“Has he told you everything?” asked the filthy woman. Her voice was clearly intended to be a whisper, but I’m sure she was overheard several rows of tables away on either side of us.
“There’s so much more I want you to see,” said il-Qurawi, even going so far as to grab my arm. That just made me determined to hear the woman out.
“I have not finished my meal, O fellah,” I said, somewhat irritably. I’d called him a peasant. I shouldn’t have, but it felt good. “What is your blessed name, O Lady?” I asked her.
She looked blank for a few seconds, then confused. Finally she said, “Marjory Mulcher. Yeah, that’s me now. Sometimes I’m Marjory Tiller, depending on the season and how badly they need me and how many people are willing to work with me.”
I nodded, figuring I understood what she meant. “Everything that passes in this world,” I said, “ — or any other world —” I interpolated, “is naught but the expression of the Will of God.”
Marjory’s eyes grew larger and she smiled. “I’m a Roman Catholic,” she said. “Lapsed, maybe, but what does that do to you, camel jockey?”
I couldn’t think of a safely irrelevant reply.
In her mind, the CRCorp probably had nothing to do with her present situation. Perhaps in her own mind she was on Mars. That may have been the great and ultimate victory of CRCorp.
“I asked you,” said Marjory with a frown, “are they showing you everything? Are they telling you everything?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “I just got here.”
Marjory moved down a few places and sat beside me, on the other side from the white-haired man. I looked around and saw that only she and I were still eating. Everyone else had disposed of his tray and was sitting, almost expectantly, in his molded plastic seat, politely and quietly.
The woman smelled terrible. She leaned toward me and whispered, “You know the corporation is just about ready to unleash a devastating CR. Something we won’t be able to manage at all. Death on every floor, I imagine. And then, when they’ve tested this horrible CR on us, may their religion be cursed, they’ll unleash it on you and what you casually prefer to call the rest of the world. Earth, I mean. I grew up on Earth, you know. Still have some relatives there.”
By the holy sacred beard of the Prophet, may the blessings of Allah be on him and peace, I’ve never felt so relieved as when she discovered a sudden interest in the gelatin salad. “Raisins. Rejoicing and celebrations,” she said to no one in particular. “Consensual raisins.”
I slowly closed my eyes and tightened my lips. My right hand dropped its piece of bread and raised up tiredly to cover my tightly shut eyelids, at the same time massaging my forehead. We didn’t have enough facilities for mentals and nutsos in the city; we just let the ones with the wealthier families shut ‘em away in places like Group 26 in the CRCorp building. Yaa Allah, you never knew when you were going to run into one of these bereft cookies.
Still with my eyes covered, I could feel the man with the close-cropped white hair lean toward me on the other side. I knew that son of a biscuit hadn’t liked me from the get-go. “Get Marjory to tell you all about her raisins sometime. It’s a fascinating story in its own right.”
“Be sure to,” I murmured. In the spring with the apricots, I would. I picked up the bread with my eating hand again and opened my eyes. Everyone within hollering range was staring at me with rapt attention. I don’t know why; I didn’t want to know why then, and I still don’t want to know why. I hoped it was just that I was an oddity, a welcome interruption in the daily routine, like a visit from one of Prince Shaykh Mahali’s wives or children.
I’d had enough to eat, and so I’d picked up the tray — I’m quick on the uptake, and I’d figured out the disposal drill from observation. It wasn’t that difficult to begin with, and, jeez, I’m a trained professional, mush hayk? Yeah, you right. I slid the tray into the proper slot in the proper machine. Then il-Qurawi, having nothing immediate to do, chose to be nowhere in sight. I slumped back down between Marjory and the old, white-haired man. Fortunately, Marjory was still enchanted by her gelatin salad — the al-Qaddani moddy, a Palestinian fictional hardboiled-detective piece of hardware I was wearing, let me have the impression that Marjory was like this at every meal, whatever was served — and the old gentleman gave me a disapproving look, stood up, and moved away, toward what real people did to compensate society for their daily sustenance. For a few moments I had utter peace and utter silence, but I did not expect them to last very long. I was correct as usual in this sort of discouraging speculation.
Almost directly across from me was a woman with extremely large breasts, which were trapped in an undergarment which must have been painfully confining for them. I really wasn’t interested enough to read if they were genuine — God-given — or not; she must’ve thought she had, you know, the most devastating figure on all of Mars, and of course we understand what we mean when we speak of Mars. She wore a long, flowing, print shift of a drabness that directed all one’s attention elsewhere and upwards; bare feet; and a live, medium-sized, suffering lizard on one shoulder that was there only to extort yet another sort of response from you. As if her grotesque mamelons weren’t enough.
Oh, you were supposed to say, you have a live, medium-sized lizard on your shoulder. Now, when someone has gone to that amount of labor to pry a reaction from me, my innate obstinacy sets in. I will not look more than two or three times at the tits, casually, as after the first encounter they don’t exist for me. I won’t even glance furtively at her various other vulgar accoutrements. I won’t remark at all on the lizard. The lizard and I will never have a relationship; the woman and I barely had one, and that only through courtesy.
She spoke in a voice intended to be heard by the nearby portion of mankind: “I think Marjory means well.” She looked around herself to find agreement, and there wasn’t a single person still in the refectory who would contradict her. I got the feeling that would be true whatever she said. “I know for a fact that Marjory never goes beyond the buildings of the Mars colony. She never sees Allah’s holy miracle of creation. Does it not say in the Book, the noble Qur’ân, ‘Frequently you see the ground dry and barren: but no sooner do We send down rain to moisten it than it begins to tremble and magnify, putting forth each and every kind of blossoming life. That is because Allah is Truth: He gives life to the dead and has power over all things.’ She sat back, evidently very self-satisfied. “That was from the surah called ‘Pilgrimage,’ in the holy Qur’ân.”
“May the Creator of heaven and earth bless this recitation of His holy words,” said one man softly.
“May Allah give His blessing,” said a woman quietly.
I had several things I might have mentioned; the first was that the imitation surface of Mars I’d crossed was not, in point of fact, covered with every variety of blooming plant. Yet maybe to some of these people that was worth reporting to the authorities. Before I could say anything, a young, sparsely bearded man sat beside me in the old, white-haired resident’s seat, and addressed the elderly woman. The young man said, “You know, Umm Sulaiman, that you shouldn’t hold up Marjory as a typical resident of the Mars colony.”
Umm Sulaiman frowned. “I have further scripture that I could recite which supports my words and actions.”
The young man shuddered. “No, my mother-in-law” — clearly an honorific and a title not to be taken seriously — “all is as Allah wills.” He turned to me and murmured, “I wish the both of them — the two old women, Marjory and Umm Sulaiman — would stop behaving in their ways. I admit it, I’m superstitious, and it frightens me.”
“Seems a shame to pay all this money to CRCorp just to be frightened.”
The young man looked to either side, then leaned even closer. “I’ve heard a story, O Sir,” he murmured. “Actually, I’ve heard several stories, some as wild as Marjory’s, some even crazier. But, by the beard of the Prophet-”