Elders (17 page)

Sister Melão sat down after a sparse, unisonous “Amen,” and Passos stood up, very slowly. He moved to the pulpit. It wasn’t half past the hour. He told a joke he’d heard once, stalling for time. A high priest dies in the middle of a quorum meeting, all those nodding gray heads, and it takes the paramedics three tries to find the
one who’s really dead. Rose and Maurilho obliged with a laugh-groan; McLeod did too; even Sister Mason did. But the mission president himself sat straight-faced.

Passos felt chastened. “Only kidding, of course.” He looked up at the clock but not long enough to make out the precise minutes. What did he have—thirty-two minutes left, thirty? He gripped the pulpit on either side and put his head down and started reading more or less verbatim from his notes. He used none of his evangelical cadence; he couldn’t have conjured it if he’d wanted to. In a low, too-quick mumble he uttered sentences like, “Something else I wanted to say is, well, consider how long the Lord has required sacrifice of His people. Consider the Israelites …” or “Remember, too, that Moses’s law—the Law of Moses—was merely a preparatory law, as we read in the Book of Mormon …” or “I wanted to read a scripture about this. I’ll read the entire passage because I think … I think it just illustrates my point very well …”

Elder Passos looked up at the clock as he reached the last bullet point on his page of notes, a bare directive:
Close with the story about the Passover (Ex. 12:12–13)—the Lord’s Atonement—a broken heart and a contrite spirit …
The clock showed twenty minutes remaining. He arranged in his head the story of the Passover while praying for a miracle of his own, a rescue of his own. And hadn’t he earned one? He had made himself clean; he had rid himself of his sins. Of the most obvious sins, anyway.

Passos folded away his page of notes and looked up into the faces of the congregation: President’s and Sister Mason’s, Maurilho’s, Rose’s, his companion’s, Josefina’s. “You all know the story of Moses and the plagues, I’m sure, but I wanted to tell it again … 
because it’s a remarkable story, my brothers and sisters. It’s a truly remarkable story. The Lord tells Pharaoh, through His prophet Moses, to free the Israelites from bondage, and what does Pharaoh do? He hardens his heart. The Lord sends plagues—of frogs, lice, flies—upon all the land of Egypt, and still Pharaoh refuses to let God’s people go. The Lord destroys the Egyptians’ cattle. He sends a plague of pestilence, and another of boils, and another of hail. He sends locusts. He sends a terrible plague of three days’ darkness, and after all this, what does Pharaoh do? He hardens his heart even more. So what happens next? I want to read it to you, brothers and sisters. I’d be remiss to paraphrase the Lord’s words here. In Exodus, chapter twelve, the Lord has instituted the Passover: each family is to sacrifice an unblemished lamb, and take the blood of that lamb and put it on their doorposts, then eat the lamb standing up, with their shoes on, eating it with bread that hasn’t even risen, ready to flee at a moment’s notice, and why? In verses twelve and thirteen of chapter twelve, the Lord tells us: ‘For on this same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague of destruction will not touch you when I strike the land of Egypt.’

“He is the Lord indeed, brothers and sisters. I testify of that. And I testify that in the meridian of time He came down to earth and gave Himself as a sacrifice for all of us—the unblemished Lamb of God—so that the destroying angel might pass over us, too, over our houses and over our hearts. Christ’s blood is a memorial to us,
and a sign. We eat bread and drink water each week during the sacrament in remembrance of Him and His atoning sacrifice. This is our weekly Passover.

“But what of our sacrifice? What is the sacrifice required of the people of Christ today? The Law of Moses has been fulfilled in Christ, remember; we are no longer required to offer up animals. So what must we give to the Lord to show Him that we are indeed His people?” Passos looked up at the clock again: more than fifteen minutes remaining. “I want to end with one more scripture, in the Book of Mormon, and I know I’m ending early, but—”

Elder Passos jerked away from the microphone as if stung by it, as if the sudden explosion of shouting from outside, the first of several warlike bangs, grew not out of sheerest pleasure and celebration but pain and surprise. The game. He had nearly forgotten. Passos smiled, and the smile grew wider as the noise built. His companion in the back caught his attention, mouthing
Goooooooaaalll
, and big Maurilho closed his eyes and nodded several times as if to acknowledge an answered prayer. An excited murmur pulsed through the whole congregation, but then the noise outside began to fall—the game must not have been over—and President Mason turned around, roving his head from side to side at the congregation, showing a pursed warning look, turning it on Passos, a straight line in the middle of a round face. Passos stepped back to the microphone and gripped the pulpit even harder now, as if to tame it. He raised his voice to charismatic volume. “In the third book of Nephi, chapter nine, verses nineteen and twenty, we read”—and here he closed the book, reciting the verses from memory, the heat filling him—“ ‘And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And
whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart … him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost.’ Brothers and sisters, I testify to you—”

Another explosion rocked the street, and this time the cheer sustained over the sounds of fireworks and firecrackers and air horns and car horns dragging their long Doppler tails behind them, just like he’d imagined, a million bagpipes. Passos smiled again, but only for a moment, because he still had a talk to finish and because the frown on President Mason’s face was deepening as a loudspeaker outside blasted samba and a sound car motored by—“BRAZIL WINS ON GOAL IN THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH MINUTE! BRAZIL WINS ON GOAL IN THE EIGHTY-EIGHTH MINUTE! BRAZIL TAKES THE TITLE IN A MIRACLE!”—and as the very members of the congregation snuck miniature flags from their lapels, waving them in tight arcs, moving their shoulders to the bouncing music. Passos leaned into the microphone to testify as loud as he could that “the Lord requires of us obedience and sacrifice, these things, and out of the firstfruits of the heart we produce our offerings, in the bright light of a new day, indeed, brothers and sisters, a
better
day”—as all the people outside drowned him out, or maybe they seconded him with their own raucous chorus of
Amens
, and as Passos finished he outright yelled now—“in the name of Jesus Christ, amen!” and the congregation yelled back, in one accord, “Amen!”

