Cannibals and Missionaries Read Online Free PDF Page B

held out to sinful men was redemption, and for that He needed bearers of His Word.
    The car had drawn up at the curb in front of Air France: Frank, Jr., was opening the trunk. In the back seat, Frank sat with his head in his hands, alleging a touch of migraine. He was still thinking. No minister today, he reasoned, would aspire to make converts of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and Nassiri, his secret-police chief. But a man of God, possessed of the living faith, would hope to bring them to serve God in their own way, as good Moslems, and obey His commandments. Naturally, he and the Bishop, unlike Jonah, did not desire their destruction, whatever Sadegh and his friends might feel on that score. Yet for Christians the mere absence of evil wishes toward a wrongdoer was not enough. As unafraid Christians, they ought not to be satisfied with conducting an investigation and when they were safely out of the country announcing the results at an airport press conference—Asad’s idea—in Athens or Paris.
    That still might be very much worth doing (Frank was not prepared to gainsay it), but where did the Church come in? If he and Gus did not want to open themselves to the charge of abusing their sacerdotal function, they should go as private citizens, with no handles to their names. Yet without the mantle of their calling, they were no different from Joe Zilch, in short useless to the Iranians. It was a dilemma, all right.
    Taxis behind them were honking. Making signs of apology and conciliation, Frank hastily descended from the car. Gus was standing by their baggage, waving his umbrella to attract the attention of a disappearing porter. He looked fresh as a morning rose, all primed to go, without a backward thought, apparently. Still, it was one thing for Gus—who was retired—to be flying off to far lands, and another for Frank, rector of St. Matthew’s, charged with the administration of the sacraments and the maintenance of Christian values in the broad community of New York. Of course he had his curates; he had considered them when making his decision. They could run the show, as they did anyway when he was taking his vacation. If he was not back by Ash Wednesday, they would get some useful practice in preaching Lenten sermons.
    Yet an uneasiness still gripped him as he stood on the walk eyeing the jet-liners taking off into the overcast sky. It came home to him that, like Jonah, he might be taking evasive action and setting sail for Tarshish when Nineveh, behind him, was where the Lord meant him to be. Would he be cast, he wondered, into the belly of the whale? He thought of the children’s tearfulness about air travel—so manifest to him this morning—of Frank, Jr., who had gone to park the car. How would he react when he learned that his mother was pregnant, with his father on the other side of the world and having no fixed date of return? Frank’s long-standing doubts about Sadegh’s competence returned, combining suddenly with his other doubts and anxieties to make him wish from the bottom of his heart (he refrained from praying) that something would yet happen so that they would not have to go.
    Unworthy man, he chided himself, could it be that he was plain afraid? Having bitten off more than he could chew, he might finally be recognizing it at the airport, of all places, where retreat was cut off. But if it was unmanly fear, not the voice of conscience, that was assailing him, he was all the more obliged to quell it and abide by his commitment. There was no time left in any case to peer into his motivations or decide what, if anything, he was nervous of. He must take the plunge briskly, as he used to urge the young ones gathered shivering on the lake shore for the first dip of the season: the water always felt chillier to those who hung back, wetting a toe and getting cold feet. He could not let Sadegh down.
    Gus’s freckled old hand was testing the weight of Rachel’s book bag, which had been placed on top of the