Stranger in a Strange Land, Page 35

  Mrs. Paiwonski chortled. “That’s one bonus of the True Faith, my dears! Jill hon, I’m crowding fifty.”

  “You don’t look it!”

  “That’s what Happiness does, dearie. After my first kid, I let my figure go to pot—they invented the word ‘broad’ just for me. My belly looked like six months gone. My busts hung down—and I’ve never had ’em lifted. You can see for yourself—sure, a good surgeon doesn’t leave a scar . . . but on me it would show, dear; it would chop holes in two pictures.

  “Then I seen the light! Nope, not exercise, not diet—I eat like a pig. Happiness, dear. Perfect Happiness in the Lord through the help of Blessed Foster.”

  “It’s amazing,” said Jill. Aunt Patty certainly had not dieted nor exercised during the time she had known her, and Jill knew what was excised in breast-lifting; those tatoos had never known a knife.

  Mike assumed that Pat had learned to think her body as she wished it, whether she attributed it to Foster or not. He was teaching this control to Jill, but she would have to perfect her knowledge of Martian before it could be perfect. No hurry, waiting would do it. Pat went on:

  “I wanted you to see what Faith can do. But the real change is inside. Happiness. The good Lord knows I’m not gifted with tongues but I’ll try to tell you. First you’ve got to realize that all other so-called churches are traps of the Devil. Our dear Jesus preached the True Faith, so Foster said and I truly believe. But in the Dark Ages his words were twisted and changed until Jesus wouldn’t recognize ’em. So Foster was sent to proclaim a New Revelation and make it clear again.”

  Patricia Paiwonski pointed her finger and suddenly was a priestess clothed in holy dignity and mystic symbols. “God wants us to be Happy. He filled the world with things to make us Happy. Would God let grape juice turn to wine if He didn’t want us to drink and be joyful? He could let it stay grape juice . . . or turn it into vinegar that nobody could get a giggle out of. Ain’t that true? Of course He don’t mean we should get roaring drunk and beat your wife and neglect your kids . . . He gave us good things to use, not abuse. If you feel like a drink or six, among friends who have seen the light, and it makes you want to dance and give thanks to the Lord for His goodness—why not? God made alcohol and God made feet—He made ’em so you could put ’em together and be Happy!”

  She paused. “Fill ’er up again, honey; preaching is thirsty work—not much ginger ale; that’s good rye. And that ain’t all. If God didn’t want women to be looked at, He would have made ’em ugly—that’s reasonable, isn’t it? God isn’t a cheat; He set up the game Himself—He wouldn’t rig it so that the marks can’t win, like a flat joint wheel in a town with a fix on. He wouldn’t send anybody to Hell for losing in a crooked game.

  “All right! God wants us to be Happy and He told us how: ‘Love one another!’ Love a snake if the poor thing needs love. Love thy neighbor . . . and the back of your hand only to Satan’s corruptors who want to lead you away from the appointed path and down into the pit. And by ‘love’ He didn’t mean nambypamby old-maid love that’s scared to look up from a hymn book for fear of seeing a temptation of the flesh. If God hated flesh, why did He make so much of it? God is no sissy. He made the Grand Canyon and comets coursing through the sky and cyclones and stallions and earthquakes—can a God who can do all that turn around and practically wet His pants just because some little sheila leans over a mite and a man catches sight of a tit? You know better, hon—and so do I! When God told us to love, He wasn’t holding out a card on us; He meant it. Love little babies that always need changing and love strong, smelly men so that there will be more babies to love—and in between go on loving because it’s so good to love!

  “Of course that don’t mean to peddle it any more than a bottle of rye means I gotta get fighting drunk and clobber a cop. You can’t sell love and you can’t buy Happiness, no price tags on either . . . and if you think there is, the way to Hell lies open. But if you give with an open heart and receive what God has an unlimited supply of, the Devil can’t touch you. Money?” She looked at Jill. “Hon, would you do that water-sharing thing with somebody, say for a million dollars? Make it ten million, tax free.”

  “Of course not.” (“Michael, do you grok this?”)

  (“Almost in fullness, Jill. Waiting is.”)

