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—"
"The Bishop of Rome," Bishop Archer said. "That is what he actually is: the Bishop of Rome. The Roman Catholic Church; our church is a catholic church as well."
"They won't ever ordain women, you think?" Kirsten said.
"Only when the Parousia is here," Bishop Archer said.
"What is that?" Kirsten said. "You'll have to excuse my ignorance; I really have no religious background or inclinations."
"Neither do I," Bishop Archer said. "I only know that, as Malebranche said, 'It is not I who breathes but God who breathes in me.' The Parousia is the Presence of Christ. The catholic church, of which we are a part, breathes and breathes only through the living power of Christ; he is the head of which we are the body. 'Now the Church is his body, he is the head,' as Paul said. It is a concept known to the ancient world and one we can understand."
"Interesting," Kirsten said.
"No, it is true," the bishop said. "Intellectual matters are interesting and so are odd factual things, such as the amount of salt produced by a single mine. This that I speak of is a topic that determines not what we know but what we are. We have our life through Jesus Christ. 'He is the image of the unseen God and the first-born of all creation, for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, everything visible and everything invisible, Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers—all things were created through him and for him. Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things in unity.'" The bishop's voice was low and intense; he spoke evenly, and as he spoke he gazed directly at Kirsten, and I saw her return his gaze, in almost a stricken way, as if she both wanted to hear and did not want to hear, fearing and fascinated. Many times I had heard Tim preach at Grace Cathedral and he now addressed her, one person, with the same intensity that he brought to bear on great masses of people. And yet it was all for her.
There was silence for a moment.
"A lot of the priests still say 'deaconess,'" Jeff said. He shuffled awkwardly. "When Tim isn't around."
I said to Kirsten, "Bishop Archer is probably the strongest supporter of women's rights in the Episcopal Church."
"Actually, I think I've heard that," Kirsten said. She turned to me and said calmly, "I wonder—do you suppose—"
"I'd be glad to address your organization," the bishop said. "That's why we're having lunch." Reaching into his coat pocket, he brought out his black notebook. "I'll take your phone number and I promise to call you within the next few days. I'll have to consult with Jonathan Graves, the bishop suffragan, but I'm sure I'll be able to find time for you."
"I'll give you both my number at FEM," Kirsten said, "and my home phone number. Do—" She hesitated. "Do you want me to tell you something about FEM, Bishop?"
"Tim," Bishop Archer said.
"We are not militant in the conventional sense of—"
"I'm quite familiar with your organization," Bishop Archer said. "I want you to consider this. 'If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fullness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all.' First Corinthians, chapter thirteen. As women, you find your place in the world out of love, not animosity. Love is not limited to the Christia
n, love is not just for the church. If you wish to conquer us, show us love and not scorn. Faith moves mountains, love moves human hearts. The people opposing you are people, not things. Your enemy is not men but ignorant men. Don't confuse the men with their ignorance. It has taken years; it will take years more. Don't be impatient and don't hate. What time is it?" He looked around, suddenly concerned. "Here." He passed a card to Kirsten. "You call me. I have to be going. It was nice meeting you."
He left us then. I realized after he had gone, very suddenly realized, that he had forgotten to pay the check.
3
THE BISHOP OF California spoke to the members of FEM and then talked their governing board out of two thousand dollars as a contribution to the church's fund for world famine, really a nominal sum and for a meritorious cause. It took a while for the news that Tim was seeing Kirsten socially to percolate down to Jeff and me. Jeff was simply amazed. I thought it was funny.
It did not even strike Jeff as funny that his father had shaken two thousand dollars loose from FEM. He had seen a free speech looming up; that hadn't come to pass. He had anticipated friction and dislike between his father and my friend Kirsten. That had not come to pass either. Jeff did not understand his own father.
The way I found out was through Kirsten, not Tim. I got a phone call the week following Tim's speech. Kirsten wanted to go shopping with me in San Francisco.
When you're dating a bishop you do not tell everybody in town. Kirsten spent hours fussing with dresses and blouses and tops and skirts, at store after store before even hinting at what was going on. My promised silence was secured in advance by means of oaths more elaborate than those of the Rosicrucians. Telling me was ten percent of the fun; she strung the revelation out, seemingly forever. We were, in fact, all the way down at the Marina before I fathomed what she had been hinting at.
"If Jonathan Graves finds out," Kirsten said, "Tim will have to resign."
I could not even remember who Jonathan Graves was. The disclosure seemed irreal; I thought at first that she was joking and then I thought she was hallucinating.
"The Chronicle would put it on page one," Kirsten said, in a solemn tone. "And on top of the heresy trial—"
"Jesus Christ!" I said. "You can't sleep with a bishop!"
"I already have," Kirsten said.
"Who else have you told?"
"Nobody else. I'm not sure if you should tell Jeff. Tim and I talked it over. We couldn't decide."
We, I thought. You destructive bitch, I thought. To get laid you'd ruin a man's entire life, a man who knew Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy and determines the opinion of—my opinion, to name one person.
"Don't look so upset," Kirsten said.
"Whose idea was it?"
"Why should it make you angry?"
"Was it your idea?"
Kirsten said calmly, "We discussed it."
After a minute I began to laugh. Kirsten, annoyed at first, presently joined me; we stood on the grass by the edge of the bay, laughing and holding onto each other. Passing people regarded us with curiosity. "Was it any good?" I managed to say finally. "I mean, what was it like?"
"It was terrific. But now he has to confess."
"Does that mean you can't do it again?"
"It just means he has to confess again."
"Aren't you going to go to hell?"
Kirsten said, "He is. I'm not."
