Gene Wolfe How the Whip Came Back

Unknown How the Whip Came Back � by Gene Wolfe � � Pretty Miss Bushnan’s suite was all red acrylic and green-dyed leather. Real leather, very modern�"red acrylic and green, real leather were the modern things this year. But it made her Louis XIV secretary, Sal, look terribly out of place. � Miss Bushnan had disliked the suite from the day she moved in�"though she could hardly complain, when there was a chance that the entire city of Geneva and the sovereign Swiss nation might be offended. This evening she did her best to like red and green, and in the meantime turned her eyes from them to the cool relief of the fountain. It was a copy of a Cellini salt dish and lovely, no matter how silly a fountain indoors on the hundred and twenty-fifth floor might be. In a characteristic reversal of feeling she found herself wondering what sort of place she might have gotten if she had had to find one for herself, without reservations, at the height of the tourist season. Three flights up in some dingy suburban pension, no doubt. � So bless the generosity of the sovereign Swiss Republic. Bless the openhanded city of Geneva. Bless the hotel. And bless the United Nations Conference on Human Value, which brought glory to the Swiss Republic et cetera and inspired the free mountaineers to grant free hotel suites in the height of the season even to non-voting Conference observers such as she. Sal had brought her in a gibson a few minutes ago, and she picked it up from the edge of the fountain to sip, a little surprised to see that it was already three-quarters gone; red and green. � A brawny, naked triton half-reclined, water streaming from his hair and beard, dripping from his mouth, dribbling from his ears. His eyes, expressionless and smooth as eggs, wept for her. Balancing her empty glass carefully on the rim again, she leaned forward and stroked his smooth, wet stone flesh. Smiling she told him�"mentally�"how handsome he was, and he blushed pink lemonade at the compliment. She thought of herself taking off her clothes and climbing in with him, the cool water soothing her face which now felt hot and flushed. Not, she told herself suddenly, that she would feel any real desire for the triton in the unlikely event of his being metamorphosed to flesh. If she wanted men in her bed she could find ten any evening, and afterward edit the whole adventure from Sal’s memory bank. She wanted a man, but she wanted only one, she wanted Brad (whose real name, as the terrible, bitter woman who lived in the back of her skull, the woman the gibson had not quite drowned, reminded her, had proved at his trial to be Aaron). The triton vanished and Brad was there instead, laughing and dripping Atlantic water on the sand as he threw up his arms to catch the towel she flung him. Brad running through the surf . . . � Sal interrupted her revery, rolling in on silent casters. �śA gentleman to see you, Miss Bushnan.” Sal had real metal drawer-pulls on her false drawers, and they jingled softly when she stopped to deliver her message, like costume jewelry. � �śWho?” Miss Bushnan straightened up, pushing a stray wisp of brown hair away from her face. � Sal said blankly, �śI don’t know.” The gibson had made Miss Bushnan feel pleasantly muzzy, but even so the blankness came through as slightly suspicious. � �śHe didn’t give you his name or a card?” � �śHe did, Miss Bushnan, but I can’t read it. Even though, as I’m sure you’re already aware, Miss Bushnan, there’s an Italian language software package for me for only two hundred dollars. It includes reading, writing, speaking, and an elementary knowledge of great Italian art.” � �śThe advertising package,” Miss Bushnan said with wasted sarcasm, �śis free. And compulsory with your lease.” � �śYes,” Sal said. �śIsn’t it wonderful?” � Miss Bushnan swung around in the green leather chair from which she had been watching the fountain. �śHe did give you a card. I see it in one of your pigeonholes. Take it out and look at it.” � As if the Louis XIV secretary had concealed a silver snake, one of Sal’s arms emerged. With steel fingers like nails it took the card and held it in front of a swirl of ornament hiding a scanner. � �śNow,” Miss Bushnan said patiently, �śpretend that what you’re reading isn’t Italian. Let’s say instead that it’s English that’s been garbled by a translator post-processor error. What’s your best guess at the original meaning?” � �ś �ŚHis Holiness Pope Honorius V.’ �ś � �śAh.” Miss Bushnan sat up in her chair. �śPlease show the gentleman in.” � With a faint hum of servomotors Sal rolled away. There was just time for a last fragment of daydream. Brad with quiet eyes alone with her on the beach at Cape Cod. Talking about the past, talking about the divorce, Brad really, really sorry . . . � The Pope wore a plain dark suit and a white satin tie embroidered in gold with the triple crown. He was an elderly man, never tall and now stooped. Miss Bushnan rose. She sat beside him every day at the council sessions, and had occasionally exchanged a few words with him during the refreshment breaks (he had a glass of red wine usually, she good English tea or the horrible Swiss coffee laced with brandy), but it had never so much as occurred to her that he might ever have anything to discuss with her in private. � �śYour Holiness,” she said as smoothly as the gibson would let her manage the unfamiliar words, �śthis is an unexpected pleasure.” � Sal chimed in with, �śMay we offer you something?” and looking sidelong Miss Bushnan saw that she had put Scotch, a bottle of club soda, and two glasses of ice on her fold-out writing shelf. � The Pope waved her away, and when he had settled in his chair said pointedly, �śI deeply appreciate your hospitality, but I wonder if it would be possible to speak with you privately.” � Miss Bushnan said, �śOf course,” and waited until Sal had coasted off in the direction of the kitchen. �śMy secretary bothers you, Your Holiness?” � Taking a cigar from the recesses of his coat, the Pope nodded. �śI’m afraid she does. I have never had much sympathy with furniture that talks�"you don’t mind if I smoke?” He had only the barest trace of Italian accent. � �śIf it makes you more comfortable I should prefer it.” � He smiled in appreciation of the little speech, and struck an old-fashioned kitchen match on the imitation marble of the fountain. It left no mark, and when he tossed in the matchstick a moment later, it bobbed only twice in the crystal water before being whisked away. �śI suppose I’m out of date,” the Pope continued. �śBut back in my youth when people speculated about the possibility of those things we always thought of them as being shaped more or less like us. Something like a suit of armor.” � �śI can’t imagine why,” Miss Bushnan said. �śYou might as well shape a radio like a human mouth�"or a TV screen like a keyhole.” � The Pope chuckled. �śI didn’t say I was going to defend the idea. I only remarked that that was what we expected.” � �śI’m sure they must have considered it, but�"” � �śBut too much extra work would have had to go into just making it look human,” the Pope continued for her, �śand besides, a furniture cabinet is much cheaper than articulated metal and doesn’t make the robot look dead when it’s turned off.” � She must have looked flustered because he continued, smiling, �śYou Americans are not the only manufacturers, you see. It happens that a friend of mine is president of Olivetti. A skeptic like all of them today, but...” � The sentence trailed away in a shrug and a puff of smoke from the black cigar. Miss Bushnan recalled the time she had asked the French delegate about him. The French delegate was handsome in that very clean and spare fashion some Frenchmen have, and she liked him better than the paunchy businessman who represented her own country. � �śYou do not know who the man who sits by you is, mademoiselle?” he asked quizzically. �śBut that is most interesting. You see, I know who he is, but I do not know who you are. Except that I see you each day and you are much more pretty than the lady from Russia or the lady from Nigeria, and perhaps in your way as chic as that bad girl who reports on us for Le Figaro�" but I hope not quite so full of tricks. Now I will trade you information.” � So she had had to tell him, feeling more like a fool each second as the milling crush of secretaries of delegates, and secretaries of secretaries, and unidentifiable people from the Swiss embassies of all the participating nations, swirled around them. When she had finished he said, �śAh, it is kind of you to work for charity, and especially for one that does not pay you, but is it necessary? This is no longer the twentieth century after all, and the governments take care of most of us quite well.” � �śThat’s what most people think; I suppose that’s why so few give much any more. But we try to bring a little human warmth to the people we help, and I find I meet the class of people I want to meet in connection with it. I mean my co-workers, of course. It’s really rather exclusive.” � He said, �śHow very great-hearted you are,” with a little twist to the corner of his mouth that made her feel like a child talking to a grown-up. �śBut you asked the identity of the old gentleman. He is Pope.” � �śWho?” Then she had realized what the word meant and added, �śI thought there weren’t any more.” � �śOh no.” The French delegate winked. �śIt is still there. Much, much smaller, but still there . . . But we are so crowded here, and I think you are tired of standing. Let me buy you a liqueur and I will tell you all about it.” � He had taken her to a place at the top of some building overlooking the lake, and it had been very pleasant listening to the waiters pointing him out in whispers to the tourists, even though the tourists were mostly Germans and no one anyone knew. They were given a table next to the window of course, and while they sipped and smoked and looked at the lake he told her, with many digressions, about a great-aunt who had been what he called �śa believer” and two ex-wives who had not. (History at Radcliffe had somehow left her with the impression that the whole thing had stopped with John XXIII, just as the Holy Roman Empire had managed to vanish out of sheer good manners when it was no longer wanted. On the teaching machines you filled in a table of Holy Roman Emperors and Popes and Sultans and such things by touching multiple-choice buttons. Then when you had it all done the screen glowed with rosy light for a minute�" which was called reinforcement�"and told you your grade. After which, unless you were lucky, there was another table to be filled�"but Popes had disappeared and you put the Kings of Sweden in that column instead.) � She remembered having asked the French delegate, �śThere are only a hundred thousand left? In the whole world?” � �śThat is my guess, of real believers. Of course many more who continue to use the name and perhaps have their children wetted if they think of it. It may be that that is too low�"say a quarter million. But it has been growing less for a long time. Eventually�"who knows? It may turn about and grow more. It would not be the first time that happened.” � She had said, �śIt seems to me the whole thing should have been squashed a long time ago.” . . . � The Pope straightened his shoulders a little and flicked ashes into the fountain. �śAt any rate, they make me uncomfortable,” he said. �śI always have the feeling they don’t like me. I hope you don’t mind.” � She smiled and said something about the convenience factor, and having Sal shipped in a crate from New York. � �śI suppose it’s a good thing my predecessor got the government to take responsibility for the Vatican,” the Pope said. �śWe couldn’t possibly staff it now, so we’d be using those things. Doubtless ours would have stained glass in them.” � Miss Bushnan laughed politely. Actually she felt like coughing. The Pope’s cigar was the acrid, cheap kind smoked in the poorer sort of Italian cafes. Briefly she wondered if he himself had not been born into the lowest class. His hands were gnarled and twisted like an old gardener’s, as though he’d been weeding all his life. � He was about to say something else, but Sal, reentering on silent wheels, interrupted him. �śPhone, Miss Bushnan,” Sal said at her elbow. � She swiveled in her chair again and touched the �śOn” and �śRecord” buttons on the communications console, motioning as she did for the Pope to keep his seat. The screen lit up, and she said, �śGood evening,” to the office robot who had placed the call. � The robot answered with an announcement: �śHer Excellency the Delegate Plenipotentiary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Comrade Natasha Nikolayeva.” The image flickered and a striking blonde, about forty and somewhat overblown and overdressed, but with a remarkably good complexion and enormous eyes, replaced the robot. The Russian delegate had been an actress at one time and was currently the wife of a general; gossip said that she owed her position at the conference to favors granted the Party Secretary. � �śGood evening,” Miss Bushnan said again, and added, �śComrade Nikolayeva.” � The Russian delegate gave her a dazzling smile. �śI called, darling, to ask if you like my little speech today. I was not too long? You did not find it difficult, wearing the headphones for translation?” � �śI thought it was very moving,” Miss Bushnan said carefully. Actually, she had been appalled by the Russian delegate’s references to Hitler’s gas chambers and her cant phrases about restoring economic value to human life. It came to saying that if people had no value alive they should be made into soap, but she had no intention of telling the Russian delegate that. � �śI convinced you?” � Brad made into soap. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t. One of Brad’s fingers slowly exposed as she scrubbed herself with the bar. The Russian delegate was still looking at her, waiting for her to reply. � �śIt isn’t necessary that you convince me, is it?” She smiled, trying to turn the question aside. �śI’m merely an observer, after all.” � �śIt is necessary to me,” the Russian delegate said, �śin my soul.” She pressed a hand flashing with diamonds against one upholstered breast. �śI myself feel it so deeply.” � �śI’m sure you do. It was a wonderful speech. Very dramatic.” � �śYou understand, then.” The Russian delegate’s mood changed in an instant. �śThat is wonderful, darling. Listen, you know I am staying at our embassy here�"would you have dinner with us? It will be Tuesday, and nearly everyone will be there.” � Miss Bushnan hesitated for a moment, looking briefly at the Pope, seated out of range of the Russian’s vision, for guidance. He was expressionless. � �śDarling, I will tell you a secret. I have sworn not to, but what is an oath when it is for you? The French delegate asked me to invite you. I would have in any case, of course, but he came to me. He is so shy; but if you come I have promised him I will seat you beside him. Do not say I told you.” � �śI’d be delighted to come.” � �śThat too is wonderful then.” The Russian delegate’s smile said: We are women together and I love you, little one. � �śTuesday? The day after the final vote?” � �śYes, Tuesday. I will be looking forward so much.” � When the screen went dark Miss Bushnan said to the Pope, �śSomething’s up.” � The Pope only looked at her, as though trying to weigh what might be behind her attractive but not arresting face and brown eyes. � After a moment Miss Bushnan continued, �śThe French delegate might buy me a dinner, but he wouldn’t ask for me as a dinner partner at an official function, and that Russian woman has been ignoring you and me ever since the conference opened. What’s going on?” � �śYes,” the Pope said slowly, �śsomething has happened, as you say. I see you hadn’t heard.” � �śNo.” � �śI was more fortunate. The Portuguese delegate confides in me sometimes.” � �śWill you tell me?” � �śThat is why I came. The delegates caucused this afternoon after the public session. They decided to ask for our votes at the final meeting.” � �śUs?” Miss Bushnan was nonplused. �śThe observers?” � �śYes. The votes will have no legal validity, of course. They cannot be counted. But they want total unanimity �"they want to get us down on the record.” � �śI see,” said Miss Bushnan. � �śChurch and charity. People surrendered their faith in us to put it in the governments, but they’re losing that now, and the delegates sense it. Perhaps the faith won’t return to us, but there’s a chance it might.” � �śAnd so I’m to be wined and dined.” � The Pope nodded. �śAnd courted too, I should imagine. The French are very enthused about this; their penal system has been at loose ends ever since they lost their African colonies over fifty years ago.” � Miss Bushnan had been staring at her lap, smoothing her skirt absently where it lay across her knees; she looked up suddenly, meeting his eyes. �śAnd you? What are they going to offer you?” � �śNot the lost sees of eastern Europe, you may be sure. Mostly flattery, I suspect.” � �śAnd if we oppose them�"” � �śIf we oppose them we will be raising standards about which all the millions who detest the idea, and all the millions more who will come to detest it when they see it in operation, can rally.” � �śMy husband�"my former husband, technically�"is in prison, Your Holiness. Did you know that?” � �śNo, of course not. If I had�"” � �śWe plan to be remarried when he is released, and I know from visiting him what the alternative to the motion is. I know what we’ve got now. It’s not as though they’re going to be snatched from some Arcadia.” � Unexpectedly Sal was at her elbow again. �śPhone, Miss Bushnan.” � The American delegate’s puffy face filled the screen. �śMiss�"ah�"Bushnan?” � She nodded. � �śThis is�"ah�"a pleasure I have had to postpone too long.” � In order to save him time she said, �śI’ve heard about the decision to ask the observers to vote.” � �śGood, good.” The American delegate drummed his fingers on his desk and seemed to be trying to avoid her eyes. �śMiss Bushnan, are you aware of the�"ah�"financial crisis now confronting our nation?” � �śI’m not an economist�"” � �śBut you are an informed laywoman. You know the situation. Miss Bushnan, there are close to a quarter of a million men and women in state and federal prisons today, and to maintain each of them there costs�"costs us, Miss Bushnan, the taxpayers�"five thousand dollars a year each. That’s a total of a billion dollars a year.” � �śI believe you brought out those figures during your speech at the third session.” � �śPerhaps I did. But we are all interested in restoring the preeminent place the United States once held in world affairs, aren’t we? Miss Bushnan, to do that we have had to take quite a few pages from the Soviet book. And it’s been good for us. We’ve learned humility, if you like.” � She nodded. � �śWe