Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [53]
“Any other prayers, any other prayers …”
Ian studied the sprigged skirt while shame slammed into him in waves. He had said and done heedless things before but this was something new: to laugh out loud at a mother’s bereavement. He wished he could disappear. He wanted to perform some violent and decisive act, like leaping into space himself.
“No prayer is unworthy in the eyes of our Creator.”
He stood up.
Heads swiveled once again.
“I used to be—” he said.
Frog in his throat. He gave a dry, fake-sounding cough.
“I used to be good,” he said. “Or I used to be not bad, at least. Not evil. I just assumed I wasn’t evil, but lately, I don’t know what’s happened. Everything I touch goes wrong. I didn’t mean to laugh just now. I’m sorry I laughed, Mrs.…”
He looked over at the woman. Her face was lowered and she seemed unaware of him. But the others were watching closely. He had the sense they were weighing his words; they were taking him seriously.
“Pray for me to be good again,” he told them. “Pray for me to be forgiven.”
He sat down.
The minister raised his palms.
The silence that followed was so deep that Ian felt bathed in it. He unfolded in it; he gave in to it. He floated on a fluid rush of prayers, and all the prayers were for his pardon. How could God not listen, then?
When Ian was three or four years old, his mother had read him a Bible story for children. The illustration had showed a Roman soldier in full armor accosting a bearded old man. “Is that God?” Ian had asked, pointing to the soldier; for he associated God with power. But his mother had said, “No, no,” and continued reading. What Ian had gathered from this was that God was the other figure, therefore—the bearded old man. Even after he knew better, he couldn’t shake that notion, and now he imagined the congregation’s prayers streaming toward someone with long gray hair and a floor-length, Swedish-blue robe and sturdy bare feet in leather sandals. He felt a flood of gratitude to this man, as if God were, in literal truth, his father.
“For our guest,” the minister said.
“Amen.”
It was over too suddenly. It hadn’t lasted long enough. Already the minister was saying, “Any other prayers, any other prayers …”
There weren’t any.
“Hymn sixteen, then,” the minister said, and everyone stirred and rustled pages and stood up. They were so matter-of-fact; they were smoothing skirts, patting hairdos. Ian’s neighbor, a stocky, round-faced woman, beamed at him and tilted her hymnal in his direction. The hymn was “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.” The minister started it off in his soaring tenor:
“What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the everlasting arms …”
This time Ian sang too, although really it was more of a drone.
When the hymn was finished, the minister raised his palms again and recited a benediction. “Go ye now into the world and bear witness to His teachings,” he said. “In Jesus’ name, amen.”
“Amen,” the others echoed.
Was that if?
They started collecting coats and purses, buttoning buttons, winding scarves. “Welcome!” Ian’s neighbor told him. “How did you find out about us?”
“Oh, I was just walking by …”
“So many young people nowadays don’t give half enough thought to their spiritual salvation.”
“No, I guess not,” Ian said.
All at once he felt he was traveling under false pretense. Spiritual salvation! The language these places used made him itch with embarrassment. (Blood of the Lamb, Died for Your Sins …) He looked yearningly behind him, where the first people to leave were already sending a slap of cold air into the room. But his neighbor was waving to the minister. “Yoo-hoo! Reverend Emmett! Come and meet our young person!”
The minister, already choosing a path between the knots of worshipers, seemed disconcertingly jubilant. His smile was so wide that his teeth looked too big for his mouth. He arrived in front of Ian and shook his hand over and over. “Wonderful to have you!” he said. (His long, bony fingers felt like dried beanpods.) “I’m Reverend Emmett. This is Sister Nell, have you introduced