I was aware that Barb Wiggin had cranked Harold Crosby up so high that he was completely gone from view; up in the dark dust, up in the gloom inspired by the mock flying buttresses, Harold Crosby, who was still probably facing the wrong way, was flapping like a stranded bat--but I couldn't see him. I had only a vague impression of his panic and his helplessness.
"'I love thee, Lord Je-sus, look down from the sky, And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh,'" sang the choir, thus wrapping up "Away in a Manger." The Rev. Dudley Wiggin was a little slow starting with Luke. Perhaps it had occurred to him that the Virgin Mary was supposed to wait until after the reading before "bowing" to the Baby Jesus; now that Mary Beth's head was already stationed in Owen's lap, the rector might have feared what Mary Beth would think was an appropriate substitute for "bowing."
"'When the angel went away from them into heaven,'" the rector began; the congregation, automatically, searched the ceiling for Harold Crosby. In the front pews of faces that I observed, no one sought the disappearing angel with as much fervor as Mr. Fish, who was already surprised to hear that Owen Meany did have a speaking part.
Owen looked ready to sneeze, or else the weight of Mary Beth's head was restricting his breathing; his nose, unwiped and unblown, had dribbled two shiny rivulets across his upper lip. I could see that he was sweating; it was such a cold day, the old church furnace was throwing out the heat full-tilt--the raised altar area was a lot warmer than the wooden pews, where many of the congregation still wore their outdoor clothes. The heat in the manger was stifling. I pitied the donkeys and the cows; inside their costumes, they had to be perspiring. The "pillar of light" felt hot enough to ignite the hay where the Baby Jesus lay pinned by the Holy Mother.
We were still listening to the reading from Luke when the first donkey fainted; actually, it was only the hind part of a donkey that fainted, so that the effect of the collapse was quite startling. Many of the congregation were unaware that donkeys came in two parts; the way the donkey crumbled must have been even more alarming to them. It appeared that a donkey's hind legs gave way under him, while the forelegs struggled to remain standing, and the head and neck surged this way and that--for balance. The donkey's ass and hind legs simply dropped to the floor, as if the beast had suffered a selective stroke--or had been shot; its rump was paralyzed. The front half of the donkey made a game effort, but was soon dragged down after its disabled parts. A cow, blinded by its horns--and trying to avoid the falling donkey--butted a shepherd into and over the low communion railing; the shepherd struck the kneeling cushions a glancing blow, and rolled into the center aisle by the first row of pews.
When the second donkey dropped, the Rev. Mr. Wiggin read faster.
"'But Mary kept all these things,'" the rector said, "'pondering them in her heart.'"
The Virgin Mary lifted her head from the Christ Child's lap, a mystical grin upon her flushed face; she thumped both hands to her heart--as if an arrow, or a lance, had run her through from behind; and her eyes rolled toward her shining forehead as if, even before she could fall, she were giving up the ghost. The Baby Jesus, suddenly anxious about the direction and force of Mother Mary's swoon, reached out his arms to catch her; but Owen was not strong enough to support Mary Beth Baird--chest to chest, she pressed him into the hay, where they appeared to be wrestling.
And I, Joseph--I saw how the little Lord Jesus got his mother off him; he goosed her. It was a fast attack, concealed in a flurry of flying hay; you had to be a Joseph--or Barb Wiggin--to know what happened. What the congregation saw was the Holy Mother roll out of the hay pile and across the floor of the manger, where she collected herself at a safe distance from the unpredictable Prince of Peace; Owen withered Mary Beth with a look as scornful as the look he'd shown Barb Wiggin.
It was the same look he then delivered to the congregation--oblivious to, if not contemptuous of, the gifts the wise men and the shepherds laid at his feet. Like a commanding officer reviewing his troops, the Christ Child surveyed the congregation. The faces I could see--in the frontmost pews--appeared to be tensing for rejection. Mr. Fish's face, and Dan's face, too--both of these sophisticates of amateur theater were mouths-agape in admiration, for here was a stage presence that could overcome not only amateurism but the common cold; Owen had overcome error and bad acting and deviation from the script.
