'Look,' I said tensely. 'Nobody knows the trouble I've Seen, nobody knows but Jesus. While you've been sitting around in a clean white robe and a halo in an immaculate City with streets of gold, I've been struggling with Satan himself. I know I don't look very neat but I didn't choose to come here looking this way. Uh - Where can I pick up some razor blades?'

 

'Some what?'

 

'Razor blades. Gillette double-edged blades, or that type. For this.' I took out my razor, showed it to her/him. 'Preferably stainless steel.'

 

'Here everything is stainless. But what in Heaven is that?'

 

'A safety razor. To take this untidy beard off my face.'

 

'Really? If the Lord in His wisdom had intended His male creations not to have hair on their faces, He would have created them with smooth features. Here, let me dispose of that.' He-she reached for my razor.

 

I snatched it back. 'Oh, no, you don't! Where's that information booth?'

 

'To your left. Six hundred and sixty miles. ' She-he sniffed.

 

I turned away, fuming. Bureaucrats. Even in Heaven. I didn't ask any more questions there because I spotted a veiled meaning. Six hundred and sixty miles is a figure I recalled from our sightseeing tour: the exact distance from a center gate (such as Asher Gate, where I was) to the center of Heaven, i.e., the Great White Throne of the Lord God Jehovah, God the Father. He (she) was telling me, none too gently, that if I did not like the way I was being treated, I could take my complaints to the Boss - i.e., 'Get lost!'

 

I picked up my papers and backed away, looked around for someone else in authority.

 

The one who organized this gymkhana, Gabriel or Michael or whoever, had anticipated that there would be lots of creatures milling around, each with problems that didn't quite fit the system. So scattered through the crowd were cherubs. Don't think of Michelangelo or Luca della Robbia; these were not bambinos with dimpled knees; these were people a foot and a half taller than we newcomers were like angels but with little cherub wings and each with a badge reading 'STAFF'.

 

Or maybe they were indeed angels; I never have been sure about the distinction between angels and cherubim and seraphim and such; the Book seems to take it for granted that you know such things without being told. The papists list nine different classes of angels! By whose authority? It's not in the Book!

 

I found only two distinct classes in Heaven: angels and humans. Angels consider themselves superior and do not hesitate to let you know it. And they are indeed superior in position and power and privilege. Saved souls are second-class citizens - The notion, one that runs all through Protestant Christianity and maybe among papists as well, that, a saved soul will practically sit in the lap of God well, it ain't so! So you're saved and you go to Heaven you find at once that you are the new boy on the block, junior to everybody else.

 

A saved soul in Heaven occupies much the position of a blackamoor in Arkansas. And it's the angels who really rub your nose in it.

 

I never met an angel I liked.

 

And this derives from how they feel about us. Let´s look at it from the angelic viewpoint. According to Daniel there are a hundred million angels in Heaven. Before the Resurrection and the Rapture, Heaven must have been uncrowded, a nice place to live and offering a good career - some messenger work, some choral work, an occasional ritual. Fm sure the angels liked it.

 

Along comes a great swarm of immigrants, many millions (billions?), and some of them aren't even house-broken. All of them require nursemaiding. After untold eons of beatific living, suddenly the angels find themselves working overtime, running what amounts to an enormous orphan asylum. It's not surprising that they don't like us.

 

Still... I don't like them, either. Snobs!

 

I found a cherub (angel?) with a STAFF badge and asked the location of the nearest information booth. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. 'Straight down the boulevard Six thousand furlongs. It's by the River that flows from the Throne.'

 

I stared down the boulevard. At that distance God the Father on His Throne looked like a rising sun. I said, 'Six thousand furlongs is over six hundred miles. Isn't there one in this neighborhood?'

 

'Creature, it was done that way on purpose. If we had placed a booth on each corner, every one of them would have crowds around it, asking silly questions. This way, a creature won't make the effort unless it has a truly important question to ask.'

 

Logical. And infuriating. I found that I was again possessed by unheavenly thoughts. I had always pictured Heaven as a place of guaranteed beatitude - not filled with the same silly frustration so common on earth. I counted to ten in English, then in Latin. 'Uh, what's the flight time? Is there a speed limit?'

 

´Surely you don't think that you would be allowed to fly there, do you?'

 

'Why not? Just earlier today I flew here and then all the way around the City.'

 

'You just thought you did. Actually, your cohort leader did it all. Creature, let me give you a tip that may keep you out of trouble. When you get your wings - if you ever do get wings - don't try to fly over the Holy City, You'll be grounded so fast your teeth will ache. And your wings stripped away.'

 

'Why?'

 

'Because you don't rate it, that's why. You Johnny-Come-Latelies show up here and think you own the place. You'd carve your initials in the Throne if you could get that close to it. So let me put you wise. Heaven operates by just one rule: R.H.I.P. Do you know what that means?'

 

'No,' I answered, not entirely truthfully.

 

'Listen and learn. You can forget the Ten Commandments. Here only two or three of them still apply and you'll find you can't break those even if you were to' try. The golden rule everywhere in Heaven is: Rank Hath Its Privileges. At this eon you are a raw recruit in. the Armies of the Lord, with the lowest rank possible. And the least privilege. In fact the only privilege I can think of that you rate is being here, just being here. The Lord in His infinite wisdom has decreed that you qualify to enter here. But that's all. Behave yourself and you will be allowed to stay. Now as to the traffic rule you asked about. Angels and nobody else fly over the Holy City. When on duty or during ceremonies. That does not mean you. Not even if you get wings. If you do. I emphasize this because a surprising number of you creatures have arrived here with the delusion that going to Heaven automatically changes a creature into an angel. It doesn't. It can't. Creatures never become angels. A saint sometimes. Though seldom. An angel, never.'

 

I counted ten backwards, in'Hebrew. 'If you don't mind, I'm still trying to reach that information booth. Since I am not allowed to fly, how do I get there?'

 

'Why didn't you say that in the first place? Take the bus.'

 

Sometime later I was seated in a chariot bus of the Holy City Transit Lines and we were rumbling toward the distant Throne. The chariot was open, boat-shaped, with an entrance in the rear, and had no discernible motive power and no teamster or conductor. It stopped at marked chariot stops and that is how I got aboard. I had not yet found out how to get it to stop.

 

Apparently everyone in the City rode these buses (except V.I.P.s who rated private chariots). Even angels. Most passengers were humans dressed in conventional white and wearing ordinary halos. But a few were humans in costumes of various eras and topped off by larger and fancier halos. I noticed that angels were fairly polite to these creatures in the fancier halos. But they did not sit with them. Angels sat in the front of the car, these privileged humans in the middle part, and the common herd (including yours truly) in the rear.

 

I asked one of my own sort how long it took to reach the Throne.

 

'I don't know,' I was answered. 'I don't go nearly that far.

 

This soul seemed to be female, middle-aged, and friendly, so I used a commonplace opener. 'That's a Kansas accent, is it not?'

 

She smiled. 'I don't think so. I was born in Flanders.'

 

'Really? You speak very fluent English.'

 

She shook her head gently. 'I never learned English.'

 

'But -´

 

'I know. You are a recent arrival. Heaven is not affected by the Curse of Babel. Here the Confusion of Tongues took place... and a good thing for me as I, have no skill in languages - a handicap before I died. Not so here. 'She looked at me with interest. 'May I ask where you died? And when?'

 

'I did not die,' I told her. 'I was snatched up alive in the Rapture.'

 

Her eyes widened. 'Oh, how thrilling! You must be very holy.

 

'I don't think so. Why do you say that?'

 

'The Rapture will come - came? - without warning. Or so I was taught.'

 

'That's right.'

 

'Then with no warning, and no time for confession, and no priest to help you... you were ready! As free from sin as Mother Mary. You came straight to Heaven. You must be holy. ' She added, 'That's what I thought when I saw your costume, since saints - martyrs especially - often dress as they did on earth. I saw too that you are not wearing your saint's halo. But that's your privilege. 'She looked suddenly shy. 'Will you bless me? Or do I presume?'.

 

'Sister, I am not a saint.'

 

'You will not grant me your blessing?'

 

(Dear Jesus, how did this happen to me?) 'Having heard say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am ,not a saint, do you still want me to bless you?'

 

'If you will... holy father.'

 

'Very well. Turn and lower your head a little - ´Instead she turned fully and dropped to her knees. I put a hand on her head. 'By authority vested in me as an ordained minister of the one true catholic church of Jesus Christ the Son of God the Father and by the power of the Holy. Ghost, I bless this our sister in Christ. So mote it be!'

 

I heard echoes of 'Amen!' around us; we had had quite an audience. I felt embarrassed. I was not certain, and still am not certain, that I had any authority to bestow blessings in Heaven itself. But the dear woman had asked for it and I could not refuse.

 

She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. 'I knew it, I knew it!'

 

'Knew what?'

 

´That you are a saint. Now you are wearing it!'

 

I started to say, 'Wearing what?' when a minor miracle occurred. Suddenly I was looking at myself from outside: wrinkled and dirty khaki pants, Army-surplus shirt with dark sweat stains in the armpits and a bulge of razor in the left breast pocket, three-day growth of beard and in need of a haircut... and, floating over my head, a halo the size of a washtub, shining and sparkling!

 

'Up off your knees,' I said instead, 'and let's stop being conspicuous.´

 

'Yes, father.' She added, 'You should not be seated back here.'

 

'I'll be the judge of that, daughter. Now tell me about yourself.' I looked around as she resumed her seat, and happened to catch the eye of an angel seated all alone, up forward. (S)he gestured to me to come forward.

 

I had had my fill of the arrogance of angels; at first I ignored the signal. But everyone I was noticing and pretending not to, and my awe-struck companion was whispering urgently, 'Most holy person, the angelic one wants to see you.´

 

I gave in - partly because it was easier, partly because I wanted to ask the angel a question. I got up and went to the front of the bus.

 

'You wanted me?'

 

'Yes. You know the rules. Angels in front, creatures in back, saints in the middle. If you sit in back with creatures, you are teaching them bad habits. How can you expect to maintain your saintly privileges if you ignore protocol? Don't let it happen again.'

 

I thought of several retorts, all unheavenly. Instead I said, 'May I ask a question?'

 

`Ask.'

 

'How much longer until this bus reaches the River from the Throne?'

 

'Why do you ask? You have all eternity before you.´

 

'Does that mean that you don't know? Or that you won't tell?'

 

'Go sit down in your proper section. At once!'

 

I went back and tried to find a seat in the after space. But my fellow creatures had closed in and left me no room. No one said anything and they would not meet my eye, but it was evident that no one would aid me in defying the authority of an angel. I sighed and sat down in the mid-section, in lonely splendor, as I was the only saint aboard. If I was a saint.

 

I don't know how long it took to reach the Throne. In Heaven the light doesn't vary and the weather does not change and I had no watch. It was simply a boringly long time. Boring? Yes. A gorgeous palace constructed of precious stone is a wonderful sight to see. A dozen palaces constructed of jewels can be a dozen wonderful sights, each different from the other. But a hundred miles of such palaces will put you to sleep, and six hundred miles of the same is deadly dull. I began to long for a used-car lot, or a dump, or (best yet) a stretch of green and open countryside.

 

New Jerusalem is a city of perfect beauty; I am witness to that. But that long ride taught me the uses of ugliness.

 

I never have found out who designed the Holy City.

 

That God authorized the design and construction is axiomatic. But the Bible does not name the architect(s), or the builder(s). Freemasons speak of 'the Great Architect, meaning Jehovah - but you won't find that in the Bible. Just once I asked an angel, 'Who designed this city?' He didn't sneer at my ignorance, he didn't scold me- he appeared to be unable to conceive it as a question. But it remains a question to me: Did God create (design and build) the Holy City Himself, right down to the smallest jewel? Or did He farm it out to subordinates?

 

Whoever designed it, the Holy City has a major shortcoming, in my opinion - and never mind telling me that my presumption in passing judgment on God's design is blasphemous. It is a lack, a serious one.

 

It lacks a public library.

 

One reference librarian who had devoted her life to answering any and all questions, trivial and weighty, would be more use in Heaven than another cohort of arrogant angels. There must be plenty of such ladies in Heaven, as it takes a saintly disposition and the patience of Job to be a reference librarian and to stick with it for forty years. But to carry on their vocation they would need books and files and so forth, the tools of their profession. Given a chance, I'm sure they would set up the files and catalog the books but where would they get the books? Heaven does not seem to have a book-publishing industry.

 

Heaven doesn't have industry. Heaven doesn't have an economy. When Jehovah decreed, after the expulsion from Eden, that we descendants of Adam must gain our bread by the sweat of our faces, He created economics and it has been operating ever since for ca. 6000 years.

 

But not in Heaven.

 

In Heaven He giveth us, our daily bread without the sweat of our faces. In truth you don't need daily bread; you can't starve, you won't even get hungry enough to matter - just hungry enough to enjoy eating if you want to amuse yourself by stopping in any of the many restaurants, refectories, and lunchrooms.' The best hamburger I ever ate in my life was in a small lunchroom off the Square of Throne on the banks of the River. But again, 'm ahead of my story.

 

Another lack, not as serious for my taste but serious, is gardens. No gardens, I mean, except the grove of the Tree of Life by the River near the Throne, and a few, a very few, private gardens here and there. I think I know why this is so and, if I am right, it may be self-correcting. Until we reached Heaven (the people of the Rapture and the resurrected dead-in-Christ) almost all citizens of the Holy City were angels. The million or so exceptions were martyrs for the faith, children of Israel so holy that they made it without ever having personally experienced Christ (i.e., mostly before 30 AD), and another group from unenlightened lands - souls virtuous without ever knowing of Christ. So 99 percent of the citizens of the Holy City were angels.

 

Angels don't seem to be interested in horticulture. I suppose that figures - I can't imagine an angel down on his/her knees, mulching the soil around a plant. They just aren't the dirty-fingernails sort needed to grow prize roses.

 

Now that angels are outnumbered by humans by at least ten to one I expect that we will see gardens - gardens, garden clubs, lectures on how to prepare the soil, and so forth. All the endless ritual of the devoted gardener. Now they will have time for it.

 

Most humans in Heaven do what they want to do without the pressure of need. That nice lady (Suzanne) who wanted my blessing was a lacemaker in Flanders; now she teaches it in a school open to anyone who is interested. I have gathered a strong impression that, for most humans, the real problem of an eternity of bliss is how to pass the time. (Query: Could there be something to this reincarnation idea so prevalent in other religions but so firmly rejected by Christianity? Could a saved soul be rewarded, eventually, by being shoved back into the conflict? If not on earth, then elsewhere? I've got to lay hands on a Bible and do some searching. To my utter amazement, here in Heaven Bibles seem to be awfully hard to come by.)

 

'The information booth was right where it was supposed to be, close to the bank of the River of the Water of Life that flow's from the Throne of God and winds through the grove of the Tree of Life. The Throne soars up from the, middle of the grove but you can't see it very well that close to its base. It's like looking up at the tallest of New York skyscrapers while standing on the sidewalk by it. Only more so. And of course you can't see the Face of God; you are, looking straight up one thousand four hundred and- forty cubits. What you see is, the Radiance... and you can feel the Presence.

 

The information booth was as crowded as that cherub had led me to expect. The inquirers weren't queued up; they were massed a hundred deep around it. I looked at that swarm and wondered how long it would take me to work my way up to the counter. Was it possible to work my way there other than by the nastiest of bargain-day tactics, stepping on corns, jabbing with elbows, all the things that make department stores so uninviting to males?

 

I stood back and looked at that mob and tried to figure out how to cope. Or was there some other way to locate Margrethe without stepping on corns?

 

I was still standing there when a STAFF cherub came up to me. 'Holy one, are you trying to reach the information booth?'

 

'I surely am!'

 

'Come with me. Stay close behind me.' He was carrying a long staff of the sort used by riot police. 'Gangway! Make way for a saint! Step lively there!' In nothing flat I reached the counter of the booth. I don't think anyone was injured but there must have been some hurt feelings. I don't approve of that sort of action; I think that treatment should be even-handed for everyone. But, where R.H.I.P. is the rule, being even a corporal is vastly better than being a private.

 

I turned to thank the cherub; he was gone. A voice said, 'Holy one, what do you want?' An angel back of the counter was looking down at me.

 

I explained that I wanted to locate my wife. He Drummed on             the counter. 'That's not ordinarily a service we supply. There is a co-op run by creatures called "Find Your Friends and Loved Ones" for that sort of thing.'

 

'Where is it?'

 

'Near Asher Gate.'

 

'What? I just came from there. That's where I registered in.'

 

'You should have asked the angel who checked you in. You registered recently?'

