He talked about the SS colonel as much as he talked about Marcus Flavinius, the Roman centurion. He knew by heart the letter which Marcus had written his cousin Tertullus in Rome, where he, Marcus, had heard things were going badly what with moneygrubbings, plots, treasons, sellouts. He, Marcus, wrote:
When we left our native soil, Tertullus, we were told we were going to defend the sacred rights of the empire and of the people to whom we bring our protection and civilization. For this we have not hesitated to shed our blood, to sacrifice our youth and our hopes. We regret nothing. Please tell me the rumors I hear of treachery at home are not true and that our fellow citizens understand us, support us, protect our families as we ourselves protect the might of the Empire.
Should it be otherwise, Tertullus, should we leave our weary bones to bleach on the tracts of the desert in vain, then beware of the anger of the Legions.
Marcus Flavinius
Centurion of the Second
Cohort of the Augusta Legion
SPQR
Anger. That was it! His anger! You were possessed by anger, anger which in the end you turned on yourself. You loved only death because for you what passed for life was really a death-in-life, which has no name and so is worse than death. Is that what you envied the SS colonel, his death’s-head?
Very well, perhaps you were right, but what if you were not? Did you look?
What if there is a sign? What about the Jews? Are the Jews a sign? And if so, a sign of what? Did you overlook something? There were the Romans, the Augusta Legion, yes. There was the Army of Northern Virginia, yes. There was the Africa Korps, yes. But what about the Jews? Did you and the centurion overlook the Jews? What did you make of what happened to them?
What to make, Father, of the Jews?
He smiled again.
What to make, reader, of a rich middle-aged American sitting in a German car, holding a German pistol with which he will in all probability blow out his brains, smiling to himself and looking around old Carolina for the Jews whom he imagined had all disappeared?
Somehow he had got it in his head that all the Jews had either been killed in the Holocaust or had returned to Israel.
The missing Jews were the sign his father had missed!
What would have happened if a bona fide North Carolina Jew had walked up to the car and introduced himself?
Now he was talking aloud to himself: Father, the difference between you and me is that you were so angry you wanted no part of the way this life is and yourself in it and me in it too. You aimed only to make an end and you did. Very well, perhaps you were right. But I aim to find out. There’s the difference. I aim to find out once and for all. I won’t have it otherwise, you settled for too little.
He had waited too long. The chaplain, leaving St. Mark’s, spied him and caught him before he could start the Mercedes.
For a moment he was afraid the chaplain was going to get in the car but he leaned in the window. In the second his head was above the Mercedes there was time to put the Luger under his thigh.
“Will! I’m glad I caught you. I forgot the main thing I wanted to ask you.” He tapped his temple. “The mind is going.”
“Yes?”
“I’m giving a retreat at Montreat next week. It crossed my mind you might come along.”
“A what?”
“A religious retreat. It’s our regular yearly number. And our regular gang. Actually a wonderful bunch of guys. A weekend with God in a wonderful setting. It’s an ecumenical retreat. I’m double-teamed with a Roman Catholic priest from Brooklyn, a real character — he looks so much like Humphrey Bogart everybody calls him Bogey. What a card. They call me Hungry Jack. Hungry Jack and Bogey. Actually we’re not bad together. Incidentally, the food’s first-class. But the important thing’s it’s a weekend with God. That’s the bottom line.”
“Leslie tells me I should do something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Have a personal encounter. Leslie believes she has had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ and has been born again.”
“There you go.”
“There I go what?”
“There are many mansions and so forth. It’s not my gig but if it’s hers, more power to her.”
“What does that mean?”
“Why don’t you come to the retreat and find out. We’ve got all kinds in our gang — Protestants, Catholics, Anglicans, unbelievers, Jews — all wonderful guys, the kind of guys you’d like to spend a weekend with or fishing or just shooting the breeze. We call ourselves the Montreat Mafia. They’re darn good guys and I promise you’d like—”
“Did you say Jews?”
“Yes. Last year we had two Jews. One a judge, the other—”
“What kind of Jews?”
“What do you mean, what kind?”
“I mean were they ethnic Jews or believing Jews?”
“God, I don’t know. I didn’t inquire.”
“Where are they from?”
“Where are they from? One’s from Florida, the other from New York, I think.”
“Yes, it must be.”
“What must be?”
“Nothing.”
“Will you join us?”
“Will you tell me something, Jack?”
“You better believe it.”
“Do you think the Jews are a sign?”
“The Jews?” Again the quick second look. He did say Jews. And he is smiling. Are we kidding?
“Marion thought the Jews, the strange history of the Jews, was a sign of God’s existence. What do you think?”
“Oh wow. With all due respect to Marion, God rest her soul, hopefully we’ve gotten past the idea that God keeps the Jews around suffering to avenge Christ’s death.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant the return of the Jews to the Holy Land. The exodus from North Carolina.”
Then it’s a joke, said the chaplain’s smile. But what’s the joke? Better take out insurance against it not being a joke.
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’m less interested in signs of the apocalypse than in opening a serious dialogue with our Catholic and Jewish friends, and I can tell you we’ve gotten right down to some real boilerplate at Montreat — will you think about it?”
“I just thought about it.”
“We’re leaving here next Thursday, by early afternoon hopefully.”
“I would hope that you would go in hope.”
“Eh?” said the chaplain cocking an ear. “Right. Well, anyway—”
“Do you believe in God?” Will Barrett asked with the same smile.
“How’s that?” asked Jack quickly.
“You know, God.”
In the fading light the chaplain looked at him closely, smiling all the while and narrowing his eyes in an especially understanding way. But Jack Curl wished that Will Barrett would not smile. The chaplain’s main fear was not of being attacked or even martyred — he thought he could handle it — but of being made a fool of. It was one thing to be hauled up before the Grand Inquisitor, scorned, ridiculed, tortured. He could handle that, but suppose one is made the butt of a joke and doesn’t get the joke? He wished Will Barrett, who seldom smiled, would stop smiling.