Stranger in a Strange Land, Page 34

  “I grok it will be soon.”

  “Martian ‘soon’? Or Earth ‘soon’? Never mind, darling, it will be when waiting is filled. That reminds me that Aunt Patty will be here soon and I mean Earth ‘soon.’ Wash me?”

  She stood; soap lifted out of the dish, traveled all over her, replaced itself and the soapy layer slathered into hubbles. “Oooh! You tickle.”

  “Rinse?”

  “I’ll dunk.” She squatted, sloshed off, stood up. “Just in time, too.”

  Someone was knocking. “Dearie? Are you decent?”

  “Coming, Pat!” Jill shouted, and added as she stepped out of the tub, “Dry me, please?”

  At once she was dry, not even wet footprints. “Dear? You’ll remember to put on clothes? Patty’s a lady—not like me.”

  “I will remember.”

  XXVII.

  JILL GRABBED a negligee, hurried into the living room. “Come in, dear. We were bathing; he’ll be right out. I’ll get you a drink—then you’ll have your second drink in the tub. Loads of hot water.”

  “I had a shower after I put Honey Bun to bed, but—yes, I’d love a tub bath. But, Jill baby, I didn’t come here to borrow your tub; I came because I’m heartsick that you kids are leaving.”

  “We won’t lose track of you.” Jill got busy with glasses. “Tim was right. Mike and I need to slick up our act.”

  “Your act is okay. Needs some laughs, maybe, but—Hi, Smitty.” She offered him a gloved hand. Away from the lot Mrs. Paiwonski always wore gloves, high-necked dresses, and stockings. She looked like (and was) a middle-aged, respectable widow who had kept her figure trim.

  “I was telling Jill,” she went on, “that you’ve got a good act.”

  Mike smiled. “Pat, don’t kid us. It stinks.”

  “No, it doesn’t dearie. Oh, it could use some zing. A few jokes. Or you could cut down on Jill’s costume a little. You’ve got a cute figure, hon.”

  Jill shook her head. “That wouldn’t do it.”

  “Well, I knew a magician that used to dress his assistant as Gay ’Nineties—eighteen-nineties, that is—not even her legs showing. Then he would disappear one garment after another. The marks loved it. Don’t get me wrong, dear—nothing unrefined. She finished in as much as your wear now.”

  “Patty,” Jill said, “I’d do our act stark naked if the clowns wouldn’t close the show.”

  “You couldn’t, honey. The marks would riot. But if you’ve got a figure, why not use it? How far would I get as a tatooed lady if I didn’t peel all they’ll let me?”

  “Speaking of clothes,” Mike said, “you don’t look comfortable, Pat. The aircooling in this dump has gone sour—must be at least ninety.” He dressed in a light robe, enough for easy-going carnie manners. Heat affected him only slightly; he sometimes had to adjust his metabolism. But their friend was used to the comfort of almost nothing and affected clothes to cover her tatoos when out among marks. “Why not get comfortable? ‘Ain’t nobody here but just us chickens.’ ” The latter was a joke, appropriate for emphasizing that friends were in private—Jubal had explained it to him.

  “Sure, Patty,” Jill agreed. “If you’re raw underneath, I can get you something.”

  “Uh . . . well, I did slip into one of my costumes.”

  “Then don’t be stiff with friends. I’ll get your zippers.”

  “Le’me get these stockings and shoes.” She went on talking while trying to think how she could get around to religion. Bless them, these kids were ready to be seekers, she was certain—but she had counted on the whole season to bring them to the light. “The point about show business, Smitty, is that you have to understand marks. If you were a real magician—oh, I don’t mean you aren’t skillful, dearie, you are.” She tucked hose in her shoes, let Jill get her zippers. “I mean like you had a pact with the Devil. But the marks know it’s sleight-of-hand. So you need a light-hearted routine. Did you ever see a fire eater with a pretty assistant? Heavens, a pretty girl would just clutter his act; the marks are hoping he’ll set fire to hisself.”

  She snaked the dress over her head; Jill took it and kissed her. “You look more natural, Aunt Patty. Sit back and enjoy your drink.”

