The Healing Party (5 page)

Dad came out of the house and got into the driver's seat. ‘Natasha, mass first before the shopping. Right?' he said, starting the car. I didn't answer.

In the church, the air was even more frigid than the thirteen-degree chill outside. Father Robertson's dull words were absorbed into the high ceilings and cold bricks of the large, almost empty building. Only a few attended mass at St Joseph's on a weekday, and Dad appeared to be the most devoted of them all. Removing the cushion from the kneeling bench, he knelt down directly on the hard wood. When others sat back down, only he remained on his knees with eyes pressed shut, hands clasped, and mouth moving soundlessly.

Seeing him pray with such fervency, pity rose in me. I thought about his brother in the cage and the stories Dad had told me about his family. You had to be a survivalist, he said. At any moment of the day or night, a fight could break out. It might be his brothers bashing each other, or they could be meting out punishment to his sisters for not ironing their shirts right, or for any imagined slight. His brothers would punch or kick or cane his sisters, leaving them bloodied and bruised. And the worst of it was that their mother encouraged them. Only Dad tried to stop them, but he was the intellectual and not big or strong enough.

Once, Dad had shown me his knees – knobbly, he said, from hours of kneeling when he'd converted to Catholicism at the age of nineteen. Seven years later, he lost his belief. The period in the wilderness lasted twenty-six years, until we came to Australia and he found Jesus again. Dad became a born-again Catholic Charismatic and the family was expected to follow suit. All of us except Anita, who had already moved out, were obliged to go to mass every day. He also made it compulsory to go to three or four Charismatic meetings each week. I would often think that if I were allowed to choose between the two, I would choose this sterile church service any day over the loud crashing emotions of the meetings.

We were in the second pew, in front of the altar and raised sanctuary where Father Robertson and the altar boy were seated. Recognising me next to Dad, Father Robertson nodded. The altar boy sat stone-like, except for the sneakered foot fidgeting below his gown. In the pew in front of us was a preschool girl next to a thin old lady. The little girl kept turning around, staring at Dad and me with her round blue eyes and giggling. She wore a woollen poncho with a full denim skirt and lacy knee-high socks.

Each time the girl tried to escape from the pew, her grandmother grabbed the back of her skirt and pulled her back. When it was time to kneel, however, the little girl broke free. She ran up the steps to the sanctuary and sat on the top step, looking pleased with herself, and ignoring her grandmother's urgent entreaties that she
come back now
. Falling on her back, the girl lifted her legs up. Her skirt opened, showing pudgy white thighs and polka-dot knickers. While we said the Eucharist prayer, she lay on the floor in front of the altar, waving her legs in the air.

After mass, two lady parishioners came over to ask how Irene was. One of them, with sympathetic, watery eyes, patted Dad's arm. I remembered them as everyday churchgoers, not Charismatics. Dad thanked them for their concern. He explained that Jesus had healed Irene, and invited them and their families to the healing party. The first lady blinked her watery eyes a few times and folded her arms. The other one took a step back, then both quickly excused themselves.

*

Missionaries for Christ Men's House was a household of nine young, single Charismatic men who had taken a vow to spread the message of the Holy Spirit. Mum and Dad had the voluntary job of buying groceries for them and picking up donated items from businesses every fortnight. They had stopped this when Mum was diagnosed with cancer, but last week, after it was prophesied that Mum would be healed, Dad decided he would resume the work. Dropping me at the supermarket, he gave me 200 dollars to spend.

‘Mum told me not more than 150 dollars,' I said, holding out a fifty.

‘Never mind. Spend it,' Dad said, pushing the money back into my hand. ‘They do such good work for the Lord. Get them nice chocolate, ice cream, cashew nuts, treats! Spend it all on them.'

Dad liked to go out with a full wallet. It would bulge with two-dollar coins in readiness for any buskers, collectors or homeless people who crossed his path. Five, ten and fifty-dollar notes overflowed from it for donations to Christian causes. After mass, he had handed a fifty to Father Robertson. When we delivered the groceries to the Missionaries for Christ, Dad pressed another fifty into the hand of the leader of the household. As the day progressed and we performed our errands, Dad's wallet steadily emptied.

