The Judas Rose

by Suzette Haden Elgin

  He saw the frown, and knew he had been meant to see it; he gave her permission to speak.

  “How are we to reach these women, Father Dorien?” she asked. “What role do we have in their gatherings? I don’t understand how it is to be done.”

  “No problem at all,” he reassured her. “You, and the other nuns as well, will be sent to these meetings as guest speakers. The ladies positively dote on guest speakers, the more exotic the better. You’ll tell them what it’s like to be a nun, which is what they are curious about, and that will give you an opening. Remember that to Protestant females a nun is as mysterious and exotic as an Oriental harem dancer, inappropriate though it may be; answer their questions, spin them some tales, charm them. And then you will be able to ask them to tell you about their liturgy.”

  Her eyes widened in courteous inquiry, and Father Agar, whose specialty was religious language, interrupted the dialogue to add his part.

  “My dear Sister,” he said, chirping at her, “it appears that these linguist women have, over the course of the past hundred years or so . . . astonishing! . . . constructed a language. As a hobby! Isn’t that astonishing, Sister? They call it ‘Langlish,’ also ‘Láadan,’ and of course I’ve no idea why two names are needed for one language . . . it seems like a great deal of bother . . . and they have been translating portions of the old King James Bible into the stuff and reciting them aloud at their Thursday night chapel services. The men of the Lines—you do know, Sister, that the families of linguists are called the Lines? Yes, I see you do. Well, the men of the Lines have allowed them to do this, which I am not at all sure was a good idea; on the other hand, I can see that for women who are themselves linguists the construction of an artificial language is perhaps an appropriate pastime. Still . . . still, this is where you and the other dear sisters will be able to gain a foothold, win hearts. If you show an interest in their precious Langlish, they’ll take you to their bosoms at once. Figuratively speaking. At once.”

  “And it is in this ‘Langlish,’ Sister,” said Father Claude, raising a cautioning index finger, “that we suspect there may be heresy. Despite the way it fascinates Father Agar.”

  “We are in fact almost sure,” put in Father Dorien quickly, “that there is heresy there. This language, whatever its name, is said to be—” He looked down at the notes he had prepared, and read aloud exactly what had been said to him by the pleasant woman he had queried on the matter. “—is said to be ‘a language constructed by women in order to express the perceptions of women.’ ”

  “We don’t have any samples,” said Father Agar, unable to resist interrupting again. “We’ve asked for them, of course, and have been told with the most charming courtesy that nothing is available that would be interesting to us, that the ladies would be embarrassed to have us see their poor amateurish efforts, and so on. All just so much persiflage, of course, and don’t think we can’t spot it, but they were . . . well, perhaps clever is the word. It’s clear that they have no intention of letting us examine the material. And since not a single one of the Lines is Catholic, we could compel them to show it to us only by going to the men of the Lines and asking that they have it sent. We could do that easily enough . . . it’s no problem to pretend an anthropological interest of some kind and send a seminarian along, and I must tell you that some of the correspondence the linguists have been sending to the theological journals on the subject is extremely interesting, if a bit hard to follow. But we prefer not to call the men’s attention to the fact that we are interested. You will not understand that, Sister—I will explain. If they should suspect that the Church has an interest in their females, they not only will not allow you nuns to attend the meetings, they will send in a regiment of Protestant Bible-thumpers in your place to make certain that their women toe the line! And those Bible-thumpers will wonder why we are interested, and they will begin to see what we had in mind, and we will lose all those souls, with their delightful fervor. We do not wish to do that, you see; we wish to win those women—and through them, their men—and in the fullness of time, the Lines and all their power. You may speak, Sister.”

  Father Dorien had long since fixed his eyes on the ceiling, praying for patience, and Father Claude was glowering at Agar as if he were about to hit him, but Sister Miriam showed no trace of irritation at the rambling monologue. “Thank you, Father Agar,” she said placidly. “I believe I understand; thank you for the explanation.”

  They were talking around and around the delicate issue, because all of the men found it distasteful even to think about it, much less speak of it. Worst of all was the need to talk about it to a woman. Father Dorien could see that they might go on in this way for hours . . . Agar was given to the impromptu speech form, particularly when he was handed a topic that he found so alluring; Claude was less so, but would inevitably feel compelled to pontificate in competition with Agar. Father Dorien, on the other hand, wanted his dinner. Much better, he decided, just to speak up about it himself and get it over with, forestalling the orations. It was natural that the other priests, who did not know Miriam, would feel inhibited with her.

