:
Don't you worry about a Ding. Everything is going to be okay for you here. We'll an be looking out for you, Brother Thomas.'
I heard the door close and she was gone. I rolled up in the two scratchy blankets and thought about Gretel in her agony, Gretel on fire. I knew how she would react if I could tell her she had been a victim of some kind of crazy political action cult, of people who wanted to remake the world by tearing it down and starting all over again. Cave people, trying to reinvent penicillin, Zippo lighters, and disco.
It has nothing to do with me, I told Gretel. I never think about stuff like this. It hurts my head. I think about the blue sea and tan ladies and straight
The Green Ripper gin with lots of ice. I think about how high out of the water a marlin might go, and how much of Meyer's chili I can eat, and how very good piano sounds in the nighttime. I think about swimming until I hurt, running until I wheeze, driving good cars and good boats and good bargains. Sure, I do my little knightlike thing, restoring goodies to the people from whom they were improperly wrested, doing battle with the genuinely evil bastards who prey on the gullible, helpless, and innocent. I was going to keep on doing that from time to time, to support you and me, girl, in the style we like best, if you had consented. I know from nothing about terrorism, funny churches, and exotic murder weapons, like the one they killed you with.
But here I am. In a sense, I was hunting for you.
I have killed one of them in a strange way. And nearly made love to another. I am in it now. I am going to let them run me and see what happens. And I swear before whatever gods there be, including even the one these crazies bow down to, that if they give me the faintest whispery breath of a chance, I am going to blow them all away, every one, without mercy, without hesitation. If I saw a fire starting in a kindergarten, I would throw water on it.
One down and nine to go. This time, my dead love, I am not doing my knightly routine. I have shelved that as inappropriate for the occasion. The old tin-can knight had too many compunctions, scruples, whatevers. For this caper, I am the iceman. I have come here and brought the ice. It is a delivery service. One time only.
On Thursday, two days after Christmas, I had my first experience of listening to Sister Elena Marie. It was set up at midafternoon in a small cement-block building the same size as the one where I had been locked up.
Chairs and stools were brought in. The camp generator was cranked up. A Sony color set rested on a low table, with a videotape deck beside it. Blankets were hung to shut out the light from the two windows. There was a feeling of expectancy, a muted excitement. Alvor was the only one missing. Stella sat close beside me.
Persival, almost invisible in the dimness, said, '~et us pray. Our Father, we thank thee for the op portunities which are being given to us. We are humbly grateful to be given- a chance to play a part in the great events which will reshape life in this world and the future of humanity. We pray that we will be worthy of your trust in us. Our strength, our resolve, our determination, will all flow from your endless power. Since last we met in this room, one of us has been taken to your kingdom. Forgive our Brother Nicholas for his transgressions, his failure to comprehend the stern disciplines required of your children. There is a new one among us, a Brother Thomas, who came to us in search of his daughter and who has been thinking of remaining with us, adopting our Vows, our ways, and our great mission. He is still uncertain, Lord. He is still confused. We are healing his lonely heart. Please give him the understanding of us and our ways so that he may join with us in our resolve, that he may become willing to sacrifice himself if necessary, in your bidding. We are thankful to you for providing this chance to hear, now, our beloved Sister Elena Marie speak your words from her heart. We are together, Lord. We are all as one. We are all united together in your holy cause. Amen.'
Chuck stepped forward and switched the set on, and when it warmed up, he turned on the Betama~c with the tape ready to roll.
The head and shoulders of Sister Elena Marie fined the screen. She stood silently, making a strong eye contact with everyone who looked into that
The Green Ripper screen. She was in color, long warm chestnut hair with golden lights in it. It hung to her shoulders. Oval face, clear features, a look of breeding and composure. Minimal makeup. Byes of a most unusual shade of blue, almost a lavender blue. Wide eyes, set far apart. Flawless complexion, but with the small signs of age. I guessed her at about thirty-six to thirty-eight. Broad mouth with both lips equally heavy.
