The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (6 page)

When I had finished delivering my set little speech, Tim said gravely, "Paul, you know, had been a Pharisee. For them a strict observance of the minutiae of the Torah—the Law—was everything. That particularly involved ritual purity. But later—after his conversion—he saw salvation not in the Law but in
zadiqah,
which is the state of righteousness that Jesus Christ brings. I want you to sit down with me here." He beckoned me over, opening a very large leatherbound Bible. "You're familiar with Romans, four through eight?"

"No, I'm not," I said. But I sat down beside him. I could see it coming, the lecture. The sermon. Tim had met me prepared.

"Romans five states Paul's basic premise, that we are saved through grace and not by works." He read, then, from the Bible he held open on his lap. "'So far then we have seen that, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God—'" He glanced up at me; his gaze was keen and sharp. This was Timothy Archer the lawyer. "'—since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God's glory.' Let's see." He ran his fingers down the page, his lips moving. "'If it is certain that through one man's fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.' He looked further on, turning pages. "Yes; ah. Here. 'But now we are rid of the Law, freed by death from our imprisonment, free to serve in the new spiritual way and not the old way of a written law.'" Again he looked further along. "'The reason, therefore, why those who are in Christ Jesus are not condemned, is that the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.'" He glanced up at me. "This goes to the heart of Paul's perception. What 'sin' really refers to is hostility toward God. Literally, it means 'missing the mark,' as if, for example, you shot an arrow and it fell short, too low, or went too high. What mankind needs, what it requires, is righteousness. Only God has that and only God can provide it to men ... men and women; I don't mean—"

"I understand," I said.

"Paul's perception is that faith,
pistis,
has the power, the absolute power, to kill sin. Out of this comes freedom from the Law; one is not required to believe that by following a formal stipulated code—code-ethics, it's called—one is saved. That position, that one is saved by following a very intricate, complex system of code-ethics, is what Paul rebelled against; that was the position of the Pharisees and that's what he turned from. This really is what Christianity, faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, is all about; righteousness through grace, and grace coming through faith. I'm going to have you read—"

"Yes," I said, "but the Bible says you're not supposed to commit adultery."

Instantly, Tim said, "Adultery is sexual unfaithfulness on the part of a married person. I am no longer married; Kirsten is no longer married."

"Oh," I said, nodding.

"The Seventh Commandment. Which pertains to the sanctity of marriage." Tim set down his Bible and crossed the room to the vast bookshelves; he lifted down a blue-backed volume. As he returned, he opened the book and searched its pages. "Let me quote to you what Dr. Hertz said, the late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. In connection with the Seventh Commandment. Exodus, twenty thirteen. 'Adultery. Is an execrable and god-detested wrong-doing.' Philo. This Commandment against infidelity warns husband and wife alike against profaning the sacred Covenant of Marriage.'" He read further silently, then shut the book. "I think you have enough common sense, Angel, to understand that Kirsten and I are—"

"But it's risky," I said.

"Driving on the Golden Gate Bridge is risky. Do you know that Yellow Cabs are not allowed—I mean, not allowed by Yellow Cab, not the police—to drive in the fast lane on the Golden Gate Bridge? What they call 'suicide lane.' If a driver is caught driving in that lane he is fired. But people drive in the fast lane on the Golden Gate Bridge constantly. Maybe that's a poor analogy."

"No, it's a good one," I said.

"Do you drive in the fast lane on the Golden Gate Bridge?"

After a pause I said, "Sometimes."

"What if I came to you and sat you down and started lecturing you about it? Wouldn't you think I was treating you as a child, not an adult? Do you follow what I'm saying? When an adult does something you don't approve of, you discuss the matter with him or her. I'm willing to discuss my relationship with Kirsten with you because, for one thing, you're my daughter-in-law, but much more important, you're someone I know and care about and love. I think that's the salient term, here; it's the key to Paul's thinking.
Agape
in the Greek. Translated into Latin, it's
caritas,
from which we get the word 'caring,' to be concerned about someone. As you're concerned about me now, myself and your friend Kirsten. You care about us."