 

'Quite recently; I was caught up in the Rapture. I did ask the angel who registered me... and got a fast brushoff. He, she, uh, that angel told me to come here.'

 

`Mrf. Lemme see your papers.'

 

I passed them over. The angel studied them, slowly and carefully, then called to another angel, who had stopped servicing the mob to watch. 'Tirl! Look at this.'

 

So the second angel looked over my papers, nodded sagely, handed them---back - glanced at me, shook his head sadly.' 'Is something wrong?' I asked.

 

'No. Holy one, you had the misfortune to be serviced,' if that is the word, by an angel who wouldn't help his closest friend, if he had one, which he doesn't. But I'm a bit surprised that she was so abrupt with a saint.'

 

'I wasn't wearing this halo at the time.'

 

'That accounts for it. You drew it later?'

 

'I did not draw it. I acquired it miraculously, on the way from Asher Gate to here.'

 

`I see. Holy one, it's your privilege to put Khromitycinel on the report. On the other hand I could use the farspeaker to place your inquiry for you.'

 

'I think that would be better.'

 

'So do I. In the long run. For you. If I make my meaning clear.'

 

'You do.'

 

'But before I call that co-op let's check with Saint Peter's office and make sure your wife has arrived. When did she die?'

 

'She didn't die. She was caught up in the Rapture, too.'

 

'So? That means a quick and easy check, no searching of old rolls. Full name, age, sex if any, place and date of we don't need that. Full name first.'

 

Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.'

 

'Better spell that.'

 

I did so.

 

'That's enough for now. If Peter's clerks can spell. You can't wait here; we don't have a waiting room. There is a little restaurant right opposite us - see the sign?'

 

I turned and looked. ' "The Holy Cow"?´

 

'That's it. Good cooking, if you eat. Wait there; I'll send word to you.'

 

'Thank you!'

 

'You are welcome -'She glanced again at my papers, then handed them back. '- Saint Alexander Hergensheimer.'

 

The Holy Cow was the most homey sight I had seen since the Rapture: a small, neat lunchroom that would have looked at home in Saint Louis or Denver. I went inside. A tall blackamoor whose chef's hat stuck up through his halo was at the grill with his back to me. I sat down at the counter, cleared my throat.

 

'Just hold your horses.' He finished what he was doing, turned around. 'What can I - Well, well! Holy man, what can I fix for you? Name it, just name it!'

 

'Luke! It's good to see you!' '

 

He stared at me. 'We have met?'

 

'Don't you remember me? I used to work for you. Ron's Grill, Nogales. Alec. Your dishwasher.'

 

He stared a-gain, gave a deep sigh. 'You sure fooled me. Saint Alec.'

 

'Just "Alec" to my friends. It's some sort of administrative mistake, Luke. When they catch it, I'll trade this Sunday job for an ordinary halo.'

 

'Beg to doubt - Saint Alec. They don't make mistakes in Heaven. Hey! Albert! Take the counter. My friend, Saint Alec and I are going to sit in the dining room. Albert's my sous-chef.'

 

I shook hands with a fat little man who was almost a parody of what a French chef should look like. He was wearing a Cordon Bleu hat as well as his halo. Luke and I went through a side door into a small dining room, sat down at a table. We were joined by a waitress and I got another shock.

 

Luke, said, 'Hazel, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Saint Alec - he and I used to be business associates. Hazel is hostess of The Holy Cow.'

 

'I was Luke's dishwasher,' I told her. 'Hazel, it's wonderful to see you!' I stood up, started to shake hands, then changed my mind for the better, put my arms around her.

 

She smiled up at me, did not seem surprised. 'Welcome, Alec! "Saint Alec" now, I see. I'm not surprised.'

 

'I am. It's a mistake.'

 

'Mistakes don't happen in Heaven. Where is Margie? Still alive on earth?'

 

'No.' I explained how we had been separated. 'So I'm waiting here for word.'

 

'You'll find her.' She kissed me, quickly and warmly which reminded me of my four-day beard. I seated her, sat down with my friends. 'You are sure to find her quickly, because that is a promise we were made and is precisely carried out. Reunion in Heaven with friends and loved ones. "We shall gather by the River -" and sure enough, there it is, right outside the door. Steve Saint Alec, you, do remember Steve? He was with you and Margie when we met.'

 

'How could I forget him? He bought us dinner and gave us a gold eagle when we were stony. Do I remember Steve!'

 

'I'm happy to hear you say that... because Steve credits you with converting him - born-again conversion - and getting him into Heaven. You see, Steve was killed on the Plain of Meggido, and I was killed in the War, too, uh, that was about five years after we met you

 

'Five years?'

 

'Yes. I was killed fairly early in the War; Steve lasted clear to Armageddon-'

 

'Hazel... it hasn't been much over a month since Steve bought us that dinner at Rimrock.'

 

'That's logical. You were caught up in the Rapture and that touched off the War. So you spent the War years up in the air, and that makes it work out that Steve and I are here first even though you left first. You can discuss it with Steve; he'll be in soon. By the way, I'm his concubine now his wife, except that here there is no marrying or giving in marriage. Anyhow Steve went back into the Corps when war broke out and got up to captain before they killed him. His outfit landed at Haifa and Steve died battling for the Lord at the height of Armageddon. I'm real proud of him.'

 

'You should be. Luke, did the War get you, too?'

 

Luke gave a big grin. 'No, sir, Saint Alec. They hanged me.'

 

'You're joking!'

 

`No joke. They hanged me fair and square. You remember when you quit me?'

 

'I didn't quit you. A miracle intervened. That's how I met Hazel. And Steve.'

 

'Well... you know more about miracles than I do. Anyway, we had to get another dishwasher right fast, and we had to take a Chicano. Man, he was a real bad ass, that one. Pulled a knife on me. That was his mistake. Pull a knife on a cook in his own kitchen? He cut me up some, I cut him up proper. Jury mostly his cousins, I think. Anyhow the D.A. said it was time for an example. But it was all right. I had been baptized long before that; the prison chaplain helped me be born again. I spoke a sermon standing on that trap with the noose around my neck. Then I said, "You can do it now! Send me to Jesus! Hallelujah!" And they did. Happiest day of my lifel'

 

Albert stuck his head in. 'Saint Alec, there's an angel here looking for you.'

 

'Coming!'

 

The angel was waiting just outside for the reason that he was taller than the doorway and not inclined to stoop. 'You are Saint Alexander Hergensheimer?'

 

'That's me.'

 

"Your inquiry concerning a creature designated Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson: The report reads: Subject was not caught up in the Rapture, and has not shown up in any subsequent draft. This creature, Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson, is not in Heaven and is not expected. That is all.'

 

 

Chapter 23

 

I cry unto Thee, and Thou dost not hear me:

I stand up, and Thou regardest me not.

Job 30:20

 

SO OF course I eventually wound up in, Saint Peter's office at the Gate of Judah - having chased all over Heaven first. On Hazel's advice I went back to the Gate of Asher and looked up that co-op 'Find Your Friends and Loved Ones'.

 

'Saint Alec, angels don't pass out misinformation and the records they consult are accurate. But they may not have consulted the right records, and, in my opinion, they would not have searched as deeply as you would search if you were doing it yourself -angels being angels. Margie might be listed under her maiden name.'

 

'That was what I gave them!'

 

'Oh. I thought you asked them to search for "Margie Graham"?'

 

'No. Should I go back and ask them to?'

 

'No. Not yet. And when you do - if you must don' ask again at this information booth. Go directly to St Peter's office. There you'll get personal attention from other humans, not from angels.'

 

'That's for me!'

 

'Yes. But try first at "Find Your Friends and Loved Ones". That's not a bureaucracy; it's a co-op made up of volunteers, all of them people who really care. That's how Steve found me after he was killed. He didn't know my family name and I hadn't used it for years, anyhow. He didn't know my date and place of death. But a little old lady at "Find Your Friends" kept right on searching females named Hazel until Steve said "Bingo!" If he had just checked at the main personnel office - Saint Peter's - they would have reported "insufficient data, no identification".'

 

She smiled and went on, 'But the co-op uses imagination. They brought Luke and me together, even though we hadn't even met before we died. After I got tired of loafing I decided that I wanted to manage a little restaurant it's a wonderful way to meet people and make friends. So I asked the co-op and they set their computers on "cook", and after a lot of false starts and wrong numbers it got Luke and me together and we formed a partnership and set up The Holy Cow. A similar search got us Albert.'

 

Hazel, like Katie Farnsworth, is the sort of woman who heals just by her presence. But she's practical about it, too, like my own treasure. She volunteered to launder-my dirty clothes and lent me a robe of Steve's to wear while my clothes dried. She found me a mirror and a cake of soap; at long last I tackled a five-day (seven-year?) beard. My one razor blade was closer to being a saw than a knife by then, but a half hour's patient honing using the inside -of a glass tumbler (a trick I had learned in -seminary) restored it to temporary usefulness.

 

But now I needed a proper shave even though I had shaved - tried to shave - a couple of hours ago. I did not know how long I had been on this hunt but I did know that I had shaved four times... with cold water, twice without soap, and once by Braille - no mirror. Plumbing had indeed been installed for us fleshly types... but not up to American Standard quality. Hardly surprising, since angels don't use plumbing and don't need it, and since the overwhelming majority of the fleshly ones have little or no experience with inside plumbing.

 

The people who man the co-op were as helpful as Hazel said they would be (and I don't think my fancy halo had anything to do with it) but nothing they turned up gave me any clue to Margrethe, even though they patiently ran computer searches on every combination I could think of.

 

I thanked them and blessed them and headed for Judah Gate, all the way across Heaven, thirteen hundred and twenty miles away. I stopped only once, at the Square of, the Throne, for one of Luke's heaven burgers and a cup of the best coffee in New Jerusalem, and some encouraging words from Hazel. I continued my weary search feeling, much bucked up.

 

The Heavenly Bureau of Personnel occupies two colossal palaces on the right as you come through the gate. The first and smaller is for BC admissions; the second is for admissions since then, and included Peter's office suite, on the second floor. I went straight there.

 

A big double door read SAINT PETER - Walk In, so I did. But not into his office; here was a waiting room big enough for Grand Central Station. I pushed through a turnstile that operated by pulling a ticket out of a slot, and a mechanical voice said, 'Thank you. Please sit down and wait to be called.'

 

My ticket read '2013' and the place was crowded; I decided, as I looked around for an empty seat, that I was going to need another shave before my number would come up.

 

I was still looking when a nun bustled up to me, and ducked a knee in a quick curtsy. 'Holy one, may I serve you?' I did not know enough about the costumes worn by Roman Catholic orders to know what sisterhood she belonged to, but she was dressed in what I would call 'typical' - long black dress down to her ankles and to her wrists, white, starched deal over her chest and around her neck and. covering her ears, a black headdress covering everything else and giving her the silhouette of a sphinx, a big rosary hanging around her neck... and an ageless, serene face topped off by a lopsided pince-nez. And, of course, her halo.

 

The thing that impressed me most was that she was here. She was the first proof I had seen that papists can be saved. In seminary we used to argue about that in late-night bull sessions... although, the official position Of my Church was that certainly they could be saved, as long as they believed, as we did and were born again Jesus. I made a mental note to ask her when and how she had been born again - it would be, I was sure, an inspiring story.

 

I said, 'Why, thank you, Sister! That's most kind of you. Yes, you can help me - that is, I hope you can. I'm Alexander Hergensheimer and I'm trying to find my wife. This is the place to inquire, is it not? I'm new here.'

 

'Yes, Saint Alexander, this is the place. But you did want to see Saint Peter, did you not?'

 

'I'd like to pay my respects. If he's not too busy.'

 

'I'm sure he will want to see you, Holy Father. Let me tell my Sister Superior.' She picked up the cross on her rosary, appeared to whisper into it, then looked up. 'Is that spelled H,E,R,G,E,N,S,H,E,I,M,E,R, Saint Alexander?'

 

'Correct, Sister.'

 

She spoke again to the rosary. Then she added, to me, 'Sister Marie Charles is secretary, to Saint Peter. I'm her assistant and general gopher.' She smiled. 'Sister Mary Rose.'

 

'It is good to meet you, Sister Mary Rose. Tell me about yourself. What order are you?'

 

'I'm a Dominican, Holy Father. In life I was a hospital administrator in Frankfurt, Germany. Here, where there is no longer a need for nursing, I do this work because I like to mingle with people. Will you come with me, sir?'

 

The crowd parted like the waters of the Red Sea, whether in deference to the nun or to my gaudy halo, I cannot say. Maybe both. She took me to an unmarked side door and straight in, and I found myself in the office of her boss, Sister Marie Charles. She was a tall nun, as tall as I am, and handsome - or 'beautiful' may be more accurate. She seemed younger than her assistant... but how is one to tell with nuns? She was seated at a big flattop desk piled high and with an old-style Underwood typewriter swung out from its side. She got up quickly, faced me, and dropped that odd curtsy.

 

`Welcome, Saint Alexander! We are honored by your call. Saint Peter will be with you soon. Will you be seated? May we offer you refreshment? A glass of wine? A Coca-Cola?'

 

'Say, I would really enjoy a Coca-Cola! I haven't had, one since I was on earth.'

 

'A Coca-Cola, right away.' She smiled. 'I'll tell you a secret. Coca-Cola is Saint Peter's one vice. So we always have them on ice here.'

 

A voice came out of the air above her desk - a strong' resonant baritone of the sort I think of as a good preaching voice - a voice like that of 'Bible' Barnaby, may his name be blessed. 'I heard that, Charlie. Let him have his Coke in here; I'm free now.'

 

'Were you eavesdropping again, Boss?'

 

'None of your lip, girl. And fetch one for me, too.'

 

Saint Peter was up and striding toward the door with his hand out as I was ushered in. I was taught in church history that he was believed to have been about ninety when he died. Or when he was executed (crucified?) by the, Romans, if he was. (Preaching has always been a chancy vocation, but in the days of Peter's ministry it was as chancy as that of a Marine platoon sergeant.)

 

This man looked to be a strong and hearty sixty, or possibly seventy - an outdoor man, with a permanent' suntan and the scars that come from sun damage. His hair and beard were full and seemed never to have been cut, streaked with grey but not white, and (to my surprise) he appeared to have been at one time a redhead. He was well muscled and broad shouldered, and his hands were calloused, as I learned when he gripped my hand. He was dressed in sandals, a brown robe of coarse wool, a halo like mine, and a dinky little skullcap resting in the middle of that fine head of hair.

 

I liked him on sight.

 

He led me around to a comfortable chair near his desk chair, seated me before he sat back down. Sister Marie Charles was right behind us with two Cokes on a tray, in the familiar pinchwaist bottles and with not-so-familiar (I had not seen them for years) Coke 'glasses with the tulip tops and the registered trademark. I wondered who had the franchise in Heaven and how such business matters were handled.

 

He said, 'Thanks, Charlie. Hold all calls.'

 

'Even?'

 

'Don't be silly. Beat it.' He turned to me. 'Alexander, I try to greet each newly arrived saint personally. But somehow I missed you.'

 

'I arrived in the middle of a mob, Saint Peter. Those from the Rapture. And not at this gate. Asher Gate.'

 

'That accounts for it. A busy day, that one, and we still aren't straightened out. But a Saint should be escorted to the main gate... by twenty-four angels and two trumpets. I'll have to look into this.'

 

'To be frank, Saint Peter,' I blurted out, 'I don't think I am a saint. But I can't get this fancy halo off.'

 

I He shook his head. 'You are one, all right. And don't let your misgivings gnaw at you; no saint ever knows that he is one, he has to be told. It is a holy paradox that anyone who thinks he is a saint never is. Why, when I arrived here and they handed me the keys and told me I was in charge, I didn't believe it. I thought the Master was playing a joke on me in return for a couple of japes I pulled on Him back in the days when we were barnstorming around the Sea of Galilee. Oh, no! He meant it. Rabbi Simon bar Jona the old fisherman was gone and I've been' Saint Peter ever since. As you are Saint Alexander, like it or not. And you will like it, in time.'

 

He tapped on a fat file folder lying on his desk. 'I've been reading your record. There is no doubt about your sanctity. Once I reviewed your record I recalled your trial. Devil's Advocate against you was Thomas Aquinas; he came up to me afterwards and told me that his attack was pro forma, as there had never been, any doubt in his mind but what you qualified. Tell me, that first miracle, ordeal by fire - did your faith ever waver?'

 

'I guess it did. I got a blister out of it.'

 

Saint Peter snorted. 'One lonely blister! And you don't think you qualify. Son, if Saint Joan had had faith as firm as yours, she would have quenched the fire that martyred her'. I know of -´

 

Sister Marie Charles' voice announced, 'Saint Alexander's wife is here.'

 

'Show her in!' To me he added, 'Tell you later'.'

