What Lot's Wife Saw (36 page)

“The salt is being sent to the desert,” intoned the Negro, and for the first time I could see a flash of fear in his eyes.

I returned to bed and asked Ali to pick up his straw mat from the floor and to start sleeping in his own room from now on. Since the salt was being transported through the desert and we still remained here, I would stop being frightened by my dreams. There was no point. The nightmare had left the domain of fantasy and was now rearing its head in reality.

I passed a very rough night with the gnawing of the natives sending vibrations through the bed and with the local chiefs, from whom I had stolen the prehistoric idols, dripping mud onto my pillow. I hadn’t considered the smuggling a sin, I had taken the coins without feeling any guilt; let them who’d bought them worry. In any case, the laws against the illegal traffic of antiquities were mainly useful in raising the value of private collections. Theft, however? Some have never forgiven me for that. Especially those who’d trusted the young anthropologist and had welcomed him into their huts naively thinking that science, in its innocent wisdom, was incapable of producing crooks. They’d never suspected that the hot breath for knowledge and rationality which could define and safeguard value could also be twisted, using the same reasoning to debase it, and these people would pursue me to my grave! I gave a mighty whack to the frame of my bed to get revenge on those busy jaws but the Africans’ teeth were too sturdy to break – the Australopithecines had proved their long-term superiority, at least in my nightmares.

I wrapped myself tightly in my sheet, knowing that the worst was yet to come. Priests were not free agents in this society of salaried earners, if indeed they were free in other societies.

The early morning was greeted by some loud knocks on the door – the threesome standing there were looking for me. I heard Ali’s feet dragging along the floor as he headed for the entrance. The door opened and I strained to make out what the soft male voices were saying. Having failed, I hid under the sheets when I heard Ali’s ominous footsteps climb the stairs and stop outside my room. The door opened and the indefatigable Ali shuffled over and uncovered me. He ignored my pleas to be left alone and spat on the floor to ward off the evil eye.

“Vestments,” he mouthed.

“You didn’t take them to the balcony, did you, so that the whole Colony could enjoy the spectacle?”

“To the library.”

Defeated, I pulled my robe on and pinned the Purple Star on my chest before going down to the library. Father Efsevios, Father Vassili and Father Yuri, the so-called “bishop”, had darkened my library with their black robes. Their dense beards were scented with deodorant, their crosses nestled on the shelving stomachs and the stones with the linked arms of the Consortium were displayed on their middle fingers. We are not ashamed to wear them, we boast that we are salaried and shackled. Two were on the couch, below the paleontological shelves, and Father Yuri was slowing rocking on my rocking chair between Darwin and Ecclesiastes. I closed the curtains so that we couldn’t be seen from outside. Now that the colonists knew that the salt was leaving through the desert, they would be desperate for answers and unscheduled conclaves of priests could easily be misinterpreted. Yuri, sensing the reason behind the curtains, smiled ironically as if to convey that my belated attempt at containment was superfluous.

“Bishop” Yuri holds the chair of the (informal, of course) Synod of the Orthodox Clergy of the Colony and he bears the weight of his tin crown with the appropriate melancholy vanity of one who knows how meaningless those titles were in a Colony of employees but, oh, how necessary to maintain the illusion of an independent Church in spite of the fact that it wasn’t autonomous in the Colony and wouldn’t survive on its own. Thus, I showed him proper respect and knelt before him.

“Your blessing, Father.”

“I bless you, my child.”

The “Bishop” indulged me by moving his fat fingers over my head, simultaneously being very careful to keep them from straying across the rays of reflected sunlight that shone from my Purple Star.

I rose and bowed towards the other two. “The Lord’s Peace be with you, brothers.”

“Amen, my brother.”

This discussion promised to be strewn with thorns, as the investigating trio that the Synod of the Orthodox Clergy had sent was one of the most effective. Their eyes were thirsting for explanations. Why was the salt fleeing? I was the last person in the Colony to ask but I couldn’t hope to convince anyone about that, let alone these inquisitors. I sat as far away from them as I could manage and leant back against two volumes on the evolution of Echinoderms, inwardly focusing on trying to maintain my composure. Experienced in their tactics, I knew that they would let Yuri broach the subject in his beloved, pedantic way, petal by petal, like plucking a rose. His verbosity, his insinuations and his hypocritical compliments would derail the discussion continuously so that I would become confused and lulled into divulging what they were after.

