Gospel (5 page)

She started primping at 5:30. She combed out her often frizzy dark-red hair that the English humidity had made limp and oily looking. Lucy wore a conservative billowy black skirt, her one formal change of clothes, black stockings, and a white blouse; not far, she noticed, from the official
sub fusc
Oxford undergraduate uniform. She timidly checked in at the All Souls porter's lodge, punctually at 6:30. She was given directions to a wood-paneled upstairs room, where only three people had arrived.

Along the walls of this study were trophy cases displaying a variety of eclectic things, including three Nobel prizes, a reverend member's pipe, a wager on parchment written in Latin in the 1500s, a silver chalice, each, Lucy imagined, with its own venerable story to qualify for the cabinet. Elsewhere it was an elegant room of fox-and-hounds pictures, a sword above the fireplace, a long, dark-stained mahogany table loaded down with bottles and glasses, and two wordless servants awaiting the guests' pleasure.

“You must be Miss Dantan,” said Dr. Whitestone, a tall patrician gentleman in a minister's collar, Anglican Vicar of St. Elizabeth's. “John Shaughnesy wrote that you were taking Father Ratchett's place, yes?” He clasped her hand with clammy fingers.

Relieved, she placed herself in his control and he escorted her to meet the guests. Lucy was introduced to a Dominican brother, Father Philip Beaufoix of Montréal and the American University in Cairo. Father Beaufoix was a short, compact man in his sixties, Lucy estimated, with a soft olive face with a large Gallic nose pitted by a life of convivial drink, which made him seem approachable and wise. Beside him was Sister Marie-Berthe, possibly fifty years old, a Josephine Sister from Québec as well, lately of the Sacred Heart Academy in Toulouse, France. Dr. Whitestone went to fetch a tray of liqueurs.

“Bon soir, mademoiselle,”
Father Beaufoix said, bowing, then the next moment wondered, “Dr. Whitestone tells us you are somehow associated with Patrick?”

“I'm from the University of Chicago. One of his … students, you could say.”

“Are you over here,” asked the sister, “assisting Patrick?”

“Well, no.”

“Working on some book of your own perhaps?”

“Uh, no.”

Sister Marie-Berthe glanced anew at Father Beaufoix and suppressed a smile. Oh, Jesus, thought Lucy, they think I'm his
mistress
now.

They moved along. “We're the Canadian contingent tonight,” whispered the sister, in a perfect, nasal English. “Whatever tonight I say, Philip, you will agree with me,
non?
”

“Why should I make an exception tonight?”

The door opened and more Acolytes were admitted. Local scholars mostly, Lucy decided. One gratingly fey man, Dr. Crispin Gribbles, was introduced, a man in his late forties with a mouth that formed white foam at the edges. He was a scholar attached to St. Ann's College and was currently cataloguing the relics at St. Aloysius, the most popular Catholic church, he commenced to tell, for all the foreign students:

“Oh, it's dreadful, Vicar,” Gribbles was saying to Whitestone. “All the Spanish and Italians and French, on their knees,
weeping
—what a show it can be when these foreign-student groups come through. Fifteen, sixteen years old, first time away from home, can't stand our food, can't stand our weather, so they come to St. Aloysius to weep.”

Lucy took a small liqueur glass from the tray. It held a lavender aromatic liquor that seemed to taste of violets. It was called
violette,
explained the sister, a unique libation of Toulouse. “It was my turn this year to bring an aperitif. Each year,” she added, “three of us bring a bottle of something extraordinary, with an ecclesiastical past. Three for the trinity,” she added.

“Which is not a difficult task,” added Father Beaufoix, “since most libation was originated by the Church at one time or another.”

“Once, I recall,” said Dr. Gribbles, “
dear
Patrick O'Hanrahan brought some moonshine from America, claiming we were to sample the wares of born-again Southern Baptists. Typical O'Hanrahan, I must say.”

And speaking of the great man, he had arrived.

Reunited with his companions for this one rare time a year transformed Dr. O'Hanrahan; his blue eyes seemed to be in some afterglow of a dirty joke. He wore a gray crumpled suit with a black tie and Lucy smiled, noting that his top shirt-button had long lost the ability to fasten and the tie was not pulled tight either. Rumpled though he was, what a sight! He hugged his old friends, pinched at Sister Marie-Berthe pantomiming reaching under her habit; his eyes crinkled as he trumpeted his loud war-cry laugh.

