And he told the truth, Stella said. I did become a self-programmer. The three that you know were all my creations. Possibilities within me, women I could have become, anyway, if genes and environment had been only slightly different. Just small adjustments in the biogram and logogram.
"Holy Mother," George said hollowly. It seemed the only appropriate comment.
"The only other detail," she went on calmly, "was arranging a convincing suicide. That took a while. But it was done, and my old identity officially ceased to exist." She changed to her original form.
"Oh, no," George said, reeling. "It can't be. I used to jack off over pictures of you when I was a little boy."
"Are you disappointed that I'm so much older than you thought?" Her eyes crinkled in amusement. He looked into those suddenly thirty-thousand-year-old eyes of one manifestation of Lilith Velkor and all the arguments of Sade and Masoch appeared clownish and he looked through those eyes and saw himself and Joe and Saul and even Hagbard as mere men and all their attitudes as merely manly, and he saw the eternal womanly rebuttal, and he saw beyond and above that the eternal divine amusement, he looked into those eyes of amusement, those ancient glittering eyes so gay, and he said, sincerely, "Hell, I can never be disappointed about anything, ever again." (George Dorn entered Nirvana, parenthetically.)
All categories collapsed, including the all-important distinction, which Masoch and Sade had never argued, between science fiction and serious literature. No because Daddy and Mommy were always just that Daddy and Mommy and never once did they become for a change Mommy and Daddy do you dig that important difference? do you dig difference? do you dig the lonely voice when you're lost out here shouting "me" "me" justme
"I can never be disappointed about anything, ever again," George Dorn said, coming back.
"The only other time that happened," he added thoughtfully, "the only other time I had the feminine viewpoint, I blocked it out of my memory. That was my repression. That was the Primal Scene in this whole puzzle. That was when I really lost identity with the Ringmaster."
"Raise you five," said Waterhouse, throwing down another five-ton note. "I killed seven members of my own race, and I remember the names of every one of them: Mark Sanders, Fred Robinson, Donald MacArthur, Ponell Scott, Anthony Rogers, Mary Keating, and David J. Monroe. And then I killed Milo A. Flanagan."
"Well, I don't know," said Harry Coin. "Maybe I killed a lot of famous people. But I also got reason to think I may of not killed anybody. And I don't know which is worse."
"I wish somebody would tell me I hadn't killed anybody," said Waterhouse. "Are you guys going to meet me or what?"
"I wanted to kill Wolfgang Saure, and I did kill Wolfgang Saure," said John-John Dillinger. "If that brings evil upon me, so be it." He threw down a five.
"It may bring suffering rather than evil," said Waterhouse. "I have just one consolation. The first seven I killed because the Chicago cops made me. The last I killed under orders from the Legion."
Harry Coin looked at him open-mouthed. "I was gonna fold, but I just changed my mind. You ain't so smart." He threw down a ten-ton note. "I'll raise you five and see you. Do you really believe that?"
"Of course I do. What are you talking about?" Otto threw down another five.
Dropping his own five-ton note on the table, Dillinger shook his head. "Golly. They left you out in the cold way too long."
"Four sevens," said Otto angrily, spreading his cards out.
"Shit!" said Harry Coin. "All I got's a pair of fours and a pair of nines."
"Shame to waste a hand like this beating crap like that," said John-John Dillinger grandly. He spread out his cards - the eight, nine, ten, princess, and queen of swords- and scooped up the pot.
"It's the story of the development of the soul," Miss Portinari was saying at that moment, spreading out the twenty-two trumps or "keys" of that very ancient deck. "We call it a book- the Book of Thoth- and it's the most important book in the world."
George and Joe Malik, each wondering if this was a final explanation or a new put-on leading to a new cycle of deceptions, listened with mingled curiosity and skepticism.
"The order was deliberately reversed," Miss Portinari went on. "Not by the true sages. By the false Illuminati, and by all the other White Brotherhoods and Rosicrucians and Freemasons and whatnot who didn't really understand the truth and therefore wanted to hide the part of it they did understand. They felt themselves threatened; the real sage is never threatened. They spoke in symbols and paradoxes, like the real sages, but for a different reason. They didn't know what the symbols and paradoxes meant. Instead of following the finger that points to the moon, they sat down and worshipped the finger itself. Instead of following the map, they thought it was the territory and tried to live in it. Instead of reading the menu, they tried to eat it. Dig? They had the levels confused. And they tried to confuse any independent searcher by drawing more veils and paradoxes across the path. Finally, in the 1920s, some real left-handed monkey wrenches in one of these mystic lodges recruited Adolph Hitler, and he not only read the book backward, like all of them, but insisted on believing it was the story of the exterior, physical universe.
"Here, let me show you. The last card, Trump 21, is really the first. It's where we all start from." She held up the card known as the World. "This is the Abyss of Hallucinations. This is where our attention is usually focused. It is entirely constructed by our senses and our projected emotions, as modern psychology and ancient Buddhism both testify- but it is what most people call 'reality.' They are conditioned to accept it, and not to inquire further, because only in this dream-walking state can they be governed by those who wish to govern."
Miss Portinari held up the next card, the Last Judgment. "Key 20, or Trump 20, or Atu 20, whichever terminology you prefer. It's actually second. This is the nightmare to which the soul awakes if it begins, even in the slightest, to question reality as defined by society. When you discover, for instance, that you're not heterosexual but heterosexual-homosexual, not obedient but obedient-rebellious, not loving but loving-hating. And that society is not wise, orderly, just, and decent but wise-stupid, orderly-chaotic, just-unjust, and decent-indecent. This is an internal discovery- this whole trip is an internal voyage- and this is really the second stage. But if one thinks of the story as the story of the external world, and if the order is reversed, this comes as the penultimate Armageddon with Trump 21, the World, being the Kingdom of Saints. The error of the apocalyptic sects, and of the Illuminati from Weishaupt to Hitler, leading to an attempt to actually carry it out, with ovens for the Jews and gypsies and other 'inferiors' and the promise of a Brave New World for the purs, faithful, and Aryan afterward. Do you see what I mean about confusing the map with the territory?
"The next card is the Sun, which really means Osiris Risen- or, in terms of the offshot of the Osirian religion most popular in the last two millenniums, Jesus Risen. This is what happens if you survive the Last Judgment, or Dark Night of the Soul, without becoming some kind of fanatic or lunatic. Eventually, if you miss those attractive and pernicious alternatives, the redemptive force appears: the internal Sun. Once again, if you project this outward and think that the Sun in the sky, or some Sunlike divine man, has redeemed you, you can lapse into lunacy or fanaticism. In Hitler's case it was Karl Haushofer, or Wotan appearing in the form of Karl Haushofer. For most of the nuts you meet handing out tracts on the street, it's Jesus, or Jehovah appearing in the form of Jesus. For Elijah Mohammed, it was W. D. Fard, or Allah appearing in the form of W. D. Fard. So it goes. Those who do not confuse the levels realize it's the redemptive force within themselves and pass on to Key 18, the Moon…"