G. ROE UPSHAW - PARABLE OF A SUPERIOR MAN

G. Roe Upshaw is an orchardist and writer by passion, neither by occupation. If he were to die the instant he hit send on this email, he would be succeeded by: an anxiety-ridden dog, a forgettable cat, a formidable collection of basketball cards, and a small forest of spindly, fruitless apple trees.​

Parable of a Superior Man
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​It is said that an inferior man, when he is alone, encounters no limit to his wickedness. It is also said that an inferior man, upon meeting a superior man, will try to disguise himself, concealing the evil and showing off the good in him. It is like a tree whose roots are broken and disordered. Trimming the branches, coloring the blooms, and shaping the leaves will never fix the fundamental problem---and any planter knows that when a tree’s roots are in disorder, it is far easier to plant a new tree in the old tree’s place than it is to re-order the roots.
 
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            Discussions of trees and of self-rectification were never on the lips of Paul Truan, the pastor of a dusty desert village. As pastor, he was the village’s chief (and sole) religious official. As such, he shouldered the solemn responsibility of providing godly advice to the guilt-struck villagers, yet the wages of this inestimable task was a considerable position of power within the small community. To be sure, although by title Father Truan did not surpass the mayor, by influence Father Truan effectively presided over the entire population of only a few hundred.
            To be the weightiest creature in such a meager pond suited Father Truan perfectly. He knew contentment in his routines and in his security of influence. His smooth, white forehead only ever rippled during those hours when the villagers were permitted to seek his sage counsel on the quotidian predicaments of their quiet lives. Nothing of import ever occurred in the village. The cycle of birth and death had been running without incident since long before Father Truan’s assignment there. Consequently, Father Truan had by now heard every question a villager might possibly have, and had a store of prepared answers he knew would satisfy the questioner and satisfy his goal of having them leave the office.
            In his consultations, Father Truan never discussed the roots of trees. His responses were sugary victuals which pleased the palate, but did little to fill the belly. And Father Truan’s chief subject was always the same: peace. Peace was the highest ideal to Father Truan---peace in the village, peace in his church, peace in his life. This latter item was of foremost importance, and peace in the village and in his church both served this end. Thus, Father Truan’s advice and counsel always functioned to bring a peaceful resolution as immediately as possible.
            To a woman who, when visiting her elderly, infirmed mother, complained of guilt over her revulsion at the sight and smell of the sick woman, Father Truan nimbly advised her to visit more infrequently, so that each visit’s nausea would be outweighed by the fondness of reunion.
            To a man expressing consternation for impure thoughts about women he was powerless to prevent or keep at bay, wise Father Truan’s axiomatic advice was, “To keep only the company of men” for a hundred days, and “To drink water so cold it stings your teeth a minimum of five times per day.” The man left Father Truan’s office unsure of the pastor’s remedy, however, he was assured by Truan’s experience and power.
            In addition to his hours allotted to receive inquiring villagers, the daylight shone over Father Truan performing the functions of his title. The studying. The church upkeep. The preparations of Sunday rites and sermons. The occasional baptism, wedding, or funeral. He also kept a small windowbox with four small succulents. He had once tried to begin a garden---his hope was to bring forth pungent herbs he might use in his cooking---but the garden never produced. Truan blamed the unforgiving desert temperatures, but in truth Truan was a neglectful gardener, often forgetting to water or shade his plants, which is doubly necessitated in such inhospitable climates. So, his garden crisped and crumbled. His windowbox succulents suited him fine. They asked little of him, and gave him the satisfaction of having given proper sustenance to a living thing. Most of all, they gave him peace.
            Few things in Father Truan’s life brought him such peace so magnanimously as food and drink. Paul Truan, as a young boy in an abbess’ kitchen, learned reverence for flavor and for toothsomeness---he kneeled at the altar of pan-roasted chicken with herbs long before he kneeled at the altar of Our Lord. Pondering the mysteries of an exotic recipe brought him closer to God than pondering the mysteries of His ways and creations ever could. And what Father Truan, man of peace, loved so dearly about the culinary arts was that it was to him a quick, easy, fulfilling ritual which brought immediate peace in the form of a full belly and a mind fuzzled by lush wine---and this peace came with no fine print, no collateral damage, no lingering thorns. A dish was prepared, a table set, a meal consumed, then it was done. Father Truan had his peace to last him until the time for the next meal, the next ritual of peace.
            While Father Truan considered his meals to be free of any burdensome or deleterious effects, there was, naturally, the toll such a zeal for food and drink exacts on the human body. Father Truan was a robust, corpulent man. His skin stretched tight over his massive frame, like a balloon filled to burst with water.
            His ritual meals---all extravagant in size---in pursuit of peace had made him fat; his enormous girth, which imbalanced his naturally small frame, caused him great effort and pain to move, thus he tended toward an ever more sedentary lifestyle and so his weight gain continued uninhibited, and his meals came more frequently and with greater portions. Father Truan was caught up in this self-perpetuating existence, though he never appeared concerned by it. He never batted an eye when his austere chairs had to be replaced by sturdier ones that could support his increasing weight. In fact, he sent out for chairs that not only were not austere, but were frankly garish in their upholstery and their pillowy seats.
            His consumption of wine had grown alongside his consumption of food. Snacking between meals Father Truan disparaged as a perversion of the mealtime ritual (though he of course kept no fewer than four crystal bowls of confections on his desk, into which he frequently dipped a hand…), however, glasses of wine were, to him, a more than acceptable means to quickly achieve a short rush of that peaceful feeling. Thus, Father Truan was rarely witnessed by the people of the village without an earthenware cup filled with wine, or else with teeth stained bloody by a peaceful red.
            At first, Father Truan had held clear convictions about abstaining from wine on Sundays and during Lent, but it was not long before he was struck by a revelation: “how can I best spread the Word of the Lord, of peace and of love, without feeling peaceful and loving myself?” Since that almighty awakening, not a Sunday Mass commences that Father Truan is not preaching from his lavish, cushioned Presider’s Chair, a full bottle of red wine having already been emptied and an earthenware cup of white wine prominently beside his Holy Bible on the pulpit.
            The people of the village were not dumb to their pastor’s occasional confusion of the Gospels nor of his slurred sermons, nor did his blustery, off-key singing slip their notice. (Father Truan, in the earlier days, possessed a warm baritone that resonated throughout the humble church, moving a listener’s very spirit to join in the celebration). The people of the village noticed it all, and their pastor’s behavior was a favorite subject of gossip during post-Mass luncheons. It was only Father Truan’s unassailable authority as a man of the cloth that prevented the idle gossip from souring into communal disgruntledness.
            And so Father Truan’s life amidst the small, desert village passed from one day to the next. His ritual mealtimes marked off the hours. His consultations remained a pebble in his shoe, yet he was always conscious of the fact he would shortly be able to take his shoes off and shake the pebble back to the Earth. His wine cellar grew in accordance with his thirst, and although the talk between the village people of his sermons punctuated by hiccups persisted, he rested easily, enrobed and protected by the security of his position. For Paul Truan, life was peaceful.
 
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            The letter from the diocese arrived one day, and, as was his custom, Paul Truan read it following the last of his daily consultations, just before his preparations for supper. The contents of the letter caused him great indigestion that night, and sleep was accomplished only with aid from a potent merlot.
            The letter announced the imminent arrival of one Father Wei Ku Sang, due in the day after next. Father Sang had only recently been appointed to the local diocese, and was visiting several churches in the area to acquaint himself with the region, with his brothers and sisters in God and in vocation, and with the good people he was to serve. Father Sang was scheduled to remain in Truan’s community for a thirty day period. In a fresh, stiff, practised handwriting, Father Sang had appended a personal note in which he humbly requested permission to address a sermon to the local congregation, should it please the revered Father Truan…
            An impending visit from a novitiate priest was not what had Truan’s intestines knotted up. What he found singularly distressing was the boyish, excited tone with which Sang wrote of “breaking bread at the venerable elder’s humble table” and “studying at the feet of such an unquestioned exemplar of the faith, such a model of temperance and wisdom.” The vision of another man intruding on his cherished mealtime ritual caused Truan’s potatoes au gratin to turn to ash on his tongue. All his rituals and routines, so meticulously curated over years of solitary practice, he saw shattered and dashed on the unforgiving rocks of Wei Ku Sang’s bright-eyed appointment. Truan’s very marrow rejected this woeful turn of events---still, Paul Truan was not so meal-headed as to refuse a guest sent by the diocese. It was only by remaining in the good graces of the bishop that his peaceful life was permitted to go on free of molestation or investigation.
            Any contrivances he may have invented to forestall Father Sang’s visit were ultimately frustrated by a single sentence toward the bottom of the letter, following the scrawled-out personal salutations by Sang, which read: “Receiving no response from our initial letter of introduction, sent [two months ago], it is the presumption of this bishopric board that you have no objections, reservations, or conflicts, regarding Father Wei Ku Sang’s visit, and as such you may expect him to arrive most punctually at…”.
            Truan could recall no such letter of introduction, but this was not surprising. Any appointments or correspondences not requiring immediate response or action were always pushed from his mind. The thought of something like Sang’s visit hanging above his mind like a dragonfly over a desert flower would have put him off his meals and mortally disrupted his peace for every one of the last sixty days.
            When he awoke the day after receiving the letter, it was with a small tannin headache and a plan. After a breakfast rich with goat’s milk butter and a biscuit gravy made with bacon drippings, Paul Truan donned his “mendicant robes” (which were, in fact, crafted of a finer material than were his Sunday vestments) and turned his heavy step the direction of Ol’ Hick Cattow’s inn. He wanted to ensure that Ol’ Hick had a room free that was, not opulent, but comfortable---not ascetic, but befitting a young cleric’s sensibilities, sensitivities, and spine.
 
