John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

"Omniscient Founder," I began — but no words followed. I was not used to invoking that name; in truth I'd never before addressed Him or much pondered who He was, beyond imagining Him a kind of super-Max — which kidly image no more served. The guards growled. Those guests nearby who had paused to hear me shuffled and turned. Suddenly I perspired all over; my insides sank. At the same moment when I reached to take the shophar from G. Herrold, a guard tramped down on something with his booted foot: instantly the cushions parted, swinging down like double trap-doors into the bier itself, which was revealed to be a chute. G. Herrold folded in the middle and slid into the searing air that blasted up; for part of a second his fingers gripped the shophar still, and pulled me after; I jerked back, blinded and terrified, and the horn came free. One thump I heard, far down in the awful drop, before the cushions sprang into place with a click. The crowd-noise welled. I believed I would go mad. I raised the shophar and blew blind honks, horn-rips that I wished would burst my head.

"Olé!" they cried behind.

As if responding to my note the horns or the orchestra began a grand chorale, its measured chords resounding in all my nerves. Anastasia was before me, led onto the dais by the Sears; we regarded each other with brimming eyes. Mrs. Sear hugged my arm and declared, "Well, I believe in him." Her tone was petulant, as if to scold Anastasia. "I think he's cute."

"We've almost got you a convert," Dr. Sear said lightly. "I told her that belief has to come before believability, but it must not sound convincing when I say it."

I shook off their hands. The horns took up my pain and gave it back in gold sonorities. Imperious, austere, nobly suffering, they spoke both to and for me. Even as I slipped the shophar's lanyard over my head, a red bulb lighted in the tassel of the pull-cord.

"Ready!" cried one of the guards.

But now the floodlights dimmed and the waiting party murmured as on the far wall a great screen glowed, blinked hugely, and focused into a picture: a single shaft, like a stark stone finger, pointed against a pale gray sky; winding towards it up a dark slope in the foreground was a procession of flickering lights, and from the column-top itself a larger flame roared. A new sound burst into the room, as it seemed from all directions, blending with and mounting over the splendid brass.

"That's the dawn-service upstairs on the Hill," Dr. Sear remarked for my benefit. "Big ceremony for the new spring registrants. They run the organ on natural steam from down here and use the tunnels for resonance. Superb bass response."

Anastasia moved to me in the dim light, stirred no doubt as I was by the sound and spectacle. "Your poor friend," she said.

I could not find my voice. Mrs. Sear drew us closer.

"That's the place where Enos Enoch passed on," Anastasia said, referring to the hilltop. "For all studentdom."

I shook my head. "Only for the kids who believed in Him."

"Come on," Mrs. Sear insisted, reaching as if to unbelt Anastasia's robe. The girl pressed against me to forestall her, and we found ourselves kissing — stiffly, then not so. Abruptly she turned her face away.

"I want to believe you!" she said, much distressed. "I almost can!"

From behind me somewhere Stoker instructed me that the whistle was ready when I was, and bade me not delay. "Take her to the couch, Heddy," he said.

"I'm trying," Mrs. Sear fretted. "Come on, dears!"

"You must make yourself believe," Dr. Sear said pleasantly to Anastasia. "Matter of will, actually."

But she shook her head. "It's not right. Especially at a funeral service."

Before I could inquire what exactly was afoot, Stoker himself came up on the dais and firmly ordered his wife to go with Dr. and Mrs. Sear. She hesitated, her face distraught, and then permitted herself to be led to the bier. There were a few olés and some scattered applause — whether for her, or a newly roused Croaker, or something on the screen, I was too grieved to care.

"Now," Stoker said briskly. "You know what service means, George; I've heard you use the word yourself. Well, that's the Spring Sunrise Service going on on the Hill — you can't see the actual servicing because it's too dark. And when somebody important dies we have a Memorial Service in his honor. Life over Death, all that sort of thing. Usually private, you know, between married relatives, but since you're the Grand Tutor… Blow the whistle as soon as you're done."

With a clap on the shoulder he took me to the couch, beside which Anastasia stood and would not let Mrs. Sear unbelt her.

"It's not so, George!" she said. "There's no such custom at all, except at these parties. Believe me!"

But the swelling organ bore my doubts away. "You believe me," I said. "Nothing else matters." With my free hand I gave her sash the needed jerk; Mrs. Sear moved quickly to open the robe.

"Look, Ken!" she cried. "Oh, you little darling! I wish I were a Grand Tutor!"

As evenly as I could before the revelation I said to Anastasia, "Do you believe?"

"Hind to," Stoker directed the Sears, who having loosed her half-reluctant grip upon the robe and removed the garment entirely, to the pleasure of the assemblage, were gently pressing her upon the bier. "He's a goat-boy, remember." They turned her about — lightly, with constant caresses — until, pliant and full of doubt, she knelt on the bier's end, facing away. Only as they drew down to the cushion her head and shoulders, stroking her all the while, she wondered, "George…"

A light fell on us; the music rose, could not imaginably soar higher. Upon the screen glowed a larger image of the column, its base ringed now by torches. The crowd took the hymn up, mighty, mighty, as I leaned my stick against the bier, raised my wrap, and steadied myself with a hand upon the perfect rump that swam in my tears.

"In the name of the Founder," I declared, "and of the sun — "

"Olé!" they cried behind me.

"— and of the Grand Tutor so be it!"

Incredibly, as I mounted home, the music swelled and rose to bursting. As ever in goatdom, the service was instant: swiftly as the sunflash smiting now the Founder's Shaft I drove and was done. Anastasia squealed into the cushion, "I do believe!" and fell flat. Unmuscled at once like Brickett Ranunculus, like him overbalanced by my thrust, I tumbled back and would have fallen had I not been hoist amid a chorus of olés by Croaker, who caught me from behind and hiked me up on his shoulders. The guards sprang from the dais into the crowd; Dr. and Mrs. Sear, alarm in their faces, pulled Anastasia to her feet and then, as she could not support herself, shrank away and left her leaning against the bier, her face in her hands. I had just had time, as I pitched from the service, to snatch up my stick. Gripping Croaker with my legs I raised it to strike now — at him, perhaps, or at Stoker, the sight of whom (with my serviced Anastasia limp in his arms) suddenly enraged me — at anyone, for I was transport with grief and the aftermath of passion. But when I made to bring the weapon down it tangled in the cord, and a howling whistle — the loudest shriek I'd ever heard — drowned out organ, crowd, and orchestra. Again and again it blasted as I tried to free the stick and keep my perch on lurching Croaker. It was the same wild summons which had opened that dreadful day, and after the first few screams of it pandemonium broke out in the hall. Whether out of fear of my bellowing mount and his frantic rider, or because in their liquor they believed that an EAT-wave truly was upon them, the carousers yelled and sprang, mobbing the doorways, tripping and trampling, climbing one another in their haste. The musicians fled the bandstand and joined them, swinging their golden horns like clubs. On the Telerama, too, all was disorder: the celebrants flung away their torches and ran, sprinting down footpaths and through shrubbery, diving behind rocks, flinging themselves flat upon the ground or into bushes. The organ-music turned wild and broken, then ceased altogether, and the crowd-din grew berserker.