Hissing and Popping

One:

Date of Birth: May 8, 1923.

Place of Birth: Kuling, China

Nationality: Canadian

Religion: Christian, Plymouth Brethren

Gender: Male.

Father: George Christopher Willis, Sr.

Mother: Jean Ogston Malloch.

Siblings: John, Hope, Fanny

Name: George Christopher Willis

Two:

A deck, steel underfoot, steel railings, grey in the humid morning, surrounded by the endless South China Sea.

A boy. Slim with blondish hair, cut in a schoolboy style. Breeches, shirt, tie. 1935. Sullen.

A father, threadbare suit, the back of a balding pate surrounded by blondish hair, moving away.

A black, leather-bound book, page edges reflecting the morning sun in thin lines of gold, red ribbon sewed into the binding to mark page and verse.

Sacred words of God,

Immutable, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

An ultimatum presented, fait accompli.

“Psalm 119. Commit it to memory, digest it and hide it in your heart, son. The Word of God is a double-edged sword, cutting to the quick. All else is as chaff in the wind, a vanity and a vexation of spirit.”

Three:

The boy had been sitting with his family, like all the others, his leather Bible open on his lap. Morning prayers were over, long lists of names, Chinese mostly, recited for this or that request — illness, crimes committed, backsliding, hopeful converts with dissenting spouses, needy widows and orphans. None of them meant anything to him. The reading had begun. A chapter of the Old Testament, a chapter of the New, a Psalm, and the Gospel. His mind was calculating the time, another hour, maybe, depending on the expositions offered by his father, his mother silent in the seat to the right, deaf and unable to hear the words, but hearing them hungrily with her eyes.

He let himself drift to another book, another set of words, etched indelibly on another page, rougher and thicker, no gilt on the edges and a cheap dark blue cardboard binding, borrowed from the meagre library kept by the ship’s captain. But what a book — the hot sandy dryness of Egypt, resplendent court of a proud pharaoh, sacred cat of Bubastes, intrigue, adventure. J. A. Henty weaving the words and catching him in his spell.

He’d woken early to steal a few more pages, reading slowly as always, almost word by word. Then he’d dutifully slid the book under his pillow to join his family for breakfast, He’d pasted on his attentive, devoted face and escaped, one ear listening for the cues. “Now turn to Romans 8” which caused each of the children to dive into the Holy Book, competing to see who could find the place first. Or the inevitable questions: “Fanny, what are the wages of sin?” “Death!” her small girlish voice would answer with confidence and pride, making no connection to that grievous thing. If he didn’t drift away too far, he could cut back into the scene without too much trouble, fingers nimbly turning the requisite pages or voice producing the requisite answers.

At the end of it all, reading done, prayers endured, he had rushed to their third-class cabin, retrieved that other book and rushed on deck to claim a deck chair and continue his journey away, away. And just as he had begun to slowly turn the pages, his father had come and issued his edict.

Four:

Psalm 119.

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.” Followed by one hundred and seventy-four more verses, grouped under the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Memorize it, he’d instructed.

The boy felt the gall rising in his throat as he watched the balding head retreat towards the bow of the ship.

Anger must have an heroic act, an object to destroy, a chasm into which to pour itself. He rushed below again, rebellion brewing in his brain. He grabbed the black leather-bound book, the chain that encircled his life, squeezing. Up the stairs again, two steps at a time, across the deck to the railing to face the wide sea —a body free, wild, slave to nothing. The black book could go into the sea to be swallowed, satisfying the need for act, object, and chasm. The act could be passive, a releasing of fingers, a sliding gently away, almost an accident. The act could be purposeful, full of fury, a hurling with the arm upraised and the fist clenched. But the boy thought none of these thoughts. He was twelve. He just rushed to the edge with the book in his hand.

As he hesitated a voice spoke. The drone of a long and careful training? The soft wind of his Creator? The pangs of boyish guilt?

“Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.”

And the boy heard the voice, bent his head to the yoke, and chose the way of the leather-bound black book.

Five:

The anger made its own necessary way into the boy’s cracks and crevices, hissing and popping. Hissing and popping. Hissing and popping.