used to believe in job security for everybody, and a wage based on classification and seniority. That was what we called Free Enterprise, and we were proud of it. Well, the Communists showed us differently: incentives, and discipline for underachievers. They forced us to the wall with those until we learned our lesson, and now�"well, you can say whatever you like, but by God things are better.” � �śSo I understand,” Miss Bushnan said. Here it came. � �śNow they’ve got a new trick,” the American delegate continued. �śThey used, you know, to have these gangs of�"ah�"laborers out in Siberia. Then one day some smart commissar thought to himself: By God, if the peasants can grow more vegetables on private plots, couldn’t the prisoners be used more effectively that way too?” � �śIf I recall your speech correctly,” Miss Bushnan said, �śyou pointed out that if half the federal and state prisoners could be leased out to private owners at five thousand a year, the revenue would take care of the remaining half.” � �śLessees, not owners,” the American delegate said. �śLessees with option to renew. It will lift a billion dollar millstone from about our nation’s neck.” � �śBut,” Miss Bushnan continued innocently, �śsurely we could do the same thing without entering into the international agreement being discussed here.” � �śNo, no.” The American delegate waved a hand in protest. �śWe should enter the world community with this. After all, Miss Bushnan, international trade is one of the few, and one of the strongest, cohesive forces. We need by all means to establish a supranational market structure.” � The Pope, sitting outside the range of the American delegate’s view, said softly, �śAsk him if they’re still going to call them slaves.” � Miss Bushnan inquired obediently, �śAre you still going to call them slaves? I mean in the final agreement.” � �śOh, yes.” The American delegate leaned closer to the scanner and lowered his voice. �śIn English language usage. I don’t mind telling you, however, that we�"I mean the British and Canadians as well as our own country�"have had a hard time getting that one past the Soviets. It comes from the root-word �Śslav,’ you know, and they don’t like that. But it’s a selling word. People like the idea of having slaves; robots have gotten us used to it and tranquilizers and anti-aggressants have made it practical; what’s more, it’s a link with the past at a time when too many such links are phasing out. People feel manipulated today, Miss Bushnan. They want to be master of someone themselves.” � �śI see. And it will get them out of prison. Place them in decent surroundings.” � �śOh, it certainly will. And�"ah�"you asked about the necessity of an international agreement and an international market a moment ago. You must remember that our nation needs hard currencies very badly today; and we have the curse�"or, ah�"the blessing, blessing if you think of it in a positive fashion, of having the highest crime rate among major nations. The United States will be an exporter in this market, Miss Bushnan.” � �śI see,” Miss Bushnan said again. � �śYou may have heard some of these rumors about the Soviets pressing a certain number of�"ah�"country people into the market to satisfy the demand. These are slanders, of course, and in any event that sort of thing would be unthinkable in the United States. I understand you’re a wealthy woman, Miss Bushnan; your father is in the government, I suppose?” � �śHe was,” Miss Bushnan said. �śHe’s dead now. The Department of Agriculture.” � �śThen with a family background of public service you understand that in a democracy we have to listen to the voice of the people; and the people want this. The�"ah�" most recent polls have shown seventy-nine percent favoring. I won’t try to hide the fact that it would be an embarrassment to our country if you voted in opposition, and it would not benefit the organization you represent�"in fact it would do it a great deal of harm.” � �śAre you threatening us?” � �śNo, of course not. But I’m asking you to consider what would happen to your organization if you lost your tax-exempt status. I believe a vote in opposition to the motion might�"ah�"make Washington feel that you were engaged in political activity. That would mean loss of the exemption, naturally.” � �śBut a vote in favor of the motion wouldn’t be political activity?” � �śWashington would expect your organization to support this humanitarian cause as a matter of course. I doubt very much that the matter would come up. You must understand, Miss Bushnan, that when�"ah�"a measure as revolutionary as this is under consideration humanity must be practically unanimous. Even a token opposition could be disastrous.” � Paraphrasing the Pope, Miss Bushnan