 

I hardly heard him; my heart was bursting.

 

The door opened; in walked Abigail.

 

I don't know how to describe the next few minutes. Heartbreaking disappointment coupled with embarrassment summarizes it.

 

Abigail looked at me and said severely, 'Alexander, what in the world are you doing wearing that preposterous halo? Take it off instantly!'

 

Saint Peter rumbled, 'Daughter, you are not "in the world"; you are in my private office. You will not speak to Saint Alexander that way.'

 

Abigail turned her gaze to him, and sniffed. 'You call him a saint? And didn't your mother teach you to stand up for ladies? Or are saints exempt from such niceties?'

 

'I do stand up, for ladies. Daughter, you will address me, with respect. And you will speak to your husband with the respect a wife owes her husband.'

 

'He's not my husband!'

 

'Eh?' Saint Peter looked from her to me, then back. 'Explain yourself.'

 

'Jesus said, "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels." So there! And He said it again in Mark twelve, twenty-five.'

 

'Yes,' agreed Saint Peter, 'I heard Him say it. To the Sadducees. By that rule you are no longer a wife.'

 

'Yes! Hallelujah! Years I have waited to be rid of that clod - be rid of him without sinning.'

 

'I'm unsure about the latter. But not being a wife does not relieve you of the duty to speak politely to this saint who was once your husband.' Peter turned again to me. 'Do You wish her to stay?'

 

'Me? No, no! There's been a mistake.'

 

`So it appears. Daughter, you may go.'

 

'Now you just wait! Having come all this way, I have things I've been planning to tell you. Perfectly scandalous goings-on I have seen around here. Why, without the slightest sense of decency -

 

`Daughter, I dismissed you. Will you walk out on your own feet? Or shall I send for two stalwart angels and have you thrown out?'

 

'Why, the very idea! I was just going to say -´

 

'You are not going to say!'

 

'Well, I certainly have as much right to speak my mind as anyone!'

 

'Not in this office. Sister Marie Charles!'

 

'Yes, sir!'

 

'Do you still remember the judo they taught you when you were working with the Detroit police?'

 

'I do!'

 

'Get this yenta out of here.'

 

The tall nun grinned and dusted her hands together. What happened next happened so fast that I can't describe it. But Abigail left very suddenly.

 

Saint Peter sat back down, sighed, and picked up his Coke. 'That woman would try the patience of Job. How long were you married to her?´

 

'Uh, slightly over a thousand years.'

 

'I understand you. Why did you send for her?'

 

'I didn't. Well, I didn't intend to.' I started to try to explain.

 

He stopped me. 'Of course! Why didn't you say that you were searching for your concubine? You misled Mary Rose. Yes, I know whom you mean: the zaftig shiksa who runs all through the latter part of your dossier. Very nice girl, she seemed to me. You are looking for her?'

 

'Yes, surely. The day of the Trump and the Shout we were snatched up together. But that whirlwind, a real Kansas twister, was so violent that we were separated.'

 

'You inquired about her before. An inquiry relayed from the information booth by the River.'

 

'That´s right.'

 

'Alexander, that inquiry is the last entry in your file. I can order the search repeated... but I can tell you ahead of time that it will be useful only to assure you. The answer, will be the same: She is not here.'

 

He stood up and came around to put a hand on my shoulder. 'This is a tragedy that I have seen repeated endlessly. A loving couple, confident of eternity together: One comes here, the other does not. What can I do? I wish I could do something. I can't.'

 

'Saint Peter, there has been a mistake!'

 

He did not answer.

 

'Listen to me! I know! She and I were side by side, kneeling at the chancel rail, praying... and just before the Trump and the Shout the Holy Ghost descended on us and we were in a perfect state of grace and were snatched up together. Ask Him! Ask Him! He will listen to you.'

 

Peter sighed again. 'He will listen to anyone, in any of His Aspects. But I will inquire.' He picked up a telephone instrument so old-fashioned that Alexander Graham Bell could have assembled it. 'Charlie, give me the Spook. Okay, I'll wait. Hi! This is Pete, down at the main gate. Heard any new ones? No? Neither have I Listen, I got a problem. Please run Yourself back to the day of the Shout and the Trump, when You, in Your aspect as Junior, caught up alive all those incarnate souls who were at that moment in a state of grace. Place Yourself outside a wide place in the road called Lowell, Kansas - that's in North America - and at a tent meeting, a revival under canvas. Are You there? Now, at least a few femtoseconds before the Trump, it is alleged by one Alexander Hergensheimer, now canonized, that You descended on him and is beloved concubine Margrethe. She is described as about three and a half cubits tall, blonde, freckled, eighty mina - Oh, You do? Oh. Too late, huh? I was afraid of that. I'll tell him.'

 

I interrupted, whispering urgently, 'Ask Him where she is!´

 

'Boss, Saint Alexander is in agony. He wants to know where she is. Yes, I'll tell him.' Saint Peter hung up. 'Not in Heaven, not on earth. You can figure out the answer yourself And I'm sorry.-

 

I, must state that Saint Peter was endlessly patient with me. He assured me that I could talk with any One of the Trinity... but reminded me that, in consulting the Holy Ghost we had consulted all of Them. Peter had fresh searches made of the Rapture list, the graves-opened list, and of the running list of all arrivals since then - while telling me that no computer search could conceivably deny the infallible answers of God Himself speaking as the Holy Ghost... which I understood and agreed with, while welcoming new searches.

 

I said, 'But how about on earth? Could she be alive somewhere there? Maybe in Copenhagen?'

 

Peter answered, 'Alexander, He is as omniscient on earth as He is in Heaven. Can't you see that?'

 

I gave a deep sigh. 'I see that. I've been dodging the obvious. All right, how do I get from here to Hell?'

 

'Alec! Don't talk that way!'

 

'The hell I won't talk that way! Peter, an eternity here without her is not an eternity of bliss; it is an eternity of boredom and loneliness and grief. You think this damned gaudy halo means anything to me when I know - yes, you´ve convinced me! - that my beloved is burning in the Pit? I didn't ask much. Just to be allowed to live with her. I was willing to wash dishes forever if only I could see her smile, hear her voice, touch her hand! She's been shipped on a technicality and you know it! Snobbish, bad-tempered angels get to live here without ever doing one, lick to deserve it. But my Marga, who is a real angel if one ever lived, gets turned down and sent to Hell to everlasting torture on a childish twist in the rules. You can tell the Father and His sweet-talking Son and that sneaky Ghost, that they can take their gaudy Holy City and shove it! If Margrethe has to be in Hell, that's where I want to be!'

 

Peter, was saying, 'Forgive him, Father; he's feverish, with grief - he doesn't know what he is saying.'

 

I quieted down a little. 'Saint Peter, I know exactly what I am saying. I don't want to stay here. My beloved is in Hell, so that is where I want to be. Where I must be.'

 

'Alec, you'll get over this.'

 

'What you don't see is that I don't want to get over this. I want to be with my love and share her fate. You tell me she's in Hell -´

 

'No, I told you that it is certain that she is not in Heaven and not on earth.'

 

'Is there a fourth place? Limbo, or some such?'

 

'Limbo is a myth. I know of no fourth place.'

 

'Then I want to leave here at once and look all over Hell for her. How?'

 

Peter shrugged.

 

'Damn it, don't give me a run-around! That's all I've been handed since the day I walked through the fire - one run-around after another. Am I a prisoner?.

 

'No.

 

'Then tell me how to go to Hell.'

 

'Very well. You can't wear that halo to Hell. They wouldn't let you in.´

 

'I never wanted it. Let's go!´

 

'Not long after that I stood on the threshold of Judah Gate, escorted there by two angels. Peter did not say good-bye to me; I guess he was disgusted. I was sorry about that; I liked him very much. But I could not make him understand that Heaven was not Heaven to me without Margrethe.

 

I paused at the brink. 'I want you to take one message back to Saint Peter -´

 

They ignored me, grabbed me from both sides, and tossed me over.

 

I fell.

 

And fell.

 

 

Chapter 24

 

Oh that I knew where I might find him!

that I might come even to his seat!

I would order my cause before him,

and fill my mouth with arguments.

Job 23:3-4

 

AND STILL I fell.

 

For modern man one of the most troubling aspects of eternity lies in getting used to the slippery quality of time. With no clocks and no calendars and lacking even the alternation of day and night, or the phases of the moon, or the pageant of seasons, duration becomes subjective and 'What time is it?' is a matter of opinion, not of fact.

 

I think I fell longer than twenty minutes; I do not think that I fell as long as twenty years.

 

But don't risk any money on it either way.

 

There was nothing to see but the insides of my eyeballs. There was not even the Holy City receding in the distance.

 

Early on, I tried to entertain myself by reliving in memory the happiest times in my life - and found that happy memories made me sad. So I thought about sad occasions and that was worse. Presently I slept. Or I think I did. How can you tell when you are totally cut off from sensation? I remember reading about one of those busybody 'scientists' building something he called a 'sensory deprivation chamber'. What he achieved was a thrill-packed three-ring circus compared with the meager delights of falling from Heaven to Hell.

 

My first intimation that I was getting close to Hell was the stink. Rotten eggs. H2S Hydrogen, sulfide. The stench of burning brimstone.

 

You don't die from it, but small comfort that may be, since those who encounter this stench are dead when they whiff it. Or usually so; I am not dead. They tell of other live ones in history and literature - Dante, Aeneas, Ulysses, Orpheus. But weren't all of those cases fiction? Am I the first living man to go to Hell, despite all those yarns?

 

If so, how long will I stay alive and healthy? Just long enough to hit the flaming surface of the Lake? - there to go psst! and become a rapidly disappearing grease spot? Had my Quixotic gesture been just a wee bit hasty? A rapidly disappearing grease spot could not be much help to Margrethe; perhaps I should have stayed in Heaven and bargained. A saint in full-dress halo picketing the Lord in front of His Throne might have caused Him to reverse His decision... since His decision it had to be, L. G. Jehovah being omnipotent.

 

A bit late to think of it, boy! You can see the red glow on the clouds now. That must be boiling lava down there. How far down? Not far enough! How fast am I falling? Too fast!

 

I can see what the famous Pit is now: the caldera of an incredibly enormous volcano. Its walls are all around me, miles high, yet the flames and the molten lava are still a long, long way below me. But coming up fast! How are your miracle-working powers today, Saint Alec? You coped with that other fire pit with only a blister; think you can handle this one? The difference is only a matter of degree.

 

'With patience and plenty of saliva the elephant de-flowered the mosquito.' That job was just a matter of degree, too; can you do as well as that elephant? Saint Alec, that was not a saintly thought; what has happened to your piety? Maybe it's the influence of this wicked neighborhood. Oh, well, you no longer need worry about sinful thoughts; it is too late to worry about any sin. You no longer risk going to Hell for your sins; you are now entering Hell - you are now in Hell. In roughly three seconds you are going to be a grease spot. 'Bye, Marga my own! I'm sorry I never managed to get you that hot fudge sundae. Satan, receive my soul; Jesus is a fink -

 

They netted me like a butterfly. But a butterfly would have needed asbestos wings to halve been saved the way I was saved; my pants were smoldering. They threw a bucket of water over me when they had me on the bank.

 

'Just sign this chit.'

 

'What chit?' I sat up and looked out at the flames.

 

'This chit.' Somebody was holding a piece of paper under my nose and offering me a pen.

 

'Why do you want me to sign it?'

 

'You have to sign it. It acknowledges that we saved you from the burning Pit.'

 

`I want to see a lawyer. Meanwhile I won't sign anything.' The last time I was in this fix it got me tied down, washing dishes, for four months. This time I couldn't spare four months; I had to get busy at once, searching for Margrethe.

 

'Don't be stupid. Do you want to be tossed back into that stuff?'

 

A second voice said, 'Knock it off, Bert. Try telling him the truth.'

 

('Bert?' I thought that first voice was familiar!) 'Bert! What are you doing here?' My boyhood chum, the one who shared my taste in literature. Verne and Wells and Tom Swift - 'garbage', Brother Draper had called it.

 

The owner of the first voice looked at me more closely. 'Well, I'll be a buggered baboon. Stinky Hergensheimer!'

 

'In the flesh.'

 

'I'll be eternally damned. You haven't changed much. Rod, get the net spread again; this is the wrong fish. Stinky, you've cost us a nice fee; we were fishing for Saint Alexander.'

 

`Saint who?'

 

'Alexander. A Mick holy ^an who decided to go slumming. Why he didn't come in by a Seven-Forty-Seven God only knows; we don't usually get carriage trade here at the Pit. As may be, you've probably cost us a major client by getting in the way just when this saint was expected and you ought to pay us for that.'

 

"How about that fin you owe me?'

 

`Boy, do you have a memory! That's outlawed by the statute of limitations.'

 

'Show it, to me in Hell's law books. Anyhow, limitations can't apply; you never answered me when I tried to collect. So it's five bucks, compounded quarterly at six percent, for... how many years?'

 

'Discuss it later, Stinky. I've got to keep an eye out for this saint.'

 

'Bert.'

 

'Later, Stinky.'

 

'Do you recall my right name? The one my folks gave me?'

 

'Why, I suppose - Alexander! Oh no, Stinky, it can´t be! Why, you almost flunked out of that backwoods Bible college, after you did flunk out of Rolla.' His face expressed pain and disbelief. 'Life can't be that unfair.'

 

"The Lord moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform." Meet Saint Alexander, Bert. Would you like me to bless you? In lieu of a fee, I mean.

 

´We insist on cash. Anyhow, I don't believe it.'

 

'I believe it,' the second man, the one Bert had called 'Rod', put in. 'And I'd like your blessing, father; I've never, been blessed by a saint before. Bert, there's nothing showing on the distant warning screen and, as you know, only one ballistic arrival was projected for this watch so this has to be, Saint Alexander.'

 

Can't be. Rod, I know this character. If he's a saint, I'm a pink monkey -' There was a bolt of lightning but of a cloudless sky. When Bert picked himself up, his clothes hung on him loosely. But he did not need them, as he was now covered with pink fur.

 

The monkey looked up at me indignantly. 'Is that any way to treat an old pal?'

 

'Bert, I didn't do it. Or at least I did not intend to do it. Around me, miracles just happen; I don't do them on, purpose.´

 

`Excuses. If I had rabies, I'd bite you.'

 

Twenty minutes later, we were in a booth at a lakefront bar, drinking beer and waiting for a thaumaturgist reputed, to be expert in shapes and appearances. I had been telling them why I was in Hell. 'So I've got to find her. First I've got to check the Pit; if she's in there it's really urgent.'

 

'She's not in there,' said Rod.

 

'Huh? I hope you can prove that. How do you know?'

 

'There's never anyone in the Pit. That's a lot of malarkey thought up to keep the peasants in line. Sure, a lot of the hoi polloi arrive ballistically, and a percentage of them used to fall into the Pit until the manager set up this safety watch Bert and I are on. But falling into the Pit doesn't do a soul any harm... aside from scaring him silly. It burns, of course, so he comes shooting out even faster than he went in. But he's not damaged. A fire bath just cleans up his allergies, if any.'

 

(Nobody in the Pit! No 'burning in Hell's fires throughout eternity what a shock that was going to be to Brother 'Bible' Barnaby and a lot of others whose stock in trade depended on Hell's fires. But I was not here to discuss eschatology with two lost souls; I was here to find Marga.) 'This "manager" you speak of. Is. that a euphemism for the Old One?'

 

The monkey - Bert, I mean - squeaked, 'If you mean Satan, say so!'

 

'That's who I mean.'

 

'Naw. Mr Ashmedai is city manager; Satan never does any work. Why should he? He owns this planet.'

 

This is a planet?'

 

'You think maybe it's a comet? Look out that window. Prettiest planet in this galaxy. And the best kept. No snakes. No cockroaches. No chiggers. No poison ivy. No tax collectors. No rats. No cancer. No preachers. Only two lawyers.'

 

'You make it sound like Heaven.'

 

"Never been there. You say you just came from there; you tell us.'

 

'Well... Heaven's okay, if you're an angel. It's not a planet; it's an artificial place, like Manhattan. I'm not here to plug Heaven; I'm here to find Marga.' Should I try to see this Mr Ashmedai? Or would I be better off going directly to Satan?'

 

The monkey tried to whistle, produced a mouselike squeak. Rod shook his head. 'Saint Alec, you keep surprising me. I've been here since 1588, whenever that was, and I've never laid eyes on the Owner. I've never thought of trying to see him. I wouldn't know how to start. Bert, what do you think?'

 

'I think I need another beer.'

 

'Where do you put it? Since that lightning hit you, you aren't big enough to put away one can of beer, let alone, three.'

 

'Don't be nosy and call the waiter.'

