But in her heart of hearts, she knew. There would be no happy ending for Villa María, and Matthew would die the senseless death of a martyr.
She kicked the covers off her bed and crawled out, knowing that sleep would not come that night. It was the last straw. The final test had been failed. The God that had taken her husband from her had also taken her son. She pulled on her clothes and stumbled through the dark house and out the back door into the night. A faint spot of light shone in the sky, its journey across the firmament discernible. Like a cold eye, Phobos, stared down on her, uncaring.
She passed her garden and continued toward the fields of grain, only making it halfway before stumbling to her knees. It would be easier if her tormentor didn’t exist. But no, she had seen the way Albert was transformed into something new and better. There was no mistaking that. And he had made her promise to try and believe in that same God.
She gripped the ground with her hands as sobs wracked her body. And how hard she had tried, for Albert, for Matthew. For her own supposedly eternal soul. But she’d had everything taken from her. Her family, her life. Gone. Gone like so much dust. And now she was utterly alone and bereft.
Like the biblical Job, she looked to the heavens, cursed God, and begged to die.
II.
HER PRAYER WENT UNANSWERED, though whether or not that was merciful she was doubtful. Mars continued its revolutions around its axis as it spun through the universe and Matthew never sent his message. Christmas passed, cheerless and unwelcome, and it wasn’t until the start of the new year that what she already knew was confirmed.
One morning during breakfast, there came a knock at the front. She pulled the belt of her robe tighter around herself and opened the door. On her porch stood a man she had never seen, but knew at once. He looked to be near seventy, with warm mahogany skin, dressed in the robes of the church. His face was cast down and filled with sorrow.
“Bishop Elias,” she said, surprised at the poison in her voice, “have you come to tell me how my son died?”
His eyes welled with tears and he nodded. “He died in the service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and in the service of the people of Villa María.”
The words rolled off of her, naked truth that she had already seen. “Have you come to deliver his body so that I can bury him beside his father?”
The bishop bowed his head. “In the past, the cartels have negotiated with us on such issues. But they have rebuffed our best efforts.”
“My son gave them hell and they take their revenge on him even in death.”
“He seems to have done just that.”
There was an awkward silence in which Elizabeth counted to twenty. “So why are you here, Bishop?”
He looked her in the eye. “Because Matthew asked me to come if something were to happen to him.”
She let a long sigh hiss through her lips before standing wide of the door and gesturing inward. “You know, considering you’re the one that shipped him off to the Slaver’s Moon, I don’t think there’s anything you can offer me.” It was a harsh rebuke, especially considering he had come all the way from Ganymede to see her, but this man had caused her nothing but grief. She owed him nothing, and he owed her a son.
She led him to the kitchen. “I’ll offer you a cup of coffee, and then let you have your sermon. Then you will be free of your duty to Matthew.” She reached the coffee maker to start it up, having already drained the first carafe. How dare this man come here? She wanted nothing to do with God or his so-called church, ever again. Her trembling hand slipped, and the carafe hit the countertop hard, shattering and slicing her finger.
She cursed softly and stuck the finger to her mouth. And now she was speaking like a sailor in front of a priest, which, for some arcane reason, bothered her. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“What was that?”
She whipped her head around to find the bishop had lingered in the hallway staring at the array of framed photos. They were arranged chronologically, starting from a picture of Albert and her shortly after they had started dating, up through Matthew’s birth and school years. There was a noticeable dearth during the worst of Albert’s alcoholism, though there were several at the end of a smiling and happy family shortly before his death. The last was Matthew’s graduation from seminary. The photo was her only connection to the event since Ganymede was too far a journey from her responsibilities, and she had little desire to visit the people that had stolen her son.
The old man was crying softly. “I’m... I’m sorry,” he said. His face screwed itself into one of anguish, and his hand touched the wall as if to brace himself. For the space of a heartbeat, she felt a pang of remorse for her treatment of the bishop. Perhaps she had misjudged him. At the very least, it was clear that he cared for Matthew deeply, regardless of his role in her son’s death.
“I was only saying I had broken the carafe,” she lied. “Let me get it cleaned up, and I’ll get the spare started. You can have a seat at the table.”
Wordlessly she swept the pieces into the trash, glancing again at her finger. It was just a scratch. She’d have to check the floor thoroughly later. It took her a few minutes to get the fresh pot started and finally take a seat opposite the bishop. She regarded him for a long moment before asking the obvious question. “Why did Matthew send you here?”
“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “he thought you would need someone when you heard the news.”
She looked away. “I’ve been grieving since he missed his last message. So if you came to see me cry, you’ve missed it.” Or he would miss it the moment he left her alone. “Go ahead then. Go ahead and tell me how this was God’s plan, and if I just believe it’ll all make sense and make me a better person.”
After a long pause, he cleared his throat. “Do you know, Mrs. Cole, that I’ve been rather angry with God over this?”
