The Transmigration of Timothy Archer (3 page)

"Dad," Jeff said, "we're trying to figure out what to order. Okay?"

The bishop said, "If you mean we're trying to decide what to have to eat, my remark is certainly applicable. Aristophanes would have appreciated that."

"Come on," Jeff said.

Carrying a tray, Fred Hill returned. "Louis Martini burgundy." He set down three glasses. "If you'll excuse my asking—aren't you Bishop Archer?"

The bishop nodded.

"You marched with Dr. King at Selma," Hill said.

"Yes, I was at Selma," the bishop said.

I said, "Tell him your vagina joke." To Fred Hill I said, "The bishop knows a real old vagina joke."

Chuckling, Bishop Archer said, "The joke is old, she means. Don't misunderstand syntactically."

"Dr. King was a great man," Fred Hill said.

"He was a very great man," the bishop said. "I'll have the sweetbreads."

"That's a good choice," Fred Hill said, jotting. "Also let me recommend the pheasant."

"I'll have the veal Oscar," I said.

"So will I," Jeff said. He seemed moody. I knew that he objected to my using my friendship with the bishop in order to get a free speech—for FEM or any other group. He knew how easily free speeches got tugged out of his father. Both he and the bishop wore dark-wool business suits, and of course Fred Hill, famous KGB agent and mass killer, wore a suit and tie.

I wondered that day, sitting there with the two of them in their business suits, if Jeff would go into Holy Orders as his father had; both men looked solemn, bringing to the task of ordering dinner the same intensity, the same gravity, that they brought to so much else: the professional stance oddly punctuated on the bishop's part with wit ... although, like today, the wit never struck me as quite right.

As we spooned up our minestrone soup, Bishop Archer talked about his forthcoming heresy trial. It was a subject he found endlessly fascinating. Certain Bible Belt bishops were out to get him because he had said in several published articles and in his sermons preached at Grace Cathedral that no one had seen hide nor hair of the Holy Ghost since apostolic times. This had caused Tim to conclude that the doctrine of the Trinity was incorrect. If the Holy Ghost was, in fact, a form of God equal to Yahweh and Christ, surely he would still be with us. Speaking in tongues did not impress him. He had seen a lot of it in his years in the Episcopal Church and it struck him as autosuggestion and dementia. Further, a scrupulous reading of Acts disclosed that at Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended on the disciples, giving them "the gift of speech," they had spoken in foreign languages which people nearby had understood. This is not glossolalia as the term is now used; this is xenoglossy. The bishop, as we ate, chortled over Peter's deft response to the charge that the Eleven were drunk; Peter had said in a loud voice to the scoffing crowd that it was not likely that the Eleven were drunk inasmuch as it was only nine
A.M.
The bishop pondered out loud—between spoonfuls of minestrone soup—that the course of Western history might have been changed if the time had been nine
P.M.
instead of nine
A.M.
Jeff looked bored and I kept consulting my watch, wondering what was keeping Kirsten. Probably she had gone in to have her hair done. She fussed forever with her blond hair, especially in anticipation of momentous occasions.

The Episcopal Church is Trinitarian; you cannot be a priest or bishop of that church if you do not absolutely accept and teach that—well, it's called the Nicene Creed:

"
... And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.
"

So Bishop McClary back in Missouri was correct; Tim had, in fact, committed heresy. However, Tim had been a practicing lawyer before he became a rector of the Episcopal Church. He relished the oncoming heresy trial. Bishop McClary knew his Bible and he knew canon law, but Tim would blow golden smoke-rings around him until McClary would not know up from down. Tim knew this. In facing a heresy trial, he was in his element. Moreover, he was writing a book about it; he would win and, in addition, he would make some money. Every newspaper in America had carried articles and even editorials on the subject. Successfully trying someone for heresy in the 1970s was really difficult.

Listening to Tim dilate endlessly, the thought came to me that he had calculatedly committed heresy in order to bring on the trial. At least, he had done it unconsciously. It was, as the term has it, a good career move.

