The Godsend of River Grove

by Rob Summers

  Chapter 10 A Severely Troubled Person

  The next morning Hila realized that she still had her key to the church, so since she also needed to finish retrieving her personal possessions, she drove over. She would resign in person if Steve was in the office. Somehow, even in these circumstances, she was not afraid of Steve. He had been understanding toward Elly Montcrieff.

  When she glided in, Steve was behind his desk. He looked up from reading and smiled wearily. “Hi. Are you just late or…?”

  “Resigning,” she said, “and I’ve come to get a few of my things that I missed last night.” She placed her key on his desk.

  “Helen will be a little relieved,” he said. “She always thought you were too beautiful to be my secretary. I guess I can say that now. I’ll miss you, Hila. Uh, if you don’t mind my asking, why did you do it?”

  “Because Fulborne is a legalist, a heretic, and probably a lecher,” she said in a soft, even voice. “Do you want my resignation in writing?”

  “You, uh, actually stole the minutes? No, never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Yes, why don’t you type out something?”

  “I copied them. I apologize. I’ll just dash something off, yes.”

  She sat down at the computer keyboard for the last time and created a short letter, including the line: “I apologize to the entire River Grove congregation and especially to the Fulborne family.” Then she gathered her things and carried the letter to Steve.

  He looked it over. “Yes, that will do.” He thought for a moment. “Would you like to pray with me before you go?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sure I’d start crying if I did that.”

  “Hmm. OK. Will you be attending here?”

  “No, I’ll go to Cora’s church.”

  “I hear good things about them. Would it be all right if I give you a call in a week or two, to see how you’re doing?”

  She agreed to this and thanked him.

  He grinned. “Well, you had us all going. I never once suspected you. And now—I’m going to miss your support, bouncing ideas off you and all that. And the way you never let me feel sorry for myself for long. Well, God bless you, sister.” He extended his hand.

  She shook hands with him. “You too, sir. Goodby.” She went out feeling about three inches high.

  She had plugged the phone back in before leaving and, on returning home after some grocery shopping and a few other errands, found several messages on the answering machine. Of course, her mother wanted her to call. Evan—surprisingly—wanted a date, but it was probably a goodby date. Jane Burson offered prayers and proposed they get together and talk. Several other church members offered sympathy, forgiveness, and prayer—if not understanding. They hoped she would not leave River Grove.

  Kathy Hofrider told her that what she had seen in the hallway at church had been just a Christian brother and sister goofing around, and please not to think she was flirting with Evan. “I came in late and didn’t know yet what you had told everyone,” she said in her message. “I just saw that Evan was down about something, and when they sent him to tell Ollie that he was elected, I tagged along and tried to cheer him up. Please believe me!”

  Hila answered no one but sat glumly taking stock of her situation. She was stuck in Viola until Cora would return in December and now had nothing to do with her time but take care of Eddie, who was in school. Nothing to do, that is, but sound the depths of evil. Oh yes, and clean the house.

  She wanted to go back to Indianapolis. Then she would have lunches in slick, big-city restaurants with her friends Janet and Carla and tell them the whole story, slanting everything to sound humorous. Just a little adventure that had gone sour but nothing to cry about. Her friends would help her to get another secretarial job, and she would soon have a new Christian boyfriend. This time it would be a romance, just like on the covers of the sappy paperbacks that she sometimes looked at in Christian bookstores but never bought. Marriage soon to follow. She would also somehow patch up her quarrel with God and in fact attain a level of spirituality beyond her previous experience. She would no longer be judgmental of others and would be so scrupulous about the slightest hint of deception as to warm the heart of her tall, blue eyed husband. Right. Maybe in December.

  She became aware of a tightness in her chest. What now, physical problems?

  Tell my Beloved, that as I languish, and as He only is my salvation…

  She thought she might use November to discover what exactly had happened at River Grove. Why had the congregation allowed Ollie back in? For that matter, why had he wanted back in? That was a question she had never considered. How could Ollie honestly believe that he was good for the church? What would he say if asked? Why not ask him? If you want to find out about evil, why not go to the most evil person available? That was ridiculous. But it was a thought hard to put aside. After all, her reputation at River Grove was no longer a consideration; it could hardly be lower if Jane Burson’s darkest imaginings were proved true. So face the monster. But not both monsters, not Ollie and Betty together.

  She pulled from her purse the latest church bulletin and confirmed that a deaconesses’ meeting would take place Tuesday evening. Well, she had not intended to go to any more Tuesday singles meetings anyway. As a new deaconess, Betty would not dream of missing the meeting at church, and so Hila would be clear to visit Ollie. No, that was too scary. Well, maybe.

