The 13 th tribe

[17]

The left panel showed Moses kneeling on a stone mountain, head bowed, hands clasped in front of him. A few twigs and leaves of a fiery bush encroached from one side, casting golden light on his face. Much as the bottom portion of the main painting had disgusted her, this one brought peace: humble man in communion with his loving Creator. In the right panel, Moses’s demeanor had swung in the other direction. Face contorted in fury, he stood on a boulder, two stone tablets raised above his head. The same golden glow seen emanating from the bush radiated from the tablets. Instead of feeling his fury, Beth felt only sadness.

Both panels were masterfully crafted, but it was the center panel that commanded attention. It depicted the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. Men, women, and children danced around a large, gleaming-gold bull perched high on a chiseled stone pedestal. Several had joined hands, but most were engaged in their own private spinning and hopping, laughing and singing. Coming around the far side of the pedestal was a line of skipping musicians, playing their instruments with all the gusto and passion of a modern-day rock band. Behind them, the mountain-the one Beth marveled at every day-rose out of sight. Bodies packed the sides of the painting, giving the impression they went on forever, thousands, tens of thousands partying, reveling, worshipping the wrong god. Hair flew, clothing whipped around, a small child had tripped and was being dragged by an oblivious adult. Beth could almost hear the dissonance of music, singing, and shouting-blurring into a sustained, undulating scream. That she had to remind herself it was a painting and not a window onto a scene happening at the moment was a testament to the artist’s talent.

“Who…?” Beth said. She lost the thought among all the activity on the panel.

“No one knows,” Gheronda said. “Experts have compared it to Rubens, and it’s been dated to around his time, the early 1600s. Marvelous, isn’t it?”

“That’s not the word I would use,” she said.

“Are they happy?” Tyler said. His eyes roamed over the painting as though following a particular string among a tangled mass.

“I think they’re trying to be happy,” Gheronda said. “In their hearts they know what they’re doing is wrong, but they let their impatience and need to worship something get the better of them. That contradiction drove them a little crazy, I think.”

“A little?” Beth said.

Tyler pointed at the cardboard covering the lower foot of the six-foot-tall painting. Its contours perfectly covered the most offensive images. “What’s under that?” he said.

“You don’t need to know,” Beth said. “Just people doing bad things.”

“I don’t usually censor art,” Gheronda said. “But in this case.. ”

“I’m a writer,” Beth said. “I’m opposed to almost all censorship, except the kind each of us does in deciding what we will and won’t let in. What you’ve done in covering up that part isn’t censorship, it’s decency.” She shook her head. “Why would someone with the talent to paint like that, paint that?” She waved her hand at the covered portion, as though swishing it away.

A voice spoke behind them: “Because it’s the truth.”

The three of them spun toward it.

Father Leo was leaning against a pillar, arms crossed over his chest. Leo was the collection’s curator. He had a scraggly beard clinging to his jawline, chin, and upper lip-considering his baby face, Beth suspected it was the best he could do to match the long, bushy beards the other monks sported.

He came off the pillar and stepped forward. “The artist did his homework.” He mussed Tyler’s hair. “Hey, Ty.”

Tyler grinned.

“Think about it,” Leo said, addressing Beth. “False gods corrupt the spirit. How can they not? They draw you away from the real God, from his love and protection and moral laws. Then we start looking for things to make us feel better, and we turn to”-he pointed at the lower portion of the painting-“that.”

“That may be,” Beth said. “But we don’t need to see it.”

Leo tilted his head, raised his eyebrows. “I disagree. Sin is a car wreck of the spirit. They show high school kids pictures of accidents, bodies and all. ‘This is what happens when you drink and drive-or text and drive.’ Why not show the result of sin: depravity, death.”

“I believe focusing on positive rewards works better than negative reinforcement.”

“We’re wired to respond to both.” He made a grab at Tyler’s nose. “What works for your son?”

She gave him a lopsided smile and conceded, “Both. But I don’t want to be scared into heaven.”

Leo’s smile grew wider. “When it comes to eternal salvation, don’t you think the best strategy is whatever works?”

“Still, I don’t need to see it or read it or watch it to know sin is bad for us.”

“I think we all need reminders: Michelangelo’s depiction of souls being dragged to hell on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings of demons eating sinners, skinning them alive. Scandalous during their times, but now most of us can appreciate that the artists weren’t trying to titillate us, but tell us the truth about sin.” He scratched at the sparse hair on his cheek. “Can you see yourself as one of the women in this painting?”

“No,” Beth said definitively.

“Thank God for that,” Leo said. “Thank him with all of your heart because you know how bad it can be-how bad you can be-without him.”

“I don’t-” Beth stopped herself. She was going to say she didn’t have to hear the details of child abuse to understand how awful it is. But a thought occurred to her: Didn’t she hate drunkenness and irresponsibility a thousand times more than she had before the accident that had taken Jagger’s arm and the lives of an entire family? Hadn’t she come to hate those things maybe as much as God did? Didn’t it make sense that intimate exposure to sin and the grief it causes-even through art-would nudge her closer to the level of abhorrence for sin that God felt?

She nodded, giving Leo this debate.

“So can I see it?” Tyler said.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.” There was still such a thing as age appropriateness.

“Mom,” Tyler whined.

“Tyler, I said-”

“I have to go to the bathroom. Now.”

Gheronda raised his hand to point out the restroom, but Beth said, “I’ll take him back to the apartment. We’ve already kept you from your work too long.”

“Thank you,” Tyler said, rushing along their good-byes. He was squirming now.

“And you too, Father Leo,” Beth said, “for the food for thought.”

He bowed his head. “Bon appetit.”

She took Tyler’s hand and headed for the door at the other end of the hall. He broke away and ran, kicking up the treasures in his utility case: kich-kich-kich-kich-kich…

“Don’t run!” she hoarse-whispered. She glanced back. The two men were appraising the diptych, as though they hadn’t done so countless times. It didn’t matter if she ever saw it again-she would never forget the depravity it depicted, the twisted delight of its faces, or the nausea it had stirred in her.