by Karen Haber
“And the prize?”
“Oh, a couple of hundred thousand eurodollars, I suppose.” She shrugged. “There’s more than enough.”
“Lovely,” I said. “Who’ll judge this?”
“I will, along with a group of curators and art critics.”
“It seems to be a long stretch from healing people to endowing museums and sculpture competitions in Rick’s name.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Alanna said. “Just different sides of the same coin. We honor Rick’s memory by healing, and by providing works of beauty to delight the senses. To me it all seems perfectly connected.”
Although I didn’t agree with her, I saw very little wrong with her arts competition. It might drain off some of her energy but it seemed a harmless enough way for her to combine her mourning for Rick with her grief for her mother.
By the second anniversary of Rick’s death, the museum had been finished, opened, and the first winner of the Narlydda Foundation’s competition had seen her artwork enshrined in the main gallery next to one of only two extant copies of Narlydda’s famous “Moonstation Merman.”
The winning sculpture was unveiled with a bold flourish of mechtrumpets and considerable media fanfare. Clever, clever Alanna! She knew that Narlydda and Rick were both fading a bit in terms of newsworthiness. By linking the two through her annual competition she had ensured an enduring appetite in the press for information from Better World.
The statue had been cast on a heroic scale and reached halfway to the vaulted ceiling of the gallery. It was an idealized portrait of Rick in postcubist/futurist style, coated with a layer of holopaint that provided an ever-changing aura of textures, color, and mood.
“What do you think?” Alanna asked.
“At least he’s not holding two stone tablets,” I said.
Privately I thought the work hideous. But art appreciation had never been my strongest suit.
The pageant commemorating Rick’s death was twice as long and pompous this time and I couldn’t restrain my feelings.
“What is this, Alanna? A passion play? If you intend to have this thing expand geometrically each year, pretty soon nobody will be able to stay awake long enough to last through the entire ceremony.”
She made no response, merely handed me a white and gold garment that had a strange glow to it and made an odd ringing noise as it moved through the air. “Here,” she said. “Put this on.”
“What is it?”
“Your robe for the pageant.”
“Robe? My regular clothing was fine last year.”
“That was last year.”
The fabric chimed again in a series of sweet arpeggios. “What’s that?”
“Aural fibers. I had them woven in to provide more majesty to the processional. Each robe is keyed to a specific scale integrating into a harmonic series that should create a deeper sense of awe and ecstasy.”
“Won’t that be noisy?”
“It should be beautiful.”
She was right, it was. The robes added an eerie, otherworldly touch to the proceedings that somehow was exactly right.
I hoped that Alanna would now be content to fiddle with her pageant and art collection without inventing new diversions. I was falling behind on my casework and the public sharings were taking a toll on my energy. Perhaps now Alanna would devote herself to the business at hand.
But she had other ideas. And she published them.
The illusion of our truce melted away when the first edition of Rick’s Way appeared.
It was available on disc or bound printout from Better World Visual Communications, and also in a deluxe, handbound, slip-covered leather and vellum edition for true believers who also had a considerable amount of disposable income.
The hoopla that announced its arrival was completely funded by Alanna and worthy of the Gutenberg Bible.
Rick’s Way sold and sold and sold. The literary critics had a feast on its leaden, cliché-ridden prose, but apparently nobody paid any attention to them. A leading movie studio purchased rights to it as the basis of an inspirational film and several well-known actors were said to be vying for the roles of Rick, Alanna, and yours truly. Foreign publishers clamored for translations.
Perhaps I should have been pleased. Instead, I was alarmed and furious. As the Better World faithful had grown accustomed to me, to greet me respectfully and even reverentially, I had begun to think of Better World as mine. I admit it, I was jealous. Somehow, Alanna’s actions felt like a complete betrayal. But even more troubling was her treatment of Rick in the book: he was no longer just some unique player upon the mortal stage. Now, apparently, he had become divine, and every utterance attributed to him took on the timbre of holy, unremitting gospel.
Of course, the churches began screaming.
“Blasphemous!”
“They’re running a totalitarian organization under the guise of a charismatic religion.”
“It’s a sham. Blatant exploitation of the needy.”
“It’s an attempt at mind control. Mutant hypnosis of the masses.”
All the outcry only made the book sell faster. It was translated into fifteen different languages and, very quickly, foreign tongues joined the debate. Who could blame all those enraged pastors and prelates, imams and rabbis, deacons and ministers for their fear? Now there was another deity, freshly deceased, competing for the limited attention of their already diminished flocks. Worse yet, he had an indefatigable front-woman of considerable wiles and resources. Alive, Rick had displayed formidable magnetism. Once dead, he became an absolute lodestar. The outrage of the competition was not only understandable but predictable and almost pathetic. In a peculiar way I even felt a bit sorry for them.
Among the faithful, Rick’s Way became divine scripture in short order. Soon dozens of people were claiming to have been with Rick when he made each historic utterance captured in the book. Alanna had been right. Obviously, no one remembered what Rick had really sounded like. Alanna’s Version, as I privately called Rick’s Way, was a top seller. It became a talisman, a piece of Rick to carry around.
