Brian Aldiss: Greybeard

“And become a — whatever you call your followers, and make my wife become one? Not likely! We—”

Jingadangelow raised his little bell and tinkled it.

Two old women doddered in, both dressed in a parody of a toga, one of them run to a gross corpulence and with protruding eyes which took in only the Master.

“Priestesses of the Second Generation,” Jingadangelow said, “tell me the objects of my coming.”

With a singsong delivery, in which the thinner woman led by about half a sentence, they replied, “You came to replace the God that has deserted us; you came to replace the men who have left us; you came to replace the children that were denied us.”

“There’s nothing physical in all this, you understand, Greybeard,” Jingadangelow said parenthetically.

“You bring us hope where we had only ashes; you bring us life where we had only sorrow; you bring us full wombs where we had only empty stomachs.”

“You’ll agree the prose, in its pseudo-biblical way, is pretty telling.”

“You make the unbelievers die from the land; you make the believers survive; and you will make the children of the believers into a Second Generation which shall re-furnish the earth with people.”

“Very good, priestesses. Your Master is pleased with you, and particularly with Sister Madge, who puts the thing over as if she believes what she’s saying. Now, girls, recite what you must do for all this to come to pass.”

Again the two women assumed the recitative. “We must put away all sin in ourselves; we must put away all sin in others; we must honour and cherish the Master.”

“That is what one may term the qualifying clause,” Jingadangelow said to Greybeard. “All right, priestesses, you may go now.”

They fell to holding his hand and patting his head, begging to be allowed to stay, and mouthing pieces of jargon to him.

“Confound it, girls, I’m in audience. Leave me alone!”

They fled from his righteous wrath, and he said irritably to Greybeard as he shrugged himself about in his chair to get comfortable again, “That’s the penalty with having disciples — they get above themselves. Chanting all this repetitive stuff seems to go to female heads. Jesus knew a thing or two when He chose an all-male team, but somehow I seem to get along better with women.”

Greybeard said, “You don’t appear totally submerged in your role, Jingadangelow.”

“The role of a prophet is always a bit wearing. How many years have I kept this up ? Centuries, and centuries to come yet! But I give ’em hope — that’s the great thing. Funny, eh, to give people something you don’t have yourself.”

A knock came at the door, and a tatterdemalion man lost in a grey jersey announced that all the Wittenham women were safely ashore and the boat was ready to move on.

“You and your party had better leave,” Jingadangelow told Greybeard.

It was then that Greybeard asked for a tow. Irritably, Jingadangelow said it should be done, if they could be all ready to sail almost at once. He would tow them as far as Hagbourne in exchange for a certain levy of work from Pitt, Charley, and Greybeard. After some consultation, they agreed to this, and put together their belongings; most of these were stowed in the dinghy or Pitt’s boat, while the rest came with them on to the steamer, where they were allotted an area of deck space. By the time they were under way, the mist had cleared. The day remained brooding and heavy.

Pitt and Charley became involved in a game of cards with two of the crew. Martha and Greybeard took a walk round the deck, which bore the scars of the seats on which holiday makers had once sat to view the old river. There were few people aboard: perhaps nine “priestesses” to minister to Jingadangelow’s wants, and a few crewmen. There was also a couple of idle gentlemen who lounged in the shade at the stern and did not speak. They were armed with revolvers, evidently to repel any attack that might be made on the boat, but Greybeard, disliking their looks, felt some relief that he had his rifle with him.

As they were passing the saloon, the room curtained off for Jingadangelow’s use, its door opened, and the Master himself looked out. He greeted Martha ostentatiously.

“Even a god needs a bit of fresh air,” he said. “It’s like an oven in my cabin. You look as lovely as ever, madam; the centuries have left not a footmark in their passage over your face. Talking of beauty, perhaps you’d care to step in here and have a look at something.”

He motioned Martha and Greybeard into his cabin, and towards a door that stood at the other end of it.

“You’re both infidels, of course, born infidels, I’d think, since it has always been a theory of mine that unbelievers are born whereas saints are made; but in the hope of converting you, perhaps you’d like to see one of my miracles?”

“Are you still going in for castration?” Martha asked, standing where she was.

“Heavens, no! Surely the transformation which I have undergone is sufficiently apparent to you, Mrs. Greybeard? Crude trickery has no part in my make-up. I want to show you a genuine sample of the Second Generation.” He lifted a drape from a window in the door, and motioned them to look through into the next room.

Greybeard caught his breath. His senses rose up in him like music.

On a bunk, a young girl was sleeping. She was naked, and a sheet had fallen back from her shoulders, revealing most of her body. It was smooth and browned, moulded most delicately. Her arms, folded under her, cradled her breasts; one knee was tucked up so that it almost touched her elbow, revealing the scut of pubic hair between her legs. She slept with her face into the pillow, her mouth open, her rich brown hair in disarray, scowling in her sleep. She might have been sixteen.

Martha pulled the curtain down quietly over the glass panel and turned to Jingadangelow.

“Then some women are still bearing… But this child belongs to none of those you have aboard?”

“No, no, how right you are! This one is just a poor old prophet’s consolation, as you might say. Your husband looks moved. May I hope that after this evidence of my potentialities we may welcome him into the fold of the Second Generationists?”

“You sly devil, Jingadangelow, what are you doing with this girl? She’s perfect — unlike those rather sad creatures we saw in Oxford. How did you get hold of her? Where does she come from?”

“You realize you’re hardly entitled to cross-question me in this way? But I may as well tell you that I suspect that there are a lot more creatures as pretty as Chammoy — that’s her name — lurking up and down the country. You see I have something tangible to offer my followers! Now, why don’t the two of you throw in your lot with me?”

“We are making a journey to the mouth of the river,” Martha said.

He shook his head until his cheeks wobbled. “You are becoming the mouthpiece of your husband in your old age, Mrs. Greybeard. I thought when we met so many centuries ago that you had a mind of your own.”

Greybeard grabbed the front of his toga.

“Who’s that girl in there? If there are more children, then they must be saved and treated properly and helped — not used as whores for you! By God, Jingadangelow—”

The Master staggered backwards, grasped his hand bell, rang it violently, and struck Greybeard over the side of the face with it.

“You’re jealous, you dog, like all men!” he growled.

Two priestesses came in at once, screamed at the sight of the scuffle, and made way for the two men who had been sitting at the stern of the ship. They seized Greybeard’s arms and held him.

“Tie him up and throw him overboard!” Jingadangelow ordered, tottering back into his chair. He was panting heavily. “Let the pike have a go at him. Tie the woman up and leave her on deck. I will speak with her when we reach Hagbourne. Move!”