The Rising: Antichrist is Born / Before They Were Left Behind Read online

  It was exciting. It was novel. And she felt an anticipation unlike ever before, trying to imagine motherhood, her child, her son. But the price was her treasured way of life. Did she really want to give it up? An outsider, a nonacademic, perhaps a person with more to offer in the way of looks or possessions, would have viewed her virtually sedentary existence as a death sentence. For Marilena, however, letting go of it promised to be the toughest ordeal she would ever endure.

  The worst of it was that she sensed events converging, life speeding, things happening beyond her control. Marilena had come to no real decisions, and yet a course of action over which she had no control seemed to have been set in motion. Viviana Ivinisova was in high gear—planning, plotting, talking, arranging. She knew the perfect sperm bank from which Marilena could purchase the conception agent. “They are experimental and cutting-edge,” Viviana said. “They have perfected genetic engineering so the sperm can be made up of the best DNA from more than one source.”

  “That sounds ghastly,” Marilena said. “Freakish. My son might have more than one father?”

  “Not likely more than two, but don’t thumb your nose at science, dear. Imagine having the best physical traits from one donor and the best intellectual traits from another.”

  Marilena felt pushed along by Viviana’s tide of energy. What might the woman say or do if Marilena said she had simply changed her mind? She wouldn’t, of course, not about having a baby. But there remained the possibility of merely divorcing Sorin and finding a new husband who wanted a family.

  In the midst of all this, Viviana apparently became so enamored of the possibilities that she took it upon herself to examine the Cluj cottage. She came back with a glowing report. “We’ll have such a time, Marilena. There is work to be done, but it will be fun. And did I tell you I’m changing my name?”

  “Whatever for?”

  “You may have noticed I have been able to suppress and camouflage my accent.”

  Marilena nodded.

  “It’s best not to be immediately identified by my Russian heritage. I mean, one doesn’t look Russian, does one?”

  “You don’t,” Marilena said.

  “Good. Because with Russia’s return to a dictatorship and her seeming eagerness to return to a union of Soviet states—which will lead to a renewed interest in encroachment on other borders—I choose to separate myself from my motherland.”

  “And so?”

  “Viv. Viv Ivins. You like it?”

  Just weeks before, Marilena would have been so intimidated by her spiritual mentor that she would have feigned approval. Now she simply shrugged. “It sounds American.”

  “Perfect. I knew you’d like it. It was Reiche Planchette’s idea. You’ll meet him Tuesday night.”

  “Really?”

  Viviana nodded. “What a treat for our group. The regional director as guest speaker. He pulls no punches. Our only disagreements have been over my penchant to slowly reveal our true allegiance. Reiche is unabashed about his loyalty and believes making this clear immediately weeds out the squeamish and saves time.”

  Marilena tilted her head. “Makes sense.”

  “You’ll love him.”

  Marilena wasn’t so sure.

  Since the evening with Viviana, Sorin seemed to have changed as well. He was positively zvapaiat, even in the morning. Talkative, chipper, smiling, eager to do his chores and frequently offering to take Marilena’s turn too.

  At the office, Baduna seemed to have taken on a new persona. No longer quiet or awkward around Marilena, he made eye contact, joked, teased, included her in stories. Once, when she returned a friendly gibe, he roared with laughter and threw an arm around her.

  What was it with Sorin and Baduna? They must have been so thrilled with Viviana’s plans and what the baby and the divorce would mean for them that they could barely contain themselves.

  One night at home, Sorin seemed to burst with news. “Baduna has told his wife.”

  “Really.”

  “It went as well as could be expected. She had suspected.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “You don’t seem happy for me, Marilena.”

  “Perhaps now you can understand how I feel.”

  While Sorin and Baduna had not made plain their relationship to others in the office, all other hindrances to their activities had been scuttled. The next Tuesday Marilena arrived home in the middle of the afternoon, and Sorin was already gone to spend the rest of the day—and night, according to the note he left—with Baduna.

  Marilena had the sense that Reiche Planchette might assume that she was as far down the road in her thinking as was Viviana, and that made her want to settle things in her own heart and mind before the meeting. She still felt as if the spiritual powers on both sides of the fence were silent. There was no tingling, no vibration, no movement in her soul. Part of Marilena wondered if the spirits merely assumed—as everyone else did—that she was on board. Was it possible this ship had sailed before she could step off?

  Feeling a fool, she prayed aloud. “Spirit,” she said, the very label hitting her as both ominous and crazy, “I feel nothing beyond my need for a child. I cannot promise allegiance or loyalty and certainly not love. You would want me to be forthright. If you are still there and can accept that and will still grant me the son you have promised, I will remain open to changing my mind and feelings on this. But I will not pretend.”

  She wanted to say more, but she felt as if she were speaking to herself. Maybe this was all aiurit and she was the fool. Marilena couldn’t explain the prophecies, the messages, the feelings, and even the dynamic of the spirit world having clearly communicated with her once. But the more days that passed, the more her confidence ebbed. She found herself retreating into the comfort of her intellectualism. Could it have all been trickery? Could it be she was the biggest sucker of all?

  “God, if You’re there,” she prayed, “would You reveal Yourself to me?”

  Marilena’s voice had shaken even herself. That prayer had come out so heartfelt, so needy, and so childlike that she was transported to her growing-up days. If the dark side of the spirit world was real, then God was real. And if God was real, how could He ignore such a request?

  She felt nothing, heard nothing, and was soon weeping as she fixed herself a bit of supa, not much more than she had had for lunch.

  Ray Steele had saved his allowance for nearly a year, and now he stood before the full-length mirror in his parents’ master bath, turning this way and that and admiring his new flight jacket. It bore colorful patches and epaulets. He could imagine himself a pilot.

  When he wore the jacket, no one accused him of slouching. He could feel his pelvis inch forward, his shoulders slide back, stomach in, chest out, chin level. It wouldn’t have surprised him if people actually saluted when he walked by.

  He was stunned when even his friends laughed at his jacket. They were just jealous, he told himself. While Ray followed all the other fashions of his classmates and quickly changed when everyone else did, strangely the scoffing this jacket elicited did nothing to dissuade him from wearing it. He was a different person in it: taller, more confident, more self-assured. He was a man.

  “You look fine in that jacket, Son,” his dad said, which normally would be the death knell of any outfit. “I’m proud of you for being so disciplined in your saving.”

  “How proud are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m saving for something else, but I’ll never make enough to get it. I need your help. Maybe more than half.”

  “What?”

  “Flying lessons.”

  “Flying lessons?”

  “There’s no age limit for lessons, Dad. I can fly before I drive.”

  “You’ve got a lot of years before that,” his dad said, but Ray could read admiration in the man’s eyes.

  “Learning to fly will make learning to drive easy,” Ray said.

  “Well, that’s for sure.
And if I helped you with this, you’d make a profession of it?”

  “I’d like to.”

  “Now that’s something to think about.”

  Marilena decided to leave an hour early and do some reading at the library before the meeting, but as she headed out the door she was met by three young people, two boys and a girl who appeared to be college age. They had British accents, and while they spoke decent Romanian, their leader, who introduced himself as Ian, asked if she understood English.

  “Putin,” she said. “A little. I hear it better than I speak it.”

  “Do you have a few minutes?”

  Marilena hesitated. She had never been good at dissuading salespeople. She considered saying no and please come back later, but the truth was, she did have a few minutes. “What are you selling?” she said.

  “Jesus!” the other young man said, smiling broadly. “We’ll be quick if we can just have a minute.”

  She invited them in.

  “We have some literature for you,” Ian said, handing her a couple of leaflets. “We just want to tell you what we have found in Jesus Christ, what He means to us, and what He can mean to you. May we?”

  Marilena nodded but felt dishonest. In truth she knew what they were going to say, and she felt her time was being robbed. But then this could be the answer to her prayer. Was this God’s way of revealing Himself to her? She couldn’t imagine, but she would listen. These kids seemed earnest and enthusiastic enough, but mostly they were bold. Would she ever do what they were doing, even if she became a devotee? It seemed a most courageous and even potentially humiliating act. Sorin would never accede to sitting through it, nor would almost any colleague she could think of.

  Ian hurried through a memorized and polished presentation of what he called the “Romans road to salvation.” It was named after the New Testament book of Romans, which Marilena had read years before. She had been impressed with the scholarship of the writer and the logical progression of his arguments, but at the time had not even considered that God existed, and assumed that if He did, He was the exclusive property of Christians.

  Now she didn’t know what to think. Interesting that he has chosen a text written to Romans.

  Ian read her Romans 3:23: “‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.’”

  “And you believe this?” Marilena said. The depravity of mankind had also seemed to her one of the most ludicrous notions of Christian theology.

  All three young people nodded, but they seemed so sure of it that they appeared happy about it. “We’ve all sinned,” Ian said. “No one on earth is innocent.”

  “I might be,” Marilena said. She was not boasting. If selfishness or a short temper were truly sinful, she was guilty. But did human nature make one a sinner? The label was offensive, and with most people she knew—even Sorin—their good outweighed their bad.

  “If that were true,” the young man said, “you’d be the first perfect person since Jesus.”

  “Do I win a prize?” she said, smiling, but she could tell they were not amused.

  Ian asked if he could read her a passage that “shows what sin in our lives looks like.”

  Marilena looked at her watch. “I suppose.” What was this maddening politeness she could not harness? What compelled her to keep from insulting these kids?

  He read Romans 3:10-12:

  “There is none righteous, no, not one;

  There is none who understands;

  There is none who seeks after God.

  They have all turned aside;

  They have together become unprofitable;

  There is none who does good, no, not one.”

  Had she ever truly sought after God? Marilena’s quest for knowledge had made her feel intellectually superior to people of faith. Maybe that was sinful. On the other hand, maybe she was intellectually superior.

