Chapter 14

Walking through the ruins of Troy, Oscar couldn’t help but be touched by the beauty of the place. This was the ancient city of Troy! Just the thought of it brought memories of Homer’s Iliad back to him. Looking over a feature of the ancient city, he said, “I wish Debbie was here to see this.”

“You know why she didn’t want to come here,” Georgia said defending her wife against criticism even if none was intended.

Sighing, Oscar said, “I know. A war was fought here because of the beauty of a single woman. I could have come here with two women whose beauty outmatched Helen’s.”

“I’m sure the city is disappointed,” Georgia replied with a smile. She had to admit that it was a nice compliment.

“She came all of the way to Turkey and didn’t see anything.”

“She didn’t come to Turkey to see the sights, she came here to see you and me,” Georgia said. The three of them had spent almost the entire week of Debbie’s visit in the hotel room. As soon as Debbie had left, Oscar had visited a synagogue, a church, and a mosque in Istanbul before leaving the city behind.

“I would have liked to share this with her,” Oscar said gesturing to his surroundings.

“We shared something with her that was much more important to her than this,” Georgia said looking over at her husband.

“What?”

“Us,” she answered.

“You’re right, I guess,” Oscar said. Seeing the expression on Debbie’s face, he added, “Sometimes I wonder how I’m worthy of being in your lives.”

Georgia stared at Oscar and said, “Never doubt your worth when it comes to us.”

“I stand here where we believe one of the most famous battles of ancient history took place and I feel humble. Long after the city was buried and forgotten, the names of the men who fought here managed to survive,” Oscar said. He had a feeling that his name would last as long. It was an unsettling thought.

“You’re in a melancholy mood,” Georgia said.

“She’s been gone two days and I miss her. I know you miss her too,” Oscar said.

Striding across the grass, Oscar walked up to a ruined wall. He turned his back to the wall such that he faced the plain. He posed as if giving a speech and, using the full power of his voice, said, “Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above the others. Never disgrace the generations of your fathers.”

Confident that his voice had carried for two miles across the plain, Georgia said, “That’s nice. What is it from?”

“It is from the Iliad,” Oscar answered with a smile.

“Why did you recite it here?”

“It reminds me of William.” He looked over at her and saw that she didn’t understand. He explained, “When we were studying history I came across that in one of my textbooks. It was advice from a father to a son on how to behave. When I first read it, I thought the father was telling the son to be a braggart.

“After thinking about it, I decided that the father was telling the son never to perform an act which would bring shame upon him. Performing a shameful act would lower his head and disgrace his ancestors. I think that John Carter must have said something like that to William Redman Carter.”

“I read his letter to you,” Georgia said feeling guilty about having done that.

“I know,” Oscar said, “I saw your tears on the envelope. They landed beside mine.”

“I shouldn’t have read it,” Georgia said.

“Why? It would have ended in your hands at some point in time,” Oscar replied looking at her puzzled.

“I was overwhelmed by it. I find it hard to understand such generosity,” Georgia said.

Oscar sighed and said, “Homer wrote about the seer Calchas son of Thestor, ‘He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before.’ It was as though Homer was writing about William.

“Do you want to know what real generosity is? William gave that ‘knowing’ to me. He did that accepting that he would become weak and vulnerable. It was like giving away his ability to see, and to become a blind man. That’s real generosity.”

“I didn’t even think of that while reading his letter,” Georgia said. She had only considered the effort William had made to relieve Oscar of some of the worries that would plague him on this trip.

“My friends, be men, and fear dishonor; quit yourselves in battle so as to win respect from one another. Men who respect each other’s good opinion are less likely to be killed than those who do not, but in flight there is neither gain nor glory,” Oscar said quoting Homer again. Looking over at Georgia he said, “William and I are fellow soldiers in a war against the baser nature of man. I am to bring peace and he is to make sure that it lasts. I respect his opinion as I’m sure he respects mine.”

“Why do you keep quoting Homer?”

Oscar laughed and said, “Hey, we’re in Troy. Where else should one quote Homer?”

