Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

faith—or no faith at all—and I’ll unbolt this gate and let you in to bravely slaughter these unarmed women.” When there was no immediate response, he added, “It is not the Prophet who advocates violent behavior but ambitious ayatollahs, and the politicians who share their vested interests.”

Of course, the men could not refute him with scripture, as the Koran was on Switters’s side, but they argued with him, bringing up such things as the Israeli displacement of Palestinians and the murderous legacy of the Christian Crusaders, neither of which he was wont to defend in the slightest. In fact, he seconded everything they said about the Crusades, plainly exhibiting his own disgust and revulsion, yet refusing to accept any residual guilt, claiming that it had nothing to do with him or them. He understood, however, that Arabic peoples had a different sense of time, of history, than a Westerner such as himself; had, like the Kandakandero, a different relationship with the past and their ancestors.

After that, the discussion cooled down. The night was cooling down as well, and on the ground behind him, the ex-nuns were beginning to shiver in their thin cotton gowns. The talk continued, though, for at least another two hours, during which many cross-cultural theological issues were fairly evenly debated. In the end, the attackers, drained and a trifle flabbergasted by the encounter, made as if to depart. Just to make sure, to cap the melting sundae with a tangy cherry, Switters announced that the compound was under the personal aegis of President Hafez al-Assad, Audubon Poe, and Pee-wee Herman, and if any harm came to its occupants, heads would roll all the way to Mecca. “Take it up with those worthy gentlemen if you have any doubts. Tell them Switters sent you.”

The men nodded gravely. Then, following an exchange of formal, fairly cordial farewells, they climbed into the Peugeot, which, suspensefully, took as long to start as a barrio limo, and drove off into the sands.

“Oh, goody! My trusty starship.”

At some juncture during the seemingly interminable bull session, Domino had slipped away to his room and fetched his wheelchair. Now, he dropped onto it. Once he was seated, the sisters, cold, frazzled, some very nearly asleep on their feet, crowded around him as if he were a conquering hero. Women love these fierce invalids home from hot climates?

“Magnifique!” exclaimed Masked Beauty. The abbess had shown up at the gate soon after the engagement began and, having acquired a rudimentary familiarity with Arabic as long ago as her service in Algeria, translated for the others, as best she could, the highlights of the debate. She had arrived veiled, in the event that she had to confront strangers, but had removed the cloth now, and it dangled from her fingers. A ray of moonlight striking her double-decker wart made the growth resemble a dab of ketchup-coated curds. Cottage cheese with ketchup, he thought. Richard Nixon’s favorite meal. Probably got the recipe from John Foster Dulles. Patooie!

“How do you know so well Islam?” the abbess asked.

“Oh, I used to flip through the Koran—and the Bible—and the Talmud—occasionally,” he said. “Before I discovered Finnegans Wake.”

Thanking and congratulating him again, Masked Beauty patted his curly top. Then, shooing her charges ahead of her like geese, she, and they, went off to bed. Domino stayed behind, however, intent on pushing his chair. “I don’t believe I can sleep,” she said, “but you must be exhausted.” He claimed that he was as buzzed as a June bug up a maypole, so they repaired to his room for a spot of cold tea. It was the first time she had visited him there since the Fannie affair at the beginning of summer. She stood with her back to him while he pulled on a shirt and trousers. Baby ducks, adieu.

When they were settled, he in his Invacare, she on the stool (the cot was avoided as deliberately, as warily, as if it were an altar upon which certain arcane, unmentionable rituals were known to have occurred), she told him how grateful she was that the incident at the gate had concluded without bloodshed. He said that no self-respecting cowboy would have let such a splendid opportunity to fire his gun pass him by, but that he supposed a peaceful solution was best for all concerned. “Those agitated stooges probably have innocent kids to support.”

“It’s their religion,” she said accusingly.

He corrected her. “It’s their religion plus your religion.”

“Our lives were threatened, and you are saying that my religion must share the blame? What have we done?”

