Saints Read online

  Heber began reading in his halting, half-literate way. It drove Charlie crazy to listen to the mispronunciation. the halting pace, the stammers. Then in midsentence Heber paused and said, "I don't read worth a bucket of horse manure. Why don't you read it to me?"

  Charlie had the book in his hands before he could get the words out of his mouth. Heber pointed to the paragraph, and Charlie read it aloud, hardly thinking about what he was saying, only wanting to show this American how things ought to be read. It was in a high-flown language that sounded like scripture, a promise that anyone who read the book with a sincere heart would have the Spirit of God come and tell him it was true, if he prayed about it. The whole thing, Heber and the book and the story of the suffering people in America, it all came together then for Charlie, for a moment, and he saw them as at once a pitiful people duped by a charlatan into meaningless sacrifice, and a chosen people ennobled by their faith, laboring to prepare the world for the Savior to come again. The first was what Charlie knew they really were; the second was what they believed themselves to be. But for a moment Charlie wasn't sure whether the fairer measure of a people was the way others saw them, or the way they saw themselves.

  "Well, you're a reader," said Heber.

  Charlie couldn't help but smile. No matter how ignorant Heber was, he could at least tell good reading when he heard it.

  "I reckon you could read that whole book in a month," said Heber.

  Charlie laughed. "I could read the whole book in a day."

  Heber handed it to him. "Then if I lend you this, you should be able to get a few pages read before you go to bed."

  Trapped. "I'll read some of it tonight," Charlie said. "I like reading."

  "Good. Now, that second favor I needed."

  "Yes?"

  Heber grinned and bounced up and down a little on the balls of his feet, like a little boy taken short. "Would you tell me where the privy is?"

  Charlie laughed. "In the courtyard. Through that door,"

  While Heber thumped out of the house, Charlie opened the book.

  He had thought to read just enough to satisfy himself that the doctrines were childish or the writing immature. To his own surprise, however, it was no parallel Bible. Instead it began with the story of the youngest son of a prophet, living in Jerusalem just before the Babylonians would come to destroy it. The youngest son, Nephi, believed in his father and tried to serve God, but he had oppressive and unbelieving older brothers, Laman and Lemuel, who tried to tie him up and abandon him for wild animals one time, then tried to kill him outright another. Always Nephi had the power of God with him, and once an angel came to stand between him and his brothers. Charlie knew all about cruel and heartless older brothers.

  When their father, the old prophet, had a vision that even he didn't understand, the youngest brother prayed and not only saw the same vision but got an angel to interpret it for him as well, which made his brothers hate him all the more, even as it became clear that Nephi was obviously the only true son of his godly father. When their hunting bows were broken or sprung. it was Nephi who got help from the Lord in learning how to make a bow. When they reached a seashore and could go no farther, it was this youngest son who built a ship, even though his brothers mocked him and said he couldn't do it. And then as they sailed across the ocean toward the promised land of America, his older brothers tied him to a mast and starved him while they got drunk with some of the women they had brought along. Then the Lord sent a great storm that nearly sank the ship, until the brothers got frightened and untied him. And what did Nephi do? Did he rage? Did he strike them down? Did he curse them? No. He forgave them freely, even though they obviously weren't really sorry they hurt him, and then he calmed the storm. Yes, Charlie thought as he read it. Yes, that's the truth. That's the way the world is, or ought to be, by heaven.

  Then he turned a page and several sheets of paper fell out. For a moment Charlie was afraid he had spoiled the book. Then he picked up the papers and discovered it was a letter. "My dear Vilate," it began. But then it collapsed into the most absurd combinations of letters Charlie had ever seen. He could make no sense of the words until he realized that he should simply pronounce them as they were spelled. Jest for just, and he had Heber's pronunciation preserved in ink. Opertunity. Enuph. Hous. Wareinstead of were. Inhabitance instead of inhabitants. Piana for piano, presents for presence. The man was a gold mine of information about the incompetence of an American education. He couldn't help but smile at the most ridiculous words.

  He didn't know how long Heber had been watching him before he cleared his throat and said, "Beg your pardon."

  Charlie looked up in surprise. Immediately he folded the papers closed and stuffed them back in the book and closed it quickly. "Sorry," he said. "It was just here, it fell out of the book and I was afraid it was pages. I didn't mean to read so much, just glance at it is all."

  "No doubt you were admiring my interesting spelling."

  Charlie felt himself blush with embarrassment, something he almost never did. "I didn't mean to give offense, I -- "

  Heber grinned. "That's all right. Parley says I spell worse than Brigham, and Brigham spells worse than anybody. But I figure" -- and here Charlie mentally spelled the word figger -- "that if the Lord wanted a good speller he would have called one. Instead he's got me, and I've got better things to do than learn which words get extra Es and which ones don't. Vilate reads my letters out loud anyway. If I started spelling it right she'd never make head nor tails of it. And it really isn't my fault. It's you folks here in England made up the way to spell these words, not me.

