Middle C (20 page)

Mr. Joseph Skizzen—Dr. Luthardt appeared to be looking at a piece of paper held just above the top of the desk—it has been reported to me that in a session of Lutheran Studies during your first semester here, you said that—ah—you wrote that—from what you’d read Martin Luther seemed awfully eager to get God on his side, and that’s why our namesake decided to become a monk … as a bribe—as you put it—to bribe God with his good behavior.

Gee. I don’t remember.

By becoming a monk in a monastery—it was reported to me—a monastery supported by a church that Luther later decided
wasn’t worth much
, and no place to go or be if you wanted to
get right with God—

I just thought …

Since the church—what else is written here?—
wasn’t right with God either—

Well, I guess I meant …

So his choice of monastery—hence his choice of church—to honor with his piety was
the choice of the Devil’s
as it turned out—

Dr. Luthardt’s voice came at him like something swung, and a corner of Joey cringed—
and a sign he was a sinner not a saint
. What do you say to this, young sir, that has been reported to me?

I don’t … he was more Catholic than most before he became a Lutheran. He was scared … his horse was frightened by a bolt of lightning, so he promised to behave … to be a monk … but the monks weren’t going to heaven just for beating their chests … Joey received the rector’s look like a slap to his face. I don’t remember what I said, he said.

You knew well enough then, didn’t you?

We are all sinners, sir, aren’t we?

Some of us sin more than others; some sins are small as rice, and some
are more sizable; some sins are momentary as a sneeze, some are lifelong; some sins are made worse by their situations and surroundings, but others shrivel and become limp; some sins are normal and occur in the course of things, while some sins are aberrant, outlandish, and perverse; yet God can grant grace to the worst of us, forgive sins both grand and grisly; but for those who wallow in the wickedness of sexual desire, or sin outside the true church, there can be no salvation.

I suppose so, sir.

Suppose so …?

Suppose no salva—

Martin Luther was clothed in the grace of God; and when God chose him to become a monk he did so—you know very well and should have thought very long about it—in order that Luther should eventually learn the extent of the moral diseases that infected the Catholic church, and consequently be motivated to make his great protestation, for what do you think would have come of us had he not left the law and its secular license for the cell and its sacred walls?

Sort of a spy, then?

Of course not. He was aware of the maxim: Know your enemy.

And for those who don’t sin outside the church …

What?

But only sin in it?

Who?

Can there be salvation for them?

I just said, young sir, that God is grace, only God is grace, only God can purify, only God can steer us aright. Your mind is a mess, Mr. Skizzen. To be outside our church is itself a sin.

Oh.

The very worst kind.

Oh.

For nothing we have done are we saved. God extends his grace—as I said—in a way most mysterious, for reasons incomprehensible—extends it—

To Lutherans who have sinned.

God helps them stay straight. Upright. I just said. Their faith is a sign they shall be redeemed.

Keeping the faith must be hardest of all.

Failing the faith is the one sin. Actually, God keeps the faith for us. As I said. We are weak. We are woeful. Yet he sees in us a solid vessel for true belief.

But only some shall be saved?

Some.

Some. A few?

A few.

A remnant?

“Remnant,” sir, is a Jewish word.

Like “the chosen”?

“Chosen” is another of theirs—yes—an arrogation, a word full of false pride, indicative of the devil. We, sir, are elected.

Dr. Luthardt sounded neither weak nor woeful but triumphant, a solid vessel indeed. He sounded saved. The paper slid across the desk unimpeded.

Another matter, Mr. Skizzen, remains.

Sir?

I understand you play the organ for us.

Yes, sir.

The rector pointed himself directly at Joey, though he was busily silent, as though adjusting his aim. For a terrible moment Joey thought he was about to say: And you have played your organ at Madame Mieux’s and come off on her colored silks and cottons.

But now you play for Saint Agatha’s?

Their organist—Mr. Tippet—is ill.

You play.

But he is nearly well again.

Lutherans do not blend; we do not meld; we do not weave, Mr. Skizzen, you should know that. It is one of the sins—did I mention?—to mix our worship with sewer water.