Then I came to the faces in the congregation that Owen must have seen about the same time I saw them; they bore the most rapt expressions of all. They were Mr. and Mrs. Meany's faces. Mr. Meany's granitic countenance was destroyed by fear, but his attention was riveted; and Mrs. Meany's lunatic gawking was characterized by a naked incomprehension. She had her hands clenched together in violent prayer, and her husband held her around her shaking shoulders because she was racked by sobs as disturbing as the animal unhappiness of a retarded child.
Owen sat up so suddenly in the mountain of hay that several front-pew members of the congregation were startled into gasps and cries of alarm. He bent stiffly at the waist, like a tightly wound spring, and he pointed with ferocity at his mother and father; to many members of the congregation, he could have been pointing to anyone--or to them all.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE?" the angry Lord Jesus screamed.
Many members of the congregation thought he meant them; I could tell what a shock the question was for Mr. Fish, but I knew whom Owen was speaking to. I saw Mr. and Mrs. Meany cringe; they slipped off the pew to the kneeling pad, and Mrs. Meany covered her face with both hands.
"YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE!" Owen shouted at them; but Mr. Fish, and surely half the congregation, felt that they stood accused. I saw the faces of the Rev. Lewis Merrill and his California wife; it was apparent that they also thought Owen meant them.
"IT IS A SACRILEGE FOR YOU TO BE HERE!" Owen hollered. At least a dozen members of the congregation guiltily got up from the pews at the rear of the church--to leave. Mr. Meany helped his dizzy wife to her feet. She was crossing herself, repeatedly--a helpless, unthinking, Catholic gesture; it must have infuriated Owen.
The Meanys conducted an awkward departure; they were big, broad people and their exit out of the crowded pew, their entrance into the aisle--where they stood out, so alone--their every movement was neither easy nor graceful.
"We only wanted to see you!" Owen's father told him apologetically.
But Owen Meany pointed to the door at the end of the nave, where several of the faithful had already departed; Owen's parents, like that other couple who were banished from the garden, left Christ Church as they were told. Not even the gusto with which the choir--following frantic signals from the rector--sang "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" could spare the congregation the indelible image of how the Meanys had obeyed their only son.
Rector Wiggin, wringing the Bible in both hands, was trying to catch the eye of his wife; but Barb Wiggin was struck as immovable as stone. What the rector wanted was for his wife to darken the "pillar of light," which continued to shine on the wrathful Lord Jesus.
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" the Prince of Peace said to Joseph. And what is Joseph if not a man who does what he's told? I lifted him. Mary Beth Baird wanted to hold a part of him, too; whether his goosing her had deepened her infatuation, or had put her in her place without trampling an iota of her ardor, is uncertain--regardless, she was his slave, at his command. And so together we raised him out of the hay. He was so stiffly wrapped, it was like carrying an unmanageable icon--he simply wouldn't bend, no matter how we held him.
Where to go with him was not instantly clear. The back way, behind the altar area--the unobserved route we'd all taken to the manger--was blocked by Barb Wiggin.
As in other moments of indecision, the Christ Child directed us; he pointed down the center aisle, in the direction his parents had taken. I doubt that anyone directed the cows and donkeys to follow us; they just needed the air. Our procession gathered the force and numbers of a marching band. The third verse of what was supposed to be the Rev. Mr. Wiggin's re
cessional carol heralded our exit.
Mild he lays his glo-ry by, Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them sec-ond birth.
All the way down the center aisle, Barb Wiggin kept the "pillar of light" on us; what possible force could have compelled her to do that? There was nowhere to go but out, into the snow and cold. The cows and the donkeys tore off their heads so that they could get a better look at him; for the most part, these were the younger children--some of them, a very few of them, were actually smaller than Owen. They stared at him, in awe. The wind whipped through his swaddling clothes and his bare arms grew rosy; he hugged them to his birdlike chest. The Meanys, sitting scared in the cab of the granite truck, were waiting for him. The Virgin Mother and I hoisted him into the cab; because of how he was swaddled, he had to be extended full-length across the seat--his legs lay in his father's lap, not quite interfering with Mr. Meany's control of the steering wheel, and his head and upper body rested upon his mother, who had reverted to her custom of looking not quite out the window, and not quite at anything at all.
"MY CLOTHES," the Lord Jesus told me. "YOU GET THEM AND KEEP THEM FOR ME."
"Of course," I said.
"IT'S A GOOD THING I WORE MY LUCKY SCARF," he told me. "TAKE ME HOME!" he ordered his parents, and Mr. Meany lurched the truck into gear.
A snowplow was turning off Front Street onto Elliot; it was customary in Gravesend to make way for snowplows, but even the snowplow made way for Owen.
Toronto: February 4, 1987--there was almost no one at the Wednesday morning communion service. Holy Eucharist is better when you don't have to shuffle up the aisle in a herd and stand in line at the communion railing, like an animal awaiting space at the feeding-trough--just like another consumer at a fast-food service. I don't like to take communion with a mob.
I prefer the way the Rev. Mr. Foster serves the bread to the mischievous style of Canon Mackie; the canon delights in giving me the tiniest wafer he has in his hand--a veritable crumb!--or else he gives me an inedible hunk of bread, almost too big to fit in my mouth and impossible to swallow without prolonged chewing. The canon likes to tease me. He says, "Well, I figure that you take communion so often, it's probably bad for your diet--someone's got to look after your diet, John!" And he chuckles about that; or else he says, "Well, I figure that you take communion so often, you must be starving--someone's got to give you a decent meal!" And he chuckles some more.
The Rev. Mr. Foster, our priest associate, at least dispenses the bread with a uniform sense of sacredness; that's all I ask. I have no quarrel with the wine; it is ably served by our honorary assistants, the Rev. Mr. Larkin and the Rev. Mrs. Keeling--Mrs. Katherine Keeling; she's the headmistress at The Bishop Strachan School, and my only qualm with her is when she's pregnant. The Rev. Katherine Keeling is often pregnant, and I don't think she should serve the wine when she's so pregnant that bending forward to put the cup to our lips is a strain; that makes me nervous; also, when she's very pregnant, and you're kneeling at the railing waiting for the wine, it's distracting to see her belly approach you at eye level. Then there's the Rev. Mr. Larkin; he sometimes pulls the cup back before the wine has touched your lips--you have to be quick with him; and he's a little careless how he wipes the rim of the cup each time.
Of them all, the Rev. Mrs. Keeling is the best to talk to--now that Canon Campbell is gone. I truly like and admire Katherine Keeling. I regretted I couldn't talk to her today, when I really needed to talk to someone; but Mrs. Keeling is on temporary leave--she's off having another baby. The Rev. Mr. Larkin is as quick to be gone from a conversation as he is quick with the communion cup; and our priest associate, the Rev. Mr. Foster--although he burns with missionary zeal--is impatient with the fretting of a middle-aged man like myself, who lives in such comfort in the Forest Hill part of town. The Rev. Mr. Foster is all for opening a mission on Jarvis Street--and counseling hookers on the subject of sexually transmitted diseases--and he's up to his neck in volunteer projects for the West Indians on Bathurst Street, the very same people so verbally abused by Deputy Warden Holt; but the Rev. Mr. Foster offers scant sympathy for my worries, which, he says, are only in my mind. I love that "only"!
And that left Canon Mackie to talk to today; Canon Mackie presents a familiar problem. I said, "Did you read the paper, today's paper--The Globe and Mail? It was on the front page."
"No, I've not had time to read the paper this morning," Canon Mackie said, "but let me guess. Was it something about the United States? Something President Reagan said?" He is not exactly condescending, Canon Mackie; he is inexactly condescending.
"There was a nuclear test yesterday--the first U.S. explosion of eighty-seven," I said. "It was scheduled for tomorrow, but they moved it up--it was a way to fool the protesters. Naturally, there were planned protests--for tomorrow."
"Naturally," said Canon Mackie.
"And the Democrats had scheduled a vote--for today--on a resolution to persuade Reagan to cancel the test," I told the canon. "The government even lied about the day the test was going to be. A fine use of the taxpayers' money, eh?"