The bishop hurried up to the pulpit after Passos sat down. He thanked all the speakers for their wonderful, wonderful talks, then he dismissed church a full two hours early.

“We’ll resume our normal schedule next week,” the bishop said in a voice as loud and resonant as any Passos had heard from him. The man smiled like a lighthouse—big, shining eyes. “Next week we’ll be able to hear ourselves think. Until then, God bless you. And God bless Brazil!”

After the closing prayer Elder Passos descended the dais and passed President Mason going up it. The president shook Passos’s hand, said, “Good job, good job,” but he looked past him to the bishop, that same tight line in the middle of his face.

In the hallway Passos met up with Maurilho and Rose, and Josefina and McLeod too, all of them matching his smile inch for inch.

“Great talk, companion,” McLeod said. “Especially the end.”

“Could you hear it?”

“Nobody heard it,” Maurilho said, “but it was the greatest talk I’ve ever not heard!”

“Is that the talk?” Josefina said. She pointed to the folded-up page in Passos’s hand.

“Sort of, yeah,” he said. “Did I hear it right that they scored in the eighty-eighth minute?”

Maurilho pulled a thin black bud-capped wire out of his collar, letting it droop down like a wilted flower stalk over his tie. He smiled. “Yes. I can confirm that.”

Rose shook her head at her husband, though she smiled too. Elder McLeod threw his head back and laughed.

“The eighty-eighth minute,” Passos said. “Man! Can you imagine if we hadn’t come to church today?”

The group moved in loose concert down the hallway, walking toward the glass double doors that gave a view onto the river of
yellow and green rushing by. It looked even better than it had in Passos’s daydreams. He felt a wave of gratitude lifting him, then a hand on his shoulder.

“Elder?”

When he turned around he saw Josefina and a look of startling earnestness. “I wanted to hear the end of your talk,” she said, “but then all
that
happened.” She gestured to the scene beyond the doors. “I was wondering if you’d let me borrow what you wrote down—your notes?—so I could read them and study them. I could give them back to you tomorrow.”

“Oh Josefina,” Passos said, and for a moment it was all he could do not to hug her. “Josefina, you are golden, did you know that? Here, take it, keep it. Show it to Leandro. I want you to have it. In fact, I wanted to talk to you. Well,
we
wanted to talk to you …” He looked up at the hall as Maurilho and Rose and McLeod reached the front door. Maurilho made excited explanatory gestures as McLeod nodded, laughed a little, nodded again. The three went outside, the doors opening and shutting. An envelope of brighter louder air came rushing down the hall to Passos and Josefina; it passed just as quickly.

“About the date for my baptism?” Josefina said.

“That’s what we wanted to talk to you about.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. We just wanted to talk to you. And Leandro. We wanted to talk to the both of you. Do you think there’s any chance he’ll be home later tonight?”

“Is it about my baptism?”

“Yes, among other things. Can we come by and talk more tonight? Say seven?”

“When am I going to be baptized, Elder Passos? The Lord told me. He answered my prayers. When is my baptism?”

“Soon,” Passos said.

“You mean this week?”

Elder Passos looked for his companion through the door, couldn’t see him. He looked around for anyone, but the corridor had emptied out like the last day of school.

Josefina hadn’t taken her eyes off him. “It’s going to be this week, then, right? You said the paperwork would take a few days. So this week?”

Passos said, “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yes. We’ll talk about it more tonight.”

The elders walked all the way home with Maurilho and Rose and Josefina. Rose had invited them all for a late, celebratory lunch. Passos demurred on account of another appointment, and at first Josefina demurred, too. When Rose insisted, Josefina lit up like a carnival game and said how thoughtful they were, how kind. She’d have gone back to an empty house, she was sure of it. Who knew where her husband was in all this chaos?

The streets still writhed with people, some of whom noticed them all in their Sunday best and shouted, “God is Brazilian! God is Brazilian!” At Rose and Maurilho’s outer gate Rose asked Passos if they couldn’t reschedule their appointment, or be a little late for it. Passos was afraid they couldn’t. He said goodbye to Maurilho and Rose and told Josefina they’d see her at seven o’clock that night.

“So you’re a liar now?” McLeod said after they left the group.

“Excuse me?”

“Easy now, Eyebrows. I’m mostly kidding. But why did you say we had plans?”

“Oh, that,” Passos said. “I figure it’s better for Josefina if we’re not around all the time. Let her make friends with the members independent of us.”

“I guess you’re right,” McLeod said.

They went back to the apartment and ate and decided to stay in for the rest of the afternoon, since who could work in that generalized clamor anyway? Car horns swept the neighborhood. Odd firecrackers, shouting, and of course samba—pounding, ubiquitous samba. Elder Passos closed the bedroom window and lay down for a nap. McLeod tried to follow his lead, but after several minutes Passos heard him sigh with impatience. His companion cleared his throat, stage-whispering across the space between their narrow beds. “Passos? You asleep over there?”