The week before he met her he had preached from the gospel of Mark. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Anna Stuart was twenty- six years old at the time. Samuel Orr was thirty-eight. Anna was a Beckett scholar.

She taught at Queen’s University, in an office perched above the red-brick show buildings. She lectured her groups of avid nihilists while looking at people scurrying far below, like insects. When she talked of Beckett’s image, in Godot, of life as a woman standing astride a grave giving birth, her own legs would open, as though she herself were the woman. Her students watched her, humoured and titillated, as their lives were reduced to dust behind her back.

Samuel Orr was married, and had three children, all boys. The eldest, Philip, was twelve years old, the same age, his father pointed out, as Christ when he first preached in the temple. It had become an affectionate joke between them: Orr would ask what Philip had been up to that day, and Philip would answer, in mock affront, Wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business? Orr was the pastor of a small mission hall in east Belfast, an indistinct pebbledashed building on a side street off the Beersbridge Road. It sat between an off-licence and a piece of wasteland, knee- high weeds and broken glass. Location as metaphor. A large text hung above the door, gold lettering on red- painted wood:

ACQUAINT NOW THYSELF WITH HIM AND BE AT PEACE. JOB 22:21

It was the sign under which they met. On a chilly early autumn evening, light draining slowly from the sky, she stood across the street from the mission hall, taking a photograph. He stepped out of the door just as she clicked the shutter. It was a film camera, an old Holga, so she couldn’t check if he’d ruined the shot or not. He spotted her immediately. He paused and, nonchalant, barely missing a beat, stepped into a pose. The cheek of it, the charm. She smiled. He shouted across to her.

Shall I go back inside?

You can stay where you are, she said, raising the camera again. She stood, waiting. He stood, waiting.

Any cha—

She clicked, laughing.

Is this your church? she asked, once he’d locked up and crossed the street.

No. I’m just the pastor. It’s God’s church.

She smiled.

You’re a photographer?

She shook her head. A hobby, she said.

And do you just photograph places of worship?

Is there anything else? she asked him. His eyes lit up, she said later.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

She paused, I imagine, before replying. The earth makes a sound as of sighs.

She tried many times afterwards to name it, the way he looked at her, opened her up. The way a farmer looks at a field he’s about to plough.

Are you saved? he asked her.

An old woman walked past them, hand in hand with a toddler.

Alright, Samuel, the woman said.

He nodded. I am, Frances. Alright, wee man.

They walked on.

Are you? he asked again.

What is that unforgettable line? she said. If I do not love you I shall not love.

It couldn’t have happened quite like this, of course. What kind of answer is that, anyway? And she wasn’t saved. The blood of Christ was foreign to her. Not like Samuel Orr. And yet, and yet.

Orr stood in Cornmarket, a small circle at the centre of five of Belfast’s main thoroughfares. The roads led in different directions, not only geographically but to different times, contrasting expectations. It was 2012, and a tentative peace was slowly beginning to transform the city. The area hived with goths and skateboarders, teenagers trying out identities off the peg, ready to run. Pick one road and the Victoria Square mall loomed large, a cathedral of money, with priests and prophetesses and all the incense and iconry your weak heart could handle; the glass- domed roof drawing the eye to where God used to live. Another route took you towards the sex shops and pound stores and cheap, Asian- made clothes. One direction pointed to the loyalist north, where commerce competed with the flag for men’s affection, and peace walls – irony unintended – kept one out or in, depending on disposition. Belfast: a grubby Cubist maze, beautiful in the way a deformed child is beautiful to its parents.

Orr stood in Cornmarket, his voice raised above the distant traffic and chatter of passers-by. At his side a small group of compatriots, fellow sinners, gospel tracts in hand. It was a bright day, but Orr’s breath was visible in the cool air. He rubbed his hands together as he spoke. His voice was loud but not belligerent: And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Orr was not the only preacher in Belfast. If they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen. But Orr stood out; maybe his youth, maybe the sharp eyes, the lilt, the soft gravel in his voice. He himself would have dismissed all these explanations. For him it was the suppression of these, the suppression even of his own words. On the streets he spoke only the scripture, no commentary, no opinion, no interpretation. No pleading.

If any man serve me, let him follow me, Orr continued, Christ’s words complicated by his own charm. Anna was walking through Cornmarket that afternoon. She said that she heard the voice before she saw him, that it was the voice that drew her before she even realized who it was. She stopped and watched him. She watched his hands move as though levering the words, pumping them up from a well. She watched the hint of a smile form on his mouth from time to time. A self- sufficient smile, she thought, not a smile to convince or enamour, just sheer delight in the phrases themselves as they fell out, rebounded around him. There was a hint of the hedonistic about it. Some of them sucked on God’s words like they were cough drops, but for Orr they were wine and honey.

Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me. And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

He finished and stepped backward, almost tripping over a kid on a skateboard. He held his balance by grabbing on to the boy, who did likewise. They both laughed, still holding on to one another. Anna watched him as he pushed the kid away, his easy familiarity, his fearless preparedness to be in his own body, the sheer physical fact of him. Das Ding, wrote Rilke, for want of a better way of putting it. She walked over to him as his companions dispersed to hand out their tracts. He spotted her as she came towards him. He smiled.

Anna, he said.

Samuel.

What brings you here?

I was passing. And then I heard the voice of God.

Anna loved this. The ambiguity, the way she teased him. From the very beginning, he couldn’t ever be certain when she was mocking and when in earnest. Sometimes she wondered if love, for him, was a form of holy obligation, a way of closing the gap between other people and himself. Her excess, her impossibility, that part he could never be sure of, could never manage, created the space into which to move, to love. What would happen if that gap closed, if he began to know her? Would they become one, or would love run out for lack of space? Is it the same thing?

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Anna smiled. That’s what I was going to say.

Being courted with scripture. A flirtation of the gospel. Anna had never experienced anything like it; the rhythms and patterns of the poetry pounded inside her.