After morning prayers Pastor Simon told Lukas that the two of them would be spending the day together. Lukas could hardly believe his own ears. Together? Just the two of them? He felt flushed with excitement. Lukas was often near Pastor Simon, but the pastor was always busy with something or other, usually in conversation with God or preaching the word of God to the apostates who needed to hear it, and Lukas was mostly told to carry out other important tasks, such as washing the floor or doing the laundry or making sure that Pastor Simon had clean bedlinen. One evening some years ago, Pastor Simon had said that Lukas was the person closest to him, his second-in-command, and since that day Lukas had walked tall; he had stood by the pastor’s side, his back straight and his chin up. But there was one thing he’d been longing for—not that he wanted to complain about the past, indeed not, that would never occur to him—but if there was one thing he was lacking, it was that he would also like to be by the pastor’s side when it came to spiritual matters.
And that was what Pastor Simon had implied today. Lukas had seen it in his eyes. Today you and I will be together, Lukas, just you and me. That was what the pastor had meant. Today Lukas would be initiated. Today he would learn the secrets and hear God speak. He was sure of it. They had left the farm, Porta Caeli, after morning prayers and breakfast. The women on the farm really knew how to cook. Lukas was proud of Pastor Simon for picking such wonderful women. Fifteen women who obeyed the word of God, who could cook, keep house, and do laundry—they were hard workers. The kind of women they’d need when they got to heaven. Not self-obsessed, vain women who spent their time lying in front of the TV, painting themselves like whores, demanding that the men do all the work.
Lukas started the car and drove through the gate. God had given them lovely weather, the sun was high in the sky, and he was increasingly convinced that today was going to be the day. Today he would be initiated. He didn’t know very much about it, for obvious reasons. The pastor had dropped a few hints, and Lukas had also overheard him talking to God several times. Lukas felt a little guilty for eavesdropping, but he couldn’t help himself. The pastor would often talk to God in his office. Lukas always made sure he was washing the floor outside the pastor’s office when he heard voices in there. In that way he could be on his knees scrubbing while at the same time being filled with the word of God without there being anything improper about it. It was the pastor who had paid for Lukas’s driving lessons. He had also paid for everything else that Lukas had. A black suit for special occasions. A white suit for prayer meetings. Three pairs of shoes. And a bicycle. And his food, obviously, and his room in the attic of the chapel. The pastor was rich. God had given him money. Pastor Simon was not one of those people who didn’t believe in money. Many people would preach about this very subject, how you would not need money if you had God, but the pastor knew better, obviously. In the next world, you won’t need any money. There we will be taken care of, but in this world different rules apply. Lukas never read the newspapers, and he didn’t watch television, but even so, he knew that this world was founded on money. Some people were poor and others were rich. Poverty was often a punishment from God. There could be many reasons that people had to be punished. They might be homosexuals, or drug addicts, or fornicators, or blasphemers, or they might have spoken ill of their parents. Sometimes God would punish whole nations or continents. Often with floods or droughts or other plagues, but mostly by making sure they were poor. It was not the case that all rich people had been given their money by God, Lukas knew that. Some of them had stolen the money from God. It was straightforward. All money belonged to God, and if someone had too much and had not been given it by God, as Pastor Simon had been, then that person had acquired it dishonestly and so needed to be punished.
Lukas drove according to Pastor Simon’s directions. They were not going back to the chapel; instead they headed upward, deeper into the forest, to a small lake. Lukas parked the car and followed the pastor down to a bench by the water. He glanced furtively at the pastor. Pastor Simon’s big white hair was like an aerial, Lukas had often thought. A kind of angelic aerial that put the pastor in direct contact with God. The sun was in the middle of the blue sky now, shining directly behind the pastor’s head. Lukas’s skin was prickling. His fingers were tingling. He could barely sit still, and he was grinning from ear to ear.
“Can you see the devil in the water?” the pastor said, pointing.
Lukas looked across the lake, but he could not see anything. The water was dark and quiet, not a ripple on the surface. He could hear the birds chirp in the trees around him. There was no sign of the devil.
“Where?” Lukas asked, looking even harder.
He did not want to say that he could not see him, that would be stupid. This might be a test to find out if he was ready to be initiated.
“Out there,” the pastor said, pointing again.
Lukas still could not see anything. He didn’t want to lie or to say no. So he tried his hardest. He stared and he stared, he narrowed his eyes in the hope that the devil would appear, but nothing happened.
“You don’t see him, do you?” the pastor said at length.
“No,” Lukas said, and hung his head in shame.
“Would you like to see him?”
Lukas had half expected to be told off for not looking hard enough; the pastor could be like that sometimes toward people who were not close enough to God, but he didn’t get angry. He simply continued.
