Rama Omnibus

by Arthur C.

  They were standing together beside the fire. The artificial daylight was completely gone. Beatrice turned to Johann and took his hands in hers. “Not with my eyes, Brother Johann,” she said. “But I have sensed His presence here with my heart and soul.”

  The next day, after sleeping side by side near the fire, Johann and Sister Beatrice found the storehouse cave. It was huge, and contained an astonishing array of virtually everything they could possibly have wanted or needed. Just inside the entrance, on white shelves with the occasional characteristic red stripes, were four empty water vessels and several hundred food cylinders. They had been juxtaposed to an assortment of the berries, grains, and fruits that Johann and Beatrice had already encountered on the island. The meaning of the arrangement was unmistakable. Johann no longer had any doubt about whether or not they were supposed to eat the produce of the island.

  In cabinets and shelves behind the food and drinking vessels were sleeping mats and pillows, towels and washcloths, familiar tools of all sorts and sizes, building materials, ropes and strings, wheels, vast stacks of fabric pieces along with sewing instruments, pots and pans, dinnerware, and hundreds of other objects, some of which neither Johann nor Beatrice could readily identify. Every item was white in color, with a red mark or band somewhere on its surface.

  They were overwhelmed by the contents of the storehouse cave. They spent over an hour wandering from shelf to shelf, and cabinet to cabinet, taking an inventory of what had been provided for them. When Johann and Sister Beatrice finally returned together to the entrance to the cave, she was beaming.

  “Well, Brother Johann,” she said. “Would you say that we have been adequately supplied?”

  “That would be an understatement, Sister Beatrice,” he replied. “It certainly looks as if God or the aliens intends for us to stay here for quite a while… as you suggested last night.”

  “Who knows,” she said coyly, “we may be here forever.”

  “Sister Beatrice,” he said in a light vein, “if my fate in life is to be marooned forever on this island with you, I will try my hardest to be accepting. Otherwise, I will never find that inner peace you talk so much about…”

  She raised her arm to strike him, but Johann laughed and jumped away.

  They quickly settled into a regular routine. They slept in the cave closest to the fire, each on a separate mat, within an arm’s length of one another. Each morning at the first sign of light, Beatrice would wake Johann. While she was meditating down on the beach he would use the toilet cave, a small open room with a very deep hole in its center. Then he would take his long exercise swim in the lake. After sharing a leisurely breakfast, usually the coarse brown grain mixed with fruit juices and berries, Johann and Sister Beatrice would decide what they were going to do for the day.

  Most of the time they explored the island together. On several of their exploratory hikes they went all the way to the other side of the island. Most of the individual caves on the opposite side were larger, with many rooms, as if they had been designed for groups. The general layout of the other cave system, however, was similar to theirs. It also had a perpetual fire burning in a circular plaza, and a vast storehouse that contained several hundred useful items.

  “So we don’t have to live together,” Sister Beatrice said lightly one day after they had visited the other caves. “If we ever decide that we can’t stand each other, we can live on opposite sides of the island… Or maybe, just for variety, we can use the other caves from time to time. Like a vacation home…”

  Sometimes Beatrice would tell Johann that she wanted to spend the morning, or the entire day, by herself. On those days she would commune privately with God, or use the needles, thread, and fabric from the storehouse to make them some simple clothing. Johann would explore on his own, or build something with the treasure trove of materials and tools that had been supplied to them by their hosts.

  At night, they always ate dinner around the fire. Afterward, Johann would ask Sister Beatrice to sing. She always sang at least one song, usually two or three. She had an enormous repertoire, including religious music, opera, the musical theater, and even some popular songs. Johann was delighted to discover that Beatrice could sing several of the pieces from Wagner’s Ring Cycle, including Brunhild’s famous aria when Siegfried’s kiss awakens her from sleep. Johann often closed his eyes when Sister Beatrice was singing. The intensity of his pleasure never ceased to amaze him.

  Before going to bed they generally made a soothing drink of mixed berries and water and heated it over the fire. It was a peaceful, easy existence for both of them. They rarely argued. Johann grew accustomed to Beatrice’s religious devotion. She never stopped trying to convince him that he would be happier if God played a more important role in his life, but she did not push too much.

  They lost count of the days after twenty or so. The passage of time no longer mattered to them. Sister Beatrice was happy with her relationships with both God and Brother Johann. He was delighted to be spending every waking hour with the woman he loved.

  9

  Eva and he were quarreling in his apartment. It was a weekend, and Johann felt that they should spend at least one of the two evenings with his parents in Potsdam. Eva told Johann that his parents were boring, and that he was boring.

  The buzzer sounded. “Who is it?” Johann asked crossly.

  “It’s me, Sister Beatrice,” a lovely voice said on the intercom. “May I come up?”

  He released the door locks. “Who is Sister Beatrice?” Eva asked, her expression partly quizzical, partly displeasure.

  “She’s a bishop of the Order of St. Michael,” Johann said proudly. “She’s beautiful, and has an amazing singing voice, and has dedicated her life to helping others.”

  “She sounds too good to be true,” Eva said scornfully, walking toward the bedroom.