As they were about to leave Turkey and enter Bulgaria, Georgia asked, “Why didn’t you go to the Patriarch of Constantinople at the Church of Saint George?”

“I don’t know,” Oscar answered.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“We didn’t go there and we’re not going to visit the Pope at the Vatican or the Queen of England in her castle. I don’t know why I’ve been directed to one place and not another. Every place that I’ve visited has been small and unimportant. All that I know is that I haven’t been told to go to a major religious site,” Oscar answered.

“The Queen of England? What’s she got to do with anything?” Georgia asked thinking that they were on a tour of religious sites, not royal families.

“She’s the head of the Church of England,” Oscar answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I didn’t know that,” Georgia said. She smirked and said, “It must be nice to be a queen.”

Oscar laughed and drove through the border crossing without being stopped. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s amazing to me how they don’t seem to see us when we cross a border.”

Ignoring Oscar’s comment, Georgia was still wondering about the churches, synagogues, and mosques they were visiting and those they were avoiding. She asked, “So why do you think that you aren’t going to visit the heads of churches?”

“I think that perhaps the Powers that Be don’t want to play favorites by having me visit the heads of some sects and not others. I’ve been visiting hundred of churches, synagogues, and mosques. If I had to visit one of every sect then I would be doing this for the rest of time,” Oscar answered.

“That makes sense.”

Oscar slowed the car and pointed to a sign. Coming to a stop, he looked over at Georgia and asked, “Does that say what I think it says?”

Georgia laughed as she read the sign aloud. “Welcome to Bulgaria Oscar Meyers. Come visit our churches, synagogues, and mosques.”

“I think that someone in Bulgaria has too much time and money on their hands for their own good,” Oscar said staring at the sign. He had to assume that signs like that must have been placed near every border crossing into the country. It seemed rather unlikely to him that someone had just happened to place the sign here on this minor road in the middle of nowhere.

Laughing at the comment, Georgia said, “You’ve got to admit that it is the friendliest greeting you’ve gotten on this trip.”

“That’s true. Funny, I’ve never heard anyone remark on Bulgarian hospitality before,” Oscar said staring at the sign.

“I want to take a picture of you standing in front of the sign,” Georgia said. She had taken lots of pictures on the trip, but few of them included Oscar as the main feature.

Ten minutes later, Georgia snapped a picture of Oscar standing in front of the sign. He was wearing his robe and cloak while holding his shepherd’s staff. Winking at the camera with one eye, he held out a hand with a thumb up in the well know gesture of approval. Georgia knew as soon as she pressed the button that it was a great picture.

The news services had gone into a frenzy trying to figure out when and where Oscar would appear next. As soon as there was a report that Oscar had appeared somewhere, thousands of reporters would flood the general area taking up positions outside of religious sites. Surveillance cameras had been mounted inside and outside of churches, synagogues, and mosques in the hope of catching him in the act of talking with God.

With supernatural accuracy, Oscar threaded his way through the masses of reporters to visit those few places which were not watched. He drove past reporters while they had their backs turned to road, while they were answering calls of nature, or when an irresistible urge to nap descended upon them. For a profession that was dominated by a huge number of atheists and secular liberals, his ability to avoid them was particularly frustrating.

World wide, the nightly news had become almost uniform in terms of how they began their broadcasts. First they showed where Oscar had visited some church, synagogue, or mosque. A reporter would stand in front of the building and explain that Oscar had been there. Then they showed interviews with people who had observed the visit. The comments were always the same; they felt blessed to have heard the voice of their God. The broadcasts always ended with a film of some riot that broke out in some part of the world as a result of Oscar’s service.

Oscar stepped out of the church and looked around. The nature of the crowds that greeted him had changed. For a long time, he would leave a church to find the elderly watching him and making religious gestures. With time, the ages of the observers had changed to reflect the general distribution of the population. From very young wearing tee shirts and Nike shoes to the very old wearing clothes of an older style, people stood and watched with tears in their eyes.

Approaching a man who looked out of place in the crowd, Oscar, speaking English, said, “You are a reporter.”