  “Just a second, dearie.” Mrs. Paiwonski prayed for guidance. Well, her pictures would speak for themselves—that was why George had put them there. “Now this is what I’ve got for the marks. Have you ever looked, really looked, at my pictures?”

  “No,” Jill admitted, “we didn’t want to stare at you, like a couple of marks.”

  “Then stare now, dears—that’s why George, bless his sweet soul in Heaven, put them on me. To be stared at and studied. Here under my chin is the birth of our prophet, the holy Archangel Foster—just an innocent babe and not knowing what Heaven had in store for him. But the angels knew—see ’em there around him? The next scene is his first miracle, when a younger sinner in the country school he went to shoot a poor little birdie . . . and he picked it up and stroked it and it flew away unharmed. Now I have to turn my back.” She explained that George had not had a bare canvas when the great opus was started—how with inspired genius George had turned “Attack on Pearl Harbor” into “Armageddon,” and “Skyline of New York” into “The Holy City.”

  “But,” she admitted, “even though every inch is sacred pictures now, it did force George to skip around to record in living flesh each milestone in the earthly life of our prophet. Here you see him preaching on the steps of the ungodly theological seminary that turned him down—that was the first time he was arrested, the beginning of the Persecution. And on around, on my spine, you see him smashing idolatrous images . . . and next you see him in jail, with holy light streaming down. Then the Faithful Few bust into the jail—”

  (The Reverend Foster had realized that, in upholding religious freedom, brass knucks, clubs, and a willingness to tangle with cops outweighed passive resistance. His was a church militant from scratch. But he had been a tactician; battles were fought where the heavy artillery was on the side of the Lord.)

  “—and rescue him and tar and feather the false judge who put him there. Around in front—Uh, you can’t see much; my bra covers it. A shame.”

  (“Michael, what does she want?”)

  (“Thou knowest. Tell her.”)

  “Aunt Patty,” Jill said gently, “you want us to look at all your pictures. Don’t you?”

  “Well . . . it’s just as Tim says in the bally, George used all the skin I have in making the story complete.”

  “If George went to all that work, he meant them to be seen. Take off your costume. I told you that I wouldn’t mind working our act stark naked—and ours is just entertainment. Yours has a purpose . . . a holy purpose.”

  “Well . . . If you want me to.” She sang a silent hallelujah! Foster was sustaining her—with blessed luck and George’s pictures she would have these dear kids seeking the light.

  “I’ll unhook you.”

  (“Jill—” )

  (“No, Michael?”)

  (“Wait.”)

  With stunned astonishment Mrs. Paiwonski found that her spangled briefies and bra were gone! Jill was unsurprised when her negligee vanished and only mildly surprised when Mike’s robe disappeared; she chalked it up to his catlike good manners.

  Mrs. Paiwonski gasped. Jill put her arms around her. “There, dear! It’s all right. Mike, you must tell her.”

  “Yes, Jill. Pat—”

  “Yes, Smitty?”

  “You said my tricks were sleight-of-hand. You were about to take off your costume—so I did it for you.”

  “But how? Where is it?”

  “Same place Jill’s wrapper is—and my robe. Gone.”

  “Don’t worry, Patty,” put in Jill. “We’ll replace it. Mike, you shouldn’t have done it.”

  “I’m sorry, Jill. I grokked it was all right.”

  “Well . . . perhaps it is.” Aunt Patty wasn’t too upset—and would never tell; she was carnie.

  Mrs. P
aiwonski was not worried over two scraps of costume, nor by nudity, hers or theirs. But she was greatly troubled by a theological problem. “Smitty? That was real magic?”

  “I guess you would call it that,” he agreed, using words exactly.

  “I’d rather call it a miracle,” she said bluntly.

  “Call it that if you like. It wasn’t sleight-of-hand.”

  “I know that.” She was not afraid, Patricia Paiwonski was not afraid of anything, being sustained by faith. But she was uneasy for her friends. “Smitty—look me in the eye. Have you made a pact with the Devil?”

  “No, Pat, I have not.”

  She continued to search his eyes. “You aren’t lying—”

  “He doesn’t know how to lie, Aunt Patty.”

  “—so it’s a miracle. Smitty . . . you are a holy man!”

  “I don’t know, Pat.”