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            Wei Ku Sang’s arrival was first made known to Paul Truan by a phone call from Ol’ Hick, informing him that Father Sang had made it in safely and had been pleased with his lodgings, lease as far as the simple innkeeper could tell. He’d told Ol’ Hick to pass along a special thanks to Father Truan for so kindly keeping his well being in his thoughts. Truan shook his head, disbelieving that Father Sang would be thanking him for forcing him to stay in one of Ol’ Hick’s sad little rooms, which Truan had only done to preserve the sanctity of his own home, rituals, and peace.
            Truan’s first account of Sang’s person came during his Friday’s final consultation. A devoted mother, encumbered with her regular concern over her only son, who she felt spent entirely too much time hanging around the Indian reservation south of the village, mentioned in passing that she had discussed her son with “another priest” that morning. She had chanced upon him whilst purchasing some fruit from the small grocer’s market. The nervous mother described the “other priest” as best as her provincial vocabulary allowed, but the word which leapt out at Father Truan was that this “other priest” was said to be very “peaceful.”
            The mother also said that when she had recalled Truan’s advice to continuously take a hands-off approach to her son’s wayward behavior, for this rebellious phase would shortly run its course if starved of motherly fodder upon which to feed, the “other priest” was apparently taken aback, but deferred dutifully to the decision of a man of Truan’s wisdom and experience.
            “Why would that other priest react that way?” The poor mother peered into Truan’s eyes, wringing a small kerchief to tatters in her lap.
            “It is difficult to say without knowing better the personality of this visiting brother,” Truan had started speaking, but the mother interrupted.
            “Do you think he would tell me to go drag Bradley back home? To keep him from running off to get drunk down there on the reservation and god-knows-what-else?---oh, my apologies, Father!”
            Father Truan looked into the worrywart’s eyes, which glowed with a hitherto unseen energy. He surmised this was the counsel she had for so long been seeking from him, and now to have so nearly heard these words from another voice of promised wisdom, she was titillated, probably already half-composed the lecture she would give to the poor, pitiable Bradley.
            “The ‘other priest’ told you to do this?”
            “Well, no, but his reaction said it all!”
            “The young are often impulsive. It is only with age that true wisdom---”
            “Oh, but the ‘other priest’ is not young. In fact, I’d wager he is right about the same age as yourself, if not a year or two older.”
            This was certainly new information to Father Truan, and, having quickly dismissed the nervous mother, admonishing her to stay the steady course with Bradley and not to rashly pursue the path which appears easy and cheap, he settled in to consider his actions regarding this Wei Ku Sang.
            He could not be avoided, that was obvious. Truan would have to entertain his presence, yes, and sooner better than later lest he risk being accused of open hostility and most untoward behavior against a brother in Christ and in the diocese. Such an offense put Truan in danger of observation, of periodic assessment, and even of potential recall to the diocese central office in the capital for six months of re-education with no guarantee of returning to his current post when the six month probationary period ended.
            This Sang, Truan realized with a deep shudder that shook his belly, was a threat and must be handled with no surfeit of delicacy and caution. A negative report from Sang to the bishop could bring ruination! Perhaps that was the purpose behind Sang’s visit: to discover evidence against him in order to one day supplant him as the village’s religious leader.
            No, Truan rationalized, Sang was no surreptitious usurper, no spy of The Holy See. The letter had made no mention nor subtle intimation of Sang’s performing any official duty except that of a visiting brother. The diocese never resorted to subterfuge in matters where their own reputation could be at stake. In those matters they tended to wield a heavy cudgel. Besides, Paul Truan had always been viewed favorably by the diocese. He had given no cause for investigation or curiosity. It was only his overactive imagination inventing plots against him and hastily proscribing motives to this novice Father Sang.
            Having settled his mind and thereby his stomach, Father Truan prepared a luxurious supper of miso-glazed chicken with lightly salted, roasted beans, all paired with a sinewy port wine.
            He had not yet polished off his second glass of port when he received a phone call from the inn. It was Ol’ Hick Cattow on behalf of that “other priest.” Father Sang was inquiring whether Father Truan was available that evening for an introduction.
            Against his will, the paranoic thoughts of usurpation again swarmed in Truan’s mind. He affected a meekness in his voice, and told Ol’ Hick that he was, regrettably, quite indisposed this night and could not possibly be any type of welcoming host, especially not to a guest so worthy as Brother Sang. That satisfied the caller, and that was that. Father Truan was left with his falsehood and only the remaining port in the bottle as means of atonement.
 
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            Early the next morning---Saturday---Paul Truan was rattled from his sleep by a ringing of his doorbell. His clock read 6:40. Truan groaned as he rolled his heavy frame off his plush mattress, donning a red linen housecoat to answer the bell.
            Even through the bleariness of his vision, he could see without doubt that the man on his front step was the mysterious Wei Ku Sang. His dark hair was cut short, and he was attired not like a priest, but rather like an office worker. A yellow polo shirt with the crest of the diocese embroidered on the pocket was tucked sharply and evenly into a pressed pair of khakis. Separating the shirt from the slacks was a braided leather belt.
            “Good day, Father Truan! How are you feeling this morning?”
            Wei Ku Sang’s energy was overbearing, particularly for Truan, whose brain was still adjusting to being awake a full two hours before he typically greeted the day.
            “I’m sorry, my manners have abandoned me---my name is Wei Ku Sang, and I have been sent by the diocese to---”
            Truan raised a hand. “Yes, greetings Brother Sang. I was made aware of your visit. And, I apologize for my appearance and my curtness with you, but I have only just risen and I will need several minutes to set myself aright.”
            “Oh no! I have disrupted your sleep! I presume you slept in today in order to recover---I’m sorry, Mr. Cattow informed me you were not feeling all that well last night---and here I have interrupted that valuable palliative sleep! Like a fool, I did not consider you might be taking an extra hour’s rest---on any other day, you would of course have started on the day’s work by now.”
            “Of course.” Truan swallowed his lie. He had not begun a morning before 8:30, 8:00 at the earliest, in several years.
            “Well, Father,” Sang indicated the small, brown paper bag he carried, “by means of my sincerest apology as well as of brotherly good will, please allow me to provide breakfast for us both.” He pulled from the bag two small mandarins and a demi-loaf of plain Italian bread, the kind Truan knew the baker sold at half-price since it was a day old. Truan restrained a groan, and, with a slight gesture, beckoned Wei Ku Sang into his home.
            Their breakfast together filled Truan with an uneasy sense of dread as his ill thoughts of any ulterior motive for Sang’s visit consumed his attention. He watched Sang’s eyes closely, hunting for any glint, blink, or squint which might belie some subreption on his part.
            While Truan detected no such machinations, he could read Sang’s judgments of him all too clearly. It started when Truan appeared at the table after briefly adjourning to his room to wash and dress. He knew his red linen housecoat, in which he typically loafed through his morning duties up until his first consultation of the day, would be considered most inappropriate. So, bearing in mind Sang’s trendy, casual dress, Truan had selected a blue oxford---also bearing the insignia of the diocese---and a pair of khakis. Truan, though, had for so long existed in either his housecoat, his Sunday vestments, or any one of his numerous rich robes, that the khakis no longer fit around his girth, and the oxford stretched across his broad torso as tightly as a sausage casing. In a panic, he assembled what he thought to be an outfit worthy of respect and which imparted on its wearer an air of temperance and noble wisdom.
            Any thought that his outfit communicated any such positive qualities was quickly shattered on the rocks of Sang’s alarmed stare. Truan had draped a young deacon’s robe about his shoulders to strategically cover the areas of the oxford most susceptible to splitting, then he had swapped out his khakis for the only pair of trousers which fit him at present---the screaming red trousers of the Santa Claus costume he adorned every year for the church’s Christmas festivities. In a misguided eructation of inspiration, he had also strapped on a wristwatch, which strangled his squishy wrist to the point that his veins in that arm had begun to bulge outward even before he made his awful debut into the dining room.
            Sang, for his part, did his best to banish the alarm from his eyes upon witnessing Truan’s circus parachute clothing collage, and, when he felt a chuckle begin to form in his stomach, he would counter it with a well-timed slice of mandarin. The damage, however, had been done. Truan had noticed the initial wide-eyed look of bemusement in Sang’s eyes, and no attempt at self-control on Sang’s part could ever make Truan forgive him that look and all that it communicated.
            They spoke civilly of small things---and not once of Truan’s raiment. Truan described a local attraction or two and strove to give Sang an impression of the village’s character. All the while he was deeply conscious of Sang’s reluctance to hold his gaze for more than a second or two. Truan could have attributed this to a meekness, or to a feeling of intimidation at sitting with such an esteemed clergyman as himself---but Truan knew better. Sang’s eye contact when he’d first met him had bordered on aggressive. The furtive, restless flicking of his eyes now meant something else…
            At one point, the poor clasp on Truan’s wristwatch gave up the ghost and the watch shot off his wrist as though charged with electricity. Truan at once stared at Sang, daring him into the impropriety of a small snicker or some tremor that showed he thought Truan a ridiculous character and what’s more a farce of a priest. Yet Sang remained deathly still, exhaling measuredly and gently placing another slice of mandarin in his mouth.
            The only fissure in Sang’s composure, other than the initial eye-goggling at Truan’s clothes, was a quick twitch of an eye upon seeing with what incredible speed Truan had eaten his mandarin and almost eighty percent of the bread. It was a quick twitch, lasting no longer than a single beat of a hummingbird’s wing, yet Father Truan spied it all the same, and he liked it very little indeed.
            After what felt to both men like an eternity, the breakfast was done. Sang was eager to be on his way---to see the art exhibition within the Indian reservation, per Truan’s recommendation---but before leaving, he presented his request to speak to the congregation the next day. He wished to introduce himself formally, at earliest possibility, and at Father Truan’s allowance, he requested a few minutes for a brief sermon. To this Truan readily agreed---that was less preparation for him, which meant more time to spend in peaceful meditation.
            Father Truan bid Wei Ku Sang a terse adieu, very cognizant that with his door open his laughable costume was exposed to anyone who might pass by. No sooner had he closed the door that he outwardly cursed his Santa pants, tore the deacon’s robe from his shoulders, and stomped into the kitchen to prepare a proper breakfast, opening up a light blackberry wine to sand the edges and splinters which the morning’s ordeal had risen in him.
 
