A Stranger in a Strange Land

XXIV

ONCE THEY WERE IN THE AIR Jubal said, "Well, Mike, what did you think of it?"

Mike frowned. "I do not grok."

"You aren't alone, son. What did the Bishop have to say?"

Mike hesitated a long time, finally said, "My brother Jubal, I need to ponder until grokking is."

"Ponder right ahead, son. Take a nap. That's what I'm going to do."

Jill said suddenly, "Jubal? How do they get away with it?"

"Get away with what?"

"Everything. That's not a church - it's a madhouse."

It was Jubal's turn to ponder before answering. "No, Jill, you're mistaken. It is a church� and the logical eclecticism of our times."

"Huh?"

"The New Revelation and all doctrines and practices under it are all old stuff, very old. All you can say about it is that neither Foster nor Digby ever had an original thought in his life. But they knew what would sell, in this day and age. So they pieced together a hundred timeworn tricks, gave them a new paint job, and they were in business. A booming business, too. The only thing that scares me is that I might live to see it sell too well - until it was compulsory for everybody."

"Oh, no!"

"Oh, yes. Hitler started with less and all he had to peddle was hate. Hate always sells well, but for repeat trade and the long pull happiness is sounder merchandise. Believe me, I know; I'm in the same grift myself. As Digby reminded me." Jubal grimaced. "I should have punched him, Instead, he made me like it. That's why I'm afraid of him. He's good at it, he's clever. He knows what people want. Happiness. The world has suffered a long, bleak century of guilt and fear - now Digby tells them that they have nothing to fear, in this life or hereafter, and that God commands them to love and be happy. Day in, day out, he keeps pushing it: Don't be afraid, be happy"

"Well, that part's all right," Jill admitted, "and I concede that he works hard at it. But-"

"Piffle! He plays hard."

"No, he gave me the impression that he really is devoted to his work, that he had sacrificed everything else to-"

"'Piffle!' I said. For Digby it's play. Jill, of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness� the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. The ordinary bloke suffers that discomfort every day, every time he makes a choice between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up when he's tired or spending the day in his warm bed and losing his job. No matter which he does he always chooses what seems to hurt least or pleasures most. The average chump spends his life harried by these small decisions. But the utter scoundrel and the perfect saint merely make the same choices on a larger scale. They still pick what pleases them. As Digby has done. Saint or scoundrel, he's not one of the harried little chumps."

"Which do you think he is, Jubal?"

"You mean there's a difference?"

"Oh, Jubal, your cynicism is just a pose and you know it! Of course there's a difference."

"Mmm, yes, you're right, there is. I hope he's just a scoundrel - because a saint can stir up ten times as much mischief as a scoundrel. Strike that from the record; you would just tag it as 'cynicism' - as if tagging it proved it wrong. Jill, what troubled you about those church services?"

"Well� everything. You can't tell me that that is worship."

"Meaning they didn't do things that way in the Little Brown Church in the Vale you attended as a kid? Brace yourself, Jill - they don't do it your way in St. Peter's either. Nor in Mecca."

"Yes, but - well, none of them do it that way! Snake dances, slot machines� even a bar right in church! That's not reverence, it's not even dignified! Just disgusting."

"I don't suppose that temple prostitution was very dignified, either."

"Huh?"

"I rather imagine that the two-backed beast is just as sweaty and comical when the act is performed in the service of a god as it is under any other circumstances. As for those snake dances, have you ever seen a Shaker service? No, of course not and neither have I; any church that is against sexual intercourse (as they were) doesn't last long. But dancing to the glory of God has a long and respected history. It doesn't have to be good dancing - according to eye-witness reports the Shakers could never have made the Bolshoi Ballet - it merely has to be enthusiastic. Do you consider the Rain Dances of our Southwest Indians irreverent?"

"No. But that's different."

"Everything always is - and the more it changes, the more it is the same. Now about those slot machines - ever see a Bingo game in church?"

"Well� yes. Our parish used to hold them when we were trying to raise the mortgage. But we held them on Friday nights; we certainly didn't do such things during church services."

"So? Minds me of a married woman who was very proud of her virtue. She slept with other men only when her husband was away."

"Why, Jubal, the two cases aren't even slightly alike!"

"Probably not. Analogy is even slipperier than logic. But, 'little lady'-"

"Smile when you call me that!"

