In a flash Peter recalled his wedding day, the light through the church windows, the cake, the knife, Bea’s dress. Sentimental daydreams, as irreclaimably lost as a bug-eaten Scout uniform tossed in a bin and taken away by garbagemen. He forced himself to think instead of his own house as it was now, surrounded by filth and debris, the interior plunged into darkness, and, half-hidden in those haunted shadows, the shape of a woman he couldn’t recognise. ‘It’s not just that we’re apart,’ he said. ‘Bea’s in trouble. She needs help.’
Lover Five nodded. Her bandaged hand screamed louder than any words of recrimination that there could be no trouble more serious than the trouble she was in. ‘??o,’ she confirmed, ‘you will fulfil the word of Je??u??. Luke: you will leave the nine???y-nine in the wilderne??, and look for the one who i?? lo?????.’
He felt his face redden as the parable found its mark. She must have learned it from Kurtzberg.
‘I’ve talked to the doctors,’ he said wretchedly. ‘They’re going to try their best, for you and for . . . the others. They won’t be able to save your hand, but they might be able to save your life.’
‘I am happy,’ she said. ‘If ??aved.’
He shifted uncomfortably on his perch at the edge of her bed. His left buttock was going numb and his back was getting sore. In a few minutes from now, he would be out of this room and his body would revert to normal, restoring normal blood circulation, pacifying disturbed neurological activity, soothing over-extended muscles, while she was left here to contemplate the rotting of her flesh.
‘Is there anything I can do for you right now?’ he said.
She thought for a few seconds. ‘??ing,’ she said. ‘??ing only with me.’
‘Sing what?’
‘Our ??ong of welcome for Father Pe???er,’ she said. ‘You will go away, I know. Then I hope you will come back, in the ??wee??? by and by. And when you come back, we will ??ing again the ??ame ??ong.’ Without further prelude, she began. ‘Amaaa??iiing graaa??e . . . ’
He joined in at once. His voice, hoarse and muted in speech, found strength when called upon to sing. The acoustics in the intensive care unit were actually better than in his church, where the humid atmosphere and the throng of bodies always dampened the sound; here, in this chilly concrete cavity, with only empty beds, dormant machinery and metal IV stands for company, ‘Amazing Grace’ reverberated rich and clear.
‘Waaaas bliiiind,’ he chanted, ‘but nooooow I seeeee . . . ’
The length of her breaths, even though she shortened them for his sake, made the song last a very long time. He was exhausted by the end.
‘Thank you,’ said Lover Five. ‘You will go now. I will remain alway?? . . . your brother.’
There was no message from Bea.
She was finished with him. She’d given up.
Or maybe . . . maybe she had committed suicide. The state of the world, the loss of Joshua, the loss of her faith, the rift in their marriage . . . these were terrible griefs to bear, and maybe she just hadn’t been able to bear them. As a teenager, she’d been suicidal. He’d almost lost her then, without even knowing she was there to lose.
He opened a fresh page on the Shoot. He must trust that she was still alive, still able to receive his messages. The blank screen loomed so large: so much blankness to envelop whatever meaning he might attempt to put there. He thought of quoting or paraphrasing the bit in 2 Corinthians 5 about the house ‘not made with hands’ that awaits us if our earthly home is destroyed. Sure, it was a Bible quote, but maybe it was relevant in a non-religious context, like BG tapping his own chest to indicate that home wasn’t bricks and mortar, home could be anywhere.
A voice came to him and said, Don’t be stupid.
I’m coming home, he wrote, and that was all.
Having promised that he would return, he was aware that he had no idea how to make it happen. He clicked on the green scarab icon, and the Shoot revealed the three paltry options on his menu: Maintenance (repairs), Admin and Graigner. None of them seemed quite right. He clicked on Admin and wrote:
I’m sorry, but I need to go home. As soon as possible. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back sometime in the future. If so, it would need to be with my wife. I’m not trying to blackmail you, I’m just saying that’s the only way I could do it. Please respond and confirm when I can go. Sincerely, Peter Leigh (Pastor).
