City of Peace Page 7

  She was sitting in a pew and turned toward him when his opening of the door allowed a ray of light to shine down the center aisle. Her face was framed by carefully braided hair, her eyes sparkled in the sunlight, and her skin was copper and smooth. As Harley entered the sanctuary, she stood and smiled.

  “Good morning. I was in here praying.” She was tall and slender, in her early thirties, wearing tights and a running shirt. Harley was speechless.

  “This used to be my church,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind me being here.”

  Walking down the center aisle, Harley found his voice. “Not at all . . . I’m Harley Camden. The new pastor.”

  They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. I’m Tawnya Jones. As I said, this was my church when it was Emanuel Baptist. I live in Lake Ridge now and was out for a run. We never used to lock the church, so I tried the door and found it open, just like the old days.”

  “Well, times have changed, and we do try to lock it,” said Harley, “but I guess someone forgot.”

  “I just wanted to come see Jesus,” said Tawnya, pointing to the stained glass at the front.

  “Yes,” Harley replied. “That’s a beautiful piece of art.”

  “Black Jesus,” Tawnya said. “I miss him. The new Emanuel is all high-tech sights and sounds, with no stained glass in sight. As a little girl, I loved black Jesus.”

  “I understand,” Harley said to her. “Please sit. I’m glad you came back.”

  Harley sat in a pew across the aisle from her. Sunlight continued to pour in through the open door, illuminating bits of dust in the air. Tawnya seemed to feel very comfortable in the room, and she looked longingly toward the stained-glass window at the front.

  “I sat right here with my family, all through my childhood,” she recalled. “Whenever something bad happened, I would bring it to church and lay it before Jesus—the deaths of my grandfathers, my mother’s cancer, even the ways that I was teased at school for being so tall. I brought it all to Jesus, and he helped me through my storms. I was fifteen when Emanuel moved to its new building, but until then I was in this pew every Sunday.”

  “I’m glad this place means so much to you,” said Harley. “Even though it’s now a Methodist Church, you are always welcome.”

  “Thanks for that,” Tawnya smiled. “Glad I didn’t have to break in.”

  “So, where do you live, and what do you do?”

  “I live in Lake Ridge, in a subdivision off of Old Bridge Road. My husband and I bought a home there three years ago, and we have a two-year-old daughter. My husband’s last name is Quander, and we use that name as a family, but I am Tawnya Jones professionally. I’m an attorney in the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, so I make the long slog into DC every day.”

  “What led you to go in that direction?”

  “This church,” she said. “Emanuel was really active in the Civil Rights movement, so justice is in this church’s DNA. The marches and protests were before my time, but I learned at the feet of some warriors. Has anyone told you about Reverend Jones?”

  “Jones?” Harley asked. “Yes, I think so. Tim Underwood said—”

  “Tie-dye Tim!” she laughed. “You met Tie-dye!”

  “Sure did. He was a big fan of Reverend Jones.”

  “Well, he’s my great-uncle. Pastor of this church for many years. Retired now, but still active in community issues.”

  “So you know Tim Underwood?”

  “Of course. I grew up here in Occoquan, just a block from here. My parents ran a small store that was in the family for generations. A black-owned business in the heart of Occoquan.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “It closed in the early ’90s when big grocery stores took all the business away. My parents sold the building and bought a couple of 7-Elevens on Route 1 in Woodbridge. My father also does commercial real estate development. They’ve done very well.”

  “What do you mean by ‘very well’?”

  “They’re millionaires,” Tawnya smiled. “My dad has always been very entrepreneurial. And he’s about the only Republican left in our family. Most everyone became Democrats in the 1960s, but he said he was going to stay with his father and grandfather and great-grandfather in the Party of Lincoln. There aren’t many black faces in the Prince William GOP, but he is one of them.”

  “I’ve heard that Occoquan is a Republican town.”

  “It certainly was. Proudly so, during the Civil War. And I think that history is part of what my dad holds onto. As for my mother, she has always gone her own way, politically. She usually votes for Democrats and cancels out my dad’s vote.”

