Safier Apocalypse Next Tuesday

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-78094-317-6
Verlag: Hesperus Press Ltd.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 272 Seiten

Do you love him Marie?' 'Um... of course... I love Jesus' I stammered. 'Great guy.' 'I'm talking about the man you intend to marry in my church...' 'Oh...' Cataclysmic events are nigh in Malente, Germany. Satan (a dead ringer for George Clooney) is on the prowl, recruiting horsemen for next week's Armageddon - and in a boring, provincial place like this, he's apparently spoiled for choice. One might hope that the Archangel Gabriel would be some help since he's in town, but he's too busy with a tantric sex marathon to deliver anyone from evil. Meanwhile gentle, sandal-wearing carpenter Joshua encounters, by chance, washed-up thirtysomething singleton Marie. She's hit a career dead-end, and her dad's gone and shacked up with some sort of Eastern European nymphomaniac. So when handsome Joshua comes round to work on the roof, she realises she has nothing to lose by asking him out. But what of his divinely-appointed task? The Apocalypse is scheduled for Tuesday. Things are looking grim. Provocative and blasphemous, but with surprising meditations on the nature of faith, free will and human nature, Apocalypse Next Tuesday is a book full of surprises. Wonderfully light and witty, it will keep you laughing from the first page to the last.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Safier, David

Weitere Mitwirkende

Parnfors, Hilary

Leseproben

Chapter Six

Our wedding began as most weddings do – with the bride having a minor nervous breakdown. I stood outside the church door. The guests were waiting for my performance. Everything was actually almost as perfect as I had always hoped it would be. The pews were filled. Soon everyone would be admiring my wonderful white dress that I knew fitted me like a glove, as I had indeed managed to starve off half a stone. I would be giving my vows in this romantic ecclesiastical setting. Everything was indeed almost perfect. There was only one problem: my Dad no longer wanted to walk me down the aisle.

‘You really shouldn’t have shouted at Svetlana like that,’ Kata said.

‘I didn’t shout at her,’ I replied with tears in my eyes.

‘You called her a “vodka-whore”.’

‘OK, maybe I was a bit harsh,’ I admitted.

Before I got into the carriage to go to the church, I had been determined to act completely cool during my first meeting with Svetlana. But when I actually met this heavily made-up yet pretty, petite woman, it was clear to me that she would break my Dad’s heart. A young thing like that couldn’t possibly have fallen in love with him! In my mind’s eye I saw my Dad crying in my arms again. And as I couldn’t stand the thought of this, I asked Svetlana to bugger off back to Belarus, or just to keep going all the way to Siberia. That made Dad angry. He shouted at me. I tried to explain to him that he was just being used. He shouted at me even more. Then I lost it. When I lost it, he lost it too. And that’s when phrases like ‘vodka-whore’, ‘ungrateful daughter’ and ‘Viagra-Dad’ were thrown into the ring.

Why do you always hurt the people you are trying to protect from themselves?

‘Come on,’ Kata said, drying my tears and grabbing my hand. ‘I’ll walk you in.’

She opened the door for me. The organ started to play. Holding on to my beloved sister, I stepped into the church with as much dignity as I could muster and made my way towards the altar. Most of the people there had been invited by Sven. Many of them were related to him and the others were friends from the football club, his colleagues from the hospital, people from the neighbourhood… Well, half of Malente was either related to or friends with Sven. I didn’t have nearly as many friends. Actually, I only had one real friend, and he was sitting in row number five. Michi was a skinny, scrawny fellow, with dishevelled hair, and he was wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘Beauty is totally overrated’.

We’d known each other since school. At that time he was part of a truly freaky minority – he was a Catholic altar boy.

Even today, Michi was the only really religious person I knew. He read the Bible every day. He’d once said: ‘Marie. What’s written in the Bible must be true. Those stories are far too crazy for anyone to have made them up.’

Michi nodded at me encouragingly and I was able to smile again. In row three I spotted my father, and immediately stopped smiling. He was still angry with me, while Svetlana was nervously staring at the floor, probably wondering how we Germans defined hospitality. And kinship.

My mother was sitting in row one, deliberately far from my father. With her short, dyed red hair she looked a bit like a trade union boss. She seemed much more lively than back then, when she’d sat at the breakfast table in her blue dressing gown with a tired expression and told me and Kata: ‘I’m leaving your father.’

Mum had tried to explain to us children as gently as possible that she hadn’t loved Dad for a long time, and that she’d only stayed with him because of us and that she simply couldn’t carry on living a lie.

Today I know that it was the right decision. She had been able to realise her dream of studying psychology, something that Dad had always opposed. She now lived in Hamburg and had her own practice specialising in relationship counselling (of all things), and she was much, much more confident than ever before. Nevertheless, a part of me still wished that Mum had carried on living that lie.

