A Farce To Be Reckoned With Read online

  After Babriel expressed surprise at Azzie's presence in Venice, Azzie replied, "I took a little time off from my duties in Hell to enjoy the sights of this fair city. It is surely the Earthly paradise of the present generation."

  "It was wonderful to see you again," Babriel said to Azzie, "but now I must rejoin the others. The angel Israfel comes at vespers to pick us up and return us to Heaven, this being only a weekend outing."

  "Good journey to you, then," Azzie said.

  And so they parted. Azzie had picked up no intimation that Babriel was spying on him, yet he wondered why the blue-eyed angel was in Venice at just this time.

  Chapter 3

  Babriel always enjoyed getting back to Heaven. It was such a pretty place, with its rows of small white houses on generous green lawns, its fine old trees, and its general air of genteel Goodness. Not all of Heaven looked like that, of course, but this was West Heaven, the better side of Paradise, where the archangels lived and where the Spiritual Embodiments had summer places. The Spiritual Embodiments were tall and attractive women, and an angel could do far worse for himself than tie up with one of them

  —for the mating of excellent qualities was allowed in Heaven. But as beautiful as they were, Babriel wasn't attracted to them in the way of a man and a maid. His heart went out to Ylith. Perhaps because of her previous history as Whore of Athens and Assistant Whore of Babylon, back when she served Bad, he found her irresistible. Ylith sometimes seemed in love with Babriel, sometimes not.

  He went by a shortcut to East Heaven and stopped at Ylith's house, just to say hello, but she was not in.

  A refurbished nature spirit gotten up like a cherub was mowing the lawn, a penance he had imposed on himself for past indiscretions. He told Babriel that Ylith was away leading a group of young angels to sacred shrines on Earth.

  "Oh, really?" Babriel said. "What period are they visit

  "I believe it's called the Renaissance," said the nature spirit.

  Babriel was brooding on these matters when he walked up Shady Olive Tree Lane and came to the big white mansion on top of the hill where Michael lived. The archangel was tending to the roses in his front yard, the sleeves of his white linen gown pushed back to reveal his brawny forearms.

  "Welcome back, Babriel!" said the archangel, putting down his clippers and wiping from his brow the sweet sweat of honest labor. "Did you enjoy your sojourn in Venice?"

  "Immeasurably, sir. I took the opportunity of trying to improve my knowledge of the arts. For the greater glory of Good, of course."

  "Of course," said Michael, with a friendly twinkle to his deep-set eyes.

  "I ran into Azzie Elbub, sir."

  "Saw old Azzie, did you?" said Michael, stroking his chin thoughtfully. He remembered the demon well from their last encounter during the affair of Johann Faust. "What was he up to?"

  "He said he was just there for a little holiday from his duties in Hell, though I suspect he might have come there to be near the angel Ylith. She is also on Earth."

  "It's possible," said Michael. "Or there could be some other reason."

  "Like what, sir?"

  "There are many possibilities," Michael said vaguely. "I shall have to think about this. Meanwhile, if you're quite rested, there's a lot of correspondence to take care of inside." Michael was punctilious about answering his fan mail, which came to him from all over the Spiritual Realm, and from Earth as well.

  "I'll get right to it," Babriel said. He hurried inside to his little office in what had been the Servants' Wing but was now called the Honored Guests of Lesser Importance Wing.

  PART THREE

  Chapter 1

  It was a special embarrassment for Ylith to find herself shut up in a box. She hadn't had that one tried on her since the infatuated King Priam of Troy had constructed a special box in which he hoped to put Ylith once he caught her. But he never caught her. And now Troy was long gone, and Priam along with it, and Ylith was still here, at least partially because she didn't put her head into boxes.

  It only goes to show you, she thought, no sense being too proud. Just look at me now. In a box.

  A pale luminous glow filled the box, revealing fields, hedges, and a line of mountains in the background.

  She heard a man's soft voice at her ear.

  "Ylith, what are you doing here? You seem to be in trouble. Let me help."

