"Yes, Professor. We have to talk."
"Is it because of Beenie?"
She nodded again, then gestured for me to follow. We walked a long way across the lawn and down to a boathouse beside the lake. There was a pinewood bench in front of it, and we sat down.
"She thought it was best if I came first, because you and I have the most to talk about. The other things aren't as serious."
"Sometimes I dream of talking to the dead. Sometimes the dreams are very vivid."
She frowned. "This isn't a dream. I'm really here, and we have to talk, so please don't pinch yourself or jump up and down trying to wake up. It's real; I'm real. I am dead, but I'm here now."
"Why?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Because I hate you, and you must know that. It was your fault back then. Or a lot of it was. You were the straw that broke my back. You said my book was bad, and bingo, that did it."
"Oh Anette, I didn't –"
" Yes, you did! I wasn't dumb, you know. I knew what you were saying."
"Should I have lied? You said you wanted the truth."
"I did, but not one that would kill me. Your truth was like stabbing a knife into my fucking brain!
"I was so sure it was good. So sure you'd say, 'Annette, it's stunning! It's like nothing else." She slid closer down the bench, pointing furiously at me. "Do you remember what you did say? Huh? I do. You said, 'I think in certain places you've sat a little too close to the fires of your favorite writers. Sometimes you use their heat to keep your prose warm."' You pompous, smug asshole! It was my fire! I lit all the fires in that book –"
"Annette, that's enough."
Beenie's firm voice came from behind me, but before I turned, I saw the girl's fury sink back into her face like a fist she had to hide. She still hated me, but was more afraid of what would happen if she didn't do what she'd been told.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Hiya, Scott. I wasn't expecting you so soon. Go in the house, Annette. You can talk more to him later."
Like the hyperbolic young woman she was, or had been, she got up without deigning to look at me, tsk'd loudly, and stomped off. I looked at her shoes, and realized they were the same high riding boots she'd worn and had been so in fashion when I had known her. "I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack, Beenie."
"Don't worry – your heart's as strong as a horse's. What you should watch out for is that uric acid. Stay away from tomatoes, is my advice."
I took a deep breath and looked at her. "Who are you?"
"God."
"Oh."
She smiled and took my hand. "Uh-Oh City!"
Had it gotten colder, or had my soul's temperature dropped ten degrees since sitting on the bench? Beenie had a large stick in her hand and was snapping off little bits. That was the only sound around us except for the occasional faraway car driving into the Plum Hill turnoff. "Don't you want to ask any questions?"
I was trying to get calm. My eyes were closed. She nudged me and handed over a piece of stick. I looked. A perfectly carved head of me about three inches high. Perfect coloring, too – my gray hair, blue eyes. I dropped it and unconsciously wiped my hands on my pants.
"Come on, boy; lighten up! It's funny. Ask me some questions, and let's get going on this."
It was my turn for narrowed eyes. "How can you be God and have cancer?"
"Good shot, Professor. Now we're cooking! I guess I should begin from the beginning, huh? She was about to go on, when she saw something behind me and stopped. Standing up, she cupped both hands around her mouth and shouted, "You go back to the house, Annette! I'm not fooling, and I'm not telling you again!"
I didn't turn, because I had no desire whatsoever to see A. Taugwalder again anytime soon.
"That damned girl. I told her, you know? I told her she could have her say, but then she had to back off so I could explain things to you. But she's headstrong and so used to getting her way. Are you all right, Scott?"
"No."
"Too bad. Where was I? At the beginning O.K. I was born in McPherson, Kansas. My father owned a hardware store, and our whole family worked there. One day, when I was behind the counter, a man I'd never seen before came in and asked for a pair of pliers. We got to talking and he told me his name was Gilbert, Nolan Gilbert. I was fifteen years old. Do you know anything about the mystic Jewish?"
"You mean Jewish mystics?"
"Right, that's them."
"Well, something. I've read –"
"They came closest. Ever heard of the Lamed Wufniks?''
"Beenie, what are you talking about?"
"These mystics believed in Lamed Wufniks. Thirty-six righteous men whose job is to justify the world to God. Or, looking at it another way, they're supposed to explain to God why man has a right to be here. Now, if one of these thirty-six ever discovered who he was, he immediately died, and somebody else, in another part of the world, took his place. Because, you see, even though they don't know it, they're the secret pillars of the universe. Saviors. Without them doing this justifying God would get rid of the whole bunch of mankind."
"Wup –"
"Wuf. Lamed Wufniks. Which is not so far from wrong. The big difference is, we don't do any justifying, because we are God."
"You're a 'Wufnik'?"
"No, I'm God. Or one-thirty-sixth of Him. They got the number right."
A bird flew in over the water and out again. I looked at Beenie, the ground, Beenie, the ground. What was I supposed to say?
"You don't believe me. And what about Annette? You need more miracles? I can give them if it'll help, but I thought she'd be enough. You're a tough audience, Professor Silver. Here." With her left hand, she pulled a silver dollar from behind my neck. With her right, she held something up. In her palm was one of those plastic, dome-shaped doodads you shake up, and fake snow flutters and falls over a scene like Paris or the North Pole. Only, in this one, real life tiny people were sitting on a bench, moving –and after staring I realized it was us in there, doing what we out here were doing move for move. "For God's sake, stop it!"
"O.K." She closed her hand around the snowy dome, and it disappeared. I half-stood. "What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?' She pulled me down again. "Just sit back and listen to the rest of my story. I was fifteen when I met Nolan Gilbert. He was about seventy. First he told me, then showed me, who he was, like I'm doing with you. Then he said he was dying and I was supposed to replace him.
"That's how it works, see. You live your life normally, even after you know. But like everybody else – and you are like everybody else, Scott; you got to know that. Sooner or later, our time to die comes, too. A normal lifetime – sixty or seventy years, usually. But the difference is, when our time comes, we have to find a replacement. Some are luckier than others – they know who it is that they want years before they die. Like me with you."
"You knew me before?"
"Sure. I've been cleaning your room at the university for years, but you never really saw me, because I worked night shift. Sometimes we'd pass each other in the hall if you worked late."
"You're telling me God is man?"
"No, no, no! I am not saying that at all. Man has God in him, but he's not God! No, the absolute simplest way to put it is this: man is man, but there are thirty-six chosen men who, together, are God. That's why normal people feel close to Him – because He's them in many ways. Nolan told me about the Greeks. You know about that. They believed there were lots of gods, which is kind of right, and that they all had human feelings. They were interested in sex, got angry, and did unfair things, stuff like that. So the Greeks were close, too, in guessing right, but they also thought gods lived up on special mountains away from the rest of the world. Wrong. We're here – just all over the place, and not looking like people'd expect, you know? I'm one, and I'm sure not impressive, huh.? But I'm only a thirty-sixth of the big puzzle. Fit me together with the other parts, and you've got ONE IMPRESSIVE GOD , all right!