  Evan settled deeper into one of the two easy chairs in his living room and turned to Hila, who was in the other. “I can understand that you’d quit as secretary, but leave the church? Why do that?”

  “There’s no reason for me to stay,” she said blandly.

  When she pretended to be so perfectly knowledgeable and self-sufficient, he was torn two ways. He wanted to change her, but he did not want her to change. On one level he longed for a woman who would look to him for answers; on another he liked her act and wanted more of it.

  “No, now wait a minute, isn’t there reason? Don’t you need counseling, pastoring, support? You admit you did wrong. Well, the Christian community is here to help people who are repentant.”

  She considered this. “I’ll find Christians to do that.”

  “At Cora’s church? With the faith healers and tongues speakers?” He leaned forward earnestly, elbows on knees. “OK, maybe they can do you some good, but you can’t run from church to church every time things get rough. You need to settle in one church body and receive the blessing that comes from that.”

  “A mixed blessing,” she said in a low voice.

  “What?”

  “Evan, what sort of blessing? From who? Steve is a good man but he won’t be pastor much longer. As for the elders, which one of them is able to counsel me? They voted Ollie in: does that indicate spiritual maturity? Bad as I am, I’m not that blind, so maybe I should be counseling them.”

  Evan could not stay seated but walked to the window and stared at his own dim reflection. Outside it was full dark, so that only a few lights from across the street showed through the glass.

  “You’re too proud,” he said.

  “Or just accurate. Does accuracy make me proud?”

  “Proud enough to run away from those in spiritual authority over you,” he said turning back to her.

  She laughed. “Oh, Evan, sit down. Those elders are not in spiritual authority over me. I didn’t start attending River Grove again to put myself under anyone’s authority, remember? I sneaked in as a spy.”

  “Well, where is the spiritual authority in your life, then?” She pointed a finger toward the ceiling. “Just God and you? A church unto yourself?”

  “I didn’t say that. Until August I had Pastor Dunbarrow at my church in Indianapolis. But you know that pastors don’t have much time. My real help was my network of Christian friends there, some from my church and some from other churches.”

  Actually, Evan had not observ
ed that Hila had any close friends other than her brother and Cora Pelham. She was not in the habit of allowing people to get close enough to either criticize her or sympathize with her. Furthermore, she had told him recently that her phone calls to and from her Indianapolis ‘friends’ had already died off. Still, such as they were, these had been her Christian support, so he supposed her claim about them was not a total lie.

  “But you belong to River Grove,” he said.

  “Do I? Yes, I suppose I’m still on the membership rolls. But I don’t belong in any real sense.”

  He sat down again and absently tugged at some loose threads in the chair arm. “That’s all too true. You refuse to commit. Actually, you’re a sort of renegade.”

  “Renegade—I like that,” she said smiling.

  “No, Hila, I don’t mean it in a nice way. The fact is you’re in trouble because you’ve cut yourself off from the body of Christ.”

  “Oh, then you’re saying I’m not a Christian.”

  He could see that she was teasing him. “No, I mean cut off from other Christians, from the church. And to make matters worse, you think you can justify it.”

  “Evan, I cut myself off from nothing. Are we talking in circles here? These people who get together in a so-called church—meaning the building—well, it’s not their meeting on Sunday and going through certain ceremonies that makes them the church. Even without the building, without the organization, they’re still the church. So as long as I’m around Christians of some sort, I haven’t left the church. As for the River Grove leaders, they have to actually be Christian leaders, and not just have the title, to earn my respect.”

  Evan was alarmed. He had not suspected that Hila’s radical thinking had carried her so far. “That’s—heresy,” he said, and the word seemed to hover between them. He hoped that she would backtrack hurriedly now, but instead she snorted with false merriment.

  “Heresy! Good God, Evan? Heresy?”

  “To call the church nothing.”

  “I didn’t call the church nothing. I was referring to the organization and building. Of course, I didn’t mean literally nothing even of them. I meant they’re nothing much.”

  “That organization that you laugh off comes from God,” he said forcefully.

  “How about the building?” she shot back. When he did not reply at once, she added, “No, I don’t think so. Something from God would at least be all paid for.”

  “The building,” he said, “pertains to the organization. I mean we have to meet somewhere to be an organization.”

  “Not true. There are plenty of organizations where the members don’t all meet together.”

  “But God told us to meet together. It’s in Hebrews.”

