Father of Lies Read online

  And then the Lord shows me the way.

  I go into my study and close the door behind me. I dial the number for my congregation’s volunteer secretary.

  “Allen,” I say. “Provost here.”

  “The provost?” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  “Provost here,” I say. “Why would anything be wrong? Just a little question for you.”

  “Shoot,” he says.

  I bang the telephone against the tabletop.

  “Allen?” I say at some distance from the receiver. “Allen? Are you there?”

  “What?” he says. I can hear his voice perfectly. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Can you hear me, Allen?” I ask. “Are you still there?”

  “I’m here,” he says. “Can’t you hear me?”

  “Something must be wrong with the line. I’ve been having trouble with this telephone all day. I am going to hang up. If you are hearing this, call me back. Call me back immediately.”

  I hang up the telephone. Waiting, I stare at my reflection in the handpiece’s white plastic until the telephone begins to ring. I let it ring twice, to be sure my wife hears it, but snatch it up before my wife can think to pick up the extension.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Allen,” he says. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I can hear you perfectly.”

  “What was wrong?”

  “Just one of those things,” I say.

  “You should have the line looked at,” he says. “Well, what can I do for you?”

  I invent something on the spur of the moment, pretending I have lost the schedule of Sunday’s church interviews. He rummages out a copy from his file and reads the list to me. I pretend to write the names and times of the appointments down, then, thanking him, hang up the telephone.

  “Who just called?” my wife asks when I step out of the den.

  “Allen,” I say. “Something has come up. I’ll have to go over to the church building for a few hours.”

  “Tonight?” she asks. “Can’t it wait?”

  “Tonight. Emergency. Can’t be helped.”

  “Take the baby out of the bath before you go,” she says.

  “I wish I could,” I say. “But this one is urgent.” I come close to her and embrace her, kiss her damp forehead. “I’m late as it is. I’ll make it up to you, honey,” I say. “Promise.”

  I see her again just as she passes into the trees, her white shirt aglow in the near dark. Parking the car a block from the path, I walk quickly to the guardrail and slip over it, splashing across the creek, shallow now for late summer, and cut across through Max Barton’s field. Pushing through the rows of corn, I ease over the barbed wire backing the field, slip into the woods beyond.

  The woods are denser than I expect, the sight of the field soon lost. The aspen have grown close together, the bark peeling into paper-thin curls, bushes and undergrowth between the trees. I push in, branches and leaves cracking like bones beneath my feet.

  I come through the bushes into a clearing to find the girl there, facing the other way, sitting on a large rock with ungodly phrases spray painted all over it. She is scratching at the dirt with a stick. She has been weeping, I see, her makeup streaked with tears, her eyes gone thick and black around the rims where the mascara is melted and smeary.

  “Is anything the matter?” I ask.

  She startles, springs up and looks around. I come slowly forward through the bushes so that she can see the whole of me, my face too.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “Of course I know who you are,” she says. “I see you every Sunday.”

  “I am glad you know who I am,” I say. “I didn’t think you knew.”

  “I do,” she says.

  “Why haven’t you ever introduced yourself? Why have you never made an appointment to see me?”

  She scratches in the dirt a little. “I thought you were busy,” she says. “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “It’s no bother,” I say. “I feel I should get to know all the young people in my congregation. They’re the future of the Church. The young people are the ones who need me most.”

  I step a little farther into the clearing, leaning my back against the bole of a tree while motioning for her to sit on the rock. She looks briefly over but remains standing.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asks.

  “You’ve been crying, haven’t you?”

  She looks down, twists her hands up. It is hardly an attractive pose.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” she says.

  “That’s what a provost is for. To talk things over. To let you talk your problems through. To give you relief.”

  She doesn’t say anything. But she hasn’t run yet. She is as good as mine.

  “Do you want to know why I came here? Shall I tell you what brought me?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “It was the Lord. I was prompted. He told me that I should come. I didn’t know why, so I tried to ignore the feeling, but the prompting kept coming. So I listened and came. You know why the Lord wanted me to come out here?”

  “Why?” she says.

  “For you,” I say.

  She ducks her head, cannot seem to look me in the eyes.

  “I mean it. God loves you. He wants to help you. He wants you to tell me why you’ve been crying.”

  “No,” she says. “I can’t.”

  “I’ve heard every kind of sin. Nothing you say can surprise me. Nothing you say can shock me or make God love you less. You can tell me anything,” I say, smiling. “I know sin inside and out.”

  I make my way a little farther into the clearing.

  “I won’t tell your parents. It will be just between you and me and God.”

  I stand and walk slowly toward her, trying to appear relaxed, approaching her casually.

  “You can trust me,” I say. “If you can’t trust the Lord’s anointed, who can you trust?”