  Harley appreciated Tawnya’s intellect and spunk, qualities that magnified her beauty. Since she was so plugged into the town, he asked her about the Bayatis.

  “Don’t really know them,” she said. “We moved out of Occoquan just before they arrived. They seem to be good businesspeople, but I’m not sure that they’ll ever fit in.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You know, they’re Muslims. Like it or not, this is a Christian town. Now don’t get me wrong, they have a right to be here. I’m a defender of their civil rights, personally and professionally. But look around; there is one church in town, and we are sitting in it. There is no mosque here. No synagogue. We follow Jesus here.”

  Harley knew what she was getting at, although he wasn’t sure that Occoquan was really a Christian town. After all, Leah Silverman lived there, and a lot of people throughout Northern Virginia weren’t practicing any religion.

  “I certainly want people to follow Jesus. I try to preach it every week.”

  “The world would be a better place if more people did,” Tawnya said, crossing one slender leg over the other. “There is no way that Jesus could get behind the kind of killing that is done in the world today, whether it is gangbangers shooting up their rivals or terrorists killing innocent people.”

  “You are right. Defeating Islamic extremists has got to be a top priority.”

  “Wait a second,” Tawnya interrupted. “You are the guy—the pastor—who lost his wife and daughter. Oh God, I am so sorry.”

  Harley nodded and thanked her.

  “My husband works in Army intelligence at Fort Belvoir, and he was talking about you the other night. Reminded me about the Brussels bombing, and told me that he heard you were moving here. Reverend, you have my deepest sympathy.”

  “Please, call me Harley.”

  She stood, stepped across the aisle, took his hand. “Harley, I cannot imagine your pain. You seem like such a good man, and Occoquan is lucky to have you. May Jesus give you strength and help.”

  Harley loved the feeling of his hand in hers. Her beautiful face was just inches away, close enough that he could smell her perfume. He wished she would return to Occoquan and become a member of his church so that he could look at her every Sunday. Harley thanked her again, and then got the sense that the moment was becoming awkward. She did as well.

  Tawnya gently let go of his hand, saying she was glad they had met and looked forward to seeing him again. Harley ushered her to the door. As they walked out into the sunshine together, she said that she was going to continue her run. Taking note of his running clothes, she said, “Look, we’re both runners. We should go for a jog together.” Then she gave him a quick hug and ran up Washington Street toward Lake Ridge.

  Harley locked the church and walked the short block home. He showered and dressed for the day, and then headed to the dock to prep his boat for the evening. He had invited Leah to join him for the Fourth of July fireworks, which were being launched from the Lake Ridge Marina east of Occoquan. Harley figured that they would have the best possible view from the water, so he asked her to join him on the boat for an evening picnic on the river beyond the Route 123 bridge. But when Harley took the cover off of his boat that day, he discovered the mysterious black marks and started scrubbing, working himself into a lathered sweat.

  An hour into this job
, the Pakistanis called to him from the dock and asked him for a ride—a request he couldn’t honor. Finally, he hit the showers a second time and put on a fresh set of clothes for the evening.

  Leah arrived at seven, dressed in tennis shoes, shorts, and an Indigo Girls T-shirt. “Happy Fourth, Captain Harley,” she said as she handed him a bottle of white wine for the picnic. “Here’s a little something for your cooler.”

  Harley thanked her and invited her in. “I’m still unpacking,” he explained as he waved a hand toward the boxes stacked in the dining room and living room. “But who cares, since we are going on the boat.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’m excited about seeing your yacht. Let’s go!”

  Harley put the wine on top of a six-pack of beer in the cooler, gave Leah a picnic basket to carry, and the two of them walked down the wrought-iron stairs and across the parking area to the dock. The temperature was cooling a bit, but the air remained uncomfortably humid.

  “It should be nicer on the water.”

  Once on the boat, Harley turned on the blower and showed Leah its various features, including its small bathroom. “That could come in handy,” she said, “especially if we drink all the wine I brought, plus that six-pack.”