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            Sunday mornings in the desert always gave Paul Truan the feeling of being among Moses’ Israelites, tromping about until the old generation died off and they could at last enter the Promised Land. The arid yellow stillness of the air---no different from most mornings here---on Sundays recalled the frozen moment between when a child falls on their face, then intakes a breath while looking to their parent for a clue whether to laugh it off, placidly exhale, or else erupt into a tantrum.
            Watering his modest windowbox succulents, Truan smiled at a lizard the color of artfully grilled steak, with a blaze of mustard yellow splitting its body from head to tail. The lizard was lazily sunning itself on the lip of the windowbox. Truan envied the lizard. He too desired nothing more on days like this one (of which the desert has many) than to rest his cumbersome form in the sunshine, unbeholden to earthly things, with no cause to stir except to serve his stomach’s periodic call for his daily insect meal.
            Alas, on Sundays his responsibilities wore more heavily on him and took hold of him earlier in the day, so with a swish of his fingers he toppled the lizard from its resting place, flinging it to the dirt so far below.
            Paul Truan was running late for his transformation into Father Truan. His agitation over this Sang business had gravely disrupted his circadian expectations. His indigestion had kept him up half the night, and although he couldn’t prove it, he could not shake the idea that Sang had poisoned him with some kind of devil’s fruit meant to appear as an innocent mandarin.
            “He’s spoiled me!” Truan repeated all through the night, flopping on his mattress like a loose shutter in a windstorm, or else adjourning to the toilet for protracted stays.
            The stillness in the air this particular Sunday certainly portended a grand tantrum to Paul Truan, now Father Truan. Wei Ku Sang was waiting at the chapel doors when Truan arrived, several minutes late and half a cheap bottle of red wine hastily consumed on his way out the door. Were it not for the immaculate neatness of his vestments, Truan would’ve suspected Sang of having slept the night on the chapel steps...though Truan’s grumbling mind had him believing Sang could have slept standing up so’s not to rumple his precious habit.
            “Blessed morning, Father!” Sang flashed him a wide, effortless smile that reminded Truan of the self-satisfied way the steak-mustard lizard had been sunning itself. Truan wished he could brush Sang off of a high windowbox, but instead returned Sang’s good morning with a surly half-burp that coated his teeth in a merlot mist.
            The two clergymen knelt shoulder-to-shoulder before the image of Our Lord, each with such earnest solemnity that they seemed to an outside viewer to be long-time Brothers of the Order and of the Spirit. After a while, Father Sang rose unsteadily to his feet, relying on the corner of a pew for support. Truan cocked an eye at Sang, who was quietly slapping a dusty wrinkle from the knee-area of his robe before setting off to begin the preparations for mass.
            Truan breathed a sigh of relief. His plan had been to outlast Sang in their prayers. He would prove to this Father Sang that while Sang may be a better dresser and possess a naive enthusiasm for those rules of righteous living which Truan in his experience has reckoned to be suggestions for weaker men than he---Truan sought to prove himself the holier of the two men, to make Sang see him as the people of the village did.
            Truan lingered a moment or two longer, mumbling a small, honest prayer to give him the redoubled strength he was lacking thanks to the poisoned mandarin he’d been lured into eating. Sang, meanwhile, busily went about arranging the sanctuary and seeing to it that every pre-transubstantiated wafer was arranged in an ascending swirl within the pyx.
Only when he felt sure that Sang was not to suddenly appear from behind the chancel did Truan venture to raise himself. Doing so necessitated a kind of sideways wobble like the final few shudders of a spinning top, until his momentum and direction were aligned along the same path. All in all it was an ignoble maneuver, and it had been untold Sundays since Truan had kneeled here before the chapel’s desert Christ, so the awkwardness of the motion was increased.
Fortunately, Sang reappeared just as Traun’s ooidal rocking had put him on his feet. Sang was tenderly escorting a pair of lit candles to the altar, and so did not notice Truan’s face, which, as fate would have it, was the exact shade of angry, cheap burgundy as his merlot that morning.
Truan shuffled back to the small sacristy, and locked the door behind him. He leaned against the door until his heart rate normalized, then went to the oak cabinet where the bottles of sacramental wine were stored. This Sunday more than any Sunday in his recollection, his spirit was out of order, so he pushed up his billowy sleeve and reached a pudgy, knowing arm to the back of the cabinet. Behind the coarse, watered-down wine soon to be consecrated as part of the Eucharist---which, it should be pointed out, from a respect for the wine’s sanctity and for his own taste buds, Father Truan would never wantonly consume the sacramental wine---but Truan was after a bottle of strong port he kept housed in the rear of the cabinet.
Surgeon-like, he twisted, turned, and ultimately extracted the bottle from behind the other bottles, its weight amorphous and shifting because it was only half-filled. Truan pulled the cork, careful so it didn’t boom too loudly, and offered a tidy thanksgiving before greedily exsanguinating the agave-green bottle.
Closing his eyes, he felt the peacefulness radiating out from his gut. A deep breath, and his jaw loosened slightly, his shoulder blades unruffled themselves, and the furrow that so disfigured his white pate dissipated, leaving only the smooth whiteness of peace and love.
When he emerged from his small sanctum back into the sanctuary, Truan was surprised to see Widow Perse in her regular, front pew seat.
“Good morning, Father,” she smiled to him, but Truan did not reciprocate the greeting, for he saw, with a jolt of jealous horror, that several of the parishioners were already settled in their seats, having been met in the atrium by the wooden grin of Wei Ku Sang!
Father Truan stared at him, looking lost in his own church. Despite meeting these people for the very first time, Sang looked entirely at home, calmly and warmy greeting each person. His peaceable, affable mien assuaged their furtive looks of skeptical curiosity. Truan knew that were he to join Sang in the modest atrium, it would be too crowded, so, in order not to appear superfluous, Truan set to smoothing his robes and lint-rolling the upholstery on his cushiony Presider’s Chair.
Truan’s intent was to keep the chair in the rear, by the piano. Although he had lately been in the habit of preaching from the comfort of his precious throne, in the interest of being a by-the-letter clergyman before Sang, Truan had decided to forsake the chair...but by the time for the call to prayer, a thick layer of sweat rested on his forehead, and he had begun to feel a touch disoriented, to the point that he was forced to sit in his chair, apologetically requesting all to forgive him.
He had not brought his earthenware cup, considering it potentially objectionable to goodyboy Sang’s ideals, and this did not go unnoticed by the congregation. This Sang fellow had apparently had a beneficial influence on their stalwart, revered leader. Unbeknownst to them,  Truan had rained half a bottle of port onto an unusually empty belly, so the wine was affecting him more astutely than it ordinarily would.
With considerable and, unfortunately, noticeable effort, Truan made it through the call to prayer and the rest of the introductory rites. Prior to the first reading, Truan officially introduced Father Wei Ku Sang, who stepped to the pulpit, giving an award-worthy smile to the congregation.
In handing over the Liturgy to Sang, Truan scooted his chair out of the way. He had thought it a safe, unobtrusive distance, but quickly became aware of how odd his new position was---three feet left of center, very near the front of the sanctuary, and every bit as exposed and out of place as a cow who was wandered off the pasture and into town.
Sang’s easy presence before the congregation rankled Truan to see. He began his sermon with some words of greeting and graciousness to the diocese, to the village, and to Truan himself. The wording belied some hours of rehearsal on Sang’s part, but his performance was as effortless as though he were speaking to each person in the church in their homes.
Whatever skepticism the congregation may have felt toward the outsider was blasted to pieces when Father Sang, at Father Truan’s breathy urging, took over the reading from James as part of that Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word. Sang’s voice grew powerful while maintaining its intimacy; became pedagogical while remaining supplicant; the words seemed to emanate from the Bible itself, using Sang as an amplifier---in short, Sang spoke alternately with candor and with fervor, and always with truth, like a prophet. His interpretation and exegesis of the day’s text made the complex easily understood, while imbuing the simple and familiar with a greater profundity and depth than any of the parishioners had ever conceived.
The people gathered in the church that Sunday were awe-struck by Sang’s performance. More than his well-educated passion for his faith and his Lord, the villagers would all later agree that Father Sang radiated a comforting sense that everything will be alright.
Even Father Truan, who at first caught himself sneering at what he considered sappy over-sentimentalizing, eventually became caught up in the mesmeric ecstasy of Father Sang’s oratory. At one point, as Father Sang digressed for a moment with an anecdote involving his faulty weedeater so old it had had nearly every part replaced---a metaphor for the focused purpose of a person’s spirit which Truan futilely tried to disparage in his mind---Father Truan became aware that his mouth was hanging agog and a small birdbath of drool had developed behind his lower incisors. In his haste to contain any potential spillage, he fiercely swallowed back the spittle and began to choke. He tried to minimize his coughing by clamping his lips and then by muzzling himself with the elbow of his robe, but he could not get the coughing to stop. A few in the congregation, turning to see what was threatening to obscure Father Sang’s brilliant sermon, saw Truan’s frantic eyes scanning about for his earthenware cup, so customarily within arm’s reach, but today left in the sacristy. There was a water fountain in the atrium, by the bathrooms, but Truan knew it would be the height of impropriety to wander through the church for a sip of water, so instead Father Truan kept his elbow before his face, shielded like a vampire, for the eternity it took for his coughing fit to subside.
As is so often the case in these matters, Paul Truan was not permitted the mercy of suffering his choking free of humiliating glances. Before he coughed his final burples, the majority of the congregation was staring at him, and several did so with disapproval in their eyes at what they perceived as Truan’s intentional disruption of Father Sang, who was a guest in their church and so was owed the greatest possible courtesies. Father Sang himself had even cast a look of curious concern over at the wheezing, bloodshot eyes of Father Truan, vampirically displayed now over his dark sleeve. It was the closest anything came to a rumple in Sang’s otherwise inspired time at the pulpit.
When Father Sang did return the pulpit to Father Truan, there was a thick warm feeling in the atmosphere. Truan thanked Father Sang, but no more than he was so bound by duty to do. Truan could feel that warmth in the air dissipating as he spoke, and he accordingly rushed through his own reading from James, which had the effect of further chilling the overall mood of the service. When at last it came time for Communion, Truan watched in mounting disdain as each man, woman, and child who received the body and blood could not divert their eyes from Father Sang, who was standing just over Truan’s shoulder.
            “Just whose body do they believe they are consuming? The man from out of town or our one Lord and Savior?”
As part of the Concluding Rites, Father Truan spread his arms to lead a hymn. A mellifluous, strong baritone filled his right ear---Father Sang had moved to sing beside him! He was no longer only figuratively jockeying for Truan’s position! Sang had a beautiful voice, clear as rain and round as a perfect apple, and it was only accentuating Truan’s cramped phrases and his ear for pitch as delicate as wet mud. Truan saw backs straighten, palms turn heavenward, and eyes shimmer with religious emotion as the congregation raised themselves to Father Sang’s example. This, then, was to be that Sang snake’s moment of usurpation! Well, Paul Truan was no pushover---he would not give in to this interloper so easily.
Father Truan inhaled deeply, swelling his prodigious diaphragm, then, at the refrain, he belted as forcibly as he could. The vociferousness shocked the church, himself included, but he kept up the volume through the refrain, believing he had drowned out Father Sang and sent him slinking back to his hole. Truan inhaled again, preparing to sing the verse with operatic bluster. While his volume held out for the start of the verse, Truan was incapable of sustaining such wind over the verse’s entirety, which was substantially longer than the refrain. His ribs ached as he squeezed them for every particle of air, but before the next refrain, he had extinguished his breath, not being accustomed to intaking or expelling air at such levels, and he had begun to turn a slight shade of purple---and regrettably it was the final verse, so he was breathless for the final refrain, allowing Father Sang’s singular voice a solo which the villagers would carry with them for the rest of the day.
 
