Job: A Comedy

by Robert A. Heinlein

  "I am a Viking, Jerry; I never get cold. Most rooms are too warm to suit me."

  "How about you, Alec?"

  "I'm warm enough," I answered, fibbing only a little.

  "I believe—" Jerry started to say—

  —as the heavens opened with the most brilliant light imaginable, outshining day, and I was gripped by sudden grief, knowing that I failed to lead my beloved back to grace.

  XVIII

  Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?

  Job 1:7

  ****

  Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?

  Job 11:7

  ****

  I WAITED FOR the Shout.

  My feelings were mixed. Did I want the Rapture? Was I ready to be snatched up into the loving arms of Jesus? Yes, dear Lord. Yes! Without Margrethe? No, no! Then you choose to be cast down into the Pit? Yes—no, but— Make up your mind!

  Mr. Farnsworth looked up. "See that baby go!"

  I looked up through the roof of the car. There was a second sun directly overhead. It seemed to shrink and lose brilliance as I watched it.

  Our host went on, "Right on time! Yesterday we had a hold, missed the window, and had to reslot. When you're sitting on the pad, and single-H is boiling away, even a hold for one orbit can kill your profit margin. And yesterday wasn't even a glitch; it was a totally worthless recheck ordered by a Nasa fatbottom. Figures."

  He seemed to be talking English.

  Margrethe said breathlessly, "Mr. Farnswofth— Jerry—what was it?"

  "Eh? Never seen a lift-off before?"

  "I don't know what a lift-off is."

  "Mm . . . yes. Margie, the fact that you and Alec are from another world—or worlds—hasn't really soaked through my skull yet. Your world doesn't have space travel?"

  "I'm not sure what you mean but I don't think we do."

  I was fairly sure what he meant so I interrupted. "Jerry, you're talking about flying to the moon, aren't you? Like Jules Verne."

  "Yes. Close enough."

  "That was an ethership? Going to the moon? Golly Moses!" The profanity just slipped out.

  "Slow down. That was not an ethership, it was an unmanned freight rocket. It is not going to Luna; it is going only as far as Leo—low Earth orbit. Then it comes back, ditches off Galveston, is ferried back to North Texas Port, where it will lift again sometime next week. But some of its cargo will go on to Luna City or Tycho Under—and some may go as far as the Asteroids. Clear?"

  "Uh . . . not quite."

  "Well, in Kennedy's second term—"

  "Who?"

  "John F. Kennedy. President. Sixty-one to sixty-nine."

  "I'm sorry. I'm going to have to relearn history again. Jerry, the most confusing thing about being bounced around among worlds is not new technology, such as television or jet planes—or even space-travel ships. It is different history."

  "Well— When we get home, I'll find you an American history, and a history of space travel. A lot of them around the house; I'm in space up to my armpits— started with model rockets as a kid. Now, besides Diana Freight Lines, I've got a piece of Jacob's Ladder and the Beanstalk, both—just a tax loss at present but—"

  I think he caught sight of my face. "Sorry. You skim through the books I'll dig out for you, then we'll talk."

  Farnsworth looked back at his controls, punched something, blinked at it, punched again, and said, "Hubert says that we'll have the sound in three minutes twenty-one seconds."

  When the sound did arrive, I was disappointed. I had expected a thunderclap to match that incredible light. Instead it was a rumble that went on and on, then faded away without a distinct end.

  A few minutes later the car left the highway, swung right in a large circle and went under the highway through a tunnel and came out on a smaller highway. We stayed on this highway (83, I noted) about five minutes, then there was a repeated beeping sound and a flash of lights. "I hear you," Mr. Farnsworth said. "Just hold your horses." He swung his chair around and faced forward, grasped the two hand grips.

  The next several minutes were interesting. I was reminded of something the Sage of Hannibal said: "If it warn't for the honor, I'd druther uv walked." Mr. Farnsworth seemed to regard any collision avoided by a measurable distance as less than sporting. Again and again that "soft mush" saved us from bruises if not broken bones. Once that signal from the machinery went Bee-bee-bee-beep! at him; he growled in answer: "Pipe down! You mind your business; I'll mind mine," and subjected us to another near miss.

