The Clarkl Soup Kitchens (10 page)

I have never seen a Monarch, except in pictures, and I am very anxious to find out what the fuss is all about. The dining room manager assures me they never enter the sanctuary, so I have asked for a temporary job in the dining room during the visit.

There is no king and no queen. Instead, one Monarch is clearly the top dog, and the rest follow its lead. The top Monarch, I understand, is always the product of the former top Monarch and another Monarch, even though the mating of a Monarch and a Wolpter will result in a Monarch half the time.

So the top Monarch must be careful to mate with those of its own kind since the other Monarchs will select one of these offspring as the next top Monarch at the time of the succession.

The gossip here is that the current top Monarch, called the Vlogo, is rather effete and not given to spreading its genes. It has only three offspring for consideration, and this Vlogo is getting close to the time when offspring will be needed.

As for our Drones, I can’t tell who is young and who is old. The adults look sufficiently vigorous and healthy. Certainly they are all getting enough to eat.

Monarchs are far more interested in mating with Seekers, Slinkers, and Carriers than in mating with the lower-class Wolpters. These matches never create a Monarch, but they often create a Batwig, the companions of the Monarchs.

April 2, 2144
– Our final day of rehearsal before the Holy Week services start in earnest. We have decided to take next Monday as a holiday, and I will play the services by myself. I also will play some of our recorded anthems, thus giving the choir a free day.

The Reverend Walters assures me the Monarchs will want to attend the Easter services. I don’t really believe it, but I think we are as ready with the music as we can get.

Three women stopped by my cabin this evening with ham hors d’oeuvres. The canned ham was a gift from some do-gooder in
Virginia
, and it arrived just this afternoon. Of course, we won’t serve ham to the locals since they are vegetarians.

I have seen no animals on Clarkl other than the human types that visit the dining room. The Reverend Walters assures me that great beasts roam the colder parts of the planet, never coming close to the equator. The locals do not ever consider eating them.

What I would do right now for a really fine steak!

April 3, 2144
– The Maundy Thursday service was a triumph. The choir really sounded good, and the homily was fitting and not too foreboding about the terrible Good Friday events.

We had a few locals in the pews, too. We have been here for many, many years, and some of the Clarklians are aware this is our big week.

Some of the Americans from the New Christian Congregation’s dining room were at the service, and so were some of the people from the farms. Ours is the only formal Christian service on this planet, as far as I know, and we expect to see even more Americans tomorrow and on Sunday.

This is my first Holy Week at the organ, too. I served as a volunteer substitute organist at our church at home, but the starting lineup was always on duty during Easter week. I rehearsed with the choir once or twice, but I never got the call.

April 4, 2144
– Monarchs everywhere today! They ate in the dining room and attended both services in the sanctuary!

We brought back the Maundy Thursday anthem for the second service, just so the exalted ones would not think we had only the two we rehearsed for both services.

These entities are frightful! Great blobs of skin protrude from their heads! I caught myself starring at them and forced myself to turn away.

The Reverend Walters brought out his complete stock in trade, starting with the annunciation, moving to the virgin birth, then describing the first miracle at the wedding, and finally telling the complete story of the crucifixion. My fanny was numb, and I, on the organ bench, had the softest seat in the house.

At the second service, he threw in the Sermon on the Mount for good measure.

He usually speaks for twenty minutes. At the first service he ran on for one hour and twenty minutes, and at the second service he clocked in at just under two hours.

The Monarchs did not leave! They listened to every word, translated into their language, as always.

A few heads nodded in time with the Bach, and those blobs wiggled and waggled.

I believe there were thirty Monarchs in total. The choir was facing the congregation, and their estimates range between twenty-five and forty.

The pecking order was clear to us. The ones in the front pew were the highest in status.

I wish we had performed the Myllar. That is the best of this week’s numbers, and we were saving it until Easter.

April 5, 2144
– The excitement has somewhat died down. We still had to complete our two services today, but our hearts were not really in them. The guests had gone.

The dining room manager has posted a list of exactly what the Monarchs ate. They were happy with the pumpkin stew and finished that off. They did not care much for the cabbage and corn fritters. They cleaned us out of apple pie, with our complete supply being rushed from the freezer to the oven to the serving line.

April 6, 2144
– Easter went very well. The locals know this is our big day, and about three dozen came to the early service and a dozen came to the later service.

These locals, when there are a significant number of them, will applaud after something they like. We never hear this in a Texas Protestant church, but things are different in Clarkl. The Myllar was applauded politely, but the Saint-Saëns number was so well received that we repeated it immediately. This was a first for me. The Reverend Walters sat at the altar, beaming, while we presented it a second time.

The staff came in their best clothes, half to each service. They carefully sat in the back so the Clarklians could have the best seats, but it didn’t much matter. The sanctuary was quite empty. After the service, many of the kitchen workers sought me out and told me how much they had enjoyed the music. That was reward enough for me for the weeks of rehearsals.

The story of the resurrection is always stirring, and the Reverend Walters put more emotion into this sermon than any other I have heard. Of course, our faith is based on this event and its message of eternal life, but it is good to hear it each year.

Those green robes even brought a compliment or two, despite my aversion to them.

At the end of the day, I fell into my comfortable bed and slept soundly.