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All the days following Father Sang’s first service in the village, the villagers went about as though shot through with electricity, as animated accounting and re-accounting of the incredible man of God with a voice like an angelic horn buzzed out from every backyard, market place, and restaurant. Indeed that Sunday’s service had had a transformative effect on all who had attended. While such widespread talk and buzz was common in small villages like this (the gossip over the government offices erected a few miles beyond the town’s border in the desert had swirled so endlessly one would think it were a subject of enormous import like a cure to a hitherto incurable disease or else the bored, lazy clucking during wartimes)---the experience in the church was something new, something unique, something which signalled a fundamental marker by which those in attendance to witness Father Sang in person would divide their personal timelines.
As the legend of Father Sang grew to consume the whole village, naturally the flames of curiosity about this magical man were stoked till they could no longer be contained. Among those who had not attended the service, especially, the curiosity grew. How could any one man exude the sort of grace and sense of comfort with such intellectualism and calm? And what of his voice? The rumors had prescribed unheard of powers to his singing voice...such a man must be seen for oneself!
Overnight Ol’ Hick Cattow became something of a celebrity, for the curious crowds had learned that Father Sang was lodging at the inn. All the following few days, the inn was kept busy with an endless ebb and flow of visitors. Some had invented superfluous business they needed to attend to at the inn, others were more forward, inquiring whether Father Sang was receiving visitors. Ol’ Hick, for his part, was sure to sell a bowl of soup to every patron who came in, often waylaying a would-be confessor with a tale of Father Sang’s being with some other soul at the moment--- “While you wait, lemme gitcha a bowl of the soup du jewer.”
Father Truan, of course, could not help being aware of the high status Wei Ku Sang had acquired. His number of daily consultations had dropped more and more each successive day since that fateful Sunday, and many of his early consults peppered him with questions into Father Sang’s character, his background, where he was staying, and if he was wanting for anything.
His daily consultations had always been the most tedious part of his daily routine, and while he had so often groaned through them, offering advice that would most quickly get him onto the end of his consult list, now he sat in indignant silence, chasing his thumbs in circles the way a cat flicks its tail. A thick lump rose in his throat when he thought of how that Wei Ku Sang and the villagers must be talking about him...for just as Truan could not avoid being aware of the town’s second most popular subject of conversation: his own blustery bellowing during the hymn, childishly trying to outdo Father Sang. Yes, Father Truan had heard them laugh and whisper when they thought he might be in earshot.
It made him sick, recalling the dazzled looks on the faces of his flock. Could they not see what was so obvious to him? That this Father Sang was no more than a trickster, a charlatan? What’s more, a Deceiver!
Yes, what had once seemed somewhat spurious misgivings about Wei Ku Sang’s true agenda now appeared to Truan to be undeniable truth. Wei Ku Sang was a Deceiver who had come to Truan’s peaceful village in order to lead astray his flock, to confuse their hearts and minds, and in so doing he meant to bring dishonor and ruination down upon Paul Truan. Sang was a cunning adversary, certainly, yet Truan now recognized the hallmarks of impious treachery in Sang’s carriage and actions.
Seen through Truan’s newly attenuated perspective, Sang’s performance at Mass passed beyond one-upmanship and beyond irritance, it was the Deceiver’s overture to usurpation! Sang’s hypnotic effect during his turn at the Liturgy, surely that was proof of some sinister mesmerism. When he had stepped abreast of Truan during the hymn, what he really was doing was claiming himself worthy of the worship meant for the one and only God. By luring Truan into a contest of volume---a false contest since no human voice can compete with infernal power (and a contest which it now appears had as its spoils the very souls of so many parishioners), Sang had presented the priesthood and God Himself as something deserving mockery, something to snicker about over soup at Ol’ Hick Cattow’s inn. The inn! Sang the Deceiver had established his own false church there at the inn, picking off the credulous and the easily starstruck the way a grinning grey wolf preys on the most susceptible sheep in the fold. He was rallying them beneath his blasphemous banner to mock and deprecate the village’s godly representative, Paul Truan!
This revelation came upon him slowly, but by the following Saturday it had taken firm root in Truan’s mind. Following a moderate lunch of chicken salad on brioche and a side of seasoned black eyed peas, Truan set to work composing his sermon for the next day. He wanted to lay bare all of Sang’s tricks, hoping the good churchfolk would recognize Sang as a wicked usurper threatening to tear Truan and God from their hearts, supplanting himself and his chaotic order in the village. Truan had to walk a thin line in his sermon between over-subtle allusions that might escape the somewhat simplistic attentions of the churchgoers and overly blunt accusations of Sang which would only force Sang into formally enacting whatever devious plans he had, of which he would certainly have full support from the still hypnotized masses. He could not risk Sang becoming aware that his secret intent and identity were known to Truan---for now, Sang’s patience could be worked to Truan’s advantage. Thus, Truan’s swermon required utmost deftness of phrase, and he sat up long into the night writing and rewriting. When at last he could no longer prop open his suffering eyelids, Paul Truan rolled himself onto his bed. It was the first night of his life he had gone to bed before taking his supper, and the first night in years he had not had a glass of wine to keep him company.
 