"You're not a taxpayer in the United States--not anymore," the canon said.
"The Soviets said they wouldn't test any weapons until the U.S. tested first," I told the canon. "Don't you see how deliberately provocative this is? How arrogant! How unconcerned with any arms agreement--of any kind! Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else's version of themselves--to anyone else's version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country!"
Canon Mackie observed me mildly. I could see it coming; I talk about one thing, and he bends the subject of our conversation back to me.
"I know you were upset about the Vestry elections, John," he told me. "No one doubts your devotion to the church, you know."
Here I am, talking about nuclear war and the usual, self-righteous, American arrogance, and Canon Mackie wants to talk about me.
"Surely you know how much this community respects you, John," the canon told me. "But don't you see how your ... opinions can be disturbing? It's very American--to have opinions as ... strong as your opinions. It's very Canadian to distrust strong opinions."
"I'm a Canadian," I said. "I've been a Canadian for twenty years."
Canon Mackie is a tall, stooped, bland-faced man, so plainly ugly that his ungainly size is unthreatening--and so plainly decent that even his stubbornness of mind is not generally offensive.
"John, John," he said to me. "You're a Canadian citizen, but what are you always talking about? You talk about America more than any American I know! And you're more anti-American than any Canadian I know," the canon said. "You're a little ... well, one-note on the subject, wouldn't you say?"
"No, I wouldn't," I said.
"John, John," Canon Mackie said. "Your anger--that's not very Canadian, either." The canon knows how to get to me; through my anger.
"No, and it's not very Christian, either," I admitted. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry!" the canon said cheerfully. "Try to be a little ... different!" The man's pauses are almost as irritating as his advice.
"It's the damn Star Wars thing that gets to me," I tried to tell him. "The only constraint on the arms race that remains is the nineteen seventy-two Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now Reagan has given the Soviets an open invitation to test nuclear weapons of their own; and if he proceeds with his missiles-in-space plans, he'll give the Soviets an open invitation to junk the treaty of nineteen seventy-two, as well!"
"You have such a head for history," the canon said. "How can you remember the dates?"
"Canon Mackie," I said.
"John, John," the canon said. "I know you're upset; I'm not m
ocking you. I'm just trying to help you understand--about the Vestry elections--"
"I don't care about the Vestry elections!" I said angrily--indicating, of course, how much I cared. "I'm sorry," I said.
The canon put his warm, moist hand on my arm.
"To our younger parish officers," he said, "you're something of an eccentric. They don't understand those years that brought you here; they wonder why--especially, when you defame the United States as vociferously as you do--why you aren't more Canadian than you are! Because you're not really a Canadian, you know--and that troubles some of the older members of this parish, too; that troubles even those of us who do remember the circumstances that brought you here. If you made the choice to stay in Canada, why do you have so little to do with Canada? Why have you learned so little about us? John: it's something of a joke, you know--how you don't even know your way around Toronto."
That is Canon Mackie in a nutshell; I worry about a war, and the canon agonizes about how I get lost the second I step out of Forest Hill. I talk about the loss of the most substantive treaty that exists between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the canon teases me about my memory for dates!
Yes, I have a good head for dates. How about August 9, 1974? Richard Nixon was finished. How about September 8, 1974? Richard Nixon was pardoned. And then there was April 30, 1975: the U.S. Navy evacuated all remaining personnel from Vietnam; they called this Operation Frequent Wind.
Canon Mackie is skillful with me, I have to admit. He mentions "dates" and what he calls my "head for history" to set up a familiar thesis: that I live in the past. Canon Mackie makes me wonder if my devotion to the memory of Canon Campbell is not also an aspect of how much I live in the past; years ago, when I felt so close to Canon Campbell, I lived less in the past--or else, what we now call the past was then the present; it was the actual time that Canon Campbell and I shared, and we were both caught up in it. If Canon Campbell were alive, if he were still rector of Grace Church, perhaps he would be no more sympathetic to me than Canon Mackie is sympathetic today.