Eleven thirty-five! Talk about sleeping in! Michael’s head was aching. He flopped back on the pillow. Something was missing. He had forgotten something. What day was it? Sunday? Nothing happening on Sunday. He dragged himself out of bed and worked his way to the bathroom. Beholding in the mirror a round, unshaven face, half-closed, blue eyes, disheveled, black hair, stocky build with a slight paunch, and that sticky, chalky taste in your mouth first thing in the morning, he suddenly felt singularly alone.
Wasn’t alone last night. Or was that a dream?
He finally decided that it was not a dream but that the woman with whom he had danced also did not now make him less singularly alone.
Having completed his morning ablutions, Michael felt awake and refreshed, relatively speaking. But he still needed coffee. He donned a bathrobe and plodded down the hall toward the kitchen. He made it through the living room and into the kitchen, before he noticed a sultry brunette wearing a little black dress, sprawled out on the couch, reading a book that Michael had left on the coffee table.
“Ah, that’s what I forgot,” he said. And what a night for him forget! He must really have been hammered. There must be something wrong with my brain, he thought.
“Good morning, Sleepyhead,” she said. “Or actually, good afternoon by now.”
“I didn’t know you were still here. Have you had lunch?” he said.
“Yup. Made myself at home. Hope you don’t mind.”
“That’s a good book. There are DVD’s in the cabinet there if you want to watch a movie. You just have to jiggle the handle sometimes to get it to open.”
While they were talking, she had slid up next to him. And she now gave him a peck on the lips, which he returned hesitantly. She considered him a moment. Then her eyes took on a flirtatious expression.
“Michael,” she said from behind hungry eyes, “you forgot something? What did you forget?”
He regarded her. No reason to let her know he had forgotten all about her, and now couldn’t even remember her name. “Oh, nothing.”
“You don’t mean me, do you? And what we had last night?” she said playfully.
“Uh, no.” Michael felt like a deer staring down a pair of headlights. He didn’t want to reject her, but he also didn’t want a relationship. And frankly, the way she was talking was beginning to scare him. “I forgot that I’m out of coffee cake.”
“Good.” She smiled coquettishly. “I don’t know what I’d do if you forgot what we had. I mean, what we have.”
She cuddled up to his arm, fixed her big brown eyes onto his baby blues, and cooed in pouty tones. “Would you like me to make you some coffee, Mikey-Pooh?”
Mikey-Pooh? This was definitely not what he expected—or wanted—from a one-night stand. How drunk was he last night? Michael didn’t know what to say. But he knew he had to say something. “Uh. I don’t want—“ he began. Then he tried again. “That is, maybe we can—“
She snuggled up to Michael’s cheek, brought her lips close to his ear, and she whispered softly and passionately, “Gotcha.”
Michael was still figuring out what was going on, while the woman broke out laughing.
“Aw, I had you goin’, didn’t I, Mikey-Pooh?” she mocked.
“Good one,” Michael said. He did his best to laugh at himself, even though he was finding it quite difficult to appreciate the humor. Still, he knew this would make a great story to tell at parties.
“God! I didn’t know you had that much to drink!” she said.
“Only of your sweetness, my dear.”
“Do you even remember my name?”
“Janine, right?” The name just came out of his mouth. Yes, that was right, he thought.
“Give that man a cigar.” She popped open the coffee maker.
“No thanks, I don’t smoke.”
“I dunno. You were pretty smokin’ last night.” She was cooing again.
He slid up behind her and put his arms around her waist. “It’s easy to dance with the right partner.”
Janine turned around to face him, their bodies so close. “You doin’ anything today?”
“No way. Sunday is the day of rest.”
His fingers lightly caressed the small of her back through the thin fabric of her dress. He hovered his lips over hers and breathed deeply her perfume, still noticeable from the night before, a sweet, light scent that excited him like no other. He had frequently noticed it on another woman, also a raven-haired goddess, and one who excited him like no other. He gently kissed Janine, their lips delicately melding.
“Let’s open our bibles to Romans, chapter 13.”
Clydene grabbed a house bible from the pew and opened to the index.
Ted put his right arm around her shoulder and nuzzled into her cheek.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“I’m reading along with you.”
“I haven’t found it yet.”
Having noted the number of the page on which Romans started, she flipped to it.
His arm still around her shoulder, Ted put his other hand on her bare knee.
The pastor began reading. “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…”
Ted started moving his hand under her skirt, up the inside of her thigh.
“Ted!” she whispered at his ear, trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.
“You forgot to keep your knees together.”
She put her knees together. “Well, they’re together now.” She glanced around the sanctuary. No one was looking. That didn’t mean no one noticed.
“No one can see,” Ted said.
“Pastor Bob can see. And I want to hear this.”
“… Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you…”
She felt a knot in her stomach. Maybe she didn’t want to hear it after all. Ever since she had cracked into Baedes’s government computer, she had been wrestling with the moral implications. Yes, what she did was for a good cause, for Mira’s sake, to preserve her freedom and the freedom of everyone in Abe’s Turn. And the end result was for the good. But did any of that justify her? Clyde wrestled with the moral implications, and Baedes himself was “the authority,” and he surely would not appreciate what she had done to thwart his plans.
Ted’s hand was still on her thigh as he continued to protest. “But you never wear skirts during the week, and you have such sexy legs.”
Since Clyde worked as a consultant, from her home office, she rarely dressed up to go to work. Only when she visited a client site did she don the business-wear, usually a pants-suit, so she could look at least something like the other programmers, but a little more classy. On weekends, however, when Ted and Clydene went out, she liked to look like a woman. It made her feel feminine. Maybe a little black dress if they went out Saturday night, and something a little more respectable for Sunday morning church.
“Okay, I’ll wear the skirt this afternoon,” she said. “Just calm down. And stop distracting me.”
Ted was obviously getting horny, and a little early in the day. They usually didn’t get hot and heavy until after Sunday dinner, which is why they always ate Sunday dinner alone, just the two of them, at home.
Ted leaned his head against hers.
“… not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes…”
Conscience. That was it. Clydene’s conscience had been nagging at her, an unresolved conflict in her spirit, whether what she had done was the right thing to do for her friends, and whether she would ever do it again.
Ted whispered into her ear. “I guess it would inappropriate for me to grope you.”
“Yes, it would,” she replied. “What’s with you today? Daylight savings doesn’t end for another week. What, you can’t wait an hour until church is over?” Talk about premature, she thought.
“What’s with me is you look good,” he said. “And smell good.” He kissed her on top of the head.
Pastor Bob had completed reading his text. At this point, he stepped from the behind the podium and leaned himself against the empty communion table. If they were having communion that day, the table would be set, ready from which to administer the sacrament. As it was, the table was bare, without even a tablecloth. Its ornate woodwork belied its surroundings: a simple, wooden podium; a stained, red carpet; worn pews with hard, wooden seats. As a tiny, seed church, they were lucky to have found a building with an air conditioner, though they didn’t need it today.
They were not struggling as a church. Or at least Clyde did not think being small was a bad thing. The tiny, informal, small-town atmosphere was one of the things that drew the Jacksons—and particularly Clydene—to this particular church and its congregation. The other draw was Pastor Bob’s conversational speaking style and his straightforward, open-minded approach.
And he was no more straightforward and open-minded than now, as he leaned informally against the sacramental table, almost sat on it, hands in his pockets, and said, “I’m about to say something politically controversial and very unpopular. I’d actually rather avoid it, because this could get me into trouble. Most preachers avoid it, or just spout the party line. But I can’t avoid it, because we’ve been studying Romans, and we can’t skip chapter 13 just because we don’t like it or it makes us uncomfortable or it could get us into trouble.
“On the other hand, I can’t just spout the party line, because I don’t actually believe in it.
“Most theologians take this passage at face value. Now, that’s not so unreasonable, is it? ‘Governing authorities’ are what makes civil society. Without the police to protect us, crime would run rampant. Without the judge to adjudicate disputes, everyone would take the law into his own hands…”
Clyde re-read the pastor’s text, or rather, read it fully through for the first time. Two sentences in particular jumped out at her:
He who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong.
Clyde felt sick. What was God smoking when he came up with that one? she thought. Or maybe God just never lived in Abe’s Turn.
Pastor Bob was still talking. “… And so, Paul says here we should always submit to the governing authorities, and never rebel against them. Because these authorities are God’s servants in a civil society. Some commentators have even gone so far as to say that the law defines the difference between right and wrong. If something is illegal, it’s also immoral. And if something is legal, it must be alright. And if something is legally required—“
He folded his hands and took a breath.
“There is a man named Władysław Bartoszewski. Don’t worry if you can’t pronounce that. I had to practice it for an hour before I got it right.”
He paused to let the chuckles subside.
“Anyhow, Mr. Bartoszewski is 85 years old. He’s a Roman Catholic. He’s been a journalist, an activist, even a politician. Now, he’s Minister of Foreign Affairs in Poland. But in 1940, he was a prisoner at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. Inmate number 4427. He was picked up by the Nazis as part of a massive manhunt in Warsaw, and they kept him at Auschwitz for over 7 months, until the Polish Red Cross convinced them to let him go.”
Pastor walked back to the podium. “I want to quote you something he said about his experiences at Auschwitz:
“‘I lost consciousness on December 12, while cleaning bricks,’ he says, ‘I was exhausted, injured, and in pain. That was normal for Auschwitz. Just as it would have been normal if I had died under a blow from a club, or from having my throat crushed by a capo’s boot. The strange thing was that prisoners carried me to the Krankenbau and laid me out next to the stairs. They could do nothing more, because they had to return immediately to work. They saved my life.’
“At the time, he was 18 years old. He almost never made it to 19.
“He was just getting his life started, and you’d think after a traumatic experience like that, Mr. Bartoszewski would keep a low profile. Having been dealt the hand of grace by the Red Cross, you’d think he’d do as little as possible to anger the Nazis. Yes?
“But after he was released from Auschwitz, one of the first things he did was to join Żegota. Now, this was the codename for an underground organization, operated by the Polish government in exile. Its purpose was to help Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. This was blatantly illegal, of course. Treasonous, even. Żegota were subversives against the Nazi state. Being involved with them was a serious crime. The penalties were severe.
“If you got caught hiding a Jew, here’s what would happen to you. You were to be immediately shot, or taken out to be publicly hanged.”
Bob leaned close to the microphone and in hushed tone enunciated the next sentence. “You didn’t even get a trial.”
At some point, Ted had removed his hand from Clydene’s thigh and his arm from her shoulders. She didn’t remember when. He was now staring intently at the man behind the podium. She felt sick inside, vulnerable, helpless. She wrapped her hands around her husband’s strong, right arm, cuddled up next to it. He wrapped his arm around her, pulled her close, kissed her again.
Pastor Bob continued, “How does this relate to our text? The Nazis were the governing authorities in Poland at the time. Now, you could argue that they had invaded Poland. So maybe they didn’t have a legitimate claim to rule Poland… if that makes you feel better. The practical result, however, was that the Nazis occupied Poland, and they did set the rules.
“The Nazis also did have a rightful claim to govern in Germany. Not many Americans realize this today, but Hitler was elected in a democratic election. How can you get more legitimate than that? But the Nazis in Germany were just as horrendous as in the rest of the world.
“So the question we have to ask is: Why would Władysław Bartoszewski, being a good Roman Catholic and a moral Christian— Why would he jeopardize his life, not to mention his very soul, by going up against God’s servant, the governing authorities?
“Despite our text, there’s only one answer I can come up with. He did it, because it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do.”
There was much more to Pastor Bob’s sermon. He summarized the atrocities committed by Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and others; the religious persecution currently going on in Indonesia, Africa, and elsewhere; all with the support or consent of the governing authorities, and many times being fought by illegal, underground, Christian movements led by people ready to go to jail but skilled in evading the police.
Much to Clydene’s dismay, Pastor had no answers. He posed several interpretations. And as he explained each in turn, he also explained why that interpretation is probably incorrect.
Faith is sometimes a hard thing.