  She playfully moved her forefinger back and forth in an arc like the needle of a metronome. “Ping, pong. Ping, pong. Point and counterpoint. Actually, I like debate, but tonight I think there’s no point to it. I’m going to drive back home here in a while, and this will have been our last time together—isn’t that it?” Her face was now serious. “I’ll miss you, Evan, a lot. You’re a good man. But I know you can’t afford a girlfriend who’s, from your point of view, a heretic. Not to even mention what Fulborne would think of you if you kept going out with me now that I’m known.” She began to say something more but stopped herself.

  Evan had not expected this. “You mean you thought I invited you over here to break up with you?”

  “Sure, what else?”

  “Has anyone ever broken up with you?” he could not help asking. “I mean of his own volition?”

  “Uh, not that I can remember.”

  “Well, me neither. I don’t want to lose you, I want to reclaim you.”

  Now she was sitting up straight. “Reclaim? Reclaim the lost heretic? But leaving that aside, you’ve got to give this some serious thought. If you stick with me, it will cost you your job. I mean quickly, mister! Ollie will see to that.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen—”

  “That’s a for sure, Evan. I’m currently number one on his hate list.”

  “Calm down. I was going to say it won’t happen right away, I think. Maybe.” For the first time that evening they were in full eye contact. “Actually, I was going to say that you’d be worth it,” he added.

  She made a small girlish sound. “Thank you.” She looked away, breaking the moment. “But still—and that’s noble, Evan—still you’re going to have to decide if I’m really a marital prospect for you, because I don’t think Christians ought to date unless it’s looking for a marriage partner.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “OK, and you’d have to decide on the assumption that I’m not going to change. I am not going to define the church the way you do, no not ever.” Her cheeks became a little pink. “So why don’t you take a few days to think it over? Can you imagine me as a pastor’s wife? It may help you assess things if I tell you that I intend to visit Ollie tomorrow night. If I don’t back out and turn chicken, I’m going to walk into his house and, so to speak, interview him.”

  “What in the world for? And what about?”

  “It’s hard to explain. I want to know, I’ve got to know, what happened Sunday, why it was that the vote went his way. What could make Christians choose a slave master?—no, now don’t look at me like that; he is a slave master. You’ve never been at River Grove while he’s in command, but I have. I know. Anyway, I’m going to start by asking him why he wanted to make a comeback.”

  “You’re berserk. He won’t even talk to you.”

  “Well, it can’t hurt to ask. And Evan, this is the kind of person I am, so you see there’s no telling what else I might do. Consider that.”

  He felt that this was a warning he could not ignore. Now that Hila was no longer a spy playing a role, he was finding out things about her faster than he could assimilate. Disturbing things. How much more was there to be revealed? Apparently even she did not know what might be next.

  “OK, I’ll think it over,” he said.

  The next evening Hila parked her Buick a half block down from the Fulborne residence and gathered her courage. This was too soon after the vote, she told herself, her emotions were still in an uproar. But it might be a month or more before she could again be sure of finding a night when Betty would be gone and Ollie at home. At any rate, Ollie would probably turn her away at the door. She had to try.

  When he answered the bell, Ollie stared at her through the storm door for several blank seconds, saying nothing.

  “Hi. I’d like to talk to you. May I come in?”

  He made her wait on the doormat while he thought about it, then opened the door and waved her in with his back half-turned to her. “Yeah. Come in and sit down.”

  She had never seen him in a sweatshirt and slippers. It made him look more human and grandfatherly. The living room, in contrast, was frigidly neat, as if each piece of flawless furniture had been placed on the carpet according to precise measurements. Pictures of the relatives, expensively framed, were displayed on shelves in a glass case. As she sat down, she found on a table by her elbow a ceramic figure of a golf club wielding old man. The base of it read ‘World’s Greatest Grandpa.’ Not having been aware that Ollie played golf, she made a polite inquiry. He looked at her as if annoyed and did not answer. On the television the national election returns were being discussed. He picked up the remote and turned it off.

  “Looks like it’ll be Gore,” he grumbled. “He took Florida. Well, young lady, what can I do for you?”

  “You might think that I’ve come only to apologize,” she began. “Really, I have recognized that what I did was wrong; I can’t defend it. But Mr. Fulborne, when I say that I apologize, that still leaves something not settled with me. You don’t have to explain a thing to me, of course, but I would like to ask: why did you want to return to the board?”

  Ollie
thought for a moment and then made a dismissive sound. “Yes, why, considering the slanders I laid myself open to. Pardon me if I say you don’t appear to be very sorry.”

  Hila knew better than to respond to the last statement. “Yes, you got grief from me because of it, and from Jerry Oker. But allowing your name to be nominated seemed worth it to you somehow. I’m not looking for an argument, believe me. Whatever you tell me, I’ll just accept. What draws you to Christian leadership?”