  There was a knock on the door. “Good morning, Brother Johann,” Beatrice said lightly. “I was in your neighborhood and thought I would drop by and say hello.”

  “I’m delighted that you did, Sister Beatrice,” he said. He invited her into the apartment. “In just a moment,” he said confidentially, “I’m going to introduce you to my friend Eva. We’re still engaged, but we won’t be much longer.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Brother Johann,” Sister Beatrice said. “She certainly doesn’t seem like the right woman for you… By the way, it’s very hot outside, and I’ve had a long walk. Do you mind if I use your shower?”

  “No, of course not,” Johann replied. “It’s right down the hall.”

  “Where did your friend the nun go?” Eva asked when she returned a few seconds later.

  “Sister Beatrice is taking a shower in the guest bathroom,” Johann said.

  “That is certainly peculiar behavior,” Eva said, “stopping off at a friend’s house for a shower.”

  Johann looked down the hall. The door to the guest bathroom was still open. Sister Beatrice was standing in her long underwear with her back to Johann. Her folded robe was on the floor beside her. She tested the shower water with her hand and then started to take off her underwear.

  He walked toward the bathroom. “Where are you going?” Eva asked Johann.

  “I’m going to see if she needs anything,” Johann said.

  Beatrice was now naked. She stepped gingerly into the shower without closing the curtain, and turned sideways, letting the jets of water splash against her full, round breasts. Johann was standing at the bathroom door.

  “Hello again, Brother Johann,” Sister Beatrice said sweetly. “I can’t tell you how divine this water feels.” She placed both of her hands on her breasts and began to massage her nipples with slow, circular motions.

  “I came to see if there was anything you needed,” Johann said with difficulty.

  Beatrice gave him a look unlike any Johann had ever seen before. She was still massaging herself. “Why yes, Brother Johann,” she said. “As a matter of fact, there is something that I need.�
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  She motioned for him to come over closer to the shower. When he was beside her, she leaned out, dripping water on both Johann and the floor, and kissed him passionately on the lips.

  “Now take off your clothes,” she said softly, “and join me in here.”

  Johann removed his clothes and left them in a heap on the bathroom floor. Beatrice moved back so that there was plenty of room for him in the shower. When they were standing facing each other in the stream of water, she took both his large hands and placed them on her breasts. Then she kissed him again.

  Johann was overwhelmed by desire. When the kiss was completed Sister Beatrice reached down approvingly and touched his swollen penis. It was then that Johann realized that Eva was watching them from the bathroom door.

  He woke up abruptly from the vivid dream, opened his eyes, and looked around. For a few seconds Johann was completely disoriented. The sound of running water reminded him of the shower in his dream. It took him a little while to realize that he was hearing the island sprinkler system, which was turned on for half an hour, three times a week, always in the middle of the night.

  Sister Beatrice was sleeping peacefully an arm’s length away from him. Johann was still feeling the powerful sexual arousal from his dream. He closed his eyes again, hoping to recapture the image of an amorous Beatrice standing beside him in the shower.

  A picture of Beatrice, naked and desirable, did come into his mind, but it was not the image from his dream. This picture was a real memory, from two days earlier, when he had watched her bathing in the cove on the far side of their caves. Johann had not meant to spy on her. He had been out exploring on his own, and was bringing back for observation and study another pair of the brown nuts from the grove next to the beach. He had heard Beatrice splashing and had headed in her direction, without thinking about the fact that she might be taking a bath.

  Johann had first seen her standing naked on the sand, no more than twenty meters away. Instead of calling to her, or respecting her privacy by going in the opposite direction, he had watched her in silence, even hiding himself when she began to dry off. Johann had been unable to take his eyes off her body. Sister Beatrice had never seen him.

  He lay on his back on the mat, tormented by her naked image and his own arousal. After glancing over to make certain that she was still asleep, Johann slipped his right hand into the underwear that Beatrice had made for him.

  They had found a new kind of fruit on the far side of the island. It had a yellow meat that was soft, juicy, and delicious. Both Johann and Sister Beatrice were in good spirits after they finished their late dinner.

  “I have a surprise for you tonight, Brother Johann,” she said. “I have decided to share some of my very special memories about St. Michael… I have never before told these things to anyone who is not a member of our order, and I know that you are somewhat cynical about many aspects of religion, so—”

  “My affection for you, Sister Beatrice,” Johann interrupted, “is greater than my cynicism. I assure you that I will treasure anything that is important to you.”

  “I suspected that, Brother Johann,” she said, “but thanks for the reassurance.” Sister Beatrice smiled. “Okay, fire away, ask me anything you want to know about Michael.”

  “I have only a vague idea about how you became involved with the order in the first place,” Johann said. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, when you met Michael for the first time?”

  Beatrice turned and stared at the fire. “It seems like so long ago now,” she said. “Almost as if it were another lifetime…”

  She paused for several seconds. “It was late in the winter of 2138, the twenty-fifth of February to be exact, when my touring company reached Florence. We had been playing the Continent for six weeks and had already been to London, Paris, and Berlin. The company was doing four different musicals in a one-week stay at each venue. I had the lead in Follow Your Heart, and minor roles in the other shows.

