“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” She studied him and hesitated, as if unsure about whether to mention something, then decided she would. “You know, back at the monastery. When you leaned down beside Finch. For a moment there, I . . .”
“You thought I was going to bring him back?”
She was taken aback by his insight. “Yes.”
He nodded to himself, as if he had wondered about the same thing. “I have to say . . . I wasn’t sure myself. Of what would happen. Of what I could do.” He looked up at her, his expression foggy.
“But that’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “That’s what I can’t understand. One minute, something we can’t understand—something that could well be what we call God—is sending us some kind of message, showing itself, and it’s hopeful and inspiring and wonderful . . . and then, the next minute, a perfectly good man’s life is taken away, just like that.” Her whole face was questioning him. “It’s like when my mom died. There wasn’t a better, kinder soul on this planet. And I couldn’t understand why something like that could be allowed to happen if there was any kind of super-being watching over us. There was no way that could be justified. I talked to a couple of pastors at the time. They just gave me the standard sound bites about her ‘being with God’ and his ‘testing us’ and all kinds of other platitudes that, frankly, sounded like complete nonsense. Their words meant nothing to me.”
Father Jerome nodded thoughtfully. “The reason your preacher couldn’t help you is he’s lost. He’s still using the same words preachers used to try and comfort people five hundred years ago. But we’re a bit more sophisticated than that now.” He paused, as if pained by his own words. “That’s the problem with religion right now. It hasn’t evolved. And instead of being open and looking for ways to be relevant in today’s world, it’s gone all defensive and protective and it’s regressed into lowest-common-denominator sound bites—and fundamentalism.”
“But you can’t reconcile religion with modern life, with all the knowledge we have, with science,” Gracie said. “I mean, let me ask you this. Do you believe in evolution? Or do you think men and dinosaurs wandered around the planet together six thousand years ago . . . after it was created in six days?”
Father Jerome smiled. “I’ve lived in Africa for many years, Miss Logan—”
“Please, call me Gracie,” she interjected.
He nodded. “I’ve been to the digs, I’ve seen the fossils, I’ve studied the science. Of course I believe in evolution. You’d have to be a blinkered halfwit not to.” He studied her reaction as she flinched. “Does that surprise you?”
“You could say that,” she laughed, still stunned.
He shrugged. “It shouldn’t. But then, religion in your country is so focused on fighting science and all these compelling atheist voices that your preachers have lost track of what religion is really about. In our church—the Eastern Church—and in Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, religion isn’t there to offer theories or explanations. We accept that the divine is unknowable. But for you and for a lot of rational people like you, it’s become a choice. Fact or faith. Science or religion.” He paused, then added, “You shouldn’t have to choose.”
“But they’re not compatible,” Gracie insisted.
“Of course they are. They shouldn’t be in competition. The problem is with your preachers—and your scientists. They’re stepping on each other’s toes. With big, heavy boots. They don’t understand that religion and science are there to serve different purposes. We need science to understand how everything on this planet and beyond works—us, nature, everything we see around us. That’s fact, no one with a working brain can question that. But we also need religion. Not for ridiculous counter-theories about things that science can prove. We need it for something else, to fill a different kind of need. The need for meaning. It’s a basic need we have, as humans. And it’s a need that’s beyond the realm of science. Your scientists don’t understand that it’s a need they can’t fulfill no matter how many Hadron colliders and Hubble telescopes they build—and your preachers don’t understand that their job is to help you discover a personal, inner sense of meaning and not behave like a bunch of zealots intent on converting the rest of the planet to their rigid, literalist view of how everyone should live their lives. In your country and in the Muslim countries, religion has become a political movement, not a spiritual one. ‘God is on our side’—that’s all I hear coming out of your churches. But that’s not what they should be preaching.”
“It didn’t exactly work for the Confederacy, did it?” Gracie joked.
“It’s very effective at rallying the masses. And at winning elections, of course,” Father Jerome sighed. “Everyone claims Him at one point or another.”
“The way they’re now claiming you,” she pointed out.
“Are they?” he asked, curiously.
“We’re in this plane, aren’t we?”
Her comment seemed to strike a nerve, and he pondered it for a beat.
“Although,” she mused, “they might be in for a bit of a surprise. I’m surprised. You’re much less dogmatic than I imagined. Much more open-minded. Shockingly open-minded, in fact.”
The priest smiled. “I’ve seen a lot. I’ve seen good, kind, generous people do the most charitable things. And I’ve seen others do the most horrific things you could imagine. And that’s what makes us human. We have minds. We make our own choices and live by them. We shape our own lives with how we behave toward others. And God—whatever the word means—is just that. We feel his presence every time we make a choice. It’s something that’s inside us. Everything else is just . . . artifice.”
“But you’re a priest of the Church. You wear that,” she said, pointing at a cross that hung from a leather strap around his neck. “How can you say that?”
She thought she detected some nervousness inside him, some uncertainty, as if it was something that had been troubling him too. He looked at her thoughtfully, then asked, “When the sign appeared . . . did you see a cross up there?”
Gracie wasn’t sure what he meant. “No.”
He smiled, somewhat uncomfortably, and his eyebrows rose as he opened out his palms in a silent gesture that said, “Exactly.”
Chapter 63
Framingham, Massachusetts
At around midnight, the Chrysler 300C swung into the front lot of the Comfort Inn. Two men got out. Dark suits, white shirts, no ties. Lean, hard men, with flat glares and purposeful steps. A third man stayed in the car, behind the wheel. He kept the engine running. They weren’t planning on staying long.
The two men entered the austere lobby. It was deserted, which was expected. Framingham wasn’t exactly a hotbed of late-night merriment. They strode up to the reception desk. Behind it, a lone man of Latin origin and advancing years was huddled in a corner chair, watching a soccer match on a fuzzy screen. The lead man beckoned him over. His dark suit, surly expression, and sharp tone of voice got the receptionist on his feet in no time. The man reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out three items, which he spread out on the desk under the receptionist’s nose: two photographs—headshots of Matt and Jabba—and a fifty-dollar bill.
The receptionist scanned the items, looked up at the man, looked back down, and nodded. He then reached out and, with a trembling hand, swept back the fifty and pocketed it. Then the man got his answer, but it wasn’t the answer he wanted. They had checked in earlier that evening. Taken a room. Occupied it for a couple of hours. Then they’d paid and left. The guy behind the counter had figured something of a carnal nature was going down, and the mental picture it had inspired clearly wasn’t one he was comfortable with.