April 7, 2144
– We had an easy day today, with two brief services with recorded choir music. I played both services at the piano, which is so much easier than the multi-manual, multi-pedal organ, and I felt as if I had had almost a vacation day.

Another call from my friend the farmhand. We decided to go on a drive after the early service tomorrow.

April 8, 2144
– A fine day today, with no rehearsals and a nice drive along the road to Gilsumo.

As I suspected, my farmhand friend wants to earn more money. I spelled out for him exactly what he could do to earn $140, and he said he would think about it. A half hour later the deal was made, and I feel as good as I have felt since I left
Texas
. We agreed to meet about once a week, under the same conditions.

The dining room manager received a beautiful letter from a Monarch. We had to call the American embassy in Gilsumo to have it translated. The letter expressed thanks for the meals on the prior Friday. No flowery language, no comments about the apple pie they cleaned us out of, and no thanks for the church service or its music.

My mother is a good writer of letters. She has at least four letters on each spacecraft that lands, and each one discusses the plans that are moving forward for my admirer’s wedding. A dress has been selected, and this dress is the most beautiful garment anyone has ever seen. A florist has been engaged from
Houston
, and the estimate for his services has people near apoplexy. The local bakery is designing a cake for six hundred guests, the size of which has heretofore been unknown in my hometown.

Who is paying for all this? I have a good idea.

My brother has announced a dividend on the family’s stock, and my net worth has increased by about seven percent in the months I have been away. He has a better touch with running the factories profitably than even our father had.

My sister is pregnant, again. This will be her fourth child, and my mother is all atwitter about the preparations for the birth, an event that is about four months away. One nurse has already been engaged to look after my sister, a woman who should know better than to conceive a child in her mid-forties.

April 9, 2144
– We are back to daily rehearsals, after an easy few days.

The experience during Holy Week has not been lost on us. We took notes of which numbers the Clarklians especially liked, and we are trying to find similar tunes and, especially, arrangements.

We have decided to do a week of American Spirituals, starting in the next few days. We will record these and attempt to have about a dozen spirituals to send to the Deacon in
Arizona
within two weeks. Our prior submissions were distributed to the faithful, and some people are asking for more.

Of course, the music is not the finest. The interest is only that it was recorded on Clarkl, the location of our most distant missionary efforts.

These recordings are offered free of charge to anybody who is interested. The American government pays us enough to run this place, and American citizens need a reminder that we are here.

I have been sleeping well this week.

April 10, 2144
– After a good Holy Week, our dining room is back to its poor numbers of meals served. I wish I could find out what the Congregationalists are doing to combat this decrease in work.

My farmhand friend has assured me the Congregationalists are building a new facility, one that nearly quadruples the number of seats in the dining room. How can they reconcile that effort with the fact that fewer Clarklians are coming for meals?

April 11, 2144
– The dining room manager is using the results of the Holy Week’s business to plan the dishes for the serving line. The cooks are up to their elbows in apples, paring and slicing. Tomorrow they will bake them into pies.

We have seven spirituals in various stages of rehearsal. I would like to have a good bass for
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
, but we are making do with what we have. For those notes between E flat below the bass clef to the A above that note, I have to play them on the organ’s foot pedals. I wish I could rearrange the piece, but what’s it without the low notes? I’ll fix the recording with my computer after we have completed it. The baritone will be surprised to hear himself!

The Reverend Walters was so pleased after the Good Friday services, when none of the Monarchs left before the sermon was complete, that he has lengthened all sermons since that time. He also has redoubled his fire and brimstone antics, talking about the terrible penalty in the afterlife for all this fornication we hear so much about here on Clarkl. I have not yet taken it to heart.

We found out the Vlogo was not among us last week. The Vlogo’s only sibling was here, though, and that entity was given the best seat.

It’s funny to me that the best seat to the Vlogo’s sibling was the one in the front and center. Back in
Texas
, the best seat in the sanctuary is as far from the altar as one can sit without being in the last row. The last row does not give your friends the opportunity to actually see that you were in attendance.

Of course, our Bible does not say anything about the meaning of adultery for androgynous beings. Or for sterile ones, either. What is so terrible about the Drones engaging in harmless sex? No child is conceived, and no line of succession is questioned.

The Batwigs, also sterile, don’t have much of a problem with all this fornication, so the Reverend Walters can let them know they are cleared for their rewards in the afterlife. If he ever saw an uppity Batwig in his sanctuary, that is.

I want to see a Slinker. They don’t come here, and nobody knows much about them. A Slinker always has a Slinker parent, but when a Slinker mates with another type, the chances are very good the offspring will not be a Slinker. Only when a Slinker mates with another Slinker is the offspring certain to be a Slinker.

April 12, 2144
– We filled the buffet line with apple pie, thinking the regulars would call their friends to come. The number of meals served stayed about the same. The pies were frozen and will be pulled out again in a few days.

Today we presented our first American Spiritual,
Ezekiel Saw the Wheel
, to the delight of the Reverend Walters. The locals were in short supply, but they nodded their heads with the music.

We had a small card game in my cabin after the last service, something we did not tell the Reverend Walters about. Cards are still thought to be an instrument of the devil, even when no money changes hands. We played gin rummy for about an hour, and then the diehards stayed on for three rubbers of bridge. Nobody suggested canasta or pinochle.