"'It's a joke.' Why didn't you spit in his face? He had to stay on his good behavior no matter what we did; Digby wanted him to. But, Jill, if a thing is sinful on Sunday, it is sinful on Friday - at least it groks that way to an outsider, myself� or perhaps to a man from Mars. The only difference I can see is that the Fosterites give away, absolutely free, a scriptural text even if you lose. Could your Bingo games make the same claim?"

"Fake scripture, you mean. A text from the New Revelation. Boss, have you read the thing?"

"I've read it."

"Then you know. It's just dressed up in Biblical language. Part of it is just icky-sweet with no substance, like a saccharine tablet, more of it is sheer nonsense� and some of it is just hateful. None of it makes sense, it isn't even good morals."

Jubal was silent so long that Jill thought he had gone to sleep. At last he said, "Jill, are you familiar with Hindu sacred writings?"

"Mmm, I'm afraid not."

"The Koran? Or any other major scripture? I could illustrate my point from the Bible but I would not wish to hurt your feelings."

"Uh, I'm afraid I'm not much of a scholar, Jubal. Go ahead, you won't hurt my feelings."

"Well, I'll stick to the Old Testament, picking it to pieces usually doesn't upset people quite so much. You know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? And how Lot was saved from these wicked cities when Yahweh smote 'em with a couple of heavenly A-bombs?"

"Oh, yes, of course. His wife was turned into a pillar of salt."

"Caught by the fallout, perhaps. She tarried and looked back. Always seemed to me to be too stiff a punishment for the peccadillo of female curiosity. But we were speaking of Lot. Saint Peter describes him as a just, Godly, and righteous man, vexed by the filthy conversation of the wicked. I think we must stipulate Saint Peter to be an authority on virtue, since to him was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. But if you search the only records concerning Lot, in the Old Testament, it becomes hard to determine exactly what Lot did or did not do that established him as such a paragon. He divided up a cattle range at his brother's suggestion. He got captured in a battle. When he was tipped off, he lammed out of town in time to save his skin. He fed and sheltered two strangers overnight but his conduct shows that he knew them to be V.I.P.s whether or not he knew they were angels - and by the Koran and by my own lights, his hospitality would have counted for more if he had thought they were just a couple of unworthy poor in need of a pad and a handout. Aside from these insignificant items and Saint Peter's character reference, there is just one thing that Lot did mentioned anywhere in the Bible on which we can judge his virtue - virtue so great, mind you, that heavenly intercession saved his life. See chapter nineteen of Genesis, verse eight."

"And what does it say?"

"Look it up when we get home. I don't expect you to believe me."

"Jubal! You're the most infuriating man I've ever met."

"And you're a very pretty girl and a fair cook, so I don't mind your ignorance. All right, I'll tell you - then you look it up anyhow. Some of Lot's neighbors came and beat on his door and wanted to meet these two blokes from out of town. Lot didn't fight with them; he offered 'em a deal instead. He had two young daughters, virgins - at least, such was his opinion - and he told this crowd of men that he would give them these two little girls and they could use them any way they liked - a gang shagging, a midnight revue, he pleaded with them to do any damn thing they pleased to his daughters� only please go 'way and quit beating on his door."

"Jubal� does it really say that?"

"Look it up yourself. I've modernized the language but the meaning is as unmistakable as a whore's wink. Lot offered to let a gang of men - 'young and old,' the Bible say amp; - abuse two young virgins under his protection if only they wouldn't break down his door. Say!" Jubal leaned forward and beamed. "Maybe I should have tried that when the S.S. was breaking my door down! Maybe it would have got me into heaven - and Saint Peter knows my chances aren't too good otherwise." Then he frowned and looked worried. "No, it wouldn't have worked. The recipe plainly calls for 'virgins intactae' - and I wouldn't have known which two of you gals to offer those troopers."

"Hmmph! You won't find out from me."

"Possibly I couldn't find out from any of you. Even Lot might have been mistaken. But that's what he promised 'em - his virgin daughters, young and tender and scared - urged this street gang to rape them as much as they wished in any way they liked� if only they would leave him in peace?" Jubal snorted in disgust. "And the Bible cites this sort of scum as being a righteous man."

Jill said slowly, "I don't think that's quite the way we were taught it in Sunday School."

"Damn it, look it up! They probably gave you a Bowdlerized version. That's not the only shock in store for anybody who actually reads the Bible. Consider Elisha. It says here that Elisha was so all-fired holy that merely touching his bones restored a dead man to life. But he was a baldheaded old coot, like myself. So one day some children made fun of his baldness, just as you girls do. So God personally interceded and sent two bears to tear forty-two small children into bloody bits. That's what it says - second chapter of Second Kings."

