Cofflin grinned. They were all off balance psychologically, with a few exceptions. Martha Stoddard seemed to be one of them.
Pastor Deubel was winding up: "All this I have said to you before, my brothers and sisters. Today we must ask a new question. If science cannot explain this thing that has happened to us, and if some great purpose is here, what is that purpose?"
He wheeled and pointed out into the crowd. "What is the purpose for which this miracle-for it can be nothing else-has been accomplished?"
Cries of God! and Jesus loves us! punctuated his gesture. He raised his hands.
"Why would God, a loving God, a God who watches as each sparrow falls, thrust the blameless into danger and hardship?"
"Oh, Lord have mercy, doesn't that man's church teach any theology at all?" Martha hissed through clenched teeth.
"We have been thrust into the past before Christ," Deubel shouted. "Christ's sacrifice is not yet made. Moses has yet to bring God's holy word down from Sinai to the Jews. We are lost in a world of pagans and devil-worshipers, cut off from the healing blood of the Lamb. To take the blood and wine now is blasphemy."
This time there were moans and cries of no! from the crowd. Many were weeping. Cofflin felt a touch of apprehension himself; he was a believing man, if not much of a churchgoer. Come on, now, he told himself, remembering something his own minister had said once. God's not in time. God's outside time, He's eternal.
"Some mighty power of the other world has done this thing. I tell you, there can be only one answer: Satan! And his purpose? Haven't we all thought how our presence here must change the history of humankind? Can there be a Herod, if history is changed? A Roman Empire? Can there be an Augustus who sends out a decree that all the world is to be taxed? A Pontius Pilate? Will there even be a House of David?
"What else can the Evil One intend than to frustrate God's plan by preventing the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ?"
This time the reaction from the crowd included screams of fear. Many fell to their knees and began to shout prayers.
"Well, that's original, at least," Cofflin said quietly. He moved forward half a step, so that the clergyman could see him. It cut through the exaltation on the man's face. The rest of the sermon was a call to pray for guidance.
"Man's dangerous, Jared," Martha said.
"Ayup. On't'other hand, I was a policeman, and now I'm head of state, God help me-but this isn't a police state. So long as the man does nothing but talk, I can't stop him."
"Later might be too late."
Cofflin took his bicycle by the handles, and they turned and walked toward Martha's house, not far from the Athenaeum with its white columns. The house she was using, rather; she'd moved into one of the fancy pensions on Broad Street, since the owners weren't there and neither were the guests booked for the summer. A number of teachers had followed her; one thing the Town Meeting had been firm about was that the schools had to continue, somehow, at least part of the week. She and they weren't the only ones that had switched dwellings. Some families were doubling up, and many single people were taking over the empty boardinghouses in groups. It saved on cooking and housework and made child care easier, and without television or radio or recorded music, or even electric light, most people found a whole house too cheerless for one person.
"No sense in allowing perfectly good broiled scrod to go to waste," Martha said practically. "Held off on it when I heard you had trouble with Deubel."
"Ayup," Cofflin said, and nodded greetings to several of the people passing by.
She pulled back a cover on the basket she was carrying. "Dandelion greens, chicory, and pigweed, with sliced raw Jerusalem artichokes. Salad."
Cofflin's mouth watered, and he swallowed. "Thoughtful of you, Martha," he said.
"Ought to get some use out of being a Girl Scout leader."
They walked up the porch, through the dining room, and out into the backyard. Several of the teachers were sitting around, fiddling with a whale-oil lamp. They'd found hundreds of the lamps, maybe more, in antique shops, in the hotels as ornamentals… most of them functional, with a little work. The whale oil was abundant now, since they were harvesting the whales for their meat more than anything else. More of the oil had started off the wood in the barbecue, but the coals were low and glowing now. A pot burbled on one corner of it, sending out a savory, almost nutty odor.
"Dulse," Martha said, jerking her head toward it and picking up a platter with two large breaded fish on it. She slipped them onto the grill. They began to sizzle immediately. Meanwhile she rinsed the wild greens from a bucket of water standing in the kitchen-the running water was on one hour a day-and dumped them into a bowl, adding something else from a Styrofoam cooler. "Sea grass," she added. "Ulva lactuca." She tossed them with a little oil and vinegar.
Both her own suggestions. Bless her, Cofflin thought. He'd never considered seaweed as anything but stuff that washed up on beaches and smelled, and him a fisherman and a fisherman's son.
"Well, make yourself useful, Jared," she said.
He flipped the fish, which were just firming up, and then slid them back onto the serving platter. They went into the dining room and sat; it was just about sundown, and someone had lit the lamp bracketed to the wall. It cast a puddle of yellow light around their table.
"Fine eating on these scrod," Jared observed after a moment. "Haven't been doing this well myself."
"Bachelor," Martha observed, serving the dulse.
There were some mussels cooked with it, in a thickened broth. Jared savored the green nutty taste of the cooked seaweed and the contrasting flavors of the wild herb salad. His forehead was sweating slightly, and not from the eating or the mild spring weather. Martha ate with the same spare economy she did most things; he was a bit surprised when she brought out a half-bottle of white wine and poured them both a glass.
"Ill wind that blows no good," he observed after a moment. "Been meeting people I wouldn't have, before the Event."
Martha nodded. "Think I can guess what you're leading up to, Jared," she said.
He paused with a forkful of fish on the way to his mouth. The sweat rose more heavily on his forehead. Christ, man, what sort of a fool are you? he thought. A high school graduate fool. Just because the world had turned upside down didn't mean everything was changed. If Martha Stoddard wanted someone, it would be someone from her own level.
"And I'm not saying no," she added.
"You're not?" An effort of will prevented his voice from turning into a squeak.
"Wouldn't have asked you over if I were," she said. "Or seen this much of you since the Event. I'm not a cruel woman by nature, though I can't abide fools. Which is why I'm still single, despite a few offers. There was a man in university, archaeologist, did some excellent work on Mogollon pots, but then he started to talk about football… Mind you, I'm not saying yes either."
An even greater effort of will prevented him from saying You're not? in idiotic counterpoint to his last contribution to the conversation.
"And the world was crowded enough as it was," Stoddard went on meditatively. "None of that applies now, of course… and I'd say you're not any kind of a fool, Jared. But we do have to find out how we'd suit, and that should take a while. Plus we're none of us ourselves, right now. Best not to be hasty."
"Bundling's a little out of style, even here," he said, feeling a laugh welling up. He let it out as a dry chuckle, and felt his shoulders relax. It seemed that some things went on despite glowing domes of light and journeys into the past. Even tentative middle-aged romance, apparently.