Lucy hadn't been detected yet. She was suddenly fearful that he would see her and make a public scene, banishing her from the festivities. Maybe she should defuse the situation by announcing her presence. She crept up on O'Hanrahan, as he and Father Beaufoix were talking:

“Paddy,” said the Dominican, “you know you want to tell me what you're after. Don't tell me you're chasing that worthless
Acts of Stephen
again.
Mon ami,
I have fifteen copies of that lying around in my office in Cairo.”

“No,” said O'Hanrahan, “no such latter-day riff-raff as Stephen for me. Nothing less than one of the Twelve.”

Father Beaufoix laughed in O'Hanrahan's face: “Pooh! You don't believe you have found a real disciple's gospel, do you?”

“You'll read all about it one day, Philip, in the newspapers.”

Father Beaufoix, despite the smiles, suddenly seemed to Lucy to be unpleasantly needling Dr. O'Hanrahan. “You're sure you are really chasing a lost gospel, dear friend, or is this another one of your schemes to bankrupt your department? I suppose, this research trip,” continued the Dominican, patting O'Hanrahan's belly, “just happens to take you to Rome and Paris and every five-star restaurant in between.”

O'Hanrahan mustered a good-natured laugh.

“And in any event,” Father Beaufoix bellowed, without malice, but offensively nonetheless, “who is going to write your book for you? Don't tell me at seventy years old you will make your literary debut,
n'est-ce pas?
”

“You'll excuse me, Philip,” O'Hanrahan said, turning aside to intercept a waiter and his drinks tray but only discovering Lucy.

“Hello again,” she said with a weak smile. “Dr. Shaughnesy worked it out so I could attend.”

“Lucy, wasn't it?” he breathed, with a trace of annoyance.

“Look, if you want me to leave, I'll leave—”

“Yeah, you can leave.”

“I have to say, sir, that attending this banquet would be an unforgettable experience for me.”

“What do you know about theology? Do you have a brain in your head?”

“Well, I
am
a grad student at Chicago.”

“So I take it the answer's
no,
” he brought out.

Lucy justified herself: “I've got a bachelor's in New Testament Studies, a master's in Greek, do a mean Latin, you taught me Hebrew. Those classes you showed up to, I mean—”

“All right, all right, then. Stay.”

The
violette
was followed by a contribution from a Greek Orthodox archimandrite, Father Basilios, who was attached to London University.

“This elixir,” he announced in a stentorian preacher's basso, “is an ouzo made by the monks at the Most Holy Monastery of St. Nikolas, but one in which a peculiar citrus blossom of the slopes of Mt. Athos has been allowed to steep. Enjoy, my friends, enjoy!”

Lucy took another small glass of a passing tray. “What a collection of liquor,” she said politely to Dr. Gribbles.

“If I make it to 2001,” he said, “I've been invited for the Night of the Mallard, where the All Souls Fellows gather around a member who is chosen Lord Mallard, enthrone him, and carry him around the quads and rooftops. Then this highly alcoholic evening is punctuated with a draught of punch including duck's blood as an ingredient.”

“I think I'd pass on that, sir.”

“It's a great honor to attend this, my dear,” he added, already tipsy. “Only happens once a century.”

Lucy noticed that O'Hanrahan had crossed the room to meet an old friend arriving, the Rabbi Mordechai Hersch, raised in Brooklyn as his accent would betray, currently an esteemed scholar at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The rabbi, Lucy observed, may well have been O'Hanrahan's age but looked younger, more rested, with a hawk's glance and a trimmed gray beard he stroked in cogitation. The rabbi and O'Hanrahan reminisced and Lucy gauged the rabbi's New Yorker manner, practiced at nailing down inaccuracy or error or imbecility in ways a Midwesterner might find … gruff. He wore a conservative black suit and a yarmulke, the sole Jewish ecclesiast among the Acolytes this evening.

O'Hanrahan: “Look who we got here, Morey. A spy sent from Chicago to find out what poor old doddering Patrick O'Hanrahan is up to and bring him home.”

The rabbi raised an eyebrow.

O'Hanrahan went on. “She says she'll go away if I tell her the details of our secret mission.”

“No such luck, little girl,” the rabbi said flatly.

Lucy sighed and said it was nice to meet the rabbi nonetheless.

“Charmed,” Rabbi Hersch said indifferently.

There was a hush as it was announced: dinner was served.

