“I know. That was before you started to actually care about these people.”
“I always cared about them.”
“In fact, my dear God Almighty, I suspect that it’s only because I make them so ignorant and miserable that you started having compassion for them. Admit it—you were bored with them when they were still back in the garden.”
“I was lonely for company,” said God.
“And I wasn’t good enough for you,” said Lucifer.
“You aren’t company,” said God. “You’re the competition.”
“Is the bet on?”
“What are the stakes?”
“If I win, I get to destroy the world next time.”
“Out of the question.”
“Come on, old chap, you know that if I win this bet, you’ll have to wipe it all out and start over, just like back at the time of Noah.”
“I had to suspend all the rules of physics and chemistry to cover the whole earth with water,” said God. “You don’t have the power.”
“See?” said Lucifer. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
“I know you’ve got a trick up your sleeve.”
“Yes, and if you really wanted to, you could pluck it right out and know all my plans. But you’ll play fair, won’t you?”
“And you won’t.”
“But you’re God.”
“And you want my job.”
“No, I just don’t want your job to exist.”
“Even if we end up destroying all of humanity, Lucifer, I’ll still be God.”
“Yes,” said Lucifer. “But I’ll break your heart.”
God thought for a while. “I think human beings are smarter and better than you give them credit for. It’s a bet.”
Lucifer whooped once with joy, then tipped back his pint and drank it to the last drop. “You’re such a sport, God, old man! And they say you’re a stick-in-the-mud—if only they knew you the way I do!” Then he got up and strolled bold as brass out of the pub.
God smiled. It was such an outrageous idea—to play the next hundred and fifty years without knowing what was coming next. A true contest. Maybe Lucifer would be able to make a contest of it this time.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the century and a half are almost up. And in all that time, God hasn’t had a clue from moment to moment what was going to happen next.
The American lobbyist sneered. “So what’s the punch line?”
“No punch line,” my companion replied. “I just thought you ought to have the facts straight. Not even God knew.”
“Right. Like I’m supposed to believe this.” The American glowered. “I know when I’m being made fun of.”
“Oh do you,” said my companion. “But I thought since you were so intimately familiar with the corridors of power, you’d be delighted to have the inside scoop on real power.”
“You’ve made your point,” said the lobbyist. “Just another snobby Britisher, putting down the American and feeling oh so clever about it.”
“But that’s not it at all,” said my companion. “For one thing, I’m not British. And for another, I admire you greatly. I think you’re a swell fellow. It’s my friend here who thinks you’re a bit of an asshole.”
The lobbyist looked at me. “Oh yeah?”
“Never mind him,” said my companion. “He isn’t British, either. And he’s in a bad mood. Just lost a bet, you see.”
“Lost a bet?”
“He thought he had it sussed. Thought he understood all my plans. He watched how I got all his ideas about social justice put into an atheist package and called it Communism, and he thought it was nothing more than an annoyance. Then he thought he understood what I was doing when I got the Communist Party installed in power in Russia and it became such a horrid place to live, but he never grasped it.”
“Oh, I grasped it all right,” I said. “Typical of your methods. You set up a system in Russia in the name of communism, but you actually had it function like the nastiest sort of monopoly capitalism.”
“Don’t you think that was a lovely touch?” my companion asked. “They would win converts by preaching your theories, but when they governed, what they put in practice was always mine. I loved the USSR. It was as if IBM had bought all the other companies in the world, so you couldn’t get a job unless you worked for them. Capitalism to perfection, and they were all commies!”
“Deception is a cheap trick,” I murmured.
“Of course,” he said proudly. “And in the meantime, I watched how hard he was working in the U.S. and Europe, trying to get capitalism tamed, to fence it around with laws so that it was fair and the common people could get an even break. Oh, I tried to interfere with him enough that he’d think I was opposed to what he was doing, but he was playing into my hands.”
“You’re a graceless winner,” I pointed out to him.
“Then a few years back, he thinks he’s going to beat me. I watch him grooming Gorbachev, and then he makes his move and puts him in power—not very subtle, you know. Killing off three old coots in rapid succession like that—how obvious can you get!”
“Just because you wish you could do it,” I said.
“He frees eastern Europe, he has the Soviet Union eating out of his hands, and then all of a sudden he realizes the trap I’ve sprung for him! Just when he thinks he’s defeated me, and it turns out that I’ve used his own actions to defeat him!”
“I knew it earlier than that,” I said.
“Because when he broke down the system that worked my way, it completely discredited the philosophy that he believes in! And the people who live in those countries where he got the power of capitalism tamed, he’s got them believing that it was free-market capitalism that accomplished all of that, so they’re breaking down all the regulations that kept capitalism in check in the West. So now the victorious capitalists are going to do my work for me! The whole world thinks that capitalism defeated communism, when it was virtually the opposite that’s the truth. The whole world is racing to adopt free-market capitalism. We truly will have Hell on Earth!”
“Oh, shut up,” I suggested.
“You leftists are such bad losers,” said the lobbyist.
My companion ignored him. “The sweetest irony is that even his own churches are going along with it. I won I won I won!” he crowed.
