Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📕

—Yes?

—What you need to realize, said Bradley, —is that for most of the people here, this is not a political campaign. This is a holy crusade. It is a pious journey, a sacred pilgrimage. It is a pouring forth of faith, a sacrament in blood.

—In blood? asked Ann.

—Blood, sweat and tears, said Bradley, looking only at Szilard. —Let me tell you something. These people have given up jobs. They have taken their children from their schools and away from their homes. They have left everything that they know, they have sacrificed the guarantee of the lives they gave up back there, just to join up and to march behind the three of you.

—Why? asked Szilard.

—Because these people believe. These people know. They know the last hours are at hand, they know the Rapture is almost upon us, and they also know why.

—We are working for peace, said Szilard. —Is that what you’re talking about?

—What I’m telling you, said Bradley, wiping at his forehead as the sweat trickled down, —is that our people have their own vision of the mission here. They have a powerful vision. Some of them even believe in the Trinity.

—Trinity? The test?

—The Father, Son and Holy Ghost. To some of them, you are the Father. Dr. Oppenheimer is the messiah who died for us and comes back bringing the revealed truth of God. And the spirit, often invisible, the Holy Ghost, is of course Dr. Fermi. This is what many of the followers believe.

—As long as they want to work for peace, said Szilard, —we should be able to coexist. Do they want to work for peace?

There was a silence, oddly long.

—We are not interested in worldly matters, said Bradley. —We are interested in the Rapture. Our people will work for you. They want to see you attain your rightful stature. They believe in your divinity.

—But not peace? asked Ann.

Bradley shot her a sidelong look.

—I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. That’s gospel. My people believe you are the ones who will bring the kingdom of God to earth.

—What Steve means, said the small man to the right of him, with a pinched face and a pink polo shirt, —is we feel, and the people we speak for feel, that they should be able to express their vision as part of the parade. That there should be a more democratic thing going on here, where people can express their own faith.

—Way it is right now, said another, —you folks decide everything. Which, if you consider you’re only three guys, plus your staff, and we’re maybe twenty-five hundred and growing all the time, isn’t real fair.

—Janey! Could I get a Coke in here? bellowed Bradley, and a woman came bustling in with a plastic jug.

—I enjoy Coca Cola, said Szilard.

—I’ll have some too, said Larry.

—We in the Redeemer Conference, said Bradley as his wife poured Coke into plastic cups, —have felt very frustrated by the lack of Christian guidance in this mission.

—The reason there hasn’t been Christian guidance, said Szilard, —is we’re not Christian. I myself am Jewish, as is Oppenheimer.

—What I’m saying, Dr. Szilard, said Bradley, —is the mission is Christian. Now.

Szilard lifted his plastic cup of Coke and drank deeply.

—I’m not sure I follow you, he said finally, when he set the cup down.

—The numbers speak for themselves. And we feel it is a moral imperative for the Christian following to take a leadership role. If there’s no effort made by management to include us, we will have to take action.

—When you say leadership role, said Szilard, —what exactly do you mean?

—For example, when you talk about the mission on TV, said the man in the pink polo shirt, —the name of Christ is hardly ever mentioned.

—Of course it isn’t mentioned, said Szilard irritably. —Why would it be?

There was another silence, and the men at the table looked at each other and then faced Szilard again.

—We didn’t want to have to put it this way, said Bradley, —but what the situation is here? Unless we get a Christian person in management, with decision-making power, we’re going to have to break off.

—Break off? asked Szilard, picking up his empty cup.

—Take our twenty-five hundred followers in Christ and leave the mission. We know what we know, but we have to work to spread the word in a Christian way.

There was a silence. Szilard studied the cup, turning it in his fingers as though it contained an answer.

—Well, said Szilard, putting the cup down again, pushing his chair back and rising, —thank you for your frankness. We’ll certainly think it over.

Ann felt he had been uncharacteristically tactful.

The Christians sent them a note later that day at a crowded fuel stop. They had received permission to camp in a vacant business park in a suburb of Baltimore for the next week. The CEO of the landlord company was a believer, the note said, and the business park was between tenants. There was a map included.

When the buses pulled into the parking lots in the dark, a chain of concrete lakes around an island of sleek glass buildings, Oppenheimer and Fermi were already asleep. They parked at the edge of the lot, beneath a tall lamp, and got out to explore as the Huts set up the perimeter fence and the other trailers began to pull in after them.

One of the buildings in the complex was standing open so that the followers could use the toilets. Its interior lights had been left on too, glaring out through plate-glass windows and flooding the parking lot with an eerie fluorescence. As cars and vans streamed in the eeriness was lost and the park became gritty and glaring, a dirty fairground at night.

Walking with Ben down a gravel path that skirted the building, Ann was slow and careful on the bad ankle. Behind them followers set up their tents with a streamlined efficiency and were quickly roasting hot dogs and singing prayers.

—Look at that, said Ben, and