Free Death Kit by Susan Sontag Page B

intoning: “Life? you ask. Life is a journey that each of us must make.…” A journey! “If in the day’s journey, differences occur between neighbors, try to remember that your neighbor is your brother.” Differences! And the final anticlimax: “Peace be with you.” To which was appended the celebrated name of the sponsoring firm, a family firm consisting of stern father, compassionate son, and the principle of unpredictability. Mere nature could not decorate so grand a signature. The sea was succeeded by a silhouetted cross—an image sustained for about a minute while church bells tolled.
    Diddy couldn’t take his eyes from the set. Why was he looking? What fascinated the veteran atheist, who’d long outgrown the secret, incoherent asceticisms of his childhood? Diddy’s secret conversion to the Catholic faith at the age of twelve had left him exhausted at fifteen, drained of all energy for such glamorous, deceiving exaltations. A relapse (now)? Had the wounds of this day so unnerved him that he could be consoled, or in any way inspirited, by inane pieties? Unlikely.
    Suddenly, Diddy understood. He’d connected this priest with the paunchy one on the Privateer, who was another witness to his first absence from the compartment. Why hadn’t he confided in him when he came back from the tunnel, instead of in that girl? A priest is accustomed to receiving lurid confessions, and pledged to keeping them absolutely secret. And a priest can instruct the sinner on how to become innocent again, can tell him, Go, and sin no more. Not that Diddy could ever really believe in the literal validity of a priest’s absolution. But it was at least more shapely, more definite than the vague informal quittance or release from his crime which he had sought in carnal intimacy with the girl. What a fool he’d been. Crawling back for the familiar tender indulgence of women.
    A sentimental fool, lacking all tough-mindedness or proper self-respect. He’d been put off by the priest’s impersonal voice, his lifeless fleshy face. Why, it was just those qualities that accredited the man and should have given a sinner confidence in the impartiality and scrupulous fairness of any judgment he might render.
    As this fretful thought was subsiding, Diddy noticed with a start that he’d lost track of what was on the screen. For how long? The cross had been replaced by a disk, partly shaded in and branded with the channel’s number and network affiliation; and the church bells by an unpleasant buzz. Both were unchanging, unmodulated. Diddy twirled the dial to the Late Show. Mid-plot, a familiar story:
    Peaceful cattle ranchers being done out of their land by brutal railroad men. Good versus bad? Yes and no. The coming of the railroad signified progress, the brutes had on their side the ultimate justification of history. At this moment, most of the gunslingers hired by the railroad to terrorize the ranchers are shooting up the saloon. Cross-cut. At the same moment, two of them are setting fire to the house of the most intransigent of the ranchers. A kid gallops up the dusty street, flings himself from his pony, bursts into the saloon to shout the news. “Paw! They’re burning down the ranch!” The brawlers instantly break apart; the bad guys grip their sides with laughter, as ranchers and loyal hired hands stream out of the saloon like water plunging headlong down a drain, leap on their horses.…
    Diddy has switched off the TV. No more about wicked railroads, please. (Now) everything conspires to speak to Diddy. If only the world of the tunnel had been so eloquent. If only the swarthy laborer on the track had replied to Diddy’s questions right away, in any tone he liked. But he hadn’t. And the priest on the train hardly spoke to Diddy, either.
    There was something wrong with that priest, something besides his flabby body and odd voice and dead face that put