"Boss, I never make fun of your bald head."

"Who was it sent my name to those hair-restorer quacks? Dorcas, maybe? Whoever it was, God knows - and she had better keep a sharp eye out for bears. I might turn pious in my dotage and start enjoying divine protection. But I shan't give you any more samples. The Bible is loaded with such stuff; read it and find out. Crimes that would turn your stomach are asserted to be either divinely ordered or divinely condoned� along with, I must add, a lot of hard common sense and some pretty workable rules for social behavior. I am not running down the Bible; it stacks up pretty well as sacred writings go. It isn't a patch on the sadistic, pornographic trash that goes by the name of sacred writings among the Hindus. Or a dozen other religions. But I'm not singling out any of them for condemnation, either; it is entirely conceivable that some one of these mutually contradictory mythologies is the literal word of God� that God is in truth the sort of bloodthirsty paranoid who would rend to bits forty-two children for the crime of sassing one of his priests. Don't ask me about the Front Office's policies; I just work here. My point is that Foster's New Revelation that you're so contemptuous of is pure sweetness-and-light as scripture goes. Bishop Digby's Patron is a pretty good Joe; He wants people to be happy-happy here on Earth plus guaranteed eternal bliss in Heaven. He doesn't expect you to chastise the flesh here and now in order to reap rewards after you're dead. Oh no! this is the modern giant economy package. If you like to drink and gamble and dance and wench - and most people do - come to church and do it under holy auspices. Do it with your conscience free of any trace of guilt. Really have fun at it. Live it up! Get happy!"

Jubal failed to look happy himself. He went on, "Of course there's a slight charge; Digby's God expects to be acknowledged as such - but that has been a foible of gods always. Anyone who is stupid enough to refuse to get happy on His terms is a sinner� and a sinner deserves anything that happens to him. But this is one rule common to all gods and goddesses throughout history; don't blame Foster and Digby, they didn't invent it. Their brand of snake oil is utterly orthodox in all respects."

"Boss, you sound as if you were halfway converted."

"Not me! I don't enjoy snake dances, I despise crowds, and I do not propose to let my social and mental inferiors tell me where I have to go on Sundays - and I wouldn't enjoy Heaven if that crowd is going to be there. I simply object to your criticizing them for the wrong things. As literature, the New Revelation stacks up about average - it should; it was composed by plagiarizing other scriptures. As for logic and internal consistency, these mundane rules do not apply to sacred writings and never have - but even on these grounds the New Revelation must be rated superior; it hardly ever bites its own tail. Try reconciling the Old Testament with the New Testament sometime, or Buddhist doctrine with Buddhist apocrypha. As morals, Fosterism is merely the Freudian ethic sugar-coated for people who can't take their psychology straight, although I doubt if the old lecher who wrote it - pardon me, 'was inspired to write it' - was aware of this. He was no scholar. But he was in tune with his times, he tapped the Zeitgeist. Fear and guilt and a loss of faith - how could he miss? Now pipe down, I'm going to nap."

"Who's been talking?"

"'The woman tempted me.'" Jubal closed his eyes.

On reaching home they found that Caxton and Mahmoud had flown in together for the day. Ben had been disappointed to find Jill not at home on his arrival but he had managed to bear up without tears through the company of Anne, Miriam, and Dorcas. Mahmoud always visited for the avowed purpose of seeing his protg, Mike, and Dr. Harshaw; however, he too had shown fortitude at having only Jubal's food, liquor, garden - and odalisques - to entertain him during his host's absence. He was lying face down with Miriam rubbing his back while Dorcas rubbed his head.

Jubal looked at him. "Don't get up."

"I can't, she's sitting on me. A little higher up, Miriam. Hi, Mike."

"Hi, my brother Stinky Dr. Mahmoud." Mike then gravely greeted Ben, and asked to be excused.

"Run along, son," Jubal told him.

Anne said, "Wait a minute, Mike. Have you had lunch?"

He said solemnly, "Anne, I am not hungry. Thank you," turned and went into the house.

Mahmoud twisted, almost unseating Miriam. "Jubal? What's troubling our son?"

"Yeah," said Ben. "He looks seasick."

"Let him alone and he'll get well. An overdose of religion. Digby has been working on him." Jubal sketched the morning's events.

Mahmoud frowned. "But was it necessary to leave him alone with Digby? This seems to me - pardon me, my brother! - unwise."

