She looked angry and said, “Are you making fun of me?”
“No, no,” Sarvant said. “Why would I do that? I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps you don’t,” she said. “You sound like a foreigner. Certainly, you’ve no reason to deliberately insult me. My people would kill you—even if I am not worthy of the insult.”
“Believe me, I had no such intention. If I have offended, I apologize.”
She smiled slightly and said, “Accepted, stranger. And now, tell me, why do you want to go to the Temple of Gotew? Do you have a wife who is as wretched and cursed as I am?”
“She has been long dead,” Sarvant said. “And I do not know what you mean by saying you are wretched and cursed. No, I am looking for a job as janitor in the temple. You see, I am one of those who came down to Earth...” and he launched into his story, though he told it in the briefest outline.
She said, “Then you may talk to me as an equal, I suppose, though it is hard to think of a diradah sweeping floors. A true diradah would starve to death first. And I see you’re not wearing a totem symbol. If you belonged to one of the great totems, you could find a job worthy of you. Or do you lack a sponsor?”
“Totems are superstitious idolatry!” he said. “I would never join one.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You are a queer one! I don’t know how to classify you. As a brother of the Sunhero, you are a diradah. But you certainly don’t look or act like one. My advice to you is to behave like one so we may know how to behave toward you.”
“I thank you,” he said. “But I must be what I am. Now, could you please tell me how to get to the temple.”
“Just follow me,” she said, and she began walking.
Perplexed, he trailed her by a few steps. He would have liked to have clarified some of the statements she made, but there was something about her attitude that discouraged questions.
The Temple of Gotew was on the borderline between the dock area and a wealthy residential district. It was an imposing building of prestressed concrete, shaped like an enormous halfopen oyster shell and painted in scarlet and white stripes. Broad steps of granite slabs ran up to the lower lip of the shell, and the interior was cool and dimly lit. The upper part of the shell was supported by a few slim pillars of stone carved in the likeness of the goddess Gotew, a stately figure with a sad and brooding face and an open hollow where her stomach should have been.
In the hollow sat a large stone reproduction of a hen surrounded by eggs.
At the base of each caryatid of the goddess sat women. Every one wore a robe similar to that of the woman he had followed. Some robes were shabby; some, rich. Wealthy and poor sat together.
The woman walked without hesitation to a group that sat on the cement floor deep within the gloom. There were about twelve around the caryatid, and they must have been expecting the tall thin blonde, since they had a space reserved for her.
Sarvant found a white-faced priest who was standing at the rear by a row of large stone booths. He inquired about the janitor’s job. To his surprise, he found he was talking to the chief official of the temple; he had expected a priestess in charge.
Bishop Andi was curious about Sarvant’s accent and asked him the same sort of questions others had. Sarvant replied truthfully, but he sighed relief when the bishop failed to ask him if he was a worshiper of Columbia. The bishop turned Sarvant over to a lesser priest, who told him what his duties would be, how much he’d be paid, where he would eat and sleep and when. He concluded by asking, “Are you the father of many children?”
“Seven,” replied Sarvant, neglecting to add that they had been dead for eight centuries. It was possible that the priest himself was one of Sarvant’s descendants; indeed, it was conceivable that everyone under the roof could claim him as their grandfather thirty-odd generations removed.
“Seven? Excellent!” the priest said. “In that case, you will have the same privileges as any other man of proven fertility. You will have to undergo a medical examination, however, because we take no man’s word for such a grave responsibility. I warn you, do not abuse the privilege. Your predecessor was discharged for neglecting his push broom.”
Sarvant began sweeping in the rear of the temple. He had just reached the pillar where the blonde was sitting when he noticed a man talking to a woman by the blonde’s side. He could not hear what they were saying, but presently the woman arose and opened her robe. She was wearing nothing under the robe.
The man apparently liked what he saw since he nodded his head. The woman took his hand and led him to one of the booths at the rear. They entered, and the woman closed a curtain over the front of the booth.
Sarvant was speechless. It was minutes before he was able to begin pushing the broom again. By then he saw that the same actions were being repeated everywhere in the temple.
His first impulse was to drop the broom, run out of the temple, and never come back. But he told himself that wherever he went in Deecee he would find evil. He might as well stay here and see if he could do anything in the service of the Truth.
Then he was forced to witness something that almost made him vomit. A big sailor approached the thin blonde and began talking to her. She rose and opened her robe, and in a moment the two had gone into a booth.
Sarvant shook with rage. He had been shocked enough that the others would do this, but that she, she... !
He made himself stand still and think.
Why should her actions offend him more than the actions of the others? Because—admit it—he had felt attracted to her. Very much attracted. He had felt about her as he had not felt about a woman since the day he had met his wife.
He picked up his brush, walked to the office of the underling priest, and demanded to be told what was going on.
The priest was astonished. “Are you so new to our religion that you did not know Gotew is the patroness of sterile women?”
“No, I did not,” Sarvant replied, his voice shaking. “What does that have to do with this...” He stopped, because Deecee had no words, as far as he knew, for prostitution or whoring. Then he said, “Why do these women offer themselves to strangers, what does the worship of Gotew have to do with this?”
