The Garden of Eden, page 16
“My problem,” Anne said, making a deprecating gesture that didn’t fool Davis for a second, “is that God comes off as terribly naive in that story. One is left with the impression that He was surprised that humans were attracted by the forbidden.”
“Sin does seem to tempt people,” Reverend Davis allowed, unwilling to address the question. He couldn’t help himself—his gaze momentarily went to his host, who was staring morosely at the liquid in the tumbler in his hands.
“Surely He knew that forbidding the fruit to man was an absolute guarantee that it would be eaten,” Anne stated, and jabbed the air with her fork. “As Mark Twain pointed out, the mistake was in forbidding the fruit. If He had forbidden the snake, they would have eaten that instead.”
“The apple makes it a better story,” Billy Joe noted, “with a certain Snow White flavor. Kids in Sunday school would gag over the snake, and the animal rights people would come unhinged.”
“You are so perceptive,” Anne murmured, smiling, then again took aim at Reverend Davis. “So we are left with two unpleasant alternatives: Either God is hopelessly naive, or the author of the book of Genesis horribly mutilated the revealed truth.”
Before Reverend Davis could decide which horn of this dilemma he liked the least, Anne rolled on. “If God is as naive as he is portrayed in Genesis, then man is just a crude, flawed experimental prototype, created so God could learn how to improve him in the next iteration. On the other hand, if the Garden of Eden story is mangled, we must reexamine the philosophical basis for the concept of sin. What if God intended for Adam and Eve to eat the fruit? Expected them to eat it? Wanted them to eat it?”
“That story forms the basis for the entire concept of original sin,” Matilda remarked, “and the traditional view of woman as temptress and man as morally weak when he surrenders to temptation.”
“We humans spend our lives apologizing for and confessing to being human,” Anne said to her, “and I am not sure that we should.”
As Reverend Davis cast about for a graceful way out of this conversation, Anne continued, quite innocently, “I am sure God is wiser than that quaint old tale would have us believe. I think He knew Adam and Eve would eat the fruit. And when they did, I doubt that He ejected them from the Garden of Eden—to do so would have been equivalent to punishing a child for eating candy that one left near his plate.”
“I have always been troubled by God’s sentence for Eve’s transgression,” Matilda said. “As her punishment, man should rule over her.”
“Obviously a translation or scrivener’s error,” Anne said firmly. “No man in history has been willing to accept responsibility for a woman’s conduct, not even Adam. When God questioned him about eating the forbidden fruit, he blamed his wife.”
“That was the only part of the story that struck me as probably true,” Matilda said. Billy Joe joined his two mothers in laughter.
When she and Anne were once again more or less under control, Matilda suggested, “Perhaps we are still living in the Garden. What do you think, Reverend Davis?”
Eufala rescued her husband, to his intense relief.
“We know Billy Joe has homework, Henry has several shut-ins he must visit this evening, we don’t want to intrude…” The Davises arose from the table and scurried for the living room to retrieve their wraps.
“Maybe He should have told them not to eat the snake,” Billy Joe mused, scratching his head.
“It was so lovely, Matilda,” Eufala called to the hostess, who was still extricating herself from the table. “Thank you.” Then they dashed for the door.
As Henry Davis piloted his car down the driveway, Anne and Matilda stood on the front porch waving good-bye. Anne looked quite stunning with the breeze whipping the filmy material of her peignoir.
Back inside, Hayden Elkins faced them. “You two should be ashamed. Questioning the basis of that old man’s faith—I find that offensive.”
“His faith is pretty shallowly rooted if our comments can shake it,” Anne retorted. “What I find offensive is the concept that men sin because they are weak and women sin because they are wicked.”
She turned and ascended the stairs.
Eufala Davis called the widow Wilfred the instant she got home.
“Twila, you should have seen her. To suffer as she is suffering and yet never turn a hair…to endure what she is enduring and be unable to express any of it for fear of coming apart—never in my life have I seen such grace! I tell you, Matilda Elkins is a saint. A saint!”
TEN
“Honey baby lamb chop, you know I love you, so why not do this little thing for me?”
“You know I can’t stand that creep.”
“Yeah, but—”
“He’ll put his hands on me. There’s no way to avoid that, Junior. He’ll grope me all over.”
“Diamond, baby, I know that Delmar is a jerk. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t be askin’. It’s because he is a jerk that we have to fix his wagon.”
“ ‘We’? As usual, you want help on a little project to improve the world.”
“Delmar Clay’s time has run out.”
“Arch Stehlik thought this up, didn’t he?”
Junior Grimes nodded.
“He’s been getting you into trouble all your life, Junior. He never gets caught and you always do.”
Junior didn’t want to talk about Arch this morning. “I need your help, Di.”
“Why me?”
“You’re the only gal with the moxie to pull this off. And the guy has the hots for you. You’ve told me that yourself.”
“He isn’t the only one. There’s a dirty old man who lives in Dismal Hollow who slobbers all over himself every time he sees me. Do you want me to encourage him?”
“Sweet thing, you know I don’t. But Delmar wants to get in your pants. That’s the hook. What do you want me to do? Advertise in the newspaper for women that Delmar Clay has the hots for?”