Her eyes snapped back to his, expecting to see them downcast, but they met hers without hesitation. “I didn’t know you were allowed to be angry with God.”
“Allowed?”
She frowned. “Christians aren’t supposed to sin.”
“Since when does anger equate to sin?”
She opened her mouth but then closed it again. She was being baited into a theological discussion. This was why Matthew had sent the bishop. Didn’t he guess that she was tired of trying? That his death would be the final footstep along the path of rejecting the very thing he had given his life for? Instead, she stood up to pour the coffee. “How do you like it?”
“Black, please.”
Well, at least they had one thing in common. She passed him the mug and then resumed her seat, unsure why she didn’t bid him a good day and end this charade.
“Do you know the story of Jacob?” he asked.
She raised an eyebrow. “You mean from the Bible?”
He nodded.
“Mostly,” she said, “though my familiarity is from a literary perspective of the book of Genesis more than from any understanding of spiritual teaching. Jacob was the trickster, if I’m not mistaken.”
For the first time that morning, Bishop Elias cracked the smallest of smiles. “Along with his mother, father-in-law, one of his wives... They were a messy family, and that’s an understatement. But Jacob was a complicated man, certainly more than just a trickster.”
Elizabeth gestured for him to continue, having no idea where this was going.
“That, of course, is true of all the men and women of the Bible. The narrative tells us more about their faults than their strengths. They were, after all, only human. And do you know how God’s people got their name?”
She stared at his hands. To her surprise they showed the calluses of one who knew hard work. A dim memory and his context indicated that it had something to do with Jacob, but she couldn’t recall the details.
“Jacob had not seen his brother Esau, whose birthright he had purchased and whose blessing he had taken from their father through guile, for twenty years. He s
ent messengers ahead to Esau only to find that his brother was approaching with four hundred men. Jacob, reasonably assuming his brother was coming for blood, prepared for the worst. The night before the fateful meeting as he waits in solitude, he is confronted by a man who wrestles with him.”
“I remember now,” Elizabeth said. “And the suggestion is that it was more than just a man.”
“Indeed. Whether it was an Angel, God himself, or as some believe, a yet unrevealed Christ, Jacob wrestles through the night with a divine messenger, and though it seems he overcomes him at daybreak, the man touches his hip and injures it. Afterward, Jacob asks for the man’s blessing, and then the man declares that Jacob’s name will now be Israel.”
“It’s a peculiar story,” she said. “Coming upon a man and wrestling with him in the night feels like something out of a pagan mythology.”
“Jewish and Christian scholars have debated it for ages,” the bishop agreed. “But difficult as it is to parse, it is an important passage, for God named his people Israel after the incident. Israel, in Hebrew, means struggle with God. You see, when Jacob met with God that night, he was at the lowest point of his life. He thought that all of his family, his servants, and possessions would soon be slaughtered or stolen in retribution for past actions. All through the night, he wrestled with God, and yet all it took to be defeated was for Jacob’s hip to be touched. God, despite having all power and sovereignty, allowed Jacob to struggle against him in the dark. God welcomes the confrontation, as he welcomes our struggles, our accusations, our finest reasoning. They are no threat to him. After all, we have those faculties because we are but a pale image of him.”
She turned that over in her mind. “And the hip?”
Bishop Elias smiled softly. “None who contend with God come away unchanged. Jacob walked with a limp for the remainder of his days as evidence of the encounter. And that was only an outward proof of the changed man that Jacob was. Never again did he resort to guile, and when he met with his brother Esau, it was with humility and open arms.” He cleared his throat. “All this is to say that, yes, I am angry with God. I loved Matthew dearly and wish that he had listened to me and left Villa María before the end. But God does not forbid my anger or accusation. And I know that in the end he must by his nature overcome them. I will be humbled before him.”
Elizabeth looked away as her own bitterness threatened to choke her breath. “Were it so easy.”
“It never has been. Most turn away, when they find that to contend with God will be a difficult thing. It is easier to choose yourself and your own means, limited as they are, rather than be ultimately overcome. But no one who has ever been overcome by and changed by God is worse for it.”
III.
BISHOP ELIAS STAYED on Mars for three more days. Each morning he arrived at the Cole family farm, humbly accepted a cup of coffee, and then stood his ground as Elizabeth Cole made her argument against the creator of the universe. Like a prosecutor, she built a case against the goodness of God. In a universe where the good suffer and the evil prosper, how can there be a loving God? It was an ancient complaint, but its potency has never diminished in the eyes of the suffering, nor would it until the ending of time.
Elias made his defense, his arguments also born in antiquity. For the philosophers and theologians that came before him had spent thousands of years on that very accusation. Indeed, those very disciplines existed merely in the hopes that men might begin to answer that question. And yet, even Elias was aware that there was no sure answer, for the human mind, made in like fashion after God’s, was subtle in its cleverness. Reason and argument can ever be found to circumvent reason and argument.