  “I was twenty-one at the time and a junior, majoring in music with a minor in English literature, at the University of Minnesota. I had taken off a semester from school both be-cause I was tired of studying and because I wanted to make some money.

  “The American Theater Group, or ATG as we affectionately called it, was the most prestigious touring company in the nation. To be selected for it as a university student was considered quite an honor. My parents were very proud.”

  She took a drink of water from one of their cups. Johann studied her face in the firelight. It had healed magnificently. No one would have known that she had been badly burned not more than two months earlier.

  “We had a day off between each of the shows,” Sister Beatrice continued. “One of the members of our company had heard Michael preach the day after we had arrived in Florence and had come back raving about his insight and charisma. Several of us went with her, mostly out of curiosity.

  “The morning was beautiful. Quite crisp, I remember, but with a hint of spring in the air. Michael was preaching outdoors, in an amphitheater in the suburbs of Florence used for popular-music concerts during the summer. The title of his sermon that morning was ‘The Circulation System of the Human Species.’

  “The service began with a pair of hymns. There was a choir of twenty-five or so Michaelites in their blue robes standing on one side of the stage. Michael came out without any ceremony and joined in the singing, first standing beside the choir and then moving among the front rows of the audience. He greeted the members of his flock with a smile and a nod of his head. He also stopped from time to time to shake hands with the people he had never seen before.

  “Michael was in a good mood. His smile was warm and inviting, his small dimples on both cheeks were pronounced, and his robin’s-egg-blue eyes were magnificent in the early-morning sun. We had arrived early and were in the fifth or sixth row. When he passed in front of us, it was at the end of a hymn. He stopped and listened to me sing. I remember my pulse rate shot up under the intensity of his gaze. When the song was over, he took my hand and said simply, ‘You have a beautiful voice. I hope you find what you are looking for today.’”

  Sister Beatrice stopped, took a deep breath, and swallowed. Tears had welled up in her eyes. “It’s impossible for me to describe, Brother Johann,” she said, “the amazing feelings that I had that morning, beginning at the moment that Michael touched my hand. I felt as if a towering wave, soft, gentle, and comforting, had swept over me. When I looked into his eyes, I felt an inner peace unlike any I had ever experienced before. Later, while I was listening to him speak…”

  She turned and looked at the fire. Her cheeks were glistening with her tears. “My whole life was transformed in one hour. It was not only what Michael said, but how he said it, full of warmth and humor and boundless love… He seemed to be speaking directly to my soul. I remember having the feeling that nobody else was present, only Michael and I, and that he had come to be my guide, to show me God’s plan for my life.”

  Sister Beatrice turned back to Johann, smiled quickly, and then stood up. “The sermon was in Italian,” she said, starting to walk slowly around the fire, “but Michael had prerecorded it in six other languages. He was a brilliant linguist, among other talents… Anyway, the timing wasn’t exactly the same on the English version I was hearing, but it was close, and Michael’s verbal idiosyncrasies and inflections were certainly captured on the tape.

  “His message was simple. In order for there to be lasting peace on the planet Earth, another major step in evolution was necessary. This step would be as complicated and important as the great breakthrough that produced multicellular creatures in the Precambrian oceans after two billion years of uninspired unicellular evolution. That next great step forward, according to Michael, will result eventually in one grand, harmonious human organism, working for the advantage of all, comprising each and every human being on this planet.

  “His goal in life, Michael said, and his charge to those who accepted him as thei
r spiritual leader, was to design an organization that could become the circulatory system of that great new human organism, distributing the resources of food, clothing, shelter, love, education, and health care wherever they were needed. By establishing a worldwide organization of dedicated men and women whose only purpose in life was to serve their fellow humans, Michael hoped to demonstrate that it was indeed possible to create large-scale social systems that would support the final evolution.”

  She sat down again directly opposite him. “I bought it all in that hour, Brother Johann… Michael, his vision, the idea of being the blood vessels of mankind. I stayed after the sermon and asked what I needed to do to become a Michaelite. That evening I withdrew from the touring company and spent the night in the barracks with his followers. The next morning at dawn I met personally for an hour with Michael, made my commitment, and put on my blue robe for the first time.”

  Johann reached over and took her right hand in his. They sat together in silence, alternately staring at each other and the fire, until Sister Beatrice removed her hand, walked over to her sleeping mat in the nearby cave, and lay down to go to sleep.

  They were eating dinner together after a game of soccer on the beach and an invigorating swim. Johann was trying to explain to Sister Beatrice what he had learned about the brown nuts from the special grove. She was making his explanation difficult, laughing and teasing him at the end of almost every sentence.

  “It is clear that it’s the worms that are making the nuts move,” he said. “I have established that fact beyond a shadow of a doubt… But the nut doesn’t wiggle unless part of its outer shell has been removed. Somehow the worms inside know when the integrity of the shell has been compromised.”

  Beatrice was eating a bunch of the little black berries from beside the stream. “But, Brother Johann,” she said, her eyes dancing playfully, “you still haven’t answered my first question. How do the worms penetrate that hard covering? You said yourself that even those nuts with no holes in the shell contain worms. Where do they come from?”