“Yes,” I said. “You did.”
“So now I get to do it,” said my companion. “I get to destroy the world. Such a simple thing, really. The nuclear weapons in the old Soviet Union—give me a few months and I’ll have them in the hands of every group that hates somebody else so badly they’re willing to use them.”
“But you forget,” I said. “Now I get to look ahead into the future.”
“Oh, of course,” he said. “But there is no future to look ahead to.”
I let down the barrier that had so long blocked my vision, and despaired.
Lucifer laughed and laughed.
The lobbyist looked from him to me and back again. “Are you guys out of your minds?”
“Enough to make you want to o.d., isn’t it!” cackled the devil.
“Maybe I won’t destroy it,” I said. “I don’t have to. The wager was that if I destroy it, you get to do it.”
“Weasel all you want,” he answered. “Leave it forever, I don’t mind. It’s just misery and oppression, poverty and bitter injustice through the world. It’ll get worse and worse, until you give up and decide to destroy them after all—and then I get to do it.”
I thought of wiping everything clean and starting over yet again, and it just made me tired. No, if I couldn’t undo the mess he’d made within a year or two, that would be the end of it. No Noah this time. Just let it all go and find something else to do. Why couldn’t these humans, just this once, see through his lies? They’ve spit in my face once too often. Why should I save them again?
Or at least that’s how I felt then. I don’t feel so depressed today. Maybe by t
omorrow I’ll get some of my hope back. Maybe then I’ll have the heart to set out once again to fight him on every front. Or maybe I’ll just take the easy way, and delay him only long enough to find my Noah and get a ship ready for him. It’ll have to be a starship this time, and that’ll take longer, but I can probably do it. I mean, I am omnipotent, when it comes down to that. And I really don’t like to lose.
WORTHY TO BE ONE OF US
When the children started moving out of the house and starting their own families, Jared and Rachel couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or depressed about it. On the one hand, they would have their own lives back. No more racing home to have a car available for some-body’s date. No more sorting through the clean clothes to pick out items that somebody slipped into a batch of the parents’ laundry. No more taking endless messages or giving endless reminders. Rachel could actually go with Jared on any of his lectures or conferences that she wanted. Jared could probably do some of his work at home instead of having to flee the house to get peace and quiet in his office up at the university.
On the other hand, the children were in the most exciting phase of life, and for many years their activities had been much more important to Jared and Rachel, emotionally at least, than their own. The house felt empty. “It’s too big now,” Jared said, several times. And then the suggestion: “A condo closer to campus.”
But Rachel didn’t want to leave the ward. Jared’s life was focused on campus. Rachel’s life was centered in the Primary and the ward choir. Jared could leave the ward and still have his friendships at work. For Rachel it would be starting over. She had twenty-five years invested in the Lakeview Third Ward and she wasn’t going to throw that all away. One thing about having your career be in the Church: You never vested. There was no pension that you could take with you, eking out long friendships and favorite callings during the lonely years of old age. When Jared finally repeated his remark about moving nearer to campus often enough that Rachel realized he was serious, she answered as clearly as possible. “I’m not going anywhere. When I’m old and decrepit, coming to church with a walker, I intend to be surrounded by children I taught in Primary.”
“All the children you taught in Primary will have grown up and moved away, like our kids,” said Jared.
“By then I’ll be senile and I’ll think they’re the same children,” said Rachel. “Don’t expect me to be rational about this. If you move, you move alone.”
“I can’t keep up the yard anymore, not with the boys all gone.”
“Hire a kid from the neighborhood,” said Rachel.
“And then pay for another sprinkler head every week when it gets chopped up in the lawnmower,” said Jared.
“If you keep grumbling I’ll make another no-salt dinner.”
“If you make another no-salt dinner I’ll eat out.”
“If you eat out I’ll buy a whole new wardrobe for fall.”
“If you buy a whole new wardrobe I’ll buy a boat and go fishing.”
“If you buy a boat and go fishing I’ll go out and buy a ten-pound salmon so that we can add it to what you catch and have ten pounds of fish for dinner.”
“All right, let’s skip all the expensive stuff and have salmon for dinner.” Jared laughed and kissed her and went up to the office. He never mentioned the condo idea again.
But they were wrong about having an empty house. They were wrong about needing less space. Because Jared’s father died on Halloween, and with him gone there was no one to care for Hazel, Jared’s mother, who was severely limited because of her arthritis. “I don’t want to be a burden on my daughters-in-law,” said Hazel.
“Your daughters live in New Jersey and Rio de Janeiro,” said Rachel. “You can’t deal with the humidity and pollution in either place. And I liked you even before I decided to fall in love with your little boy. I think we can get along.” Inwardly Rachel knew that it would be a severe trial for both of them. But she also knew that there was no better choice. Someday I may need someone to care for me, she thought. I’ll treat Mother Hazel exactly as I hope to be treated—plenty of independence, plenty of opportunities for her to help out, and zero tolerance for any interference in the running of the household, not that Mother Hazel has ever tried to meddle.
