Rose Moss - A Man of God

The Man of God
Other Voices, Chicago, IL, 2004.

牋牋牋      During the pregnancy, following hard on scandals about other celebrity ministers, Eliot took Ada to Tucson. She knew no-one there and neither did he. The press would not notice his doings in the background if he maintained the flow of stories they were used to in the foreground – incendiary comments on the news of the day and appearances with celebrity allies. He flew to Paris. He had himself photographed in Oslo and implied a role in Nobel peace nominations. He mediated a civil war in Africa and spoke with executives of oil companies in Colombia, dined with a mayor, visited a massacre site and paid homage to a dying poet. In Tucson, Ada waited for the pregnancy to come to term.

       A poet herself, she had come to Boston to accept a prize for writers showing unusual courage and to teach classes for a few weeks. Eliot had been on the selection committee and after dinner with the committee and two editors, each wondering whether to vie with the other for a book of her passionate lyrics - he took her to his favorite bar for a glass of wine.

       It was her birthday, she said.

       Though she had heard gossip, “His third wife’s a waitress. Tells you something, doesn’t it?”

       But she had not met him then and didn’t take much notice.

       Neither of them expected the pregnancy, though on that day she chose to call her birthday, the years closing in and her chances pinching, she had prayed for a baby. Her atheism had lapsed. Neither Marx nor Lenin could comfort her. Nor the Prophet. In any case, she did not believe and wrote as a woman who did not believe the Koran supports patriarchy. Someone or something might hear her prayer that she would not die barren. In her memories, in her family and her family’s friends, her grandmother’s village, even in Alexandria, a barren woman was accursed or wretched. Her high school atheism was no match for this judgement old and wide as the sky itself.
What’s more, on a reading tour in Turkey, she had escaped an earthquake and walked the ruins while radios still sent news and songs to bloom in the rubble. A complete fuck-up, though rescuers were still searching for survivors. She resolved to have a baby and refute death with life.

       She had already had two abortions, one in her second year at university, another in her first year of marriage when her husband said, “I can’t afford another mouth to feed.” A young lawyer building his career, he refused to be swamped by premature fertilities. A month later, she discovered his affair with a secretary in a ministry charged with saving antiquities from vandals and art thieves. After the divorce he married the other woman but meeting Ada at a film festival, invited her to dinner. She fed him spoonfuls of custards, he toyed with the possibility of marrying her again, but sense prevailed. At this stage, he could afford only one wife at a time.

       Eliot and Ada met for dinner again. Again. Again.

       It was a week after her birthday that he called the florist for his usual order on such occasions. Red roses, of course, now mixed with white hyacinth. She was a poet after all, roses a cliché.

       Ada felt herself charged with honey, like a hive at the end of summer, and next morning in a café, she caught her reflection in the glass door swinging in and back, and men’s eyes when they saw her. Everything swelled with sap and pleasure. She was beautiful and everyone saw it. Still toying with her croissant, she started a poem about bees and their dances, opened her purse for her pretty notebook and gold pen, and wrote phrases - how a bee grasps the organ it seeks, the flower’s glistening moisture, the bee nuzzling deep, the hairs, the nectar. Her mother believed bees brought good luck and she was sure she would see one this sunny morning. In the meantime, it was a pleasure to sit being beautiful, holding her red book and gold pen and writing phrases in Arabic, French or English, whatever came, emotion recollected in tranquility. In her hotel room, the flowers were waiting for her.
Eliot nurtured his virile enchantment. He was on fire and it was fueling his eloquence preaching and writing. Colleagues applauded his annual lecture at the seminary, the press featured his conference at the Peace Center and more invitations came in to his speaker’s bureau.

       She wanted him to see the tape of a television interview, but when it started on the VCR, he turned from image to substance, “You’re beautiful,” exploring with hands, mouth, nose and every other organ of delight and power.

       Power was what he liked most. Her breathing, her cries, his control, his timing, his interpretation.

       A week passed. Another. He would find a research position for her at the Center for International Peace. His lawyer would help with her visa. His brother, on sabbatical in Europe, would let her live in his house.

       She cooked dinner for Eliot and when he saw what she had done his eyes glistened, “No one’s cooked for me since I was a child.”

       “No one takes care of you. Look,” she stroked his arm, “Dry. Like a stone in the desert.”

       She massaged him with warmed oils. “Now you are alive, a palm tree.”

       In restaurants, he normally ordered steak, cheeseburgers, ribs. She had prepared chicken soup with bulghur, zucchini stuffed with chicken, rice and pignola nuts and pastries soaked in honey. He ate, and it was good but when he left, citing work, he went to a greasy spoon and ordered sausage and eggs.

       She wrote a poem about the dry stone and the erect palm tree. Next week, in peace after intercourse, their feet playing with each other, toes walking up calves, sliding along thighs, suggestion and postponement, he confirmed the job at the Center. “A year-long appointment. The visa will be no problem.”