Robin recognised the man standing in the spotlight at once: he was Jonathan Wace, known to his adherents as ‘Papa J’, the founder of the Universal Humanitarian Church, making an unusual in-person appearance at one of his temples. A handsome, tall and fit-looking man in his mid-sixties, he could have passed in this light for a couple of decades younger, with his thick, dark shoulder-length hair threaded with silver, his large, dark blue eyes and square jaw with a dimple in his chin. His smile was thoroughly engaging. There was no suggestion of bombast or theatricality in the way he acknowledged the applause, but, on the contrary, a warm and humble smile, and he made a deprecatory gesture, as though to calm the excitement. He was clad in a full-length orange robe embroidered in gold thread, and wore a microphone headset, so that his voice carried easily over the two-hundred-strong crowd in front of him.
‘Good morning,’ he said, placing his hands together in the attitude of prayer and bowing.
‘Good morning,’ chorused at least half the congregation in return.
‘Welcome to today’s service, which, as some of you will know, is a particularly important one for members of the Universal Humanitarian Church. Today, the nineteenth of March, marks the beginning of our year. Today is the Day of the Wounded Prophet.
‘This,’ said Wace, gesturing towards the image onscreen, ‘is the kind of image most of us associate with a divinity. Here we see Shiva, the benign and beneficent Hindu God, who contains many contradictions and ambiguities. He’s an ascetic, yet also a God of fertility. His third eye gives him insight, but may also destroy.’
The image of Shiva now faded from the cinema screen, to be replaced with a blurry black and white photograph of a young American soldier.
‘This,’ said Wace, smiling, ‘
The image of Rusty Andersen faded and was replaced by grainy footage of explosions and men running with rifles. Low, ominous music was now playing over the temple loudspeakers.
‘Rust, as his friends called him, witnessed and endured atrocities. He was forced to commit unspeakable acts. But when the war was over…’ The music became lighter, more hopeful. ‘He went home for the last time, packed his guitar and his belongings, and went wandering in Europe.’
The screen now showed a succession of old photographs, Andersen’s hair becoming longer in each one. He was busking on what looked like the streets of Rome; making the peace sign in front of the Eiffel Tower; walking with his guitar on his back through the London rain, past Horse Guards Parade.
‘Finally,’ said Wace, ‘he arrived in a little Norfolk village called Aylmerton. There, he heard of a community living off the land, and he decided to join them.’
The screen faded to black, the music faded away.
‘The community Rust joined was, sadly, not everything he hoped it would be,’ said Wace, ‘but a simple life, living close to nature, remained his ideal. When that first community broke up, Rust continued to live in the cabin he’d built himself, self-sufficient, self-reliant, still dealing with the trauma left by the war he’d been forced to fight.
‘It was then that I met him for the first time,’ said Wace, as a swell of new music filled the temple, now joyous, uplifting, and a picture of Rusty Andersen and a thirty-something Jonathan Wace filled the screen. Though Robin guessed they weren’t too many years apart in age, the weather-beaten Andersen looked far older.
‘He had a wonderful smile, Rust,’ said Wace, with a catch in his voice. ‘He held fiercely to his solitary existence, though occasionally I’d cross the fields to persuade him to come and eat with us. A new community was starting to form on the land, one that centred not only on a natural, but a spiritual life. But spirituality held no attraction for Rust. He’d seen too much, he told me, to believe in man’s immortal soul or God’s goodness.
‘Then, one night,’ said Wace, as the photograph enlarged slowly, so that Rust Andersen’s face filled the entire screen, ‘this broken warrior and I went walking together from dinner at the farm, back across the fields to his cabin. We were arguing, as ever, about religion and man’s need for the Blessed Divinity and at last I said to Rust, “Can you know, for sure, that nothing lies beyond this life? Can you be certain that man returns to the darkness, that no divine force acts around us, or inside us? Can you not even admit the possibility of such things?”
‘And Rust looked at me,’ said Wace, ‘and, after a long pause, replied, “I admit the possibility.”