It was not that my parents had a lot of spare cash. Except for the parties, they lived and brought up the family abstemiously on Dad's photography jobs and, in the early years in Melbourne, Mum's wage as a factory worker. Dad had left his job at the National Photo Gallery last year. Now they lived on the intermittent money he made from selling artworks. ‘Acting like a big shot!' Mum would say of his donations. Anita, the only one of our family who understood money, lectured Dad on the dangers of having no savings at retirement. He always ignored these warnings, and this morning, as I watched him, it seemed he was giving out the money at an even faster rate. He told all the Charismatics we met along the way of the prophecy of Mum's miracle. They thanked the Lord and praised my father for his faith, and promised to come to the healing party.

So far the errands had broken up our journey, but now we were heading home. That would mean an unbroken stretch of about forty minutes in the car with Dad. He started singing. It was the kind of singing he did for an audience, with trills, staccatos and gasps. I pretended to be asleep in the back seat, but this did not deter him.

He started to speak. ‘There seems to be a change in you, going to church and praying with the family. That makes us happy. I'm not going to question how deep it goes. For a start, you are doing it for your mother, which is an unselfish thing. But do not doubt the miracle. For if anyone doubts, there will be no miracle. Jesus will not force a miracle on anyone. It has to be courted. That sounds like a coy word, and it is, in a way. Jesus has so much respect for each one of us sinners that he would stand back though he hungers to shower us with his love. He is waiting to be invited.

‘I know you have travelled overseas and now live in a young group home. When I was your age, I was feted in London and New York as the new young exciting artist. A newspaper article said, “This
enfant terrible
has talent to burn.” I know the temptations of the world, the hedonism, and the ego. I have no ego now. I am just here to be a servant to the Lord. Lord, I say, my talents are for you to use. I am ready to be persecuted for Christ. The other photographers say insulting things about me, but I am ready to be a fool for Christ. Can you believe that they are afraid to speak about Jesus? It threatens them to know the real love of Jesus and what it is to live in His footsteps.

‘There is nothing that threatens the so-called intellectual more than to see the vacuity of his soul. How can we call ourselves a freethinking nation when there is one thing we are afraid to talk about? Guess what it is. Aussies will all happily talk about the footy for hours but one mention of Jesus and they are running scared. That's what I said in my manifesto to each of my colleagues at the National Photo Gallery. I wrote it and printed out a copy for each one and put it in their pigeonholes. They complained and the director asked me to tone it down. Tone it down! He said it was unprofessional! I could have been represented by the most important galleries in Australia, but they want me to tone it down!' His voice droned on. He kept his eyes on the road, never turning around to look at me. The pattern had been set since childhood – Maria, Patsy and I would sit, mute, in the back while Dad talked in the driver's seat. I would try not to listen, but most of the time I did, transfixed. He would talk of how God tested him, and, if Mum was not in the car, of the trials of being married to her. He told us how Satan tries harder the more you turn to Jesus, how he suffered as a child, how he gave up fame and the temptations of the world for Jesus, how the world will persecute you for this. He talked of great truths, and wisdom, he taught us a new word for the day guaranteed to enthral, he quoted the bible, himself, poetry; he shared his visions. Once, when we had stopped at the lights at the intersection near our local supermarket, he told us that he saw a devil standing by our side, as tall as the power pole in front of us.

How long had Dad been talking now, I wondered. I tried to focus on the passing scenery. We were back in the broad streets and hills of the eastern suburbs. In front of us the six-lane bitumen road rolled up and down in a black band out to the horizon. When we first came to Australia, Dad would, to our delight, turn off the engine when we reached this road and let the car cruise all the way home. Coming up each rise, the car would go slower and slower until we feared it would not make it. Going down again we went faster and faster until we feared the car could not stop. ‘Where else in the world can you do this?' he would say.