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The next day, Father Truan arrived early (though not earlier than Father Sang, who again he met standing at the doors of the church) and set the overeager would-be interloper to a series of miniscule tasks designed to keep him away from the chancel. It had occurred to Truan the previous night that Sang had prepared the altar the Sunday before with suspicious enthusiasm, and Truan had not looked too closely, but it was possible and in fact very likely that Sang had arranged the liturgical objects in some diabolical orientation. Today, though, Truan was determined to take control of his own fate, or, as he silently prayed before the cross that morning, for God to grant him strength and opportunity to triumph over the snake which had appeared in his peaceful garden.
Having prepared the sanctuary to his liking, and seeing Sang still working to straighten the hymnals, prayer request cards, and pens in the pews, Truan disappeared briefly to the sacristy. He knew he hadn’t long before the early birds began to arrive, and he was set on being the face that welcomed them that day. Quick as a rabbit, he skipped to the oak cabinet and began feeling for a new bottle of port.
Emerging from the sacristy, Truan dismissed Sang to check that the lamp and altar candles were all lit. Sang hopped to it with a sickeningly earnest, “Yes, Father, I’d be delighted!” Truan swung open the doors to a small crowd.  It was evident from their looks of extinguished eagerness that they had been hoping to see Father Sang, and that greeting Father Truan was simply the unpleasant prerequisite for something else which was greatly anticipated, like finishing your final, most tedious chore prior to an evening spent out with friends at a carnival or a cinema.
Unflappable, and buoyed by the strength given by God and by the warm bonhomie given by the wine, Truan greeted each person with benevolence. The modest nave was packed by the time the Introductory Rites had begun. The buzzing excitement at the prospect of experiencing Father Sang in action had brought in the whole village, it seemed.
“All the better,” Father Truan thought to himself. “Best to expose the Deceiver before the greatest number of those under his spell.”
Throughout the opening prayers and hymns (sang dutifully if not beautifully by Ms. Deanna Roto, a brilliant stroke by Truan meant to keep Sang’s presence as minimally felt as possible), all eyes lingered on Father Sang, who stood erect and attentive towards the rear of the sanctuary. Father Truan was not oblivious to the distracted gazes, but he did not worry. He had, in course of fact, been planning for their fixation---it would only make their re-conversion more poignant a moment of defeat over the Deceiver.
When the time came in the proceedings for him to begin his sermon, Father Truan paused to savor all the sensations present at what he was already looking back upon as his triumph over the threat of ruination, of usurpation, and, like Job before him, over those infernal forces which would see him cast off his yoke of religious responsibility when tested. Peering out over the faces in the congregation---all tilted just over his shoulder toward the stoic Father Sang---Father Truan did something he had not had occasion to do since Sang’s arrival: he smiled.
When his powerful sermon had ended, Father Truan was in ecstasies. Preached from the pulpit, the sound of his voice resounded from the high walls, his sermon was immeasurably more grand than it had been in his room, recited in whispers to the indifferent ears of his succulents. His delivery had been, lacking a more fitting descriptor, inspired. Enunciating with the clarity and force of a mountain spring swollen with spring melt, Truan had laid bare his evidence against Sang. The logic was undeniable, the claims irrefutable. Oh, and he had been in fine throat that morning! Despite the thickness of tongue he usually experienced following a breakfast rich with gravy, as his had been that morning, and despite the tricks played by the heavy port, Truan had spoken with formidable élan. The effect on the gathered mass seemed secure, for all eyes were now pointed at him and him alone. Father Truan felt an untwisting in his gut, a sure sign that his distress at the hands of the Deceiver had been overcome.
His victory assured, Father Truan ceded the pulpit to Father Sang. He half-expected Father Sang to have disappeared when he turned, his machinations having been exposed and his true nature revealed, he would have evaporated in a burst of reddish vapor---alas, while Father Sang had not disappeared, he did wear an expression which, to Father Truan, actually lightened his mood more than any absquatulation.
Although Truan had originally decided to remain standing through Sang’s brief sermon, so confident was he that he had struck a deathblow to Sang’s influence that Truan not only pulled over his ornate chair, but also retired momentarily to the sacristy for his earthenware cup, which he sloshed full of the thick port. As a result, he missed much of Sang’s sermon, but merely waved a mocking hand to Sang when Sang made to return the pulpit. Father Truan only rejoined the order of the Mass to conduct communion and, with a haughty fanfare, rush through the Concluding Rites. After bidding farewell to the last of the congregation, Truan was overcome with a swell of smug joy to find Father Sang had in fact performed a disappearing act! For Wei Ku Sang had fled the church following service, an act which proved to Truan to be the ultimate evidence of his success.
 
