Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

The smoothness of her body was astonishing and his hand moved along the curve of her hip and over skin as smooth as the silk sheets he’d bought for her bed.

Afterward, they liked to lie in bed reading scripture. He was amazed at her knowledge and gift of communication. She could take a snippet from either testament and turn it into a sermon. She had the gift. She was Sister Angie now, an authentic Pentecostal revivalist who, astonishingly, proved to have healing powers comparable to his. Her father, the Rev. Jimmy Smallwood, a Beaumont Baptist, had infused his daughter with Pentecostalist urgency before she was a teenager. (“Christ could return any minute, and we must be prepared.”) The Soldiers loved her, and the ranks were soaring, coast to coast. She delivered the sermons every other Sunday, giving Willie more time to work on his Sunday night shows.

She demanded nothing of him, so that having found her, he began to fear losing her, as he’d lost Millie. He could not go through that again. The more they loved, the more addicted to her he became, the more he was afraid. She gave him no reason to fear, but he feared anyway. What had he done to deserve this gift, he asked himself, knowing it could not last, knowing it must not last if he was true to Saint Augustine. He sought to fortify himself:

“Let it end,” he said, “and I will look back on this time as a new man, a better man, a stronger preacher. I am gaining strength.” His body was performing as the Lord meant it to. He read from Corinthians: “The body is not for fornication but for the Lord.”

He saw the change in Angie as well. When first they met, she was silent, suspicious, repressing her piety. Now she was vibrant, radiating love and energy and inspiring others. She’d become the temple’s virginal star. Letters poured in from mothers testifying how Sister Angie had changed their daughters’ lives and from men bearing witness to their new respect for women. Hundreds of new people joined the regiments of Soldiers for God every week. In the city, crime was down, the newspapers attributing it to the Church of the New Gospel.

The newspapers had rallied to him—or was it to Sister Angie?

“They offer not the torments of hell, but the joy of salvation,” a Chandler editorial proclaimed following a long investigation by Times’ s reporters. “They never fail to keep their eyes on the ultimate goal: rebirth of the congregation.”

Henry Callender brought him the editorial under the headline. “Rebirth of the Congregation.” The words jolted him. Recently he’d gone to a theater off Sunset to see Birth of a Nation, a silent movie so strange and powerful that he’d sat through it twice. The theme, “a mighty cleansing must be wrought,” was etched in his mind. What providential urge had sent him to see a movie about the Ku Klux Klan saving the nation from former slaves? He began to see his task clearly: rebirth of Los Angeles would be the basis of his sermon on race, the sermon he’d pondered since meeting with John C. Porter and Fred W. Gilmore.

He began writing on the lined pad he used for drafting sermons, his neat, small script fine and clear so Miss Shields could easily correct and transcribe. On the top he wrote: “Rebirth of the City Through a Mighty Cleansing.”

The words flowed from his pen:

Sacred city hewn from the desiccated plains by the toil of our forefathers; city of sunshine, virtue and health eschewing forever darkness and vice. But beware of poisons: poisons from abroad eating away at the fiber of our community and the purity of our life; toxins that would destroy our homes, besmirch the purity of our womanhood and sully our social intercourse. The Lord has delivered us to this blessed place, the City of Angels, guarded by the Archangel Gabriel. We have brought forth the water that nourishes the orchards and sustains our life. We are flourishing. We will not be contaminated; we will not be overrun; we will not be defiled. We will be reborn through a mighty cleansing.

“What do you think?”

The sun was just showing through the curtains, and he had read it aloud to her in bed. They’d slipped out to a little Valley restaurant the night before and come home to make love. She was on her back, naked and propped up against the pillows, semi-dozing, sheets just covering her breasts. He found it hard to concentrate.

“Poisons?” she said. “Toxins—what are you talking about, Willie?”

“Well, you know . . .”

“What do I know?”

“What do you think?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Foreigners . . . Jews . . . Mexicans.”

She was silent so long he suspected she’d fallen back asleep. He looked over, saw her eyes wide and staring at him.

“Jews . . . Mexicans?”

“Yes.”

“Mexicans?”

“Yes, Mexicans.”

She’d turned, the sheet slipping. His gaze passed to her body, and he was aroused.

“What do you mean, Mexicans?”

“What do I mean? I mean Mexicans, people from Mexico.”

“Willie . . .”

“Dearest . . .” He moved toward her. She felt his erection poking against her thigh.

“You can’t say that.”

“I can’t say what?”

“You can’t give that sermon.”

“What do you mean I can’t give it?”

“You can’t give it, Willie,” she repeated, louder this time, pushing him away.

“But why?” He had begun to wilt.

She closed her eyes and laid back against the pillows.

“Don’t give it!”

“But why?”

“Because I am Mexican!”

He was stunned, limp instantly, uncomprehending, nothing Mexican about her name. Why was he suddenly afraid? “You?”

“Me.”

He fell back onto his pillow, the sermon slipping to the floor. Now it was he who lay on his back, eyes wide, staring at the ceiling.

She was mystified. “Being Mexican’s not that bad, you know. I’m really only half Mexican.”

He said nothing. Outside a Big Red Car clanged down Glendale Boulevard.

“Willie, for heaven’s sake. Why should it matter?”

“No, no,” he said, sitting up, urgency in his voice, “it’s not that, not that