Young Bleys - Childe Cycle 09 (10 page)

He paused.

"His name is Albert Gregg; and his house is just down the road from ours, here," he said. "It is too late tonight, but tomorrow after lunch, Will can take over the cleanup from the meal, and you can go down and see him. He's always at home there; and if he isn't, there'll be a message tacked to the door to say where he is. Yes, Bleys, you must thank God you thought of that."

Chapter 8

The next day
after lunch, Bleys walked down the road in the direction that, ironically, led back toward Ecumeny. The rain had let up for some days now, it was already hot and the road was getting dry and even a little dusty. The summer was beginning to move toward them.

"You can't miss it," Will had said, "it's a little brown house next to the church. The Teacher said it wouldn't be right to paint his house the same color as the church. But there's no trees in the way; and anyway, if you did miss it, you couldn't miss the church, because its steeple is higher than the tops of the trees in any direction."

Bleys spent the walk wondering how he would go about questioning the Teacher. He had never been more aware that he was completely out of his depth. He had not realized it before; but all the men and women he had known until now had a pattern of behavior and attitude that came from a very different life than this, but one with which Bleys had been familiar since birth. Here the imperatives were all different. People would

not be responding to the stimuli that he had been able to use when trying to get anything from them, back when he had been with his mother.

The church steeple showed itself, and shortly after that both the church and the small brown house beside it came into view. Bleys walked up the road to them; and in a short distance saw them clearly, since house and church alike did not sit back far from the road, being separated from each other only by what evidently was some sort of parking lot.

The small, brown house had a tiny porch on it and behind the porch a door. Bleys mounted to the door and knocked on it.

There was no answer. He looked at the door but there was no message fixed to it. He tried knocking at the door a little harder.

This time, after a moment, he heard shuffling steps inside and the door was opened. What he took at first to be a rather small man, even shorter than Bleys himself, peered out, looked at him and smiled.

"Ah," he said, "you must be Henry's new nephew. Come on in."

He stood aside, opening the door wider for Bleys to enter a dark little hall. The door was shut behind Bleys and his host shuffled ahead of him down the hall and through a door to the left into what seemed to be a sort of parlor or sitting room, although it too was tiny. Bleys saw that the man was almost bent double, so that he had to crane his head back on his neck to look up and see who he was talking to.

In the room, he took one of the chairs that was apparently adjusted to him; because once he was fitted into it he was able to look straight across at Bleys, whom he waved into an opposing chair. Both chairs were fairly small, but overstuffed and comfortable, if a little in need of dusting. Bleys' last few days at Henry's house had made him unusually conscious of cleanliness; and he was conscious of the fact that not only was the house far from being as clean as Henry's was kept, but the man himself smelled a little musty, as if he had not bathed recently. But Gregg smiled at him.

"So you came to see me," he said. "I'm Albert Gregg. But you know that. Church members generally just call me Gregg outside the church. In the church I'm 'Teacher.' If there're any adults around"—his eyes almost twinkled—"you should probably call me Teacher. But since there're just the two of us, Gregg will do. Don't be startled at the way I look. It's arthritis. Yes, I know it's curable—but the cost is more than we can afford here. Now, you're—Bleys Ahrens, aren't you?"

"That's right, Teacher—I mean, Gregg," said Bleys.

He found himself even more at sea than he had expected. He had assumed he would be meeting someone cast in the mold of Henry. Someone direct, decisive, and more than a little intolerant. This man seemed none of these; and yet he was head of their local church. Bleys was puzzled.

"Would you like some coffee?" asked Gregg. "The kettle's hot in the kitchen, and the makings are there. I'll ask you to make it for both of us, if you do want some, because it's a little hard for me to get around."

"No thank you, Gregg." Bleys found the name awkward in his mouth. "I just finished lunch."

"Not only that," said Gregg with something very close to a chuckle, "but you haven't adjusted to the taste of what we call coffee here yet, I'd guess. What brings you to see me?"

"I need"—this time Bleys had the word ready prepared— "instruction in the religion of your church, since I'm going to be a member."

"Instruction? You're sure you don't just mean information?" Gregg eyed him shrewdly. "In the first place, there is no formal instruction in our church; and, in the second place, you don't strike me as someone particularly in need of instruction—particularly if you're here at your own wishes. Or did Henry send you?"