said, �śIt would raise a standard about which all the millions who detest the idea could rally.” � �śMillions is surely an exaggeration; thousands perhaps. But in principle you are correct, and that must not be allowed to happen. Miss Bushnan, Washington has sent me a dossier on you. Did you know that?” � �śHow could I?” � �śYour former husband is confined in the federal penitentiary at Ossining, New York. In the letters you have exchanged both of you have stated an intention to remarry upon his release. Were those letters sincere, Miss Bushnan?” � �śI don’t see what my personal life has to do with this.” � �śI merely wish to use your own case as an example�"one which will strike home, so to speak. It will be at least five years before your former husband will be released under the present system; but if the motion passes it will be possible for you to lease�"ah�"” The American delegate paused, looking at some paper on his desk. � �śBrad,” Miss Bushnan said. � �śYes, Brad. You could lease Brad from the government for those five years. You would have him, he would have you, and your government would be twenty-five thousand dollars to the better as the direct result of your happiness. What’s the matter with that, eh? In fact, in your case I think I could promise that your husband would be one of the first prisoners to be made available for the plan, and that he would be, so to speak, reserved. There would be no danger of someone else leasing him, if that’s worrying you. Of course you would be expected to supervise him.” � Miss Bushnan nodded slowly. �śI understand.” � �śMay I ask then if you intend to support the measure?” � �śI hesitate to tell you. I know you’re going to misunderstand me.” � �śOh?” The American delegate leaned forward until his face filled the small screen. �śIn what way?” � �śYou think that this is going to help Brad and me, and that because of that I’m going to consent to your selling the Americans you don’t want, selling them to die in somebody’s mines. You are wrong. This is going to ruin whatever may be left between Brad and me, and I know it. I know how Brad is going to feel when his wife is also his keeper. It will strip away whatever manhood he has left, and before the five years are out he’ll hate me�"just as he will if I don’t buy him when he knows I could. But you are going to do this thing whether the organization I represent favors it or not, and to save that organization�"for the good it does now and the good it will do among the slaves when you have them�"I am going to vote for the motion.” � �śYou will support the motion?” His eyes seemed to bore into her. � �śI will support the motion. Yes.” � �śFine.” � The American delegate’s hand was moving toward the �śOff’ switch of his console, but Miss Bushnan called, �śWait. What about the other observer? The Pope?” � �śHe can be taken care of, I feel sure. His church is almost entirely dependent today on the goodwill of the Italian government.” � �śHe hasn’t agreed yet?” � �śDon’t worry,” the American delegate said, �śthe Italians will be contacting him.” His hand touched the switch and his image vanished. � �śSo you gave in,” the Pope said. � �śAnd you wouldn’t?” Miss Bushnan asked. �śEven if you knew you’d be running your church from an empty store the day after you voted no?” � �śI might abstain,” the Pope admitted slowly, �śbut I could never bring myself to give a favorable vote.” � �śHow about lying to them, if that were the only way you could get to vote?” � The Pope looked at her in surprise, then his eyes smiled. � Miss Bushnan continued, �śCould you tell them you were going to vote yes when you were really going to vote against them, Your Holiness?” � �śI don’t suppose I could. It would be a matter of my position, if you understand me, as well as my conscience.” � �śFortunately,” Miss Bushnan said, �śI don’t feel that way. Hasn’t it occurred to you that this business of asking for our votes must be predicated on the idea that they’ll be favorable? It hasn’t been announced, has it?” � The Pope nodded. �śI see what you mean. If the decision had been made public they couldn’t change it; but as it is, if they don’t like what they hear from us�"” � �śBut they’ll have every news agency in the world there when the vote is actually taken.” � �śYou are a clever girl.” The Pope shook his head. �śIt is a lesson to me to think of how very much I have underestimated you, sitting in the gallery there beside me all these days, and even this evening when I came here. But that is good; God wants me to learn humility, and He has chosen a child to teach it, as He so often does. I hope you understand that after the council I will be giving you all the support I can. I’ll publish an encyclical�"” � �śIf you feel you