He sighed. “You’ve tried to own God,” he said. “Just like them.”

Domino looked puzzled. Then she nodded. “Okay, I think I see what you mean. The Moslems and the Christians are each insisting that their way to God is the only way, so if only one side is right, then those on the other side . . .”

“Having hocked their lives, are left to face death without the pawn ticket. That smarts. And remember: there’re three sides to every story, including the monotheism story.”

She curtly dismissed the Jews, however, stating that Judaism’s Killer B’s wouldn’t figure into the final equation. Before he could challenge that assertion—and, really, all he was wanting to do was to settle back and unwind—she asked what the name Fatima meant to him.

“It’s the podunk burg in Portugal where that most profoundly splendid of oxymorons, the Virgin Mother, supposedly yo-yoed the sun in 1917.” One didn’t play cyberspace errand boy for Marian enthusiasts of all ages without picking up a tidbit or two. “Fatima, Lourdes, Bosnia; Knock, Ireland; Tepeyac, Mexico. Isn’t it fascinating how Mary usually seems to turn up in ugly, boring, economically depressed locales in dire need of a tourist attraction? Projecting, we could forecast that she’ll show up next—where? Western Oklahoma, probably. Middle of Saskatchewan. Except that those places don’t have enough Catholics on site to organize a fish fry.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, she said, “Fatima was also the name of Mohammed’s daughter.”

“Yeah, you’re right. The Prophet’s favored offspring. That hadn’t occurred to me.”

“So, the question is: are they connected? These two Fatimas?”

“Everything is connected. But the links can sometimes be hard to uncover.” He took a gulp of tea. She took a sip. Outside, a rooster crowed. It sounded like a spastic adolescent trying to imitate Tarzan. “Too bad roosters aren’t more like parrots,” he said. “We could train them to crow inspiring things like, ‘People of the world, relax!’ instead of kicking off our day with a lot of cock-a-doodle-do.”

Domino smiled in spite of herself. “Oh, you Switters. I don’t know whether you are a virtue or a vice.”

“Neither do I, but why does it have to be one or the other? Why, for that matter, can’t we be simultaneously monotheistic and polytheistic?”

“Ugh! Polytheism? Ooh-la-la! All that noisy jumble of gods hiding in tree trunks and chimney hearths, with necklaces of skulls and more arms than a granddaddy spider. Abominable!”

“They tend to teem, all right, but overlooking the fact that some of them are too damn vivid, couldn’t we just accept them as various aspects of the one God, who’s an eternal, absolute mystery and can never be pinned down or accurately described, anyway?” He gulped the last of the tea. “If a person is truly devout, why couldn’t they be both a Christian and a Moslem? And a Jew? Don’t look at me like I’m a naive ninny. They all rolled out of the same pasture. Ol’ Abraham and his peevish herdsmen buddies—cowboys, now that I think of it—inventing the one-god-our-god-and-he-be-a-bruiser concept as a response to and a rebellion against the sexual superiority of women.”

“I might have known you’d bring sex into it sooner or later.”

“If you have a problem with the sexual complexion of the universe, take it up with Mother Nature. I’m just one of her baby boys.”

The rooster sang an encore. Then, another. But so far no single photon of dawnlight had squirmed through the curtain threads. “If women had played an active role in shaping our relationship to God, everything might be different,” she said. “There might not be a conflict between the Church and Islam.”

“There might not be any Church and Islam,” he interjected. “Women wouldn’t have seen the need for them.”

“As it is. . . .” She sighed and shrugged. After a pause, she said, “Despite what I know and you do not, I’m unwilling to concede defeat—or switch sides.” She rose and smoothed out her dress. Evidently she’d pulled it on in a hurry when the disturbance had awakened her: he could tell she was bereft of underwear. Her nipples pushed against the cotton like urchins pressing their noses against a candy store window. In the candleshine, her pubis was faintly outlined, like a map of a phantom peninsula. He considered it wise that she leave, but since the conversation had taken the turn that it had, he felt he simply had to ask: