The Second Coming

be caught. Then the crow’s-feet suddenly ironed out, making him look white-eyed and serious.
    â€œWell, if I didn’t, I’d say I needed some vocational counseling, wouldn’t you?” The chaplain’s head loomed in the Mercedes, his face large and solemn. “Seriously—and you can check me out on this—I seem to be picking up on some vibes from you lately—that you might be thinking of entering the church—am I out in left field? I was lying a while ago when I said the one thing Marion wanted most was her new community project. No, what she wanted more than anything else was your coming into the church.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œDo you know where I’ve found God, Will?” The chaplain’s round face rose to the Mercedes roof like a balloon.
    â€œNo, where?”
    â€œIn other people.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œDon’t you think you belong here in the church? With your own people. This is where you’re coming from. Am I reading you right?”
    â€œMy people?”
    â€œWeren’t they all Episcopalians?”
    â€œYes.”
    My people? Yes, they were Episcopalians but at heart they were members of the Augusta Legion and in the end at home not at St. John o’ the Woods but with the bleached bones of Centurion Marcus Flavinius on the desert of the old Empire. They were the Romans, the English, Angles, Saxons, Jutes—citizens of Rome in the old Empire.
    â€œDon’t you think you belong with us?”
    â€œAh.” The Luger thrust into his thigh like a thumb. He smiled. Not yet, old Totenkopf. “You didn’t answer my question.”
    â€œWhat was the question?”
    â€œDo you believe God exists?”
    â€œYes,” said the chaplain gravely. The chaplain’s face, he imagined, went keen and fine-eyed in the failing light. Could it be? the lively expression asked. A God-seeker? A man wrestling with Doubt? (He, the chaplain, had never made a convert.)
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œPerhaps he is trying to tell you something at this moment,” said the chaplain solemnly. (God, don’t let me blow this, I’ve got a live one hooked.)
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œGrace is a mysterious thing,” said the chaplain.
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œPerhaps the answer lies under our noses, so to speak, in fact within ourselves. If only we would take the trouble to ask the question.”
    â€œI shall put the question—as a matter of form—and I shall require an answer. But the answer will not come from you or me,” he said softly.
    â€œWhat’s that?” asked the chaplain quickly, leaning in. “I didn’t quite catch—”
    â€œI said only that the question can be put in such a way that an answer is required. It will be stipulated, moreover, that a non-answer, silence, shall be construed to mean no.”
    â€œThere you go,” said the chaplain uneasily. It made him uneasy to talk about religion. Marion Peabody Barrett had terrified him with her raging sarcastic attacks on the new liturgy and his own “social gospel.” There is a time to talk religion with women, to be God’s plumber, to have solemn yet joyous bull sessions with men during a weekend with God, to horse around at a party. He was at home doing any of these but not when they were mixed up. The trouble with Barrett’s queer question and peculiar smile was that you couldn’t say which he was doing. The truth was Barrett was a queer duck. Rich, powerful, of one’s class, but queer. Sly. What to do, then? Listen. Listen with all your might. Determine whether he’s kidding or not. The chaplain narrowed his eyes and leaned several degrees toward Barrett.
    â€œI think I know how to ask such a question,” said Will Barrett.
    That was your trouble, old mole, you didn’t even bother to ask and you should have, if only from Episcopal rectitude and an Episcopal sense of form—as one asks routinely of an empty house before closing the door and leaving: Is anybody home?
    The question should be put as a matter of form even though you know the house is empty.
    Then no one can complain of your leaving.
    To his relief the chaplain pushed himself away, gave the Mercedes top a slap with both hands. “Why don’t you put your question on the retreat?”
    â€œI’ll give it some thought.”
    â€œGive it some prayerful thought.”
    â€œVery well.