“Why, everything of course! These are unlucky women, cursed with a sterile womb. They came to us after a year’s endeavor to conceive by their husbands, and we gave them a thorough physical examination. Some women have troubles we can diagnose and rectify, but not these. There is nothing we could do for them.
“So, when science fails, faith must be called upon. These unfortunate women come here every day—except on holy days, when there is a ceremony to attend elsewhere—and they pray that Gotew will send them a man whose seed will quicken their dead wombs. If, after a year’s time, they are not blessed with a child, they usually enter an order where they may dedicate their life to serving their goddess and their people.”
“What about Arva Linkon?” Sarvant said, naming the blonde. “It’s unthinkable that a woman with her beauty and aristocratic family should lie with any man who comes along.”
“Tut, tut, my dear fellow! Not any man. Perhaps you didn’t observe that those males who come here went into a side room first. My good brothers examine them there to make sure they are brimming with healthy sperm. Also, any man who is diseased or in any way unfit to be a father is rejected. As for ugliness or handsomeness of the male, we pay no attention to that; here the desideratum is the seed and the womb. Personalities and personal taste do not enter. By the way, why don’t you take the examination too? No reason to selfishly restrict your offspring to one woman. You owe as much a debt to Gotew as to any other aspect of the Great White Mother.”
“I have to get back to my sweeping,” muttered Sarvant, and he left hastily.
He did manage to finish the main floor, but it was only by an extreme effort of will. He could not keep from looking at Arva Linkon from time to time. She left at noon and did not return the rest of the day.
He did not
sleep well that night. He dreamed of Arva entering the booth with those men—ten in all; he had counted them. And though he knew he should love the sinners and loathe the sin, he loathed every one of the ten sinners.
When morning came, he swore that he would not hate the men who came to her today. But even as he swore he knew he could not keep his vow.
That day he counted seven men. By the time the seventh strolled out, he had to retreat to his quarters to keep from running after the man and closing his hands around his throat.
The third night, he prayed for guidance.
Should he leave the temple, look elsewhere for work? If he stayed, he would be indirectly approving of and directly maintaining this abomination. Moreover, he might have the terrible sin of murder on his conscience, the blood of a man on his hands. He did not want that. Yes, he wanted it! But he must not want it, he must not!
And if he left, he would not have done a thing to wipe out the evil; he would have fled like a coward. Moreover, he would not have made Arva realize that she was slapping God in the face by carrying on this loathsome travesty of a religious rite. He wanted to get her out of the temple more than he had wanted anything in his life—even more than he had wanted to be on the Terra so he could carry the Word to the ignorant heathen of the other planets.
He had not made a single convert during those eight hundred years. But he had tried. He had done his best; he could not help it if their ears were deaf to the Word, their eyes blind to the light of the Truth.
The next day, he waited until Arva began to walk out of the temple at noon. Then he leaned his brush against the wall and followed her out into the sunshine and the buzz and crash of Deecee street life.
“Lady Arva!” he called. “I must speak with you!”
She stopped. Her face was shadowed by the overhanging hood, but it seemed to him that she looked as if she were deeply ashamed and were suffering. Or did she look that way because he wanted her to?
“May I walk home with you?” he asked.
She was startled. “Why?”
“Because I will go crazy if I do not.”
“I do not know,” she said. “It is true that you are a brother of the Sunhero, so that there should be no loss of dignity in having you walk by my side. On the other hand, you have no totem, and you do the work of the lowest of menials.”
“And who are you, of all people, to talk to me about being lowly!” he snarled. “You, who take on all comers?”
Her eyes widened. “What have I done wrong? How dare you talk to a Linkon in that manner?”
“You are a... a whore!” he shouted, using the English word even though he knew she would not understand.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Prostitute! A woman who sells herself for money!”
“I never heard of anything like that,” she said. “What kind of country do you come from, that a vessel of the Holy Mother would so dishonor herself?”
He tried to calm down. He spoke in a low but quivering voice.
“Arva Linkon, I just want to talk to you. I have something to say that will be the most important thing you have ever heard in your life. Indeed, the only important thing.”
“I don’t know. I think you are a little crazed.”
“I swear that I would not dream of doing you harm!”
“Swear on the sacred name of Columbia?”
“No, I cannot do that. But I will swear by my God that I will not lay a hand on you.”
“God! You worship the god of the Caseylanders?”
“No, not theirs! Mine! The true God!”
“Now I know you are crazy! Otherwise, you would not be talking of this god in this country, and especially not to me. I won’t listen to the foul blasphemy that would pour from your wicked mouth.”
She walked away.
Sarvant took a step after her. Then, realizing that now was not the time to talk to her, and that he was not conducting himself as he would have wished, he turned away. His fists were clenched, and he was grinding his teeth together. He walked like a blind man, several times bumping into people. They swore at him, but he paid no attention.
He went back to the temple and picked up his broom.
Again, he did not sleep well at night. He planned a hundred times how he would talk softly and wisely to Arva. He would show her the errors of her belief in a manner she could not refute. Eventually, she would be his first convert.
