The Bad Book Affair

20

The Retreat, as the Reverend Roberts suggested, was indeed held in Tumdrum’s community halls, a bizarre, dilapidated warren of buildings just off the town’s main square. The halls had metastasized over the years from their original simple 1930s wooden incarnation into a horribly deformed redbrick and concrete monstrosity that sprawled lazily and decrepitly across a large area surrounded by brown weeds and broken paving stones. But of course, like a church, the community halls were more than a mere building; you couldn’t really judge Tumdrum Community Halls on the basis of their looks alone. Which was fortunate, because they really were quite horrid.

A big, bright luminescent sign had been erected outside the halls saying The Retreat, with another sign in luminescent orange saying FREE TRIP TO HEAVEN DETAILS INSIDE! alongside it, and there was a loud, forceful, jolly man with a clipboard at the door, the sort of man who in middle age was somehow both fully mature and yet still fully a child, his plump neck and receding hair the perfect complement to his hilarious Hawaiian shirt and character Buddy Holly-style glasses. He was directing young people to different rooms in the halls, with an air of grand and efficient theatricality, as though he were a stage manager and the halls were the backstage dressing rooms for a large and important show. Israel was surprised: at eight o’clock on a Friday night there were crowds jostling to get in. The range of weekend and nighttime recreational activities for young people in Tumdrum was neither alluring nor extensive: the bright lights of Rathkeltair tended to draw the over-eighteens for dancing and drinking, which left the town to the younger teens to do what they wished, and what they wished was what other teens wished on Friday nights in small towns all around the world, which was to hang around on street corners, smoking, drinking, and shouting at one another and at passersby. But when they got bored or cold or they wanted someone new to annoy or to intimidate, or they just had the urge to play table tennis or pool on slightly broken-down pool and table-tennis tables, the Retreat was there for them.

“OK,” the clipboard man was saying to the crowds of people pushing through the doors, manically high-fiving whoever he could as they passed. “Good to see you! Good to see you! Hi! Hi! Hi! High-five! OK, people,” he yelled, “you know the score. It’s table tennis through to the left, sock hockey in the main hall, refreshments in the dining room, prayer room next to the toilets.” He caught his breath and then yelled over the heads of the crowd to address a gang of even-more-disenfranchised-than-most Tumdrum young people standing across the other side of the street who were shouting the traditional abuse at those going into the club. “Hey! Hey! Come on over,” he said, waving them across. “Come in. Come on. You might like it! Table tennis! Pool! Sock hockey. Come on! Check it out!”

“Loser,” shouted one young man across the road.

“Double loser,” added another.

The man with the clipboard smiled beatifically-like a saint. Or Ned Flanders, thought Israel.

“Hi! Hi! Hi! High-five!” came his repeated greeting as young people flocked through the doors.

Israel stood skulking until the rush and the high fives had died down, and then he wandered over.

“Hi!” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said the clipboard man. “The Retreat’s for under-eighteens only. But if you’re in need of a bed for the night-”

“Ha!” said Israel. “Very funny.” By the look on the man’s face Israel realized he wasn’t joking: he really thought he was homeless. “No. No. I’m not…homeless or anything.”

“Oh, apologies,” said the man. “I thought maybe you were…”

“No, no,” said Israel, tugging at his beard. Maybe he needed to shave.

“And you’re not here for the youth club?”

“No.”

“Ah. OK. Well, hi anyway. I’m Adam. Adam Burns.”

“Hello,” said Israel, shaking his proffered hand. So this, he was thinking, is what a schismatic looks like: a Club 18-30 holiday rep.

“And you are?” said Adam.

“Sorry. Israel. Armstrong. I was wondering if I could have a word with you, actually?”

“Now?” said Adam Burns.

“If possible, that would be great.”

“Well. That might be difficult, actually. It’s Retreat night, you see.”

“Yes, I understand. I just wanted to talk to you about Lyndsay Morris.”

“Ah. Terrible,” said Adam Burns, shaking his head. “We’re all so worried about her.” He looked Israel up and down. “Look. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can do?”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you,” said Israel.

Israel hung around inside the entrance to the halls, where young people were milling around aimlessly, and where it was possible to hear loud music playing from one room, people singing along to a song that seemed to consist simply of the words “Our God reigns” repeated again and again, and again and again.

Adam had disappeared and then came back a few minutes later, clipboardless, his smile intact.

“Do you want to come into the prayer room?” he asked, touching Israel on the arm.

“Yeah. That’d be great,” said Israel. He’d never really liked men who touched him on the arm.

The room was empty and clearly used as a nursery or a crèche the rest of the time: there were terrible finger paintings and laminated posters with the alphabet and numbers. Adam and Israel squatted down on a couple of miniature plastic chairs.