 

The quality of discourse did not improve, as every question I asked turned up more questions and no answers. The thaumaturgist arrived and bore off Bert on her shoulder, Bert chattering angrily over her fee - she wanted half of all his assets and demanded a contract signed in blood before she would get to work. He wanted her to accept ten percent and wanted me to pay half of that.

 

When they left, Rod said it was time we found a pad for me; he would take me to a good hotel nearby.

 

I pointed out that I was without funds. 'No problem, Saint Alec. All our immigrants arrive broke, but American Express and Diners Club and Chase Manhattan vie for the chance to extend first credit, knowing that whoever signs an immigrant first has a strong chance of keeping his business forever and six weeks past.'

 

'Don't they lose a lot, extending unsecured credit that way?'

 

'No. Here in Hell, everybody pays up, eventually. Bear in mind that here a deadbeat can't even die to avoid his debts, So just sign in, and charge everything to room service until you set it up with one of the big three.'

 

The Sans Souci Sheraton is on the Plaza, straight across from the Palace. Rod took me to the desk; I signed a registration card and asked for a single with bath. The desk clerk, a small female devil with cute little horns, looked at the card I had signed and her eyes widened. 'Uh, Saint Alexander?'

 

'I'm Alexander Hergensheimer, just as I registered. I am sometimes called "Saint Alexander", but I don't think the title applies here.'

 

She was busy not listening while she thumbed through her reservations. 'Here it is, Your Holiness - the reservation for your suite.'

 

'Huh? I don't need a suite. And I probably couldn't pay for it.'

 

'Compliments of the management, sir.'

 

 

Chapter 25

 

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and

three hundred concubines: and his wives turned

away his heart.

Kings 11:3

 

Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a

man be more pure than his maker?

Job 4:17

 

COMPLIMENTS OF the management!!' How? Nobody knew I was coming here until just before I was chucked out Judah Gate. Did Saint Peter have a hotline to Hell? Was there some sort of under-the-table cooperation with the Adversary? Brother, how that thought would scandalize the Board of Bishops back home!

 

Even more so, why? But I had no time to ponder it; the little devil - imp? - on duty slapped the desk bell and shouted, 'Front!'

 

The bellhop who responded was human, and a very attractive youngster. I wondered how he had died so young and why he had missed going to Heaven. But it was none of my business so I did not ask. I did notice one thing: While he reminded me in his appearance of a Philip Morris ad, when he walked in front of me, leading me to my suite, I was reminded of another cigarette ad - 'So round, so firm, so fully packed.' That lad had the sort of bottom that Hindu lechers write poetry about - could it have been that, sort of sin that caused him to wind up here?

 

I forgot the matter when I entered that suite.

 

The living room was too small for football but large enough for tennis. The furnishings would be described as `adequate' by any well-heeled oriental potentate. The alcove called `the buttery' had a cold-table collation laid out ample for forty guests, with a few hot dishes on the end - roast pig with apple in mouth, baked peacock with feathers restored, a few such tidbits. Facing this display was a bar that was well stocked - the chief purser of Konge Knut would have been impressed by it.

 

My bellhop ('Call me "Pat".') was moving around, opening drapes, adjusting windows, changing - thermostats, checking towels - all of those things bellhops do to encourage a liberal tip - while I was trying to figure out how to' tip. Was there a way to charge a tip for a bellhop to room service? Well, I would have to ask Pat. I went through the bedroom (a Sabbath Day's journey!) and tracked Pat down in the bath.

 

Undressing. Trousers at half-mast and about to be, kicked-off. Bare bottom facing me. I called out, 'Here, lad! No! Thanks for the thought... but boys are not my weakness.'

 

'The'y're my weakness,' Pat answered, 'but I'm not a boy'- and turned around, facing me.

 

Pat was right;_she was emphatically not a boy.

 

I stood there with my chin hanging down, while she took off the rest of her clothes, dumped them into a hamper. 'There!' she said, smiling. 'Am I glad to get out of that monkey suit! I've been wearing it since you were reported as spotted on radar. What happened, Saint Alec? Did you stop for a beer?'

 

'Well... yes. Two or three beers.'

 

'I thought so. Bert Kinsey had the watch, did he not? If the Lake ever overflows and covers this part of town with lava, Bert will stop for a beer before he runs for it. Say, what are you looking troubled about? Did I say something wrong?'

 

'Uh, Miss. You are very pretty - but I didn't ask for a girl, either.'

 

She stepped closer to me, looked up and patted my cheek. I could feel her breath on my chin, smell its sweetness. 'Saint Alec,' she said softly, 'I'm not trying to seduce you. Oh, I'm available, surely; a party girl, or two or three, comes with the territory for all our luxury suites. But I can do a lot more than make love to you.' She reached out, grabbed a bath towel, draped it around her hips. 'Ichiban bath girl, too. Prease, you rike me wark arong spine?' She dimpled and tossed the towel aside. 'I'm a number-one bartender, too. May I serve you a Danish zombie?'

 

'Who told you I liked Danish zombies?'

 

She had turned away to open a wardrobe. 'Every saint I've ever met liked them. Do you like this?' She held up a robe that appeared to be woven from a light blue fog.

 

'It's lovely. How' many saints have you met?'

 

'One. You. No, two, but the other one didn't drink zombies. I was just being flip. I'm sorry.'

 

'I'm not; it may be a clue. Did the information, come from a Danish girl? A blonde, about your size, about your weight, too. Margrethe, or Marga. Sometimes "Margie".'

 

'No. The scoop on you was in a printout I was given when I was assigned to you. This Margie - friend of yours?'

 

'Rather more than a friend. She's the reason I'm, in 'Hell. On Hell. In?'

 

'Either way. I'm fairly certain I've never met your Margie.'

 

'How does one go about finding another person here?. Directories? Voting lists? What?'

 

I've never seen either. Hell isn't very organized. It's an anarchy except for a touch of absolute monarchy on some points.'

 

'Do you suppose I could ask Satan?'

 

She looked dubious. 'There's no rule I know of that says you can't write a letter to His Infernal Majesty. But there is no rule that says He has to read it, either. I think it would be opened and read by some secretary; they wouldn't just dump, it into the Lake. I don't think they would.' She added, 'Shall we go into the den? Or are you ready for bed?'

 

`Uh, I think I need a bath. I know I do.'

 

'Good! I've never bathed a saint before. Fun!'

 

.'Oh, I don't need help. I can bathe myself.'

 

She bathed me.

 

She gave me a manicure. She gave me a pedicure, and tsk-tsked over my toenails - 'disgraceful' was the mildest term she used. She trimmed my hair. When I asked about razor blades, she showed me a cupboard in the bath stocking eight or nine different ways of coping with beards. 'I recommend that electric razor with the three rotary heads but, if you will trust me, you will learn' that I am quite competent with an old-fashioned straight razor.'

 

`l'm just looking for some Gillette blades.'

 

'I don't know that brand but there are brand-new razors here to match all these sorts of blades.'

 

'No, I want my own sort. Double-edged. Stainless.'

 

`Wilkinson Sword, double-edged lifetime?'

 

'Maybe. Oh, here we are! - "Gillette Stainless - Buy Two Packs, Get One Free."

 

`Good. I'll shave you.'

 

'No, I can do it.'

 

A half hour later I settled back against pillows in a bed for a king's honeymoon. I had a fine Dagwood in my belly a Danish zombie nightcap in my hand, and I was wearing brand new silk pajamas in maroon and old gold. Pat took off that translucent peignoir in blue smoke that she had worn except while bathing me and got in beside me, placed a drink for herself, Glenlivet on rocks, where she could reach it.

 

Q said to myself, 'Look, Marga, I didn't choose this. There is only this one bed. But it's a big bed and she's not trying to snuggle up. You wouldn't want me to kick her out, would you? She's a nice kid; I don't want to hurt her feelings. I'm tired; I'm going to drink this and go right to sleep.')

 

I didn't go right to sleep. Pat was not the least bit aggressive. But she was very cooperative. I found one part of my mind devoting itself intensely to what Pat had to offer. (plenty!) while another part of my mind was explaining to Marga that this wasn't anything serious; I don't love her; I love you and only you and always will... but I haven't been able to sleep and -

 

Then we slept for a while. Then we watched a living hollowgram that Pat said was 'X rated'. and I learned about things I had never heard of, but it turned out that, Pat had and could do them and could teach me, and this time I paused just long enough to tell Marga I was learning them for both of us, then I turned my whole attention to learning.

 

Then we napped again.

 

It was some time later that Pat reached out and touched my shoulder. 'Turn over this way, dear; let me see your face. I thought so. Alec, I know you're carrying the torch for your sweetheart; that's why I'm here: to make it easier. But I can't if you won't try. What did she do for you that I haven't done and can't do? Does she have that famous left-hand thread? Or what? Name it, describe it. I'll do it, or fake it, or send out for it. Please, dear. You're beginning to hurt my professional pride.'

 

'You're doing just fine.' I patted her hand.

 

'I wonder. More girls like me, maybe, in various flavors? Drown you in tits? - chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, tutti-frutti. "Tutti-frutti" -hmm... Maybe you'd like a San. Francisco sandwich? Or some other Sodom-and-Gomorrah fancy? I have a male friend from Berkeley who isn't all that male; he has a delicious, playful imagination; I've teamed with him many times. And he has on call others like him; he's a member of both Aleister Crowley Associates and Nero's Heroes and Zeroes. If you fancy a mob scene, Donny and I can cast it any way you like, and the Sans Souci will orchestrate it to suit your taste. Persian Garden, sorority house, Turkish harem, jungle drums with obscene rites, nunnery - "Nunnery" - did I tell you what I did before I died?'

 

`I wasn't certain            had died.'

 

'Oh, certainly. I'm not an imp faking human; I'm human. You don't think anyone could get a job like this without human experience, do you? You have to be human right down to your toes to please a fellow human most; that stuff about the superior erotic ability of succubi is just their advertising. I was a nun, Alec, from adolescence to death, most of it spent teaching grammar and arithmetic to children who didn't want to learn.

 

'I soon learned that my vocation had not been a true one. What I did not know was how to get out of it. So I stayed. At about thirty I discovered just how miserably, awful my mistake had been; my sexuality reached maturity. Mean to say I got horny, Saint Alec, and stayed horny and got more so every year.

 

'The worst thing about my predicament was not that I was subjected to temptation but that I was not subjected to temptation - as I would have grabbed any opportunity. Fat chance! My confessor might have looked upon me with lust had I been a choir boy - as it was, he sometimes snored while I was confessing. Not surprising; my sins were dull, even to me.'

 

'What were your sins, Pat?'

 

'Carnal thoughts, most of which I did not confess. Not being forgiven, they went straight into Saint Peter's computers. Blasphemous adulterous fornication.'

 

Huh? Pat, you have quite an imagination.'

 

'Not especially, just horny. You probably don't know just how hemmed in a nun is. She is a bride of Christ; that's the contract. So even to think about the joys of sex makes of her an adulterous wife in the worst possible way.'

 

'Be darned. Pat, I recently met two nuns, in Heaven. Both seemed like hearty wenches, one especially. Yet there they were.'

 

'No inconsistency. Most nuns confess their sins regularly, are forgiven. Then they usually die in the bosom of their Family, with its chaplain or confessor at hand. So gets the last rites with her sins all forgiven and she's shipped straight to Heaven, pure as Ivory soap.

 

'But not me!' She grinned. 'I'm being punished for my sins and enjoying every wicked minute of it. I died a virgin in 1918, during the big flu epidemic, and so many died so fast that no priest got to me in time to grease me into Heaven. So I wound up here. At the end of my thousand year apprenticeship -´

 

'Hold it! You died in 1918?'

 

'Yes. The great Spanish Influenza epidemic. Born in 1878, died in 1918, on my fortieth birthday. Would you prefer for me to look forty? I can, you know.'

 

'No, you look just fine. Beautiful.'

 

'I wasn't sure. Some men - Lots of eager mother humpers around here and most of them never got a chance to do it while they were alive. It's one of my easier entertainments. I simply lead you into hypnotizing yourself, you supply the data. Then I look and sound exactly like your mother. Smell like her, too. Everything. Except that I am available to you in ways that your mother probably was not. -'

 

'Patty, I don't even like my mother!'

 

'Oh. Didn't that cause you trouble at Judgment Day?'

 

'No. That's not in the rules. It says in the Book that you must honor thy father and thy mother. Not one word about loving them. I honored her, all the full protocol. Kept her picture on my desk. A letter every week. Telephoned her on her birthday. Called on her in person as my duties permitted. Listened to her eternal bitching and to her poisonous gossip about her women friends. Never contradicted her. Paid her hospital bills. Followed her to her grave. But weep I did not. She didn't like me and I didn't like her. Forget my mother! Pat, I asked you a question and you changed the subject.'

 

'Sorry, dear. Hey, look what I've found!'

 

'Don't change the subject again; just keep it warm in your hand while you answer my question. You said something about your "thousand-year apprenticeship".'

 

'Yes?'

 

'But you said also that you died in 1918. The Final Trump sounded in 1994 - I know; I was there. That's only seventy-six years later than your death. To me that Final Trump seems like only a few days ago, about a month, no more. I ran across something that seemed to make it seven years ago. But that still isn't over nine hundred, the best part of a thousand years. I'm not a spirit, I'm a living body. And I'm not Methuselah.' (Damn it, is Margrethe separated from me by a thousand years? This isn't fair!)

 

'Oh. Alec, in eternity a thousand years isn't any particular time; it is simply a long time. Long enough in this case to test whether or not I had both the talent and the disposition for the profession. That took quite a while because, while I was horny enough - and stayed that way; almost any guest can send me right through the ceiling as you noticed - I had arrived here knowing nothing about sex. Nothing! But I did learn and eventually Mary Magdalene gave me high marks and recommended me for permanent appointment.'

 

'Is she down here?'

 

'Oh. She's a visiting professor here; she's on the permanent faculty in Heaven.'

 

'What does she teach in Heaven?'

 

'I have no idea but it can't be what she teaches here. Or I don't think so. Hmm. Alec, she's one of the eternal greats; she makes her own rules. But this time you changed the subject. I was trying to tell you that I don't know how long my apprenticeship lasted because time is whatever you want it to be. How long have you and I been in bed together?'

 

'Uh, quite a while. But not long enough. I think it must be near midnight.'

 

'It's midnight if you want it to be midnight. Want me to get on top?'

 

The next morning, whenever that was, Pat and I had breakfast on the balcony looking out over the Lake. She was dressed in Marga's favorite costume, shorts tight and' short, and a halter with her breasts tending to overflow their bounds. I don't know when she got her clothes, but my pants and shirt had been cleaned and repaired in the night and my underwear and socks washed - in Hell there seem to be busy little imps everywhere. Besides, they could have driven a flock of geese through our bedroom the latter part of the night without disturbing me.

 

I looked at Pat across the table, appreciating her wholesome, girl-scout beauty, with her sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and thought how strange it was that I had ever confused sex with sin. Sex can involve sin, surely any human act can involve cruelty and injustice. But sex alone held no taint of sin. I had arrived here tired, confused, and unhappy - Pat had first made me happy, then caused me to rest, then left me happy this lovely morning.

 

Not any less anxious to find you, Marga my own - but in much better shape to push the search.

 

Would Margrethe see it that way?

 

Well, she had never seemed jealous of me.

 

How would I feel if she took a vacation, a sexual vacation, such as I had just enjoyed? That's a good question. Better think about it, boy - because sauce for the goose is not a horse of another color.

 

I looked out over the Lake, watched the smoke rise and the flames throwing red lights on the smoke... while right and left were green and sunny early summer sights, with snow-tipped mountains in the far distance. Pat -'

 

'Yes, dear?'

 

'The Lake bank can't be more than a furlong from here. But I can't smell any brimstone.'

 

'Notice how the breeze is blowing those banners? From anywhere around the Pit the wind blows toward the Pit. There it rises - incidentally slowing any soul arriving ballistically - and then on the far side of the globe there is a corresponding down draft into a cold pit where the hydrogen sulfide reacts with oxygen to form water and sulfur. The sulfur is deposited; the water comes out as water vapor, and returns. The two pits and this circulation control the weather here somewhat the way the moon acts as a control on earth weather. But gentler.'

 

I was never too hot at physical sciences...             but that doesn't sound like the natural laws I learned in school.'

 

'Of course not. Different Boss here. He runs this planet to suit himself.'

 

Whatever I meant to answer got lost in a mellow gong played inside the suite. 'Shall I answer, sir?'

 

'Sure, but how dare you call me "sir"? Probably just room service. Huh?´

 

'No, dear Alec, room service will just come in when they see that we are through.' She got up, came back quickly with an envelope. 'Letter by Imperial courier. For 'You, dear.'

