The bishops and priests in the front rows, who understand English all too well, glance nervously at each other.
Uplift Master smiles insincerely at McGillicutty, then at the crowd, while trying desperately to collect his thoughts. “The reverend says: Friends, my church across the sea is a big one. A huge one. Yet I’ve never seen as many people of faith as I see here today. And I’m proud that Uplift Master is the one to translate for me. His reputation extends from Maramon to my hometown. That’s who I asked for. Thank you, Uplift Master.”
Uplift Master bows his head modestly. Then he glances at McGillicutty with trepidation, trying to anticipate what might come next. When the man gets going, his mouth opens wide enough to swallow his own head.
“The number of people I need to make amends to, the number of people I led astray,” McGillicutty says, sweeping his hand out, “extends from this side of the crowd to that one.”
Uplift Master’s eyes follow the reverend’s hand, and he sees a woman in the third row keel over, overcome by humidity and the heat; he recognizes Big Ammachi as the first to minister to her, lowering her to the ground, fanning her with her program. And just outside the tent, it appears a child is having a convulsion. Adults cluster around the child.
Uplift Master sweeps his hand like Rory did: “When I look from that side of the river to this side of the river, I think of all the people here in this beautiful land who suffer from rare illness, or cancer, or need heart surgery, and have nowhere to go . . . Well, it troubles me, and I must speak openly about it.”
“I broke my mother’s heart when I lay in carnal knowledge with my own nanny!” the reverend says, clutching his chest. “An innocent country woman. I snuggled at her breast, and yet at thirteen I took advantage of her.”
Uplift Master, barely waiting for Rory to finish, clutches his own chest and says, “If some child is born with a hole in its heart like our Papi’s little child and needs an operation, where can they go?” He’s inventing Papi and child, but it’s in service of the Lord. “That poor boy was ten and bluer than he was brown before Papi raised the money to take him to another state, all the way to Vellore, to the Christian Medical College . . . By then, it was too late!”
Now McGillicutty catches his translator off guard by stepping off the low stage to where all the children sit cross-legged. He grabs one child. The gangly fellow he pulls up is all ears, knees, and elbows and has a gap in his teeth big enough for a tent peg to pass through. Uplift Master recognizes him as an unfortunate, a potten—born deaf and dumb—who always gets a choice place at the very front. Earlier, this boy laughed loudest and was last to stop. Uplift Master sees him at the convention year after year because his parents hope for a miracle. This child has never spoken an intelligible word. What misfortune for the reverend to pick the potten out of all the children!
“When I was a father,” the reverend says, now back onstage with the grinning potten, “I abandoned my own boy, no bigger than this angel. He went hungry. My in-laws had to bring food because I spent my wages on gambling and on women!”
The woman who fainted is carried out. Uplift Master sees Big Ammachi looking directly at him with excitement and anticipation. He says, “Why is it that a child who is seriously ill must travel to Madras and beyond for care? What if help were available here? I’m not talking about a one-room clinic with one doctor, and one cow by the gate. I mean a real hospital, many stories tall, with specialists for the head as well as for the tail and all parts in between. A hospital as good as any in the world. If one white missionary woman, Ida Scudder, God bless her soul, could build a world-class institution in Vellore, in the middle of nowhere, can we Christians in this land of milk and honey not do the same?”
“Only a devil can neglect a child like this to whisky and whoring,” says the reverend, his voice breaking. “But then one day when I was lying in the gutter in Corpus Christi, Texas, the Lord called out to me. He said, ‘Say my name!’ and I said, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’ ”
Uplift Master translates: “Friends, this isn’t the message I meant to preach, but the Lord seems to have brought me all the way here from Body of Christ in Texas and has put these words in my mouth to convey to you. He says, behold the suffering around you! He says, isn’t it time to change it? He asks, do you really need another church? He says, glorify my name with a hospital worthy of me. I hear his voice just as I did so many years ago when I was a broken, sinful man, lying in the gutter, and the Lord appeared to me and called out, ‘Say my name!’ And I said, ‘Yesu, Yesu, Yesu!’ ”
The crowd is deathly quiet. The only sound is the cawing of crows near the food stalls. Rory McGillicutty and Uplift Master wait, both hoping the audience will respond with “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” But call-and-response is simply not the Malayali style. Uplift Master thinks the crowd looks at him without sympathy. They want me to fail. Shoshamma will find this so funny. Only Big Ammachi looks up at him with hope, nodding to encourage him. I’m trying my best, Ammachi! He feels terrible about letting her down.
All at once the potten shatters the silence: he says in the loud, unmodulated voice of the deaf, “Yesu! Yesu! Yesu!”
McGillicutty is lightning quick to put the microphone before the boy’s mouth so that the potten’s “Yesu” reverberates in the tent and beyond. Rory bends down to the boy, dispensing with his translator. “Say it again, son, say, Yesu, Yesu, Yesu!” he shouts.
“Yesu! Yesu! Yesu!” cries the potten, thrilled when his words turn into sound waves that buffet his body. He hears! He speaks! He dances with joy.
There’s a crescendo of murmurs from the crowd as word spreads from front to back, then to the satellite tents and to those standing outside, to the bangle sellers, the beggars, and the daredevil motorcyclists: A potten has just spoken for the first time! A miracle!
“Say it with him, my friends,” McGillicutty yells, his face red with effort, trying to flog life into the docile multitude. “SHOUT from the rooftops: Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” But only the potten heeds him, shouting, “Yesu! Yesu! Yesu!”
“Aah,” Uplift Master says, incensed by this Malayali reticence. “So God just gave voice to the dumb. A miracle! Now, through His messenger, this plavu stump from Body of Christ, Texas, God asks you for a sign of your attentiveness. He asks, are you listening? Are you here to receive the Holy Spirit? To be cleansed and renewed in faith? Or are you embarrassed to call the Lord’s name? Are you here to sight and gossip and see who’s pregnant, and which young man is being proposed for which young lady?” There’s tittering from the children’s section. Uplift Master senses an opportunity and turns to them. “Then you just sit there. Let your children show you what faith and courage look like. Blessed children, please show these adults how it’s done. You saw the courage of one of your own who stands up here. Give him your support! Say, ‘Yesu, Yesu, Yesu!’ ”
Blessed indeed are the children, for they will never pass up sanctioned invitations to show up their parents. They jump to their feet, and hundreds of young voices shout, “Yesu, Yesu, Yesu!” a sound that goes straight to God’s ears. Uplift Master extends his hand, palm up, pointing to the children’s section, while staring at the adults with a meaningful look. Do you see? Then he says, “That’s why Christ said suffer the little children, forbid them not unto me. Now can you say it? Yesu, Yesu, Yesu!”