  We turned off onto a narrow road, private I concluded, as there was an arch over the entrance reading FARNSWORTH'S FOLLY. We went up a grade, At the top, lost among trees, was a high gate that snapped out of the way as we approached it.

  There we met Katie Farnsworth.

  ****

  If you have read this far in this memoir, you know that I am in love with my wife. That is a basic, like the speed of light, like the love of God the Father. Know ye now that I learned that I could love another person, a woman, without detracting from my love for Margrethe, without wishing to take her from her lawful mate, without lusting to possess her. Or at least not much.

  In meeting her I learned that five feet two inches is the perfect height for a woman, that forty is the perfect age, and that a hundred and ten pounds is the correct weight, just as for a woman's voice contralto is the right register. That my own beloved darling is none of these is irrelevant; Katie Farnsworth makes them perfect for her by being herself content with what she is.

  But she startled me first by the most graceful gesture of warm hospitality I have ever encountered.

  She knew from her husband that we were utterly without clothes; she knew also from him that he felt that we were embarrassed by our state. So she had fetched clothing for each of us.

  And she herself was naked.

  No, that's not right; I was naked, she was unclothed. That's not quite right, either. Nude? Bare? Stripped? Undressed? No, she was dressed in her own beauty, like Mother Eve before the Fall. She made it seem so utterly appropriate that I wondered how I had ever acquired the delusion that freedom from clothing equals obscenity.

  Those clamshell doors lifted; I got out and handed Margrethe out. Mrs. Farnsworth dropped what she was carrying, put her arms around Margrethe and kissed her. "Margrethe! Welcome, dear."

  My darling hugged her back and sniffled again.

  Then she offered me her hand. "Welcome to you, too, Mr. Graham. Alec." I took her hand, did not shake it. Instead I handled it like rare china and bowed over it. I felt that I should kiss it but I had never learned how.

  For Margrethe she had a summer dress the shade of Marga's eyes. Its styling suggested the Arcadia of myth; one could imagine a wood nymph wearing it. It hung on the left shoulder, was open all the way down on the right but wrapped around with generous overlap. Both sides of this simple garment ended in a long sash ribbon; the end that went under passed through a slot, which permitted both ends to go all the way around Marga's waist, then to tie at her right side.

  It occurred to me that this was a fit-anyone dress. It would be tight or loose on any figure depending on how it was tied.

  Katie had sandals for Marga in blue to match her dress. For me she had Mexican sandals, zapatos, of the cut-leather openwork sort that are almost as fit-anyone as that dress, simply by how they are tied. She offered me trousers and shirt that were superficially equivalent to those I had bought in Winslow at the SECOND WIND—but these were tailormade of summer-weight wool rather than mass-produced from cheap cotton. She also had for me socks that fitted themselves to my feet and knit shorts that seemed to be my size.

  When she had dressed us, there was still clothing on the grass—hers. I then realized that she had walked to the gate dressed, stripped down there, and waited for us—"dressed" as we were.

  That's politeness.

  Dressed, we all got into the car. Mr. Farns
worth waited a moment before starting up his driveway. "Katie, our guests are Christians."

  Mrs. Farnsworth seemed delighted. "Oh, how very interesting!"

  "So I thought. Alec? Verb. sap. Not many Christians in these parts. Feel free to speak your mind in front of Katie and me . . . but when anyone else is around, you may be more comfortable not discussing your beliefs. Understand me?"

  "Uh . . . I'm afraid I don't." My head was in a whirl and I felt a ringing in my ears.

  "Well . . . being a Christian isn't against the law here; Texas has freedom of religion. Nevertheless Christians aren't at all popular and Christian worship is mostly underground. Uh, if you want to get in touch with your own people, I suppose we could manage to locate a catacomb. Kate?"

  "Oh, I'm sure we could find someone who knows. I can put out some feelers."

  "If Alec says to, dear. Alec, you're in no danger of being stoned; this country isn't some ignorant redneck backwoods. Or not much danger. But I don't want you to be discriminated against or insulted."

  Katie Farnsworth said, "Sybil."