 

Me?' I accepted it gingerly, and opened it. An embossed seal at the top: the conventional Devil in red, horns, hooves, tail, pitchfork, and standing in flames. Below it:

 

Saint Alexander Hergensheimer

Sans Souci Sheraton

The Capital

 

Greetings:

 

In,response to your petition for an audience with His Infernal Majesty, Satan Mekratrig, Sovereign of Hell and His Colonies beyond, First of the Fallen Thrones, Prince of Lies, I have the honour to advise you that His Majesty requires you to substantiate your request by supplying to this office a full and frank memoir of your life. When this has been done, a decision on your request will be made.

 

May I add to His Majesty's message this advice: Any attempt to omit, slur over, or color in the belief that you will thereby please His Majesty will not please Him.

 

I have the honour to remain, Sincerely His,

(s) Beelzebub Secretary to His Majesty

 

I read it aloud to Pat. She blinked her eyes and whistled. 'Dear, you had better get busy!'

 

`I -´ The paper burst into flames; I dropped it into the dirty dishes. 'Does that always happen?'

 

'I don't know; it's' the first time I've ever seen a message from Number One. And the first time I've heard of anyone being even conditionally granted an audience.'

 

'Pat. I didn't ask for an audience. I planned to find out how to do so today. But I have not put in the request this answers.'

 

'Then you must put in the request at once. It wouldn't do to let it stay unbalanced. I'll help dear - I'll type it for you.'

 

The imps had been around again. In one corner of that vast living room I found that they had installed two desks, one a writing desk, with stacks of paper and a tumbler of pens, the other a more complex setup. Pat went straight to that one. 'Dear, it looks like I'm still assigned to you. I'm your secretary now. The latest and best Hewlett-Packard equipment - this is going to be fun! Or do you know how to type?'

 

'I'm, afraid not.'

 

'Okay, you write it longhand; I'll put it into shape... and correct your spelling and your grammar - you just whip it out. Now I know why I was picked for this job. Not my girlish smile, dear - my typing. Most of, my guild can't type. Many of them took up whoring because shorthand and typing were too much for them. Not me. Well, let's get to work; this job will run days, weeks, I don't know. Do you want me to continue to sleep here?'

 

'Do you want to leave?'

 

'Dear, that's the guest's decision. Has to be.'

 

'I don't want you to leave.' (Marga! Do please understand!)

 

'Good thing you said that, or I would have burst into tears. Besides, a good secretary should stick around in case something comes up in the night.'

 

'Pat, that was an old joke when I was in seminary.'

 

'It was an old joke before you were born, dear. Lets get to work.'

 

Visualize a calendar (that I don't have), its pages ripping off in the wind. This manuscript gets longer and longer but Pat insists that Prince Beelzebub's advice must be taken literally. Pat makes two copies of all that I write; one copy stacks up on my desk, the other copy disappears each night. Imps again. Pat tells me that I can assume that the vanishing copy is going to the Palace, at least as far as the Prince's desk... so what I am doing so far must be, satisfactory.

 

In less than two hours each day Pat types out and prints out what takes me all day to write. But I stopped driving so hard when a handwritten note came in:

 

You are working too hard. Enjoy yourself. Take her to the theater. Go on a picnic. Don't be so wound up.

(s)B.

 

The note self-destroyed, so I knew it was authentic. So I obeyed. With pleasure! But I am not going to describe the fleshpots of Satan's capital city.

 

This morning I finally reached that odd point where I was (am) writing now about what is going on now - and I hand my last page to Pat.

 

Less than an hour after I completed that line above, the gong sounded; Pat went out into the foyer, hurried back. She put her arms around me. 'This is good-bye, dear. I won't be seeing you again.'

 

'What!'

 

'Just that, dear. I was told this morning that my assignment was ending. And I have something I must tell you.

 

You will find, you are bound to learn, that I have been reporting on you daily. Please don't be angry about it. I am a professional, part of the Imperial security staff.'

 

'Be damned! So every kiss, every sigh, was a fake.'

 

'Not one was a fake! Not one! And, when you find your Marga, please tell her that I said she is lucky.'

 

'Sister Mary Patricia, is this another lie?'

 

'Saint Alexander, I have never lied to you. I've had to hold back some things until I was free to speak, that's all.' She took her arms from around me.

 

'Hey! Aren't you going to kiss me good-bye?'

 

'Alec, if you really want to kiss me, you won't ask.'

 

I didn't ask; I did it. If Pat was faking, she's a better actress than I think she is.

 

Two giant fallen angels were waiting to take me to the Palace. They were heavily armed and fully armored. Pat had packaged my manuscript and told me that I was expected to bring it with me. I started to leave - then stopped most suddenly. 'My razor!'

 

'Check your pocket, dear.'

 

'Huh? How'd it get there?'

 

'I knew you weren't coming back, dear.'

 

Again I learned that, in the company of angels, I could fly. Out my own balcony, around the Sans Souci Sheraton, across the Plaza, and we landed on a third-floor balcony of Satan's Palace. Then through several corridors, up a flight of stairs with lifts too high to be comfortable for humans. When I stumbled, one of my escorts caught me, then steadied me until we reached the top, but said nothing - neither ever said anything.

 

Great brass doors, as complex as the Ghiberti Doors, opened. I was shoved inside.

 

And saw Him.

 

A dark and smoky hall, armed guards down both sides, a high throne, a Being on it, at least twice as high as a man... a Being that was the conventional Devil such as YOU see on a Pluto bottle or a deviled-ham tin - tail and horns and fierce eyes, a pitchfork in lieu of scepter, a gleam from braziers glinting off Its dark red skin, sleek muscles. I had to remind myself that the Prince of Lies could look any way He wished; this was probably to daunt me.

 

His voice rumbled out like a foghorn: 'Saint Alexander, you may approach Me.'

 

 

Chapter 26

 

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.

Job 30:29

 

I STARTED up the steps leading to the throne. Again, the lifts were too high, the treads too wide, and now I had no one to steady me. I was reduced to crawling up those confounded steps while Satan looked down at me with a sardonic smile. From all around came music from an unseen source, death music, vaguely Wagnerian but nothing I could identify. I think it was laced with that below-sonic frequency that makes dogs howl, horses run away, and causes men to think of flight or suicide.

 

That staircase kept stretching.

 

I didn't count the number of steps when I started up, but the flight looked to be about thirty steps, no more. When I had been crawling up it for several minutes, I realized that it looked as high as ever. The Prince of Lies!

 

So I stopped and waited.

 

Presently that rumbling voice said, 'Something wrong,' Saint Alexander?'

 

'Nothing wrong,' I answered, 'because You planned it this way. If You really want me to approach You, You will turn off the joke circuit. In the meantime there is no point in my trying to climb a treadmill.'

 

'You think I am doing that to you?'

 

'I know that You are. A game. Cat and mouse.'

 

'You are trying to make a fool of Me, in front of My gentlemen.'

 

'No, Your Majesty, I cannot make a fool of You. Only You can do that.'

 

`Ah so. Do you realize that I can blast you where you stand?'

 

'Your Majesty, I have been totally in Your power since I entered Your realm. What do You wish of me? Shall I continue trying to climb Your treadmill?'

 

'Yes.'

 

'So I did, and the staircase stopped stretching and the treads reduced to a comfortable seven inches. In seconds I reached the same level as Satan - the level of His cloven feet, that is. Which put me much too close to Him. Not only was His Presence terrifying - I had to keep a close grip on myself - but also He stank! Of filthy garbage cans, of rotting meat, of civet and skunk, of brimstone, of closed rooms and gas from diseased gut - all that and worse. I said to myself, Alex Hergensheimer, if you let Him prod you into throwing up and thereby kill any chance of getting you and Marga back together - just don't do it! Control yourself!

 

'The stool is for you,' said Satan. 'Be seated.'

 

Near the throne was a backless stool, low enough to destroy the dignity of anyone who sat on it. I sat.

 

Satan picked up a manuscript with a hand so big that the business-size sheets were like a deck of cards in His hand. 'I've read it. Not bad. A bit wordy but My editors will cut it - better that way than too brief. We will need an ending for it... from you or by a ghost. Probably the latter; it needs more impact than you give it. Tell me, have you ever thought of writing for a living? Rather than preaching?'

 

'I don't think I have the talent.'

 

'Talent shmalent. You should see the stuff that gets published. But you must hike up those sex scenes; today's cash customers demand such scenes wet. Never mind that now; I didn't call you here to discuss your literary style and its shortcomings. I called you in to

make you an offer.'

 

I waited. So did He. After a bit He said, 'Aren't curious about the offer?'

 

'Your Majesty, certainly I am. But, if my race has learned one lesson, concerning You, it is that a human should be extremely cautious in bargaining with You.´

 

He I chuckled and the foundations shook. 'Poor 'little human, did you really think that I wanted to your scrawny soul?'

 

'I don't know what You want. But I'm not as smart as Dr Faust, and not nearly as smart as Daniel Webster. It behooves me to be cautious.'

 

'Oh, come! I don't want your soul. There's no for souls today; there are far too many of them and quality, is way down. I can pick them up at a nickel a bunch, like radishes. But I don't; I'm overstocked. No, Saint Alexander, I wish to retain your services. Your professional services.'

 

(I was suddenly alarmed. What's the catch? Alex, this is loaded! Look behind you! What's He after?) 'You need a dishwasher?'

 

He chuckled again, about 4.2 on the Richter scale. 'No, no, Saint Alexander! Your vocation - not the exigency to which you were temporarily reduced. I want to hire you as a gospel-shouter, a Bible-thumper. I want you to work the Jesus business, just as you were trained to. You won't have to raise money or pass the collection plate; the salary will be ample and the duties light. What do you say?'

 

'I say You are trying to trick me.'

 

'Now that's not very kind. No tricks, Saint Alexander. You will be free to preach exactly as you please, no restrictions. Your title will be personal chaplain to Me', and Primate of Hell. You can devote the rest of your time as little or as much as you wish - to saving lost souls... and there are plenty of those here. Salary to be negotiated but not less than the incumbent, Pope Alexander the Sixth, a notoriously greedy soul. You*won't be pinched, I promise you. Well? How say you?'

 

`(Who's crazy? The Devil, or me? Or am I having another of those nightmares that have been dogging me lately?) 'Your Majesty, You have not mentioned anything I want.´

 

'Ah so? Everybody needs money. You're broke; you can´t stay in that fancy suite another day without finding a job.´ He tapped the manuscript. 'This may bring in something, some day. Not soon. I'm not going to advance you anything on it; it might not sell. There, are too many I-Was-a-Prisoner-of-the-Evil-King extravaganzas on the market already these days.'

 

'Your Majesty, You have read my memoir; You know what I want.'

 

'Eh? Name it.'

 

'You know. My beloved. Margrethe Svensdatter Gunderson.'

 

He looked surprised. 'Didn't I send you a memo about that? She's not in Hell.'

 

I felt like a patient who has kept his chin up right up to the minute the biopsy comes back... and then can't accept the bad news. 'Are You sure?'

 

'Of course I am. Who do you think is in charge around here?'

 

(Prince of Liars, Prince of Lies!) 'How can You be sure? The way I hear it, nobody keeps track. A person could be in Hell for years and You would never know, one way or the other.'

 

'If that's the way you heard it, you heard wrong. Look, if you accept My offer, you'll be able to afford the best agents in history, from Sherlock Holmes to J. Edgar Hoover, to search all over Hell for you. But you'd be wasting your money; she is not in My jurisdiction. I'm telling you officially.'

 

I hesitated. Hell is a big place; I could search it* by myself throughout eternity and I might not find Marga. But plenty of money (how well I knew it!) made hard things easy and impossible things merely difficult.

 

However - Some of the things I had done as executive deputy of C.U.D. may have been a touch shoddy (meeting a budget isn't easy), but as an ordained minister I had never hired out to the Foe. Our Ancient Adversary. How can a minister of Christ be chaplain to Satan? Marga darling, I can't.

 

`No.´

 

'I can't hear you. Let Me sweeten the deal. Accept and I assign My prize female agent Sister Mary Patricia to you permanently. She'll be your slave - with the minor reservation that you must not sell her. However, you can rent her out, if you wish. How say you now.

 

'No.'

 

'Oh, come, come! You ask for one female; I offer you a better one. You can't pretend not to be satisfied with Pat; you've been shacked up with her for weeks. Shall I play back some of the sighs and moans?'

 

'You unspeakable cad!'

 

'Tut, tut, don't be rude to Me in My own house. You know and I know and we all know that there isn't any great difference between one female and another - save possibly in their cooking. I'm offering you one slightly, better in place of the one you mislaid. A year from now you'll thank Me. Two years from now you'll wonder why you ever fussed. Better accept, Saint Alexander; it is the best offer you can hope for, because, I tell you solemnly, that Danish zombie you ask for is not in Hell. Well?'

 

`No.´

 

Satan drummed on the arm of his throne and looked vexed. 'That's your last word?'

 

'Yes.'

 

`Suppose I offered you the chaplain job with your ice maiden thrown in?'

 

'You said she wasn't in Hell!'

 

'I did not say that I did not know where she is.'

 

'You can get her?'

 

'Answer My question. Will you accept service as My chaplain if the contract includes returning her to you?'

 

(Marga, Marga!) 'No.'

 

Satan said briskly, 'Sergeant General, dismiss the guard. You come with me.'

 

'Leftanright!... Hace! For´d!... Harp!'

 

Satan got down from His throne, went around behind it without further word to me. I had to hurry to catch up with His giant strides. Back of the throne was a long dark tunnel; I broke into a run when it seemed that He was getting away from me. His silhouette shrank rapidly against a dim light at the far end of the tunnel.

 

Then I almost stepped on His heels. He had not been receding as fast as I had thought; He had been changing in size. Or I had been. He and I were now much the same height. I skidded to a halt close behind Him as He reached doorway at the end of the tunnel. It was barely lighted by a red glow.

 

Satan touched something at the door; a white fan light came on above the door. He opened it and turned toward me. 'Come in, Alec.'

 

My heart skipped and I gasped for breath. Jerry! Jerry Farnsworth!'

 

 

Chapter 27

 

For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that

increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1:18

 

And Job spake, and said, Let the day

perish wherein I was born, and the night

in which it was said, There is a man

child conceived.

Job 3:2-3

 

MY EYES dimmed, my head started to spin, my knees went rubbery. Jerry said sharply, 'Hey, none of that!' - grabbed me around the waist, dragged me inside, slammed the door.

 

He kept me from falling, then shook me and slapped my face. I shook my head and caught my breath. I heard Katie's voice: 'Let's get him in where he can lie down.'

 

My eyes focused. 'I'm okay. I was just taken all over queer for a second.' I looked around. We were in the foyer of the Farnsworth house.

 

'You went into syncope, that's What you did. Not surprising, you had a shock. Come into the family room.'

 

'All right. Hi, Katie. Gosh, it's good to see you.'

 

"You, too, dear.' She came closer, put her arm around me, and kissed me A learned again that, while Marga was my be-all, Katie was my kind of woman, too. And Pat. Marga, I wish you could have met Pat. (Marga!)

 

The family room seemed bare - unfinished furniture, no windows, no fireplace. Jerry said, `Katie, give us Remington number two', will you, please? I'm going to punch drinks.'

 

'Yes, dear.'

 

While they were busy, Sybil came tearing in, threw her arms around me (almost knocking me off my feet; the child is solid) and kissed me, a quick buss unlike Katie's benison. 'Mr Graham! You were terrific! I watched all of it. With Sister Pat. She thinks you're terrific, too.'

 

The left wall changed into a picture window looking out at mountains; the opposite wall now had a field-stone fireplace with a brisk fire that looked the same as the last time I saw it. The ceiling now was low; furniture and floor and fixtures were all as I recalled. 'Remington number two.' Katie turned away from the controls. 'Sybil, let him be, dear. Alec, off your feet. Rest.'

 

'All right.' I sat down. 'Uh... is this Texas? Or is it Hell?'

 

'Matter of opinion,' Jerry said.

 

'Is there a difference?' asked Sybil.

 

'Hard to tell,' said Katie. 'Don't worry about it now, Alec. I watched you, too, and I agree with the girls. I was proud of 'you.'

 

'He's a tough case,' Jerry put in. 'I didn't get a mite of change off him. Alec, you stubborn squarehead, I lost three bets on you.' Drinks appeared at our places. Jerry raised his glass. 'So here's to you.'

 

'To Alec!'

 

'Right!'

 

'Here's to me,' I agreed and took a big slug of Jack Daniel's. 'Jerry? You're not really -'

 

He grinned at me. The tailored ranch clothes faded; the western boots gave way to cloven hooves, horns stuck up through His hair, His skin glowed ruddy red and oily over heavy muscles; in His lap a preposterously huge phallus thrust rampantly skyward.