“So, Israel?” said Adam Burns. “Unusual name.”

“I suppose,” said Israel.

“You’re Jewish?”

“No. I’m a Hindu.”

“Really?”

“No. No. I’m joking.”

“Oh,” said Adam Burns, who despite his hilarious Hawaiian shirt was clearly not a man who was easily amused. “How can I help you?”

“Well, I wanted to ask you about Lyndsay Morris.”

“Yes. We’re all so terribly worried about her. Are you a friend or a family member?”

“No. I’m not, actually. I’m a…librarian.”

“OK,” said Adam Burns, looking momentarily confused: the old L-word again.

“And we are…helping to coordinate the police search?” suggested Israel.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

“Right.” Adam-perhaps because he was a good Christian-seemed to take Israel’s claim at face value.

“Is it right that she would come here?” said Israel, seizing the advantage of Adam’s obvious credulity.

“Yes. Yes. She did.”

“And she came here often?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know her well?”

“I think you could say that, Israel, yes. I’m privileged to say that I was one of those present when she gave her life to Christ.” Adam smiled the kind of inward smile that expressed itself outwardly as a smirk. “Sorry. I should have offered: can I get you a cup of tea?”

“No thanks. Erm. You say she gave her life to Christ?”

“Yes.”

“Erm. You mean she became a Christian?”

“Absolutely, Israel, that’s right.”

“When was that?”

“That was maybe just a few months ago.”

“But she was a Goth as well?”

“Yes. I think that’s right. But the Bible teaches us, Israel, that Jesus died for all our sins.”

“Right.”

“His work of atonement was for all, whoever we are.”

“Even Goths,” said Israel.

“Absolutely,” said Adam Burns. “And Muslims and Jews and prostitutes and sinners of every kind.”

Israel felt a little uncomfortable being lumped together with the world’s outcasts. “We believe in one body of Christ,” continued Adam Burns.

“Uh-huh,” said Israel. “Really? What about the…I mean, I hope you don’t mind if I ask about the…split with Tumdrum First Presbyterian?”

Adam Burns looked sharply at Israel, as though someone had mentioned supralapsarianism.

“Why are you asking?”

“Just. I’m…interested. I must have read about it in the…Impartial Recorder?”

“Well, it was really a doctrinal matter,” said Adam Burns.

“Right,” said Israel. “And what doctrine exactly was it that you disagreed about?”

“You’re a theologian?”

“No, just…an interested layman.”

Adam sat up straight, put his shoulders back, and looked Israel in the eye, as though delivering a lecture or a reprimand. “Well, first of all, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has become home to a number of unscriptural practices and traditions, and at Tumdrum’s First Presbyterian Church in particular-”

“The Reverend Roberts’s church?”

“That’s right. And under the”-and here Adam Burns coughed, as though pausing nervously in confession-“guidance of the Reverend Roberts, Tumdrum Presbyterian has been teaching a kind of liberal humanism in the guise of the Gospel, which I as a Christian would have to reject.”

“Right.”

“The Reverend Roberts, I’m afraid”-and he coughed again and looked away from Israel-“I would have to say is a false teacher.”

“A false teacher.”

“That’s correct. The Reverend Roberts has replaced the true Gospel with something more commercially acceptable to-”

“Commercially acceptable?” said Israel, unable to work out what on earth was commercially acceptable about the Reverend Roberts.

“Yes. Something that sells more easily to people. Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, there is no way to the Father except through me.’”

“Right.”

“And I’m afraid I don’t hear that simple, plain Gospel message being preached by the Reverend Roberts.”

“So you think he’s too…lenient?”

“Well, that’s certainly a layman’s way of expressing it, yes.”

“I’m definitely a layman,” said Israel.

“Can I ask if you’ve read the New Testament, Israel?”

“Not often,” said Israel. “No.”

“And have you ever considered your future, Israel?”

“Well, again, no, alas, not often,” said Israel. He thought about that brownstone in New York, his true home and his future, which had maybe a little balustrade out front, and he thought about breakfast with Paul Auster, and lunch with Philip Roth, and cocktails with friends from the New Yorker, and returning home late at night to listen to the sound of John Coltrane playing A Love Supreme. The utterly complete, beautiful, urban bourgeois solidity of his unfulfillable fantasy life…

“You are aware we are living in the end-times?” Adam was saying.

“Are we?” said Israel.

“Look around you,” said Adam.

Israel glanced around the room.

“Erm…”

“Not just in Tumdrum. Around the world. Economic catastrophes. Natural disasters. Tsunamis,” said Adam. “Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Wilma.”

“Ah, right, I see what you mean.”

“Disease,” continued Adam. “Famine. Strife. War.”

