{to the memory of I.B.}


My dislike of God, to give it no stronger name, may have been a case of mistaken identity, since I always hated my father--at least since the day my mother left our house in a box. I saw her wheeled past the great clock in the hall which hadn't any hands--before and after, yes, but that day no. Everyone says I was too young to remember but I do, vividly. My father took three fingers full of tobacco and tamped it into his pipe as she passed him. A lucifer match ignited the mixture and smoke seemed to drool upward from the bowl. If God observed, if He had an opinion. He kept it to Himself.

"Soon." my father told us, consulting his pocket watch since the great clock in the hall temporarily had no hands--but I learned well enough later, even when it did and was running smoothly, father would always insist on a second opinion--"it will be bedtime for almost all of us." It seemed an odd thing to say but what was I expecting? What could he have said at such a moment that would have struck me right? Did I hope he'd hold me close and make it better? Did I even understand what was wrong? I can tell you this, he clutched his prayer book and the looseleaf sheets on which he'd meticulously write out his Sunday sermon closer than he ever held any of us.

He never struck us in anger--very unusual in a generation whose idea of discipline was a cuff or two daily and a solid birching once a week. I've tried and failed, in the years since, to count that as a point in his favour. To this day I'm persuaded he held back in fear that if he once started striking he'd be unable to stop. He certainly prepared us for the aloofness behind the silent eyes of the bent man on the crucifix that dominated the one room where he truly lived, insofar as such a thing was possible. I felt something like what people call devotion only once, in response to the bleeding pain of a colossal splinter in my backside, picked up from one of the rough ancient pews--I was transported beyond myself and almost outside myself, and devoutly wished it out.

Thesis: my father belongs in a matchbox with Lucifer and God. Wouldn't he be happiest there?--insofar as such a thing is possible.

Perhaps I still have some residual belief--must guard against that--if I still think of my father in the present tense.

I believe in a regimen of exercise and regular diet. It fills few of the gaps and hollows in my heart, but it keeps the organs functioning efficiently. I don't believe in drinking to excess--but I observe semi-regular exceptions to this rule. I believe in loving my family, my neighbour as myself but without all the religious streamers that camouflage hatred and label it love. I love all mankind if you will, though my practice falls more than a little short of this ideal. I don't even attempt to love my enemies, but as the number of these is legion I have to tolerate them most of the time. Many of these, and this is as good inspiration as any, don't even suspect that I despise them. I believe in reason and lucidity. Late at night if I suddenly start awake, I believe in ghosts and all manner of unclean spirits. As a child I regularly feared a monster in my closet, for as much as a year and a half, without daring to tell anybody in the house for fear of being scoffed at. This had already happened when I casually mentioned that bats might actually be vampires--not all of them but some. Only how could you tell which? I'm not sure I believe, even theoretically, in clean spirits however you might imagine or describe them. I believe in miasma--look around you, and besides isn't it a beautiful word? I believe in the pure beauty of an exquisite goal at football; I wish our country's world ranking were higher. I believe I'll visit my mistress soon and bring along a bottle of wine--750 litres, surely not excessive--to drink with dinner.

My son phoned me the other day; I haven't heard from either of my daughters in years and I suppose there are reasons. He'd had distressing news from the machines at the hospital. "You'll be pleased to know it may soon be impossible for me to disappoint you any longer, father."

"At my age I find disappointment an endearing facet of life I'm obliged to--so many of them crowd about me, like guests at a birthday party. But I've almost lost the knack of self-deception--I know most of my disappointments originate in my own breast, not elsewhere. And I suppose I'll chug along surviving, at least until I'm unable to blow out the continuously-ascending number of candles."

"A pleasure to speak with you too, sir." And the line went dead. Communication is often surprisingly difficult, you'd think God had given us some sort of lower body muscle instead of a tongue.

I mention the Old Gentleman from time to time but it's purely reflexive. I made my peace with the Almighty long ago, not by collapsing to my flabby underused knees in devotion and love, vocally or even silently streaming forth pious hallelujahs. No, I simply turned my back on the ancient Whitebeard, who I suspect is merely Wotan in a new dress up costume, and by this time surely senile. Turned my back and strode away in brisk heartlifting indifference. Walking at a brisk pace is an excellent cardiovascular workout.

My father was tireless in his work for the poor, the orphaned and widowed, the crippled, the sick, but he could never hide a certain fundamental distaste at their existence. Since he ws far from a stupid man, he must have noticed and continuously suppressed what he knew: the miseries he succoured in every way available to him were in some important way a refutation. Their sufferings could issue from no hand but that of the Loving Father of us all, and if sin explained their suffering and death, from Whose hand had their capacity to sin proceeded? And that's without touching on the further scandal of eternal damnation after death. But I'm forgetting my basic theology: it was the Loving Son, wasn't it, who gave birth to Hell from His perch on the cross where He suffered and died? Blame, as far as possible, should be accurately allocated always.

I have no core beliefs--life's cleaner that way, even if no less painful. My son if anything has fewer--he's tried them all in sequence, as if he were flipping cards in a game of Patience, or greedily sampling a little of each dish at a smorgasbord. All persist to some extent--at any given time his head is positively crammed I think with competing Cosmologies. It seems to me far too much clutter, and it seems now he'll never have the chance to grow out of it as I did at approximately his age. Soon--sooner than any of us could have expected, barring a miracle (I wonder if he hopes for one? after all he has dozens of faith systems on his interior rolodex, and almost all promise just such hocus-pocus). . . soon, and before me, he'll be gone as my father is, into the pitchen blacken. It's my belief all these faith systems he tried on and half-discarded will dissolve to nothing in the general dissolution of whatever makes him a man and my son. And a little boy, when consciousness began to sparkle in him and I was treating his arrival on this earth (with reservations) as a miracle. . . there may have been a few weeks when we were able to understand and rejoice in each other. Regrettably for us humans, what understanding we do achieve is rarely the wellspring of overmuch joy. Generally we're happiest when we don't understand the situation.

Certainly if that Hell exists, which my father so enthusiastically preached to his congregation, and welcomed as a beloved guest, winter and summer, at our humble hearth, I'm content to learn of it at the last possible second. My greatest fear is that it will resemble exactly this present life. My son would probably say that makes me a Buddhist or some such.

Though he died comparatively young--my son's age now, it occurs to me, and a year I sweated through when I lived it in the normal chronological sequence myself, though not enough to die of excessive sweating--and all of his adult children survived him, my father did follow three small coffins to the cemetery--with a family of our size, all through history, this has been commonplace. The third of these was my younger sister, and a full size coffin accompanied her. This too was commonplace, though I read recently of a woman who bore nine children and survived to the age of one hundred. They tell me I wasn't old enough to remember the scene if I had witnessed it, and because of my age I wouldn't have been allowed to. Why do I remember it so vividly then?-- though with no recollection of my sister's coffin accompanying the greater one, like a toy version or an afterthought.

I'd hoped my son and I would keep to the natural order in this, though I suppose I'd be lying if I said I hoped so for his sake. Death's lost all terror for me, if it is death, and if it's anything more I expect I'll greet it with annoyance rather than dread. I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.

I might take a masochist's pleasure at having ringside seats when I'm taken away, and at the funeral with its cold meats after. My mother would have discovered my father couldn't stop counting the minutes even in the face of his life's most solemn loss, my father would have discovered I'd taken up smoking and drinking though I was far from adept yet at either--if I had been I would have succeeded better at keeping down my portion of the commemorative supper. He would at least have had enough wit to have laughed out loud at how all our relatives interpreted this as a special proof of how deeply I mourned his passing. We'd all have surprises awaiting us if we could peep out at our own last rites. That would abase our pride if nothing else could.

For form's sake I'll follow my son to his grave, unless one or other of his faiths produces an unexpected miracle, or a happy accident fells me first, obliging him to follow me instead--even if only weeks before he's carried to his own final rest. I'll see in the meantime whether I can dredge up some comfort and consolation to lighten the passage--in a lifetime you pick up, even if you never intend to, enough helpful lies to get you through the formality of almost any social occasion. Isn't it these ceremonies, even when bereft of meaning, that hold us together?--not just as a community but as individuals, snug and secure each in our personal skin? I'll pick up a bottle of wine now and surprise Karin at her door. I've long suspected I might have a surprise waiting myself, if I ever show up without phoning well in advance. If I'm right, this is as good a time as any to absorb a second blow. It might prove fatal but at my age would that be such a bad thing? If I'm wrong--though one visit won't be enough to confirm that completely--I might surprise myself, as I have more times than I can count these last months and years: my spirit might after all rise once more to the occasion.