I turned back to B and said, “What comes next? Splinters under the fingernails? The rubber hose?”
B’s gargoylish face twisted into a scowl that seemed half-serious, half-humorous. “Why do you keep referring your problems to me? It’s Shirin you have to satisfy. Talk to her, not to me.”
I was stunned by this gender betrayal, and equally stunned by my own self-betrayal. I had tried, unconsciously, to nudge B into lining up on my side—us guys against the common enemy. I was profoundly disappointed in myself; I’d imagined I was at least a decade beyond such schoolboy games.
I looked at Shirin, and my priesthood slipped off my shoulders like a cloak with a broken clasp. In an instant she became a person in my eyes and ceased to be a troublesome, irrelevant parishioner that I had somehow to placate and get round. What was in her eyes, I now saw, was not hostility and suspicion but, amazingly, fear. For some reason inconceivable to me, I was a source of terror to this sinewy, competent woman. My heart melted with pity for her and remorse for the calculated deception that had brought me face-to-face with her.
I really intended to answer her question now, and I may even have thought I was doing so as I began to speak.
Some truth comes out
“B is telling me the world I belong to is extinct,” I said to her. “It’s been extinct for decades, and we didn’t even suspect it.”
> Shirin was frowning hard, struggling to make sense of my words but not wanting to distract me, now that I was evidently coming clean with some sort of truth.
“That’s not quite right,” I went on. “We suspect that we’re obsolete, but we’re confident that our suspicions are groundless. Do you see what I mean?”
Shirin shook her head helplessly.
“I’m talking about us guardians of the faith, you understand. The professionals. We know how to deal with our suspicions—we have to, because it’s our job to deal with the suspicions of other people. We are, in large part, professional soothers, professional reassurers, professional dispellers of doubt.”
Shirin nodded faintly, a millimeter or so, to let me know that she was beginning to follow me now, shakily.
“Our message to those we must reassure is: ‘Don’t worry, nothing’s happened. The world is just what it was. Don’t be anxious, don’t be alarmed. The foundation is solid. The pillars are still standing. Nothing has changed since … the year 1000, the year 200, the year 33, when the gates of heaven were opened for us by Someone who laid down His life for our sins and on the third day rose from the dead. Not a thing has changed since then. Though we go to war with smart bombs and nerve gas instead of swords and rocks, and write our thoughts on plastic disks instead of parchment scrolls, these days are still those days.’”
Suddenly it was Shirin’s turn to look to B for help. When he offered nothing, she turned to her friend at the other end of the ottoman, to Mrs. Hartmann, to Michael. No one seemed to have anything like a suggestion to make. With no more prospects in sight, she was forced to come back to me.
She said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
“I had the impression you wanted the truth.”
“I do.”
“You can’t just say, ‘All I mean by truth is this one piece of the puzzle. If it isn’t this one piece, I don’t want to hear about it.’”
Shirin blinked and nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t understand what you were doing.”
“These days are still those days. Do you understand what these words mean?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure.”
“You’ve asked why my superior is interested in what’s happening here in Radenau. I’m explaining: He’s interested because these days are still those days. Nothing has changed. The foundation is solid. The pillars are still standing.”
Shirin struggled with it for a moment, then appealed to B for help.
“I think Fr. Osborne is on the verge of clearing it up now,” B said.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d drop the title,” I told him, looking around to include everyone in the room. “By calling me Fr. Osborne, you continually insist on my status as an outsider, a probationer.”
“What would you prefer?” B asked blandly.
“If you generally go by first names, as you seem to, then I’d prefer to be called Jared.”
“Jared’s all right with me,” B said, “but the others will follow their own inclinations.”
“Fine,” I replied, and turned back to Shirin. “Four hundred years ago, when our order was founded to defend the Church against the forces of Reformation, it took on an additional, exceptional mission, little talked about in recent centuries. That mission was to maintain a special vigilance, a special watch. We were to be the first to recognize the Antichrist.”
A dead stillness fell over the room. It was finally broken by Frau Hartmann, who croaked, “Surely you are joking.”