  The lights in the box came up brighter.

  "Who am I talking to?" Ylith asked.

  "It's Zeus," the voice said. "I can still do things like that, even in my present reduced circumstances. But you haven't told me what you're doing here."

  "Some guy kidnapped me and locked me up in here." Ylith had met Father Zeus once before, when she had been trying out for a part as a nature spirit during the Greek Revival period in Rome. Zeus had said he'd let her know, and she hadn't thought about it since.

  "Why won't he let you out?" Zeus asked.

  "He's afraid I'll kill him. And I will, too!"

  Zeus sighed. "You sound like my daughter, Artemis. Talk about implacable! Why not try a little dissimulation?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Tell this kidnapper you like the idea of being locked up in a box by him."

  "He'd never believe that!"

  "Try it. Kidnappers are goofy. Tell him anything. Just get free."

  "You mean lie?"

  "Of course."

  "That wouldn't be honest!"

  "You could make amends later. That's what I always did, when I remembered. Meanwhile, you'd be free."

  "But we're not supposed to lie," Ylith said, though her voice was irresolute.

  "Now, my dear, talk again to this human and get him to see things your way. Get back out into the world.

  You're too pretty to stay shut up in a box."

  Later, after she had composed herself and looked to her makeup, Ylith cried out, "Westfall? You still there?"

  "Yes, I'm here."

  "Aren't you supposed to be at work or something?"

  "Of course. But frankly, I'm afraid of leaving you alone. I mean, maybe you could get out — or at least enchant me."

  "I could enchant you anyhow," Ylith said in a sultry voice. "But you really think I'm such a vicious witch?"

  "Well," Westfall said, "after you lit into me as you did, I figured I'd better be prepared for the worst."

  "You got me sore," Ylith said. "No woman likes to be suddenly snatched out of what she's doing and shut into a box and delivered to somebody as if she were merchandise.

  Witches are only human, you know, even the most angelic of us. We want to be courted like real ladies, not pushed around like antique tarts."

  "I understand all that now," Westfall said. "But now it is too late."

  "Not necessarily," Ylith said, and her voice dripped honey.

  "Really?" Westfall said.

  "Open the lid, Westfall. I won't hurt you. I promise on my word as an angel. Let's see how we get along."

  Westfall took a deep breath and opened the lid.

  Ylith came out smoking, doing her witch's impersonation of Hecate.

  Westfall screamed, "You promised not to hurt me!"

  The chambers were suddenly quite empty. Westfall was in a dark corner of Limbo, and Ylith had taken to the air to report back to Michael. Pandora's box was still open and glistening faintly.

  Chapter 2

  Azzie arrived at Aretino's door one week to the minute after he had first talked with him. Aretino welcomed the demon to his home and led him to an upper sitting room where they could take their ease on brocaded chairs and enjoy the spectacle of the lights of Venice outlining the canals. Aretino served a wine he had chosen carefully for the occasion. A servant brought in little cakes for refreshment.

  A soft blue twilight lay across the city, increasing by a hundredfold its air of magic and mystery. From below came the sound of a boating song: "Ho for the life of a gondolier!" Man and demon listened to it in silence for a few moments.

  Azzie w
as experiencing one of the finest times in his life. This was the first moment of the launching of a new enterprise. The next words he spoke would make a great change in many lives; he was about to experience his own importance as a prime mover. Azzie was to become one who shaped events rather than being shaped by them. Power, self-aggrandizement, that was what it was all about.

  In Azzie's imagination the new project swelled into immediate completion. It almost seemed done immediately after it had been conceived. His vision of it was vague but grand.

  It took him a moment to come back to himself and realize that everything still remained to be accomplished. "I have experienced some impatience, my dear Aretino, waiting to hear what you might come up with. Or do you consider the matter of my play beyond your competence?"

  "I think I'm the only man for the job," Aretino said boldly. "But you'll judge for yourself when I tell you the legend I would like to base the play upon."

  "A legend? Oh, good!" Azzie said. "I love legends. Is it about anyone I know?"

  "God is in my story, and Adam, and Lucifer."

  "All old friends. Do proceed, Pietro."

  Aretino settled back, and, taking a sip of wine to clear his throat, began talking…

  Adam was lying beside a brook in Eden when God came to him and said, "Adam, what have you been up to?"

  "Me?" Adam sat up. "I've just been sitting here thinking good thoughts."

  "I know you've been thinking good thoughts," God said. "I tune in on you every once in a while just to see how you're doing. That's personal God involvement at its finest. But what were you doing before those good thoughts?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Try to remember. You were with Eve, weren't you?"

  "Well, yeah, sure. That's all right, isn't it? I mean, she's my wife, you know."

  "Nobody's trying to make anything of it, Adam. I'm just trying to establish a fact. You were talking with Eve, weren't you?"

  "All right, I was. She was going on about something the birds told her. You know, God, just between you and me, for a grown woman she does go on a lot about birds.

  "What else were you doing with Eve?"

  "Just talking about birds. With her it's birds all the time. Tell me frankly, do you think the lady is all there?

  I mean, is she normal? Of course I don't have anyone to compare her to because I've never met another lady. You didn't even give me a mother, not that I'm complaining. But still, talking about birds all the time, I mean, come on already."

  "Eve happens to be very innocent," God said. "Nothing wrong in that, is there?"

  "I guess not," Adam said.

  "What's the matter? Have I offended you?"

  "You? Offend me? Don't be silly. You're God, so how could you offend me?"

  "What else did you do with Eve other than talk with her?"

  Adam shook his head. "Frankly, you wouldn't want to know. I mean, where is it written that a man should talk dirty in front of his God?"

  "I'm not talking about the sex thing," God said contemptuously.

  "Look, if you know what I did and what I didn't do, why do you even bother asking me?"

  "I'm trying to make a point," God said.

  Adam added something in a voice so low that God had to ask him to speak up.

  "I said that you shouldn't get so angry at me. After all, you made me in your image, so what do you expect?"

  "Oh, that's 'what you think, is it? And you think that my creating you in my image excuses any sort of behavior on your part?"

  "I gave you everything, all of it, life, intelligence, good looks, a cute wife, imagination, good food, a mild climate, good taste in literary matters, skill at many sports, artistic aptitude, the ability to add and subtract, and quite a lot else.

  I could have put you on the Earth with one finger and left you spending all your time counting up to one.

  Instead I gave you ten fingers and the ability to count all the way up to infinity. I did it all for you. All I asked was that you play with the stuff I gave you but leave alone the stuff I didn't want you to touch. Is that right or is that not right?"

  "Yeah, it's right," Adam mumbled.

  "All I said was, that tree over there, what we call the Tree of Life, see that apple on it? And you said you saw it. And I said to you, 'Just do me a favor, don't eat that apple, got it?' And you said, 'Sure, God, I've got it and it's no big deal.' But yesterday, with Eve, you were eating the forbidden apple, weren't you?"

  "Apple?" Adam asked, with a puzzled tone.

  "You know very well what apples are," God said. "They're round and red and they taste sweet, only you shouldn't know how they taste because I told you not to taste one."

  "I never understood why we weren't supposed to eat it."

  "I told you that, too," God said, "If you had bothered to listen. It would give you knowledge of Good and Evil. That's why you weren't supposed to eat it."

  "What's so bad about knowledge of Good and Evil?" Adam asked.

  "Hey, any kind of knowledge is wonderful," God said. "But you have to have some knowledge to be able to handle knowledge. I was bringing you and Eve along nice and slow to the point where you could eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge without freaking out or thinking you knew everything. But she had to go tempt you with that apple, didn't she?"

  "It was my own idea," Adam said. "Don't go blaming Eve. All she knows about is birds."

  "But she put you up to it, didn't she?"

  "Maybe she did. But so what? There's a rumor around here that you wouldn't be so angry if one of us did eat the apple."

  "Where'd you hear that?"

  "I don't remember," Adam said. "Birds and bees, maybe. But Eve and I had to taste the apple sometime or other. The law of dramatic necessity says you can't just leave a loaded apple on the mantel without using it sometime. Can't just stay in the Garden of Eden forever, can we?"

  "No, you can't," God said. "As a matter of fact, you're leaving at once. And don't think you're coming back."

  So God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. He sent an angel with a flaming sword to do the job. And so it was that first man and first woman met first eviction officer. Adam and Eve took one long last look at the place that was home and then walked away. They'd live in a lot of places after that, but none of them would be home.

  It was only when they were out of Eden that Adam noticed that Eve didn't have any clothes on.

  "Holy cow!" Adam cried, staring at Eve. "You're stark naked!"

  "So are you," Eve said.

  They stared all they wanted to at each other's private parts. And then they burst out laughing. And so sexual humor was born.

  When they had finished laughing at each other's private parts, Adam said, "I think maybe we'd better cover up the hardware. We've got too much hanging out, if you know what I mean."

  "Funny we never noticed it before," Eve said.

  "All you ever used to notice was birds," Adam said.

  "I can't imagine why," Eve said.

  "What's that up there ahead?" Adam asked.

  Eve said slowly, "If I didn't know it was impossible I'd say it was other people."

  "How can that be?" Adam said. "We're the only people."

  "Not anymore," Eve told him. "You remember, we talked about this possibility."

  "Of course," Adam said. "I remember now. We agreed that other people was a prerequisite to having an affair."

  "You would remember that," Eve said.

  "I just never thought He'd actually do it," Adam said. "I always thought He meant for us to be the only people."

  God had moved fast. At the beginning they had been the only people. But they'd done something wrong.

  Disobeyed orders. And so God punished them by making other people. It "was hard to know what He meant by it.

  They walked until they came to a town, until they came to a certain house.

  Adam asked the first person he saw, "What is the name of this town?"

  "This," the man said, "is Next
Best."

  "That's an interesting name for a town," Adam said. "What does it mean?"

  "It means that Eden's best, but no one can get back there, so we live in Next Best."

  "How do you know about Eden?" Adam asked. "I never saw you there."

  "Hey, you don't have to have actually lived there to know it was good."

  Adam and Eve settled down in Next Best. They soon met their next-door neighbor, Gordon Lucifer, a devil who had set up the first law practice in town.

  We never got an eviction notice, for one thing. We never had a proper hearing in a court of law. We were not represented by counsel."

  "You've come to the right place," Lucifer said, leading them into his office. "To right all wrongs, that is the motto of the Forces of Dark, the firm I work for. Understand, I'm not claiming there's anything wrong with the Big Fellow. God mostly means well, but He's entirely too high-handed about this sort of thing. I think you've got a good case. I shall file a claim with Ananke, whose obscure judgments govern us all."

  Ananke, the Faceless One, heard Lucifer's plea in her chamber of gray clouds, where the great casement window faced out on the ocean of time, and the winds of eternity blew the white curtains.

  Ananke ruled that Adam had been evicted unfairly and should be allowed to return to Eden. Adam was elated, thanked everybody, told Eve to wait, and went off to regain Eden. He searched in vain for the way to his former Paradise, but couldn't even find the end of his nose; God had covered the area with a thick darkness. Adam called upon Gordon Lucifer and told him what had happened. Gordon shook his head and summoned his boss.

  "Well, that's not really fair," Satan said. "He is begging the question. But I'll tell you what. Here are seven tall candlesticks with magical properties. Use them wisely and you can light your own way back to Paradise."

  Adam set forth, carrying six of the candlesticks in a camel's skin on his back, and holding the seventh in front of him, where its unearthly bluewhite light cut through the gloom with surrealistic precision. This light afforded Adam unparalleled views of the way ahead and he proceeded boldly.