  He fussed with the crease in the leg of his slacks. “The Lord needs men. Until He tells me I’m too old, I’ll take up the burden.” This seemed to Hila no answer at all, and she cast about in her mind for some way to frame the question yet a third time. In the meantime, Ollie added, “To show people the way to God is a greater honor than to have all the kingdoms on earth.”

  Again, true but unhelpful. “I think you’re referring to the decline in membership at church,” Hila said craftily, for she was merely fishing. “Was it that you felt a call to save the church, save it even from possibly having to close its doors?”

  He was nodding before she finished the question. “We’re going to build the numbers back up, you bet. There’s nothing wrong that can’t be fixed if people are willing to work hard enough.”

  She tried not to wince. “And getting more people into the services, that’s the same as showing them the way to God?”

  For a moment she feared that this question—dripping with sarcasm as it was—would offend him, but Ollie accepted it without suspicion, nodding again.

  “And that’s why we’re going to mobilize the troops to knock on doors. I heard that you quit, so you won’t be a part of that. You’re going to miss the biggest move of God at River Grove in many a year.”

  It occurred to Hila that she was getting some rather blank answers, the kind of jargon one could read on a church brochure. But Ollie did not seem the sort who could possibly play stupid. Was this really all there was to him, or was he just being careful not to expose himself?

  “Honey, have you heard me preach?” he added. “I know you have; all the time you were growing up I used to preach every month or two.”

  It was true. Ollie had carried so much weight that he had preached whenever he had wanted to, shouldering out of the pulpit whoever was the current pastor.

  “Don’t call me honey, and yes, I’ve heard you.”

  “Humph. I gave you the gospel from your childhood up, and you give me this. I mean those anonymous mailings. Is that your gratitude? Did you consider, when you were trying to get people to turn against me, what you owe your Maker?”

  “Wait a minute, who are we talking about, you or God?”

  “God and His servant,” he answered directly (and Hila marveled at his inability to reflect). “Maybe the least of His servants, I know, but such as I am. Now I want to know if you feel any movings of repentance in your heart.” He pulled open a drawer in the coffee table beside him and, removing a large Bible, laid it on the table. She was involuntarily reminded of a poker playing cowboy laying a pistol on the table. “Because I want to pray with you. We can get down on our knees here and now, and you can have it out with God.”

  They looked at each other for a moment while she fought back a smile and then lost to it. She could not help but think, and marvel, that this approach had won Ollie many a follower. ‘I led her back to the Lord,’ Ollie would report the next day. ‘I wept with her, and I believe she repented from the heart.’

  “Mr. Fulborne, I promised to listen quietly to you, but I meant while I asked a few questions. I didn’t come here to be pastored by you.”

  “Take advantage of it anyway,” he said. “You’ve got a need, and Jesus is waiting.”

  “But really, Ollie, if you’re going to act like this, you can hardly expect me to keep my composure. I’ll have to leave.”

  “You’re composure is the root of the problem, that and your vanity. A little old fashioned trembling before God and a few real tears are what you need.”

  Despite Ollie’s attempts to coerce her, Hila was surprised to find herself feeling every minute more secure and light hearted. He was just so blind! As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she leaned forward and picked up his Bible. She turned to Matthew’s twenty-third chapter and read aloud with unction. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” She kept the book on her lap and fixed him with a look.

  And Ollie crumbled! His chin began to quiver and he could not meet her eye. “And what—what right have you got to take my, my Bible like that?” he said. “Give it back, miss, give it back and get out of here.”

  “Answer me first,” she said with a voice like a Valkyrie. “Why did you want back in power?”

  “To stop people like you!” he said, looking back at her for an instant.

  “Free people?”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?”

  He gestured toward the book. “It says in there.”

  “It says in here,” she said without looking down, “that ‘he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit.’”

  His eyes opened wide behind his glasses. “It says that, does it? Well, I—I—”

  “Sure does. And Paul wrote that it was because of envy—said that those phonies who didn’t want to be persecuted for the cross of Christ nevertheless envied the real Christians and tried to enslave them. Those they couldn’t enslave they persecuted. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Ollie of course did not say that was it. “The devil can quote scripture, missy. You have no more right to—to read from that Bible than to—” He could not seem to finish.

  She tried to hand the Bible back to him, but he did not raise his hand to take it. She laid it on the coffee table.

  “I’ll be going now.”

  The old man politely accompanied her to the door as if their little scene had not taken place, but he would no longer look at her or say anything. In a minute she was in her car and driving away.