There was background music, soft music, an organ doodling with simple chords, as when the crowd has assembled, awaiting a wedding. Or a funeral service.
The music trailed off. She took a step closer to the camera. Just the face filled the screen. It was not a professional production. The camera was evidently stationary. No detail of the shadowy background was visible.
'Brothers and Sisters of the great Church of the Apocrypha,' she said. Contralto resonance. Lovely diction. She could have played the Mrs. Miniver part with distinction. 'A am looking into your eyes, your special individual eyes, the windows of your soul. I am looking through your eyes, into your heart, into your deepest thoughts. There is nothing you can possibly think that would surprise or dismay me, or make me love you the less. I know of all the dark and evil places that exist in every man and woman, the places we hide from each other and even from ourselves. It is only by joining to
'ether we can overwhelm the darkness within and the darkness without.'
She paused for several seconds, widening her lovely eyes slightly. I did have the impression that she was looking further inside me than I wanted her to.
'Mach one of you has a special place in my heart. I do not love you as a group. One cannot love people en masse, in the abstract. I love you for yourself, for the struggles you have made in the name of goodness and justice and freedom in the world, and for the sacrifices you will make in the future. Though I appear to be talking to everyone in this room, I am talking to you alone. To you!'
Pause. Slow bat of long eyelashes and a half smile, personal and almost sensuous.
'~e are alone, you know. You and I. Everyone. But we have found something which eases the pain of the essential loneliness of every human. We are together in our purpose. We are all part of one an- other, forever. In all the endless dying and rebirthing, in all the aeons of time over which we will return here, again and again, we will know and recognize one another, just as we have during this time on earth, and if in some future time it is necessary for all of us to come together again, and save the world and humanity from an epoch of commercial slavery, cruelty, and shameful exploitation, then we win do so, we of the Apocrypha!'
Her voice had risen and strengthened. Though I
The Green Ripper couldn't decide what she was saying, I found it very stirring. It was flattering somehow to be part of a purpose so great that it overlapped all the thousands of years ahead.
She moved back just a little, then gave a smile of apology. '`Now I must ask you once again for pa- tience. We must proceed with the greatest caution or lose the element of surprise on which we must depend. Our many friends in other nations are helping us, just as they promised. You know that perhaps even better than I. Some small arrange- ments have been delayed for the sake of greater safety. The transport of incoming supplies is a delicate problem, and it is being solved every day. And every day more of us are being trained. 11Varehousing, transport, and supply. Everyone is working very very hard on these problems. There is always the danger of penetration of security. Be ever alert. Our technical staff is identifying more pressure points as time goes by. Think of it this way. The longer we have to wait, the greater the blow we can strike. Continue with your training. You are the soldiers of the Lord! You will put him back upon his throne on earth, and you will live all of your days in peace and love and freedom forever.'
She closed her eyes, and the lights that shone upon her face and hair were slowly, slowly dimmed until the screen was dark. The Betamaac made a clacking sound, and Chuck leaped to turn it off, then sat again.
Persival said, 'Sister Nena, please give the closing prayer.'
She was behind me. I heard her stand. 'Dear Lord, we thank thee for the privilege of hearing Sister Elena Marie speak your words with her sweet lips. Grant us the patience to endure the waiting, and the skill and the bravery to overcome all odds when at last we march in thy service. Amen.'
She rattled it off so quickly I knew * was rote, and I suspected that I was probably the only one in the room who could not say the usual closing prayer.
Someone pulled the blankets away from the windows, and we were suddenly all squinting in the bright afternoon light. I looked at the television set and the tape deck. They were standard consumer items. But the way they were used was very professional. Very effective. These people seemed exalted by what they had heard. They beamed at each other and touched each other in ways of affection. I did an appropriate amount of beaming and touching. They were holding Sister Elena Marie in their hearts. She had come across to each one of us as an individual. She spoke to aloneness, in warmth and comfort.
I asked Brother Chuck if there were any old tapes I could hear.
'Eve don't keep any around. We'll show this one
The Green Ripper again tonight, and everybody will want to hear it again. Then I erase it and