"The so-called ‘gift of speech,'" the bishop said cheerfully, "reverses the unity of language lost when the Tower of Babel was attempted; that is, its construction was attempted. When the day comes that someone in my congregation gets up and talks Walloon, well, that day I will believe that the Holy Ghost exists. I'm not sure he ever existed. The apostolic conception of the Holy Spirit is based on the Hebrew
ruah,
the spirit of God. For one thing, this spirit is female, not male. She speaks concerning the Messianic expectation. Christianity appropriated the notion from Judaism and when Christianity had converted a sufficient number of pagans—Gentiles, if you will—it abandoned the concept, since it was only meaningful to the Jews anyhow. To the Greek converts it made no sense whatsoever, although Socrates declared that he had an inner voice or
daemon
that guided him ... a tutelary spirit, not to be confused with the English word ‘demon,' which of course refers to an indubitably evil spirit. The two terms are often confused. Do I have time for a cocktail?"

"They just have beer and wine here," I said.

"I'd like to make a phone call," the bishop said; he dabbed at his chin with his napkin, rising to his feet and glancing about. "Is there a public phone?"

"There's a phone at the Chevron station," Jeff said. "But if you go back there you'll trash another pump."

"I simply do not understand how that happened," the bishop said. "I never felt anything or saw anything; the first I knew was when—Albers? I have his name written down. When he showed up in hysteria. Perhaps that was a manifestation of the Holy Ghost. I hope my insurance hasn't lapsed. It's always a good idea to carry automobile insurance."

I said, "That wasn't Walloon he was speaking."

"Yes, well," Tim said, "it also wasn't intelligible. It may well have been glossolalia, for all I know. Maybe there is evidence that the Holy Ghost is here." He reseated himself. "Are we waiting for something?" he asked me. "You keep looking at your watch, I only have an hour; then I have to get back to the City. The difficulty that dogma presents is that it Strickens the creative spirit in man. Whitehead—Alfred North Whitehead—has given us the idea of God in process, and he is, or was, a major scientist. Process theology. It all goes back to Jakob Boehme and his 'no-yes' deity, his dialectic deity anticipating Hegel. Boehme based that on Augustine.
'Sic et non,'
you know. Latin lacks a precise word for 'yes'; I suppose
'sic'
is the closest, although by and large
'sic'
is more correctly rendered as 'so,' or 'hence,' or 'in that manner.'
'Quod si hoc nunc sic incipiam? Nihil est. Quod si sic? Tantumdem egero. Et sic—'
" He paused, frowning. "
'Nihil est.'
In a distributive language—English is the best example—that would literally mean 'nothing exists.' Of course what Terence means is, 'it is nothing,' with
'id,'
or 'it,' understood. Still, there is an enormous thrust in the two-word utterance 'nihil est.' The amazing power of Latin to compress meaning into the fewest possible words. That and precision are the two most admirable qualities of it, by far. English, however, has the greater vocabulary."

"Dad," Jeff said, "we're waiting for a friend of Angel's. I told you about her the other day."

"
Non video,
" the bishop said. "I'm saying that I don't see her, the 'her' being understood. Look, that man is going to take a picture of us."

Fred Hill, carrying an SLR camera with flash attachment, approached our table. "Your Grace, would it be all right with you if I took your picture?"

"Let me take a picture of you two together," I said, standing up. "You can put it on the wall," I said to Fred Hill.

"That would be fine with me," Tim said.

During the meal, Kirsten Lundborg joined us. She looked unhappy and fatigued, and she could find nothing on the menu that pleased her. She wound up drinking a glass of white wine, eating nothing, saying very little, but smoking one cigarette after another. Her face showed lines of strain. We did not know it then, but she had mild and chronic peritonitis, which can be—and was very soon for her—very serious. She hardly seemed aware of us. I assumed she had gone into one of her periodic depressions; I had no idea that day that she was physically ill.

"You could probably get toast and a soft-boiled egg," Jeff said.

"No." Kirsten shook her head. "My body is trying to die," she said presently. She did not elaborate. We all felt uncomfortable. I suppose that was the idea in her mind. Perhaps not. Bishop Archer gazed at her attentively and with a great deal of sympathy. I wondered if he intended to suggest a laying on of hands. They do that in the Episcopal Church. The recovery rate due to that is not recorded anywhere that I know of, which is just as well.