  “Right about that,” said Harley. “I remember the time we went to the beach in Tel Aviv, and we had such a hard time finding a bathroom. I’ve never been in such pain.”

  Harley fired up the engine, asked Leah to untie the lines, and in a minute they were off. Reconnecting with Leah was one of the happiest surprises of his move to Occoquan, and he hoped that they could get into a habit of regular meals together. Since the deaths of Jessica and Karen, Harley had struggled with the loneliness of dinnertime, and realized how much he had failed to appreciate the simple joy of eating and talking with loved ones around a table.

  Karen had been a creative cook, which he had taken for granted. Jessica had been an enthusiastic storyteller, which he had failed to appreciate. His eyes misted up, but then he spotted a log in the water brought downriver by a recent thunderstorm. Wiping his eyes, he steered around it, pointed it out to Leah, and said that they would have to watch out for it when they returned in the dark. They motored slowly east on the Occoquan River, past the osprey nests on the channel markers, and found a place to anchor on the far side of the Route 123 bridge. “Not a long cruise, but you get a sense of the boat. Some other time, we’ll go out on the Potomac and drive her fast.”

  The boat had a table in the stern, where they set up cheese and crackers alongside a plate of fruit and a couple of sandwiches. Harley poured Leah a glass of wine and popped the cap off a beer for himself. He lifted his beer in a toast. “From the Mediterranean Sea to the Occoquan River.”

  “L’chaim,” she responded, winking at him. “To life.”

  “Speaking of the Mediterranean,” said Harley, “do you remember the boat that was broadcasting Top 40 music when we were in Israel?”

  “Oh yeah,” recalled Leah. “The Voice of Peace. I haven’t thought about that for years. But I remember their slogan, ‘From somewhere in the Mediterranean, we are the Voice of Peace.’”

  “That’s right. I can remember listening on my transistor radio, lying in my bunk in the A-frame dorm. Rumor was that the station was started with money from John Lennon.”

  “Peace through pop music. Arabs and Israelis, rocking out together. What a concept.”

  They began to eat, and Leah asked him how things were going at the church. He described the congregation and its issues, and then told her about running into Tawnya Jones in front of the black Jesus. She said that she had heard of the Jones family but didn’t know Tawnya personally.

  “And black Jesus? What’s that?” she asked. She had never been inside the church, so he told her the story of Emanuel Baptist, founded by a former slave, and how it became Riverside Methodist.

  After pouring Leah some more wine and opening himself another beer, Harley asked if she had heard about the incident at the farmers’ market. She nodded. “They haven’t caught the attackers, as far as I know. They scattered quickly, and who knows where they came from. At least the Bayatis escaped physical injury.”

  “I’m guessing the attackers were just trying to send a message,” Harley said.

  “A pretty violent one,” replied Leah. “Their tent and table was completely trashed, and they lost all of their goods. I’d call it a hate crime.”

  Harley put a piece of cheese in his mouth and chewed instead of responding. He was still ruminating on the appearance of the Islamic State symbol on the rocks. He wondered if it would be so bad if the Bayatis packed up and moved out of town. Swallowing, he asked, “Has anyone ever linked the Bayatis to terrorism?”

  Leah’s expression made Harley want to take his question back.

  “No!” she said, sharply. “Are you kidding? They have been here for twenty years and are bakers. How does that fit a profile for terrorism?”

  Harley shrugged. He hated to look stupid. “There is just so much lone-wolf stuff going on,” he suggested, trying to redeem himself.

  “Well, not the Bayatis,” Leah snapped. “Harley, you have got to understand. We Jews have suffered so much from guilt by association. You know the history. Centuries of being called Christ-killers. Hitler blaming us for Germany’s loss in the First World War. Any time I see Muslims being associated with terrorism just because they are Muslim, I just have to defend them. Holocausts come out of that kind of suspicion.”