My reaction was a bit harder to explain. In Rio I had giddily embraced the idea of Rick as a “pocket deity.” Why then was I so angry with Alanna now for elevating his status? Perhaps in Brazil it had seemed less frightening. More important, it had seemed more like a service organization and less a cult of personality. Perhaps I had taken it more seriously. And perhaps I had been so in love that my judgment at the time had been colored by my happiness.
But the times—and I—had changed. I was in New Mexico now, Star was dead, and Rick’s deification had to be stopped before it derailed all my plans for Better World. I confronted Alanna in her office and found her sitting by the voiceprinter.
“Working on volume number two already?” I said. “Baking some fresh god-muffins for the faithful to gobble up?”
She switched the printer off, all cool self-control. “What’s bothering you?”
“You might have told me about your plans for Rick’s Way.”
“I thought I had. Come on, Julian. Wasn’t it obvious? You knew I had almost finished the manuscript before Rick died. You even saw it.”
“But you never said a word to me about finishing it, much less publishing it. I thought that you’d locked it up in your desk drawer—that it was a dead issue. Why didn’t you bring it up at the last board meeting? Didn’t you want our help? Our input?”
“What was I supposed to do, Julian? Put it up for your vote? I didn’t need any help. Or input.”
“Obviously.”
“I don’t see why you’re so upset. Perhaps you would have preferred to mothball the entire project, but I didn’t think that was the best way to show respect for Rick. And I didn’t want anybody else mucking around with it. It’s mine. Mine and Rick’s.”
Her smugness was infuriating.
I said, “Where did the divine aspect come from? I didn’t notice it in your earlier notes. When did
you put that in?”
“Why, after he died. It just seemed so appropriate, somehow.”
“Appropriate?” I stared at her. “It’s poppycock. You can’t be serious, Alanna. How can you publish this dreck? You of all people know that Rick wasn’t divine. Far from it!”
“Do I? Does any of us really know?”
“Stop it, Alanna. Or save it for somebody more gullible.”
“What do you think has been going on here?” she demanded. “You saw the agonies at Rick’s death, the flowers at his tomb, the prayers of the faithful. Rick is a real spiritual force to thousands of people, Julian. Why shouldn’t I deify him?”
“Because he was human, dammit. As human as you or me.”
A fugitive smile flitted across her face. “Wouldn’t you say he was a little bit more than that?”
“I’m not denying he was special, Alanna. Don’t play semantic games with me. Special, yes. Holy, no. And I shudder to think of the consequences of promulgating this idea.”
“I really don’t see the harm in it.”
I leaned toward her. “Are you crazy? Haven’t you heard the outcry against us ever since you published the bloody thing?”
“Don’t raise your voice to me, Julian. I’m not a child. And what of the complaints? People have been screaming at Better World ever since it began. I’m so accustomed to it that I would think it was odd if they stopped.”
“Don’t forget the bombings.”
“Those were terrible and unfortunate. But there haven’t been any since Rick died. Whoever it was has obviously gone away.”
“Which doesn’t mean they couldn’t resume at any time.”
She gave me an impatient look. “I wish you had more faith, Julian. It would make you so much happier. So much less paranoid.”
“What is this, your sermon on the mount? And what are you working on now?”
“Why, volume two, of course. Just as you said. The first book was so successful that this seemed like a natural progression. It’s important to get it out there as soon as possible.”
“And how are you going to explain it? Tell people that Rick had a few afterthoughts in the afterlife and came back to discuss them with you?”
She was complacent beyond belief. “I don’t have to explain it. The need and interest should be obvious. Besides, I don’t understand why you’re so upset. Would you feel better if I had called it Julian’s Way instead?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. But she had strayed uncomfortably close to the truth and I began to bristle defensively. “What I object to is your fanciful distortion of a real person.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like what I’ve written, Julian. I was going to ask for your input in the next volume but since you’re so obviously hostile to this entire project, I won’t bother. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got work to do.”
Was anybody, aside from Rick, ever as stubborn as my half-sister?
Aside from outright coercion, I couldn’t stop her from finishing the manuscript for the next volume of Rick’s Way. And I was unwilling to subject Alanna to mind control. Perhaps I was too squeamish. Too ethical. But I wouldn’t do it. I turned and walked away from her in silence.
Volume two outsold volume one.
Alanna had done it—won control of Rick’s image and, through it, potential control of the entire Better World organization. She seemed determined to return it to its original status as a cult of personality with herself as keeper of the flame. If she was successful, all my plans for therapy clinics and healing studies would perish. I had to stop her before she pushed us completely off-course.
14
i admit now that the methods I used to fight Alanna were not admirable. The only excuse I can offer is that I was firmly convinced she was wrong to distort and gild my brother’s image, and infuriated by her arrogating areas of Rick’s legacy that, rightly or wrongly, I viewed quite possessively as mine alone.
