Defending an entire religion on a cold, crowded Greyhound bus

5:30 p.m.: I am riding the Greyhound bus. The sun set an hour ago and I’m huddled under… 5:30 p.m.: I am riding the Greyhound bus. The sun set an hour ago and I’m huddled under a blanket, reading. Next to me sits a fair-haired girl about my age. She mumbled, “excuse me” in a Midwestern accent when I sat down. She has napped or gazed out the window for much of the ride.

The other passengers adjust their seats so that I have to splay my legs in order to stretch them. I’ve become accustomed to the cramped nature of buses, and chose this seat knowing that I would be pressed against whoever sat next to me. She seems clean and smells slightly like vanilla. Moreover, she overlapped our blankets so that our body heat intermingles. It is cold on the bus and her ambient heat warms my hands.

7:15 p.m.: She has a bag of almonds and she chews on a few at a time. She catches me watching her and offers some by holding the bag out. I decline. She shrugs. No words have been exchanged other than her initial apology. Still, from the way she shifts in her seat, I can tell she is restless, eager to break the monotony of the ride.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Pittsburgh.” I answer. “How about you?”

“Northern Baptist Bible College in Wisconsin.”

“Oh,” I say.

“Are there many good churches in Pittsburgh?”

“I’m sure there are,” I say, “but I wouldn’t know. I’m Jewish.”

This is my first mistake. There are certain moments when I know I’ve done something horribly foolish. The realization begins as a tickle at the back of my skull and works its way forward until I can do nothing but let it roll over me.

She was wholeheartedly Christian. I am only quasi-Jewish. I become Jewish when questioned by an outsider the way I become American when I leave the country. Within the faith I am at the edge, the cynic, the girl who cannot believe. On this bus I must defend an entire religion.

What followed was a conversation about faith, hope, fear and doubt. She asks if I believe in heaven. She asks if I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. She asks if I am content with my religion, which leaves my soul stained by original sin and the light of the Lord out of reach.

I parry and counter evasively. She speaks in grand terms and capital letters. I try to take enormous concepts like God, Satan and the One True Faith and add fluidity to them. I try to explain the tenets of Judaism, the warmth and curiosity of the community, the academic nature of being religious. As I struggle to understand her dogmatism, I hope she is trying to understand my skepticism.

She seems exacting and I know I seem indecisive, yet I feel somehow that progress is being made. Perhaps if I can admit the possibility that she’s right, she can do the same for me. This is my second mistake.

“Where are you going?” she asks, taking a sip of milk. This time I can tell she isn’t asking about Pittsburgh.

“I’m going to die,” I say.

“And where will you go?”

“In the ground?”

“You’re going to hell,” she says. “Does that make you happy?”

It has begun to snow and our breath fogs the windows. I look at her face and think of a line I read once, about such people with good skin and white teeth being “fresh out of the myth of America.”

My first inclination is to hit her. My second is to kiss her. I’m not sure why I get this urge. Perhaps it’s because it’s easier to walk away from a slap than a kiss. Perhaps it’s because I want to offend her as she has offended me. Perhaps it’s because I want to know if she tastes like milk and almonds.

Or perhaps I just want to shock her and give her a reason to fear me. I want to disgust her as she has disgusted me, a reason to look at me with anger instead of superiority and pity. I want her to hate the sin and the sinner. The girl beside me, whose name I do not know, gives me one last look before staring blankly out the window. In her mind she’s in heaven and I am left here, watching her.

I look at the time on her watch. It’s 8:30 p.m. and we’re still miles outside Pittsburgh.

E-mail columnist Sydney Bergman at sbergman@pittnews.com.