  Harley knew she was right, but he couldn’t shake the fear that had grabbed him when he saw the graffiti on the rocks. And, he wondered, how can she know for a fact that they are innocent people?

  “Harley, you remember what our prof taught us about Sepphoris, right? You’ve got a role to play in making Occoquan such a place. If we can’t figure out how to live and work together like the people of Sepphoris, we’ve got no hope for the future. Any peace on earth has got to start in places like this.”

  Harley sipped his beer and looked at the deep-green leaves of the trees on the shoreline. Where was the sweet companionship that they had enjoyed when she spent the night at his house? His rage was returning; Leah was really getting under his skin. Peace on earth! Who is she kidding? How can she be so naïve? Karen and Jessica believed in peace, and look what happened to them.

  “Harley, you need to be a bridge,” she said. “Just like that bridge over the river. As a pastor, you have the challenge of making connections, bringing people together.”

  He looked up at the bridge and then at Leah, hoping that she did not see his rage. Such self-righteousness and condescension. Who is she to tell him about my job? Who is she to challenge me to build bridges to Muslims, after my family was killed by those gutless terrorists? He turned back to the trees, hoping that their deep summer green would calm him. Come on, cool down, boy. Green is a calming color, right? That’s what he had heard. It was why people sat in “green rooms” before going on television. Hospitals painted rooms green to relax patients.

  Harley felt unnerved by a mix of love and anger as he looked at Leah, a confusing blend of emotion reserved for the people closest to him. He had not felt this way since he was married. Karen was a smart and attractive wife, loving and devoted, but she had driven him crazy at times. She always pushed him to take bigger and bigger churches so that he could make more money, but she herself had never been willing to take a full-time job. Sure, there was a lot asked of her as a pastor’s wife, and she did it well—helping to lead the Methodist Women, chaperoning youth mission trips, showing concern for senior citizens. She worked hard in the church and certainly made him look good. They talked about it and even fought about it, but she always said that she was too busy with church and parenting to take on a full-time job. Love and anger—he felt it toward Karen, and now, with tears welling, he was feeling it toward Leah.

  Fortunately, a boat pulled up alongside them, and Harley recognized the owners as his next-door neighbors. He wiped his eyes, cleare
d his throat, and called out, “Hey, Bill and Jean. You here for the fireworks?” They nodded. Harley introduced Leah and the four of them chatted for a few minutes. Harley was grateful for the distraction. After the other couple got settled and focused on their own picnic, he said to Leah, “Let’s not talk about work. It’s a holiday. Tell me what you’re going to do for vacation this summer.”

  Leah could tell that Harley was irritated, but she wasn’t exactly sure why. He was a different person from the divinity school student she met thirty years ago. She lightened the conversation, telling Harley about her plans to go with a group of friends to the Jersey Shore. Harley pretended to listen as he looked into the water, which darkened as the sun went down. He had never been on the river at night before, and he didn’t realize how inky black it would become. He imagined himself slipping into the water and disappearing into its depths, into a place of darkness and silence and endless sleep. But then the sun dropped below the horizon and fireworks erupted over the river, pulling Harley out of his morose funk.

  Leah craned her slender neck up to watch the show, suddenly filling Harley with longing. He loved her smile and her bright eyes, and he needed her in ways he couldn’t express. The fireworks turned out to be a soothing balm for Harley, except for the grand finale, which gave him a momentary flashback to his dream of the terrorist explosion.

  After motoring through the black water to Harley’s dock, with both of them keeping an eye open for logs in the river, Leah thanked him and said goodnight. She stood there for a moment, creating an opportunity for some additional conversation. Harley didn’t respond. Their rekindled friendship still felt fragile to him, like a baby osprey in a nest, and he didn’t want to cause additional damage. He wanted them to continue to get together, so he kept it light, gave her a peck on the cheek, and promised that they would connect again soon. She slid into her car and drove off, while he headed into the house and continued his drinking. After falling asleep in his chair, he got up at four in the morning, staggered to the bathroom and then to bed, and ended up oversleeping his alarm.