Sunday morning, in bed with the newspaper, I lay among acts of rape and global terrorism, fascinated. Evil on the Sabbath. There was an unsolicited knock at the door. I put on my Chinese happy coat and thongs. On the veranda stood a couple in their 30s. “Blessed morning,” they said smiling. The man wore a business suit made of a kind of buffed steel.

“Yes?”

“God has a message for you,” he said.

I looked at his hands for an envelope; maybe a telegram.

He turned to the woman. “May Sarah and I share with you what God has to say?”

“Well, I…”

He took a black book from the woman. I noticed her: she had the sort of breasts that float in an atmosphere of awed silence. She smiled.

“God says, in the last days there will be much wailing and beating of breasts.”

“Oh yes.”

He flashed the book at me. “These are the Lord’s own words! The book had more leather and chains than your average bikie.

“I’ve read it.”

He smiled. “Then you will know that in Razulians,” he flicked a page and found the spot at once, “it says, ‘For many will be called but few hear. For they have turned their ears away from God’s station’.” He looked up, very pleased. “Jeremy,” he said, reaching out a hand. “And Sarah.”

We shook like men going on a dangerous mission together. “Clem.”

“Hello, Clem. “He flexed his jaw into a smile. “Have you thought about what God means to you?’ His eyebrows buckled with sincerity.

“Yes, I…”

“And have you answered Him from your innermost, secret heart?”

I looked into the smiling suit, past the eyebrows, seeking the man. The common humanity. The weakness and fear, and places in a man where pain resides. Uncertainty comforts me. I like to know that others also live in a fog of instinct, the world of blind fluke. He continued to stare.

“Look, I’d rather not talk about this.”

“But isn’t this just the most important thing in your life, Clem?”

I glanced at Sarah. She was smiling and watching my face, my lack of a shave.

“When God calls you, Clem,” he raised the book at me, “it’s a matter of life and death!”

“I’m afraid I have to go.” I slid behind the bars of screen door.

“We all have to eventually, Clem.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll call again.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“God wants you, Clem.”

I closed the door softly, clicked the deadlock, came back to my newspaper. I lay thinking about matters of Life and Death. Especially Death. I’m not too fond of it myself. I sometimes think of my own: when it will happen, and where. Perhaps at work; during morning tea. One moment I’m studying the racing page, the next they’re laying it over my face.

And the typists tip-toeing around the body to get the tea trolley. The indignity of death. Kaput. Phtt. I turned to the cartoons.

It was an unguarded Saturday: the football had just reached a vital stage. I turned down the radio and ran to the door.

“Hi, Clem,” his eyes clenched in an old comrade’s smile. Sarah hung behind him, radiant with the joy of holding the book. Her hair was bound in a scarf, as if she’d been wounded in the head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t want to get into discussion.”

“Clem,” he said, laying my name around me like a hook. “We bring love.”

I looked at Sarah. It seemed possible. “What?”

A smile exploded across his face. “God said that all who forsake parents and wives and dependants and follow Him will be given eternal life.”

“That seems a bit extreme.”

“Extreme?”

“I believe,” I held my hands about 24 centimetres apart, “in moderation”.

He measured out the space between my hands, then swung his own arms wide. “Clem! God brings a revolution into your life!”

He beamed his X-ray vision at me, radiating sincerity. In the background, the football was getting to a frantic stage. The commentators howled like rabid dogs.

Suddenly Sarah spoke: “Our Lord has the power to change you, Clem, totally.” She spoke softly, with staring eyes. They eyes were shouting. “If you will surrender to Him.”

I don’t like this kind of talk, especially from a woman. “Listen, I’m a reasonable person. I don’t need people telling me to ‘surrender’, and ‘change my ways’.”

“You’re wrong, Clem,” said Jeremy, his face widened by a grin. “We all need to be told when God is not pleased.”

I got back into my doorway, gaining some height. “Please leave my property.” I did my Orson Wells imitation, full of brooding authority. It works with salesmen. “Or I call the police.”

He stiffened as if a small knife had entered his back. “We’re used to being persecuted, Clem.” His eyebrows descended like a roll of barbed wire. “We have learnt to suffer as He did, on His behalf.”

“I’m only asking you to go.”

“Call the police if you like. We are about God’s business.” He held out his palms. I looked for nail holes.

Inside the house, I began to dial. Images ricocheted through my head: images from Sunday school, of soldiers, crucifixions, and traitors. Jesus bids us shine, et al. “Emergency,” said a voice. “What service do you require?”

“Evensong.” I rang off.

They were at the far end of the veranda. “For God’s sake, bugger off!” I took my garden hose in hand.

“It is for His sake we’ve come,” said Jeremy, squaring himself for the hose, refusing a blindfold. “We bring a blessing.” I felt a sudden sympathy for the Old Japanese, torturing Portuguese missionaries. Unfortunately, there are by-laws. I turned on the hose.

“Please go.”

They linked hands. They stood like figures on a Chinese revolutionary poster. I aimed at the legs; the hose coughed and spat. Spray silvered into the air between us, enveloping them. Even the book got wet. They knelt and prayed, drawn together, hose water raining on them like a benediction.

The hose grew limp in my hand. A few drops splashed on my shoe. They looked up from prayer, dripping and slick as bathed cats. Water streaked their faces, pooled in the creases of their clothes, made puddles about their knees. They smiled bravely.

“You’d better come inside,” I said.

They dripped into the lounge. I wrapped them in dressing gowns while their clothes dried. How forgiving they were. We sat by the fire and began to talk.

 

(Published Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 2, 1990)