  “You see, dearie? I knew love was in that water. You’re seekers, very near the light. But since you two, from the love that is in you, did ‘share water and grow closer,’ as Michael says, I can tell you things I couldn’t ordinarily tell a seeker—”

  The Reverend Foster, self-ordained—or ordained by God, depending on authority cited—had an instinct for the pulse of his times stronger than that of a skilled carnie sizing up a mark. The culture known as “America” had a split personality throughout its history. Its laws were puritanical; its covert behavior tended to be Rabelaisian; its major religions were Apollonian; its revivals were almost Dionysian. In the twentieth century (Terran Christian Era) nowhere on Earth was sex so vigorously suppressed—and nowhere was there such deep interest in it.

  Foster had in common with every great religious leader of that planet two traits: he had an extremely magnetic personality, and sexually he did not fall near the human norm. On Earth great religious leaders were always either celibate or the antithesis. Foster was not celibate.

  Nor were his wives and priestesses—the clincher for rebirth under the New Revelation included a ritual uniquely suited for growing closer.

  In Terran history, many cults had used the same technique—but not on a major scale in America before Foster’s time. Foster was run out of town more than once before he perfected a method that permitted him to expand his capric cult. He borrowed from Freemasonry, Catholicism, the Communist Party, and Madison Avenue just as he borrowed from earlier scriptures in composing his New Revelation. He sugar-coated it all as a return to primitive Christianity. He set up an outer church which anybody could attend. Then there was a middle church, which to outward appearance was “The Church of the New Revelation,” the happy saved, who paid tithes, enjoyed all benefits of the church’s ever-widening business tie-ins, and whooped it up in an endless carnival of Happiness, Happiness, Happiness! Their sins were forgiven—and very little was sinful as long as they supported their church, dealt honestly with fellow Fosterites, condemned sinners, and stayed Happy. The New Revelation did not specifically encourage lechery, but it got quite mystical in discussing sexual conduct.

  The middle church supplied shock troops. Foster borrowed a trick from early-twentieth-century Wobblies; if a community tried to suppress a Fosterite movement, Fosterites converged on that town until neither jails nor cops could handle them—cops had ribs kicked in and jails were smashed.

  If a prosecutor was rash enough to push an indictment, it was impossible to make it stick. Foster (after learning under fire) saw to it that prosecutions were persecution under the letter of the law; no conviction of a Fosterite qua Fosterite was ever upheld by the Supreme Court—nor, later, by the High Court.

  Inside the overt church was the Inner Church—a hard core of fully dedicated who made up the priesthood, the lay leaders, all keepers of keys and makers of policy. They were “reborn,” beyond sin, certain of heaven, and sole celebrants of the inner mysteries.

  Foster selected these with great care, personally until the operation got too big. He looked for men like himself and for women like his priestess-wives—dynamic, utterly convinced, stubborn, and free (or able to be freed, once guilt and insecurity were purged) of jealousy in its most human meaning—and all of them potential satyrs and nymphs, as the secret church was that Dionysian cult that America had lacked and for which there was enormous potential market.

  He was most cautious—if candidates were married, it had to be both spouses. Unmarried candidates had to be sexually attractive and aggressive—and he impressed on his priests that males must equal or exceed in number the females. Nowhere was it recorded that Foster studied earlier, similar cults in A
merica—but he knew or sensed that most such had foundered because possessive concupiscence of their priests led to jealousy. Foster never made this error; not once did he keep a woman to himself, not even those he married.

  Nor was he too eager in expanding his core group; the middle church offered plenty to slake the milder needs of the masses. If a revival produced two couples capable of “Heavenly Marriage” Foster was content. If it produced none, he let the seeds grow and sent in a salted priest and priestess to nurture them.

  So far as possible, he tested candidate couples himself, with a priestess. Since such a couple was already “saved” insofar as the middle church was concerned, he ran little risk—none with the woman and he always sized up the man before letting his priestess go ahead.

  Before she was saved, Patricia Paiwonski was young, married, and “very happy.” She had one child, she looked up to and admired her much older husband. George Paiwonski was a generous, affectionate man with only one weakness—but one which often left him too drunk to show his affection after a long day. Patty counted herself a lucky woman—true, George occasionally got affectionate with a female client . . . quite affectionate if it was early in the day—and, of course, tattooing required privacy, especially with ladies. Patty was tolerant; she sometimes made a date with a male client, after George got to hitting the bottle more and more.