Something he said drew my attention back. ‘The behaviour of the little girl in church this morning was 100 per cent natural,' he said. ‘You see, Natasha, even at that age, they are very aware and know how to seduce.

‘It's been very difficult, Natasha. Your mother is a saint. I cannot bear to see her suffering. She stays awake at night with gas in her stomach. All the time I have to be ready to get her a drink, pull the blankets up, turn the heater off, talk to her and hear her complaining. Her suffering is terrible. It has made her illogical. Your mother must ask God for forgiveness for her jealousy. There can be no interference with the great miracle that will happen. Did Caroline say anything about me? You see, even at my age, many women find me attractive. I am not a young, handsome man. I am not slim and strong. You know what it is? It is my intensity they find attractive.'

He had stopped talking and I realised he was waiting for me to answer his question about Caroline. ‘No, she didn't say anything,' I said.

‘She was moved, I know it. You know, we all have the power to touch each other's lives,' he said.

What was it about me, I thought, that made him feel he could talk at me like this? I felt sickened. The car entered our driveway and Dad braked. I scrambled out of the car and took a deep breath.

Inside the house, Mum, Patsy and the ladies were still praying. Mum called from the lounge room for me to join them. Maureen, the formally dressed and perfumed leader of the group, bade me to sit. ‘We will finish up by reading from the words of the evangelist Katherine Kuhlman,' she said.

Maureen opened the book and read aloud, ‘“What is in the mind of God? There comes a time when we love Him so completely that we do not say anymore, there is God's will and there is my will. There comes a time when it will be impossible to miss the will of God. When you do not have a will separate and apart from God. When you have no will of your own. The very son of God had to give up his will … Not my will, but Thy will.” Now repeat the last sentence with me three times.'

‘Not my will, but Thy will. Not my will, but Thy will. Not my will, but Thy will.'

*

The ladies had left, Patsy had taken the bus back to her student lodging, Dad was in his studio and Mum had woken up from her nap on the couch. I handed her a cup of tea.

‘Isn't it great you joined us for prayers?' she said. ‘The ladies were so happy to see you again.'

‘Can we talk again about your childhood?' I asked, taking out my notebook.

‘My father was a very good man,' she began, without any resistance. She seemed to want to talk.

‘Mum, you've talked about your father before. How about your mother?' I said. Her stories of her father seemed to be the only childhood memories she would volunteer.

‘He was so holy,' she continued. Her brow softened, her eyes lit up and she smiled. ‘You know the first thing he did when he got home from work? He knelt down and prayed. On the staircase landing, we had a little altar and crucifix. He knelt there for at least one hour.'

‘You and your sisters had to kneel there too sometimes for punishment, didn't you?'

She did not even pause. ‘You know the war? The Japanese came to Hong Kong. The British ran away. All their houses and shops just empty. Everyone stole from them. But not my father. He tried to stop people from going into their houses. My dad was ARP. You know what that is?'

‘Yes, Air Raid Precaution. You've told me. Did you talk much with your father?'

‘He was my father, of course we talked. Some ARP were bad, take bribes. But never my father. Everyone looked up to him.'

‘What was your parents' relationship like?'

She sighed. ‘They were husband and wife all their life, why ask silly?'

‘Your sisters said your mother spent too much time playing mahjong for money.'

The smile stayed on her face. ‘My father liked your dad very much. You know I had too many suitors. It was so hard to choose.'

I had heard Mum's relatives tease that every second man in Hong Kong had proposed to her. Her sister Monica's husband had first proposed to Mum and been rejected. So too her cousin's husband. Whenever Dad boasted that he had married the belle of the island, she told him to be quiet, sensitive to how it would seem to them.

‘I met your father at church after he became Catholic. He was at every mass, always kneeling. He sang in the choir, so loud and so out of time! He was very funny too. You know what he did? Other boyfriends give me jewellery and flowers – but not your dad. One day the postman came to my house. He is laughing loud. All the neighbours too are laughing. The postman gave me a big picture – this big.' She stretched her hands out as wide as they would go. ‘It was from your dad. He made a cute picture of himself carrying a big bunch of flowers!'