Book of Nathan (17 page)

After a five-minute wait, a middle-aged woman appeared with
an outstretched hand pointed at Doc’s stomach. “Mr. Bullock?”

I took the mistake as a compliment. I had dressed the
professor in a blue suit left over from an Episcopal Church rummage sale and a
white shirt a size too small for Doc. With the conservative tie pulled from a
box of clothing donated by Goodwill, Doc came across sort of corporate.

“Ah, if only I were.” Doc sounded as suave as he looked. “My
name is Professor Waters and it is a distinct pleasure to make your
acquaintance.”

Jane loved every word. “Dr. Kool told me you were interested
in booking a meeting with us in a month or two.”
 

This was the cover Doug had told me to use. Doc and I were
looking for meeting space for a fictional religious higher-education
association. Jane had been told we were deeply committed pro-lifers who knew
about
Quia Vita
but didn’t have the kind of bank accounts that would get us an invite to one of
the group’s monthly sessions. In consideration for the business Doug brought to
the Hyatt, Jane agreed to provide back row seats for his two friends.
 

“I’m so pleased you could be here tonight,” she gushed. “The
room configuration you’re interested in is exactly the setup we use for Ms.
Russet.”

“Judith Russet?”

“Oh, yes. She’s truly a hero, isn’t she? I’m so privileged
to be in her service.”

Doc lifted his thick white eyebrows. “How wonderful that
you’re a member.”

“A member of
Quia
Vita
,
of course. But not the Order of Visio Dei—the group that’s meeting here
tonight. As I’m sure you know, it’s a membership category open only to those
who have both the resources and the will to share God’s vision in a very
special way.”

“We have the will, but we’re short when it comes to the
money,” I said sadly.

Jane looked to the floor. “I do have a confession to make. I
didn’t tell Ms. Russet that you were financially unqualified.”

“Oh?”

“I hope you don’t mind. I’m in charge of putting together
the attendee roster for each meeting—I do that on my own time, of course. As a
Quia Vita
volunteer.”

“Of course,” said Doc.

“I thought it would be easier all around just to include
your names as potential Visio Dei members. It would be awkward if Ms. Russet
were to find out that you don’t meet the monetary threshold for membership.
Could I impose upon you to—”

“We’re so honored you’d even think to put us on the
invitation list,” Doc interrupted. “We’d never put you in a compromising
position, Jane.” He grinned at her conspiratorially.

“You’re very kind—both of you.”

“It’s you who’s so kind, Jane,” Doc said. “Tell me, how is
it that you became involved with
Quia
Vita
?”

My early warning light switched on.

“It was God’s calling,” Jane rolled out a pat answer to a
question she had probably been asked innumerable times. “I believe so strongly
in the sanctity of life.”

“Ah, yes, I understand.” Doc brought his hand to his chin
the way only academics are able to do. “And I imagine you find comfort and
guidance in the Bible for your beliefs,”

“I do, Dr. Waters. I certainly do.”

“Doc—” I tried to interrupt.

The professor pretended I didn’t exist. “How mysterious it
is that the Bible never mentions abortion, don’t you think, Jane?”

“Well, I—”

“Sometimes I wonder if Aristotle were right. I’m sure you
recollect his theory.”

Jane’s plaster smile cracked. “Well, I—”

“Granted, Aristotle was a little pagan in his approach. But
think about how much less conflict we’d have if everyone agreed with him. That
a male fetus doesn’t take on a soul until forty days after conception. Or that
a woman has no soul until after ninety days of gestation.”

“Oh, well . . . I can’t . . . well, I mean, I just don’t
believe . . .”

I barged in before Doc could continue. “The professor can
sometimes play devil’s advocate.”

Plugging the devil into my comment didn’t sit well with
Jane. An uncontrollable shudder rattled her Hyatt nametag.

“I suppose it’s my way of testing just how firm one is when
it comes to his or her pro-life position,” Doc explained. “This is not a
movement that should be corrupted by those who aren’t knowledgeable about all
aspects of the abortion issue. Wouldn’t you say so, Jane?”

“Well, I . . . It’s just that I believe God switches on the
soul once a person is conceived.”

“Ah, if we could only locate, feel, smell, touch, weigh, or
measure a soul. We could then be certain. But it’s the uncertainty of it all.
Perhaps that’s why for much of its history, Christianity thought ensoulment
didn’t happen during the ninety days after conception and religious leaders
were more tolerant of abortion.”

Jane looked appalled. “That can’t be—”

“Of course there are others who think that the soul doesn’t
show up until we have at least some sense of awareness. Do you know what the
first sign of awareness is?”

“Well, no, I—”

“Pain. And a fetus is not developed enough to feel pain
until around one hundred twenty days after conception.”

“Oh, no, Professor Waters,” Jane pushed back. “That can’t
be. The
Silent Scream
shows
a baby in terrible pain. And it was only twelve weeks old.”

I watched Doc’s face redden. According to the professor, the
antiabortion movie,
Silent Scream,
set the high bar in raping science.

“We must be so careful of our credibility,” said Doc. He was
straining to control himself. “A fetus simply cannot register pain at twelve
weeks.”

“But the baby was frantic just before it was aborted.”

“A reflex response, my dear, that has to do with the
movement of the uterus. Do you recall the late Dr. Carl Sagan?”