  “I’ll be just a minute,” Ian said. “Romans 6:23 says that ‘the wages of sin is death.’ That’s not talking about just physical death, ma’am, but also spiritual, eternal death, complete separation from God.”

  Marilena suppressed a smart remark, something about how that would be nothing new for her.

  Ian plunged on. “But there’s good news in that same verse. It says, ‘but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ And Romans 5:8 is the best news of all: ‘God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’ Did you know that?”

  “I’m familiar with the basic tenets of the Christian sect, yes.”

  “Jesus died for you, paid the penalty for your sins. And I assume you know about the Resurrection.”

  She nodded. She wished she could tell Ian his minute was up.

  “Romans 10:9 says ‘that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.’ Romans 8:1 says that if we do that ‘there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.’ We will never be condemned for our sins. Finally—and with this I’m through—the writer of this letter to the Christians in Rome makes this promise in chapter 8, verses 38 and 39: ‘For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

  “What do you think of that, ma’am?”

  “Well . . . I . . . ah, that’s beautiful. Beautiful writing and a cogent treatise. And you presented it well. I’m not sure I believe it, but—”

  “Here we are in Romania,” the young man said, and she could hear the closing-of-the-sale tone in his voice. “Wouldn’t you like to follow the Romans road to salvation? Saying this simple prayer will not save you; only faith in Jesus Christ will do that. But this is a way you can tell God you realize where you stand and what you need from Him: ‘God, I know that I’m a sinner and deserve punishment. But I believe Jesus Christ took that punishment and that through faith in Him I can be forgiven. I trust in You for salvation. Thank You and amen!’ ”

  The three looked at her expectantly. Marilena wondered what they would think or do or say if she told them she believed God had tried to tell her who He was and also told her to flee the devil. And what if they knew she had prayed to God’s archenemy?

  “Would you like to receive Christ, ma’am?” Ian said.

  “No, I wouldn’t. Not tonight.”

  “You want to think about it?”

  “At least.”

  “That’s understandable, but let me caution you. I don’t mean to pressure you or scare you, but none of us ever really knows how much time we have. You look like a fairly healthy person, but you don’t know when you might be run over by a car, do you?”

  “Well, I certainly hope not tonight.”

  “We hope not either,” the young woman said. “We will pray for you that you will do the right thing.”

  To their credit, the kids did not pressure Marilena, and as soon as they were gone she felt both relief and turmoil. She had long wondered if this idea of being born in sin and saved by the death of Jesus was really as simple as it seemed. These kids sure thought so.

  The question wasn’t whether God existed. Marilena believed He did now more than ever. Had she been born in sin? And if so, was it her fault? Was she a sinner? God seemed jealous, vengeful. He had declared to her who He was and told her to flee the devil. And yet the one God considered His enemy was offering her a child.

  Marilena decided not to jump too quickly to either side. At the meeting, she would consider the pitch of the first god she had ever prayed to.

  __

  Had Marilena been a dog, she would have growled and snarled upon meeting Reiche Planchette. Viviana introduced him to the group with such eagerness that Marilena wished she could display some enthusiasm. But she had to admit there was something oily about the man. He did not just practice maintaining eye contact;
he also seemed to use it as a battering ram. She finally had to look away.

  Mr. Planchette was not what she expected, yet in his presence she found it difficult to remember what that was. Had she assumed he would have cloven hooves, horns, and a pitchfork? Or that he would wear all black and have slicked-back hair?

  In reality he was pleasant-enough looking with thinning light brown hair and a prominent nose. He smiled easily and looked anything but sinister. Some in the group greeted him like an old, trusted friend. They eagerly waited for him to take the floor, and once he had it, Marilena found him mesmerizing.

  He was as direct as Viviana had predicted, referring to Lucifer as his leader and lord and the object of his love and worship as naturally as Marilena had heard Christian ministers on television refer to Christ and God. She had thought them delusional, taking the classic Scriptures literally, but until fourteen weeks ago, she had put even less stock in people who believed in the dark side.

  It seemed Planchette’s goal was to dissuade anyone from maintaining misconceptions about the one he called “the opposite god.”

  He worked the room, pacing, smiling, speaking conversationally. The bottom line, he said, was that “you may have tried praying to the God of the Bible. What has it ever gotten you? An answer here and there? A feeling? Mostly haven’t you felt judged, watched, shamed, your conscience attacked? My lord offers power and action—measurable, tangible, and helpful.”

  Perhaps Planchette was a memory expert. Or maybe he had conspired with Ms. Ivinisova. Regardless, his performance at the end of the evening was nothing short of miraculous. As he closed his eyes and prayed, he mentioned every person in the room by name and gave them a personal word of prophecy.

  “Titus, your marriage will be repaired.

  “Atanasia, your lameness will be healed.

  “Dorina, your depression will lift.”

  People moaned and cried out and sighed and wept.

  Marilena couldn’t deny she was caught up in it, her pulse skyrocketing as she waited her turn. She was also praying to the God of the Bible, challenging Him, badgering Him. “Here’s Your chance,” she said silently. “Show Yourself. Do something. Compete.”