  "Oh, oh! Yes. Alec, our daughter is a good girl and as civilized as one can expect in a teenager. But she is an apprentice witch, a recent convert to the Old Religion—and, being both a convert and a teenager, dead serious about it. Sybil would not be rude to a guest— Katie brought her up properly. Besides, she knows I would skin her alive. But it would be a favor to me if you will avoid placing too much strain on her. As I'm sure you know, every teenager is a time bomb waiting to go off."

  Margrethe answered for me: "We will be most careful. This "Old Religion'—is this the worship of Odin?"

  I felt a chill . . . when I was already discombobulated beyond my capacity. But our host answered, "No. Or at least I don't think so. You could ask Sybil. If you are willing to risk having your ear talked off; she'll try to convert you. Very intense."

  Katie Farnsworth added, "I have never heard Sybil mention Odin. Mostly she speaks just of 'the Goddess.' Don't Druids worship Odin? Truly I don't know. I'm afraid Sybil considers us so hopelessly old-fashioned that she doesn't bother to discuss theology with us."

  "And let's not discuss it now," Jerry added, and started us up the drive.

  The Farnsworth mansion was long, low, and rambling, with a flavor of lazy opulence. Jerry swung us under a porte-cochère; we all got out. lie slapped the top of his car as one might slap the neck of a. horse. It moved away and turned the corner of the house as we went inside.

  I'm not going to say much about their house as, while it was beautiful and Texas lavish, it would not necessarily appear any one way long enough to justify describing it; most of what we saw Jerry called "hollow grams." How can I describe them? Frozen dreams? Three-dimensional pictures? Let me put it this way: Chairs were solid. So were table tops. Anything else in that house, better touch it cautiously and find out, as it might be as beautifully there as a rainbow . . . and just as insubstantial.

  I don't know how these ghosts were produced. I think it is possible that the laws of physics in that world were somewhat different from those of the Kansas of my youth.

  Katie led us into what Jerry called their "family room" and Jerry stopped abruptly. "Bloody Hindu whorehouse!"

  It was a very large room with ceilings that seemed impossibly high for a one-storey ranch house. Every wall, arch, alcove, soffit, and beam was covered with sculptured figures. But such figures! I found myself blushing. These figures had apparently been copied from that notorious temple cavern in southern India, the one that depicts every possible vice of venery in obscene and blatant detail.

  Katie said, "Sorry, dear! The youngsters were dancing in here." She hurried to the left, melted into one sculpture group and disappeared. "What will you have, Gerald?"

  "Uh, Remington number two."

  "Right away."

  Suddenly the obscene figures disappeared, the ceiling lowered abruptly and changed to a beam-and-plaster construction, one wall became a picture window looking out at mountains that belonged in Utah (not Texas), the wall opposite it now carried a massive stone fireplace with a goodly fire crackling in it, the furniture changed to the style sometimes called "mission" and the floor changed to flagstones covered with Amerindian rugs.

  "That's better. Thank you, Katherine. Sit down, friends—pick a spot and squat."

  I sat down, avoiding what was obviously the "papa" chair—massive and leather upholstered. Katie and Marga took a couch together. Jerry sat in that papa chair. "My love, what will you drink?"

  "Campari and soda, please."

  "Sissy. And you, Margie?"

  "Campari and soda would suit me, too."

  "Two sissies. Alec?"

  "I'll go along with the ladies."

  "Son, I'll tolerate that in the weaker sex. But not from a grown man. Try again."

  "Uh, Scotch and soda."

  "I'd horsewhip you, if I had a horse. Podnuh, you have just one more chance."

  "Uh . . . bourbon and branch?"

  "Saved yourself. Jack Daniel's with water on the side. Other day, man in Dallas tried to order Irish whisky. Rode him out o' town on a rail. Then they apologized to him. Turned out he was a Yankee and didn't know any better." All this time our host was drumming with his fingertips on a small table at his elbow. He stopped this fretful drumming and, suddenly, at the table by my chair appeared a Texas jigger of brown liquid and a tumbler of water. I found that the others had been served, too. Jerry raised his glass. "Save your Confederate money! Salud!"

