The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [44]
Contributed to what? I wondered but did not ask.
Like all of us, Alphus is tormented from time to time by the larger questions of existence. Why are we here? Where are we going? One evening, over snifters of single-malt for him and a decent brandy for me, he asked me, “What exactly is the soul?”
I held my cognac up to the light and stared into its pale depths. “The soul,” I said, trying for a bon mot, “is something we may or may not have but can definitely lose.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Okay, call it our inner essence, our moral core. Christians, a lot of Christians, believe it survives death and lives forever.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
“Sounds hellish.”
So that, by degrees, we got onto the subject of religion. “I don’t know about God or any of that,” he said without preamble, “but I do sense wonder all around me. I remember feeling that all life is sacred even before the procedure that opened my mind to real thoughts.”
I nodded in agreement. “I’ve often thought in agreement with Father O’Gould, whom you should meet, that there are degrees of divinity in everything, even inert matter.”
Alphus nodded dubiously. “I’ve been reading up on the ‘great’ religions,” he signed with a world-weary tone to his movements. It was then that he stated why Islam didn’t interest him. For that declaration he had to teach me the signing for “Islam.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It’s too total. Too intense. And I’m not interested in virgins.”
I didn’t respond as I could tell he was on the point of another observation. Instead, he asked me, “Why are you a Christian?”
“I was brought up to be one,” I said, knowing that wouldn’t satisfy him. “Why? Have you thought of it yourself?”
He sipped his malt and put it down. He nodded. “I have thought a lot about it. Christianity has many marvelous things about it. The music alone …” He spelled out Bach, Handel, Rutter.
“Rutter?” I questioned.
“He’s contemporary. Someone played his Christmas music at Sign House. Then there’s the art and the architecture. I would love very much to see Hagia Sophia. To think it was built in the sixth century.” He paused and looked at me with that face of his.
“But,” I provided.
“But I’m not particularly reassured by a creed one of the central metaphors of which is that of a shepherd and his flock.”
“Really?”
“Not when you consider what happens to most sheep.”
“Hmmm,” I hummed, unable to think of a telling rebuttal. “It certainly puts Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze in a new perspective.” I sipped from my own drink and came up with the predictable, “Have you considered Buddhism?”
“Very seriously. Mudras—” He stopped to spell it out for me. “—are, after all a form of nonverbal communication.” He got off the sofa where he had been sitting and sat on the carpet with his legs folded in front of him, his posture erect, his right hand turned up on his lap, fingers together, and his left hand palm up with the fingers extended. “This is called the Varada Mudra. It symbolizes charity, compassion, and boon granting.”
I was impressed. “Then why not become a Buddhist?” I said as he resumed his seat on the sofa and picked up his drink.
After a moment he freed his hands. “To be honest, I don’t like the kind of people Buddhism attracts. Mostly the kind of white people, that is.”
“Hinduism?”
“Too many deities.”
“Okay, then what about Judaism?” I asked, more or less to complete the catalog of major faiths.
He shook his head. “Jews worship themselves. And I am not a Jew.”
The tone of his gestures made me glance at him sharply. Did I have an anti-Semitic ape on my hands?
“You mean that they are devoted to their history, their traditions, their prophets, their laws …”
“No. I mean they worship themselves. But in that they are merely exemplary of humankind as a whole, humankind with its deep, unquestioned, and doting self-love.”
Food for thought does not always