“Just what’s in this for me, Junior Grimes? Are you going to seriously discuss marriage if I do this for you?”
“It’s not for me. It’s for Billy Joe Elkins and Melanie Naroditsky and Arleigh Tate and everyone else who’s ever had a run-in with Delmar. Think of it as a civic duty.”
“You’re avoiding my question.”
“You know I want to marry you, Diamond, but I don’t have the money.”
“A marriage license only costs three dollars, Junior Grimes.”
“It’s all the other costs I’m thinkin’ about.”
“So we can never get married? Is that what you’re saying? We can never have a life together? Maybe you should get another girlfriend, one who wants to stay single her whole life. Or maybe you should get a real job that pays real wages.”
Junior had had enough discord for one day. It was almost as if he were already married. “I’ve got a real job,” he replied testily. “Now are you going to do this for me or not?”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“I’m not asking you to have sex with the guy. Just get naked for a few minutes. No one will ever see your face in the photos. Then you can slap him silly. Bobbittize him and mount it on a walnut plaque—I don’t care.”
“Maybe I’ll give him what he wants.”
Junior got up from the table in the back of the restaurant and stormed off through the kitchen toward the garage.
Diamond Ice sat drinking her coffee. Her real objection to this scheme, which she had stated and Junior had ignored, was that Arch Stehlik thought it up. It was sly and a little wicked, both Stehlik trademarks. Junior had not a trace of either characteristic in his makeup, which was his charm. He was a good, decent, honest man who always said exactly what he thought. Yet all Arch had to do was suggest something sneaky and Junior was ready to climb aboard to drive the train.
Oh, well. Perhaps it was better for everyone that Arch had taken cards in this game. This way Delmar Clay wouldn’t wind up in the hospital and Junior wouldn’t spend very many days in jail.
Diamond Ice finished her coffee and left two quarters on the table.
A wave of anxiety swept over Richard Hudson when he heard the car pull into his driveway. As the sound of slamming doors reached him in his study, he looked longingly at the pleasant sanctuary where he had done his writing for the last three years. Somehow he had this feeling that this place would never again be the same.
No! He would not permit his privacy to be invaded. Would…not…permit…
A loud knocking on the door. He moved slowly, reluctantly, in that direction.
Through the glass he saw Goofy and Crystal, and they were staring in. Crystal smiled broadly and waved.
With a nagging suspicion that he was sealing his own doom, Richard Hudson unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Crystal charged in. Goofy followed. Each of them was carrying a shopping bag. “I brought eighteen books,” Crystal announced, “which is all I had. I know you’ve written more of them. I want to get the other titles.”
“Most of them are out of print,” Hudson said listlessly, but Crystal wasn’t paying attention. She was looking around as if this were the lobby of the Waldorf or Elvis’ bedroom.
As Goofy dumped the books on his dining room table, Crystal Ice zeroed in on Richard Hudson. The dazzling smile, the perfect white teeth, the green eyes that took in every pore and pimple…he felt as if every spotlight on earth had hit him all at once and he had no place to hide. The lights were sizzling hot and he was perspiring.
She whipped a pen from somewhere and offered it to him. He took it reluctantly and faced the pile of books.
“Ooh, this is sooo exciting!” she declared.
He picked up the first book and turned to the title page. “To Crystal Ice, Best Wishes, Richard Hudson.”
She watched over his shoulder as he wrote, watched from a distance of two or three inches. He could smell her scent, feel her body heat on his shoulder, feel the fire.
When he finished the first volume, he picked up another.
Instinctively he moved away from her. She followed. “This is going to take a while,” he said. “Would you like some coffee? There’s some in the kitchen.”
“No, thanks.”
“Pour me a cup, will you, please?”
That did it. She dashed away. He dropped into a chair and scribbled frantically.
He should never have published a word under his own name. It never occurred to him way back when that someday a problem might arise. He supposed that he must have had an inkling when he created Prince Ziad, some nagging sense that something might be lurking out there in the darkness, so—thank God!—he had had the sense to publish Ziad under a pen name.
He was marveling at his prescience when Crystal returned with his coffee and set it carefully near his hand, as if she were serving at a White House dinner.
She settled in on the other side of the table and stared at him.
He did another three or four books, then said, “You’re making me nervous.”
She tittered. “I guess I’m making a fool of myself. I’m so excited! If you only knew how you have delighted me through the years with your books. And now, to see you in the flesh…it’s marvelous! I feel as if I know you better than any other man in the whole world.”
“You really don’t know me at all.”
“Oh, but I do! I know how your mind works, what you think. I know what you consider interesting, what you think droll, amusing, witty, sad, tragic, tender…I know you.”
He stopped writing and forced himself to meet her gaze. “You know what I’ve written. But you don’t know me. Open your eyes, Crystal. I’m a short, fat, ugly man who’s well into middle age and losing his hair.” He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the words. When he opened them she was right there, her eyes boring into his. He felt like a butterfly pinned to a board.