Side by side, they would begin the work that would sweep the country clean, as the Primitive Christians had swept ancient Rome.
The following day, however, Arva did not come into the temple. He despaired. Perhaps she would never come back.
Then he realized that that was one of the things he had wanted her to do. Perhaps he was making more progress than he had thought.
But how would he get to see her again?
The morning of the next day, Arva, still clad in the hooded robe of the sterile woman, walked into the temple. She averted her eyes and was silent when he greeted her. After praying at the foot of the caryatid at which she customarily sat, she went to the rear of the temple and began talking earnestly to the bishop.
Sarvant was seized with a fear that she was denouncing him. Was it reasonable to expect that she would keep silent? After all, in her eyes, he was committing blasphemy by even being in this—to her—holy place.
Arva resumed her place at the foot of the caryatid. The bishop beckoned to Sarvant.
He put his broom down and walked to him, his legs weak with anxiety. Was this mission to stop here and now, before he had planted one seed of faith that would grow after he was gone? And if he failed now, then the Word was lost forever, since he was the last of his sect.
“My son,” said the bishop, “up to now the knowledge that you are not as yet a believer has been confined to the hierarchy. You must remember that you were granted a great privilege because you are a brother to the Sunhero. If you had been anybody else, you would have been hanged long ago. But you were given a month to see the error of your ways and to testify to the truth. Your month is not up yet; but I must warn you that you will have to keep your mouth shut about your false belief. Otherwise, the time will be shortened. I am disturbed, since I had hoped that your application to work here meant that you were about to announce your desire to sacrifice to the Mother of Us All.”
“Then Arva told you?”
“Bless her for a truly devout woman, she certainly did! Now, do I have your promise that you will not repeat the incident of the day before?”
“You have it,” Sarvant said. The bishop had not asked him to quit proselytizing. He had just asked him not to repeat the incident. From now on he would be cunning as the dove, wise as the serpent.
Five minutes later, he had forgotten his resolution.
He saw a tall and handsome man, an aristocrat by his bearing and his expensive clothes, approach Arva. She smiled at him, rose, and led him to the booth.
It was the smile that did it.
Never before had she smiled at the men who came to her. Her face had been as expressionless as if cut from marble. Now, seeing the smile, Sarvant felt something well up in him. It spread from his loins, roared through his chest, raced through his throat, cutting off his wind. It filled his skull until it exploded; he could see only blackness before him and could hear nothing.
He did not know how long he had been in that condition, but when he partially regained his senses, he was standing in the office of the priest-physician.
“Bend over, and I’ll massage your prostate and get a specimen,” the priest was saying.
Automatically, Sarvant obeyed. While the priest was examining the slide through a microscope, Sarvant stood like a block of ice. Inside, he was fire. He was filled with a fierce joy he had never known; he knew what he was going to do, but he did not care. At that moment he would have defied any being or Being who tried to stop him.
A few minutes afterward, he strode from the office, Unhesitatingly, he walked
up to Arva, who had just returned from the booth and was about to sit down.
“I want you to come with me!” he said in a loud clear voice.
“Where?” she said, and then, seeing the expression on his face, she understood.
“What did you say about me the other day?” she asked scornfully.
“That was not today.”
He seized her hand and began to pull her toward the booth. She did not resist, but when they were in the booth and he had closed the curtain, she said, “Now I know! You have decided to sacrifice to the Goddess!”
She threw off her robe and smiled ecstatically. But she was looking upwards, not at him.
“Great Goddess, I thank You for having allowed me to become the instrument to convert this man to the true faith!”
“No!” said Sarvant hoarsely. “Don’t say that! I do not believe in your idol. It is just—God help me!—I want you! I cannot stand seeing you go into this booth with every man that asks you. Arva, I love you!”
For a moment, she stared at him with horror. Then she stopped and picked up her robe and held it in front of her. “Do you think that I would allow you to defile me by touching me? A pagan! And under this holy roof!”
She turned to walk out. He leaped at her, spun her around. She opened her mouth to scream, and he stuffed the hem of the robe into her mouth. He wrapped the rest of the robe around her head and shoved her backwards so she fell upon the bed and he on top of her.
She writhed and twisted to get from his grip, but he held her with fingers that cut deep into her flesh. Then she tried to hold her knees together. He gave a great flop like a giant fish, coming down hard with his hips; it broke the lock of her legs.
She tried to go backwards, like a snake attempting to crawl on its back, but her head was stopped by the wall behind her. Suddenly, she stopped struggling.
Sarvant moaned and gripped her back with his hands, pressing his face against the robe over her face. He wanted to feel his lips upon hers, but the cloth was doubled where he had shoved it into her mouth; he could feel nothing through the thickness.
There was a spark of sanity, the thought that he had always hated violence and especially rape, and yet he was forcing himself upon this woman he loved. And worse, far worse, she had willingly given herself to at least a hundred men in the last ten days, men who did not care at all about her but merely wanted to spew out their lust upon her. Yet she was resisting him like a virgin martyr of ancient Rome at the mercy of a pagan emperor! It did not make sense; nothing did.