 

Katie said gently, 'I think You've convinced him, dear, and it's not one of Your prettier guises.'

 

Quickly the conventional Devil-faded and the equally convenntional Texas millionaire returned. 'That's better,' said Sybil. 'Daddy, why do You use that corny one?'

 

'It's an emphatic symbol. But what I'm wearing now is appropriate here. And you should be in Texas clothes, too.'

 

'Must I? I think Patty has Mr Graham used to skin by now.'

 

'Her skin, not your skin. Do it before I fry you for lunch.'

 

'Daddy, You're a fraud.' Sybil grew blue jeans and a halter without moving out of her chair. 'And I'm tired of being a teenager and see no reason to continue the charade. Saint Alec knows he was hoaxed.'

 

'Sybil, you talk too much.'

 

Dear One, she may be right,' Katie put in quietly.

 

Jerry shook His head. I sighed and said what I had to say. 'Yes, Jerry, I know I've been hoaxed. By those who I thought were my friends. And Marga's friends, too. You have been behind it all? Then who am I? Job?'

 

'Yes and no.'

 

`What does that mean... Your Majesty?'

 

'Alec, you need not call Me that. We met as friends. I hope we will stay friends.'

 

'How can we be friends? If I am Job. Your Majesty... where is my wife!'

 

'Alec, I wish I knew. Your memoir gave Me some clues and I have been following them. But I don't know as yet. You must be patient.'

 

'Uh... damn it, patient I'm not! What clues? Set me on the trail! Can't You see that I'm going out of my mind?'

 

'No, I can't, because you're not. I've just been grilling you. I pushed you to what should have been your breaking point, You can't be broken. However, you can't help Me search for her, not at this point. Alec, you've got to remember that you are human... and I am not. I have powers that you can't imagine. I have limitations that you cannot imagine, too. So hold your peace and listen.

 

'I am your friend. If you don't believe that I am, you are free to leave My house and fend for yourself. There are jobs to be had down at the Lake front - if you can stand the reek of brimstone. You can search for Marga your own way. I don't owe you two anything as I am not behind your troubles. Believe Me.'

 

'Uh... I want to believe You.'

 

`Perhaps you'll believe Katie.'

 

Katie said, 'Alec, the Old One speaks sooth to you. He did not compass your troubles. Dear, did you ever bandage a wounded dog... and have the poor beastie, in its ignorance, gnaw away the dressing and damage itself still more?'

 

'Uh, yes.' (My dog Brownie. I was twelve. Brownie died.)

 

'Don't be like that poor dog. Trust Jerry. If He is to help you, He must do things beyond your ken. Would you try to direct a brain surgeon? Or attempt to hurry one?'

 

I smiled ruefully and reached out to pat her hand. 'I'll be good, Katie. I'll try.'

 

'Yes, do try, for Marga's sake.'

 

'I will. Uh, Jerry - stipulating that I'm merely human and can't understand everything, can You tell me anything?'

 

'What I can, I will. Where shall I start?'

 

'Well, when lasked if I was Job, You said, "Yes and no." What did You mean?'

 

'You are indeed another Job. With the original Job I was, I confess, one of the villains. This time I'm not.

 

'I'm not proud of the fashion in which I bedeviled Job. I'm not proud of the fashion in which I have so often let My Brother Yahweh maneuver Me into doing His dirty work - starting clear back with Mother Eve - and before that, in ways I cannot explain. And I've always been a sucker for a bet, any sort of a bet... and I'm not proud of that weakness, either.'

 

Jerry looked at the fire and brooded. 'Eve was a pretty one. As soon as I laid eyes on her I knew that Yahweh had finally cooked up a creation worthy of an Artist. Then I found out He had copied most of the design.'

 

'Huh? But -'

 

'Man, do not interrupt. Most of your errors - this MY brother actively encourages - arise from believing that your God is solitary and all powerful. In fact My Brother - and I, too, of course - is no more than a corporal in the T.O. of the Commander in Chief. And, I must add, the Great One I think of as the C-in-C, the Chairman, the Final Power, may be a mere private to some higher Power I cannot comprehend.

 

'Behind every mystery lies another mystery. Infinite recession. But you don't need to know final answers - if there be such - and neither do I. You want to know what happened to you... and to Margrethe. Yahweh came to Me and offered the same wager We had made over Job, asserting that He had a follower who was even more stubborn than Job. I turned Him down. That bet over Job had not been much fun; long before it was concluded I grew tired of clobbering the poor schmo. So this time I told My Brother to take His shell games elsewhere.

 

'It was not until I saw you and Marga trudging along Interstate Forty, naked as kittens and just as helpless, that I realized that Yahweh had found someone else with whom to play His nasty games. So I fetched you here and kept you for a week or so -'

 

'What? Just one night!'

 

'Don't quibble. Kept you long enough to wring you dry, then sent you on your way... armed with some tips on how to cope, yes, but in fact you were doing all right on your own. You're a tough son of a bitch, Alec, so much so that I looked up the bitch you are the son of. A bitch she is and tough she was and the combo of that vixen and your sweet and gentle sire produced a creature able to survive. So I let you alone.

 

'I was notified that you were coming here; My spies are everywhere. Half of My Brother's personal staff are double agents.'

 

'Saint Peter?'               -

 

'Eh? No, not Pete. Pete is a good old Joe, the most perfect Christian in Heaven or on earth. Denied his Boss thrice, been making up for it ever since. Utterly delighted to be on nickname terms with his Master in all three of His conventional  Aspects. I like Pete. If he ever has a falling out with My Brother, hes got a job here.

 

`Then you showed up in Hell. Do you recall an invitation I extended to you concerning Hell?'

 

('- look me up. I promise you some hellacious hospitality.-´) 'Yes!'

 

Did I deliver? Careful how you answer; Sister Pat is listening.'

 

'She's not listening,' Katie denied. 'Pat is a lady. Not much like some people. Darling, I can shorten this. What Alec wants to know is why he was persecuted, how he was persecuted, and what he can do about it now. Meaning Marga. Alec, the why is simple; you were picked for the same reason that a pit bull is picked to go into the pit and be torn to ribbons: because Yahweh thought you could win. The how is equally simple. You guessed right when you thought you were paranoid. Paranoid but not crazy; were indeed conspiring against you. Every time you got close to the answer the razzle-dazzle started over again. That million dollars. Minor razzle-dazzle, that money existed only long enough to confuse you- I think that covers everything but what you can do. What you can do and all that you can do is to trust Jerry. He may fail - it's very dangerous - but He will try.'

 

I looked at Katie with increased respect, and some trepidation. She had referred to matters I had never mentioned to Jerry. 'Katie? Are you human? Or are you, uh, a fallen throne or something like that?'

 

She giggled. 'First time anyone has suspected that. I'm human, all too human, Alec love. Furthermore I'm no stranger to you; you know lots about me.'

 

'I do?'

 

'Think back. April of the year one thousand four hundred and forty-six years before the birth of Yeshua of Nazareth.'

 

'I should be able to identify it that way? I'm sorry; I can't.'

 

'Then try it this way: exactly forty years after the exodus from Egypt of the Children of Israel.'

 

The conquest of Canaan.

 

'Oh, pshaw! Try the Book of Joshua,, chapter What's my name, what's my trade; was I mother, wife, or, maid?'

 

(One of the best-known stories in the Bible. Her? I'm talking to her?) 'Uh . . . Rahab?'

 

'The harlot of Jericho. That's me. I hid General Joshua's spies, in my house... and thereby saved my parents and my brothers and sisters from the massacre. Now tell me I'm "well preserved".'

 

Sybil snickered. 'Go ahead. I dare you.'

 

'Gosh, Katie, you're well preserved! That's been over three thousand years, about thirty-four hundred. Hardly a wrinkle. Well, not many.'

 

"Not many"! No breakfast for you, young man!'

 

'Katie, you're beautiful and you know it. You and Margrethe tie for first place.'

 

'Have you looked at me?' demanded Sybil. 'I have my fans. Anyhow, Mom is over four thousand years old. A hag.'

 

'No, Sybil, the parting of the Red Sea was in fourteen-ninety-one BC. Add that to the date of the Rapture, nineteen-ninety-four AD. Then add seven years -´

 

"Alec.'

 

'Yes, Jerry?'

 

'Sybil is right. You just haven't noticed it. The thousand years of peace between Armageddon and the War in Heaven is half over. My Brother, wearing his Jesus hat, is now ruling on earth, and I am chained and cast down into the Pit for this entire thousand years.'

 

'You don't look chained from here. Could I have some more Jack Daniel's? - I'm confused.'

 

'I'm chained enough for this purpose; I've ceased "going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it. " Yaliweh has it all to Himself for the short time remaining before He destroys it. I won't bother His games.' Jerry shrugged. 'I declined to take part in Armageddon - I pointed out to Him that He had plenty of homegrown  villains for it. Alec, with My Brother writing the scripts, I was always supposed to fight fiercely, like Harvard, then lose. It got monotonous. He's got me scheduled to take another dive at the end of this Millennium, to fulfill His prophecies. That "War in Heaven" He predicted in the so-called Book of Revelation. I'm not going to go. I've told My angels that they can form a foreign legion if they want to, but I'm sitting this one out. What's the point in a battle if the outcome is predetermined thousands of years before the whistle?'

 

He was watching me while He talked. He stopped abruptly. 'What's eating on you now?'

 

'Jerry... if it has been five hundred years since I lost Margrethe, it's hopeless. Isn't it?'

 

I 'Hey! Damnation, boy, haven't I told you not to try to understand things you can't understand? Would I be working on it if it were hopeless?'

 

Katie said, 'Jerry, I had Alec all quieted down... and You got him upset again.'

 

'I'm sorry.'

 

'You didn't mean to. Alec, Jerry is blunt, but He's right. For you, acting alone, the search was always hopeless. But with Jerry's help, you may find her. Not certain, but a hope worth pursuing. But time isn't relevant, five hundred years or five seconds. You don't have to understand it, but do please believe it.'

 

'All right. I will. Because otherwise there would be no hope, none.'

 

'But there is hope; all you have to do now is be patient.'

 

'I'll try. But I guess Marga and I will never have our soda fountain and lunch counter in Kansas.'

 

'Why not?' asked Jerry.

 

'Five centuries? They won't even speak the same language. There will be no one who knows a hot fudge sundae, from curried goat. Customs change.'

 

'So you reinvent the hot fudge sundae and make a killing. Don't be a pessimist, son.'

 

'Would you like one right now?' asked Sybil.

 

'I don't think he had better mix it with Jack Daniel's,' Jerry advised.

 

`Thanks, Sybil... but I´d probably cry in it. I associate it with Marga.´

 

So don't. Son, crying in your drink is bad enough crying into a hot fudge sundae is disgusting.'

 

'Do I get to finish the story of my scandalous youth, or won't anybody listen?'

 

I sai 'Katie, I'm listening. You made a deal with Joshua.'

 

'With his spies. Alec love, to anyone whose love and respect I want - you, I mean I need to explain something. Some people who know who I am - and even more who don't - class Rahab the harlot as a traitor. Treason in time of war, betrayal of fellow citizens, all that. I -´

 

'I never thought so, Katie. Jehovah had decreed that Jericho', would fall. Since it was ordained, you couldn't change it. What you did was to save your father and mother and the other kids.'

 

'Yes, but there is more to it, Alec. Patriotism is a fairly late concept. Back then, in the land of Canaan, any loyalty other than to one's family was personal loyalty to a chief of some sort - usually a successful warrior who dubbed himself "king". Alec, a whore doesn't - didn't - have that sort of loyalty.'

 

'So? Katie, in spite of studying at seminary I don't really have any sharp concept of what life was like back then. I keep trying to see it in terms of Kansas.'

 

'Not too different. A whore at that time and place was, either a temple prostitute, or a slave, or a self-owned private contractor. I was a free woman. Oh, yeah? Whores don't fight city hall, they can't. An officer of the king comes in, he expects free tail and free drinks, same for the civic patrol - the cops. Same for any sort of politician. Alec, I tell you the truth; I gave away more tail than I sold - and often got a black eye as a bonus. No, I did not feel loyalty to Jericho; the Jews weren't any more cruel and they were much cleaner!'

 

`Katie, I don't know of any Protestant Christian who thinks anything bad of Rahab. But I have long wondered about one detail in her - your - story. Your house, was on the city wall?"

 

'Yes. It was inconvenient for housekeeping - carrying water up all those steps - but convenient for business, and the rent was low. It was the fact that I lived on the wall that let me save General Joshua's agents. Used a clothesline; they went out the window. Didn't get my clothesline back, either.'

 

'How high was that wall?'

 

'Hunh? Goodness, I don't know. It was high.'

 

'Twenty cubits.'

 

'Was it, Jerry?'

 

I was there. Professional interest. First use of nerve warfare in combination with sonic weapons.'

 

'The reason I ask about the height, Katie, is because it states in the Book that you gathered all your family into your house and stayed there, all during the siege.'

 

'We surely did, seven horrid days. My contract with the Israelite spies required it. My place was only two little rooms, not big enough for three adults and seven kids. We ran out of food, we ran out of water, the kids cried, my father complained. He happily took the money I brought in; with seven kids he needed it. But he resented having to stay under the same roof where I entertained johns, and he was especially bitter about having to use my bed. My workbench. But use it he did, and I slept on the floor.'

 

'Then your family were all in your house when the walls came tumbling down.'

 

'Yes, surely. We didn't dare leave it until they came for us, the two spies. My house was marked at the window with red string.'

 

'Katie, your house was on the wall, thirty feet up. The Bible says the wall fell down flat. Wasn't anyone hurt?'

 

She looked startled. 'Why, no.'

 

'Didn't the house collapse?'

 

'No. Alec, it's been a long time. But I remember the trumpets and the shout, and then the earthquake rumble as the city wall fell. But my house wasn't hurt.'

 

`Saint Alec!´

 

'Yes, Jerry?'

 

'You should know; you're a saint. A miracle. If Yahweh hadn't been throwing miracles right and left, the - Israelites would never have conquered the Canaanites. Here this ragged band of Okies comes into a rich country of walled cities - and they never lose a battle. Miracles. Ask the Canaanites. If you can find one. My Brother pretty regularly had them all put to the sword, except some few cases, where the young and pretty ones were saved as slaves.'

 

'But it was the Promised Land, Jerry, and they were His Chosen People.'

 

'They are indeed the Chosen People. Of course, being chosen by Yahweh is no great shakes. Do you know your Book well enough to know how many times He crossed them up? My Brother is a bit of a jerk.'

 

I had had too much Jack Daniel's and too many shocks. But Jerry's casual blasphemy triggered me. 'The Lord God Jehovah is a just God!'

 

'You never played marbles with Him. Alec, "justice" is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion. The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system. The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer. How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another? Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and "dying for your sins". Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

 

'Or maybe there is. Being in that catatonic condition called "grace" at the exact moment of death - or at the final Trump - will get you into Heaven. Right? You got to Heaven that way, did you not?'

 

'That's correct. I hit it lucky. For I had racked up quite a list of sins before then.'

 

'A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst Of taking the name o Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?'

 

I answered stiffly, 'If you read the words of the Bible literally, that is the system. But the Lord moves in mysterious -´

 

'Not mysterious to Me, bud: I've known Him too long. It's His world, His rules, His doing. His rules are exact and anyone can follow them and reap the reward. But "Just" they are not. What do you think of what He has done to you and your Marga? Is that justice?'

 

I took a deep breath. 'I've been trying to figure that out ever since Judgment Day... and Jack Daniel's isn't helping. No, I don't think it's what I signed up for.'

 

'Ah, but you did!'

 

'How?'

 

'My Brother Yahweh, wearing His Jesus face, said: "After this manner therefore pray ye: " Go ahead, say it.'

 

"Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done -´

 

'Stop! Stop right there. "Thy will be done -" No Muslim claiming to be a "slave of God" ever gave a more sweeping consent than that. In that prayer you invite Him to do His worst. The perfect masochist. That's the test of Job, boy. Job was treated unjustly in every way day after day for years - I know, I know, I was there; I did it - and My dear Brother stood by and let Me do it. Let Me? He urged Me, He connived in it, accessory ahead of the fact.

 

Now it's your turn. Your God did it to you. Will you curse Him? Or will you come wiggling back on your belly like a whipped dog?'

 

 

Chapter 28

 

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;

knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Matthew 7:7

 

I WAS saved from answering that impossible question by an interruption - and was I glad! I suppose every man has doubts at times about God's justice. I admit that I had been much troubled lately and had been forced to remind myself again and again that God's ways are not man's ways, and that I could not expect always to understand the purposes of the Lord.

