Читать книгу Matty and Matt - Sel Caradus - Страница 6

Anxiety made her leave early and drive faster than her usual careful speed. So it wasn’t surprising that she arrived in the parking lot of the Parish Center at 6.50 and by 7.05 p.m., there she was, sitting at the Great Table with PowerPoint plugged in and ready to go. Twenty five minutes of dead time. Time for increased anxiety. If she had been a pious person, she thought, she would have prayed.

Instead, she let her mind roam back to the first time she had sat at that table, in the days when the house had been the Bishop’s Residence. Anxiety of a different kind when, as a seventeen year old, she had accompanied her father to a dinner where the Bishop held court. Her chief concern had been to pick up the right fork at the right time and to speak when spoken to. Not that there was much need for conversation from others when the Bishop entertained. He reveled in his power, as the clergy, her father included, deferred to their Father-in-God.

Then, more recently, she’d sat at the same table representing her law firm, party to endless discussion of property transfer, church closings and occasionally, devising defenses against lawsuits.

So her mind wandered until the door opened at 7.15 and Webster Smith showed his weathered face. She knew him well and thought that he would sympathize with her predicament. His first words were reassuring: “Melanie, your aunt would be pleased to see you there. We are all looking forward to an interesting evening.” The good old boy spoke without irony. He could be taken at face value but was by no means a fool, though sometimes tedious.

Soon, others were arriving. Most of them she knew at least by sight and some of them she felt she knew rather too well. Aunt Matty’s colorful accounts of her sessions with them over the years often provided breakfast table conversation. But they all seemed friendly enough and the very fact that they had signed up again suggested that they were not completely unhappy with her inherited place at the head of the table. Melanie was pleased that she could greet them by name, all but one. A man, about her own age but unknown to her, came in with a group and she singled him out for introductions around the table. He was Al, an Australian, owner of a local bookstore, but his second name escaped her. He identified himself as a “survivor” of a men’s study group which had met the previous year. Some of its difficulties were known, even to her. By choice, she remained outside the parish network of information-sharing which an unkind person might call “gossip”. His use of the word, “survivor,” seemed unfortunate and she remarked that he had “survived” remarkably well and that he would “find our gatherings very different”.

At precisely 7.30, she raised her voice to call them to some kind of order. Aunt Matty’s notes had warned her that she had begun the sessions with a prayer, so she called for a moment of silence and then read from a card the “prayer” which she had prepared:

“May we listen with care, speak with charity, differ with respect and in all things, be ready for change. Amen.”

It felt strange to be “praying”, especially in public. It wasn’t much of a prayer but had the virtue of sincerity even though her thoughts about the benefits of prayer were ambivalent on a good day. Especially on a good day!

When they all came back from the “Amen”, she looked around the table. They had signed up for this program, (known over the years as “Meetings with Matty”), and cleared their calendars so that, apart from illness, they could be relied upon to appear Tuesday nights, 7.30 to 9.30, for the duration. This was what Aunt Matty insisted on and they seemed willing to transfer that willingness to the new situation.

She had gone to some trouble to prepare preliminary remarks, as though opening in court, hoping that she wouldn’t sound too much like a defense counsel.

“Most of you will know the circumstances which put me here tonight but it will be useful, especially for Al, that I give background. Aunt Matty was more than an aunt to me, she was mother, aunt and best friend since my own mother died when I was five and Aunt Matty moved in to take care of me and my father. Although she was twenty-five years older, she was always friend above all else. It was she who taught me to garden, to survive in the wilderness, to build a kite and to fly it…the list goes on and on. Those of you who were at her Memorial Service will have heard me speak at considerable length about such things.” She paused and flicked on the PowerPoint picture of Aunt Matty as well remembered from those early days.

“What you may not know is the final request which I received from her. A few days after her death, her executor came to my office and delivered a parcel. There was no mystery about its origin. I knew that handwriting as well as I know my own. Inside was a letter, some documents and a copy of her will.” She hesitated for a moment and then put down her prepared remarks. “Look,” she said, “if this is going to work, I need to be honest with you. I was angry with Aunt Matty when I read the letter with its plea, from beyond the grave, that I should take over here. She knew very well that I could scarcely say ‘No,’ but she seemed oblivious to the fact that I might find it almost impossible to do what she asked. She knew how little contact I had had, over the years, with the Church and I felt that I was being…” she hesitated, “… manipulated…” Her voice trailed off and there was a pause. Then Webster intervened with some reassurance: “Well, I guess we all understand how you must have felt. But in some ways, it’s vintage Matty. She could always surprise us. Anyhow, I am glad you have agreed to do this. Matty always said that we learned together. Why don’t we keep doing that.”

There could scarcely have been a better way to move through the moment. It had been a bit awkward but old Webster had come through.

“All right,” she said, “let’s get on with it. Matthew’s Gospel!” She took a deep breath.

