Chapter 30

“No doubt you’ll be asking me to reconcile predestination and free will,” observed Dr. Angus McGregor, minister of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Manhattan.

“That wasn’t quite my question, sir,” I replied. “I asked you whether you could justify the Lord’s putting my soul into another man’s body. Am I to be responsible for the sins the other man committed?”

“Ah!” Dr. McGregor remarked, with relish, “It is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. No doubt he kens what he’s about. It will all be made known on the great Day of Judgment. Now about predestination and free will, you’ll have marked that many grand philosophers and divines have debated the point. ‘Tis a nice point. ‘Tis the theological pons asinorum.”

“Yes,” I interrupted, “but do you consider that I am bound by this body or will I be returned to my own before I come to the Judgment? And is my soul involved in another man’s sins?”

Dr. McGregor drew a deep puff on his pipe. “Oh aye!” he declared. “The principle of vicarious sacrifice has been observed ever since that ne’er-do-weel Cain asked, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ Aye, Mr. Tompkins, surely you are involved in the sins of others. Take your own case now. I believe your tale. Fearful and wonderful things have happened in this weary world, before now, by the will of the Lord. It is written by the Roman historian Tacitus that the pagan emperor Vespasian--that grand benefactor to whom the world owes the fine invention of the public comfort station--performed miracles in Egypt, making the blind to see, and healing the cripples. These miracles are as well attested as any in Holy Scripture. If the Lord permitted to a heathen potentate these gifts of spiritual healing, can I deny that He might for His own good reasons permit your soul to inhabit another man’s body?”

“But what is my moral responsibility in this predicament, Dr. McGregor? Where does my duty lie?”

“It is all related to yon matter of free will and predestination,” he insisted. “Your duty, man, is to fear the Lord and praise Him. You will have taken this other man’s wife, will you not? You will have taken his money and his home, his name and his business. Aye, if you take these likely you will take his sins as well. Dinna believe that the Lord has no a reason for all this.

“Now,” he continued, “‘tis no great difficulty to reconcile free will and predestination.”

“I’m not a religious man, doctor,” I cut him off, “but you have given me help. Will you accept a check for your church--say a thousand dollars?”

“Aye, Mr. Tompkins, I will that! I cannot help you but I can only tell you to put your trust in the mercy and the justice of the Lord. ‘Tis all a man can do.”

So I wrote out a check for a thousand dollars to the order of the Tenth Presbyterian Church of Manhattan, and shook his hand.

He thanked me. “Now,” he announced. “I must be on my way to comfort a poor body that’s dying o’ the cancer. ‘Tis an old lady and she takes great comfort from her pain in the thought that she has been chosen by the Lord to suffer for the sins of others. ‘Tis no a sound theology, mind you, but ‘tis a mighty solace as her time comes nigh.”

My next stop was at the office of Rabbi Benjamin Da Silva of the Temple Ben-David. Him I had located by consulting the classified telephone directory and had made an appointment to meet him in his study in the Synagogue. He was a slender, quietly dressed young man, with the eager face of a scholar and the air of repose of a mystic. The walls of his room were lined with books and as I noted Hebraic, Greek, Latin and Arabic titles, as well as German, French and English, I realized that I was dealing with a deeply cultured man. His voice was musical and low, as he asked me to be seated.

“Rabbi Da Silva,” I began, “before I begin I would like to ask you to accept on behalf of your congregation a gift of a thousand dollars as a token of my gratitude for consenting to hear my story. Perhaps you can help me, perhaps not. As you realize, I am not of your faith but I need your wisdom. I am trying to find my soul.”

“So are we all, Mr. Tompkins,” the Rabbi assured me. “What is your problem?”

I recited the events which made it imperative for me to recollect the events prior to April second; I told him of the reasons that convinced me that I, Frank Jacklin, was living in Winfred Tompkins’ body; I outlined the moral and personal problems involved in this confusion of personalities; I indicated the psychiatric and other tests that had been made. Naturally, I did not mention the Alaska, the thorium bomb, Z-2 or Von Bieberstein.

When I had completed my account, Rabbi Da Silva gazed abstractedly at the small coal fire which smouldered in the grate of his study.

“Why did you come to me, Mr. Tompkins?” he asked.

“Because I hoped that in your studies of the human soul, you might have found knowledge that would help me.”

He sat silent for some minutes.

“For many centuries,” he began at last, “there has been a curious belief among you Christians that the Jewish rabbinate possesses mystic knowledge of the occult. No doubt that belief derives from the early Middle Ages when the Jews became in part the means by which the science and culture of the Saracen East was brought to the ignorant barbarous West. That service was turned against us by the superstitions and prejudices of Christendom and we were regarded as akin to sorcerers and witch-masters. Even today in Germany, we are paying for our crime of having brought enlightenment to Europe in the Dark Ages.”

“Then you can’t help me?” I asked.

“I did not say so, Mr. Tompkins,” the Rabbi replied. “Certainly I cannot help you in any occult manner. I cannot pick a book from the shelves, mutter a few words in Hebrew and resolve your spiritual problems with a whiff of brimstone. The casting out of devils is not included in Judaism. Indeed, it has gone out of fashion in Christendom.”

“What can you suggest?” I inquired. “Many important events, including the possible capture of a dangerous Nazi spy, depend on my recovering my memory.”