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"That's why you murdered me there, among the treasures. Look, we have to hurry. We don't know how much time we have. Back to the mechanics. Now, with my daughter, your trump card is her ambition.

"She wanted the convent for her own female missionaries, her own Order, which was to teach love, of course, with the same unique fire as other missionaries have taught it; she would send her women into the poor neighborhoods and into the ghettoes and into the working districts, and they would hold forth on the importance of starting a movement of love from the core of the people that would reach eventually to all governments in power, so that injustice would end. "

"What would distinguish these women from other such orders or missionaries, from Franciscans or any sort of preachers. . . ?"

"Well, one that they would be women, and preaching women! Nuns have been nurses, teachers for little children, servants, or locked in the cloister to bray at God like so many boring sheep. Her women would be doctors of the church, you see! Preachers. They would work up the crowds with personal fervor; they would turn to the women, the impoverished and the depotentiated women, and help them to reform the world. "

"A feminist vision, but coupled with religion. "

"It had a chance. It had as much of a chance as any such movement. Who knows why one monk in the 1300s became a crazy? And another one a saint? Dora has ways to show people how to think. I don't know! You have to figure this all out, you have to!"

"And meanwhile save the church decorations," I said.

"Yes, until she will accept them or until she can turn them to some good. That's how you get her. Talk about good. "

"That's how you get anybody," I said sadly. "That's how you're getting me. "

"Well, you'll do it, won't you? Dora thinks I was misguided. She said, 'Don't think you can save your soul after all you've done by passing on these church objects to me. ' "

"She loves you," I affirmed. "I saw that every time I saw her with you. "

"I know. I need no such assurances. There's no time now to go into all the arguments. But Dora's vision is immense, remember that. She's small-time now, but wants to change the entire world. I mean, she isn't satisfied to have a cult the way I wanted it, you know, to be a guru with a retreat full of pliant followers. She really wants to change the world. She thinks somebody has to change the world. "

"Doesn't every religious person believe that?"

"No. They don't dream of being Mohammed or Zoroaster. "

"And Dora does. "

"If Dora knows that that is what's required. "

He shook his head, took another little bit of the drink, and looked off over the half-empty room. Then he made a little frown as if pondering it still.

"She said, 'Dad, religion doesn't come from relics and texts. They are the expression of it. ' She went on and on. After all her studying of Scripture, she said it was the inner miracle that counted. She put me to sleep. Don't make any cruel jokes!"

"Not for the world. "

"What's going to happen to my daughter!" he whispered desperately. He wasn't looking at me. "Look at her heritage. See it in her father. I'm fervent and extremist and gothic and mad. I can't tell you how many churches I've taken Dora to, how many priceless crucifixes I've shown to her, before turning them around for a profit. The hours Dora and I have spent looking at the ceilings of Baroque churches in Germany alone! I have given Dora magnificent relics of the true cross embedded in silver and rubies. I have bought many veils of Veronica, magnificent works that would take your breath away. My God. "

"Was there ever¡ªwith Dora, I mean¡ªa concept of atonement in all of this, a guilt?"

"You mean, for letting Terry disappear without explanation, for never asking, until years later? I thought of that. If it was there in the beginning, Dora's passed it a long time ago. Dora thinks the world needs a new revelation. A new prophet. But you just don't become a prophet! She says her transformation must come with seeing and feeling; but it's no Revival Tent experience. "

"Mystics never think it's a Revival Tent experience. "

"Of course not. "

"Is Dora a mystic? Would you say that?"

"Don't you know? You followed her, you watched her. No, Dora hasn't seen the face of God or heard His voice and would never lie about it, if that's what you mean. But Dora's looking for it. She's looking for the moment, for the miracle, for the revelation!"

"For the arigel to come. "

"Yes, exactly. "

We were both quiet suddenly. He was probably thinking of his initial proposition; so was I, that I fake a miracle, I, the evil angel that had onc

e driven a Catholic nun to madness, to bleeding from her hands and feet in the Stigmata.