9
At first the Ruler did not mind the rumors about devils and snakes because he hoped that these would only deepen the fear among his enemies and strengthen his hold on Aburlria. But when his M5 told him that far from creating fear the rumors were actually making people have a low opinion of his reign, verging on contempt, and that this might lessen people’s support for Marching to Heaven, the Ruler saw the need to take steps to deny these rumors their power. But which action would bring about the biggest impact?
As a schoolboy in a colonial classroom long ago, he had come across stories of an ancient king of Babylon who used to appear among the populace disguised as one of them, and when later the citizens found out who he was they were amazed and flattered. A king had walked among them. The image had faded in time, but it sprang back to life, and when he tried the idea on his handlers, they said, Yes, perfect. A well-publicized spontaneous Sunday visit to a church to draw attention to his religiosity would surely counter the basis of the malice toward him.
The church chosen was All Saints Cathedral, Eldares, and what a clever choice! Located between two of the most populous districts in Eldares, Santalucia and Santamaria, the cathedral stood on a hill, and this would make a dramatic scenic background for television pictures.
The cathedral was headed by the slightly eccentric Bishop Tireless Kanogori. His followers had given him those names because long before he became a bishop he used to say that Jesus Christ was the eternal tireless remover of the burden of all the sins weighing heavily on tired souls. Soon his followers started talking about him as the priest who never tired of talking about the tireless redeemer. When promoted to the bishopric he legalized his name out of respect for his followers.
On the chosen Sunday, surrounded by newspaper reporters, television cameras, and handheld microphones, the Ruler and his motorcade arrived at the Santamaria marketplace, where the historic journey to the church would start. He got out of his Rolls-Royce and surveyed the market before the startled faces of the many fruit sellers who did not know whether or not they should rush forward to lure sales by singing praises for their wares. The contrast between the motorcade of sleek Mercedes-Benzes and the line of donkey-pulled and hand-pushed carts loaded with goods of various kinds was stunning. But another scene was even more so. The Ruler saw a lone donkey and, seemingly impulsively as choreographed by his image builders, decided to ride a donkey in imitation of Christ. Some of his secret service agents, dressed as ordinary citizens, grabbed some palm leaves from the sellers and lay them on the ground. At the foot of the hill, he got off the donkey and walked the rest of the way. The long camera shots showing the Ruler at the foot of the hill and the church on the hill made him look as if he was leading a pilgrimage to the City of God.
With slow and thoughtful strides, his entourage allowed the principal actor a foot or so; the performance was almost flawless, and the inner circle even started imagining a social celebration of the victory of guile over rumor.
As it turned out, those following the performance on TV, at home or in community halls, had sensed that something was amiss when, as soon as the Ruler set his foot at the doors of the cathedral they lost the pictures, reminding them of that other time when their TV screens broke into seven pieces. The glitch denied them a view of what happened next, and they had to glean bits and pieces from those who were there and saw the Ruler enter the building.
Though details conflict, all agree that as soon as the Ruler set foot inside the cathedral, the walls shook as if moved by an earth tremor. Crosses on the walls, people’s clothes, or pieces of paper danced strangely, as if struggling to flee. And when Bishop Tireless Kanogori placed on the altar a small Bible he had been holding in his hands, the altar shook and the Bible fell to the ground. He did not pick it up but instead disappeared into an anteroom, and before all had finished wondering what had made him abandon the holy book and the congregation, he reemerged holding a very big Bible in his right hand and a huge cross in his left, both hands outstretched toward the Ruler. The bishop’s lips were moving as if making an incantation, but nobody could catch his words and so were unable to repeat them afterward.
Then the whole congregation heard the sound of something crashing through a window, breaking the glass into seven pieces, and then, just as suddenly, all the shaking walls and dancing crosses became still and the whole cathedral was embraced in silence and peace; the sound of Bishop Tireless Kanogori’s voice as he continued his ceremony as if nothing untoward had happened only served to underscore the silence.
At home, all television sets that had a break in proceedings returned to normal. Those already sitting in front of their sets and those who happened to turn on their TVs at that moment found Bishop Kanogori at the beginning of his sermon. Among the latter group, a few voices ridiculed the tales that went beyond the donkey ride, the palm leaves, the hoarse hosannas, and the long walk to the hill.
But the tellers of the uncanny event did not give up and went as far as to insist that the All Saints Cathedral was not the only shrine of worship where the drama had occurred. It is said that the Buler did thereafter attend a few other services in other churches with similar results: in all cases at least one glass window was shattered into seven pieces by whatever force the cross-and-Bible-wielding priests had driven out. That is why, so they say, the Buler of Aburlria suddenly announced, without clarification, that to demonstrate his belief in the equality of all faiths he would now also connect with Islam, and out of modesty and deference to the Islamic hatred of images no cameras would be allowed to follow him.
The idea was to stage this at Islamic mosques, Sunni, Shiite, or Wahabi; then at Indian temples, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain; and Sikh gurdwaras; and end up in Jewish synagogues, with the hope that these spontaneous appearances would wipe out images of what had happened at All Saints and other churches.
For his first visit to an Islamic shrine, he ordered his handlers to look for a mosque without glass windows. After scouting around Eldares, they managed to find a mosque with a beautiful dome and minarets but, more important, with windows of wood and iron bars.
An even bigger drama ensued, but since it was not captured on film once more we have to rely on hearsay that when the imam in charge of the day’s ceremony realized, on the Buler s entry, that something was not right, he quickly raised the Quran in midair and called out in Arabic:
Those in attendance say they felt something like wind whirl through the air and the next minute they heard the iron bars of one of the windows creak and then saw some of them bend outward as if someone were pushing the bars to set himself free. Brandishing the Quran and the rosary at the window, the imam shouted something like
The entire program of spontaneous appearances at places of worship was scrapped quietly, and a devilless normal order of worship was restored to these religious shrines. Some city dwellers put up posters: ELDARES IS A DEVIL-FREE ZONE.
10
It was not, for soon they found that the Satanic daemons had escaped the churches and the mosques to roam the land, for how else were people to explain two amazing reports that soon began to circulate in Eldares? The first was comic, claiming that Satan visited Maritha and Mariko in their home at Santalucia just to pick a fight.