 

But I could not speak my misgivings aloud, and least of all to the Lord's Ancient Adversary. It was especially upsetting that Satan chose at this moment to have the shape and the voice of my only friend.

 

Debating with the Devil is a mug's game at best.

 

The interruption was mundane: a telephone ringing. Accidental interruption? I don't think Satan tolerates `accidents'. As may be, I did not have to answer the question that I could not answer.

 

Katie said, 'Shall I get it, dear?'

 

'Please.'

 

A telephone handset appeared in Katie's hand. 'Lucifer's office, Rahab speaking. Repeat, please. I will inquire.' She looked at Jerry.

 

'I'll take it.' Jerry operated without a visible telephone instrument. 'Speaking. No. I said, no. No, damn it! Refer that to Mr Ashmedai. Let Me have the other call.' He muttered something about the impossibility of getting competent help, then said, 'Speaking. Yes, Sir!' Then He said nothing for quite a long time. At last He said, 'At once, Sir. Thank you.'

 

Jerry stood up. 'Please excuse Me, Alec; I have work to do. I can't say when I will be back. Try' to treat this waiting as a vacation. and My house is yours. Katie, take care of him. Sybil, keep him amused.' Jerry vanished.

 

`Will I keep him amused!' Sybil got up and stood in front of me, rubbed her hands together. Her western clothes faded out, leaving Sybil. She grinned.

 

Katie said mildly, 'Sybil, stop that. Grow more clothes at once or I'll send you home.'

 

'Spoilsport.' Sybil developed a skimpy bikini. 'I plan to make Saint Alec forget that Danish baggage.'

 

'What'll you bet, dear? I've been talking to Pat.'

 

'So? What did Pat say?'

 

'Margrethe can cook.'

 

Sybil looked disgusted. 'A girl spends fifty years on her back, studying hard. Along comes some slottie who can make chicken and dumplings. It's not fair.'

 

I decided to change the subject. 'Sybil, those tricks you do with clothes are fascinating. Are you a graduate witch now?'

 

Instead of answering me at once, Sybil glanced at Katie, who said to her: 'All over with, dear. Speak freely.'

 

'Okay. Saint Alec, I'm no witch. Witchcraft is poppycock. You know that verse in the Bible about not suffering witches to live?'

 

'Exodus twenty-two, eighteen.'

 

'That's the one. The Old Hebrew word translated there as "witch" actually means "poisoner". Not letting a poisoner continue to breathe strikes me as a good idea. But I wonder how many friendless old women have been hanged or burned as a result of a sloppy translation?'

 

(Could this really be true? What about the 'literal word of God' concept on which I had been reared? Of course the word 'witch' is English, not the original Hebrew... but the translators of the King James, version were sustained by God - that's why that version of the Bible [and only that one] can be taken literally. But - No! Sybil must be mistaken. The Good Lord would not let hundreds, thousands, of innocent people be tortured to death over a mistranslation He could so easily have corrected.)

 

'So you did not attend a Sabbat that night. What did you do?'

 

'Not what you think; Israfel and I aren't quite that chummy. Chums, yes; buddies, no.'

 

"Israfel"? I thought he was in Heaven.'

 

`That's his godfather. The trumpeter. This Israfel can't play a note. But he did ask me to tell you, if I ever got a chance, that he really isn't the pimple he pretended to be as "Roderick Lyman Culverson, Third".'

 

'I'm glad to hear that. As he certainly did a good job of portraying an unbearable young snot. I didn't see how a daughter of Katie and Jerry - or is it just of Katie? - could have such poor taste as to pick that boor as a pal. Not Israfel, of course, but the part he was playing.'

 

'Oh. Better fix that, too. Katie, what relation are we?'

 

'I don't think even Dr Darwin could find any genetic relationship, dear. But I am every bit as proud of you as. I would be were you my own daughter.'

 

'Thank you, Mom!'

 

'But we are all related,' I objected, 'through Mother Eve. Since Katie, wrinkles and all, was born while the Children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, there are only about eighty begats from Eve to Katie. With your birthdate and simple arithmetic we could make a shrewd guess at how close your blood relationship is.'

 

'Oh, oh! Here we go again. Saint Alec, Mama Kate is descended from Eve; I am not. Different species. I'm an imp. An afrit, if you want to get technical.'

 

She again vanished her clothes and did a body transformation. 'See?'

 

I said, 'Say! Weren't you managing the desk at the Sans Souci Sheraton the evening I arrived in Hell?'

 

'I certainly was. And I'm flattered that you remember me, in my own shape.' She resumed her human appearance, plus the tiny bikini. 'I was there because I knew you by sight. Pop didn't want anything to go wrong.'

 

Katie stood up. 'Let's continue this dip before dinner'

 

'I'm busy seducing Saint Alec.´

 

'Dreamer. Continue it outdoors.'

 

Outside it was a lovely Texas late afternoon, with lengthening shadows. 'Katie, a straight answer, please. Is, Hell? Or is this Texas?'

 

'Both.'

 

'I withdraw the question.'

 

I must have let my annoyance show in my voice, for she turned and put a hand on my chest. 'Alec, I was not jesting. For many centuries Lucifer has maintained pieds-à-terre here and there on earth. In each He had an established personality, a front. After Armageddon, when His Brother set Himself up as king of earth for the Millennium, He quit visiting earth. But some of these place's were home to Him, so He pinched them off and took them with, Him. You see?'

 

'I suppose I do. About as well as a cow understands calculus.'

 

'I don't understand the mechanism; it's on the God level. But those numerous changes you and Marga underwent during your persecution: How deep did each change go? Do you think the entire planet was involved each time?'

 

Reality tumbled in my mind in a fashion it had not-since the last of those 'changes'. 'Katie, I don't know! I was always too busy surviving. Wait a moment. Each change did cover the whole planet earth, and about a century of its history. Because I always checked the history and memorized as much as I could. Cultural. changes, too. The whole complex.'

 

'Each change stopped not far beyond the end of your nose, Alec, and no one but you - you two - was aware of any change. You didn't check history; you checked history books. At least this is the way Lucifer would have handled it, had He been arranging the deception.'

 

'Uh - Katie, do you realize how long it would take to revise, rewrite, and print an entire encyclopedia? That's what I usually consulted.'

 

`But Alec, you have already been told that             time is never a problem on  the God level. Or space. Whatever needed to deceive you was provided. But no more than that. That is the conservative principle in art at the God level. While I can't do it, not being at that level, I have seen a lot of it done. A skillful Artist in shapes and appearances does no more than necessary to create His effect.'

 

Rghab sat down on the edge of the pool, paddled her feet in the water. 'Come sit beside me. Consider the edge of the "big bang". What is there out beyond that limit where the red shift has the magnitude that means that the expansion of the universe equals the speed of light - what is beyond?'

 

I answered rather stiffly, 'Katie, your hypothetical question lacks meaning. I've kept up, more or less, with such silly notions as the "big bang" and the "expanding universe" because a preacher of the Gospel must keep track of such theories in order to be able to refute them. The two you mention imply an impossible length of time impossible because the world was created about six thousand years ago. "About" because the exact date of Creation is hard to calculate, and also because I am uncertain as to the present date. But around six thousand years not the billion years or so the big-bangers need.'

 

'Alec... your universe is about twenty-three billion years old.' '

 

I started to retort, closed my mouth. I will not flatly contradict my hostess.

 

She added, 'And your universe was created in four thousand and four BC.'

 

I stared at the water long enough for Sybil to surface and splash us.

 

'Well, Alec?´

 

'You've left me with nothing to say.'

 

'But notice carefully what I did say. I did not say that the world was created twenty-three billion years ago; I said that was its age. It was created old. Created with fossils in the ground and craters on the moon, all speaking of great age. Created that way by Yahweh, because it amused Him to do so. One of those scientists said, "God does not roll dice with the universe." Unfortunately not true. Yahweh rolls loaded dice with His universe... to deceive His creatures.'

 

'Why would He do that?'

 

'Lucifer says that it is because He is a poor Artist, the sort who is always changing his mind and scraping the canvas. And a practical joker. But I'm really not entitled to an opinion; I'm not at that level. And Lucifer is prejudiced where His Brother is concerned; I think that is obvious. You haven't remarked on the greatest wonder.'

 

'Maybe I missed it.'

 

'No, I think you were being polite. How an old whore happened to have opinions about cosmogony and teleology and eschatology and other long words of Greek derivation; that's the greatest wonder. Not?'

 

`Why, Rahab honey, I was just so busy counting your wrinkles that I wasn't lis´

 

This got me shoved into the water. I came up sputtering and spouting and found both women laughing at me. So I placed both hands on the edge of the pool with Katie captured inside the circle. She did not seem to mind being captive; she leaned against me like a cat. 'You were about to say?' I asked.

 

'Alec, to be able to read and write is as wonderful as sex. Or almost. You may not fully appreciate what a, blessing it is because you probably learned how as a baby and have been doing it casually ever since. But when I was a whore in Canaan almost four millennia ago, I did not know how to read and write. I learned by listening... to johns, to neighbors, to gossip in the market. But that's not a way to learn much, and even scribes and judges were ignorant then.

 

'I had been dead nearly three centuries before I learned to read and write, and when I did learn, I was taught by the ghost of a harlot from what later became the great Cretan civilization. Saint Alec, this may startle you but, An general throughout history, whores learned to read and write long before respectable women took up the dangerous practice. When I did learn, brother. For a while it crowded sex out of my life.'

 

She grinned up at me. 'Almost, anyhow. Presently I went back to a more healthy balance, reading and sex, in equal amounts.'

 

'I don't have the strength for that ratio.'

 

`Women are different. My best education started with the burning of the Library at Alexandria. Yahweh didn't want it, so Lucifer grabbed the ghosts of all those thousands of codices, took them to, Hell, regenerated them carefully - and Rahab had a picnic! And let me add: Lucifer has His eye on the Vatican Library, since it will be up for salvage soon. Instead of having to regenerate ghosts, in the case of the Vatican Library, Lucifer plans to pinch it off intact just before Time Stop, and take it unhurt to Hell. Won't that be grand?'

 

'Sounds as if it would be. The only thing about which I've ever envied the papists is their library. But... "regenerated ghosts"?'

 

'Slap my back.'

 

'Huh?'

 

'Slap it. No, harder than that; I'm not a fragile little butterfly. Harder. That's more like it. What you just, slapped is a regenerated ghost.'

 

'Felt solid.'

 

'Should be, I paid list price for the job. It was before Lucifer noticed me and made me a bird in a gilded cage, a pitiful sight to see. I understand that, if you are saved and go to Heaven, regeneration goes with salvation... but here you buy it on credit, then work your arse off to pay for it. That being exactly how I paid for it. Saint Alec, you didn't die, I know. A regenerated body is just like the one a person has before death, but better. No contagious diseases, no allergies, no old-age wrinkles - and "wrinkles" my foot! I wasn't wrinkled the day I died... or at least not much. How did you get me talking about wrinkles? We were discussing relativity and the expanding universe, high-type intellectual conversation.'

 

That night Sibil made a strong effort to get into my bed, an effort that Katie firmly thwarted - the went  to bed with me herself. 'Pat said that you were not to be allowed to sleep alone.'

 

Pat thinks I'm sick. I'm not.'

 

'I won't argue it. And don't quiver your chin, dear; Mother Rahab will let you sleep.'

 

Sometime in the night I woke up sobbing, and Katie was there. She comforted me. I'm sure Pat told her about my nightmares. With Katie there to quiet me down I got back to sleep rather quickly.

 

It was a sweet Arcadian interlude... save for the absence of Margrethe. But Katie had me convinced that I owed it to Jerry (and to her) to be patient and not brood over my loss. So I did not, or not much, in the daytime, and, while night could be bad, even lonely nights are not too lonely with Mother Rahab to soothe one after waking up emotionally defenceless. She was always there except one night she had to be away. Sybil took that watch, carefully instructed by Katie, and carried it out the same way.

 

I discovered one amusing thing about Sybil. In sleep she slips back into her natural shape, imp or afrit, without knowing it. This makes her about six inches shorter and she has those cute little horns that were the first thing I had noticed about her, at the Sans Souci.

 

Daytimes we swam and sunbathed and rode horseback and picnicked out in the hills. In making this enclave Jerry had apparently pinched off many square miles; we appeared to be able to go as far as we liked in any direction.

 

Or perhaps I don't understand at all how such things are done.

 

Strike out 'perhaps' - I know as much about operations On the God level as a frog knows about Friday.

 

Jerry had been gone about a week when Rahab showed up at the breakfast table with my memoir manuscript. Saint Alec, Lucifer sent instructions that you are to bring up to date and keep it up to date.-

 

`All right. Will longhand do? Or, if there is a typewriter around, I guess I could hunt and peck.´

 

'You do it longhand; I'll do a smooth draft. I've done lots of secretarial work for Prince Lucifer.'

 

'Katie, sometimes you call Him Jerry, sometimes Lucifer, never Satan.'

 

'Alec, He prefers "Lucifer" but He answers to anything. "Jerry" and "Katie" were names invented for you and Marga -´

 

'And "Sybil",' Sybil amended.

 

'And "Sybil". Yes, Egret. Do you want your own name back now?'

 

'No, I think it's nice that Alec - and Marga - have names for us that no one else knows.'

 

`Just a minute,' I put in. 'The day I met you, all three of you responded to those names as if you had worn them all your lives.'

 

'Mom and I are pretty fast at extemporaneous drama,' Sybil-Egret said. 'They didn't know they were fire-worshipers until I slipped it into the conversation. And I didn't know I was a witch until Mom tipped me off. Israfel is pretty sharp, too. But he did have more time to think about his role.'

 

'So we were snookered in all directions. A couple of country cousins.'

 

'Alec,' Katie said to me earnestly, 'Lucifer always has reasons for what He does. He rarely explains. His intentions are malevolent only toward malicious people which you are not.'

 

.We three were sunbathing by the pool when Jerry returned suddenly. He said abruptly to me, not even stopping first to speak to Katie: 'Get your clothes on. We're leaving at once.

 

Katie bounced up, rushed in and got my clothes. The women had me dressed as fast as a fireman answering an alarm. Katie shoved my razor into my pocket, buttoned it. I announced, 'I'm ready!'

 

`Where's his manuscrip?´

 

Again Katie rushed in, out again fast. 'Here!'

 

In that brief time Jerry had grown twelve feet tall - and changed. He was still Jerry, but I now knew why Lucifer was known as the most beautiful of all the angels. 'So long!' he said. 'Rahab, I'll call you if I can.' He started to pick me up.

 

'Wait! Egret and I must kiss him good-bye!'

 

'Oh. Make it snappy!´

 

They did, ritual pecks only, given simultaneously. Jerry grabbed me, held me like a child, and we went straight up. I had a quick glimpse of Sans Souci, the Palace, and the Plaza, then smoke and flame from the Pit covered them. We went on out of this world.

 

How we traveled, how long we traveled, where we traveled I do not know. It was like that endless fall to Hell, but made much more agreeable by Jerry's arms. It reminded me of times when I was very young, two or three years old, when my father would sometimes pick me up after supper and hold me until I fell asleep.

 

I suppose I did sleep. After a long time I became alert by feeling Jerry sweeping in for a landing. He put me down, set me on my feet.

 

There was gravity here; I felt weight and 'down' again had meaning. But I do not think we were on a planet. We seemed to be on a platform or a porch of some immensely large building. I could not see it because we were right up against it. Elsewhere there was nothing to see, just an amorphous twilight.

 

Jerry said, 'Are you all right?'

 

'Yes. Yes, I think so.'

 

'Good. Listen carefully. I am about to take you in to see - no, for you to be seen by - an Entity who is to me, and to my brother your god Yahweh, as Yahweh is to you. Understand me?'

 

'Uh... maybe. I'm not sure.'

 

`A is to B as B is to C. To this Entity your lord god jehoyah is equivalent to a child building sand castles at a beach, then destroying them in childish tantrums. To Him, I am a child, too. I look up to Him as you look up to your triple deity - father, son, and holy ghost. I don't worshipe this Entity as God; He does not demand, does not expect, does not want, that sort of bootlicking. Yahweh may be the, only god who ever thought up that curious vice - at least I do not know of another planet or place in any universe where god-worship is practiced. But I am young and not much traveled.'

 

Jerry was watching me closely. He appeared to be troubled. 'Alec, maybe this analogy will explain it. When you were growing up, did you ever have to take a pet to a veterinarian?'

 

'Yes. I didn't like it because they always hated it so.'

 

'I don't like it, either. Very well, you know what it is to take a sick or damaged animal to the vet. Then you had lo wait while the doctor decided whether or not your pet could be made well. Or whether the kind and gentle thing to do was to put the little creature out of its misery. Is this not true?'