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Had Paul Truan not been so dizzied by his giddiness at destroying the Deceiver, he might have noticed the shocked and scowling faces of his congregation. Had he possessed the proper sense instrument useful for measuring the temperature of a group of people, he would have been aware of the disastrous response to his exposé. Rather than recognize the cool reality, Truan blithely coasted through an unctuous pork belly supper and a glass of cabernet raised in self-congratulation, then slept a hero’s sleep, soothed by his sweet dreams and his presumed security of his position in the village. The next morning he awoke with an uncharacteristic lightness, practically leaping from his bed and humming an upbeat variation of a hymn from the prior day’s service whilst attending to his ablutions, his breakfast, and his succulents. He lingered especially long admiring the forms and the simplicity of his xeriscape garden. The red pancake plants and the yellow heads on the spurge inspired within him an auspice of profound peace of mind.
Truan was feeling excessively holy this morning, and settled into his consultation room with an enthusiasm for his vocation which the Paul Truan of seven days ago would have found laughable.
When at first fifteen minutes, then thirty, then a full hour went by without a visitor, Father Truan’s spirits remained high...but when two hours became three which became a full day without a single soul coming for a consult, Truan became disconsolate.
His afternoon duties did little for his dejected mood and his daily responsibilities in the church only fanned the flames of his dejection into a deep depression. Not a well-laid supper table nor a bottle of strong port could assuage his gloomy confusion. When two days more came and went in the same manner, Truan’s depression had fermented into an indignant fury which simmered just behind his eyes and only emerged in small actions such as the aggressive pleasure Truan took in slicing his admittedly overdone steak.
That evening, moved by his fury and emboldened by his intoxication, he hastily threw his “mendicant robes” over his wide shoulders and headed to Ol’ Hick Cattow’s famous inn. The walk was not so far, and Truan’s pace was quickened by his agitation. He composed the vicious denunciation he would unload on both Wei Ku Sang and upon faithless betrayers he blushed to have once blessed as children of God. He threw open the heavy door, and was truly amazed.
He had known, of course, why his consultation schedule had become so bare---but he had counted on some congregation members having stayed home to reflect and pray for guidance after hearing his momentous sermon. But no. The inn was crowded, wall to wall, cheek by jowl, by his parishioners...or what had once been his parishioners. The indignant blood ran from his head like a thermometer taken from a hot room very quickly into a freezer. The villagers close by the door cast disapproving eyes on him, who suddenly felt very conspicuous in his fine robe, and, like a pit of vipers disturbed by a hapless boot, a sibilant series of whispers quickly filled the inn. Anxious to escape the public gaze, Truan scoured the room for hiding places. The epicenter of the villagers’ excitement was down a hallway to his right, so he turned left and shuffled toward the wide-stretched arms of Ol’ Hick Cattow.
“Father! You too come to talk to the miracle man?” Father Truan recoiled and looked up smugly at Ol’ Hick. “Don’t mean nothin’ by that, of course, it’s jist...the way folks talk about him...well, he’s all folks is talkin’ about.”
“Their thoughts should rightly remain on another.”
“Oh, they’s talkin’ about you, too---”
“It is the Lord I speak of.” Ol’ Hick stammered some sort of awkward apology before Truan rescued him. “Though what is it people are saying about me?” His interest was piqued, in truth he was desperate to know how his sermon had been received, however, so as not to seem too over-eager to be the central topic of conversation, he added, “...out of curiosity.”
“I’m not sure I should say.”
“Come, Brother Cattow, come, you will not vitiate my soul by providing me feedback from the congregation.”
“It’s not that, Father, it’s jist...I don’t think I should be the one to tell you.”
Truan’s anger flashed for an instant at the thick innkeeper’s clumsy reticence.
“Okay, okay, no need to get mad! I’ll tell you.” He paused and flicked his eyes side to side. “Folks were none too pleased with your sermon this Sunday…” and a powerful, hollowing feeling overwhelmed Paul Truan as Ol’ Hick laid out a list of grievances the villagers had levied against him. The list was formidably long, but some of the main concerns were: Truan’s jealous railing against the venerable Father Sang, Truan’s addled state and his dependence on his wine (his earthenware cup had long been a point of unspoken frustration), and his violation of the sacred trust between confessor and confessee. His sermon had been well-seasoned with allusions and points of Sang’s character which he had solicited from those who came to him for consult, and using them in his sermon, many people were aghast upon recognizing themselves in his sermon. If he would violate the sanctity of their privacy so carelessly, to what madness would Father Truan not stoop?
He sat stupefied and did not notice when Ol’ Hick had mercifully broken off his litany of grievances. How, Truan wondered, how had this gone so sideways on him? They had not heard. The villagers had not heard in his sermon the truth and the invitation back to the righteous path. They had instead focused only on superficial things---their eyes blinded, ears stuffed, and hearts hardened by the influence of Deceiver Sang. It was more evident than ever that Wei Ku Sang’s presence in Truan’s little village was no trifling test. A being such as Wei Ku Sang, who possessed such alluring and irresistable powers, represented the ultimate test of Paul Truan’s vocation, of his very worthiness in the eyes of God and the diocese of mediating between the two realms of Heaven and Earth. Why was he to be so tested? And why now, after so many years serving his community with the utmost respectability and righteousness? Surely there were countless others more deserving of having their vocation tested? In fact, Truan would gladly provide a list of fellow men of God whose behavior, to Truan’s eyes, was far more reprehensible. He knew of a Father Pright in Y------- who just last month…
“Can I gitcha a bowl of soup, Father?”
“How’s that?”
“Soup? Day’s special is chicken’n’lentils.”
While a bowl of Ol’ Hick’s soup did sound appetizing (though he knew better than to expect any meat in Ol’ Hick’s “chicken’n’lentils’), Truan instead asked Ol’ Hick to point him in the direction of Father Sang’s new temple. Truan figured to have it out with him now in a public manner, to call for him to answer for each of his acts so opposite to God’s design, to arouse public censure and banish the Deceiver from the village once and for all.
The thronging crowd grew more dense as Truan approached Sang’s room near the end of the hall. Shoving aside an onlooker he recognized as the cashier at the florist’s shop, Truan arrived in Sang’s sanctum in time to hear Father Sang urging a woman to keep forgiveness in her heart for he (whomever “he” was) seemed to be suffering under some powerful weight lately, and remember, we can never truly know the struggles of others and so, Sister Chrissy, greet him with compassion, grace, and forgiveness, and we all would do well to keep Father Truan in our prayers…
Wei Ku Sang’s eyes, like twin night lights in our boyhood bedrooms, saw Truan at the same instant all Truan’s vitriol and plans for confrontation vanished.
“Welcome, Father Truan, may I offer you a seat? I apologize, if I had only known you were coming…”
His tone was so earnest that, for a moment, Truan was taken in by the very tricks he had come to expose. He recovered quickly, and saw the scowling looks of Sang’s acolytes in the room---his own former congregation. In the low orange light, Sang standing amidst all these worshipful villagers who clung to the cuffs of his khakis reminded Truan of an etching of Christ preaching he had once admired as a young man on a mission trip in Europe.[1]
“No, no, however I thank you for your kindness, Father.” To use a title of such respect for one so reprehensible caused a knot to form in his stomach. “I came only to look in on you, as I had not heard from you in some time.”
Father Sang’s eyes, by sweeping about the room, communicated that he had been busy here.
“But now that I see you here,” Truan went on, “cramped up in this dingy motel room, I thought to offer you the spare room in my house that you would stay with me until your visit most lamentably concludes. What do you say?”
A current of whispers circulated throughout gathered acolytes, and their misgivings were clear on their faces, yet none would dare speak until they had heard Father Sang’s decision. With bated breath they looked to him.
“It is a very generous offer,” Sang spoke slowly, “yet I am quite comfortable here. I have all that I require---and I wouldn’t want to put you to any kind of trouble.”
“Not at all, Brother! I recognize I have not been the good and welcoming host I rightly should have been. I should have made not only my spare room, but my own bed (be it ever so humble) and my robes available to you at once! Instead, fearful of compromising my own comfort and routines, I directed you here to this musty place, and I have been wrestling with my guilt ever since. So, Brother, I implore you to pick up at once and come live with me for as long as you are among us!”
Again Father Sang quietly considered Truan’s offer, and again his fretful acolytes murmured and awaited his decision.
“While it is a very generous offer, I must admit, I’m comfortable here. Although I don’t want you to think I am rejecting you or your offer outright...may I take a day to think about it?”
“Absolutely, Brother, take what time you need! My door is always open to you, you need only knock. And please know that should you decide to remain here, our Brotherhood will not suffer. In the meantime, I must be going---I must give the spare room a cleaning! Just in case I have visitors, you know...very well, so long, Father Sang!”
On his walk home, Paul Truan strode with an energized swagger. The thought to invite Wei Ku Sang into his home was a stroke of improvisational genius! Having him under surveillance would surely cut down on visitations from all but his most bemused acolytes, and as Sang’s contact with the community dwindled, the fog of deception before the congregation’s eyes would gradually dissipate. Truan was absolutely confident that Sang would consent to staying with him, Truan had laid the trap so expertly. Sang would have no choice but to realize that, in order to keep up his upright façade, he must act to assuage a fellow man’s guilt, and to do so he would have to accept Truan’s invitation.
Truan felt victorious again, like after his sermon, only now he felt a more primal, more unequivocal certitude in his victory. For he, like St. Anthony in the tomb, had done battle with the forces of evil, and he had prevailed.
 