They spoke of unmoved movers, holiness and depravity, and will and sovereignty in light of a maximally great being. In some phases of their discussion, Elias merely taught, and Elizabeth listened. In others, she disagreed with great violence, and his words felt clumsy upon his lips. But there was one discussion that he felt landed between the cracks of her armor.
“I sometimes wonder that people focus so much on the evil of the world,” he said on the third day.
She frowned in response. “I fail to see how one could ignore it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t state that well. I sometimes wonder why people focus on evil as if it were rare, or a novelty. They ask how there can be a good God when there is also evil. But I think they have the starting point backwards. Because evil is ubiquitous. It is the standard. Life is full of suffering. Rather than asking why there is evil in light of a good God, I wonder if more people should question why there is any good at all if there is not a loving God to invade the darkness of this universe. If not for a God of like character, then where does goodness come from?”
There was a distant look in her eye, like the beginning of an understanding, but time was out, and Elias’ flight to Venus came sooner than he liked. He bid Elizabeth Cole a final farewell, doubtful that he would ever see her again in person, and begged her to contact him if she was ever in need. Though he dearly wished they could continue the conversation from afar, he would not do so unless she desired it. As he left the atmosphere of the red planet, he said a final prayer for her in the hopes that she would find peace, one way or another.
IV.
LIFE CONTINUED ON THE Cole farm despite Elizabeth being the last of that name. With Matthew’s death, the bloodline that came with the name was ended, but Elizabeth would endure for a time yet. And the words of the bishop lingered, troubling her soul.
What did it mean to struggle with God in a time so far removed from the Middle East of long ago, where brothers fought over blessings and a herd was the greatest fortune a man could own? Was it shouting at the night until your throat was raw and eyes emptied of their tears? Was it a worm that festered in your heart and made itself at home until it had eaten away all that was rotten? Or was it waiting for a quiet voice in the dawn and a calm assurance that this sunrise would not be the last?
For Elizabeth, it was all of those things in turn, though she failed to mark their passing, and it was only some weeks later, when she lay on her back beneath a broken tractor, frustrated that it had died for the second time that season and her mechanic was out of town, that she came to an understanding that she was going to be okay. There was order to the universe, and that order was good. Despite the chaos that had rocked her life, there were distant lands that remained untouched by her storms, and further still perhaps a green country where even Albert had found his home beyond all that harried their troubled race. And if he and Matthew had found safe harbor, then she must be content.
She wiped her hands and sat up, setting aside her wrench. She had passed from one state to the next, though the final stage of the struggle ended in a gentle whisper. No fire in the sky or thunder of heaven. Just a quiet exhalation that it was over, or rather only beginning. At the very least, she could accept that the God of her husband and son was not a cheat or a liar. Perhaps someday she could even call him good.
She put away her tools and closed up the barn. There was a sandstorm coming, and soon the highlands would be engulfed by the tempest. The late afternoon sun was already shrouded and pale by the outermost bands of dust. There would be no work for many days.
In the morning, she slept in, a rare thing for a farmer, enjoying the deep darkness brought by the storm and gentle creaking of the old house, and when she woke, she had received a message from an unknown comm number.
I’m okay, Mom, but it may be some time before you hear from me again. I’ve got some things to sort out. Stay safe. I love you.
And she wept for joy. Content, and at peace for the first time in her life.
Chapter 13: Scylla and Charybdis
The public demonstration of the Phobos Platform brought terror across the surface of Mars. It wasn’t a single demonstration, but several scattered across the red planet. Derelict ships were set up within sight of colonies, both opposed to and part of the Highland Treaty Organization, and obliterated from
orbit.
The HiTO calmly proclaimed again their new era of security. They would protect nearly the entire planet from the low altitude moon. But even within their members there were detractors, and anti-war protests formed overnight. Nonmember colonies struggled in their response. The French colony of Nouveau Lyon immediately agreed to sign the treaty, handing over what little military power they had to the organization.
But there were some who made plans in secret. Churchill, long sympathetic to the plight of Kyoto, signed secret pacts with Rhineland and Espańito. If the time and opportunity arose, they would fight for Kyoto and her people.
And so the colonies prepared for their first war, splitting off into factions, even as the twilight of civilization bore down upon them all.
Johann Michaelson Kinn
Author of Rumors of the First War
Died 125 AM
THE DOOR TO THE PRISON container in the hold of the Sparrow opened bright and early the next morning, and one of the terrorists pushed a handful of military ration packs through with his boot. “Nothing else till tonight,” he said and slammed the door shut.
Davey gave it a ten count to let the guard get out of earshot before grumbling. “Wonderful. I needed to lose weight.” He stooped to pick up the rations and distributed them to his fellow prisoners, deliberately leaving Whitaker for last. The lowlife sat legs crossed and back against the wall, obviously in pain, but too stubborn to say anything about it. Davey dropped the plastic-wrapped packet at his feet. “Breakfast is here.” Whitaker slid the package to his side but didn’t so much as look up at him.
After Moses: Wormwood Page 37