  That same evening Jane Burson took Kathy Hofrider to Evan’s house, arriving early to help get ready for the singles meeting. The getting ready did not include anything much having to do with food for, to Jane’s annoyance, Evan had the snacks prepared. It did mean that Jane cleared up clutter around the house, vacuumed, and dusted, while Kathy stood by with a dust rag in hand and chatted with Evan. This bothered Jane, who had noticed that these two often talked and laughed together easily. Jane never laughed with Evan, and when they talked he did not seem to enjoy himself. While in the midst of some story about herself, and while making it as interesting as possible by omitting no smallest detail, she would detect signs of impatience in him. His attention was polite but cool. She was still analyzing this. She could well understand that he had preferred the company of a beauty like Hila Grant, but what was there to Kathy? Kathy had something, and whatever it was, it often resulted in Evan’s standing close to her and looking directly into her eyes, as he was doing now. Jane could stand it no longer; she stopped gathering stray magazines from the floor and went over to join their fun.

  Kathy was saying, “Maybe in a few weeks she’ll come back, when she’s less embarrassed.”

  Evan shook his head. “I don’t think so. From the way she talked she never took River Grove seriously as a church. She feels like we have nothing to offer her.”

  Kathy wrinkled her forehead at this. “Then what was she doing here? Evan, I don’t want her to leave, and besides, what is this going to do to your relationship?” She shook her head sadly. “But you said you’re still dating?”

  “She’s open to it. But she’s asked me to think it over because she’s—well, she said she’s not going to change.”

  “Good for her. She should be her own person.”

 
“But she’s a severely troubled person,” Jane put in.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Kathy said lightly. “What are you going to do, Evan?”

  Evan looked pained. “It’s a rough one. Her theology of the church is all twisted to the point that she doesn’t acknowledge anyone’s authority over her. That’s how she could do what she did to Ollie. She’s in radical rebellion and I can’t countenance that.”

  Jane would have liked to remind them about her dark spiritual impressions concerning Hila, but she held back, first because they seldom accepted such talk—Kathy in particular had a habit of laughing off all her grim prophecies in a way that offended Jane terribly. Secondly, whatever Evan might mean by ‘radical’—and Jane had only a dim idea—it sounded like the sort of conversational thread that should not be interrupted. He seemed to be working himself up to the point of declaring that he would not date Hila anymore.

  “Certain things have to be done to protect Christian fellowship,” he was saying. “I mean, what if she came here tonight, talking down Ollie, who’s one of our leaders again now, or maybe even advising people not to attend River Grove? There’s a limit, a dividing line, and Hila has crossed it.” Jane nodded with a sober expression. “And what I have to ask myself,” he went on while taking a few steps across the room and picking up his Bible, “is whether I can in good conscience go on dating someone who will not acknowledge the church.”

  “She acknowledges the church,” said Kathy. “I’ve had lunch with her a few times, and she told me about this great church called Norton Woods she went to in Indianapolis. It sounded like an on-fire place. Lots of young people, and outreach to the community, and good, sound teaching.”

  Evan gestured with his Bible. “But she won’t acknowledge the authority of the River Grove leadership, and she’s a member! I tried to direct her to Hebrews here,” he opened to the page, “but she wasn’t having any of it. Nothing burns me like that, when someone promotes disorder. You know that anything can happen when everybody becomes his own authority; like saying, ‘I’ll be under this church as long as I like the leaders and programs.’ That can tear a church to pieces.”

  Kathy hooted. “It preaches, brother! Amen, it preaches!”

  Evan smiled. “Getting a little over-excited, am I?”

  “Over one skinny blonde? I’d say so. Looks to me like she’s bounced off of River Grove harmlessly. Me, I feel sorry for her. She got all concerned about Fulborne, never told anybody what she was up to, and ended up looking like a perfect jerkette in front of everybody. But you know, I can’t forget that she didn’t have to tell what she’d done. That took guts for her to stand in front of the church and admit it.”

  “She’s deeply disturbed,” Jane said, but both of them ignored her.

  “Yes, it did,” Evan said. “Guts but not much conscience. I don’t know why she finally told her secret, but she has no deep remorse about it. Sometimes she’s just so cold she’s like an alien.”

  “I don’t think you two should break up over this,” Kathy said abruptly. “I mean, what’s the problem? She’s a Christian, you’re a Christian. So make it work.”

  “No, I can’t encourage her in any way to think her ideas are acceptable. It would be bad for her, and it might be bad for me. I mean, I don’t know that I wouldn’t be affected eventually by all her cynicism. What’s funny?”