Father Yuri stopped fidgeting and knitted his fingers over his belly, signalling the commencement of the ordeal. He started with his classic praise about the snatching of the Metropolis from the Catholics, a feat for which the Orthodox community of Hesperides will always venerate me. Alas, more and more Spaniards and Italians are gathering in Hesperides and are being promoted to managerial positions, displacing incumbents from the Balkans and the Black Sea so our dominant position in the executive borough is anything but secure. The transfer of the Metropolis to my jurisdiction had been a great surprise and had brought about an upsurge in interest in the Orthodox faith but maintaining its position would be a struggle.

Father Vassili precipitated into the conversation to state that my eccentric behaviour had perversely increased attendances, especially those of a specific sex, and, of course, the Church recognised its debt to me in that regard. However, he went on to stress, one had to be careful to gauge where the profit wore thin and the damage began.

Yuri observed that my appearance was quite unconventional for an Orthodox priest and my sermons controversial, but they touched the hearts of the colonists and since the Lord often surprises us with the agents He chooses to disseminate His word, he would refrain from nit-picking further. It could also be said that a healthy dose of obfuscation was of recognised value in teaching and, possibly, a more effective tool than clarity when targeting colonists. One must take care, however, not to use confusion to excess! Times were troubled, and a measure of restraint could prove instrumental, as it was only too easy for the gift to become a liability.

“Times are troubled,” I chorused.

Father Vassili, misinterpreting my vacuous gaze and thinking that I needed proof that times were indeed troubled, raised a finger and announced that the Catholics had never stopped trying to recapture the Metropolis, claiming that it should be theirs by right. They still found it difficult to believe that it had slipped through their fingers to the Governor’s wife’s protégé despite the stark fact that they were the majority in the quarter. One must also not ignore the intentions of the rabbis who, working behind the scenes, as they do, conspire to saw away the legs of Christian thrones and dream of seeing the Metropolis transformed into a synagogue.

Father Efsevios joined in to remind us of the Moslem threat, since they also had designs on Hesperides. We would do well not to underestimate them just because they were divided into numerous factions. Moslems had been quietly ascending the ranks of hierarchy and already there were quarters where there were no Christians.

Let us keep in mind, Father Yuri hastened to point out, that at heart, the Consortium didn’t care about dogma since what mattered to them was the story of the destruction of the Twin Cities which could be found in all the holy books – the Bible, the Torah and the Koran. That meant that the obligation to keep the Metropolis and Hesperides in the Orthodox fold fell squarely on our shoulders.

Father Efsevios grumbled that the imams had wised up and had polished their preaching, trying to stress the similarities between the will of Allah with that of the Seventy-Five. Our employers demand that preachers try to convince the faithful to identify their chosen God with the Seventy-Five. So they study the Bible, they contrast it with the Koran and present impressive comparative interpretations of critical chapters since their Allah conformed more closely to the model the Seventy-Five wished to advance. We had suffered serious setbacks in this battle.

“May I recall Genesis 18:21 to your attention?” he sighed, to force me to realise that our dogma could not tolerate further defeats.

In Genesis, chapter 18, verse 21, God decides before destroying Sodom and Gomorrah to descend and make sure that the inhabitants are every bit as sinful as He believes them to be. Moslems interpreted this as proof of God’s inability to determine the magnitude of the problem, the existence or absence of excessive sin, since He had to inspect the cities in Person. Conversely, their Allah, in the equivalent passage in the Koran, destroys the cities without needing a Personal inspection, since in His capacity of All-Knowing, He knew perfectly well beforehand what evil was abroad in their souls. The Seventy-Five were delighted with the Moslem version and they distributed generous bonuses to the imams – a triumph that the Christian community has never been able to match. We were forced to stammer that the Lord’s site inspection was only a figure of speech but that didn’t really wash and we spent the next six months bereft of bonuses, which we only earn if our preaching advances the Consortium’s cause in some way. The Seventy-Five are very meticulous in establishing appropriate symbols so that correct associations would flow unhindered in the colonist’s minds. There had been instances where temples were lost overnight to a particular creed just because a voice from the pulpit enunciated a wrong word.