“I believe you, Lukas,” the pastor said in his warm, mild voice. “But we can’t take anyone with us who can’t see the devil, because if you can’t see the devil, you can’t see God either.”
Lukas bowed his head even further and nodded silently.
“You want to come to heaven, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course,” Lukas mumbled.
“Would you like me to show you?” The pastor smiled.
“Show me?”
“The devil,” the pastor answered.
Lukas felt happy and a little scared at the same time. Of course he wanted the pastor to show him, to help him see, but then again he’d heard a great deal about the devil and he wasn’t sure that he was ready to face him.
“Take off your clothes and step out into the water,” the pastor ordered him.
Lukas was taken aback. It was not a warm day. It was almost spring, and there were pretty green leaves on the trees around them, but the air was still quite chilly. The water was bound to be terribly cold.
“Well?” the pastor said with a frown.
Lukas rose slowly and started to undress. Soon he stood naked in front of the pastor. His skinny white body shivered in the cool air. The pastor watched him for a long time without saying anything. Sized him up from head to toe. Lukas felt a strong urge to cover himself—he felt really uncomfortable—but he believed that this must be a part of the initiation. He needed to go through this stage to reach a higher level, and for that he would just have to endure a bit of discomfort.
“Now go into the water,” Pastor Simon said, gesturing.
Lukas nodded and walked down to the water’s edge. He dipped one toe in but quickly withdrew it. The water was freezing. A big bird took off from a tree and flew up toward the clouds. Lukas hugged himself and wished that he could fly. Then he would fly straight up to God and stay there forever. Not that he didn’t want to be on the Ark. Of course he wanted to be on the Ark—after all, they were God’s chosen people on earth—but had he been able to fly, he would not have needed to do things like this in order to be included. He looked up at the pastor, who sat like a pillar of salt on the bench. Lukas steeled himself and stepped into the icy water. It hurt. It was like standing in ice cubes. He wanted to ask the pastor how far out he had to go, but the pastor said nothing. He had risen from the bench now and come down to the water’s edge. He was only a few meters away, still with the sun like a halo around his big white hair.
“Can you see the devil?” the pastor asked him again.
“N-n-n-o-o-o,” Lukas stuttered.
He forced himself to go farther in, felt the icy water against the part of his body he was not supposed to talk about, took another step so that the water reached up to his waist.
“Can you see him now?” the pastor said.
The voice was no longer as gentle as it had been earlier. It was colder now, icy like the water. Lukas could barely feel his body; it seemed to be disappearing. He bowed his head and shook it. He felt utterly useless. He couldn’t see the devil. He saw nothing. Perhaps he did not deserve to go to heaven after all. Perhaps he would have to stay in this world with all the whores and thieves, and burn slowly so that his flesh would be scorched and fall off his bones while the others went up to God’s eternal kingdom.
Suddenly the pastor moved; he leaped into the water in several great bounds, and Lukas felt a cold, hard hand on his neck. He tried to resist, but the pastor was too strong. The pastor pressed down his head, and suddenly Lukas was submerged. His head was underwater, and he couldn’t breathe. He panicked and flailed his arms about. He had to get some air. But the pastor did not release his grip. He forced Lukas even deeper down.
“Can you see the devil!” Lukas heard the pastor shouting from above.
Lukas opened his eyes, and his body grew completely limp. He was going to die now. That was how it felt. It was his time to die. This was why the pastor had brought him out into the forest. To this lake. Not to be initiated but to die. Lukas made a final attempt to free himself from the pastor’s grip, but he didn’t stand a chance. The pastor seemed almost possessed. His hand, no longer human, was heavy like an iron claw. Lukas’s eyes started to mist over. His lungs were screaming for air, but he could not shake off the pastor’s death grip. He was submerged in water. He had been robbed of all power to make decisions about his own life. To move. To grieve. The water no longer felt cold. It was warm now. His body felt warmer. A little farther away, he watched his fingers twitch. The pastor kept shouting, but Lukas couldn’t hear him. He had no idea how long he had been under, because time wasn’t time anymore, it was just eternity. He was going to die now, it was his time to die. There was no point in fighting it.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, his head was yanked from the water and up into the cold spring air. Lukas coughed and spluttered, spewed up the remains of his breakfast, and his lungs felt as if they were about to explode. The pastor dragged him ashore by his neck. Lukas lay by the water’s edge, panting. He could not feel his body.
The pastor knelt by his side and stroked his wet hair. Lukas looked up at him with huge, shocked eyes.
“Did you see the devil?” the pastor asked him again.
Lukas nodded. He nodded so hard that it felt as if his neck might snap.
“Good.” The pastor smiled, softly stroking Lukas’s cheek. “Then you’re ready.”