  Charlie handed him the closed book with the letter inside. Heber opened the book, removed the letter, and handed the book back to Charlie.

  "I loaned you the book so you'd read it," Heber said. "But you were turning the pages so fast, I wondered if you were really reading. You kind of slowed down when you got to my letter."

  It was forgiveness, of course -- Heber was telling Charlie that he knew he was really reading the Book of Mormon, not trying to pry. It was praise, too, of Charlie's speed as a reader, and Charlie didn't mind taking it as such. "I read quickly," he said, "but I read every word." And to prove it he recounted the tale he had just read.

  "Sounds like you've been paying close attention, all right." Heber measured him with a look. "You've read that much of it -- what do you think?"

  Charlie was at a loss for words. He was afraid to tell this man how much the first few chapters of the book had meant to him, for fear he'd think Charlie was becoming a Mormon. So he tried to think of some sort of comment. It was late at night and he was tired: the best compliment he could come up with was "It's very inventive." The word sounded limp even to him, when applied to a book that was capturing him the way this one did. But to Heber it obviously sounded worse than limp. He stepped forward and took the book out of Charlie's hands.

  "Thank you kindly, and I'll be going now. I'll have to hurry if I'm to find a place to sleep tonight."

  Charlie was horrified. "What do you mean? You're sleeping here!" What if Mother came home and asked where he'd gone? Oh, I just read his letter to his wife and then insulted his Book of Mormon and he left -- that would sit less than well with Anna.

  "I don't mind sleeping in a house with those who hate me, but I don't stay with those who take me light."

  "I don't take you lightly, you or your book!"

  "Inventive! Mr. Kirkham, there ain't one invented word in that whole book. What do you think this whole business of religion is, a game I play? Do you think I'd come over here to this stinking damn city to talk my jaws off to people who mostly think I'm a curiosity, if I didn't know -- not think, Mr. Kirkham, know -- that the word of God is in that book? By God, and I say that not for blasphemy but because by God I'm speaking in the name of Jesus Christ, that book ain't inventive. It ain't no little toy for no pretty-faced little English bookkeeper to look down his nose at because it was brought here by an American who can't spell his o
wn name without asking. You're damn lucky to have had a chance to look at that book, there's been prophets who would have given their lives for a look at it, but to you it's just a bunch of funny names and a lot of preaching."

  Charlie tried to interrupt, to explain, but Heber wasn't one to let anyone cut him off before he was through.

  "My wife's been sick, and my children, too, and when I left them I didn't know if they'd have a roof over their heads but I trusted in God to look after them because I know that the most important thing in the world is that book you're reading and the prophet who got it and the gospel he's teaching and the kingdom of God we're building and if you think I'm going to let you call it inventive then you don't know me, because I sure as hell ain't going to cast no pearls before swine !"

  At last, out of breath from the force of his speech, Heber fell silent. Charlie looked at him in awe. "Mr. Kimball," Charlie said, "I'll tell you the truth. I like that book, I like it a lot."

  "Liking is nothing."

  "The whole truth. I want that book."

  Suddenly, as if he had torn off a mask, Heber's face went from wrath to pure delight, and he handed the book back to Charlie and clasped the hand Charlie reached out to take it with. "I wish I had another copy, so I could give you one. But since that's my only one, I'm afraid I'll have to have it to take with me in the morning."

  Charlie didn't know what to say. He had never been forgiven so fast in his life.

  "Charlie," said Heber, "I spoke to you sharply a minute ago, but that's part of my work, too. If you really want that book, don't you go lying to me or to yourself with words like inventive. OK?"

  Charlie smiled sheepishly. "I'll leave the book here on the table before I go to sleep. You can take it in the morning."

  Heber shrugged. "As I said, it's there to be read. But let me give you two warnings."

  "Warnings?"

  "That part you just read is easy, it's all as exciting as a romance. But pretty quick they get into some heavy sermonizing. Some long passages that are bound to be above the head of a young fellow like you."

  "Do you think so?" Charlie asked. He resented the idea that Heber considered him to have only the capacity of a "young fellow."

  "Well, most young folks generally skip right over the book of Second Nephi and pretty well take up with the little books that come after. Lots of quotes from Isaiah in there, and Isaiah's as tough as going up the Mississippi without a paddle."

  "I've read the Old Testament twice, and I particularly liked Isaiah."

  Heber grinned at him. "Beg pardon, then. You're going to like Second Nephi just fine."

  Heber turned to go.

  "Wait a minute. You said there were two warnings."

  Heber turned and leaned against the door frame. "The second one you'll like even less than the first."

  "Well?"

  "Well, reading the Book of Mormon is dangerous."

  "How is it dangerous?"

  "What if you find out that you think it's true? What'll you do about that?"

  "Why should I do anything about it?"

  "Well, Charlie, if the book's true, so's the prophet who translated it, and so's the angel who gave it to him, and so's the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ who lent you the book to read, and so is the baptism that I offer you, and so is the church the Lord expects you to join. You can't have just part of it. If any of it's true, it's all true, lock, stock, and barrel, and once the Spirit tells you that it's true, why, kick against it all you like, you'll either become a Mormon or go to hell."