I attempted to calm them, explaining that the Koran lacked a crucial detail that would always relegate the Moslems to the second division in the running for the Metropolis. Their holy book didn’t mention that after Lot’s wife turned her head to gaze at the destruction of Sodom she was turned into a pillar of salt. It just said that she was severely punished and left behind. There was no mention of salt and, no salt, no Metropolis.

Father Efsevios persisted, despite my arguments, that the rise of Moslems to positions of influence worried him. Everyone knew that Captain Drake, who’d reached the top echelon of decorated officials, had never truly accepted Jesus Christ. The Moslem community could boast of a very important leader in his person, a robust figure that controlled the Colony’s war machine, the guards, the outposts, the weapons and the means of establishing and maintaining order. God forbid that we should wake up one day to find the Metropolis a mosque!

“In a word,” Father Yuri said, sweetly, trying to rein in the conversation which was showing tendencies of wandering, “danger is lurking.” He pointed out that the Purple Star that I wore gave me free access to the Governor’s office, which in turn increased my responsibilities and obligations to my faith. Orthodoxy expected me to conscientiously serve its interests.

I assured them that I had never stopped fighting for our interests but, unfortunately, the Governor was more influenced by the contents of the Green Box than those of the Scriptures. At least, this year has already proved a profitable one for our creed as funds were earmarked for the iconography of two Serbian churches in Hesperides and for new bells for a Greek temple in the dockers’ quarter.

Father Efsevios grumbled that an occasional allocation did little to help the overall situation since in the long run the Consortium granted money according to the percentages of pews occupied. He sighed that he had had to relinquish another row of pews in his church ever since a Catholic had become the new head of the despatch department and the Orthodox despatchers had removed their names from his pews and transferred them to their superior’s church. Papists were a conniving bunch, better organised than us, and may we not live to see the icons of Methodius and Cyril (blessed be they) ripped down to make room for a dissonant organ to serve the Pope’s vanity due to the thinning of our flock.

“The Pontiff in Brussels lacks the glory that he enjoyed in the Vatican,” I observed in an attempt to calm him.

Father Efsevios was not to be mollified, as he noted that the loss of the Fanari Patriarchate in Constantinople was the work of the Devil, far outweighing the loss of the Vatican, which God must have had a hand in sinking. In any case, it was the Colony, rather than Europe, that we should worry about and things here are going from bad to worse. Soon we’ll get so confused that we will be having difficulty distinguishing Christians from the circumcised. Moslems drink alcohol, Jews work on the Sabbath and the Orthodox eat meat during Lent – bedlam!

Father Yuri regrouped with a wave of his hand. Homing in on the crux of the matter, he announced that this dawn had been greeted by a complete reversal of accepted order and that our flock would be expecting us to provide some answers for it. Salt was being transported to the Land of Beyond! It was only a matter of time before the colonists will flock to the temples to demand explanations from the clergy. The dilemma faced every clergyman but only the Orthodox had the advantage of including the Governor’s personal spiritual healer in our ranks, and surely he must know facts and details unavailable to the others.

They stared expectantly into my eyes, considering that they had sufficiently described the context in which I should respond and that it was time for me to take the floor.

I retained my outward calm, admiring my well-developed internal soundproofing that was muffling the groans and screams that my gut was producing. I decided to escape through the loophole that they had inadvertently opened for me. I said that my Purple Star bound me to my duty to the Governor and the policy of the Consortium that perhaps outweighed my obligations to my dogma.

They must have expected me to employ this answer since it was my evasion of choice when facing challenging interrogation. They usually respected it since any insistence would seem disrespectful to our employers – unthinkable for all us salary-earners. They couldn’t openly challenge the evasion because it would invite their own dismissal. The Consortium was quite intolerant of those that got confused about the proper hierarchy of loyalties.