Hill of Grace by Stephen Orr Page B

powder, the whispers of his children tucked up in bed; the almost musical snoring of Catherine, his wife, reclining in a sofa beside him, and the sound of tobacco burning up in his pipe as he inhaled.
    Joshua, alone in his living-room, was thinking of William, alone in his cottage, staring down at his linoless floor, arms on his knees, muttering something incomprehensible. The words transformed into those of Roy Rene, scratchy through a vintage bakelite radio playing softly on Joshua’s mantlepiece. She calls me dear, she must be shook on me. More lines, applause, play off, and the whole business of the apocalypse seeming so distant.
    As the comedy faded to a chorus of Colgate promos, Joshua stretched back in his chair and closed his eyes. Reaching out for the tuning knob he by-passed 5AD’s gardening hour and settled on a low, gravely voice with a Russian accent. He pricked up his ears. ‘As we moved into punishment block we came across the whipping bench . . .’
    Describing the marks of clawing fingers on the wood.
    The Soviet film Chronicle of the Liberation of Auschwitz, 1945 , was almost as powerful without the images. Joshua’s mind created the portable scaffold which hardly ever worked, inmates being helped back up as if they were boarding a bus. And as the voice continued, he entered a sorting house known as Kanada : piles of teeth, hair and prosthetics, reaching to skylights which would offer no liberation. Spectacles and shoes, decoy tickets which spoke of places the victims would never see.
    And through all of this a vision of God started to clarify in his mind. A pile of burnt bodies, still smoking, hastily re-burnt before liberation, like a clipping William had failed to find or stick in his scrapbook. An aborted foetus with placenta, dried up beside its murdered mother.
    Where was God? He was there watching, shaking his head, despairing for human beings and their inability to see him through a haze of sweet-smelling smoke. Jesus too, looking at his watch, saying to his father, How long before I can return and sort this whole sodden mess out? But God was in no rush. ‘Let them come to see me first, in lilies and Ajax, Roy Rene and the smashed shell of an old Austin Seven.’ Otherwise, he explained, there would be no point in returning. People would just laugh when he said, ‘Yep, it’s me, Jesus of Nazareth. Nazis and Baptists to the back of the room, please.’
    Which meant that if he were right, William was just as likely to be called as anyone else. Eventually the words ended and a Bach violin concerto began. In the play of instruments Joshua could hear voices struggling for dominance, forming a sonority and then receding; a chorus of all instruments speaking at once, and then a single voice, clearer and more pure than all the rest.
    And in this state he stood and walked out his back door, leaving his pipe on a window sill, moving down through his garden in wet, muddy socks in the face of an approaching storm. Passing through rows of Seppelt’s chardonnay the rain began to spit, and every drop was a bullet trying to stop him from reaching God: bloomers at three and six, Victas and Tony Curtis in a zoot suit. The rain bucketed down. He pulled off his socks and, feeling the energy William had tried to describe, started to run between the rows. ‘Lana Turner has written to me,’ he screamed, and a few pickers, working late by gaslight, looked over the vines to see.
    â€˜Lana Turner, the movie star!’ he called hoarsely, trying to overcome the noise of torrential rain. Tripping. Falling over and ending up in a puddle of mud. Looking up at the sky and screaming, ‘Damn you!’ Lying back down, yielding, his heart returning to normal as he licked water from his lips. Convinced that he did have some part to play in the grand scheme of things which, all in one instance, encompassed Auschwitz and Macackie Mansions.
    The next day, as he helped William pick,