Fieldwork: A Novel by Mischa Berlinski Page B

Lunch had lulled me: the day was warm, my eyes were heavy. I had organized my life around the principle that nothing came between me and my naps—not murderous anthropologists, not fiery-tempered missionaries—and for all of Nomie's protestations that Mr. Walker liked to take himself a little rest in the afternoons, the man seemed to me altogether too wide awake: these missionaries, I concluded sadly, were not the napping type. They were decidedly of the this-life-is-short-so-let's-get-something-done type. So it was with excitement and drowsiness mingled in equal measure that I accepted when at the end of the long meal Mr. Walker invited me to join him in his study.
    Mr. Walker led me to his study and then left me alone in it for a moment, as he recalled another question for his wife. I am a snoop when it comes to people's books, and I studied his while I waited. His library wasn't large, and it was clearly the collection of a man with a narrowly centered but deeply researched set of interests. There were at least a half dozen translations of the Bible into English, from the King James to the New Revised Standard, as well as editions of the Old and New Testament in the original Greek and Hebrew. There were Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and grammars. Every book of the Bible had a thick, leather-bound commentary. These formed an imposing shelf unto themselves. There were books arguing against Darwinian theories of evolution, and a smaller number of books supporting the theory. There was a book entitled
Apocalypse Tomorrow
, the thickest of a long series of tomes which to judge by their bright-red covers seemed to be arguing that the end was very nigh. There were a few Tom Clancy novels with well-cracked spines.
    Mr. Walker returned to the office after a minute and closed the door behind him. He circumnavigated his desk, then sank down with a grunt. He folded his hands into narrow steeples and brought them to rest in front of his mouth. He stared at me very seriously.
    "I didn't want you to leave without an answer to your question," he said. "It's just that Nomie, she gets so upset."
    "I understand," I said. "It's natural. I'm sorry I—"
    "Do you know how they found Davy?" he asked.
    "Davy?"
    "My son," Mr. Walker said.
    "No," I said. "No, I don't know how they found him."
    Mr. Walker didn't say anything for so long that I began to think that I had offended him too. "When Davy fell from the bridge," he began, "he fell a long way, but the doctor said, the doctor said he probably survived that. His left arm wasn't broken, it was shattered, like a windowpane. His leg was broken, too, but not so bad. She left him for two days, and then she shot him from behind. That was the worst part, her leaving him. Two days."
    The only noise in the room was the hum of the air conditioner.
    "He was just thirty," Mr. Walker continued. "So when Mrs. Walker … Mrs. Walker—I don't think I've ever met a better Christian than my Nomie. She wrote to Martiya in prison, she sent her food even, and clothing. She
forgave
her. I think she genuinely forgave Martiya, because she knew Martiya—she knew that it wasn't Martiya who killed her baby. But … but until you lose a child—you don't know what a murder means. How do you act like a good Christian when someone does something like that to your boy?"
    Mr. Walker's voice was deep, and he spoke softly, and when he wanted to emphasize something, he spoke softer still, so that when he told me that Mrs. Walker was a good Christian woman, I was leaning on the edge of my chair, straining to catch his words. Mr. Walker stared at me a moment, and I realized with a start that his question wasn't rhetorical. He was waiting for an answer.
    "I don't know," I said. "I don't know how you act like a good Christian."
    "Fair enough. You don't know what a murder means." It wasn't an accusation, just a simple statement of fact. Mr. Walker fingered the Greek dictionary lying open on his desk. "It's a rough, rough business