  Kathy was glowing with hilarity. “I heard this comic song on the radio once where an Amish father was warning his son not to get entangled with a Mennonite girl. You know, she’d tempt him to ride in a car or something. Evan, come on! Don’t you think you’re overdoing the purity thing? That wicked devil woman!” Kathy practically danced in place as she spoke. “The heartless she-fiend used her charms to lure the young pastor into denying church authority! From there, the road to hell was short.”

  Evan had to laugh with her. “Maybe it does sound melodramatic.”

  “But we don’t know the whole story on Hila,” Jane put in. “How did she really live in Indianapolis? What does she do on Thursday nights there even now?”

  “All I know,” he said, “is that if I do go on dating her it will be against my conscience.”

  “That’s a warning,” Jane said more forcefully. “The Lord is telling you something.”

  “Is telling me what?” Evan said, finally turning to her exasperatedly. “I know you think she’s been into everything from voodoo to overdue library books. Only you don’t have a stick of evidence about any of it.”

  Jane’s lips quivered but she held her ground. “Are you going to keep on dating her?”

  Evan considered. “I guess I am.”

  “Against your conscience?”

  He smiled sheepishly.

  “You shouldn’t, not just because she looks like a model. Kathy, tell him.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Kathy as she playfully tapped the tip of Jane’s nose. “I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with Hila that a little love won’t fix.”

  Jane retreated to the magazines and resumed her work, talking to them over her shoulder. “You’re both going to see someday that I was right. No one can give me the kind of vibes that Hila does and not be involved in something awful.” Evan and Kathy exchanged such looks as to increase Jane’s burning resentment. “Of course she needs love and understanding, but not acceptance—not dating, Evan.”

  She straightened up the stack in front of her with exaggerated motions. It was beyond all endurance that, even after leaving the church in disgrace, Hila Grant was still winning. Hila did not need to cook, did not need to be a good Christian, did not even need to put forth effort! Jane labored in her heart to wish Hila merely on the other side of the world and not dead. Oh, but a woman who did not seem to want children! And little as Jane understood of the issues debated by Hila and Evan, she at least knew that Hila was no admirer of the River Grove leaders, while Jane admired them almost unconsciously. She wondered if Hila was some sort of feminist. Probably she wanted to be a pastor herself in one of the liberal denominations. Now that would drive Evan away from her. That would break the spell.

  Hila spent the rest of the evening, and days afterward, assimilating what had happened at Ollie’s house. Her immediate reaction was shame for having verbally attacked an old man—but then again, might it be called self-defense? Beyond that, she was surprised at how little there was to him behind his façade. It seemed that no one was less likely to be able to explain evil than Oliver Fulborne. Motivated by plain fear, envy, and pride, he plugged away in the ranks of darkness without any clear notion of what he was accomplishing. ‘To stop people like you!’ he had said. Just that. Like a soldier who knows only to shoot at the enemy in front of him and has no idea of the disposition of the armies as a whole or even what the war is about. He had only the good guy/bad guy mentality of a little boy, and that was what he had seemed to her when she had challenged him on his hypocrisy, a bewildered little boy, completely out of his depth.

  She had imagined him as possessing self-awareness, but he had none. When she had held up a mirror to him, it had left him practically gibbering. How differently would the Ollie of her preconceptions have behaved! That Ollie would have turned aside her accusations with Mephistophelian sophistries, armoring every point of weakness, challenging her to bring forth absolute proofs which she had not; and all with a mocking smile. The real Ollie she had floored with a feather duster! He had trembled under her righteous glare like some nerd being turned down for a date.

  But that was the problem. She had once read a comic book in which the super heroes, after defeating what they had thought was the evil villain, had discovered it was just a robot in his likeness. She felt that way now. She had pushed over a cardboard cutout. So where was the real mastermind? She did not even know how to put the question, since she was not necessarily looking for a person. The River Grovers had succumbed to a weak ignoramus, had pushed hi
m aside for a bit, and now had invited him back to be their king again. The explanation for this behavior could not be found in any masterful maneuverings of his, for he was not man enough to lead a pack of cub scouts out of the woods. Why did they want him?

  One morning a few days after her visit to him, she was pondering all this while vacuuming the living room and was remembering that Ollie had many times levered pastors out of the River Grove pulpit. She wondered why all of these men had lost their battles with him. The one Ollie had booted most recently was Alan Cerf, who had left not long before Ollie’s debacle in the fall of ninety-eight. She wondered if anyone knew where Cerf was now. Jane would know. She turned off the vacuum with the carpet half done and went for her coat and purse.

