Father Elijah

by Michael D. O'Brien

  “It is clear that you trust nothing and no one.”

  “A perfectly accurate assessment. You are no mean psychologist.”

  “Let us say, for the sake of argument, that this Man who has come back from the dead reaches His hand out to you and says, Come!”

  “I would laugh at him. What right has he to command me?”

  “He offers you life. The landscape is confused and dangerous, a minefield full of contradictory signs. Obey Him and He will lead you to safety.”

  “Why should I trust him? Why should I serve him?”

  “Because He first served you. He gave you His life.”

  “I serve no one.”

  “Yet you are a slave to many things.”

  “What do you mean?” he snapped.

  “You are enslaved to your appetites and your fear. You are addicted to many things.”

  “So, you are like all the rest. You just came here to accuse me!”

  “I know my own heart. I know what a fallen man is, because I am one. I know that if I had been born into your circumstances, I might have become worse than you. Given the circumstances of my life, you might have been a better man than I. That is beside the point. What I ask you to consider is this: no one escapes serving. We are all creatures. We exist in a hierarchical cosmos with a King reigning at its head.”

  “I live in a democracy.”

  “When it suited your purpose, you served a tyranny.”

  “I used them. I used them all.”

  “Did you think you were above them when you served them?”

  “I was above them. I create, remember. I create my realities. I created the impression of servitude in the mind of those who thought they were my masters, when all the while it was I who mastered them.”

  “Does the double agent ever really own himself? Isn’t he owned by two masters, and in your case, many masters? Wasn’t it they who allowed you the illusion of being in charge?”

  “If that were so—I don’t admit it, but if it were so—we used each other. Everyone does it. We all use each other.”

  “You call that a democracy?”

  Smokrev shrugged, “Yes.”

  “The monarchy in which I live has a King at its head. But what a King! A King who died for me. He reigns with His heart split open. Oceans of blood pour from His wounds, century after century. This is a King of such nobility that Love is too small a name for Him.”

  “You wax poetic”, muttered Smokrev. “Stop it. I hate sentimentality.”

  “So do I.”

  “What’s that drivel, then?”

  “The words of a lover speaking of his Beloved.”

  “Beloved, beloved! Ha! To hell with castles and fairies!”

  “He is real. I have seen Him. I have felt His embrace. I have touched His Blood to my own lips.”

  “I cannot abide cannibalism, though I have dabbled in it, merely from curiosity, mind you, not as a habit. There were rituals I attended in London that. . .”

  “Please, Count Smokrev, listen to me. You combat every word of truth with a twist, a sneer, a lie. Why do you do it? Why?”

  “Because I will not serve.”

  “But He is real!”

  “What if he is real! That makes it worse. Why didn’t he rescue me? Why didn’t he let me touch him, see him? Why was I so alone all my life? If he is real, why so?”

  “You were a child who demanded that everyone should serve you. When they would not serve you, you attempted to control them by throwing tantrums. When that did not work, you seized power. When power would not give you love, you destroyed. Can you not stand outside of yourself for a moment and look in? Can you not see?”

  “You just want to make me despise myself as much as you despise me.”

  “The truth is quite the reverse. I do not despise you. You despise yourself far more than I ever could.”

  “Stop!” screeched Smokrev.

  His eyes and lips twisted horribly. He lit another of his Russian cigarettes with a trembling hand.

  “This has gone far enough, priest. You are playing games with my mind.”

  “That is not what I am doing.”

  “What are you doing to me? What are you?”

  “I am a messenger from the Beloved. He says to you, Come!”

  “Do not paint your fantasy murals in my mind. I have had enough of this. I need rest. It’s time for you to go.”

  Elijah stared at him for several seconds, exhaled, and stood up slowly.

  “I am sorry. I have offended you.”

  “Not in the least”, said the count in a strained voice.

  “I ask your pardon. I have been too blunt.”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right”, said Smokrev, calming himself. “I appreciate bluntness in a man.”

  “I will go. I won’t bother you again.”

  “Sit down.”

  “Really, I. . .”

  “Sit down”, he commanded.

  “Do you think we should go on any longer? Perhaps it is futile after all. We are throwing words back and forth at each other. And neither of us accepts the objective reality of the other’s belief.”

  “So passes a pleasant evening”, he said dryly. “I would be watching sumo wrestling on television if it weren’t for you. But I can watch that any time.”

  He rang a handbell on the bedside table. The manservant entered.

  “Where’s my medicine? It’s after nine o’clock.”

  “But sir, you told me not to disturb you while the visitor is. . .”

  “Yes, yes. Well, I didn’t mean it should go as far as this, that I should miss my medicine.”

  The manservant went out and returned immediately with a tray. He sat on the edge of the bed, rolled up Smokrev’s sleeve, talked to him in baby talk, and injected him with a hypodermic needle. Then, the manservant tucked the old man in like an infant and departed.

  “Disgusting, isn’t it?”

  Elijah shook his head.

  “So, the messenger has become a mute.”

  “What good are words if the messenger has no credibility?”