I didn’t—weave—whatever you meant.

We do not dilute.

I did not water down on purpose. I just played some hymns. Hymns they asked for. I could get you the numbers.

Your mind is a mess, young man. Our denomination frowns on any ecumenical or interfaithless activity. That means we do not pray with others; we do not sing with others; we do not in any sense or in any
aspect jointly perform or share our service with others. The word for your failure is “syncretism”—something you should have learned about by now and a very serious thing. You must reconsider your employment and cease your playing at once.

Mr. Tippet is returning.

All religions are not created equal. All but ours are sordid.

God must have a reason for permitting other religions, mustn’t he?

God’s reasons are quite beyond our ken. But hell will be filled.

Catholics are Christians, aren’t they?

Just barely. They maintain idolatrous ways. They worship images of Mary. Had you played for Mormons, for instance, Mr. Skizzen, you would have participated in heathenry and might have been expelled from the church. You must stop this ignorant mingling at once. And beg for forgiveness. Hope for forgiveness. Long for forgiveness.

Mr. Tippet is returning. He is over whatever it was.

And never accede to their blandishments again. How they blandish, those Romans. Luther wanted our sense of the sacred to serve us in the work of the world, while they—their priests—are one with the world, as-one-as one-into-one is one; they are a wholly worldly order—they want the work of the world to determine their sense of the sacred. Imagine.

I didn’t know.

Their priests smoke.

13

A ridge of pressure, the result of many questions, controlled the climate of Joey’s consciousness, and he felt his thoughts go dark and slumberous like a layer of low cloud. For several weeks his mind moved—
larghissimo
—like the slowest sections of symphonies. How often would an answer be repeated by the cello and like a rising woodwind
exit as a query? He did not believe that Professor Ludens would have turned him in; he would not have remembered anything Joey said because he never really listened to anybody and interrupted every response that lasted more than a minute; but if it hadn’t been Ludens it had to have been a kid in the class—yet who? No one had seemed particularly devout or even interested in Luther, his concerns, or his causes. Most of them probably came from Lutheran households and were thoroughly tired of pious precepts by this time, though they wouldn’t have shrugged them off. Dogmas, tenets, creeds: they doubtless meant dates in church basements to them, hours of solemn Sunday services, and scheduled interruptions of life—little more. So who?

Then what about the oddly long delay in tattling? Had that denunciatory paper sat in a basket awaiting the rector’s eye? or had news of Joey’s heretical organ recitals drawn a description of his muddled classroom comments from a sleeping file? Did the spy only recently report Joey’s behavior, which would be strange because the class on Luther had been a first-semester course, and Joey was well past that now; it was a period of his life so out of his own sight already, he couldn’t remember saying any of the things he was reputed to have said; he had no clear understanding of what they meant or what the issues were. It was silly beyond billy. The rector was the chief absurdity. Where had he come from? Who had seen him on the campus or even in the church? Like a circuit rider did he go from little Lutheran school to little Lutheran school and at each school briefly rector: sniffing for sin, calling kids on the carpet, reviewing accounts and recalculating the take, staring the faculty into a renewed submission?

It occurred to Joey that during the years they lived in London, whispers of this sort might have started to surround his father, since it was certainly true that he had entered England under false pretenses, that he was really an Austrian, not at all a Jew, and might have been a spy. After all, there was no protection from gossip, from calumny. The most innocent act could create suspicion. Just a fortnight ago, Joey had walked into English class only to see, taped to the blackboard, his last pop quiz, and on it, in red, the signs
“100%!”
Miss Gyer rewarded the righteous with such announcements, but Joey never expected to be one of them; it must have been a bit of luck that got him to such an uncustomary percentage; the altitude made him breathe more quickly. But guys smiled
or winked at him, and Joey had to assume they felt he had somehow cheated his way to perfection. They did not honor good grades—on the contrary—but they prized chicanery, and any successful dodge, so long as it did not threaten the curve, and Miss Gyer had no curves. She was a tall women made entirely of posture. The
y
in her name was her best feature.

