“Thanks, Mrs. Wilson. You’re quite right.”
“Clara is jist tearin’ up the countryside, Mr. Miller, and now Ben Wosznik he’s helpin’ her, you remember Ben. Oh, the most terrible thing! Last Friday, the very day they crucified Christ Jesus, why, a whole buncha men come and beat up poor Ben, yes, that there Mr. Cavanaugh and Mr. Bonali and a whole buncha them fellas. And they drug poor Mary Harlowe right outa her own house and like to kidnap her little children, it was jist awful! They come to the Halls’ place, too, I seen them, but Mabel she didn’t let them in, and that’s jist a good thing she didn’t! And now Ben and Clara, why, they’re lookin’ for more folks to come next weekend and Clara she’s very optimistic. Of course, you know how she is, Mr. Miller. And that Palmers boy, he’s got seven or eight new members somewheres, though of course them young ones hardly ever stays on.”
All good stuff. Miller gets more details on the Common Sense visits, then he tips her, and the woman leaves. Irresistibly, he opens his desk drawer, takes out Jones’ photos. There you are, he says: the Tiger. Look at her face. Jones caught it all. Well, she’s mad, he tells himself, and it was she, staking too much on a thin fantasy, who broke herself; he was little more than the accidental instrument … his audience, however, remains unconvinced. Conscience, he knows, is merely instinct socialized into guilt— Can one, knowing this, still fall prey to it? Yes, concludes this man much given to this sort of theorizing, another flaw in the evolution of mind. He dumps the photos back in the drawer, realizing the whole thing is starting to make him sick.
Then, like an act of grace, there appears in his morning mail, a black-bordered envelope.
One day during the Last Judgment proceedings, there appeared before the Judge a prophet and his beautiful sister. Aha! said the Judge to the prophet: I believe I know you! Yes, smiled the prophet with modest pride: I foretold your coming. How could you have done such a thing, asked the Judge: when I didn’t even know myself? Perhaps there is another, replied the prophet with a sly inscrutable wink over the Judge’s shoulder: yet greater than either of us. Hmmm, said the Judge, considering that: yet it seems improbable. What is probability in a universe such as ours? asked the prophet. I don’t know, I guess I was just a born skeptic, said the Judge with a wry knowing smile: But now what am I to do with you? I suppose you want to go to Heaven. Well, uh, no, Your Honor, replied the prophet: if you don’t mind, I’d rather like — hee hee — to be put in charge of Hell. Hah! good boy! said the Judge: It’s done! When, however, the Supreme Judge asked the prophet’s sister, whose beauty might have weakened any lesser Judge, she opted for Heaven.
— And why do you wish to be admitted to Heaven, my dear?
— Because I am afraid to be where you are not.
— But you can never be where I am.
— Because … because I believe in you.
— And if I do not believe in myself?
— Because you are perfect.
— What is your imperfection?
— Because you are beautiful.
— You, too, are beautiful. Where is the reason?
— Because, then, because I need you.
— Your need is a burden, inappropriate in Heaven.
— Because I find fullness only with you.
— What do you lack?
— Because … because I love you.
— In Heaven, there are no transitive verbs.
— Then because I shall cry if you do not admit me!
— Your tears, my sweet, shall water Hell.
The next supplicant, a virgin who shall here be otherwise nameless, was brought before the Judge. Her virginity, of course, was not a possession (the Judgment itself made property an absurd contradiction), but rather of the essence, a thing happily forever renewable, if in fact with use it ever aged.
— And why do you wish to be admitted to Heaven?
— What is Heaven?
— Why, Heaven is where I am.
— And where are you?
— I have said.
— And so have I.
The Judge smiled and because, to tell the truth, there had never been a Heaven before, the Judge and the virgin forthwith created one and had a Hell of a good time doing it….
But when he calls her, he finds her cold and indifferent, as though she might be resenting having sent him what she did, and it takes him awhile, but after all, in the end, they both have a fear of Hell, and she says finally, “Okay, Tiger. You’re the Judge.” And, somehow, they’re both able to laugh.
Midmorning finds Eleanor Norton stopped dead in her tracks downtown at the corner of Third and Main. She has been wandering absently through the bright town, shocked that others use light without perceiving what they use, and has arrived now at this corner where suddenly everything seems incredibly strange. People pass and their stares prove her corporeal existence, and yet it is as though …
Don’t you see, dear Elan? You have passed through!
Ah! But, but who are you?
You know me and yet you do not know me.
Domiron!
I have come briefly to bring you hope and renewed assurance. Do not forsake your vision, Elan! do not forsake me!
How could I! But where am I? I seem to be here and yet not here. Am I at the seventh aspect?
No, we have met, let us say, halfway.
Are you — I’ve always wanted to ask — are you the only God?
Perhaps not, Elan, but such is our relationship at this level that that can be thought of as the case.
“Wait!”
Yes?
“I … I love you!”
Your love is known and dear to me. You would never have found me without it, for existence at the seventh aspect is pure love itself, without form, without object, without act.
“How strange! I seem to have known that all along!”
Is that strange?
“And am I worthy?”
Look about you at these staring faces. Do they perceive the light?
“No.”
Do they hear my voice?
“No.”
Do they even wish to? Do they try? Could they even dream of it?
“No.”
Then you have given response to yourself, have witnessed the gulf between you and men. Yet, remember, Elan: every created thing is divine, even these stupid foolish men!
“Yes, yes! God is all that is!”
Therefore, hark ye, Elan! I say to you that a time has been ordained and a time is to come. Time is not, yet a time must end: Stand on high without remorse and look about thee eastward with love!
“I shall!”
You have.
“Never leave me!”
As you love me, Elan, so I love you. Lo! I am with you always!
She returns. The objects solidify, the street hardens. She occurs before their eyes, creates ears for their laughter. She pities them. The dense ones, the lost ones. “I love you all,” she says, then steps forward. Their circle rends to let her pass.