  “You are gambling that at least some of your words will slip through a crack in my armor and wreak havoc with my self-delusions. You are investing your time in a hopeless cause, because it will provide you with some sentimental melancholic pleasure years and years hence, when I am buried. You will suck on your defeat like a rotten candy. You will offer it up to your God.”

  “You project a great deal of yourself onto the world.”

  “I am a realist.”

  “What is a realist by your definition?”

  “He is neither an optimist nor a pessimist.”

  “I agree. A realist is neither an optimist nor a pessimist. He has the courage to look into the abyss of a very dark century and see it for what it is. He sees the victory of light.”

  “Don’t misunderstand me. My realist knows that power shapes the world. He knows that pleasure motivates it. In my ninety some years I have seen nothing that contradicts this.”

  “I have seen an endless stream of events that contradict this.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Am I not myself, this objective flesh, this presence seated before you, a kind of word?”

  “A dream-word that stumbled into my house by accident. It’s a meaningless incident, but amusing.”

  “A few minutes ago you didn’t seem so amused. Did I touch a nerve? If so, what does that nerve say to you about objective reality?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You suffered extreme pain when I mentioned the fact that you do not love yourself.”

  Smokrev’s face soured.

  “If it means anything, it means that I am a realist. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “I think it means that in every person’s soul there is an icon of what he is meant to be. An image of Love is hidden there. Each soul is beloved beyond imagining. Each soul is beautiful in the eyes of God. Our sins and faults,
and those committed against us, bury this original image. We can no longer see ourselves as we really are.”

  “Proceed. I’m listening. I can see the turrets and towers rising in the rosy clouds.”

  “When I touched the place within you where you suffer, when I touched the damage, you felt the agony of the lost image. It was unbearable and you told me to stop.”

  Smokrev stared out the window at the lights of the east shore of the river.

  “You won’t let yourself believe what I am trying to tell you because you are afraid the pain of the lost image would be too much for you to bear.”

  “Then what hope is there for a man like me?”

  “Limitless hope! You needn’t bear the pain alone.”

  “This man on the battlefield who died and came back from the dead. What does he have to say about all that?”

  “He has much to say.”

  “Why doesn’t he come and tell me, if I’m his beloved?” Smokrev smiled sardonically and flicked the embers of his cigarette into the bedside ashtray.

  “He has come to you countless times. But you would not listen. Now, as your life closes, He is sending a human messenger to you. One whom you can see and hear.”

  “What does this messenger have to say then, eh?”

  Elijah felt a surge of interior light.

  “He says, O soul steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet lost. Come to the heart of your God who is love and mercy.”

  Smokrev’s face wrapped itself in its shadows.

  “My son, My little one, listen to the voice of one who loves you.”

  “Love?” said Smokrev, snorting.

  “An everlasting love. An indestructible love.”

  “For me there is no love, no mercy, no peace.”

  “Do not let yourself fall into a deeper darkness. Listen to me Despair is a foretaste of hell. Do not cling to it. This is your rotten candy, your drug. Throw it off!”

  “I will not serve.”

  “He is calling to you. But if you persist in blindness and hardness, what can He do? He will not violate your freedom. Love does not force itself upon you. Listen to Him. He is pouring out a final grace upon you. Open your heart to it. It is a special light by which you can see God’s effort for you. But conversion depends on your own will. This is your final grace. You know it. You know it.”

  “I know nothing.”

  “He is mercy. There is nothing that cannot be forgiven.”

  “And you are the messenger of this point of doctrine?”

  “For better or for worse I am. I have been sent to you.”

  “You have brought yourself to me. You are a sentimentalist.”

  “This is not sentiment. It is life and death.”

  “You are a romantic. Look over there, on the wall above my écritoire. What do you see?”

  “An icon.”

  “Go over there and look at it. Tell me what you see.”

  “I see a Byzantine image of Saint Michael of the Apocalypse.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  “It is a famous prototype of the defeat of Satan. Michael is seated on a horse. He holds the book of the sacred Scriptures in one hand and with that hand he also holds a trumpet, which he is blowing. In his other hand, he holds a spear, which is also the cross. He is thrusting it into Satan, who, in the form of a serpent has coiled himself around the cities of the world.”

  “Mercy extends only so far”, said Smokrev.

  “He too would not serve. His revolt is eternal.”

  “Is there no mercy for him? I have always felt that Lucifer was unjustly maligned.”

  “That is absurd.”

  “He is a myth. He is a symbol of our dark side.”

  “Satan is real.”

  “If so, why not extend a little mercy in his direction? Why is that big bully archangel making Lucifer writhe like an eel on a spear.”

  “To stop him. Didn’t you demand of God, earlier this evening, that He make an end to evil? You cannot have it both ways.”

  Smokrev huffed but said nothing.

  “God’s mercy for mankind is limitless,” Elijah continued, “but He will not permit evil to go on devouring the good forever. That would not be mercy.”

  Smokrev sat himself up in bed. He seemed to have been struck by an inspiration.

  “I have saved the best for last, priest. My confession is not yet complete. You won’t like this part.”