“You will all be familiar with the fact that Matthew’s Gospel is the first book of the New Testament,” she began, hoping that she wasn’t starting at too low a level. “I’ve been boning up on scholarly opinions and there seems to be some kind of consensus that Mark, the second Gospel, was written earlier. And that Matthew had access to it, or to some version of it.”

Immediately, Al interrupted with a plea: “Remember people like me. This is all new and strange. Who was Matthew, anyhow and when was this thing written?” She could give an answer based on her reading but knew that every “fact” had given rise to dissent. “Al, it’s a very good question,” she said. “It’s worth spending some time to recognize how little we really know. According to the Gospel account, Matthew was called away from his tax desk by Jesus. Just like that. Taxman one day, disciple of Jesus the next. So far, so good. But the authorship of the Gospel is anything but clear. Round about the year 125 A.D., someone called Papias wrote this, ‘Matthew compiled the Sayings in Aramaic and everyone translated them as well as they could.’ And that’s about it. If I had to argue the case in court, I would be in big trouble. But we call it ‘Matthew’s Gospel’ because we can’t think of another way of discussing it. Maybe we should call it, ‘the Gospel traditionally known as Matthew’s’”

Al seemed disappointed with her answer but someone reminded the group that questions of date and authorship were not the main thing. “Let’s encounter the text as if we received it as an anonymous writing. Maybe as an editor looking at an unsolicited manuscript.”

That was the nudge forward, gratefully received. Melanie played on that theme. “What would an editor do with a manuscript that began like this?” she asked as she displayed the first section on the screen.

The genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham

Abraham was the father of Isaac,

Isaac the father of Jacob,

and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (by Tamar),

Perez was the father of Hezron,

Hezron the father of Ram,

Ram the father of Amminadab,

Amminadab the father of Nahshon,

Nahshon the father of Salmon

Salmon the father of Boaz (by Rahab)

Boaz the father of Obed (by Ruth)

Obed the father of Jesse

and Jesse the father of David the King.

David was the father of Solomon (by Uriah’s wife)

Solomon was the father of Rehoboam,

Rehoboam was the father of Abijah,

Abijah was the father of Asa,

Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat was the father of Jehoram,

Jehoram was the father of Uzziah,

Uzziah was the father of Jotham,

Jotham was the father of Ahaz,

Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah,

Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh,

Manasseh was the father of Amon,

Amon was the father of Josiah

Josiah was the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the removal to Babylon

After the removal to Babylon, Jeconiah had a son Shealtiel

Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel

Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud

Abiud was the father of Eliakim

Eliakim was the father of Azor

Azor was the father of Zadok

Zadok was the father of Achim

Achim was the father of Eliud

Eliud was the father of Eleazar

Eleazar was the father of Matthan

Matthan was the father of Jacob

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus who is called Christ

There are, therefore, in all, fourteen generations from Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the removal to Babylon; and fourteen from the removal to Babylon to the Christ.

Al took a close look at this and muttered, “Strewth! I didn’t know that the Bible was like this!” Stephen, well known as a connoisseur of obscure information, needed to enlighten the group. “Did you know that ‘strewth’ is a mild expletive, popular in Australia. It had its origin in ‘God’s Truth’, so maybe Al is onto something, eh!” This pedantic intervention was followed by another awkward pause.

Melanie pointed out that genealogies were now a huge cottage industry with all kinds of people excavating the roots of their family trees. But she agreed with Al that it was a rather intimidating beginning and recalled a day when she was snowed in and decided to have another attempt to read the New Testament. Unfortunately she chose the King James version with “the begats”: “Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren…and on and on.” She wondered how many people had been patient enough to go through all that and confessed that she had not.

She also commented that in the margin of Matty’s copy of this text was a notation in French but that she would wait until they came back the next week to reveal it. “Otherwise, there won’t be any drama in your lives.” But the group was not so easily put off. “Come on, Melanie,” they pleaded. “Matty didn’t tease us like this!” So she relented and revealed that the words were, “cherchez les femmes”. She urged them to read the genealogy with that injunction in mind. “Maybe your last message from Matty!”

This seemed to be a good place to end this first session, even though it was rather early. “You won’t get off so lightly in future,” she warned them. “When we get started on the text, we will be struggling to finish on time.”

As she was walking across the parking lot, Al fell in step with her and she sensed that he had something to say. “I am a bit sorry that I used the word ‘survivor’ when I spoke at the beginning,” he said. “Actually the experience was very positive. We even got a good meal together.” Melanie remarked that they couldn’t compete in the food direction. But Al had more to say. “Last year’s group was extremely friendly. But there was a noticeable cooling when I told them I was gay.” The conversation continued as she remarked that the church was still getting used to gay people, singles or couples. As he unlocked his bicycle from the rack, Al said, “I’m a single but looking out for Mr. Right.” Melanie wondered why Al found it necessary to tell her all of this but she ended their conversation by saying, “I know the feeling. Let’s hope that your Mr. Right isn’t the same as mine!” And with that, they went their separate ways.