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When his phone rang the next day, Truan knew who it was who was calling, and when, as predicted, Wei Ku Sang agreed to accept his generous offer, he swelled with enormous pride, assured the tide of battle had been turned irrevocably in his favor. Whilst awaiting Sang’s arrival that evening, he again tidied and put into order his spare room (he had done so twice that morning already), then set off to the market, for, among other sumptuous comestibles, a shoulder of lamb he planned for supper. This night’s supper was meant to be a sort of victory dance. Where once Truan had acquiesced to Sang’s ways---a mandarin as corrupting as any forbidden quince in the Garden of Eden---when, unbeknownst to him, he had been entertaining a Deceiver at his table, but now the tables were to be most deliciously turned! Truan would expose Sang’s sham austerity with temptations of his own. His recipe for roasted lamb shoulder, expertly seasoned with a coterie of herbs and spices he had memorized as a young boy in the abbess’ kitchen, would coax even the most ardent fasting ascete into picking up a knife and fork and tucking a bib into his tunic. Truan would lay a beautiful table before that Deceiver, exhibiting God’s bounteous table compared to the flavorless scraps to be found in Lucifer’s pockets. For the Lord works his powers in us all, giving to each a gift by which we may best glorify His name, and for Paul Truan, he would celebrate the Lord by preparing a beautiful feast.
When Sang at last arrived, Truan was a-whirl in his kitchen, conducting a symphony of inviting, rich smells with his swirling wooden spoons. Sang was, as usual, very smartly dressed, and Truan hastily showed him to his room, not bothering to apologize for his somewhat brusque greeting---for he no longer feared the consequences of leaving a poor impression on Wei Ku Sang. Truan inwardly scoffed at Sang’s scant equipage---a single, humble duffel, what a heavy-handed show of modesty! In his arm, Sang had a gallon-sized fake ceramic pot, from which countless yellow, green, and cream colored grassy tendrils exploded out the top like a vegetal firework. When he caught Father Truan eyeing the plant, Father Sang explained that his “one vice” was a zeal for horticulture which bordered on frenzy, and he could not bear the thought that his little guy should be alone for so long. With a grunt, Father Truan left him to make himself comfortable.
An hour later, Truan called Sang to join him for supper. The table was bedecked in all the splendor of a king’s Christmas feast. A master artist could not have more vividly depicted such an array of colors, smells, and place-setting, nor could any French gourmand have in their most exercised imagination have assembled such a complete, balanced satisfaction of the palate in a single meal. Sweeping an arm like a ringleader, Paul Truan superciliously offered Sang a seat at God’s table.
“Oh, Brother, you needn’t have gone to all the trouble…”
“Nonsense! You do me a great honor by allowing me the pleasure of cooking for you.”
Wei Ku Sang looked timidly at the glittering flatware, the small dishes of seasoned vegetables and sauces, the surreal purple asparagus stacked in immaculate racks like fence posts yet to be put up, and the immense cynosure of the table---the gorgeous lamb---presiding over all. In his unease, Sang muttered a humorless joke about not missing a village potluck.
Rankled at the notion of Sang’s ever returning to the village, Truan again bade his guest to sit down and dig in.
“No, no, please understand, Brother, I really couldn’t…”
“Oh, but I insist!”
“No, it is all too much. I am sorry to have forced you to so much effort, but I cannot share such a...luxurious meal.”
Emboldened by the Deceiver’s resistance, Truan dug in his heels and redoubled his blandishing offers, to which Sang began to shrink uncomfortably, which Truan interpreted as a sure sign he was now finally battling down his enemy. Their polite combat and parries of pleasantries lasted until Sang’s patience crumbled and he burst out with a violent condemnation of Truan’s meal, in no shy terms a vitiated spirit, for any man whose soul is fully nourished by God’s love has no need for material extravagances, and furthermore he knew, as he’d have presumed Truan had known, that the diocese, following the example of the Archdiocese in S-------, had expressly forbidden the consumption of lamb by its members, due to the symbolic ramifications of consuming the Lamb of God. After his outburst Sang retired immediately to his room.
“So it’s out,” Truan thought. Sang’s outburst had surprised him, and he stood frozen in the smarmy gesture of supplication he’d been in when Sang’s tirade had first begun. It had not been the withering spiritual deliquescence he’d envisaged, however he was sustained by the confidence he felt having rattled Sang’s façade of unflappable peace and tranquility.
Still, Sang’s words had touched a sealed-off part of his soul. A dark melancholy descended over him, and, as he looked at the lamb on the ornate silver platter, no longer steaming, he was consumed by the dread he’d first felt at Sang’s arrival in the village. The unexpected onrush of these feelings left him very mixed up indeed, so he fell into his lushly upholstered chair and served himself a massive piece of lamb, drizzled lightly in an au jus of his own creation. For, amidst his inner turmoil, he clung to one truism the way a man in a strong current clings to an immobile boulder: his food wasn’t getting any warmer.
 
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For much of the next day, Wei Ku Sang did not emerge from his room. While going about his morning routines and responsibilities, Truan smiled pridefully at the shut door, its simple grain pattern like iron bars imprisoning the Deceiver, who, Truan was certain, must be weakening without its daily glut of pure spirits to turn from God’s glory. He had thought, with giddy hauteur, to knock on the door to offer his guest a seat at the breakfast table, but, recalling Sang’s revulsion at the supper’s offerings, he reasoned that pancakes piled with a berry compote would not be to his liking, and so he left Sang in peace. Truan smirked to think of a beaten Sang tearfully peeling one of his tiny mandarins.
A few of Sang’s acolytes had come to Truan’s door asking after their leader, and Truan struggled to maintain a mask of solemn compassion when he informed them that Father Sang was indisposed that morning and thus unable to receive visitors. Inwardly, he gloated over every fallen crest of the village people, feeling as though he had interceded at precisely the right time, before the addiction had sank into their bones and there remained hope for a full bodily recovery. As they walked away from his door, Truan would call, “See you in church tomorrow!” Oh, how he laughed, seeing them wince as it reached their ears.
Late in the afternoon, however, Sang did emerge from his room, looking no worse for wear (much to the disenchantment of Paul Truan), and, despite Truan’s invitations to stay with him at home, Sang politely excused himself. He claimed to be in need of a walk to order his thoughts, and now it was Truan’s turn to decline an invitation. Sang tucked his Bible under his arm and headed out into the late afternoon sun, which was raising ripples from the sidewalks. When Sang turned right instead of left at the end of the path, Truan knew that Sang was on his way back to his throne of treachery at Ol’ Hick Cattow’s inn. He did not return until Truan had made ready for bed, finishing the last of a bottle of a heady, unctuous port.
 
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The sunlight that Sunday was the exact yellow of the miniature blooms on his spurge plant in the window. Seeing the spurge blossoms delight in a light seemingly designed especially for them called to mind the drawings of young children who, having access to only a few broken crayons, create whole scenes in a trichromatic theme, where a boat’s sails are the same shade of a tree’s leaves, which are the same hue as a soldier’s uniform and the plumage of a passing seabird. In this conformity of color, Paul Truan scried a portent of unity, or, more specifically, of re-unification of his church community. Truan believed the Deceiver Sang’s powers had been diminished, that his grip on the hearts and minds of the congregation had been irrevocably loosened, and that the icon of “Father Sang, Man of Peace” would not survive another Mass.
He almost laughed when he saw Sang that morning, sitting erect in his seat like a rope bound him to it, slowly nibbling on a piece of buttered toast.
“I was sure you regarded butter as a needless extravagance.” His tone was openly mocking, for he no longer feared anything Sang might do or say to him. But Sang said nothing at all. He laid down his remaining bread, wrapped it in a paper towel, along with a mandarin peel which curled in and out like petrified orange smoke, then packed the towel away in his satchel.
“I was hopeful we might walk together this morning.” Sang’s voice was even, and only at the word ‘meaning’ did he turn to face Truan.
“It isn’t a long walk.”
“All the same.” Sang worked hard to conjure up a genuine smile.
Truan wasn’t sure of Sang’s motives, but he acquiesced, provided Sang could wait until he had had his breakfast.
Although Sang’s resistance was clear, the humble man swallowed his opposition and agreed. He, too, had felt something ominous surrounding this Sunday, and he wanted to warn poor, unwitting Father Truan.
 
