Death was hovering about in the shadows, glancing meaningfully at his watches.
"That's it, then, is it?" Jillian Burnes seemed a bit crestfallen. "You've come to warn us that the world has every chance of ending. And you offer us no chance to repent, to change, to make our peace?" She tightened her lips. God could tell how she felt.
"I didn't offer," God reminded her. "Somebody asked. Look, I am not the Prince of Lies. I am the Lord of Truth. Not a very successful God of Love, though I must say I tried. More a God of, well, profit, I suppose. I mean everyone complains that these great religious books written in my name are incoherent, so they blame the writers. Never occurs to them that I might not be entirely coherent myself. On account of being-well, the supreme being. If I am existence, parts of existence are incoherent. Or, at least, apparently incoherent. . ." He realized he'd lost us.
"So there's no chance for redemption?" said Engelbrecht, looking about him. "For, say, the bohemian sporting fancy?"
"I didn't say that. Who knows what I'll feel like next week? But I'll always get on famously with cats. Can't resist the little beggars. There are some humans who are absolutely satisfied with the status quo in Heaven. But all cats get a kick out of the whole thing. The humans, on the quiet, are often only there to look after the cats."
"And the rest?"
"I don't follow you," said God. "Well, of course, being omniscient, I could follow you. What I should have said was 'I'm not following you.' "
"The rest of the people. What happens to them. The discards. The souls who don't make it through the pearly gates, as it were?" Engelbrecht seemed to be showing unusual concern for others.
"Recycled," said God. "You know-thrown back in the pot-what do the Celts call it?-the Mother Sea? After all, they're indistinguishable in life, especially the politicians. They probably hardly notice the change."
"Is that the only people who get to stay?" asked the Dwarf. "Rich people?"
"Oh, no," said God. "Though the others do tend to be funny. Wits and comics mostly. I love Benny Hill, don't you? He's often seated on my right side, you might say. You need a lot of cheering up in my job."
Jillian Burnes was becoming sympathetic. She loved to mother power. "I always thought you were a matron. I felt ashamed of you. It's such a relief to find out you're male." There was a sort of honeyed criticism in her voice, an almost flirtatious quality.
"Not strictly speaking male," said God, "being divine, sublime, and, ha, ha, all things, including woman, the eternal mime."
"Well, you sound very masculine," she said. "White and privileged."
"Absolutely!" God reassured her. "I approve of your method. That's exactly who I am and that's who I like to spend my time with, if I have to spend it with human beings at all."
Engelbrecht had bared his teeth. He was a terrier. "So can I get in, is 'what I suppose I'm asking?"
"Of course you can."
"Though I'm not Jewish."
"You don't have to be Jewish. I can't stress this too often. Think about it. I haven't actually favored the main mass of Jews lately, have I? I mean, take the twentieth century alone. I'm not talking about dress codes and tribal loyalties."
God spread his legs a little wide and hefted his gown to let the glow get to his divine buttocks. If we had not known it to be a noise from the fire, we might have thought he farted softly. He sighed. "When I first got into this calling there were all kinds of other deities about, many of mem far superior to me in almost every way. More attractive. More eloquent. More easygoing. Elegant powers of creativity. Even the Celts and the Norse gods had a bit of style. But I had ambition. Bit by bit I took over the trade until, bingo, one day there was only me. I am, after all, the living symbol of corporate aggression, tolerating no competition and favoring only my own family and its clients. What do you want me to do? Identify with some bloody oik of an East Timorese who can hardly tell the difference between himself and a tree? Sierra Leone? Listen, you get yourselves into these messes, you get yourselves out."
"Well it's a good world for overpaid CEOs . . . ," mused Lizard.
"In this world and the next," confirmed God. "And it's a good world for overpaid comedians, too, for that matter."
"So Ben Elton and Woody Allen . . ."
God raised an omnipotent hand. "I said comedians."
"Um." Engelbrecht was having difficulties phrasing something. 'Um ..." He was aware of Death hovering around and ticking like a showcase full of Timexes. "What about it?"
"What?"
"You know," murmured Engelbrecht, deeply embarrassed by now, "the meaning of existence? The point."
"Point?" God frowned. "I don't follow."
"Well you've issued a few predictions in your time. . . ."
Death was clearing his throat. "Just to remind you about that policy subcommittee," he murmured. "I think we told them half-eight."
God seemed mystified for a moment. Then he began to straighten up. Oh, yes. Important committee. Might be some good news for you. Hush, hush. Can't say any more."
Lizard was now almost falling over himself to get his questions in. "Did you have anything to do with global warming?"
Death uttered a cold sigh. He almost put the fire out. We all glared at him, but he was unrepentant. God remained tolerant of a question he might have heard a thousand times at least. He spread his hands. "Look. I plant a planet with sustainable wealth, OK? Nobody tells you to breed like rabbits and gobble it all up at once."
"Well, actually, you did encourage us to breed like rabbits," Jillian Burnes murmured reasonably.
"Fair enough," said God. "I have to agree corporate expansion depends on a perpetually growing population. We found that out. Demographics are the friend of business, right?"
"Well, up to a point, I should have thought," said Lizard, aware that God had already as good as told him a line had been drawn under the whole project. "I mean it's a finite planet and we're getting close to exhausting it."
"That's right." God glanced at the soft Dali watches over the bar, then darted an inquiry at Death. "So?"
"So how can we stop the world from ending?" asked Englebrecht.
"Well," said God, genuinely embarrassed, "you can't."