  He broke in abruptly, without any preamble to spare her feelings or those of the priests. “What we suspect, Sister Miriam,” he said, while Claude and Agar assumed expressions of elaborate indifference, “is that somewhere in these Langlish/Láadan materials you will find mention of a goddess rather than of God. I apologize for being so blunt, but that is what we suspect. A score of little things . . . a simple consideration of where ‘a language to express the perceptions of women’ might be expected to lead, if nothing more. We may be quite wrong, Sister. It may be that in suspecting the substitution of a goddess we are only expressing the perceptions of men—it may be something we don’t suspect at all. But we suspect the seeds of an attempt at a ‘feminist’ religion once again, goddess or no goddess. If we are right, that is heresy; if they are practicing it openly, in these rituals, it is blasphemy and unspeakable perversion. A great danger, Sister—a great danger, and something that must be stamped out. We want you to find out for us, and to have the nuns helping you find out for us. You will come back here and tell us what you have found, and if the women are innocent we will praise God for that and ask forgiveness for our over-active imaginations. You may speak, Sister.”

  “What if you are right, Father?” she asked. “Then what?”

  “Then you will stamp out the heresy,” he declared, repeating the words with deliberate vehemence. “With our help. With all of the resources of the Church that you may find needful to do so. And we will gently turn that heresy around, and change it ever so carefully—we will cause it to become devotion to the Virgin Mary. That is always the best way to deal with these female flareups, whenever they occur. We will shelter these imperiled souls beneath the skirts of the Blessed Mother, where they will be safe from harm. Do you understand, Sister?” It occurred to him, too late, that his metaphor had been badly chosen; it had occurred to Claude and Agar, too. They looked shocked. “You may speak,” he said hurriedly. And then, to their surprise, he added, “I apologize for my clumsy figure of speech, Sister Miriam—it’s a traditional figure, but grossly out of place in this situation. As I said, you may speak.”

  She was nodding, the smallest hint of a nod; and because he knew her innermost thoughts as only a confessor can know them, he was reasonably sure he knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that they were hoping she would find the suspected heresy. And she was right, in a very limited way; a perverted leaning toward goddess worship was always a fertile source of souls, first through the innocent devotion to Mary and then on past that into true and wholesome worship of the Lord and of His Son. It was one of the most reliable of all conversion mechanisms, reaching back into the most ancient times. It presented a challenge, and the Fathers were too human not to welcome a challenge. But Miriam said nothing of her thoughts, and the expression on her face would not have betrayed her to anyone except him.

  “I understan
d, Father,” she said calmly. “It is my privilege to obey.”

  He looked straight at her, and she dropped her eyes immediately; in that privacy, he looked inquiringly at the other two priests. As he had expected, they signaled their full approval. She was exactly what was needed. And that was very good; he could save a great deal of time now, not having the nuisance of interviewing other nuns for the post, and he could work quickly with Miriam; she was intelligent and cooperative, and he understood her completely.

  “Sister Miriam,” he said, pulling a small case from the pocket of his robe, “unless you have questions you wish to discuss with us, we don’t need to keep you any longer. You will find full instructions on the microfiche in this case, as well as all the relevant background information. Instructions have been given to your Abbess; she is to cooperate with you in every way. She will be informed that as of this date you are released from all other duties except those of worship. You’ll find all the details on the fiche. Do you have questions, Miriam? You may speak.”

  “No, Father. Not at this time. It’s all quite clear.”

  “You do understand the importance of your mission? You may speak.”

  She did not look up, and she said only, “I do understand, Father. And it is my privilege, as ever, to obey.”

  She remained where she was, her eyes still down, until she was directed to stand. And then she stood motionless while the priests filed from the room, without a word.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Had a dog and her name was Quark,

  had a dog and her name was Quark!

  Had a dog and her name was Quark—

  she ran faster than light, had a four-part bark!

  Hey, Quark . . . lemme hear you bark!”

  “Spacewarp travel on an average day (three times),

  meet ol’ Quark goin’ back the other way!

  Hey, Quark . . . lemme hear you bark!”

  “Quark knew e equals mc squared (three times),

  mighta made a difference if Quark had cared!

  Hey, Quark . . . lemme hear you bark!”

  “Quark chased every relativity spike (three times),

  never met a constant she didn’t like!

  Hey, Quark . . . lemme hear you bark!”

  “When Quark died it was somethin’ to see (three times),

  she went nova in four-part harmony . . .

  Hey, Quark . . . lemme hear you bark!”

  (folksong, set to traditional tune, “Had a Dog and His Name Was Blue”)

  He was a career man. His navy-blue denim jumpsuit, with the full legs correctly cinched tight at the ankles, demonstrated that. So did the eyeglasses with their black horn-rims, which he needed not at all, nearsightedness being one of that small set of things that the med-Sammys could actually cure, but which he wore as dutifully as he wore his discreetly stylish AT&T wrist computer; he would have felt naked without either, and in fact removed them only when making love. His wig was of the best quality, and had a fine pepper-and-salt coloring that he knew gave him a look of distinction he might otherwise have had trouble achieving; the wig had cost more than all the rest of his outfit put together, but had been worth every last credit. It had been hard enough getting to his present post when his wife’s uncle was an eggdome, without being condemned in advance by his own prematurely bald scalp . . . it seemed to him sometimes, although he would not have admitted it because he knew he could not defend it logically, that it was his wife’s fault that he’d lost every last hair on his head before his thirtieth birthday. As if she’d brought a taint with her that had destroyed the very roots of his hair; to balance the obvious benefits she’d brought with her. He was looking forward to the money that Uncle George was leaving to Brenda, and when he lost his hair he’d been able to stop feeling guilty about having married her only for that reason. His hair had been surrendered in exchange for that money, that was how he felt; and it had been worth more than that to him.