Perhaps his father began to feel beset. No matter what he did, it was misinterpreted. Gossip about him was spreading like a puddle of printer’s ink. If he innocently wins some money—what happens?—a chain made from the hiss of whispers begins to join one hundred ears, and he is said to be buying documents or going out with whores or plotting against the Jews some further harm. How would his wife know if such tales were true or even being bruited about, having had nothing whispered in her own ear? Joey felt compelled by precedent to believe that in some minds he was a foul defiler, in others a cheat, in still others a heretic, whereas he saw himself as merely a petty thief of seeds.

Joey felt he could not help it. He began taking notes on the behavior of his fellow students in order to determine who the moles were who might be sending regular reports to the rector, not just about him but about anyone who spoke out of turn or recklessly, anyone who showed resistance or skepticism or disdain, anyone who could have weaseled his way into Madame’s pillow parlor to do a dirty, anyone who might have borne, as if on the air all the way from town, a reprise of the ho-hum hymn tunes he wheezed from the organ of Saint Agatha’s, a church that Joey was now finding out was Augsburg’s religious enemy. The transmittal of this musical information had to be the most mysterious snoop of them all.

His mother—was she the leak?—was she the dripping tap? First, to a friend of hers at work. Drip. That friend, then, to a friend who happens to char at Augsburg or whose child is also a student at Augs. Drip. There must be a path of transit. Mother (with pride) to Friend: My son Joey is now the organist at Saint Agatha; then that Friend (idly) to Son or Daughter: Isn’t Joey Skizzen the organist at Augsburg? I hear he’s playing at Saint Agatha as well; next, that same Son or Daughter (without malice) to Pastor Ludens: I understand Saint Agatha is enjoying Joey Skizzen as much as we are; Pastor Ludens, finally (motive unascribed), to Rector Luthardt: drip ditto to downfall.

T
HE
E
IGHTH
C
OMMANDMENT

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
.

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, nor defame our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

Clarice Rumble: she wasn’t uptight, not nearly stiff or stern or dogmatic enough. That was it: he should look for an arrogant, no-nonsense stickler. Chris Knox had a lean look, but it was from playing tennis. Becky Wilhelm was a pudding, puddings were often resentful and malicious, but she was too stupid to understand how to spell “theology.” Who …?

Hey, this is only Joey, who sits in the back of the room with his mouth shut mostly, you are picking on …

 … maybe the guy with the green teeth and glasses, the double dork whose pencilitis drove everybody crazy:
tap tap
here,
tip tip
there, cleaning his nails with the sharpened end, chewing the eraser, rolling its yellow length between his palms as if he were an Indian making fire with a pointed stick. If not him, then …?

It’s true, I make fun of other people, but only in my head, to keep my spirits up …

 … maybe Jackson Leroy. One of Joey’s stereotypes about Negroes was that they didn’t stoop, fink, snitch, or tattle. Or was it Leroy Jackson?

Seek and ye shall find, but only in my mind … suppose the tattletale was me …

Ah … Maurice. Maurice. Shorter than Joey. Nearsighted. Like Joey—little-nosed. Eyes that, when you looked at him, shifted into low. Picked his dinky. Seemed constantly uncomfortable. Sat in last rows. Near me. Maurice … something. A distinct possibility. Probably preferred Wagner to Berlioz. But he acted like a little sneak, not like an arrogant toe-the-marker.

Clarice Rumble. Joey’s trouble was, Joey slowly realized, Joey’s trouble was that he was too busy dodging people to see them except as obstacles.

He caught glimpses the way some people caught fireflies. When he recollected them their image relit for a moment. Clara. Clara Rumble. She wore pins: little pins celebrating Olympic sports, her father’s membership in the American Legion and the FOE, a yellow ribbon commemorating … who knew? reminding her of whom? When Joey, feigning admiration, or at least interest, asked her what loss the little ribbon stood for, she said she didn’t know, it was just part of her collection, except that right now it was for her dog … well, had been for her dog, who had wandered off, but, only the other day, had wandered home again. You don’t need to wear it, then, Joey said, sporting his own smile of sympathy a bit unnecessarily.