‘Marriage is difficult,’ the Reverend Gabriel declared during the sermon in a resounding tone. ‘But everything else is even more difficult.’

It was not exactly a ‘what-a-wonderful-day-let’s-rejoice’ kind of sermon. But I suppose that not much more was to be expected of him. I was of course relieved that he hadn’t spoken about ‘people who use my church to stage events’.

Sven stared at me throughout the sermon, completely overjoyed. So overjoyed that I couldn’t stand not being as overjoyed as he was, even though I really did want to be overjoyed. It was probably just because I was still so shaken after my argument with Dad.

I did my best to beam now as well. But the more I tried, the tenser I became. Racked with guilt, I couldn’t even look at Sven. I scanned the church and caught sight of a crucifix. At first, stupid sayings came to my head from our confirmation time. ‘Hey Jesus! What are you doing here?’ – ‘Oh, Paul. I’m just hanging around.’

But then I looked at the red marks on his hands, where the nails had been hammered through. I shuddered. Crucifixion. What kind of brutal thing was that? Who had even thought of doing it, something so incred-ibly horrific? Whoever it was must have had a really awful childhood.

And Jesus? Well, he knew what was coming to him. Why did he allow himself to be subjected to that? Of course, to absolve us of our sins. That was an impressive sacrifice for humanity. But did Jesus even have a choice? Was he able to choose whether or not to sacrifice himself? It was his destiny – right from the moment he was born, wasn’t it? That’s what his father had sent him down to earth for. But what kind of a father demands that kind of a sacrifice from his son? And what would Super Nanny have said about that father? Most likely: ‘Go and sit on the naughty step.’

Suddenly I got scared. It was probably not a very good idea to criticise God in church. Especially not at your own wedding.

I’m sorry, God, I said in my head. It’s just that – did Jesus have to endure such a painful death? Was that really necessary? I mean, couldn’t he have died from something other than crucifixion? Something more humane? What about a sleeping potion?

But then, I started thinking to myself, there would have been drinking cups hanging about in churches instead of crucifixes…

‘Marie!’ the Reverend Gabriel said in a penetrating voice.

I jumped. ‘Yes! Here I am.’

‘I asked you a question,’ he said.

‘Yes, yes… I heard,’ I fibbed in a fluster.

‘And so maybe you would like to answer?’

‘Well, yes. Why not?’

I glanced over at a nervous-looking Sven. Then I looked into the nave and saw lots of confused eyes and wondered how I could get myself out of this situation. But I couldn’t think of anything.

‘Erm, what was the question again?’ I anxiously looked at Gabriel again.

‘If you want to marry Sven.’

I was having hot and cold flushes. It was one of those moments where you want to fall into a spontaneous coma.

Half of the church was laughing. The other half was appalled. And Sven’s nervous smile turned into a scowl.

‘Sorry. It was just a little joke,’ Gabriel explained.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

‘I just asked whether you were ready for your vows.’

‘I’m sorry. I was miles away,’ I said sheepishly.

‘And what were you thinking about?’

‘About Jesus,’ I answered honestly, keeping the details to myself.

Gabriel was satisfied with my answer, as were the guests, and Sven was smiling and looked relieved. So it seemed that not listening to the vicar during your own wedding because of Jesus was actually OK.

‘So shall we start with the vows?’ Gabriel asked, and I nodded.

Suddenly, the whole church fell silent.

Gabriel turned to Sven: ‘Sven Harder, do you take Marie Woodward to be your wife? Will you love her, cherish and honour her, share with her in joy and sorrow and be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?’

Sven had tears in his eyes. ‘I will.’

It was unbelievable. There really was a man who wanted to marry me. Who’d have thought it?

Then Gabriel turned to me. I became extremely nervous. My legs were shaking and I started feeling queasy.

‘Marie Woodward, do you take Sven Harder to be your husband, will you love him, cherish and honour him, share with him in joy and sorrow and be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?’

I was quite aware that I should have said ‘I will’ at this point. But it suddenly dawned on me that ‘as long as you both shall live’ was actually a long time. An extremely long time. That’s probably something that dated back to a time when Christians had an average life expectancy of thirty, before they died in their mud huts or they were gobbled up by lions in the Colosseum. But nowadays people have an average life expectancy of eighty or ninety years. If medical science carried on like this, people might even live to be 120. But, having said that, I didn’t have private health insurance, so I would probably only reach eighty or ninety. But that was still old enough…

‘Hmm!’ Gabriel cleared his throat, urging me to answer.

I tried, with a little sob, to win some time by getting people to think that I couldn’t speak, because I was getting emotional. My gaze was now firmly focused on the door. I remembered , when Dustin Hoffman steals the bride away...