"No," answered Bleys, "it was my idea to come and see you. You're right, I wanted to ask some questions."

"Good," said Gregg, wriggling himself a little more deeply and more comfortably into his chair, "that's much more to the point, and much more to be desired. I'd rather have somebody asking me questions of their own, and for their own reasons, than a hundred people sent to me to be taught."

"I lived with my mother all of my life until just now," said Bleys. "She was born and raised an Exotic; so I suppose I grew up an Exotic, too. I never knew any people from Harmony or Association until now—except one, and he—"

Bleys found himself hesitating.

"—He wasn't like what people said about people from your two worlds."

"In other words," said Gregg, "he was probably somebody like Henry's brother Ezekiel, if he wasn't Ezekiel himself. And Ezekiel was someone who simply ran away from the whole question of faith—left these two worlds where faith flourishes and changed his way of life completely. Was it Ezekiel?"

"Yes—Gregg," answered Bleys, "we all liked him."

"Yes. Oh, yes." Gregg's voice was thoughtful. "Ezekiel was one of the most likable human beings I ever knew. He still would be now, no doubt. But go on," he said, "you were telling me that your mother was an Exotic and you were raised an Exotic. I take it from the fact that you're here now, that for some reason you couldn't stay with your mother anymore. She's all right, isn't she?"

"Oh, she's fine," said Bleys; "it just wasn't—well, practical, for me to stay with her and travel around with her the way I was doing. She thought I'd be better off with Henry."

"Yes," said Gregg, "I can imagine. Just like your older brother."

"You know Dahno?" asked Bleys. For some reason it had not occurred to him that this man might.

"Oh, yes. I was Teacher here when your brother first came, too," said Gregg. "I think what you're leading up to is the fact that you don't know how you should act as a member of our church, because you've never had any experience with anything like it. Is that it?"

"That's it," said Bleys, relieved.

"Any more than that?" asked Gregg.

Bleys hesitated.

"It wouldn't be," said Gregg, "part of what you mentioned, about your having trouble fitting reality to what you've always heard about the people that call themselves Friendlies? Would it be that, too?"

Bleys nodded.

"I—" A rush of honesty suddenly brought words from him that he had not intended to say. "I'd always heard of Friendlies assorts of fanatics. Oh, I also heard about them as being called true faith-holders or true believers. Is either name true, or are both? If both names are true, what's the difference?"

Gregg smiled. He had a small, round face, now marked with the wrinkles of fairly advanced age, but which still showed elements of extreme youthfulness buried under the wrinkles.

"Of course," he answered, "we all like to think of ourselves as true believers. True Faith-holders is what we usually call ourselves. We have to think that way; otherwise we couldn't live with ourself and God. But yes, some of us are what's called Fanatics. And yes, there is a difference between Fanatics and True Faith-holders."

"That's what I want to understand, then," said Bleys. "Which are which, and how do I tell who is what?"

"Actually," said Gregg, "the distinction is very simple.
'By their fruits ye shall know them'
—which is a quotation from the New Testament of the Bible—"

"I know," said Bleys, eagerly. He was feeling quite comfortable with this bent little man. "Matthew; Chapter Seven, verse twenty, I think."

"You know the Bible?" said Gregg looking at him penetratingly.

Bleys felt suddenly embarrassed.

"I learned to read very early," he said. "I've done a lot of reading and usually anything I read sticks in my mind. But you mean, that the Fanatic distinguishes himself from the True Faith-holder by what he does?"

"Exactly," murmured Gregg, "you are very like Dahno, you know? At the same time, you're very different. But you're right in what you just said. The distinction is simple. The True Faith-holder lives to serve God. The Fanatic, whether he's conscious of it himself, or not, makes God and God's worship a tool to serve his own ends."

"I see," said Bleys, thoughtfully.

There was a small silence.

"Something in particular recently has you concerned about this?" asked Gregg.

Bleys started to shake his head, then stopped the impulse.

"Yes," he said, and the words came out almost painfully. He felt a tremendous need to trust the bent, small Teacher. "As I said, my mother was an Exotic. I think I grew up like an Exotic. The whole idea of violence is something we simply don't entertain if we think like Exotics."

