Bible Stories for Adults (24 page)

“Onward, men!” it shouts, raising a creamy white arm. “Fight for me!” Its movements are deliberate and jerky, as if sunbaked Troy has been magically transplanted to some frigid clime. “I'm worth it!”

The soldiers turn, look up. “We'll fight for you, Helen!” a bowman calls toward the parapet.

“We love you!” a sword-wielder shouts.

Awkwardly, the incarnation waves. Creakily, it blows an arid kiss. “Onward, men! Fight for me! I'm worth it!”

“You're beautiful, Helen!” a spear-thrower cries.

Helen strides up to her doppelganger and, seizing the left shoulder, pivots the creature toward her.

“Onward, men!” it tells Helen. “Fight for me! I'm worth it!”

“You're beautiful,” the spear-thrower continues, “and so is your mother!”

The eyes, Helen is not surprised to discover, are glass. The limbs are fashioned from wood, the head from marble, the teeth from ivory, the lips from wax, the tresses from the fleece of a darkling ram. Helen does not know for certain what forces power this creature, what magic moves its tongue, but she surmises that the genius of Athena is at work here, the witchery of ox-orbed Hera. Chop the creature open, she senses, and out will pour a thousand cogs and pistons from Hephaestus's fiery workshop.

Helen wastes no time. She hugs the creature, lifts it off its feet. Heavy, but not so heavy as to dampen her resolve.

“Onward, men!” it screams as Helen throws it over her shoulder. “Fight for me! I'm worth it!”

And so it comes to pass that, on a hot, sweaty Asia Minor morning, fair Helen turns the tables on history, gleefully abducting herself from the lofty stone city of Troy.

 

Paris is pulling a poisoned arrow from his quiver, intent on shooting a dollop of hemlock into the breast of an Achaian captain, when his brother's chariot charges past.

Paris nocks the arrow. He glances at the chariot.

He aims.

Glances again.

Fires. Misses.

Helen.

Helen?
Helen
, by Apollo's lyre, his Helen—no, two Helens, the true and the false, side by side, the true guiding the horses into the thick of the fight, her wooden twin staring dreamily into space. Paris can't decide which woman he is more astonished to see.

“Soldiers of Troy!” cries the fleshy Helen. “Heroes of Argos! Behold how your leaders seek to dupe you! You are fighting for a fraud, a swindle, a thing of gears and glass!”

A stillness envelops the battlefield. The men are stunned, not so much by the ravings of the charioteer as by the face of her companion, so pure and perfect despite the leather thong sealing her jaw shut. It is a face to sheathe a thousand swords—lower a thousand spears—unnock a thousand arrows.

Which is exactly what now happens. A thousand swords: sheathed. A thousand spears: lowered. A thousand arrows: unnocked.

The soldiers crowd around the chariot, pawing at the ersatz Helen. They touch the wooden arms, caress the marble brow, stroke the ivory teeth, pat the waxen lips, squeeze the woolly hair, rub the glass eyes.

“See what I mean?” cries the true Helen. “Your kings are diddling you . . .”

Paris can't help it: he's proud of her, by Hermes's wings. He's puffing up with admiration. This woman has nerve—she has arete and chutzpah.

This woman, Paris realizes as a fat, warm tear of nostalgia rolls down his cheek, is going to the end the war.

 

“The end,” I say.

“And then what happened?” Damon asks.

“Nothing.
Finis.
Go to sleep.”

“You can't fool us,” says Daphne. “All
sorts
of things happened after that. You went to live on the island of Lesbos.”

“Not immediately,” I note. “I wandered the world for seven years, having many fine and fabulous adventures. Good night.”

“And then you went to Lesbos,” Daphne insists.

“And then
we
came into the world,” Damon asserts.

“True,” I say. The twins are always interested in hearing how they came into the world. They never tire of the tale.

“The women of Lesbos import over a thousand liters of frozen semen annually,” Damon explains to Daphne.

“From Thrace,” Daphne explains to Damon.

“In exchange for olives.”

“A thriving trade.”

“Right, honey,” I say. “Bedtime.”

“And so you got pregnant,” says Daphne.

“And had us,” says Damon.

“And brought us to Egypt.” Daphne tugs at my sleeve as if operating a bell rope. “I came out first, didn't I?” she says. “I'm the
oldest.
”

“Yes, dear.”

“Is that why I'm smarter than Damon?”

“You're both equally smart. I'm going to blow out the candle now.”

Daphne hugs her papyrus doll and says, “Did you really end the war?”

“The treaty was signed the day after I fled Troy. Of course, peace didn't restore the dead, but at least Troy was never sacked and burned. Now go to sleep—both of you.”

Damon says, “Not before we've . . .”

“What?”

“You know.”

“All right,” I say. “One quick peek, and then you're off to the land of Morpheus.”

I saunter over to the closet and, drawing back the linen curtain, reveal my stalwart twin standing upright amid the children's robes. She smiles through the gloom. She's a tireless smiler, this woman.

“Hi, Aunt Helen!” says Damon as I throw the bronze toggle protruding from the nape of my sister's neck.

She waves to my children and says, “Onward, men! Fight for me!”

“You bet, Aunt Helen!” says Daphne.

“I'm worth it!” says my sister.

“You sure are!” says Damon.

“Onward, men! Fight for me! I'm worth it!”

I switch her off and close the curtain. Tucking in the twins, I give each a big soupy kiss on the cheek. “Love you, Daphne. Love you, Damon.”

I start to douse the candle—stop. As long as it's on my mind, I should get the chore done. Returning to the closet, I push the curtain aside, lift the penknife from my robe, and pry back the blade. And then, as the Egyptian night grows moist and thick, I carefully etch yet another wrinkle across my sister's brow, right beneath her salt-and-pepper bangs.

It's important, after all, to keep up appearances.

The stories in this collection first appeared in the following publications:

 

“Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge”—
Full Spectrum
(New York: Bantam Books, 1988)

“Daughter Earth”—
Full Spectrum 3
(New York: Bantam Books, 1991)

“Known But to God and Wilbur Hines”—
There Won't Be War
(New York: Tor, 1991)

“Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower”—
Swatting at the Cosmos
(Eugene, OR: Pulphouse Publishing, 1990). Revised version published in
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
(June 1994).

“Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks”—
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
(May 1987)

“The Assemblage of Kristin”—
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
(June 1984)

“Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant”—
Aboriginal Science Fiction
(November–December 1989)

“Abe Lincoln in McDonald's”—
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
(May 1989)

“The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge”—
Spirits of Christmas
(New York: Wynwood Press, 1989)

“Bible Stories for Adults, No. 46: The Soap Opera”—
God: An Anthology of Fiction
(London: Serpent's Tail, 1992). Revised version published in
Science Fiction Age
(January 1994).

“Diary of a Mad Deity”
—Synergy Number 2
(San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988)

“Arms and the Woman”—
Amazing Stories
(July 1991)

J
AMES
M
ORROW
was born in Philadelphia in 1947. Besides writing, he plays with Lionel electric trains and collects videocassettes of vulgar biblical spectacles.