Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [158]
“You refer to Empedocles. I refer to Thales, who was earlier.” “You’re very erudite.”
“We have to be. Nowadays we cannae depend on the education of our patrons. Traditionally, in the chaos stage, the spirit of God is shown as a bird. I’m making him a man above the point of the middle window. He’s small, and shaped like a falling diver, and in black silhouette so we can’t see if he’s swooping toward us or away. He is the seed fertilizing chaos, the word that will order it into worlds.”
“Perfectly orthodox.”
“Here is the ceiling. The first panel shows Monday’s work, the making of light. A golden egg with God inside floats on the dark water. He’s naked and fully visible and represented conventionally as a middle-aged vigorous man.”
“His expression is rather alarming.”
“I can soften it. On Tuesday we have the making of space. A firmament is set up dividing the waters above it from the waters below. God wades waist deep in the lower waters, raising a tent-shaped sky above his head. The light fills the tent. On Wednesday the lower waters are drawn back and the dry land fixed in the middle and clothed with grass, flowers, herbs and trees. The early Jews seemed obsessed with water, they have God grappling with it for one and a half working days.”
“They lived in the Euphrates delta,” said the minister. “Where water not only fell from the sky but in seasons of flood actually bubbled out of the soil. It nourished their crops and flocks and often drowned them too.”
“I see. Thursday: night and day, sun, moon, stars. Friday: fishes and birds. With each addition to his universe God is more hidden behind it, till on Saturday all we see are his nostrils in a cloud, breathing life into Adam who is wakening among the creatures below. Adam is shaped like God but more pensive. Lastly, here is the wall facing the organ. Adam and Eve kneel cuddling beside the river which springs from under the tree of life. The bird in the tree is a phoenix. I’ve several other details to work out yet.”
After a long pause the minister said, “I admire, of course, the skill and thought you have put into this and so, I’m sure, will the kirk session. But I’m afraid they won’t allow your depiction of God. No. You see, he’ll frighten the children. Everything else is just fine however: light, space, oceans, mountains, all these birds and animals—but not God. Oh, no.”
“But without God we have a purely evolutionary picture of creation!” cried Thaw.
“There is a lot to be said for the Mosaic notion that the Almighty is most present when least imagined. And it would be a pity to frighten the children,” said the minister, closing his eyes. “Very well,” said Thaw, after a pause. “I’ll take him off the ceiling. But I must show him diving through chaos. That is essential.”
“Hardly anyone will notice him there. I’m sure that Arthur Smail will raise no objection.”
At medical inspection next morning the professor paused by Thaw’s bed and said, “Mr. Clark and Mr. Thaw here are our oldest inhabitants. Everyone else in the ward when they were admitted has cleared out or kicked the bucket but these two have got into a repetitive cycle of improvement and deterioration. Mr. Clark is seventy-four, there’s some excuse for him. There’s none for you, Duncan. Why do you do it?”
“I don’t know,” said Duncan.
“Then I’ll tell you,” said the professor cheerfully. “And don’t get angry. You’re intelligent and tough enough to understand me, which is why I’m not whispering behind your back. This patient, gentlemen, is suffering from adaption. Let me give you an example of adaption. A hardworking man of thirty loses his job through no fault of his own. For two or three months he hunts for work but can’t find any. His national insurance money runs out and he goes on the dole. In these circumstances his energy and initiative are a burden to him. They make him want to break things and punch people. So instinctively his metabolism lowers itself. He grows slovenly and depressed.