She spoke mostly about her son Bill, who had been turned down by the Army for psychological reasons. This seemed both to please her and to annoy her.

"I'm surprised to learn you have a son old enough to be inducted," the bishop said.

For a moment Kirsten was silent. Some of the worry that marred her features eased. It was evident to me that Tim's remark cheered her.

At this point in her life she was a rather good-looking woman, but a perpetual severity marred her, in terms of her looks and in terms of the emotional impression that she presented. As much as I admired her I knew that Kirsten could never turn down the chance to offer up a cruel remark, a defect that she had, in fact, honed into a talent. The idea seems to be that if you are clever enough you can insult people and they will sit still for it, but if you are clumsy and dumb you can get away with nothing. It all has to do with your verbal skills. You are judged, like contest entries, on aptness of phrase.

"Bill is only physically that old," Kirsten said. But she looked happier now. "What is it that comic said the other night on Johnny Carson? 'My wife doesn't go to a plastic surgeon; she wants the real thing.' I just had my hair done; that's why I was late. One time just before I had to fly over to France they did my hair so that—" She smiled. "I looked like Bozo the Clown. The whole time I was in Paris I wore a babushka. I told everyone I was on my way to Notre-Dame."

"What's a babushka?" Jeff asked.

Bishop Archer said, "A Russian peasant."

Regarding him intently, Kirsten said, "That's true. I must have the wrong word."

"You have the right word," the bishop said "The term for the cloth worn about the head derives—"

"Aw Christ," Jeff said.

Kirsten smiled. She sipped her white wine.

"I understand you're a member of FEM," the bishop said.

"I
am
FEM," Kirsten said.

"She's one of the founders," I said.

"You know, I have very strong views about abortion," the bishop said.

"You know," Kirsten said, "I have, too. What are yours?"

"We feel that the unborn have rights invested in them not by man but by Almighty God," the bishop said. "The right to take a human life is denied back to the Decalogue."

"Let me ask you this," Kirsten said. "Do you think a human being has rights after he or she is dead?"

"I beg your pardon?" the bishop said.

"Well," Kirsten said, "you're granting them rights before they're born; why not grant them equal rights after they're dead."

"As a matter of fact, they do have rights after they're dead," Jeff said. "You need a court order to use a cadaver or organs taken from a cadaver for—"

"I'm trying to eat this veal Oscar," I interrupted, seeing an endless line of argumentation ahead, and, emerging from it, Bishop Archer's refusal to make a free speech for FEM. "Can we talk about something else?"

Fazed not at all, Jeff continued, "I know a guy who works for the coroner's office. He told me one time they went into the intensive care ward at—well, I forget which hospital; anyhow, this woman had just died and they went in and ripped her eyes out for a transplant before the monitors had stopped registering vital signs. He said it happens all the time."

We sat for a time, Kirsten sipping her wine, the rest of us eating; however, Bishop Archer had not stopped gazing at Kirsten with sympathy and concern. It came to me later, but not at the time, that he sensed that she was latently physically ill, sensed what the rest of us had missed. Perhaps it emanated from his pastoral ministering, but I saw him do this again and again: discern a need in someone when no one else, sometimes even the person involved, recognized it or, if they recognized it, took time to pause and care.

"I have the highest regard for FEM," he said, in a gentle voice.

"Most people do," Kirsten said, but now she seemed genuinely pleased. "Does the Episcopal Church allow the ordination of women?"

"For the priesthood?" the bishop said. "It hasn't come yet but it is coming."

"Then I take it you personally approve."

"Certainly." He nodded. "I have taken an active interest in modernizing the standards for male and female deacons ... for one, I will not allow the term 'deaconess' to be used in my diocese; I insist that both male and female deacons be referred to as deacons. The standardization of educational and training bases for male and female deacons will make it possible later on to ordain female deacons to the priesthood. I see this as inevitable and I am working actively for it."

"Well, I am really pleased to hear you say this," Kirsten said. "Then you differ markedly from the Catholic Church." She set down her wine glass. "The pope—"