The pageantry, the art competition, the publication of Rick’s Way, all were intended to deify Rick. But that wasn’t what Better World was about. At least, that’s what I believed.
Aside from the weekly sharings, where some contact was unavoidable, I shunned Alanna.
On her part, she seemed just as happy to stay away from me, aloof and private in the apartments she had shared with Rick. No doubt she was already busily at work on Rick’s Way, volumes three through twelve. As the weeks passed, our estrangement crystallized and seemed to become permanent.
Perhaps I had lost perspective. Perhaps I was more power-hungry than I knew. Regardless of the reason, I slowly became convinced that Alanna was an obstacle to the best interests of Better World.
She seemed determined to cram Rick’s word—at least her version of it—down the gullet of every person on the planet, and wanted to devote Better World’s resources and energy to an enormous outreach program to support her scheme.
But I wanted no more volumes of Rick’s Way published, no more movies, no publicity stunts. What I wanted to do was help people, teach sharing techniques, and concentrate on the daily business of Better World. I had no more interest in indoctrinating new members than I had in performing lobotomies by brain-burning. As far as I was concerned, the membership of Better World was barely manageable as it was. We had more than enough work to do and we would honor Rick best by doing it quickly and efficiently rather than grinding out endless memorials to him. Alanna’s plans threatened to stretch us to the breaking point if not beyond it.
And so, I turned to Betty. Early one spring morning I poked my head into her office.
“Betts,” I said. “We’ve got to talk. Privately.”
“Of course, Julian.” She shooed her assistants from the room and locked the door behind them. “What can I do for you?”
I settled into a webseat and gazed out the window at the mountains: the faintest hint of green covered them, as though, overnight, some pointillist had attacked with a giant paintbrush. “Remember way back when?” I said. “You had this wild theory about a conspiracy against Rick.” I gave Betty a disarming grin. “Surely you remember.”
Her cheeks turned bright pink. “Well, it was a crazy idea, wasn’t it? I’m ashamed to remember how I ranted and raved.”
I took her hand and looked deeply into her eyes. “What if I told you that it wasn’t such a crazy idea?”
“Oh, Julian, you’re teasing me. Stop it.”
“No, Betts. Listen to me.” I took a deep breath, knowing that what I was about to do was absolutely necessary but hating myself a little bit for it just the same. “I didn’t want to tell you this, but I’ve done some checking around on my own. And I’ve become convinced that Alanna not only wanted Rick to die but was instrumental in hastening his death.”
“Alanna?” Betty obviously couldn’t have been more surprised if I had suggested that she herself had plotted Rick’s death. “Whatever do you mean? I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about, Julian.”
“I know, Betty. It was hard for me to accept, too. At first. But now I’m certain.” I leaned closer. “Remember when Rick was so sick that I came back from Brazil to be with him?”
“Of course.”
“And remember how Alanna refused to bring in a doctor?”
“But that was because of what Rick had told her.”
I nodded gravely. “So she claimed, yes. But did you ever hear Rick say anything like that to her?”
“Well, no, now that you mention it.” I heard the first faint hints of doubt enter her voice. “But Rick was always telling Alanna things when they were alone. Everybody knew that.”
“Think about it, Betts. Does that really sound like something that Rick would do? When he wanted to help people so badly? When he had so much work left to do? Do you think that he willingly put himself in a position where he could burn out and die? Or was he the victim of a calculated plan to create a martyr for Better World?”
Her mouth worked for a moment and tears glittered in her pale blu
e eyes. “I always told him that he worked too hard. I was always asking him to slow down, to rest. But he never listened.”
“Alanna never let him listen, did she? And you see the success she’s had now with Rick’s Way. Would she have been able to do that if Rick were still alive?”
“No, I guess not But you can’t seriously think that Alanna was egging Rick on, telling him to work harder and harder until he collapsed!”
“I don’t know, Betty. I just don’t know.” But my tone said exactly the opposite: that I was convinced, and if Betty wanted to stay loyal to me she would be convinced, too.
Of course, I could have coerced her by direct telepathic contact and forced her to see my point of view and support my plan. But I didn’t like doing something like that to a friend.
Not that I’m proud of the way I did handle things—perhaps, in the end, I would have been fairer to Betty if I had just hypnotized her rather than lied to her, leading her along a tangled path of reason until she became so anxious about aligning herself with me that she accepted whatever I told her without question. Why is hindsight so clear when it is also so very useless? A friend once told me that it was proof of God’s contempt, but I don’t think I quite agree. Not yet, anyway.
Step by calculated step I led Betty down the path I had devised until she was as willing to oust Alanna as I.
“I can’t believe it,” Betty said, chagrined. “To think that I trusted Alanna all along when the proof was there before me the entire time. She pushed Rick right over the brink, Julian. We’ve got to stop her.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
The only problem now was how to go about it.
Better World was administered by me, Alanna, and Betty. The only way to force one of the directors out was by direct proof that he or she had acted recklessly or illegally in the interests of Better World. Or a vote of two to one.
A few days after I had spoken with Betty I called a directors’ meeting.