"That's right," I said. "That's why I'm here."

"Then for you, caring is important."

"Yes," I said. "Obviously."

"You can call it
agape
or you can call it
caritas
or love or caring about another person, but whatever you call it—let me read from Paul. Bishop Archer again opened his big Bible; he flipped through the pages rapidly, knowing exactly where he was going. "First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. 'If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding—'"

"Yes, you quoted that at the Bad Luck," I interrupted.

"And I will quote it again." His voice was brisk. "'If I give away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever.' Now listen to this. 'Love does not come to an end. But if there are gifts of prophecy, the time will come when they must fail; or the gift of languages, it will not continue for ever; and knowledge—for this, too, the time will come when it must fail. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesying is imperfect, but once perfection comes, all imperfect things will disappear. When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, and think like a child, and argue like a child, but now I am a man, all childish ways are put behind me.'"

The phone on his big desk rang, then.

Looking annoyed, Bishop Archer set down his Bible, open. "Excuse me." He went to get the phone.

As I sat, waiting for him to finish his phone conversation, I looked over the passage he had been reading. It was a passage familiar to me, but in the King James translation. This Bible, I saw, was the Jerusalem Bible. I had never seen it before. I read on past the point at which he had stopped.

His phone conversation finished, Bishop Archer returned. "I have to be off. There's an African bishop waiting to see me; they just brought him here from the airport."

"It says," I said, putting my finger on the passage in his big Bible, "that all we see is a dim reflection."

"It also says, 'In short there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of these is love.' I would point out to you that that sums up the
kerygma
of our Lord."

"What if Kirsten tells people?"

"I think she can be counted on to be discreet." He had already reached the door of his office; reflexively, I rose to my feet and followed after him.

"She told me."

"You're my son's wife."

"Yeah, well—"

"I'm sorry I have to run off like this." Bishop Archer shut and locked his office door behind us. "God bless." He kissed me on the forehead. "We want to have you over when we're set up. Kirsten found an apartment today, in the Tenderloin. I haven't seen it. I'm leaving that up to her." And off he strode, leaving me standing there. He got me on a technicality, I realized. I had adultery confused with fornication. I keep forgetting he was a lawyer. I entered his large office with something to say and never said it; I went in smart and came out stupid. With nothing in between.

Maybe if I didn't smoke dope I could argue better. He won; I lost. No: he lost; I lost; we both lost. Shit.

I never said love was bad. I never knocked
agape.
That was not the point, the fucking point. Not getting caught is the point. Bolting your feet down to the floor is the point, the floor we call reality.

As I started toward the street, I thought: I am passing judgment on one of the most successful men in the world. I will never be known as he is known; I will never influence opinion. I did not put away my pectoral cross for the duration of the Vietnam War as Tim did. Who the fuck am I?

N
OT LONG THEREAFTER
, Jeff and I received an invitation to visit the Bishop of California and his mistress at their hideout in the Tenderloin. It turned out to
be
a sort of party. Kirsten had fixed canapés and hors d'oeuvres; we could smell food cooking in the kitchen ... Tim had me drive him to a nearby liquor store to get wine; they had forgotten. I chose the wine. Tim stood blankly, as if abstracted, while I paid the clerk. I guess when you've been a member of AA, you learn to phase out in a liquor store.

Back at the apartment, in the medicine cabinet of the bathroom, I found a vast bottle of Dexamyl, the size bottle they give you when you're going on a long trip. Kirsten doing speed? I asked myself. Making no noise, I took down the bottle. The bishop's name was on the prescription label. Well, I thought. Off booze and onto speed. Aren't they supposed to warn you about that in AA? I flushed the toilet—so as to create some sound—and while the water gurgled I opened the bottle and stuck a few of the Dex tablets in my pocket. This is something you automatically do if you live in Berkeley; no one thinks anything about it. On the other hand, no one in Berkeley leaves their dope in the bathroom.