"He's not hurt. Stinky, he's got to learn to take such things in his stride. You've preached your brand of theology to him - I know you have; he's told me about it. Can you name me one good reason 'why Digby shouldn't have his innings? Answer me as a scientist, not as a Muslim."

"I am unable to answer anything other than as a Muslim," Dr. Mahmoud said quietly.

"Sorry. I recognize the correctness of your answer, even though I don't agree with it."

"But, Jubal, I used the word 'Muslim' in its exact, technical sense, not as a sectarian which Maryam incorrectly terms 'Mohammedan.'"

"And which I'm going to go right on calling you until you learn to pronounce 'Miriam' correctly! Quit squirming. I'm not hurting you."

"Yes, Maryant. Ouch! Women should not be so muscular. Jubal, as a scientist, I find Michael the greatest prize of my career. As a Muslim, I find in him a willingness to submit to the will of God� and this makes me happy for his sake, although I readily admit that there are great semantic difficulties and as yet he does not seem to grok what the English word 'God' means." He shrugged. "Nor the Arabic word 'Allah' But as a man - and always a Slave of God - I love this young man, our foster son and water brother, and I would not have him come under bad influences. Quite aside from his creed, this Digby strikes me as a bad influence. What do you think?"

"Ok!" Ben applauded. "He's a slimy bastard - and the only reason I haven't been taking his racket apart in my column is that the syndicate is afraid to print it. Stinky, keep talking that well and you'll have me studying Arabic and buying a rug."

"I hope so. But the rug is not necessary."

Jubal sighed. "I agree with both of you. I'd rather see Mike smoking marijuana than be converted by Digby. But I don't think there is the slightest chance of Mike's being taken in by that syncretic hodgepodge Digby peddles�and he's got to learn to stand up to bad influences. I consider you a good influence - but I don't really think you stand much more chance than Digby has - the boy has an amazingly strong mind of his own. Muhammad may have to make way for a new prophet."

"If God so wills it," Mahmoud answered calmly.

"That leaves no room for argument," Jubal agreed.

"We were discussing religion before you got home," Dorcas said softly "Boss, did you know that women have souls?"

"They do?"

"So Stinky says."

"Maryam," Mahmoud explained, "wanted to know why we 'Mohammedans' thought only men had souls. So I cited the Writings."

"Miriam, I'm surprised at you. That's as vulgar a misconception as the notion that Jews sacrifice Christian babies in secret, obscene rites. The Koran is explicit in half a dozen places that entire families enter into Paradise, men and Women together. For example, see 'Ornaments of Gold' -verse seventy, isn't it, Stinky?"

"'Enter the Garden, ye and your wives, to be made glad.' That's as well as it can be put, in English," agreed Mahmoud.

"Well," said Miriam, "I had heard about the beautiful houris that Mohammedan men have for playthings when they go to heaven and that didn't seem to leave much room for wives."

"Houris aren't women," said Jubal. "They are separate creations, like djinni and angels. They don't need human souls, they are spirits to start with, eternal and unchanging and beautiful. There are male houris, too, or the male equivalent of houris. Houris don't have to earn their way into Paradise; they're on the staff. They serve endless delicious foods and pass around drinks that never give hangovers and entertain in other ways as requested. But the souls of human wives don't have to do any housework, any more than the men. Correct, Stinky?"

"Close enough, aside from your flippant choice of words. The houris-" He stopped and sat up so suddenly that he dumped Miriam. "Say! It's just possible that you girls don't have souls!"

Miriam sat up and said bitterly, "Why, you ungrateful dog of an infidel! Take that back!" "Peace, Maryam. If you don't have a soul, then you're immortal anyhow and won't miss it. Jubal� is it possible for a man to die and not notice it?"

"Can't say. Never tried it."

"Could I have died on Mars and just dreamed that I came home? Look around you! A garden the Prophet himself would be pleased with. Four beautiful houris, passing around lovely food and delicious drinks at all hours. Even their male counterparts, if you want to be fussy. Is this Paradise?"

"I can guarantee that it isn't," Jubal assured him. "My taxes are due this week."

"Still, that doesn't affect me."

"And take these houris- Even if we stipulate for the sake of argument that they are of beauty adequate to meet the specifications - after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder-"

"They pass."

"And you'll pay for that, Boss," Miriam added.

"-there still remains," Jubal pointed out, "one more requisite attribute of houris."

"Mmmm-" said Mahmoud, "I don't think we need go into that. In Paradise, rather than a temporary physical condition, it would be a permanent spiritual attribute - more a state of mind. Yes?"