  I am close enough that I am able to reach out, touch her arm. She recoils, begins to recoil anyway. Then relaxes. She lets me lead her by the hand to the rock and seat her there. I kneel before her, holding her hands and staring up into her face. I imagine it makes quite a tableau.

  “Tell me.”

  She shudders, starts to cry again. I lean forward and put my arms around her. Her body feels warm.

  “That’s right. Cry it out.”

  I hold her, smelling her hair, the faint damp odor of her nose as it runs sticky onto my shoulder.

  “Do you feel better now?”

  Shaking her head, she pulls herself slowly away.

  “I just want to help you,” I say. “You have to trust me.”

  She nods.

  “Is it hard to talk about?”

  She nods again, her face contorting, a red-blotched and twisting creature pushing through to the surface of her skin, her young beauty sloughed momentarily off.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I guess so.”

  “Whatever you did, I am not going to think any less of you for it. We all make mistakes. It’s only when we don’t repent of our mistakes that we end up in trouble.”

  “I can’t say it!” she bawls. “I can’t talk about it!”

  I am losing patience. She is not proving herself the girl her figure promises each night in the way she walks past my house.

  “Shall I try to guess?”

  She nods.

  “You sinned alone?”

  She shakes her head.

  “With another person?”

  Nods.

  “Was there a third person involved? Just the two of you? Stole something?”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Killed someone?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Fornicated?”

  She hesitates, nods, keeps noddi
ng, starts weeping. My mouth goes dry, my tongue cleaving to the roof of it. The surface of my skin comes everywhere alive.

  “It is not the end of the world,” I say. “There are worse things you could have done.” I draw myself a little closer to her, put my hand delicately on her arm. “God needs to know all the details. That is his way. I want to know everything.”

  I wait but she won’t speak.

  “You fornicated with someone your own age?”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice barely audible.

  “He forced you, didn’t he?”

  She hesitates. Then shakes her head no.

  “He must have forced you. I know boys. He was probably smooth enough to make you think otherwise, but he forced you.”

  She barely nods, just willing to acquiesce.

  “How many times? Two or three?”

  “More,” she says.

  “More? How often? Hundreds? Did you use birth control?” I let my hand stroke her arm. “Did he?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Did you think it would be less of a sin if you didn’t?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, and starts crying again.

  “You don’t know?”

  She closes her eyes, covers her face with her hands.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  She says nothing, just stays with her face covered. So I figure I am right.

  “God is telling me you are,” I say.

  She nods her head slowly.

  “That’s hard, very hard, but there are worse things that could have happened to you. It isn’t the end of the world.” I move my hand to touch her neck. “Some punk kid did it, I guess.”

  “No,” she says. “Not just someone.”

  “You met him at high school?”

  She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move.

  “Don’t tell me you met him at church?”

  I look around slowly, then back to her. It is nearly dark now, difficult to see.

  “How long have you known him?”

  In a low, quavery voice she manages, “A long time.”

  “Old family friend, is he?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Do you think this is some sort of game?” I say. “Can’t you just tell me the truth?”

  She doesn’t say, just sits with her head cupped in her hands. I stroke her hair.

  “You can’t run from it. You need to turn and face it.”

  Then suddenly I figure it out. I withdraw my hand.

  “Your brother?” I say.

  “Is it?” I say.

  “Is it?” I say, shaking her.

  At first she shakes her head but then starts to nod, or her head nods itself as I shake her, her teeth rattling as she tries to cry out. I let go of her and she falls backwards off the rock. She starts to scramble backwards, and I scramble backwards as well, until the two of us are crouched at either side of the clearing, staring at each other, our bodies dissolving into the darkness. I expect her to push her way into the trees and vanish but she stays where she is, poised, unwilling to step back out of the clearing.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, though I do not believe it. “There is nothing to worry about. It is out now, isn’t it? You must feel better for having told me.”

  She neither moves nor speaks, stays crouched and panting, her breath coming out ragged, like an animal’s.

  “There’s a place awaiting you in hell, but you don’t have to go,” I say. “I can help you repent. God loves you. If you do as I say, he will save you.”

  I begin to crawl across the clearing, toward her, on my hands and knees. She stays fixed, perhaps not fully aware of my approach. I feel the ground damp on my knees through my slacks.

  “God wants to embrace you. He wants to reveal to you his love.”

  She lets me come closer but before I can embrace her she begins to edge free of the clearing. I stand.

  “You don’t want to disappoint God. You’ve already betrayed him enough. You had better stay right where you are and listen to me while you have the chance.”

  I get her by the hands and pull her up against me. She struggles a bit, then stops, goes listless. Probably the same way she acts with her brother, I bet.

  “There now,” I say. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

  I fumble at her clothing a little bit, nothing really, and she starts striking my chest. I let go of her, she steps back off balance over the rock, falls, begins to scramble backwards again.

