God of Tarot

  "An excellent question," Brother Paul said. "You are really exploring the interrelationship of idea and form. A good idea is wasted without the proper form to embody it. For example, an excellent notion for a book would be ruined by clumsy or obscure writing. Or a fine idea for drawing power for the wind comes to nothing if the design of the gearing is inadequate. Perhaps man himself is an idea that exists in the mind of the Creator—yet that idea must achieve its appropriate form. So it is with us of the Holy Order of Vision; we feel that the forms are important, in fact indistinguishable from the basic idea."

  "That's McLuhanism," the third boy said. He was a white-skinned, black-haired, clean-cut lad a little older than the others, and probably better educated. He had used a word few were now familiar with, testing the knowledge of the teacher.

  "Not exactly," Brother Paul replied, glad to rise to the challenge. He liked challenges, perhaps more than he should. "The medium may be indistinguishable from the message, but it is not the message. Perhaps other forms of expression would serve our purpose as well, but we have a system that we feel works, and we shall adhere to it until it seems best to change." He closed his eyes momentarily, giving a silent prayer of thanks that the session was proceeding so well. Sometimes he seemed to make no contact at all, but these were alert, responsive minds. "We feel that God has found no better tool than the Bible to guide us, but perhaps one day—"

  "Crap," the surly boy remarked. "God doesn't exist, and the Bible is irrelevant. It's all superstition."

  Now the gauntlet had been thrown down. They all watched Brother Paul to see how he would react.

  They were disappointed. "Perhaps you are right," he said, without rancor. "Skepticism is healthy. Speaking for myself alone, however, I must say that though at times I feel as you do, at other times I am absolutely certain that God is real and relevant. It is a matter for each person to decide for himself—and he is free to do so within the Order. We dictate no religion and we eschew none; we only present the material."

  There was a chuckle. Brother Paul noted it with dismay, for he had not been trying to score debater's points, but only to clarify the position of the Order. Somehow he had erred, for now his audience was more intrigued by his seeming cleverness than by his philosophy.

  Disgruntled, the hulking boy pushed forward. "I think you're a fake. You don't want to decide anything for yourself, you just want to follow the Order's line. You're an automaton."

  "Perhaps so," Brother Paul agreed, searching for a way to alleviate the lad's ire without compromising the purpose of this session. How suddenly success had flipped over into failure! Pride before fall? "You are referring to the concept of predestination, and in that sense we are all automatons with only the illusion of self-decision. If every event in the world is precisely determined by existing forces and situations, then can we be said to have free will? Yet I prefer to assume—"

  "You're a damned jellyfish!" the boy exclaimed. "Anything I say, you just agree! What'll you do if I push you, like this?" And he shoved violently forward with both hands.

  Only Brother Paul wasn't there. He had stepped nimbly aside, leaving one leg outstretched behind him. The boy stumbled headlong over that leg. Brother Paul caught him and eased him down to the floor, retaining a hold on one of the boy's arms. "Never telegraph your intention," he said mildly. "Even a jellyfish or an automaton can escape such a thrust, and you could be embarrassed."

  The boy started to rise, his expression murderous. He thought his fall had been an accident. But Brother Paul put just a bit of pressure on the hand he held, merely touching it with one finger, and the boy collapsed in sudden pain. He was helpless, though to the others it looked as though he were only fooling. A one-finger pain hold? Ridiculous!

  "A little training in the forms can be advantageous," Brother Paul explained to the others. "This happens to be a form from aikido, a Japanese martial art. As you can see, my belief in it is stronger than this young man's disbelief. But were he to practice this form, he could readily reverse the situation, for he is very strong." Never underestimate the power of a gratuitous compliment! "The idea, as I remarked before, is valueless without the form."

  Now, to see whether he could salvage the situation, he released the boy, who climbed quickly to his feet, his face red, but did not attack again. "Scientific application of anything can be productive," Brother Paul continued, "whether it is aikido or prayer." He faced the boy. "Now you try it on me."

  "What?" The youth had been caught completely by surprise—again.

  "Like this," Brother Paul said. "I shall come at you like this—" and he took an aggressive step forward, his right fist raised. "But you turn away from me and place your left foot back like this in the judo tai otoshi body drop—" He guided the boy around and got his feet placed. "Then catch my shirt and project your right foot before me like this, right across my shins. See how your body drops into position? That's why this throw is called the body drop." He more or less lifted the boy into position with a strength that was not evident to the others, but that the boy felt with amazement. "And because I am plunging forward, my feet trip over your leg while you haul my shirt—" It was not a shirt, but the loose front part of his habit, but the effect was the same. "And I am completely offbalanced and take a bad fall." Brother Paul flipped expertly over the leg and landed crashingly on his back and side, his left hand smacking into the straw mat the Station used in lieu of a rug.

  The boy stood amazed, and the other four jumped in alarm. They did not know Brother Paul was adept at taking such falls, or that the noise was mostly from his hand slapping the mat to absorb much of the shock of landing. The muscular, bony arms and hands are much better able to take blows than the torso. "And if that doesn't do the job, you use hand pressure or an arm twist to keep me quiet." Brother Paul got up, and the boy moved to help him, fearing that he had been hurt. There was no longer any animosity.

  "Did you study that here?" the brown boy asked, awed.

  "Among other things," Brother Paul said. "Sometimes it is necessary for members of the Order to subdue someone who is temporarily, ah, indisposed. We do not approve the use of weapons, as they can hurt people severely, but the barehanded methods of self-defense or control—" He shrugged, smiling toward the formerly surly youth. "As you can see, he brought me down without hurting me."

  They all returned his smile, and he knew it was all right again. God had guided him correctly. "Of course you do not have to join the Holy Order of Vision to receive such instruction. All of our courses in defense, reading, hygiene, farming, mechanics, figuring, and weaving are available to anyone who has the necessary interest and aptitude." He smiled again. "We can even be persuaded to teach a class or two in the appreciation of religion."

  The blonde girl let out a titter of appreciation. "Do you teach that class, Brother?"

  Brother Paul looked down. "I regret I lack the finesse or scholarship for that particular class. I am working on it, though, and in a few years I hope to be equipped." He looked up. "I thank you all for your attention to this introductory lecture. Now I will show you around the Station." He sniffed the air. "I believe Brother Peter is completing his baking. Perhaps we can pass the kitchen and sample his wares. To my mind there is nothing quite so good as bread hot from the stone oven with a little home-churned—"

  But another Brother appeared. "The Reverend wishes to see you immediately," he murmured. "I will conduct the tour in your stead."

  Oh-oh. Was he in trouble again? Thank you, Brother Samuel." Brother Paul started out.

  "What would you like to see first?" Brother Samuel asked the group.

  As Brother Paul passed out through the doorway, he heard one of them answer, "The body drop." He smiled to himself, for poor Brother Samuel had a chronically stiff back and no training at all in the martial arts. But the delicious odor wafting from the bakery would rescue him, for young people were always hungry.

  As he made his way to the Reverend's office, his thoughts became more sober
. Had he done the right thing by this group, or had he merely been clever, impressing more by his physical power and rhetorical humor than by worthwhile information? It was so hard to know!

  2

  Memory

  705 A.D.: The daughter of an English missionary in Germany had such a genius for learning and seeming piety that she was elevated to the papal throne as John VII. Though in the guise of a male, she was—alas— female, and therefore, a vessel of iniquity. Yielding to her base female urges, she admitted a member of her household to her bed, and suffered that demonic fulfillment of her kind. In 707, during the course of a solemn Whitsun procession through the streets of Rome in the company of her clergy, at a point between the Colosseum and St. Clement's church, she who would become known as Pope Joan was delivered of a bastard son. The Popess was thus exposed as a harlot disguised as a priest. The story has, of course, been suppressed by the Church and labeled a myth, but there are those who remember it yet. This is the message of Key Two of the Tarot, entitled "The Lady Pope." Is it not, after all, a true reflection of the nature of the sex.