He re-read what he had written, deleted everything from I don’t know to the only way I could do it. Too many words, too much explanation. The essential message, the one which demanded action, was simpler than that.
He stood up, stretched. A sharp sting on his leg reminded him of the injury there. The wound was healing well, but the flesh was tight along the suture line. He would always have a scar, and it would occasionally hurt. There were limits to what the miraculous human organism could repair.
His dishdasha, hanging on the washing line, was dry now. The blurry marks of the ink crucifix had been almost obliterated, faded to the palest lilac. The hems were so badly frayed they looked as if they’d been deliberately manufactured that way, as a fluffy frill. ‘You don’t think it’s too girly, do you?’ he recalled Bea saying, when they first took the garment out of its shrinkwrap. Not only did he recall the words, but also the sound of Bea’s voice, the expression in her eyes, the light on the side of her nose: everything. And she’d said: ‘You can be naked underneath. If you want.’ She was his wife. He loved her. Surely somewhere in the universe, allowing for the laws of time and space and relativity, there must be a place where that could still be possible.
‘Imagine you’re in a tiny inflatable dinghy, lost at sea,’ Ella Reinman had suggested to him, during those endless interviews on the tenth floor of the swanky hotel. ‘Far in the distance, there’s a ship; you can’t tell whether it’s moving toward you or away. You know that if you try to stand up and wave, the dinghy will capsize. But if you sit still, nobody will see you and you won’t get rescued. What do you do?’
‘Sit tight.’
‘Are you sure? What if the ship is definitely moving away?’
‘I’d have to live with that.’
‘You’d just sit and watch it go?’
‘I’d pray to God.’
‘What if there was no answer?’
‘There’s always an answer.’
His calmness had impressed them. His refusal to embrace wild, impulsive gestures had helped him make the grade. It was the calmness of the homeless, the calmness of the ?????. Without knowing it, he’d always been an honorary alien.
Now, he was pacing his quarters in a frenzy, an animal trapped in a cage. He needed to be home. Get going, get going, get going. The needle in the vein, the woman saying This will sting some, then blackness. Yes! Come on! Every minute of delay was a torment. Pacing around, he almost tripped on a discarded shoe, seized hold of it, hurled it across the room. Maybe Grainger, in her quarters, was doing the same. Maybe they should go berserk together, share the bourbon. He really wanted a drink.
He checked the Shoot. Nothing. Who was supposed to read his message anyway? Some off-duty engineer or kitchenhand? What kind of a fucking system was this, where there was no one in charge, no one with an office you could barge into, no one you could grab by the shirt? He paced his quarters some more, breathing too heavily. The floor, the ceiling, the window, the furniture, the bed: it was all wrong, wrong, wrong. He thought of Tuska, delivering his Légion étrangère spiel, all that stuff about the weaklings who’d gone crazy, climbing the walls, begging to ‘go ho-ome’. He could still taste Tuska’s sarcasm. Smug bastard!
Eighteen minutes later, on his Shoot, there was an answer from Admin.
Howdy. Forwarded your request to USIC hq. Typical response timelag is 24 hrs (even big shots got to sleep sometimes) but I predict they will say yes. Diplomacywise it might have been good to make some noises about coming back to finish your mission but hey its not my business to tell you how to win friends & influence people. I wasnt scheduled to do my next flight for another month but what the heck Ill make the best of it, maybe get some new tennis shoes, buy an ice cream, visit a steakhouse. Or a whorehouse! Just kidding. Im a fine upstanding pilgrim, you know me. Stand by and Ill give you the word when its time to go. Au reviore, Tuska
As soon as Peter finished reading these words, he leapt up, knocking his chair over, and jumped exultant into the air, clenching his fists like a sportsman granted victory against the odds. He would have yelled Hallelujah, too, if it hadn’t been for the searing spasm that shot through his injured leg. Crying in pain, laughing in relief, he fell to the floor, curled up like a bug, or a thief who’d broken his ankles, or a husband who was clutching his wife’s flesh rather than his own.
Thank you, he breathed, thank you . . . but who was he thanking? He didn’t know. He only knew that thanks were due.