"And you've witnessed an act of violence recently, then?" asked Gregg.

"Yes," said Bleys slowly, "I—"

Suddenly it all came out with a rush, about Henry's beating of Joshua for the dead goat, and how Will had reacted and how Bleys himself had felt, both at the time and afterward.

"I see," said Gregg at last when he was finished. For another moment again there was nothing said between them; then Gregg went on.

"I can see how it would be hard for you," he said at last, slowly. "What you witnessed is tied to the very structure of Henry's belief, and the beliefs of most of us. Did you realize, at the time or afterwards, that Henry wasn't taking any pleasure in punishing his son?"

Bleys nodded.

"I found that out," he said. "Henry stopped me when I tried to go to Joshua afterwards; and he was almost—kind about it. And from what Joshua said when I talked to him about it, the next day. He said that when he was grown up he would beat his own son for the same reason."

"And so he will," said Gregg, "when the time comes; and yet, he'll be a good and loving father."

He broke off, almost abruptly.

"I'm going to have to leave you fairly shortly," he said. He shifted slightly in his specially built chair. "One of my church-members is going to drop by in his motorized car to take me out to his place. His grandmother's very old and close to dying. She'd said she'd appreciate a visit from me; and right at the moment she needs me more than you do."

"I see," said Bleys. He felt dismissed, pushed off to one side as unimportant.

"Don't look like that," said Gregg. "I don't think you do see. It's just that, I'm sorry to say, the truth of the matter is that I can't be very much help to you. I think I know what you want; and what that is, is an understanding of why we are as we are, here in this church, on this planet of Association. I don't think I can help you, because for you really to understand, you'd have to be capable of a belief in God. And I'm certain that, just like your older brother, you simply don't have that in you."

He smiled.

"Thirty years ago when I was a younger Teacher," he said, "I would have felt it my duty to try to hammer the concept of God into you. I now know that such things never work. God in any true sense will never come to you unless you find him on your own; and from what I've seen of Exotics, of your brother and even of you, I think that's going to be very hard, if not impossible."

He paused and looked at Bleys sympathetically.

"It can enrich your life, however, if you merely embrace the path a Friendly must tread," he went on. "In fact, I would advise you to try for that, rather than a belief that is beyond your reach."

"I see," said Bleys again. "But what if what I want's the belief?"

"You still have to find Him yourself," said Gregg. He looked sympathetically at Bleys. "You're disappointed, and I don't blame you. I am, in a way, too. Because it would mean a great deal to me if you were able to discover God or understand what makes Henry what he is and the rest of us what we are. Possibly, if you stayed here a very long time
...
but that's as God wills it. As 1 say, in any case, unless you find him on your own, you never will."

"But how can I at least try to do it?" asked Bleys.

"Take for granted there's a fabric of reason behind everything we do here," said Gregg. "You seem to be almost unbelievably intelligent for your age; and maybe you can come to have the comfort of seeing at least the framework of that fabric, even without belief. I don't know. I hope so."

He paused and sighed. . "For what it's worth," he went on, "I can tell you that Henry's not a Fanatic. He's a man of true faith. Perhaps, if you start out from that point, you can begin to understand."

He stopped speaking and smiled sadly at Bleys.

"Now," he said, "if you'll give me a hand up out of this chair—I could get out by myself with some struggling, but it's much easier if somebody helps me—I'll appreciate it. I want to get a coat before I go out to visit. Once I wouldn't have needed a coat. But now, as I get older, I find the cold gets to me, even mild cold gets to me; and since many of us believe that it is wrong to pamper ourselves with undue heat, among other comforts, I find myself in some cold places."

Bleys got up from his chair and stepped over to give the old man his hand. As he lifted Gregg out of the chair, the musty odor of the old man tilled his nostrils.

Gregg smiled at him.

"I should apologize for that, too," he said. "You find I smell, don't you? I'm afraid it's the result of a foolish vow I took many years ago when I was young and strong. I vowed I'd never bathe in artificially warmed water. But the years have made it not only uncomfortable, but dangerous, for me to bathe in water that's at the temperature of the outdoors."