  Brother Paul walked past the luxurious vegetable gardens of the Station toward the office of the Reverend. It was a fine summer day. He hoped he had performed well, but he hummed nervously as he moved.

  The sight of the Reverend's countenance solidified the doubts hovering about him. Some very serious matter was afoot, and he feared he had erred again. While discipline within the Order was subtle, Brother Paul had made many mistakes and done much internal penance.

  The Reverend rose as he entered, and came forward to greet him. "It is good to see you, Paul. You have done well."

  Glad words! So it was not one of his foul-ups, this time. "I try to do as the Lord decrees, Mother Mary," he said modestly, concealing his relief.

  "Umph," the Reverend Mother agreed. She did not sit down, but paced nervously around the office. "Paul, a crisis of decision is upon us, and I must do a thing I do not like. Forgive me."

  Something serious was certainly afoot! He studied her before he answered, trying to judge the appropriate response.

  The Reverend Mother Mary was actually a young woman no older than himself, whose meticulous Order habit could not conceal her feminine attributes or render her sexless. She wore her dark brown hair parted down the middle, cupped to conceal her ears on either side, and pinned firmly in back—yet it framed her face like a mystical aura. Her reversed white collar clasped a very slender white neck, and her cross hung squarely on her bosom. Her robe was so long it touched the floor, concealing her feet. Occasionally it rippled and dragged behind her as she turned. Her personality, he knew, was sweet and open; she was severe only in dire necessity. It would have been all too easy to love her as a pretty girl, had it not been essential to love her as a responsible woman and a fellow human being. And, of course, as the Reverend.

  So it was best to allow her to unburden herself without concern for his feelings, which in any case were not easily hurt. Obviously she believed that what she had to say would cause him distress, and perhaps it would—but he was sure he could bear it. "Please speak freely, Mother."

  The Reverend stepped to her desk and seemed almost to pounce on something there. "Take these, if you will," she said, proffering a small box.

  Brother Paul accepted it. He had almost to snatch it, because her hand was shaking. Though her competence and position made her "Mother," at times she was more like a little girl, uncertain to the point of embarrassment. It had occurred to him before that an older person might have been better suited to the office of Reverend. But there were many Stations, and age was not the primary consideration.

  He looked into the box. It contained a deck of Tarot cards, in its fashion the symbolic wisdom of all the ages.

  She seated herself now, as though relieved of a burden. "Please shuffle them."

  Brother Paul removed the deck from the box and spread several cards at the top of the deck. They were in order, beginning with the Fool, or Key Zero, and proceeding through the Magician, the High Priestess (also called the Lady Pope), the Empress, the Emperor, and so on through the twenty-two Trumps or Major Arcana and the fifty-six suit cards, or Minor Arcana. The suits were Wands, Cups, Swords, and Disks, corresponding to the conventional Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds, or to the elements Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Each was a face card, beautifully drawn and colored. He had, like all Brothers and Sisters of the Order, studied the Tarot symbolism, had high respect for it, and was well-acquainted with the cards. One of the Order's exercises was to take black-and-white originals and color them according to instructions. This was no child's game; it was surprising how much revelation was inherent in this act. Color, like numbers and images, served a substantial symbolic purpose.

  While he pondered, his fingers riffled the cards with an expertise that belied his ascetic calling. He had not always been a Brother, but like the Apostle Paul to whom he owed his Order name, he had set his savage prior life behind him. Only as a necessary exercise of contrition did he reflect upon the mistakes of his past. One day—when he was worthy—he hoped to seal that Pandora's box completely.

  He completed the shuffle and returned the deck to the Reverend.

  "Was the question in your mind the nature of my concern with you?" the Reverend inquired, holding the cards in her delicate fingers.

  Brother Paul inclined his head affirmatively. It was a small white lie, since his thoughts had ranged in their unruly fashion all around the deck. Of course he had wondered why he was here; he had not been summoned from the midst of his class merely for chitchat! Still, a white lie was a lie.

  "Let us try a reading," she said.