 

'Yes. Jerry, you're telling me that things are dicey. Uncertain.'

 

'Utterly uncertain. No precedent. A human being has never been taken to this level before. I don't know what He will do.'

 

'Okay. You told me before that there would be a risk.'

 

'Yes. You are in great danger. And so am I, although I think your danger is much greater than mine. But, Alec, I can assure you of this: If It. decided to extinguish you, you will never know it. It is not a sadistic God.'

 

`"It" - is it "It" or "He"?´

 

'Uh... use "he". If It embodies, It will probably use a human appearance. If so, you can address Him as "Mr Chairman" or "Mr Koshchei". Treat Him as you would a man much older than you are and one you respect highly. Don't bow down or offer worship. Just stand your ground and tell the truth. If you die, die with dignity.'

 

The guard who stopped us at the door was not human, - until I looked again and then he was human. And that Characterizes the uncertainty of everything I saw at the place Jerry referred to as 'The Branch Office'.

 

The guard said to me, 'Strip down, please. Leave your clothes with me; you can pick them up later, What is that metal object?'

 

I explained that it was just a safety razor.

 

'And what is it for?'

 

'It's a... a knife for cutting hair off the face.

 

'You grow hair on your face?'

 

I tried to explain shaving.

 

'If you don't want hair there, why do you grow it there?' Is it a material of economic congress?'

 

'Jerry, I think I'm out of my depth.'

 

'I'll handle it.' I suppose he then talked to the guard but I didn't hear anything. Jerry said to me, 'Leave your razor with your clothes. He thinks you are crazy but he thinks I am crazy, too. It doesn't matter.'

 

Mr Koshchei may be 'an 'It' but to me He looked like a twin brother of Dr Simmons, the vet back home in Kansas to whom I used to take cats and dogs, and once, a turtle - the procession of small animals who shared my childhood. And the Chairman's office looked exactly like Dr Simmons' office, even to the rlolltop desk the doctor must have inherited from his grandfather. There was a well-remembered Seth Thomas eight-day clock on a little shelf over the doctor's desk.

 

I realized (being cold sober and rested) that this was not Dr Simmons and that the semblance was intentional but not intended to deceive. The Chairman, whatever He or It or She may be, had reached into my mind with some sort of hypnosis to create an ambience in which I could relax. Dr Simmons used to pet an animal and talk to it, before he got down to the uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and often painful things that he had to do to that animal.

 

It had worked. It worked with me, too. I knew that Mr Koshchei was not the old veterinary surgeon of my childhood... but this simulacrum brought out in me the same feeling of trust.

 

Mr Koshchei looked up as we came in. He nodded to Jerry, glanced at me. 'Sit down.'

 

We sat down. Mr Koshchei turned back to His desk. My manuscript was on it. He picked it up, jogged the sheets - straight, put them down. 'How are things in your bailiwick, Lucifer? Any problems?'

 

'No, Sir. Oh, the usual gripes about the air conditioning. Nothing I can't handle.'

 

'Do you want to rule earth this millennium?'

 

'Hasn't my brother claimed it?'

 

'Yahweh has claimed it, yes - he has pronounced Time Stop and torn it down. But I am not bound to let him rebuild. Do you want it? Answer Me.'

 

"Sir, I would much rather start with all-new materials.'

 

'All your guild prefer to start fresh. With no thought of the expense, of course. I could assign you to the Glaroon for a few cycles. How say you?'

 

Jerry was slow in answering. 'I must leave it to the Chairman's judgment.'

 

,'You are quite right; you must. So we will discuss it later. Why have you interested yourself in this creature of your brother´s?'

 

I must have dropped off to sleep, for I saw puppies and kittens playing in a courtyard - and there was nothing of that sort there. I heard Jerry saying, 'Mr Chairman, almost everything about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. The validity of that belief, the appropriateness of that love, is irrelevant; it is the bravery and the gallantry that count. These are uniquely human qualities, independent of mankind's creator, who has none of them himself - as I know, since he is my brother... and I lack them, too.

 

'You ask, why this animal, and why me? This one I picked up beside a road, a stray - and, putting aside its own troubles - much too big for it! - it devoted itself to a (and fruitless) attempt to save my "soul" by the rules it had been taught. That its attempt was misguided and useless does not matter; it tried hard on my behalf when it believed me to be in extreme danger. Now that it is in trouble I owe it an equal effort.'

 

Mr Koshchei pushed his spectacles down His nose and looked over them. 'You offer no reason why I should interfere with local authority.'

 

'Sir, is there not a guild rule requiring artists to be kind in their treatment of their volitionals?'

 

'No.

 

Jerry looked daunted. 'Sir, I must have misunderstood my training.'

 

'Yes, I think you have. There is an artistic principle not a rule - that volitionals should be treated consistently. But to insist on kindness would be to eliminate that degree of freedom for which volition in creatures was invented. Without the possibility of tragedy the volitionals might as well be golems.'

 

'Sir, I think I understand that. But would the Chairman please amplify the artistic principle of consistent treatment?'

 

'Nothing- complex about it, Lucifer. For a creature to act out its own minor part, the rules under which it acts must be either known to it or be such that the rules can become known through trial and error - with error not always fatal. In short the creature must be able to learn and to benefit by its experience.'

 

'Sir, that is exactly my complaint about my brother. See that record before You. Yahweh baited a trap and thereby lured this creature into a contest that it could not win then declared the game over and took the prize from it. And, although this is an extreme case, a destruction test, this nevertheless is typical of his treatment of all his volitionals. Games so rigged that his creatures cannot win. For six millennia I got his losers... and many of them arrived in Hell catatonic with fear - fear of me, fear of an eternity of torture. They can't believe they've been lied to. My therapists have to work hard to reorient the poor slobs. It's not funny.'

 

Mr Koshchei did not appear to listen. He leaned back in His old wooden swivel chair, making it creak - and, yes, I do not know that the creak came out of my  memories -  and looked again at my memoir. He scratched the grey fringe around His bald pate and made an irritating noise, half whistle, half hum - also out of my buried memories of Doc Simmons, but utterly real.

 

This female creature, the bait. A volitional?'

 

'In my opinion, yes, Mr Chairman.'

 

(Good heavens, Jerry! Don't you know?)

 

'Then I think we may assume that this one would not be satisfied with a simulacrum.' He hummed and whistled through His teeth. 'So let us look deeper.'

 

Mr Koshchei's office seemed small when we were admitted; now there were several others present: another angel who looked a lot like Jerry but older and with a pinched expression unlike Jerry's expansive joviality, another older character who wore a long coat, a big broad-brimmed hat, a patch over one eye, and had a crow sitting on his shoulder, and - why, confound his arrogance! - Sam Crumpacker, that Dallas shyster.

 

Back of Crumpacker three men were lined up, well-fed types, and all vaguely familiar. I knew I had seen them before.

 

Then I got it. I had won a hundred (or was it a thousand?) from each of them on a most foolhardy bet.

 

I looked back at Crumpacker, and was angrier than ever - the scoundrel was now wearing my face!

 

I turned to Jerry and started to whisper urgently. 'See lhat man over there? The one -´

 

'Shut up.'

 

`But -´

`Be quiet and listen.'

 

Jerry's brother was speaking. 'So who's complaining? You want I should put on my Jesus hat and prove it? The fact that some of them make it proves it ain't too hard - Seven point one percent in this last batch, not counting golems, Not good enough? Who says?´

 

The old boy in the black hat said, 'I count anything less' than fifty percent a failure.'

 

'So who's talking? Who lost ground to me every year for a millennium? How you handle your creatures; that's your business. What I do with mine; that's my business.

 

'That's why I'm here,' the big hat replied. 'You grossly interfered with one of mine.'

 

'Not, me!' Yahweh hooked a thumb at the man who man who managed to look like both me and Sam Crumpacker. 'That one! My Shabbes goy. A little rough? So whose boy is he? Answer that!'

 

Mr Koshchei tapped my memoir, spoke to the man with my face. 'Loki, how many places do you figure in this story?'

 

'Depends on how You figure it, Chief. Eight or nine places, if You count the walk-ons. All through it, when You consider that I spent four solid weeks softening up this foxy schoolteacher so that she would roll over and pant when Joe Nebbish came along.'

 

Jerry had a big fist around my upper ~ left arm. 'Keep quiet!'

 

Loki went on: 'And Yahweh didn't pay up.

 

'So why should I? Who won?'

 

'You cheated. I had your champion, your prize bigot, ready to crack when you pulled Judgment Day early. There he sits. Ask him. Ask him if he still swears by you. Or at you? Ask him. Then pay up. I have munition bills to meet.'

 

Mr Koshchei stated, 'I declare this discussion out of order. This office is not a collection agency. Yahweh, the principal complaint against you seems to be that you are not consistent in your rules for your creatures.'

 

'Should I kiss them? For omelets you break eggs.'

 

'Speak to the case in point. You ran a destruction lit test. Whether it was artistically necessary is moot. But, at the end of the test, you took one to Heaven, left the other behind, - and thereby punished both of them. Why?´

 

'One rule for all. She didn't make it.'

 

'Aren't you the god that announced the rule concerning binding the mouths of the kine that tread the grain?'

 

The next thing I knew I was standing on Mr Koshchei's desk, staring right into His enormous face. I suppose Jerry put me there. He was saying, 'This is yours?'

 

I looked in the direction He indicated - and had to keep from fainting. Marga!

 

Margrethe cold and dead and encased in a coffin shaped cake of ice. It occupied much of the desktop and was beginning to melt onto it.

 

'I tried to throw myself onto it, found I could not move.

 

"I think that answers Me,' Mr Koshchei went on. 'Odin, what is its destiny?'

 

'She died fighting, at Ragnarok. She has earned a cycle in Valhalla.'

 

'Listen to him!' Loki sneered. 'Ragnarok is not over. And this time I'm winning. This pige is mine! All Danish broads are willing... but this one is explosive!' He smirked and winked at me. 'Isn't She?'

 

The Chairman said quietly, 'Loki, you weary Me'- and suddenly, Loki was missing. Even his chair was gone. 'Odin, will you spare her for part of that cycle?'

 

'For how long? She has earned the right to Valhalla.'

 

'An indeterminate time. This creature had stated its willingness to wash dishes "forever" in order to take care of her. One may doubt that it realizes just how long a period, "forever" is... yet its story does show earnestness of purpose.'

 

'Mr Chairman, my warriors, male and female, dead in honorable combat, are my equals, not my slaves - I am to be first among such equals. I raise no objections... if she consents.

 

My heart soared. Then Jerry, from clear across the room, wispered in my ear, 'Don't get your hopes up. To her it may be as long as a thousand years. Woman do forget.´

 

The Chairman was saying, 'The web patterns are intact, are they not?'

 

Yahweh answered, 'So who destroys file copies?'

 

'Regenerate as necessary.'

 

'And who is paying for this?'

 

'You are. A fine to teach you to pay attention to consistency.´

 

'Oy! Every prophecy I fulfilled! And now He tells me consistent I am not! This is justice?'

 

'No. It is Art. Alexander. Look at Me.'

 

I looked at that great face; Its eyes held me. They got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I slumped forward and fell into them.

 

 

Chapter 29

 

There is, no remembrance of former things; neither shall

there be any remembrance of things that are to come

with those that shall come after.

Ecclesiastes 1: 11

 

THIS WEEK Margrethe and I, with help from our daughter Gerda, are giving our house and our shop a real Scandahoovian cleaning, because the Farnsworths, our friends from Texas - our best friends anywhere - are coming to see us. To Marga and me, a visit from Jerry and Katie is Christmas and the Fourth of July rolled into one. And for our kids, too; Sybil Farnsworth is Inga's age; the girls are chums.

 

This time will be extra special; they are bringing Patricia Marymount with them. Pat is almost as old a friend as the Farnsworths and the sweetest person in the world - an old-maid schoolmarm but not a bit prissy.

 

'The Farnsworths changed our luck. Marga and I were down in Mexico on our honeymoon when the earthquake that destroyed Mazatlán hit. We weren't hurt but we had a bad time getting out - passports, money, and travelers checks gone. Halfway home we met the Farnsworths and that changed everything - no more trouble. Oh, I got back to Kansas with no baggage but a razor (sentimental value, Marga gave it to me on our honeymoon; I've used it ever since).

 

When we reached my home state, we found just the mom-and-pop shop we wanted - a lunchroom in this little college town, Eden, Kansas, southeast of Wichita. The shop was owned by Mr and Mrs A. S. Modeus; they Wanted to retire. We started as their employees; in less than a month we were their tenants. Then I went into hock to the bank up to my armpits and that made us owners-of-record of MARGA'S HOT FUDGE SUNDAE soda fountain, hot dogs, hamburgers, and Marga's heavenly Danish open-face sandwiches.

 

Margrethe wanted to name it Marga-and-Alex's Hot Fudge Sundae - I vetoed that; it doesn't scan. Besides, she is the one who meets the public; she's our best advertising. I work back where I'm not seen - dishwasher, janitor, porter, you name it. Margrethe handles the front, with help from Astrid. And from me; all of us can cook or concoct anything on our menu, even the open-face sandwiches. However, with the latter we follow Marga's color Photographs and lists of ingredients; in fairness to our customers only Margrethe is allowed to be creative.

 

Our namesake item, the hot fudge sundae, is ready at all times and I have kept the price at ten cents, although that allows only one-and-a-half cent gross profit. Any customer having a birthday gets one free, along with our Singing Happy Birthday! with loud banging on a drum, and a kiss. College boys appreciate kissing Margrethe more than they do the free sundae. Understandable. But Pop Graham doesn't do too badly with the co-eds, either. (I don't force kisses on a 'birthday girl'.)

 

Our shop was a success from day one. The location is good - facing Elm Street gate and Old Main. Plentiful good trade was guaranteed by low prices and Margrethe's magic touch with food... and her beauty and her sweet personality; we aren't selling calories, we're selling happiness. She piles a lavish serving of happiness on each plate; she has it to spare.

 

With me to watch the pennies, our team could not lose. And I do watch pennies; if the cost of ingredients ever kills that narrow margin on a hot fudge sundae, the price goes up. Mr Belial, president of our bank, says that the country is in a long, steady period of gentle prosperity. I hope he is right; meanwhile I watch the gross profit.

 

The town is enjoying a real estate boom, caused by, the, Farnsworths plus the change in climate it used to be that the typical wealthy Texan had a summer home in Colorado Springs, but now that we no longer fry eggs on our sidewalks, Texans are beginning to see the charms of Kansas. They say it's a change in the Jet Stream. (Or is it the Gulf Stream? I never was strong in science.) Whatever, our summers now are balmy and our winters are mild; many, of Jerry's friends or associates are buying land in Eden and building summer homes. Mr Ashmedai, manager of some of Jerry's interests, now lives here year round - and Dr Adramelech, chancellor of Eden College, caused him to be elected to the board of trustees, along with an honorary doctorate - as a former money-raiser I can see why.

 

We welcome them all and not just for their money... but I would not want Eden to grow as crowded as Dallas.

 

Not that it could. This is a bucolic place; the college is our only 'industry'. One community church serves all sects, The Church of the Divine Orgasm - Sabbath school at 9:30 a.m., church services at 11, picnic and orgy immediately following.

 

We don't believe in shoving religion down a kid's throat, but the truth is that young people like our community church - thanks to our pastor, the Reverend Dr M. 0. Loch. Malcolm is a Presbyterian, I think; he still has a Scottish burr in his speech. But there is nothing of the dour Scot about him and kids love him. He leads the revels and directs the rituals - our daughter Elise is a Novice Ecdysiast under him and she talks of having a vocation. (Piffle. She'll marry right out of high school; I could name the young man - though I can't see what she sees in him.)

 

Margrethe serves in the Altar Guild; I pass the plate on the Sabbath and serve on the finance board. I've never, given up my membership in the Apocalypse Brethren but I must admit that we Brethren read it wrong; the end of the millennium came and went and the Shout was never heard.

 

A man who is happy at home doesn't lie awake nights worrying about the hereafter.

 

What is success? My classmates at Rolla Tech, back when, may think that I've settled for too little, owner with-the-bank of a tiny restaurant in a nowhere town. But I have what I want. I would not want to be a saint in Heaven if Margrethe was not with me; I wouldn't fear going to Hell if she was there - not that I believe in Hell or ever stood a chance of being a saint in Heaven.

 

Samuel Clemens put it: 'Where she was, there was  Eden. 'Omar phrased it: '- thou beside me in the wilderness, ah wilderness were paradise enow.' Browning termed it: 'Summum Bonum'. All were asserting the same great truth, which is for me:

 

Heaven is where Margrethe is.