“I’ll do it as long as you understand that I have got to be allowed to help out even if it drives you crazy, because I can’t stand to be idle,” said Hazel.
“You can help out as long as you fit into the way I do things in my kitchen,” said Rachel, “even if you think it’s completely boneheaded.”
They presented Jared with a fait accompli. “Your mother is taking the girls’ bedroom and she’s getting exclusive use of the second-floor bathroom,” said Rachel.
“How nice,” said Jared. “Especially because all the rest homes I’ve looked into are either resorts or prisons, and none of us can afford the former and I would rather die than put you in the latter.”
“You’ve been looking into rest homes?” asked Hazel darkly.
“I didn’t know that Rachel would be willing to let you live here,” said Jared. “And you always said that you’d rather be in a rest home than burden any of your children.”
“I was lying,” said Hazel. “Besides, I refuse to be a burden. An albatross, maybe, but not a burden.”
So it was set. By Thanksgiving, Hazel would be in residence, and the house would not be so empty.
In all the busyness of getting things ready for Hazel—they even priced home elevators and stair climbers, until Hazel informed them that she could still climb stairs—it took a while for Rachel to realize that Jared really wasn’t taking the death of his father in stride.
“I’m doing fine,” said Jared. He had a puzzled look on his face.
“I know you are,” said Rachel. “But you get this lost look sometimes. You just stand there, in the middle of some action.”
“I’m an absentminded professor. I usually am lost.”
“Just now, you stood there looking in the mirror, your tie half tied, for five minutes.”
“I forgot how to do a double Windsor.”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But I think it has to do with your father.”
“Maybe it does.”
“Maybe you need to cry. You didn’t, you know.”
“He was old. He was in terrible health. Pain all the time. Death came to him as a relief. He was a good man and the Lord will honor him in the next life. What’s to cry about?”
“You tell me.”
“I still have my mother,” said Jared.
“Is that an answer?”
“No,” said Jared. “I think it’s a question.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I’m not sure how to deal with her without Dad.”
“Excuse me if I sound judgmental, but I’m not aware of your father ever ‘dealing’ with her.”
“But he did,” said Jared. “Quietly, alone, later, patiently, he dealt with her.”
“And that’s it? That’s what you miss about your father? That he won’t be here to help with Hazel?”
Jared seemed to be thinking about her question. But then he finished adjusting his clothing and left the room without saying another word. Rachel wrote this up on her mental chalkboard and drew a big thick square around it: Jared is having a very hard time dealing with his father’s death. She had no idea what to do about this, or even if she should do anything at all. But she would watch.
At Thanksgiving, everything went perfectly. Hazel had been in residence for two days and had already shed any hint of being a guest. Thanksgiving dinner could have been a nightmare—two women in the kitchen!—but Hazel did only what she was asked, except that she made a batch of candied yams, which Jared and Rachel both loathed but which Hazel needed in order for it to be really Thanksgiving. “My mother made them,” she explained. “When I eat them, I see her again. Silly, isn’t it? Conjuring the dead with candied yams.” It made Rachel think about what she would always carry of her
mother, when the time came that she couldn’t just fly down to Phoenix to see her. That whipped-cream-and-jello dessert they called “Gone with the Wind”? “All foods have to have a name,” Rachel’s father had said. “Calling it ‘That Green Dessert’ could describe half the food in the fridge.” So Rachel’s younger sister, who was an absolute Gone with the Wind groupie, had named it for the sine qua non of American literature. But did that dessert really stand for Rachel’s mother, or was it just a family thing? Jared hated it anyway, so Rachel only made it when her parents or a sibling came to visit. Or when Jared was traveling. Maybe it was one of the last remnants of her single life. Who could guess what any of these things really meant? Everybody had their own private mythology, with inexplicably powerful icons arising from the most commonplace things. Candied yams. Gone with the Wind. A double Windsor knot.
Three of their kids lived in Utah, but Lettie (who had finally forgiven them for naming her Letitia after a great-grandmother) and her husband had taken the family to New York to visit his parents. That left Will and his wife Sarah—whom he called, for reasons that probably did not bear examination, “Streak”—and Dawn and her husband Buck. They were all coming to Thanksgiving dinner, with three children among them.
Dawn and Buck only had their three-month-old daughter Pearl, who was, literally, no trouble. Buck bragged that if he looked at her and said, “Sleep now, Pearl,” she dropped off immediately. Will and Sarah, however, had the twins, Vanya and Valiant, and at three years old they regarded it as their mission in life to take apart anything that had ever been in an unassembled state. To Will’s credit, he did his best to keep them under control, but Sarah was about eleven months pregnant and her idea of discipline consisted of languidly calling out, “Please don’t be such naughty-nasters, boys.”
Rachel could hardly criticize her for not leaping to her feet and bounding after them, not with her belly that was large enough that Jared was talking about helping them build a stable for the foal she was apparently going to have. But she and Hazel had spent half an hour removing everything breakable from the main floor of the house before they got down to the serious business of fixing Thanksgiving dinner. Thinking of having the twins in the house made her glad that she wasn’t starting a new family right now. She just didn’t have the energy.
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