  How quickly he paid for his lie! Her intent had been obvious when she gave him the deck; how could he have missed it? "I'm afraid I—"

  "No, I am serious. The Tarot is a legitimate way to approach a problem—especially in this case. Let this define you."

  She dealt the first card, careful to turn it over side-wise rather than end-over-end, so as not to reverse it, while Brother Paul concealed his agitation. He had made a foolish mistake that was about to cause them both embarrassment. He tried to think of some reasonable pretext to break up this reading, but all that came into his mind was a sacrilegious anecdote about Pope Joan, personification of the Whore of Babylon, epithet for the Roman Catholic Church. Such a thought was scandalous in the presence of the Reverend Mother Mary, who was completely chaste. Unless she had summoned him here to— No, impossible! A completely unworthy concept for which he would have to impose self-penance!

  The card was the Ace of Wands, the image of a hand emerging from a cloud, bearing a sprouting wooden club.

  "Amazing," the Reverend remarked. "This signifies the beginning of a great new adventure."

  A great new adventure—with her? He tried hard to stifle the notion, fiendishly tempting as it was! In that moment he wished she were eighty years old, with a huge, hairy wart on her nose. Then his thoughts would behave. "Well, I must explain—"

  "Shall we try the second?" She dealt another card from the top of the deck. She was feeling more at ease now; the cards were helping her to express herself. "Let this cross you," she said, placing the card sideways across the first.

  May God have mercy! he thought fervently.

  She looked at the second card, startled. "The Ace of Cups!"

  "You see, I—I—" Brother Paul stammered.

  The Reverend frowned. She was one of those women who looked even sweeter in dismay than in pleasure, if such a thing were possible. Silently she laid down the third card. It was the Ace of Swords. Then the fourth: the Ace of Corns. In each case, a hand was pictured emerging from a cloud, bearing the appropriate device.

  Her gray-green eyes lifted to bear on him reproachfully.

  "I did not realize what you intended," Brother Paul explained lamely. "I—old habits—I did not intend to embarrass you." No doubt Dante's Inferno had a special circle for the likes of him!

  Mother Mary took a
deep breath, then smiled—a burst of sunlight. "I had forgotten that you were once a cardsharp." She glanced down at the four aces and made a moue. "Still are, it seems."

  "Retired," Brother Paul said quickly. "Reformed."

  "I should hope so." She gathered up the cards.

  "I'll shuffle them again, the right way," he offered.

  She made a minor gesture of negation. "The wrong is the teacher of the right." But the ice had been broken. "Paul, it does not matter how you shuffled, so long as you formulated the correct question."

  And of course he had not formulated it; he had been full of idle notions about the deck, Pope Joan, and such. His face was a mere shell, papering over the disaster of his mind.

  "You are indeed about to embark on a remarkable new adventure—if you so choose."

  Suddenly he realized that his penance would be to go on this mission, no matter how onerous it might prove. Today's declining civilization provided a number of most unpleasant situations. "I go where directed," Brother Paul said.

  "Not this time. I cannot send you on this particular round, and neither can the Order. You must volunteer for it. Knowing you as I do, I am sure you will volunteer, and therefore I am responsible." She looked up to the ceiling of rough-hewn logs. She was, he knew, making a quick, silent prayer. "I fear for you, Paul, and my soul suffers."

  The eternal feminine! A mission had found its way down through the Order hierarchy, and she was upset because he might accept it. This was no mere rhetoric on her part; now one hand clutched the Tarot deck lightly, and now the other touched her cross. He had never seen her so tense before. It was as if she were the one with the guilty imagination, not he! "We all go where needed," he said.

  "Yet some needs are stronger than others," the Reverend murmured, her eyes lifting to meet his again, her face dead serious. What could she mean by that? "It is Hell I am sending you to, Brother."

  Brother Paul did not smile. He had never heard language like this from her! Of course she was not swearing; she would never do that. When she said Hell, the capitalization was audible, as it was for the Tarot; she meant the abode of the Devil. "Figurative, I trust?"