  “Obedience is the law on which all other blessings are predicated,” I call to her. “There is nothing to be afraid of. I swear I am here to help you.” I calmly seat myself on the rock, my arms folded across my chest. “Please, don’t go yet,” I say.

  She scrambles to her feet and draws her forearm across her forehead, leaving a streak of mud.

  “I admit I was surprised,” I say. “I was a little shocked to find it was your own brother. But I am not shocked now.” I take a deep breath. “You have a difficult road ahead of you. Before you go,” I say, “I want to give you a healing blessing.”

  She stops again, seems to hesitate.

  “You are not going to excommunicate me?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, preparing her for my own purposes. “It all depends on how well you are willing to obey. You have to make a choice. Will you embrace God or the devil?” I gently ask.

  She looks at my shoes, my belt, but will not lift her eyes to meet mine.

  “You need two men for a proper blessing,” she says.

  “Yes,” I say. “Sure. Technically, I do. But nobody else is here.”

  “It’s okay?” she asks.

  “God will fill the gap,” I say. “He is the other person. There are two people in me—myself and God. We will bless you together.”

  It takes additional prodding to convince her of my good intentions, but in the end I am suave enough to manage it. I seat her on the rock. Going around behind her, I put one hand on each shoulder.

  “State your full name,” I say.

  She tells me. I pour onto her head anointed oil from my pocket flask. I lay my hands upon her head and in God’s name begin to bless her.

  I bless her that she will not hate her brother, poor sinner that he is, and that she will worry only about her own sins. I bless her that she will know in God’s eyes she is a daughter of goodness and that he loves her. I tell her that there is enough of God’s grace even for the blackest of sinners and that, if she will hold to his path and not sway, God will save her, but she must trust God’s chosen provost. In other words, me.

  “Perhaps God’s anointed will sometimes ask you to do things you do not understand or that you might at first think are wrong. You must trust him and do all he says without hesitation. Complete obedience is the only path to heaven. You must listen to your provost and follow his guidance in all things, and share nothing of what goes on privately between you and he. Not because it is secret or wrong, but because it is sacred.”

  I am going on in such fashion, laying her bare for my own purposes, when a refined and different logic begins to thump about my skull.

  What do you want by associating yourself with a sinner of this pitch?

  But I am a sinner myself, I respond. We are all of us sinners.

  What might be sin to lesser people is no sin to you. Were what you do sin, God would have plucked you from your sacred office long ago. It must be no sin.

  Surely inspired words straight from the Holy Spirit.

  You may call me that.

  I thought I had lost your guidance.

  You’ll never lose me.

  The girl is becoming uncomfortable below me, shifting her head beneath the weight of my hands. I start to spout aloud again, letting the blessing flow where it will of its own accord, listening to the other thoughts swelling within me.

  Don’t soil yourself with this girl. She’s committed the carnal act with her brother.

  It wasn’t her fault.

  You
need to save her.

  How can I save her when I can’t save myself?

  The girl squirms again. I keep babbling and raise my voice higher. I fix my eyes on her bare neck.

  Christ’s blood will not wash her clean. She must atone for her sins with her own blood. Killing her is the best thing for her. Kill her to save her.

  “I can’t do it,” I say. “I’ve never killed one before.”

  “Hunnh?” the girl says.

  I am not asking you. I am commanding you.

  “How do I know you are the Holy Spirit?”

  “Are we finished?” the girl says.

  Who else could I be?

  “How do I know you are not the devil?”

  “Who are you talking to?” the girl asks, her panic rising.

  Examine me.

  A vague figure flashes momentarily through my vision, a personage of white, an angel of light. Before I can get a closer look, it is gone.

  “It’s murder,” I say, but there is no answer.

  The girl struggles to rise. My hands slip off her head and down around her neck. I hold her until she is screaming and then I knock her head once hard against the rock. Her head turns odd and misshapen, losing form on one side. I pray privately for strength and am given it. I twist her neck until I am sure she is dead, and strip her of her clothes.

  And then I rearrange her a bit so that her body will accommodate the spirit better. And then I go away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Breakfast

  I embrace my wife. Kiss her on the cheek. She smiles limply before returning her attention to the stove.

  I go to the table and sit down at the head of it, where the father is meant to sit. At the other end are my oldest and youngest children, the youngest in her high chair, the older girl feeding her.

  “How’s my pumpkin flower today?” I ask.

  “Oh, Daddy!” says my eldest. She seems pleased and embarrassed, will not meet my gaze. She will grow into a real beauty, prettier even than the girl in the woods. I will be around to enjoy every minute of it.

  My wife comes to table, sets before me a plate covered with a paper towel. Underneath it are strips of bacon, six, lined side by side, grease still bubbling upon them.