  “Archangel Foster didn’t know until his teens . . . even though he performed miracles before then. You are a holy man; I can feel it. I think I felt it when I first met you.”

  “I don’t know, Pat.”

  “I think he may be,” admitted Jill. “But he doesn’t know. Michael . . . we’ve told too much not to tell more.”

  “ ‘Michael!’ ” Patty repeated suddenly. “Archangel Michael, sent to us in human form.”

  “Patty, please! If he is, he doesn’t know it—”

  “He wouldn’t necessarily know. God performs His wonders in His own way.”

  “Aunt Patty, will you please let me talk?”

  Shortly Mrs. Paiwonski knew that Mike was the Man from Mars. She agreed to treat him as a man—while stating that she kept her own opinion as to his nature and why he was on Earth—Foster had been truly a man while on Earth but had been also and always an archangel. If Jill and Michael insisted that they were not saved, she would treat them as they asked to be treated—God moves in mysterious ways.

  “I think you could call us ‘seekers,,”’ Mike told her.

  “That’s enough, dears! I’m sure you’re saved—but Foster himself was a seeker in his early years. I’ll help.”

  She participated in another miracle. They were seated on the rug; Jill lay back and suggested it to Mike in her mind. With no patter, no props, Mike lifted her. Patricia watched with serene happiness. “Pat,” Mike then said. “Lie flat.”

  She obeyed as readily as if he had been Foster. Jill turned her head. “Hadn’t you better put me down, Mike?”

  “No, I can do it.”

  Mrs. Paiwonski felt herself gently lifted. She was not frightened; she felt overpowering religious ecstasy like heat lightning in her loins, making tears come to her eyes; such power she had not felt since Holy Foster had touched her. Mike moved them closer and Jill hugged; her tears increased with gentle sobs of happiness.

  Mike lowered them to the floor and was not tired—he could not recall when last he had been tired.

  Jill said, “Mike . . . we need water.”

  (“????”)

  (“Yes,” her mind answered.)

  (“And?”)

  (“Of elegant necessity. Why do you think she came here?”)

  (“I knew. I was not sure that you knew . . . or would approve. My brother. My self.”)

  (“My brother.”)

  Mike sent a glass into the bathroom, had the tap fill it, return it to Jill. Mrs Paiwonski watched with interest; she was beyond being astonished. Jill said to her, “Aunt Patty this is like being baptized . . . and like getting married. It’s . . . a Martian thing. It means you trust us and we trust you . . . we can tell you anything and you can tell us anything . . . and that we are partners, now and forever. But once done it can never be broken. If you broke it, we would die—at once. Saved or not. If we broke it—But we won’t. But don’t share water with us if you don’t want to—we’ll still be friends. If this interferes with your faith, don’t do it. We don’t belong to your church. We may never belong. ‘Seekers’ is the most you can call us. Mike?”

  “We grok,” he agreed. “Pat, Jill speaks rightly. I wish we could tell you in Martian, it would be clearer. But this is everything that getting married is—and much more. We are free to offer water . . . but if there is any reason, in your religion or your heart, not to accept—don’t drink it!”

  Patricia Paiwonski took a deep breath. She had made such a decision before . . . with her husband watching ... had not funked it. Who was she to refuse a holy man? And this blessed bride? “I want it,” she said firmly.

  Jill took a sip. “We grow ever closer.” She passed the glass to Mike.

  “I thank you for water, my brother.” He took a sip. “Pat, I give you the water of life. May you always drink deep.” He passed the glass to her.

  Patricia took it. “Thank you. Thank you, oh my dears! The ‘water of life’—I love you both!” She drank thirstily.

  Jill took the glass, finished it. “Now we grow closer, my brothers.”

  (“Jill?”)

  (“Now!!!”)

  Michael lifted his new brother, wafted her in and placed her gently on the bed.

  Valentine Michael Smith grokked that physical human love—very human and very physical—was not simply a quickening of eggs, nor was it ritual through which one grew closer; the act itself was a growing-closer. He was still grokking it, trying at every opportunity to grok its fullness. He had long since quit shying away from his strong suspicion that even the Old Ones did not know this ecstasy—he grokked that his new people held spiritual depths unique. Happily he tried to sound them, with no childhood inhibitions to cause him guilt nor reluctance of any sort.

