect came along and, this too, you must consider your eyes, considering the glassy lump. Please don't tell me that I am just seeing points of scattered light.”

The cardinal was helped to his feet. “I think now is a good time for us to take a break from this serious stuff, that we might return to talking of cricket and other concerns that occupy the mortal mind.”

At once servants wheeled in carts laden with cakes and cookies. A coffee service was set up at the back of the room.

The older man leaned across to his colleague and put a hand upon his shoulder. “You handled yourself very well,” he said.

Before the younger man had a chance to reply, they were surrounded by members of the audience, the poet included, who seemed, all in all, to be good-natured men. And the younger man watched the guests crowd around the older man, who had now perched himself on the edge of the table, clutching his valise to his chest like a refugee.

1

Admitted

Alice and I were fast asleep when the house jumped. We sat bolt upright in our bed.

“Forget it,” she said, falling back. “It was only a bad dream.”

Did she mean we'd had the same dream?

She tried to soothe me with a searching hand, but despite her insistence that there was nothing to understand, I didn't feel reassured.

“Bad dream,” Alice repeated.

The creaking floorboards announced that Shiloh was coming up from the basement. I went downstairs hoping he would help me understand what I'd heard.

He wasn't waiting for me in the hall or sitting in the living room. I went into the kitchen. The chairs held our places at the table. I poked my head into the pantry—a bunch of things no one cared to eat. There was no sign of him on the porch. Back in the hall I peered down the black hole that led to the basement. A sharp, sulfurous odor leaked up. I wrenched the front door open. The moon's reflection perched on the Plymouth's roof. It seemed that I hadn't woken from a dream, but into one. Then I heard him sigh in the living room. When I went to investigate, I discovered a monster had overwhelmed the sofa's steel springs, settling within the pine walls of the frame. Familiar eyes found me from behind a grotesque, moon-shaped mask. It was Shiloh. It was my friend.