“I guess I have to.”
“As soon as you catch up, you’ll see the necessity for it yourself. You won’t be in any doubt about it.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t like that answer.”
Defending the gap
“When Charles started, we thought we had weeks. With his assassination, I now think we have days, maybe hours.”
I asked her what Charles’s death had to do with it, but she just shook her head and went on. “Charles’s approach had to be his own, of course, but to be honest, I thought it was too cerebral and too circuitous. I have to begin at a more elemental level.”
“Okay,” I said doubtfully. Then: “Are you talking about starting right this second?”
“Do you have another appointment?”
“No, of course not.”
“If you’re waiting for me to go into mourning for a month, that just can’t happen. Not now. Not in these circumstances.”
“I’m sorry, go on.”
“Charles didn’t want to carry you across the gap, Jared. He wanted you to leap across it yourself, that’s why he proceeded as he did. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Are you talking about the leap I have to make to reach the conclusion he wanted me to reach?”
“That’s right. Every sentence he spoke was designed to extend the road for you by a centimeter. He was closing the gap pebble by pebble, hoping you’d eventually make the leap by yourself.”
“But I never did.”
“You never did. I don’t have the patience to follow that procedure, Jared—the patience or the time. I’m going to throw you across the gap. I’m going to start with the conclusion.”
She waited for me to respond, and I guess I could have said okay or “That sounds swell,” but it didn’t sound either okay or swell to me. To me it sounded like the end … which is of course exactly what a conclusion is.
“Okay,” I said. “That sounds swell.”
She gave me a doubtful look, as if she didn’t any more believe me than I did. Then she went on: “Here is something I want you to tell me, Jared. You’re a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. You understand what the ministry of Jesus was all about, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Do you or don’t you?”
“I understand it.”
“Tell me in three words what Jesus came to do.”
“In three words?”
“You, tell me or I’ll tell you. In three words, what did Jesus come to do?”
“To save souls.”
“That isn’t just the Roman Catholic take, is it? You could carry that around to every Christian denomination there is, and they’d all sign off on it, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes, I think so. That’s probably the only statement they all would sign off on.”
“He didn’t come to save the whales, did he?”
“No.”