  But there was a lack in her life, one not filled even when a grateful client gave her a snake—shipping out, he said, and couldn’t keep it. She liked pets and had no snake phobia; she made a home for it in their show window and George made a beautiful four-color picture to back it: “Don’t Tread on Me!” This design turned out to be popular.

  She acquired more snakes and they were a comfort. But she was the daughter of an Ulsterman and a girl from Cork; the armed truce between her parents had left her with no religion.

  She was already a “seeker” when Foster preached in San Pedro; she had managed to get George to go a few Sundays but he had not seen the light.

  Foster brought them the light, they made their confessions together. When Foster returned six months later, the Paiwonskis were so dedicated that he gave them personal attention.

  “I never had a minute’s trouble from the day George saw the light,” she told Mike and Jill. “He still drank . . . but only in church and never too much. When our holy leader returned, George had started his Great Project. Naturally we wanted to show it to Foster—” Mrs. Paiwonski hesitated. “Kids, I ought not to tell this.”

  “Then don’t,” Jill said emphatically. “Patty darling, we don’t want you ever to do anything you don’t feel easy about. ‘Sharing water’ has to be easy.”

  “Uh ... I do want to! But remember this is Church things, so you mustn’t tell anyone . . . just as I wouldn’t tell anything about you.”

  Mike nodded. “Here on Earth we call it ‘water brother’ business. On Mars there’s no problem . . . but here I grok there sometimes is. ‘Water brother’ business you don’t repeat.”

  “I . . . I ‘grok.’ That’s a funny word, but I’m learning it. All right, darlings, this is ‘water brother’ business. Did you know that all Fosterites are tattooed? Real Church members, I mean, the ones who are eternally saved forever and a day—like me? Oh, I don’t mean tattooed all over but—see that? Right over my heart? That’s Foster’s holy kiss. George worked it in so that it looks like part of the picture . . . so that nobody could guess. But it’s his kiss—and Foster put it there hisself!” She looked ecstatically proud.

  They examined it. “It is a kiss mark,” Jill said wonderingly, “like somebody had kissed you there wearing lipstick. I thought it was part of that sunset.”

  “Yes, indeedy, that’s how George fixed it. Because you don’t show Foster’s kiss to anyone who doesn’t wear Foster’s kiss—and I never have, up to now. But,” she insisted, “you’re going to wear one, both of you, someday—and when you do, I want to tattoo ’em on.”

  Jill said, “I don’t understand, Patty. How can he kiss us? After all, he’s—up in Heaven.”

  “Yes, dearie, he is. Let me explain. Any priest or priestess can give you Foster’s kiss. It means God’s in your heart, God is part of you . . . forever.”

  Mike was suddenly intent. “Thou art God!”

  “Huh, Michael? Well—I’ve never heard it put that way. But that does express it . . . God is in you and of you and with you, and the Devil can’t get at you.”

  “Yes,” agreed Mike. “You grok God.” He thought happily that this was nearer to putting the concept across than he had ever managed before ... except that Jill was learning it, in Martian. Which was inevitable.

  “That’s the idea, Michael. God . . . groks you—and you are married in Holy Love and Eternal Happiness to His Church. The priest or priestess kisses you and the mark is tattooed on to show it’s forever. It doesn’t have to be this big—mine is exactly the size and shape of Foster’s blessed lips—and it can be placed anywhere to shield from sinful eyes. Any spot where it won’t be noticed. Then you show it when you go into a Happiness gathering of the eternally saved.”

  “I’ve heard of happiness meetings,” Jill commented, “but I’ve never known quite what they are.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Paiwonski said judicially, “there are Happiness meetings and Happiness meetings. The ones for ordinary members, who are saved but might backslide, are fun—grand parties with only the amount of praying that comes happily, and plenty of whoop-it-up that makes a good party. Maybe a little real lovin’—but you’d better be mighty careful who and how, because you mustn’t be a seed of dissension among the brethren. The Church is very strict about keeping things in their proper places.