  We drank and he went on, "Katherine, do you know where our rapscallion is hiding?"

  "I think they are all in the pool, dear."

  "So." Jerry resumed that nervous drumming. Suddenly there appeared in the air in front of our host, seated on a diving board that jutted out of nowhere, a young female. She was in bright sunlight although the room we were in was in cool shadow. Drops of water sprinkled on her. She faced Jerry, which placed her back toward me. "Hi, Pipsqueak."

  "Hi, Daddy. Kiss kiss."

  "In a pig's eye. When was the last time I spanked you?"

  "My ninth birthday. When I set fire to Aunt Minnie. What did I do now?"

  "By the great golden gawdy greasy gonads of God, what do you mean by leaving that vulgar, bawdy, pornic program running in the family room?"

  "Don't give me that static, Daddy doll; I've seen your books."

  "Never mind what I have in my private library; answer my question."

  "I forgot to turn it off, Daddy. I'm sorry."

  "That's what the cow said to Mrs. Murphy. But the fire burned on. Look, my dear, you know you are free to use the controls to suit yourself. But when you are through, you must put the display back the way you found it. Or, if you don't know how, you must put it back to zero for the default display."

  "Yes, Daddy. I just forgot."

  "Don't go squirming around like that; I'm not through chewing you out. By the big brass balls of Koshchei, where did you get that program?"

  "At campus. It was an instruction tape in my tantric yoga class."

  "'Tantric yoga'? Swivel hips, you don't need such a course. Does your mother know about this?"

  Katherine moved in smoothly: "I urged her to take it, dear one. Sybil is talented, as we know. But raw talent is not enough; she needed tutoring."

  "So? I'll never argue with your mother on this subject, so I withdraw to a previously prepared position. That tape. How did you come by it? You are familiar with the applicable laws concerning copyrighted material; we both remember the hooraw over that Jefferson Starship tape—"

  "Daddy, you're worse than an elephant! Don't you ever forget anything?"

  "Never, and much worse. You are warned that anything you say may be taken down in writing and held against you at another time and place. How say you?"

  "I demand to see an attorney!"

  "Oh, so you did pirate it!"

  "Don't you wish I had! So you could gloat. I'm sorry, Daddy, but I paid the catalog fee, in full, in cash, and th
e campus library service copied it for me. So there. Smarty."

  "Smarty yourself. You wasted your money."

  "I don't think so. I like it."

  “So do I. But you wasted your money. You should have asked me for it."

  "Huh!"

  "Gotcha! I thought at first you had been picking locks in my study or working a spell on 'em. Pleased to hear that you were merely extravagant. How much?"

  "Uh . . . forty-nine fifty. That's at student's discount."

  "Sounds fair; I paid sixty-five. All right. But if it shows up on your semester billing, I'll deduct it from your allowance. Just one thing, sugar plum— I brought two nice people home, a lady and a gentleman. We walk into the parlor. What had been the parlor. And these two gentlefolk are faced with the entire Kama Sutra, in panting, quivering color. What do you think of that?"

  "I didn't mean to."

  "So we'll forget it. But it is never polite to shock people, especially guests, so let's be more careful next time. Will you be at dinner?"

  "Yes. If I can be excused early and run, run, run. Date, Daddy."

  "What time will you be home?"

  "Won't. All-night gathering. Rehearsal for Midsummer Night. Thirteen covens."

  He sighed. "I suppose that I should thank the Three Crones that you are on the pill."

  "Pill shmill. Don't be a cube, Daddy; nobody ever gets pregnant at a Sabbat; everybody knows that."

  "Everybody but me. Well, let us offer thanks that you are willing to have dinner with us." Suddenly she shrieked as she fell forward off the board. The picture followed her down.

  She splashed, then came up spouting water. "Daddy! You pushed me!"

  "How could you say such a thing?" he answered in self-righteous tones. The living picture suddenly vanished.

  Katie Farnsworth said conversationally, "Gerald keeps trying to dominate his daughter. Hopelessly, of course. He should take her to bed and discharge his incestuous yearnings. But they are both too prissy for that."