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As on the Sunday before, Father Truan tasked Father Sang with endless small, impossible tasks to keep him away from the front door as people began to arrive. Father Truan, swollen with delightful conviction that this day was to be an auspicious one both for himself and for his standing in the village, anticipating his forthcoming days, weeks, and years of peace once he’d plucked this thorn from his side, had drank freely of his special wine from the sacristy, and, as such, his wide white forehead was bedewed with small droplets of excited perspiration.
Although slightly slurred, he greeted each and every person with a genuine warmth which was not reciprocated. In fact, many of the churchgoers that morning responded with outright coldness, some of the Sang-ian acolytes with sharp hostility. “The night is darkest just before the dawn,” Truan comforted himself, steadfastly meeting coldness with warmth, and hostility with hospitality. He saw the ardent acolytes flock to Sang, who was nearly finished with another of his augean tasks. The acolytes’ body language was that of a child who feels they have been wrongfully chastised or mistreated, and seeks justice in protesting to an adult. For his part, Sang showed no indication of conspiracy, only of placation and appeasement, gently entreating them to have a seat.
The service, from the onset, was uncomfortable. During Introductory Rites, Father Truan found himself singing the morning’s hymn nearly alone---only Father Sang, Mrs. Deanna Roto, and one or two elderly parishioners joined him. When called to rise, most of the congregation remained seated, their arms crossed over their chests, as though protecting their hearts from welcoming in God. Seeing such disrespect (and here in the Lord’s house!) lit a small red flame behind Truan’s eyes, and so he did something he so rarely did for the crawling discomfort it gave him both in his daily routines and especially while at the pulpit---he improvised. With a loudness meant to arouse these reluctant hearts, he slammed the lectionary and began to preach, entirely from his memory, the story of Saul and his conversion from the chief of sinners, the worst of them all, into St. Paul the Apostle, who proclaimed God’s name and His Word far and wide. This narrative of his namesake had always been particularly dear to Father Truan, and he told it with a reverent passion it was impossible to feign. Admittedly, he slurred a line now and then, and in spots he ornamented the text with a swish of oratorical bombast, but in his impassioned preaching he had nonetheless borne a part of his soul before the congregation in a way he had never before done. When he’d finished, his vestments soaked with sweat all through to the chasuble, he breathlessly stared out into the congregation with imploring eyes. He had not succeeded in uncrossing any sets of arms, he had not unchained their closed-off hearts.
So Sang’s warning had been true.
Wei Ku Sang had informed Truan on their short walk together that morning that many members of the congregation were planning some type of demonstration in defiance of Truan’s authority. Awash in his arrogance, Truan had laughingly dismissed this warning as a desperate attempt by the Deceiver to intimidate him, but now he saw that this was no warning, but the mocking monologue of a villain who does not fear revealing their wicked plan because the outcome is seen to be unstoppable.
Wholly enervated in body and in spirit, Father Truan silently gave over the pulpit to Father Sang. When he did so, a crackle of applause burst forth from where the acolytes were sitting. Before returning to the Liturgy, Sang sternly admonished the congregation for disparaging a priest, a church, and the Holy Father, Son, and Spirit, adding in a knowing glance towards the acolytes.
Paul Truan heard none of Father Sang’s admonishments nor of his winning Liturgy. He knew only the emptiness of a man who has lost his vocation. When Father Sang invited him to retake the reins, Truan only waved a hand, remaining in his plush chair until Sang had begun a short hymn of acclamation, then he hastened from the chancel and took shelter in the sacristy. Even there, hidden away from all eyes and all voices, Truan heard, unmistakable, the joyous crescendo of a village having at last run a rascal from its midst.
 
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Wei Ku Sang had been long delayed in returning to Truan’s home. He had wanted to rush after Father Truan when the eccentric priest had fled from the sanctuary, but his duties at the church and obligations toward the congregation prevented him from returning until the unblinking desert sun had begun to set. His concern for his colleague’s well-being had been mounting over the course of his visit, and when Father Truan fled the sanctuary, he was grieved to think with what severe doubts and demons the goodly priest must be wrestling. Sand had reprimanded and rebuked those villagers who had led their brethren to behave so scornfully toward their Pastor and in so doing had led their brethren into iniquity, sullying their souls by encouraging their blaspheming against the authority of God.
When certain villagers did not appear penitent after his reprimand, Sang felt it his duty to pay a few visits around the small village to remind certain people of what it meant to act like a Christian. So it was late when he arrived home to find Truan seated at the dining table staring at a small dinner roll and a mandarin orange with a studious calm which Sang considered utterly disquieting. He did not speak, nor did he raise his eyes or in any way acknowledge Sang’s presence.
With a brotherly tone of voice, Sang asked, “Have you not had supper yet, Brother?”
“I was waiting.”
“Not for me, surely?”
“For you.”
Other than to move his lips, Truan remained immobile, and Sang remained ill at ease. There was a second small dinner roll and mandarin on the table, a place set for him, so Sang took his seat, watching Truan for any sign of animation. When Sang offered to lead a blessing, Truan at last broke his statuesque stillness, bowing his head and joining his hand with Sang’s.
“Amen.”
“Amen.”
“Brother, I am grateful for this modest meal. There is so much in this simple meal. It gladdens my heart to see your table set this way.”
“Yes, Brother Sang, I prayed for guidance this afternoon, and it was made known to me that while my life’s destination was clear, the path I’d chosen was uncertain in promise. So I resolved to return to the straight and narrow. I resolved to emulate you, for you are a man who never strays from the righteous path, a man for whom uprightness comes effortlessly. Hence, this meager meal of such enormous significance.”
Truan raised his earthenware cup, weakly assuring Sang it contained only tea. Sang noticed that Truan was not sitting in one of his lavish dinner chairs, but he was squatting atop a simple, unadorned stool made from an orange-tinted wood. For a spell they ate together in silence, until Sang mentioned off-hand that he would be returning to the diocese in a week.
“So soon?”
“Yes, I’m afraid my visit was only for the month. All the better, however, for me to return now. I will be able to recant the concerns I mentioned in my letter.”
Paul Truan slightly tilted his chin at the mention of a letter, but his movement was so sharp that it conjured the sound of a ringing glass in one’s mind. “You wrote a letter?”
“Yes, and please believe me I am sorry I did not tell you sooner, but I felt it was my duty to express a few concerns I had for your well-being.”
“My well-being?”
“You’ve seemed so stressed as of late---and forgive me for presuming to know your state of mind so thoroughly after so short a time---but the testimonies of several members of your church confirmed your behavior lately had not been in keeping with your norm.”
Again, silence. Truan peeled his mandarin and offered Sang some butter for his roll, which he declined. Sang finished his cup of tea.
“Peculiar tea, isn’t it?” Sang asked. “Ginger?”
“It is a blend of lemon and some herbs from my windowbox.”
Sang refilled his cup by way of complimenting Truan’s home-made tea, and the two went back to their quietude.
“You were right to do so...to write that letter, I mean.” Truan broke the silence at last. Sang began to object, but Truan continued. “Whether you were familiar with my ways or not, you did not recognize in me the habits and actions of a servant of Our Lord. You did the right thing.”
Not willing to discuss it any further, the two men finished their meals and retired to their rooms. In his prayers that night, Wei Ku Sang wept from gratitude that God had called to him to be a light by which others may find their ways to Him, and for placing him here in this tiny village that by his example he might help a fellow clergyman regain his standing in the eyes of the Lord.
He had not been asleep long---his eyelashes were still damp from his tears---when his stomach hardened and nausea overtook him. Responding to cries of anguish, Truan discovered Sang doubled-up on the floor, drenched in sweat and vomiting profusely into his travel bag, which he hadn’t had even a second to turn upside-down and empty. Truan quickly dialed for an ambulance, and in the meantime brought his prostrate colleague a glass of cold water. When the emergency technicians carried him off on a stretcher, Sang remained bent on his side, moaning and praying for strength.
 
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From a sister of a friend of one of the acolytes, it became known that Wei Ku Sang had ingested a large quantity of some unknown toxin. Queries were sent to a lab in the capital, but if results ever were returned they were not sent to the small, under-equipped health center in the village where the acolyte’s friend’s sister worked as a night nurse, but to the hospital in Y------- which had expensive machines and young doctors recruited from eastern universities. A few inquiries about Sang’s health were made by the villagers to the diocese, but there came no answer, and before long the rumor began to circulate that their beloved Father Sang had died. The cause of death, so said the most popular variant of the rumor, was that Sang had been poisoned.
The common supposition was that Father Truan had poisoned him, but the details concerning where and how and with what were the subjects of impossibly spurious speculation. They knew nothing of Truan and Sang’s last supper, and they knew arguably less about common toxins to be found in apparently harmless house plants and succulents; and although one or two had heard Father Truan grumble about how Father Sang had “spoiled” him with a poisonous mandarin upon their first meeting, those one or two did not put any stock in it. Only the “why” could be resolved: that their Pastor had been jealous of Father Sang, for here was a true man of God, revealing by his uprightness that Father Truan was no more than a sham, a clown who had deceived them all into believing that he was a trustworthy liaison between Heaven and Earth. Accusations were made, both formal and not, but no proof of any misdeed could be produced and so nothing came of the accusations. The villagers still grumbled against Paul Truan. They disparaged his name and his authority, and he lost his position of influence within the village. For his part, Paul Truan, refused to entertain any of the many accusations levied against him, and professed only the deepest respect for Father Sang until the day he died. This did nothing to repair the fissure within the village between the people and the church, however, and it would be another two generations until the church was not regarded with all the trust one gives a snarling, hungry beast.
 
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For it is said that an inferior man, when he is alone, encounters no limit to his wickedness and will, upon meeting a superior man, endeavor to conceal his evil and show off the goodness within himself. He will imitate the ways of the superior man without knowing their significance, and he will proclaim himself superior, but the people will always see his heart. Yes, the people will always see his heart.
 


[1] “Le Petite Tomb”---Rembrandt