  The department store where Jane worked included that sort of cafeteria which is frequented heavily by the store employees, because of the convenience, and lightly by experienced customers, because of the food. Hila found Jane sitting isolated in a corner booth, passing her lunchtime with a paperback novel while dawdling over the daily special of hotdog and potato salad. Rather than asking to join her, Hila simply sat down on the opposite bench. When Jane looked up, her face slowly altered until she looked as if she might cry.

  “Hila,” she said softly, as if that name summed up all the woe in the world.

  “Hello, Jane. Thanks for calling and leaving that message for me Monday morning. You said you wanted to get together.”

  Jane put the book down, revealing the title Love’s Silent Longing. Pictured on the cover was a lovely woman in pioneer dress, looking dreamily away, while seen over her shoulder was a handsome military officer, with an oddly modern haircut, who stared at her appreciatively. Hila liked the look of these two, obviously sensible and stalwart persons, and wondered for a moment why they were so silent about their longing. And here sat Jane, silent too about her love, but not silent enough on other subjects. Hila decided not to comment on the book for fear of being told its plot.

  “Yes, I asked you,” Jane said. “I thought maybe we should pray together—after what happened.”

  “I would like to talk. I’m still perplexed about how the vote went Sunday night. For my own peace of mind I’m trying to figure out why people wanted Ollie back. Of course, I don’t know what the percentage was, but still.”

  “It was eighty-eight percent,” Jane supplied. “People say that’s pretty low when you have a unanimous recommendation from the elder board.”

  “But how did you come to know that? They weren’t announcing the numbers to anyone.”

  “Tom Bissell told Carol and she told Dana and she told me.”

  “Oh.” Hila let it sink in. “Eighty-eight percent. Good golly, that’s nine out of ten. I just don’t understand how anyone—but I’m not commenting on you, Jane. It’s none of my business how you voted.”

  “I voted for him,” Jane said. “Aren’t you going to have something to eat?”

  Hila surveyed the crumpled and stale-looking hot dog bun on Jane’s plate and shook her head. “Jane, why? Didn’t you see what he wrote in his diary? He said he can break almost all the commandments, sin to his heart’s content, and still be all right.”

  Jane still looked miserable but she answered doggedly. “Look, I don’t try to figure out those things. I leave that up to the church leaders, and they said OK, so the diary must not mean what you think.”

  Hila was appalled. “It’s not what I think, it’s what you think. What did you think when you read that page?”

  Jane looked at her blankly. “Not to—to decide too quickly. To wait and see what Pastor Steve would say.”

  “Oh, Jane, what do you have a mind for?” Hila scolded. “And you know the Bible so well.”

  Jane answered quaveringly. “That doesn’t make me a scholar to interpret it, does it? What do you expect me to do? Be smarter than the pastor? Read all those books in his study and understand them? I’ve got to trust what the leaders say or where am I?”

  Hearing this, Hila relented within herself. Not that Jane had an ounce of excuse for giving up her judgment to others, but it was obvious that she was beyond argument and pitiably so. For form’s sake she pointed out that, because pastors disagree on theological issues, it is up to the layperson to be informed enough to weigh opinions. Jane heard this sullenly and did not budge.

  Hila decided to bridge to her next subject. “Suppose, for example, that your old pastor, Alan Cerf, had taught the pre-tribulational rapture and then Steve came in and taught post-trib? How could you choose between them?”

  Hila knew from what had already been said that Jane would do no choosing in such a situation but would passively ride the transition to the next man, and then the next, with scarcely a twinge of discomfort, always completely agreeing with her present pastor, at least as much as she thought about such things at all. The disputed points were, after all, of no real concern to Jane.

  “I’d listen to what the new pastor had to say and compare them,” Jane said, striving for a right answer but not a true one.

  “Well, I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to argue.” Hila lightened her tone. “Whatever happened to Pastor Cerf, by the way? I think he went from here to some Baptist church in Vincennes, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did. Hila, I have something I want to say to you.”

  This was unfortunate. Besides dreading another gnawing session, Hila saw the conversation about to veer away from Alan Cerf. She decided to ignore Jane’s last statement. “I suppose he’s still there? In Vincennes I mean.” She knew he was not, for her mother had told her so; but Anna Ellen had been unable to remember where Alan and his family had gone next.

  “No, he isn’t. He’s pastoring the Little Church of the Rock over at Brainton. Hila, there’s something I want to say.”

  Gnaw, gnaw. Hila raised a palm. “The last time I saw you this worked up was on the back porch at Evan’s when we were not very nice to each other.”

  “You called me vicious.”

  This puzzled Hila for a moment; then she suppressed a smile. “Jane, I even spelled out the word for you. I said ‘officious.’ It means meddlesome. Of course, I also called you an idiot, for which I apologize.”

  “You apologize too easily,” Jane said. “How much do you really mean it? Where’s your remorse?” Hila did not attempt to answer this, but looked away with a sigh. “You just sit there looking so smug and self-satisfied. But there’s a reckoning for everyone. The scripture says, ‘Your sin will find you out.’”

  “But will you find out my sin?” Hila smirked. “I can’t make you believe it, but I’ve never been in a cult or done drugs.”

  “I never said you had!” Jane’s small eyes were popping. “But I was right, wasn’t I, when I said I knew you were up to something? And now you’ve admitted it yourself. That’s what I mean to say to you: it’s plain that you’ve abandoned the standards of Biblical womanhood. If you—”

  “Uh, Jane? I have to go now.”

  “Yes, go! Run away again.” Jane was almost standing in the booth, but the table top restrained her. “But hear me out on one thing. You think I don’t care about you, because you judge me by your own standard. You are so wrong, I’ve prayed for you so many times. And what I prayed—” Jane caught her breath “—is that you’d really surrender to the Lord and be true to yourself. You’re twenty-nine, you could have married a long time ago. No, don’t leave yet. Listen to me, you’ve betrayed….”

  Hila had been walking away but whirled around with a sharpened expression. “Betrayed who?”

  Jane was disconcerted. “Why, yourself—womanhood. Don’t you even want children?”

  “Children?” Hila exhaled in perplexity. “What in the world?”

  “You go around playing with guys’ minds, but you don’t settle down and marry. You just ruin them for—for other people.”

  Hila put down her purse and put on the coat she had ov
er her arm. “Oh, is that it?” She picked up her purse again. “Evan’s not ruined.”

  This had been a complete miss on Jane’s part. Hila knew how many hearts she had intended to break in her life; that is, none; and so did not greatly concern herself about the young men who had wrecked on her shoals. At any rate, there had been no suicides yet.

  “What will you do when you’re old?” Jane said, following her a step or two. “You could end up all lonely.”

  Hila firmly broke away and left the store. In the parking lot she sat in her car feeling drained. Little as she respected Jane’s opinions, she could not but be affected by such extended gnawing. Worse, like a lucky novice in fencing, Jane had managed a touch, and more than a touch, when she had mentioned betrayal.

  The two months that Hila had carried on her surreptitious campaign against Ollie had been the longest period of deceit in her life, and now she was beginning to truly feel the shame of it, now that the excitement and purpose were gone. She vaguely felt that she had betrayed someone or something, and it was only a short step for a Christian who knew her Bible well to the remembrance that all sin is primarily sin against God. She sat in the car, not trusting herself to drive, looked up at the gray afternoon sky, and felt her cheeks glow. She had lied. She had lied and lied.

  All in God’s cause, of course. She would never have lied that much for her own sake. She had never intended to lie outright at all. But the face she had brought to River Grove had been someone else’s, and she had weighed all her words and actions to make sure they had suited her role. Well, what of that? People had done worse things, she told herself. She was feeling miserable for no good reason. She had confessed her sins to man and God and could expect mercy from the Throne.

  She started her car and drove across the lot, aiming for the highway. Suddenly, she hit the brakes and then slowly pulled into another parking spot. She threw it into park. With no one watching, she clenched her teeth and pounded her knees while anger erupted inside her. No! Absolutely nothing could excuse God or absolve Him for what He had done. No explanation was possible, or wanted. No betrayal, either, was possible of a God like that. If He, the Judge, was guilty of such criminal neglect of His people, then what could be said against criminals brought before Him? Let them go free! —and not because of grace, either, but because the basis for judgment was missing. Betray Him! She might as well say that she had betrayed the principles of a lunatic. Lie! Who had lied to her first, saying such things as that He would protect His flock?

  And all the time she thought these things, which was some fifteen minutes, she knew it for a passing blast of emotion; knew that she would soon return to excusing Him and even loving Him; that what she was doing was justifying herself at His expense, and that could not go on. Sure enough, it passed. She backed the car out and started off again.

  Maybe there was something to what Jane had said. Maybe she just needed to get married and then, with a husband and children to think about, she would not take the decline of a church so very seriously. Who was she, anyway, to watch over River Grove Church like some over-zealous angel—officious even! —and try to steer it one way or another? Maybe she should concentrate on her own soul, which needed consideration enough, and forget about the big picture. Even to try to understand what had gone wrong might be presumptuous.

  On the other hand, she did now have the name of Alan Cerf’s town and church.