  He didn’t like the assignment he was carrying out today. It made him nervous just to look out through the transparent walls of the building that housed the Cetacean Project, and he appreciated the docking tube that had allowed him to step straight from his flyer into its air-conditioned comfort. That people had once actually lived out there in that wasteland inferno was a matter of historical record; there had been a town there, called El Centro, with houses and schools and churches . . . there had even, so said the history books, been a college. But Paul couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t even begin to imagine that human beings no different from himself could have voluntarily condemned themselves to live in such conditions and survived it. There was nothing out there . . . nothing but some kind of pale brown bushes that looked completely fried, and the shimmering heatwaves, and a collection of cacti and boulders that had been carefully arranged by the landscapers—who had had to work out there, he realized with a shudder—to lead the eye past the desolation toward the line of mountains on the horizon. Paul didn’t find them a comfort either; they were just piles of bare desolate rock. No doubt they provided a spectacular effect at sunset, but he didn’t plan to still be here at sunset.

  He hurried past the tourists (all three of them) who were gawking at the whales swimming round and round in their tank of sparkling blue water and the solemn baby watching them swim; he took the elevator down one level, transferred to the service elevator marked “No Admittance—Employees Only,” and went down one level more. Hating it all the way.

  Nothing could have brought home to him more forcefully how different eggdomes were from normal people than his knowledge that the Cetacean Project scientists not only worked down here in the bowels of nowhere but actually lived down here as well, because of the highly classified nature of their work; he’d been told that some of them had not been topside even for earned leave in as long as three years.

  “How can they do that?” he’d demanded, horrified. “There’s not enough money in the effing universe to pay a man to do that!” And the guy who’d told him had shrugged and said something about eggdomes being almost as weird as Lingoes. Which was probably true. But there was a difference. He hated the eggdomes, but they didn’t make him queasy the way the Lingoes did. He could have put up with his sister marrying an eggdome— hell, didn’t he have an eggdome for an uncle by marriage, and a pretty nice guy he was, too?—but if he’d thought she was going to marry a Lingoe he’d have had her institutionalized without a second thought. If he’d had a sister. According to Brenda, the day was coming when his prejudice was going to cause him trouble; she claimed that since they’d begun putting normal human babies into the Interfaces along with the Lingoe cubs, the Lingoes were beginning to be looked at differently.

  “You’re going to have to give up being so bigoted about them,” she’d said, licking trankdust off her fingers and grinning at him the way she always did when she thought she was hitting a nerve. “You’re going to find them right beside you everywhere you go, and you’re going to have to just forget that they turn your stomach, and socialize with them. You’ll see. I may not get out of this house much, but I keep up with what’s happening. And that’s what’s happening.”

  Paul had given her his coldest stare, and told her to please remember that he’d always had Lingoes all around him. Any federal employee had to get used to that. The Lingoes were part of the working environment, and you had to be polite to them. But everybody knew it was an act, including the Lingoes. And that wasn’t going to change any, even if some people’s kids had to spend a little time with Lingoe cubs as a way of gradually taking over the linguistics business.

  “I admire those people,” he’d told Brenda. “I admire their guts. I couldn’t do it.”

  “What people? Do what?” Brenda, and her tiny brain.

  “Well, it’s one thing to do something like that your own self—that’s different. But to send one of your kids? That takes a kind of moral fiber I haven’t got, I can tell you. You know what it makes me think of? You remember the history tapes w
here the little black kids walked into the schools between rows of policemen with dogs, and white people spitting and screaming and throwing stuff at them . . . rotten eggs, rocks . . . you remember that?”

  “No, I don’t. And I don’t believe it ever happened.”

  “It happened, Brenda. More than once, it happened.”

  “I don’t believe it, Paul.” Stubborn. “Not in this country.”

  Paul had given up immediately, because any other decision was a waste of time. His wife’s ignorance was impenetrable, and that suited him just fine. She was a hell of a lot easier to keep in line than the wives of some of his friends, who’d had more education than was good for them. He hadn’t pressed the point; but it was a very real point to him. He’d always thought that maybe he could have walked up those school steps through all that hatred himself, but that he never could have found the guts to send a child of his own. He would have said: send somebody else’s kid, not mine. Somebody’s kids had to be the ones, in a time so barbaric that people based their estimate and treatment of others on skin color. . . . Jesus! It was like hearing that your ancestors were cannibals; no wonder Brenda had blanked it out. But he felt that way about the babies going into the Lingoe Interfaces—somebody else’s kid, not mine, that was how he felt about it.