"In that case," Jubal said emphatically, "I am certain that these are not houris."

Mahmoud sighed. "In that case I'll just have to convert one."

"Why only one? There are still places left in the world where you can have the full quota."

"No, my friend. In the wise words of the Prophet, while the Legislations permit four, it is impossible for a man to deal justly with more than one."

"That's some relief. Which one?"

"We'll have to see. Maryam, are you feeling spiritual?"

"You go to hell! 'Houris' indeed!"

"Jill?"

"Give me a break," Ben protested. "I'm still working on Jill."

"Later, Jill. Anne?"

"Sorry. I've got a date."

"Dorcas? You're my last chance."

"Stinky," she said softly, "just how spiritual do you want me to feel?"

When Mike got inside the house, he went straight upstairs to his room, closed the door, got on the bed, assumed the foetal position, rolled up his eyes, swallowed his tongue, and slowed his heart almost to nothing. He knew that Jill did not like him to do this in the daytime, but she did not object as long as he did not do it publicly. There were so many things that he must not do publicly, but only this one really aroused her ire. He had been waiting to do this ever since he had left that room of terrible wrongness; he needed very badly to withdraw and try to grok all that had happened. For he had done something else that Jill had told him not to. He felt a very human urge to tell himself that it had been forced on him, that it was not his fault; but his Martian training did not permit him this easy escape. He had arrived at a cusp, right action had been required, the choice had been his. He grokked that he had chosen correctly. But his water brother Jill had forbidden this choice - but that would have left him no choice. This was contradiction; at a cusp, choice is. By choice, spirit grows.

He considered whether or not Jill would have approved had he taken other action, not wasting food?

No, he grokked that Jill's injunction had covered that variant of action, too.

At this point the being sprung from human genes shaped by Martian thought, and who could never be either one, completed one stage of his growth, burst out and ceased to be a nestling. The solitary loneliness of predestined free will was then his and with it the Martian serenity to embrace it, cherish it, savour its bitterness, and accept its consequences. With tragic joy he knew that this cusp was his, not Jill's. His water brother could teach, admonish, guide - but choice at a cusp was not shared. Here was "ownership" beyond any possible sale, gift, hypothecation; owner and owned grokked fully, inseparable. He eternally was the action he had taken at cusp.

Now that he knew himself to be self he was free to grok ever closer to his brothers, merge without let. Self's integrity was and is and ever had been. Mike stopped to cherish all his brother selves, the many threesfulfilled on Mars, both corporate and discorporate, the precious few on Earth - the as-yet-unknown powers of three on Earth that would be his to merge with and cherish now that at last long waiting he grokked and cherished himself.

Mike remained in his trance; there was still much to grok, loose ends and bits and pieces to be puzzled over and fitted into his growing pattern - all that he had seen and heard and been at the Archangel Foster Tabernacle (not just the cusp he had encountered when he and Digby had come face to face alone), why Bishop Senator Boone had made him warily uneasy without frightening him, why Miss Dawn Ardent had tasted like a water brother when she was not, the texture and smell of the goodness he had incompletely grokked in the jumping up and down and the wailing - Jubal's stored conversation both coming and going - Jubal's words troubled him more than other details; he studied them with great care, compared them with what he had been taught as a nestling, making great effort to bridge between his two languages, the one he thought with and the one he now spoke and was gradually learning to think in, for some purposes. The human word "church" which turned up over and over again among Jubal's words gave him most knotty difficulty; there was no Martian concept of any sort to match it - unless one took "church" and "worship" and "God" and "congregation" and many other words and equated them all to the totality of the only world he had known during most of his growing-waiting� then forced the concept back awkwardly into English in that phrase which had been rejected (but by each differently) by Jubal, by Mahmoud, by Digby.

"Thou art God" He came closer to understanding it in English himself now, although it could never have the crystal inevitability of the Martian concept it stood for. In his mind he spoke simultaneously the English sentence and the Martian word and felt closer grokking. Repeating it like a student telling himself that the jewel is in the lotus he sank into nirvana untroubled.

Shortly before midnight he speeded up his heart, resumed normal breathing, ran down his engineering check list, found that all was in order, uncurled and sat up. He had been spiritually weary; now he felt light and gay and clear-headed, eager to get on with the many actions he saw spreading out before him.

He felt a puppyish need for company almost as strong as his earlier necessity for quiet. He stepped out into the upper hail, was delighted to encounter a water brother.