Presently, the four of us sat around the modest living room, relaxing. Everyone but Tim held a drink. Tim wore a red shirt and permapress slacks. He did not look like a bishop. He looked like Kirsten Lundborg's lover.

"This is a really nice place," I said.

On the way home from the liquor store, Tim had talked about private detectives and how they go about finding you. They sneak into your apartment while you're gone and go through all the dresser drawers. The way you catch on to this is by taping a human hair to every outer door. I think Tim had seen that in a movie.

"If you come back and find the hair gone or broken," he informed me as we walked from the car to the apartment, "you know you're being watched." He narrated, then, the history of the FBI in regard to Dr. King. It was a story everyone in Berkeley knew. I listened politely.

In the living room of their hideout that evening, I first heard about the Zadokite Documents. Now, of course, you can buy the Doubleday Anchor book, the Patton, Myers and Abré translation, which is complete. With the Helen James introduction dealing with mysticism, comparing and contrasting the Zadokites with, for example, the Qumran people, who presumably were Essenes, although that has really never been established,

"I feel," Tim said, "that this may prove more important than even the Nag Hammadi Library. We already have a fair working knowledge of Gnosticism, but we know nothing about the Zadokites, except for the fact that they were Jews."

"What is the approximate date on the Zadokite scrolls?" Jeff asked.

"They have made a preliminary estimate of about two hundred
B.C.E.
," Tim said.

"Then they could have influenced Jesus," Jeff said.

"It's not likely," Tim said. "I'll be flying over there to London in March; I'll have a chance to talk to the translators. I wish John Allegro were involved, but he's not." He talked for a while about Allegro's work in connection with the Qumran scrolls, the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls.

"Wouldn't it be interesting," Kirsten said, "if the—" She hesitated. "Zadokite Documents turned out to contain Christian material."

"Christianity is, after all, based on Judaism," Tim said.

"I mean specific sayings attributed to Jesus," Kirsten said.

"There is not that clear a break in the rabbinical tradition," Tim said. "You find Hillel expressing some of the ideas we consider basic to the New Testament. And of course Matthew understood everything that Jesus did and said as a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. Matthew wrote to Jews and for Jews and, essentially, as a Jew. God's plan set forth in the Old Testament is brought to completion by Jesus. The term 'Christianity' was not in use at his time; by and large, apostolic Christians simply spoke of 'the Way.' Thus they stressed its naturalness and universality." After a pause he added, "And you find the expression 'the word of the Lord.' That appears in Acts, six. 'The word of the Lord continued to spread; the number of disciples in Jerusalem was greatly increased.'"

"What does 'Zadokite' derive from?" Kirsten asked.

"Zadok, a priest of Israel, about the time of David," Tim said. "He founded a priestly house, the Zadokites. They were of the house of Eleazar. There is mention of Zadok in the Qumran scrolls. Let me check." He rose to go get a book from a still-unpacked carton. "First Chronicles, chapter twenty-four. 'These also, side by side with their kinsmen the sons of Aaron, cast lots in the presence of Kind David, Zadok—' There he is mentioned." Tim shut the book. It was another Bible.

"But I guess now we're going to find out a lot more," Jeff said.

"Yes, I hope so," Tim said. "When I'm in London." He now, as was his custom, abruptly shifted mental gears. "I'm commissioning a rock mass to be given at Grace this Christmas." Scrutinizing me he said, "What is your opinion about Frank Zappa?"

I was at a loss for an answer.

"We would arrange for the actual service to be recorded," Tim continued. "So it could be released as an album. Captain Beefheart has also been recommended to me. And there were several other names offered. Where could I get a Frank Zappa album to listen to?"

"At a record store," Jeff said.

"Is Frank Zappa black?" Tim asked.

"I don't see that that matters," Kirsten said. "To me, that is inverse prejudice."