The woman nodded.

“He said we really don’t become persons until we can think,
and that doesn’t happen until the cerebral cortex starts functioning. It takes
six months in the womb before the cortex gets fired up. So during the first two
trimesters of pregnancy, Dr. Sagan—the good Lord rest his soul—would tell you
the fetus is not really a person.”

Jane gasped.

“Such a difficult issue,” Doc muttered. “When does personhood
begin? Who’s right and who’s wrong? Will we ever have a decisive answer?”

“I—” Jane worked hard to put a few words together. “It’s a
matter of faith, Professor.”

“Yes. But it is also a matter of law and—if you happen to be
a woman—often a matter of choice.”

If devil
topped
the list of the words Jane least wanted to hear, choice
was a close second. “I don’t remember
meeting any pro-lifer who talks the way you do,” she said.

“Professor Waters is an eminent scholar in the field,” I
said, trying to do some quick repair work. “He forces us all to strengthen our
arguments and moral commitments. Which is why he will truly make his mark on
Quia Vita
.”

“I shall make every effort to do so,” Doc promised.

Chapter 11

Judith
Russet was a washboard of pasty white flab under a crown of gray hair cut so
short that it resembled a bathing cap. A quick once-over and you might think
Quia
Vita
’s
executive director was soft as cotton candy.

As we were about to discover, not true.

According to plan, Doc and I were the last to be seated at
Quia Vita
’s
Visio Dei meeting. Just before we had slipped into the back of the room, I let
the professor have it for climbing all over Jane. Doc had given me a
halfhearted reassurance that he’d behave and, with reservation, I decided not to
put him on a train back to New Brunswick.

Judith Russet arrived two minutes late and began the meeting
with an apology. A weather-delayed flight from Chicago.

“Life,” she opened, “is under attack.” A LCD projector
blasted an eight-by-eight-foot screen with words that exploded like incendiary
bombs:
abortion, euthanasia,
doctor-assisted suicide, reproductive and genetic technologies, cloning,
infanticide, eugenics, population control.

“You—” Russet let the word hang in the air until she
surveyed all fifty-plus attendees seated in the room. “You are here because you
have been chosen to be life’s guardians. Nothing you ever do will be more
important.”

For the next twenty minutes, Russet delivered a message that
cut into the small group like a cleaver. Every sentence came out as a shriek.
Doc was breathing hard and his face was flushed.

“Over one point three million children in the United States
are killed by an abortionist each year. Most of these immoral procedures are
not done in hospitals. They’re carried out in over four hundred death chambers
ironically called health clinics.”

A split-screen video followed. On one side, a woman cried
into the camera. On the other side, a slow zoom-in on a bottled fetus. “I went
into the bathroom and passed the placenta,” the woman said between sobs. “When
I looked in the toilet, I saw my baby—its perfectly formed hands, the little
fingers—” Russet took over. “This is a woman who used to be pro-choice. A woman
who chose to kill her baby seven weeks after becoming pregnant.”

Russet went on for another fifteen minutes mixing words with
PowerPoint slides and two more video clips. Once the room had been properly
worked over, she stepped in front of the podium.

“I’m here today speaking on behalf of millions of unborn
children. I hope you can hear their voices. What they are asking you to do—what
they’re begging
you
to do—is to enlist in the highest echelon of
Quia
Vita
—the
Order of Visio Dei. Why? Because when it comes to waging war against the unjust
and immoral slaughter of children, we need Visio Dei if we have any hope of
winning.”

Russet made a slow journey through the room.

“Let’s be clear about what’s going on. Abortion equates to
premeditated murder. Most abortions carried out in the United States are a
grotesque means of birth control—less than five percent are performed because
the fetus is diagnosed as abnormal or because the mother’s health is at risk.
And less than one percent of abortions are performed because of rape or incest.
That means more than nine out of ten abortions are willful homicides that
shouldn’t be classified as anything but murder in the first degree.”

Russet continued prowling. “Does it bother you?” The
question was rhetorical but still got a lot of heads bobbing. “Just how
troubled are you? Troubled enough so you feel it in the pit of your stomach?
Troubled enough to want to cry for the four thousand babies who will be
massacred in the U.S. today—or the one hundred twenty-six thousand children
worldwide who in the next twenty-four hours will be cut out of the womb and
tossed away like garbage?”

Russet inched her way toward the back of the room, pausing
to make eye contact with each guest. When she reached our table, Doc caught her
stare and his face instantly twisted into a look of disgust. The rotund woman
was caught short by the expression and briefly stumbled over her next line.
When Russet shifted her attention to me, she got back on track although I could
sense her confusion.

“I want to tell you something,” she said, heading back to
the podium. “
Quia Vita
and everything our organization stands for may soon come under attack like
never before. Over the next few weeks and months, you may be hearing new
arguments that will be shoved in your face—arguments abortionists will
undoubtedly use to justify their butchery.”

A murmur worked its way through the room. Whatever the new
arguments
might
be, they stirred the crowd. I thought back to Arthur Silverstein’s comment that
the
Book of Nathan
could
shake
Quia Vita
’s
core. Maybe Russet knew about the missing book—knew what it said about
ensoulment. It was all conjecture on my part, but convinced me I needed to know
a lot more about Russet and her organization.