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"That I'm not going to hell?" She giggled.
"We have to be real adult about this," I said.
"Yes we do. We absolutely have to be totally adult. We have to walk around as if everything is normal. This is not normal. I mean, it isn't like I'm saying it's abnormal in the sense of—you know."
"Like making it with a goat."
Kirsten said, "I wonder if there's a word for it ... making it with an Episcopal bishop. Bishopric. Tim told me that word."
"Bishop prick?"
"No, bishop ric. You're not pronouncing it right." We had to hold onto each other to keep from falling; neither of us could stop laughing. "It's the place he lives or something. Oh, God." She wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. "Always be sure you pronounce it bishop ric. This is terrible. We really are going to go to hell, straight to hell. You know what he let me do?" Kirsten leaned close to me to whisper in my ear. "I tried on some of his robes and his miter; you know, the shovel hat. The first lady bishop."
"You may not be the first."
"I looked great. I looked better than he does. I want you to see. We're getting an apartment. For Christ's sake, don't say anything about this part especially, but he's paying for it out of his Discretionary Fund."
"Church money?" I stared at her.
"Listen." Kirsten looked solemn again, but she could not maintain her expression; she hid her face in her hands.
"Isn't that illegal?" I said.
"No, it's not illegal. That's why it's called the Bishop's Discretionary Fund; he gets to do with it what he wants. I'm going to go to work for him as—we haven't decided, but some kind of general secretary, like a booking agent or something, to handle all the speeches and traveling he does. His business affairs. I can still stay on with the organization ... FEM, I mean." She was silent a moment and then she said, "The problem is going to be Bill. I can't tell him because he's nuts again. I shouldn't say that. Deep autistic fugal withdrawal with impaired ideation compounded with delusions of reference, plus alternating catatonic stupor and excitement. He's down at Hoover Pavilion, at Stanford. Mostly for diagnosis. In terms of diagnosis, they're the best on the West Coast. They use something like four psychiatrists for diagnosis, three from the hospital itself and one from outside."
"I'm sorry," I said.
"The Army thing did it. Anxiety about being drafted. They accused him of malingering. Well, I guess it's part of life. He had to drop out of school anyhow. He would have had to drop school anyhow, is what I'm trying to say. His episodes always begin the same way—he starts crying and he doesn't take out the trash. The crying part doesn't bother me; it's the goddamn trash. It just piles up, trash and garbage. And he doesn't bathe. And he stays in his apartment. And he doesn't pay his utility bills, so they cut off his gas and electricity. And he starts writing letters to the White House. This is one area Tim and I haven't discussed. I really don't discuss it with very many people. So I would estimate that I can keep our affair—my affair with Tim—secret because I've had practice keeping things secret. No, pardon me; it doesn't begin with him crying—it begins with him not being able to drive his car. Driving phobia; he's afraid he'll veer off the road. First it has to do with the Eastshore Freeway and then it spreads to all the other streets, and then he winds up afraid to walk to the store, so as a result he can't shop for food. But that doesn't matter because by that time he isn't eating anything anyhow." She lapsed into silence. "There's a Bach cantata about it," she said finally, and I saw her try to smile. "A line in the 'Coffee Cantata.' About having trouble with your children. They're a hundred thousand miseries, something like that. Bill used to play the goddamn thing. Few people know Bach wrote a cantata about coffee, but he did."
We walked in silence.
"It sounds as if—" I said.
"It's schizophrenia. They use him to try out every new phenothiazine that comes along. He goes in cycles, but the cycles get worse. He's sick longer and he's more sick. I shouldn't have brought it up; it's not your problem."
"I don't mind."
Kirsten said, "Maybe Tim can effect a deep spiritual cure. Didn't Jesus cure mentally ill people?"
"He sent the evil spirits into a bunch of pigs," I said. "And they all rushed over a cliff."
"That seems like a waste," Kirsten said.
"They may have eaten them anyhow."
"Not if they were Jews. Anyhow, who would want to eat a pork chop that had an evil spirit in it? I shouldn't joke about this, but—I will talk to Tim about it. But not for a while. I think Bill got it from me. I'm screwed up,
God knows. I'm screwed up and I screwed him up. I keep looking at Jeff and noticing the difference between them; they're about the same age and Jeff has such a good grip on reality."
"Don't bet on it," I said.
Kirsten said, "When Bill gets out of the hospital, I'd like him to meet Tim. I'd like him to meet your husband, in fact; they never have met, have they?"
"No," I said. "But if you think Jeff can serve as a role-model, I'm really not—"
"Bill has very few friends. He's not outgoing. I've talked about you and your husband; you're both his age."
Thinking about it, I perceived down the pipe of time Kirsten's lunatic son messing up our lives. That thought surprised me. It was utterly devoid of charity and it had in it an essence of fear. I knew my husband and I knew myself. Neither of us was ready to take on the job of amateur therapy. Kirsten, however, was an organizer. She organized people into doing things, good things but things not necessarily to their own benefit.
I had, at that instant, a keen intuition that I was being hustled. At the Bad Luck, I had essentially witnessed Bishop Archer and Kirsten Lundborg hustle each other in an intricate transaction, but it was, apparently, a transaction that benefited them both, or anyhow they both thought so. This, with her son Bill, looked to me like a purely one-way matter. I didn't see what we had to gain.
"Let me know when he's out," I said. "But I think that Tim, because of his professional training, would be a better—"
"But there's the age difference. And you get the element of the father-figure."
"Maybe that would be good. Maybe that's what your son needs."
Glaring at me, Kirsten said, "I've done an excellent job of raising Bill. His father walked out of our lives and never looked back."