The Bat Tattoo by Russell Hoban Page B

delicate, soberly dressed, who seemed remote but committed. They stood on the doorstep, prepared for rejection but modestly hopeful.
    ‘Good morning,’ I said.
    ‘Good morning,’ said the man, looking slightly more confident. ‘We’re going round encouraging people to read the Word of God and take comfort and guidance from it.’
    ‘I’ve read the Old Testament and the New Testament and the Apocrypha,’ I said. ‘I made notes at the time but I can’t give you chapter and verse.’
    ‘So you don’t turn to the Word of God regularly?’ said the woman, gently but with a little edge to it.
    ‘No. What’s your message for the present time?’
    ‘This is a time of adversity, isn’t it?’ said the man. ‘Imean, look around you — is this what you’d call a good time?’
    ‘No, it isn’t.’
    ‘It isn’t; it’s a time of adversity and this is God’s answer to a world that has turned away from Him. Do you remember Daniel 2. 44?’
    ‘No.’ The sun was doing its Sunday-afternoon thing: five hundred million years left to live. Peter Rabbit on Mars?
    ‘… kingdoms,’ said the man. The woman nodded.
    ‘What?’ I said.
    ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel 2.1,’ said the man. ‘“His spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him.”’
    ‘I remember Belshazzar’s feast but not Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.’
    ‘Nebuchadnezzar,’ said the man, ‘had a dream in which he saw a great image. “This image’s head was of fine gold …”’
    ‘That’s the one with feet of clay,’ I said. ‘Right?’
    ‘Right,’ said the man. He took out his little Bible in which the passage was underlined. ‘Daniel 2.42,’ he said triumphantly. ‘“And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.” And in the next verse: “And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.”’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I don’t remember what’s next.’
    ‘Now we come to it,’ he said, ‘Daniel 2.44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” That’s God’s Kingdom, and Jesus is its King.’
    ‘Not Jehovah?’
    ‘No, Jehovah appointed Jesus King in 1914.’
    ‘And he’s been King ever since,’ said the woman.
    ‘He’s doing a lot better than Prince Charles, isn’t he,’ I said.
    Both of them looked at me with their heads at a slight angle. ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Can we leave this brochure with you?’ There was a tri-ethnic group of faces on the cover.
What Does God Require of Us?
was the title, correctly spelled.
    ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘The blood is the life, isn’t it?’
    ‘Sorry?’ said the man.
    ‘The blood is the life, isn’t it?’
    ‘That’s what God says.’
    ‘Dracula said the same thing. That’s why Renfield ate flies. What about the Jehovah’s Witness who lost five pints of blood in a machete attack? Did you see it in
The Times?
’
    ‘We heard about it.’
    ‘Why don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses accept blood transfusions?’
    ‘It says right here,’ said the man, opening the brochure to the appropriate page, ‘“We must not take into our bodies in any way other people’s blood or even our own blood that has been stored (Acts 21.25).”’
    ‘Hang on,’ I said. I went and got my King James version off the shelf and looked up Acts 21.25. Returning to my visitors I read aloud: ‘“As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have written and concluded that they observe no such thing, save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from strangled, and from fornication.” That isn’t what