Dinner was in the long hall of the Codrington Library. An oak table for twelve guests was laid sumptuously in the middle of the darkened hall, the only illumination being three candelabras. The Codrington had become an eerie vault of shadows against the silent scribes' desks and looming bookshelves. They all were seated, Lucy with Dr. O'Hanrahan to her right and across from Sister Marie-Berthe. A Father Keegan from University College in Dublin had yet to arrive and his place remained empty. A Moslem scholar, Dr. Mehmet Abdullah, sat on Lucy's left. A nondenominational blessing was offered from the Psalms of David.

(Maybe the only safe ground with this bunch.)

“Lord,” Lucy added to herself, as the grace was being said, “allow me not to make a fool out of myself tonight.”

(Why not? Where men and women gather to discuss doctrinal differences and church politics, what would be more in place?)

Dinner commenced. Lucy eagerly sipped the turtle soup and listened in on the professor and the rabbi talking across the banquet table. A servant meanwhile filled Lucy's wineglass with an amontillado. Later, as the
confit
of duck liver arrived with a Pinot Noir, Rabbi Hersch was sidetracked into a spirited discussion of future Jewish settlements in the Christian Quarter of Old Jerusalem.

“I hear now to my horror,” said Dr. Abdullah, to Lucy's left, “that there is a large sentiment among Israelis to tear down the Dome of the Rock and rebuild Solomon and Herod's Temple.”

“Mnyeh, just a fanatical handful,” the rabbi assured him, having spent the last ten minutes berating Shamir and the Likud administration, the new pandering to the religious right wing. “We're talking about a government that has to check with Lubavitchers in Brooklyn in order to fix the potholes on our highways.”

Sister Marie-Berthe spoke up, her Québecois accent loosened with the wine, “I wish they
would
knock down the Holy Sepulcher,” she began, determined to stir the archimandrite. “It's a tasteless shambles, all the Christians ever do is to fight over who owns whatever dusty corner of it. Your Greek friends, Father Basilios, do not help matters. I think al-Hakim had the right idea,” she added to the amusement of Dr. Abdullah.

“Dr. O'Hanrahan,” murmured Lucy, “who was al-Hakim?”

“I'm not here to correct your many ignorances. Go look it up.”

Venison followed with cranberries and a light gravy, with native English vegetables, swedes, brussel sprouts, and roasted parsnips, brought around by servants for the diners to spoon from silver trays onto their own plates. This was accompanied by a strong Rhône wine with the aroma of the oaken cask.

“What's this?” Lucy asked, nudging O'Hanrahan, holding a piece of swede aloft on her fork.

“After you look up al-Hakim, you can look up vegetables. It's under
V.
”

The “pudding course” followed and Lucy was surprised to see a rich chocolate cake produced instead of what Americans take to be a pudding. Following that, cheese and crackers—“biscuits”—were put out as well as Bibles, many versions, in many languages for the upcoming discussion. Finally, a last pass by the servants produced decanters of port, madeira, sherry, sauterne, Beaumes de Venise. Lucy felt her unfocused glance wander and slide about their intended objects, and she knew she had consumed too much. She kept drinking water, determined not to belie her apparent sobriety.

“Here here,” said the archimandrite, banging a gavel, ready to begin the discussion. “St. Paul, as you all know, is our topic tonight. Let us hope that it provides the rancor as did our topic last year, Shi'ite versus Sunni Islam.”

Everyone laughed remembering what an acrid evening that had been, considering mostly disinterested Christians were arguing. The archimandrite asked for tolerance, open-mindedness, good humor, and reverence for the scriptures as well as the beliefs of one's fellow Acolytes. Lucy gathered this was a traditional statement of the ground rules. Then a toast followed. Lucy used her water glass and O'Hanrahan sneered to his side, “You're no apostle of mine, that's for sure.”

“Let us start,” said Father Basilios, “with Rabbi Hersch.”

“Thank you, Archemandrite,” said the rabbi, settling back in his chair, getting comfortable. “For this opening I thank all my fellow Acolytes. It may be the last word you let me have.

“First of all,” he said, “the Apostle Paul is poorly understood by Christians because you have a written record of several Pauls. I can count three of them. You've got Paul the Jewish reformer we read about in the New Testament's
Acts of the Apostles.
Then there's the Paul we read about in the Letters, a sophisticated cosmopolitan man, former Pharisee, Roman citizen, who is inventing before his own eyes a new religion. Then there's the Pseudo-Paul of
Timothy
and
Titus,
which are con-jobs that attempt to discourage the more liberal aspects of the Church the earlier man claiming to be Paul created. Very anti-Semitic, this last guy.”