“When I was a boy I wanted to grow up to look like Gary Cooper, but it didn’t happen. I’ve always been short, fat and ugly. I’ll always be short, fat and ugly.”
Her gaze never wavered. “That doesn’t matter.”
“But it does,” he protested. “It matters to me. I have to live with it. And I have learned how. I write stories. This is my life.”
“I could live with it, too,” she said.
He gaped. Where had this conversation come from? Where was it going?
He attacked the remaining books in a flurry of scribbling, dropping the Best Wishes from the formula in order to finish faster.
He pushed the last book onto the pile and rose. “Come on, Goofy, let’s hit the dirt.”
He left her sitting there at the table with her books. He galloped out the door and loped across fifty furrows before he stopped, turned and looked back the way he had come.
“She likes you,” Goofy said when he caught up.
Richard Hudson could resist the pull of gravity no longer. He plopped heavily into the damp earth and sat staring at the house.
Crystal helped herself to the coffee that Richard hadn’t touched and wandered slowly through the little house, taking everything in. She looked at this, fingered that, examined each item with interest. In his study she looked at the computer, the black screen, touched the keyboard where his fingers created the magic that moved her.
Finally she stood in front of the bookshelves, which occupied two walls of the study. There were all the Richard Hudson books. She counted—thirty-two. One by one she took down those she had never seen before and examined each carefully, then replaced it on the shelf.
Intuitively Crystal Ice understood one of the basic truths of the creative process: Richard Hudson was all the characters he had created, the good, the bad, the heroes and villains, the monsters and the victims, all of them. They lived inside of him and he put them on the pages to populate the stories that he wanted to tell.
If they weren’t in him, if he couldn’t give them life, the stories would fail. But they were…and he could…he had…so his characters, these little creatures from the living mind of Richard Hudson, walked and talked and lived and loved. They lived real lives and died real deaths between the covers of his books.
His best books were The Voyagers and The Survivors, an epic saga in two volumes about mankind’s first attempt to colonize a planet of another star. Each ran to over three hundred thousand words.
She took the two thick volumes from the shelf and sat in the stuffed chair where he must sit, turned on the lamp and read snatches, refreshing her memory.
The Survivors was his masterpiece. The premise was that technology and civilization are inseparable. Mankind must have a critical mass of technological skills to sustain any particular level of civilization, and the ability to pass these skills to subsequent generations. If the skills could not be passed on, or if the number of people fell below the critical level, civilization would crumble. Human society would inevitably descend to a technological level that could be sustained, with an appropriate value system. In The Survivors the voyagers who had crossed the stupendous reaches of interstellar space had, in five generations, descended back into the age of unpolished stone. A scout ship that arrived from the mother planet two hundred years later found only a few scattered families of hunter-gatherers wearing skins, and no trace of the colonists.
The final twist—Crystal turned to the last chapter to read it again—was the most unexpected. The planet the survivors had colonized turned out to be Earth.
It was a dazzling twist, she thought. Very bold. If he fumbled the ending the whole novel would fail. But he didn’t fumble. He pulled it off.
Indisputably the man who created this work was brilliant. Perhaps a genius.
Reluctantly she returned the books to the shelf. She stood at the window and gazed at the two figures hunched in the dirt on the ridge. Goofy and Richard.
She had spent her life surrounded by the ordinary. Met ordinary people, faced ordinary problems, ate ordinary food, worried about and solved ordinary problems.
Richard Hudson was not ordinary. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
She wandered back through the house. There was another bookcase in the living room; she stopped to examine the books that it contained. She adjusted a light so that she could see better.
Funny, there were some Prince Ziad books here. Her sister Diamond loved the Prince Ziad tales. Crystal had looked at them one day when she had nothing else to do, but they bored her. Strange that Richard should have these third-rate hunk fantasies on his shelf. Rip Hays couldn’t hold a candle to Richard Hudson.
And here were some books in—what was that? Japanese. The covers were lurid versions of Prince Ziad. She opened one to the title page. Yes, this one was a Japanese translation of a Prince Ziad adventure. In fact, all the Japanese books on this shelf—there were a half dozen—were translations of Ziad.
And French translations, and Spanish, Italian, German…Chinese?
Why did Richard Hudson have all these foreign editions of Rip Hays’ books?
An idea flickered, then ignited. Could it be?
She strode back to the study. Richard and Goofy were still up there in the mud. She jerked open his desk drawers and began going through his files. Bank files, investments, letters from his publishers…Morton Sciata, literary agent…
She scanned one of the Sciata letters. The one she randomly selected was a letter about publishing Prince Ziad in Poland. She read no further.
She put the files away, closed the drawers, and went to the window.
Richard Hudson was Rip Hays! Well, it made sense. He had told her several times that Richard Hudson books didn’t sell. That certainly wasn’t news. Obtaining them was always difficult. Many bookstores didn’t even stock them and required you to place a special order.
Richard wrote Prince Ziad to make a living.
Crystal Ice smiled gently. Her genius had faced the wrath of the marketplace all these years alone, suffered for his art. Thinking how he must have writhed when the results of extraordinary effort were ignored by ordinary book buyers, she saw him in a whole new light.