  Then Heber stamped into Charlie's bedroom. Charlie heard the clump clump of the American's boots as they hit the floor; then he heard nothing more until his mother came home. By then he was well past the Isaiah sections, and if truth be known he had skimmed those, seeing how he had already read them before. He was caught up in the story of how once they got in the promised land the wicked older brothers rebelled and the Lord cursed them by turning them into Red Indians, only they were called Lamanites, and there was war constantly. It wasn't so much that it was exciting reading -- there were a lot of sermons, and the language was stiffly scriptural. What kept Charlie fascinated was that it all felt important, it all felt true. Not true the way arithmetic was true, or the way things he saw with his own eyes were true. It just felt right, it felt like all this happened in a world where God knew his children and cared for them.

  So when Mother came home, Charlie barely grunted a goodnight. Anna contemplated him for a few moments, then reminded him that work came at the same time in the morning no matter how late he went to bed. He muttered his usual "I know" without really hearing her. He was reading about how Alma and Amulek, a prophet and his friend, were forced by the enemies of God to stand at the edge of a pit while men and women and children whose only crime was believing in God were cast into a fire and burned alive. "Why doesn't God strike his enemies down?" Amulek asked, and Charlie echoed the anguished question. Alma said, "The wicked must be allowed to do their wickedness. The ones who die find that death is sweet to them." True, true, Charlie cried out silently, that's how it must be, our enemies are cheated because however they try to hurt us, the pain is sweet to us for the sake of our faith!

  He did not recognize that sometime during the night he had stopped thinking they and started thinking we, just as Dinah had done while Heber was speaking. He also did not notice the passage of time, only the passage of the tale. After the wars, which Charlie's imagination let him experience virtually in the flesh, there was terrible destruction -- earthquakes and fires from heaven and huge waves and awful storms. Then silence, and darkness, and Jesus Christ spoke from the heavens. He had just been crucified in Jerusalem on the other side of the world, and where was he going? Why, straight to America to visit his people there. It was so far from the standard sermons about the harrowing of hell and the mystic, unintelligible union of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost in an indistinguishable trinity that Charlie found himself nodding and whispering yes, yes, for this was surely what it meant when the scripture said that Jesus came to all men, not just to the Jews in Jerusalem.

  After Christ left, the people lived in peace for two hundred years. Then the wars began again, all because some people had to be rich when others were poor; they couldn't stand to share. All because of ungenerosity and greed, and finally the Lamanites were allowed by God to destroy the Nephites entirely, except for one lone man, Moroni, who finished writing on the golden plates and then buried them so Joseph Smith could find them and translate them a thousand or so years later. Charlie closed the book and couldn't bear for it to be over. He had lived in the world of the book and didn't want to leave it. He had been Nephi and Alma and the brave young sons of the Ammonites. He had touched the wounds of Christ's crucifixion and wept when he blessed the children. He had grieved with Mormon for all that the Nephite people had lost through their own sins.

  And finally, when Moroni told his readers to ask God if the book was true, Charlie found himself saying: I don't need to ask, I know already. This was not written by a man. It was written by God, who knows the truth about the sufferings of children and younger brothers, who knows that those who have more money through luck or inheritance or profits are really just stealing the things of the earth that should belong to all men equally.

  It was not all joy, finding something that sounded true to him. There was pain, too: the shame of realizing that he had never really forgiven Robert the way that Nephi forgave his brothers for even worse crimes; the frustration of knowing that by the time Nephi was Charlie's age he was already a prophet, writing scripture and calling upon angels. Yet what had Heber said? The worthy Saints all had the priesthood, the power of God. They all could speak and, if they had the faith and the need, the very elements would obey them. There were mighty works to be done, great works of faith, and Charlie wanted to be part of them. Wanted to be at the heart of them. Wanted to act without getting the counsel of any other soul. This time, God himself has called to me, and I don't need
Robert's ridicule or Dinah's advice or Mother's worried glance.

  Charlie got up from the divan and walked quietly into his bedroom. Heber was snoring softly, sprawled not under the blankets but atop them like a vast, untidy dog. Charlie went to him and touched his shoulder.

  It startled him how quickly Heber awoke, how alert he was when he did. "It's not morning yet, Charlie," he said. "What do you want?"

  "Heber, if I become a Mormon, will you give me the priesthood?"

  Heber suddenly gripped Charlie's arm. "I was dreaming, Charlie, when you came in here. I dreamed I saw you sitting beside the Prophet Joseph, and he was dictating the words of the Lord and you were writing them down, and when you were through Joseph put his arms around you and said, 'Charlie, the Lord surely loves you.'"

  The words coming the way they did, like prophecy, with Heber's voice husky with sleep -- it sent chills along Charlie's back, and he shuddered. "Will it come true?" he asked.