  “But a Happiness meeting for the eternally saved—well, you don’t have to be careful because there won’t be anybody there who can sin—all past and done with. If you want to drink and pass out . . . okay, it’s God’s will or you wouldn’t want to. You want to kneel down and pray, or lift up your voice in song—or tear off your clothes and dance; it’s God’s will. There can’t possibly be anybody there who would see anything wrong in it.”

  “It sounds like quite a party,” said Jill.

  “Oh, it is—always! And you’re filled with heavenly bliss. If you wake up in the morning with one of the eternally saved brethren, he’s there because God willed it to make you all blessedly Happy. They’ve all got Foster’s kiss—they’re yours.” She frowned thoughtfully. “It feels a little like ‘sharing water.’ You understand?”

  “I grok,” agreed Mike.

  (“Mike?????”)

  (“Wait, Jill. Wait for fullness.”)

  “But don’t think,” Patricia said earnestly, “that a person can get into an Inner Temple Happiness meeting just with a tattoo mark. A visiting brother or sister—Well, take me. As soon as I know where the carnie is going, I write the local churches and send my fingerprints so they can check ’em against the file of eternally saved at Archangel Foster Tabernacle. I give ’em my address care of Billboard. Then when I do—and I always go Sundays and never miss a Happiness meeting even if Tim has to slough the blow-off—I am identified. They’re glad to see me; I’m an added attraction, with my unique and unsurpassed sacred pictures—I often spend an evening just letting people examine me . . . every minute of it bliss. Sometimes the priest has me bring Honey Bun to do Eve and the Serpent—that takes body make-up, of course. Some brother plays Adam and we get scourged out of the Garden of Eden, and the priest explains the real meaning, not the twisted lies—and we end by regaining our blessed innocence, and that gets the party rolling. Joy!”

  She added, “But everybody is interested in my Foster’s kiss . . . because, since he went back to Heaven twenty years ago, not many have a Foster’s kiss that wasn’t laid on by proxy—I have the Tabernacle testify to that, too. And I tell them about it. Uh—”

  Mrs. Paiwonski hesitated, then told them, in explicit detail—and Jill wondered where her limited ability to blush had gone? Then she grokked
that Mike and Patty were two of a kind—God’s innocents, unable to sin no matter what they did. She wished, for Patty’s sake, that Foster had really been a holy prophet who had saved her for eternal bliss.

  But Foster! God’s Wounds, what a travesty!

  Suddenly, through her greatly improved recall, Jill was back in a room with a glass wall, looking into Foster’s dead eyes. But he seemed alive . . . and she felt a shiver in her loins and wondered what she would have done if Foster had offered her his holy kiss—and his holy self?

  She shut it out of her mind, but not before Mike caught it. She felt him smile, with knowing innocence.

  She stood up, “Pattycake darling, what time do you have to be at the lot?”

  “Oh, dear! I should be back this blessed minute!”

  “Why? The show doesn’t roll until nine-thirty.”

  “Well . . . Honey Bun misses me. She’s jealous if I stay out late.”

  “Can’t you tell her that it’s a Happiness meeting?”

  “Uh...” The older woman gathered Jill in her arms. “It is! It certainly is!”

  “Good. I’m going to sleep—Jill is bushed. What time do you have to be up?”

  “Uh, if I’m back by eight, I can get Sam to tear down my top and have time to make sure my babies are loaded safely.”

  “Breakfast?”

  “I’ll get it on the train. Just coffee when I wake up, usually.”

  “I make that here. You dears stay up as long as you like; I won’t let you oversleep—if you sleep. Mike doesn’t sleep.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Never. He curls up and thinks a while, usually—but he doesn’t sleep.”

  Mrs. Paiwonski nodded solemnly. “Another sign. I know—and, Michael, some day you will know. Your call will come.”

  “Maybe,” agreed Jill. “Mike, I’m falling asleep. Pop me into bed. Please?” She was lifted, wafted into the bedroom, covers rolled themselves back—she slept.

  Jill woke at seven, slipped out of bed, put her head into the other room. Lights were out and shades were tight, but they were not asleep. Jill heard Mike say with soft certainty: