• • •

Nagel encounters God (from the novel Craterland):

. . .

She strokes my empty sleeve. “But you can still feel in your stump that you had a hand with fingers?” The precision with which she expresses herself fit with her Slavic accent.

“Yes,” I said. “I feel as though I could move them if they were still attached.”

“And when you think about the Virgin, can’t you also feel something of what you felt for her as a child?”

“I’m a protestant, Ljubenka. A Lutheran. Or at least, I was. Today I’m not that either anymore.”

A shadow passed over her face. Quietly she asked, “What about God? You did believe in God before He—as you put it—got shot down, didn’t you?”

“Unfortunately, He was shot down. In bursts of fire that took off my arm and a couple hundred of HIS chosen people too.”

“And Jesus Christ? Do you believe in his gospel of love?” Her hair was touchingly blond.

“I believe in Jesus Christ as a revolutionary. The leader of a revolt of the poor. Like Gandhi.”

“And his suffering for us all? His death on the cross?”

“Gandhi was murdered too.”

“You don’t believe the Savior freed us from guilt through His death?”

“Did He? Is that what your monsignors tell you? Why don’t they teach you to see in his crucifixion the incurable bestiality inherent in all humanity—”

“Unless you believe in God’s mercy,” she gently interjected.

“God’s mercy? Where’ve you been living, girl? Did you forget the mass grave your parents and siblings are lying in? The backhoe they used to fill it in when you weren’t sure they were really dead?”

I was pitiless. I wanted to hurt her because it was tearing me up. I didn’t care about the tears streaming down her cheeks. The paler her lips got, the more painfully I wanted to wound her. “God’s mercy that allows a madman to drive millions into unimaginable misery and a wretched death. Just look around you! It’s already been two years since the war ended and God stands by and watches the bellies of newborns swelling with edema. Was that the point of the sacrificial death of his only son? The crucifix as a symbol for the cynicism of the Allfather Creator . . .”

She put her finger on my lips so slowly and gently I couldn’t push it away.

“Don’t talk anymore. Come with me!”

She led me to her bed. On a stool she used as a nightstand were some books; a half-burned candle was stuck into a drinking glass.

My senseless anger melted away in the sweetness of her embrace . . . at some point it seemed like she whispered into my ear, “Believe me, God is merciful!”

• • •

Trivia:

His eyebrows knitted in extreme concentration, holding his breath, and delicately probing his incisors with his tongue—he files his toenails.

Sketch: