“We have to remember to keep telling ourselves that we’re still alive,” Tessa said, loud enough for the others to hear.
The man speaking French began to direct questions to the driver. Tessa tried to interpret for Jim.
The driver slowed down, keeping pace with the running woman. He had no response to questions in any language. An elderly man said that he had to get to a toilet. But the driver did not increase the speed, clearly determined to stay aligned with the runner.
The woman just kept running, looking straight ahead.
-4-
How saints and angels haunt the empty churches at midnight, forgotten by the awed swarms of daytime tourists.
Max was back in his chair, cursing the situation. He kept looking at the blank screen. He kept saying Jesus , or good Christ, or Jesus H. Christ.
Diane sat at an angle now, able to watch both men. She told Max that this was a good time for him to prepare the halftime snack. It was possible, wasn’t it, that reception would resume in a few minutes, the game in normal progress, and she added that she didn’t believe a word of it.
Max went to the liquor cabinet instead of the kitchen and poured himself a glass of bourbon called Widow Jane, aged ten years in American oak.
On most occasions he would announce this to anyone in the room. Aged ten years in American oak. It was something he liked saying, a hint of irony in his voice.
This time he said nothing and did not offer to pour a glass for Martin. His wife drank wine but only with dinner, not with football.
He muttered the name Jesus several more times and sat looking at the screen, glass in hand, waiting.
Diane looked at Martin. She liked to do this. She pretended to study him. She thought of him as Young Martin, the title of a chapter in a book.
Then she said quietly, “Jesus of Nazareth.”
Would Martin respond as she imagined he would?
“The radiant name,” he said.
“We say this. You say it and I say it. What did Einstein say?”
“He said, ‘I am a Jew but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.’ ”
Max was staring into the blank screen. He looked and drank. Diane tried to keep her eyes on Martin. She knew that the name Jesus of Nazareth carried an intangible quality that drew him into its aura. He did not belong to a particular religion and did not feel reverence for any being of alleged supernatural power.
It was the name that gripped him. The beauty of the name. The name and place.
Max was leaning forward. He seemed to be trying to induce an image to appear on the screen through force of will.
Diane said, “Rome, Max, Rome. You remember this. Jesus in the churches and on the walls and ceilings of the palazzos. You remember better than I do. The one particular palazzo with tourists moving slowly room to room. Enormous paintings. The walls and ceilings. The one place in particular.”
She looked at Martin. He was not a tiny cuddly childlike man. She thought of him as a mind trying to escape its commitment to the long slack body with flapping hands that seemed barely attached to his arms. She felt guilty for asking him to sit in a kitchen chair that didn’t even have a cushioned seat.
“I tried to sneak us into a guided tour but Max wouldn’t let me. He hated the idea of a guide,” she said. “The paintings, the furniture, the statues in the long galleries. Arched ceilings with stunning murals. Totally, massively incredible.”
She was looking into empty space now.
“Which palazzo?” she said to Max. “You remember. I do not.”
Max sipped his drink, nodding slightly.
In one gallery tourists with headsets, motionless, lives suspended, looking up at the painted figure on the ceiling, angels, saints, Jesus in his garments, his raiment.
She spoke enthusiastically, head back, a momentary guide.
“How many years ago? Max.”
He only nodded.
Martin said, “His raiment. I try to think of a rumpled garment embedded in the word.”
“Others with audio guides hand-held, pressed to their ears. Voices in how many languages. I think of them even now, before I go to sleep, the still figures in the long galleries.”
“Staring at the ceiling,” Martin said.
“Max. When was it exactly? One year fades into the next. I’m getting older by the minute.”
Max said, “This team is ready to step out of the shadows and capture the moment.”
He seemed to be scrutinizing the blank screen.
The young man looked at the woman, the wife, the former professor, the friend, who found nothing, anywhere, to look at.
Max said, “During this one blistering stretch, the offense has been pounding, pounding, pounding.”
She was reluctant to interrupt, to say something, anything, and finally she glanced over at Martin simply because it seemed essential to exchange a puzzled look with someone, anyone.
Max said, “Avoids the sack, gets it away—intercepted!”
It was time for another slug of bourbon and he paused and drank. His use of language was confident, she thought, emerging from a broadcast level deep in his unconscious mind, all these decades of indigenous discourse muddied up by the nature of the game, men hitting each other, men slamming each other into the turf.
“Ground game, ground game, crowd chanting, stadium rocking.”
Half sentences, bare words, repetitions. Diane wanted to think of it as a kind of plainsong, monophonic, ritualistic, but then told herself that this is pretentious nonsense.
Max speaking from deep in his throat, the voice of the crowd.
“De-fense. De-fense. De-fense.”
He got up, stretched, sat, drank.
“Number seventy-seven, what’s-his-name, looks bewildered, doesn’t he? Penalty for spitting in opponent’s face.”
He said, “These teams are evenly matched more or less. Punting from midfield. A barn burner of a game.”
Diane was beginning to be impressed.
He said, “Coach of the offense. Murphy, Murray, Mumphrey, dialing up some innovations.”
He kept on talking, changing his tone, calm now, measured, persuasive.
“Wireless the way you want it. Soothes and moisturizes. Gives you twice as much for the same low cost. Reduces the risk of heart-and-mind disease.”
Then, singing, “Yes yes yes, never fails to bless bless bless.”
Diane was stunned. Is it the bourbon that’s giving him this lilt, this flourish of football dialect and commercial jargon. Never happened before, not with bourbon, scotch, beer, marijuana. She was enjoying this, at least she thought she was, based on how much longer he kept broadcasting.
Or is it the blank screen, is it a negative impulse that provoked his imagination, the sense that the game is happening somewhere in Deep Space outside the fragile reach of our current awareness, in some transrational warp that belongs to Martin’s time frame, not ours.
Max said in a squeaky voice, “Sometimes I wish I was human, man, woman, child, so I could taste this flavorful prune juice.”
He said, “Perpetual Postmortem Financing. Start your exclusive arrangements online.”
Then, “Play resumes, quarter two, hands, feet, knees, head, chest, crotch, hitting and getting hit. Super Bowl Fifty-Six. Our National Death Wish.”
Diane whispered to Martin that there was no reason why they couldn’t converse. Max had his game and he was beyond distraction.