  “You can no longer shake me.”

  “Nothing can shake you?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “You, the messenger of mercy, you promise? Nothing will dislodge you from your merciful stance?”

  “I am a human being. I am flawed like you. If you should succeed in dislodging me from confidence in the mercy of God, proves only that I am a creature. Only God is perfect mercy. I am merely His messenger to you.”

  “We shall see.”

  Elijah looked at him quizzically. Smokrev seemed genuinely delighted.

  “You see that icon of the Apocalypse?”

  “Yes.”

  “I purchased it from Pawel Tarnowski during the war.”

  Startled, Elijah said, “You knew him!”

  “Oh, yes, I knew him. I knew him very well.”

  “You lied to me.”

  “Illusions, smoke, mirrors. Part of the act.”

  “Why did you lie to me?”

  “I foresaw the debate, old boy. I knew the height and depth of this great argument. I knew you would put forth a defense of God.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he insisted, a constriction in his throat.

  “I am the master of this debate. Not you, messenger. Not anyone!”

  After a silence, Elijah asked in a trembling voice, “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “Not so fast. I will tell you later. First, let me say that I have saved this bit of information until the end because it is the masterstroke of my case. You shall prove my case for me.”

  “Where is Pawel Tarnowski?”

  “He is dead.”

  “Of that I was almost certain. But I had hoped. . .”

  “Why is he so important to you?”

  “He risked his life for me. In the end it cost him his life.”

  “He was a benefactor?”

  “Yes, he was my friend.”

  “A companion?”

  “Like an older brother to me.”

  Smokrev cackled.

  “How perfectly delicious! That sly Tarnowski always did have a knack for seducing the prettiest boys.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You know exactly what I’m saying.”

  “I do not.”

  “He was a tapette, every bit as wicked as me. I knew him in Paris in the thirties when he was a ne’er-do-well painter, living like a parasite off rich old lechers. He broke quite a few hearts there, you know. And he enjoyed every minute of it. He sucked his benefactors dry and then threw them away.”

  “That is not the man I knew. He was good.”

  “He was not good. He was a maggot, just like I am a maggot.”

  Before Elijah was able to stop him, Smokrev supplied several more details about the career of the notorious and corrupt Pawel Tarnowski.

  “I know it is a lie. I knew the soul of this man.”

  “It is not a lie. You refuse to see what we really are. Man is a besotted, vicious animal who preys on the weak. You cannot face this fact. You want your rosy castle. I too am a messenger. I bear you tidings from reality!”

  “This is not real”, said Elijah, but he failed to bring his voice under control; his throat ached.

  “You know it is true. Didn’t he take you into his bed? What a pleasure it would have been to observe that. An orthodox Jew boy, as beautiful as you were, a young David plucked from the shepherd’s field, laid out, and despoiled on an old satyr’s bed.”

  “Stop!” cried Elijah.

  Smokrev cackled hysterically, then went on, vomiting d
escriptions, names, places, details of the corruption. Elijah shouted, interrupting the flow of filth.

  “He did nothing to me!”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Not once in my life have I felt a flicker of desire for what you are suggesting. Nor did I ever see anything of the sort in Pawel.”

  “Let us say, for the sake of conjecture, for some bizarre reason that I cannot fathom—impotence perhaps—he refrained from consuming you as he had consumed so many others. If that is indeed the case, it was not for lack of wanting you. He craved you like a pig craves rotten apples. He told me so.”

  The two men stared at each other. For several minutes neither of them spoke. Smokrev lit another cigarette and lay back smiling to himself. Elijah sat as if stunned. His head reeled, his stomach churned with nausea, and he felt like weeping. An invisible darkness seemed to suck all air from the room. He felt a flush of tremor and disorientation. He wished to leap up and flee.

  “I rest my case”, whispered Smokrev, his eyes closed, smiling and smoking, smiling and smoking.

  Resist him, said the voice.

  I cannot, Elijah said to himself. I cannot bear it.

  As if to seal Elijah’s defeat absolutely, Smokrev said, “I killed Pawel Tarnowski.”

  “You?”

  “Of course! It was I who sent him off to the gas chamber. I tried to buy you from him, but he wanted too much money, the pimp. When I refused, he hit me with a cane. So I gave him what he deserved, a meeting with the SS.”

  “You were the bent one.”

  “The what?”

  “He told me about you.”

  “Did he? He told me about you too. In fact I saw you. I can still remember that gangly, half-starved shtetl boy with fringes dangling beneath his coat. Your jet black hair, skin as white as alabaster, lips like the flesh of cherries! Sublime.”

  Elijah looked away.

  “So lean and waiflike and hauntingly gorgeous. David.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “He told me. Your keeper.”

  Elijah’s heart gave way to a sickening rage. He wished to stride over to the bed and slap the man. He wished to find within himself a word or words that would utterly demolish the old dragon’s pride. But there were no such words within him. Only a cloying sense of decay. He felt the entire structure of the universe slide sideways, then pitch in a long, slow collapse into the abyss, which in the end would suck down everything.