  His human teachers, gentle and generous, had instructed his innocence without bruising it. The result was as unique as he was.

  Jill was unsurprised to find that Patty accepted with forthright fullness that sharing water with Mike in a very ancient Martian ceremony led at once to sharing Mike himself in an ancient human rite. Jill was somewhat surprised at Pat’s calm acceptance when Mike proved capable of miracles here, too. But Jill did not know that Patricia had met a holy man before—she expected more of holy men. Jil! was serenely happy that a cusp had been met with right action . . . then was ecstatically happy to grow closer herself.

  When they rested, Jill had Mike treat Patty to a bath by telekinesis, and squealed and giggled when the older woman did. Mike had done it playfully for Jill on the initial occasion; it had become a family custom, one that Jill knew Patty would like. It tickled Jill to see Patty’s face when she found herself scrubbed by invisible hands, then dried with neither towel nor air blast.

  Patricia blinked. “After that I need a drink.”

  “Certainly, darling.”

  “And I still want to show you kids my pictures.” They went into the living room and Patty stood in the middle of the rug. “First look at me. At me, not my pictures. What do you see?”

  Mike stripped off her tattoos in his mind and looked at his new brother without her decorations. He liked her tattoos; they set her apart and made her a self. They gave her a slightly Martian flavor, she did not have the bland sameness of most humans. He thought of having himself tattooed all over, once he grokked what should be pictured. The life of his father, water brother Jubal? He would ponder it. Jill might wish to be tatooed, too. What designs would make Jill more beautifully Jill?

  What he saw when he looked at Pat without tattoos pleased him not as much; she looked as a woman must look to be woman. Mike still did not grok Duke’s collection of pictures; they had taught him that there was variety in sizes, shapes, and colors of women and some variety in the acrobatics of love—but beyond this he seemed to grok nothing to learn from Duke’s prized pictures. Mike’s training had made him an exact observer, but that same training had left him unresponsive to the subtle pleasures of voyeurism. It was not that he did not find women (including, emphatically, Patricia Paiwonski) sexually stimulating, but it lay not in seeing them. Smell and touch counted more—in which he was quasi-human, quasi-Martian; the parallel
Martian reflex (as unsubtle as a sneeze) was triggered by those senses but could activate only in season—“sex” in a Martian was as romantic as intravenous feeding.

  With her pictures gone, Mike noted more sharply one thing: Patricia had her own face, marked in beauty by her life. She had, he saw with wonder, her own face even more than Jill had. It made him feel toward Pat even more of an emotion he did not as yet call love.

  She had her own odor, too, and her own voice. Her voice was husky, he liked hearing it even when he did not grok her meaning; her odor was mixed with a trace of bitter muskiness from handling snakes. Mike liked her snakes and could handle the poisonous ones—not alone by stretching time to avoid their strikes. They grokked with him; he savored their innocent merciless thoughts—they reminded him of home. Mike was the only other person who could handle Honey Bun with pleasure to the boa constrictor. Her torpor was such that others could handle her—but Mike she accepted as a substitute for Pat.

  Mike let the pictures reappear.

  Jill wondered why Aunt Patty had let herself be tattooed? She would look rather nice—if she weren’t a living comic strip. But she loved Patty herself, not the way she looked—and it did give her a steady living ... until she got so old that marks wouldn’t pay to see her even if those pictures had been by Rembrandt. She hoped that Patty was tucking away plenty in the grouch bag—then remembered that Aunt Patty was now a water brother and shared Mike’s endless fortune. Jill felt warmed by it.

  “Well?” repeated Mrs. Paiwonski. “What do you see? How old am I, Michael?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “I can’t, Pat.”

  “Oh, go ahead!”

  “Patty,” Jill put in, “he really can’t. He hasn’t learned to judge ages—you know how short a time he’s been on Earth. And Mike thinks in Martian years and Martian arithmetic. If it’s time or figures, I do it for him.”

  “Well . . . you guess, hon. Be truthful.”

  Jill looked Patty over, noting her trim figure but also hands and throat and eyes—then discounted by five years despite the honesty owed a water brother. “Mmm, thirtyish, give or take a year.”