can’t lie to them,” Miss Bushnan interposed practically, �śwe’ll need some excuse for your being absent from the vote.” � �śI have one,” the Pope said. �śI don’t”�" he paused�"”sup-pose you’ve heard of Mary Catherine Bryan?” � �śI don’t think so. Who is she?” � �śShe is�"or at least she was�"a nun. She was the last nun, actually, for the past three years. Ever since Sister Carmela Rose died. I received a call this morning telling me Mary Catherine passed away last night, and her rites are to be this coming Tuesday. The government still lets us use St. Peter’s sometimes for that sort of thing.” � �śSo you won’t be here.” Miss Bushnan smiled. �śBut a nun sounds so interesting. Tell me about her.” � �śThere isn’t a great deal to tell. She was a woman of my mother’s generation, and for the last four years she lived in an apartment on the Via del Fori. Alone, after Sister Carmela Rose died. They never got along too well, actually, being from different orders, but Mary Catherine cried for weeks, I remember, after Sister Carmela Rose was gone.” � �śDid she wear those wonderful flowing robes you see in pictures?” � �śOh, no,” the Pope said. �śYou see, nuns no longer have to�"” he stopped in the middle of the sentence, and the animation left his face, making him at once a very old man. �śI’m sorry,” he said after a moment, �śI had forgotten. I should have said that for the last seventy years or so of their existence nuns no longer wore those things. They abandoned them, actually, just a few years before we priests dropped our Roman collars. You have to understand that from time to time I have tried to persuade someone to . . .” � �śYes?” � �śWell, the old phrase was �Śtake the veil.’ It would have kept the tradition alive and would have been so nice for Mary Catherine and Sister Carmela Rose. I always told the girls all the things they wouldn’t have to give up, and they always said they’d think about it, but none of them ever came back.” � �śI’m sorry your friend is dead,” Miss Bushnan said simply. To her surprise she found she really was. � �śIt’s the end of something that had lived almost as long as the Church itself�"oh, I suppose it will be revived in fifty or a hundred years when the spirit of the world turns another corner, but a revival is never really the same thing. As though we tried to put the Kyrie back into the mass now.” � Miss Bushnan, who did not know what he was talking about, said, �śI suppose so, but�"” � �śBut what has it to do with the matter at hand? Not a great deal, I’m afraid. But while they are voting that is where I shall be. And afterward perhaps we can do something.” He stood up, adjusting his clothing, and from somewhere in the back of the apartment Sal came rolling out with his hat positioned on her writing shelf. It was red, Miss Bushnan noticed, but the feather in the band was black instead of green. As he put it on he said, �śWe started among slaves, more or less, you know. Practically all the early Christians who weren’t Jews were either slaves or freedmen. I’ll be going now to say the funeral mass of the last nun. Perhaps I’ll also live to administer the vows of the first.” � Sal announced, �śSaint Macrina, the sister of Saint Basil, founded the first formal order of nuns in three fifty-eight.” The Pope smiled and said, �śQuite right, my dear,” and Miss Bushnan said vaguely, �śI bought her the World’s Great Religions package about a year ago. I suppose that’s how she knew who you were.” She was thinking about Brad again, and if the Pope made any reply she failed to hear it. Brad a slave . . . � Then the door shut and Sal muttered, �śI just don’t trust that old man, he makes me feel creepy,” and Miss Bushnan knew he was gone. � She told Sal, �śHe’s harmless, and anyway he’s going to Rome now,” and only then, with the tension draining away, did she feel how great it had been. �śHarmless,” she said again. �śBring me another drink, please, Sal.” � Tuesday would be the day. The whole world would be watching, and everyone at the conference would be in red and green, but she would wear something blue and stand out. Something blue and her pearls. In her mind Brad would somehow be waiting behind her, naked to the waist, with his wrists in bronze manacles. �śI’ll have them made at Tiffany’s,” she said, speaking too softly for Sal, busy with the shaker in the kitchen, to hear. �śTiffany’s, but no gems or turquoise or that sort of junk.” � Just the heavy, solid bronze with perhaps a touch here and there of silver. Sal would make him keep them polished. � She could hear herself telling their friends, �śSal makes him keep them shined. I tell him if he doesn’t I’m going to send him back�"just kidding, of course.” �

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