“Yes,” agreed Israel. But Adam wasn’t listening: he was preaching. He’d got into a rhythm. He was even rocking slightly on his seat.

“Just take the weather. Swollen rivers. Devastating floods. Southern China, northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. In Europe, Israel, last year people died from the extreme heat-and this was in Europe, mind.”

“Right.”

“Drought and wildfires.”

“Well, you’re certainly painting a picture of-”

“It’s not my picture I’m painting, Israel. It’s the Book of Revelation. The consequences of man’s rebellion against God.”

“Erm…”

“Look at the Middle East, Israel. Israel, Israel. The war against terror. Bird flu. SARS. Soaring crime. I believe we are witnessing the beginning of the outpouring of the bowls of wrath, Israel.”

“Doesn’t sound good, certainly,” said Israel.

“When you look in the papers, Israel, isn’t all you see photos of people drinking and cavorting and in states of undress? Celebrities? Lowlifes?”

“Erm. I’m not sure about the paper thing, actually. Doesn’t it depend rather which…”

“The angels are pouring out God’s wrath.”

“Uh-huh,” said Israel, nervously.

And then Adam Burns broke off suddenly from his litany of wrath and woes, as though awakening from a trance.

“You say you’re a librarian?”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask, does the library stock the Left Behind series?”

“I don’t think so,” said Israel. “I can always run a check for you.”

“My sense is,” said Adam, “that the forces of the secular state don’t want that kind of literature in the libraries.”

“Well, I’d hardly regard myself as an agent of the secular state. We have a very open policy on what’s admitted,” said Israel.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm,” said Adam, unconvinced.

Israel felt that the conversation had perhaps drifted away from where he wanted it to be going. He shifted in his tiny seat.

“Sorry. Just to get back to Lyndsay Morris.”

“Ah, yes, of course.”

“When was the last time she was at the club here?”

“It would be about a month or so ago, I think.”

“OK. And can you think of any reason why she hasn’t been back since?”

“I’m afraid I had to ask her to leave the Retreat.” Adam did his cough.

“Right. Why?”

“She was becoming rather…a problem.”

“Really?”

“It was a question of behavior.”

“Oh dear. What sort of behavior?”

“I’m afraid Lyndsay was self-harming,” said Adam Burns.

“What?”

“She was cutting her arms with razor blades.”

“Oh dear.”

“It’s not uncommon, actually, among the young people we work with, Israel. More girls than boys.”

“Why was she self-harming?”

“Personally, I think it was something to do with home.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, I believe, Israel, that I have what the Bible calls the gift of knowledge.”

“The gift of knowledge?”

“Yes. One of the gifts of the spirit.”

“1 Corinthians 12?” said Israel.

“Yes,” agreed Adam Burns, rather surprised. “That’s right. And I felt I had to ask to her to leave.”

“Why? Shouldn’t you be-”

“It’s complicated, Israel. Lyndsay had become a part of our church group-”

“Kerugma?”

“That’s right. So she wasn’t just coming on Friday nights. She had become part of our fellowship. And when someone…breaks covenant with us within the fellowship we feel we have no choice but to defellowship them.”

“Defellowship?”

“That’s correct.”

“Sorry, I still don’t quite understand how a young girl who is self-harming would be breaking-”

“Let me put it this way, Israel. We believe that Jesus shed his blood in our place and that his was the perfect sacrifice. And so in self-harming we believe the young person is denying this once-only act of atonement. Do you see?”

Israel nodded skeptically.

“So,” continued Adam Burns, “persisting in this sort of behavior, we believe, is behaving in many ways like the priests of the Old Testament, who continually offered sacrifices that could in no way atone for their sins.”

“Right,” said Israel, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with Adam Burns’s logic.

“Which is wrong. It’s a sin.”

“OK.”

“Jesus wants to transform us, Israel. He wants to make us into his likeness. And if we resist that and continue to set our face against the Lord’s will for our lives, then I’m afraid it’s difficult for us to share fellowship with such a person.”

Israel smiled, falsely.

“The aim of Kerugma is not merely to proclaim the gospel but also to offer to one another mutual encouragement and edification in Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2:15.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where the churches are instructed to ‘stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us.’”

“Yeah.”

“So, if we believers are part of the body of Christ, shouldn’t we be unified, as his one bride?”

“Erm…” said Israel, his voice strained and high. “So, basically, when you found out she was self-harming-”

“Persisting in self-harming.”

“Right. You then asked her to leave?”

“Yes.”

After thanking Adam Burns for his time, Israel left the community halls as quickly as possible. As he hurried down the street he remembered something his mother would sometimes say to him. “All Christians,” she would say, “are crazy.” He’d never quite understood what she meant.

He’d never been so glad to see teenagers hanging around on street corners drinking and smoking and shouting abuse.