The Far Arena (27 page)

Sister Olav was stopped again before class and called into the office of the mother superior. She was asked what she thought of the American who came from the University at Oslo.

'I don't understand the question,' said Sister Olav.

'The materials he brought. Did they interest you?'

'Yes. Somewhat. They were very strange,' said Sister Olav. She did not sit, but stood beside the chair before the desk of the mother superior. If she did not sit, she thought, then she would be allowed to run along quickly.

'You showed a great deal of enthusiasm.'

'Yes. I do get carried away.'

'You were oblivious to the crucifix around your waist on the rosary.' 'I'm sorry. I did not know.'

'Yes. I realize. Enthusiasm and joy are not evil, and the academic life, child, is also a gift to our Lord. I am asking this because this year you take your final vows. Is the cloistered life your calling?'

'I do not know what I am meant for other than what is promised through Scripture and revelation. I, like every other person, am meant for heaven. What you are really asking is which path there. And to that question I can only answer, I hope I have chosen the right path.'

'It seems like a waste of your training that the world seems to need now,' said the mother superior. 'I have had inquiries about your skills, which seem to be wasted here.'

'A bigger waste is a soul.'

'God does not give talents to be wasted.
’

'But if the talent becomes an obstacle to reaching heaven
..

'You may think that, but I have seen these things work out quite nicely. It is in the grit and grime that He works also. Please think about it, dear.'

Sister Olav made her class on time, but she left unfinished the beautiful passage on Roman justice. How fair it was, how inspirational it was, how incorruptible it was as compared, of course to the rest of the world, and, according to the poet, especially to the Greeks.

In the special intensive-care unit, what was now being called the 'cryonics floor', Dr Semyon Petrovitch awoke to a gentle tug. He had fallen asleep in the chair usually used by the round-the-clock nurses. He had stayed three days with the patient, and now it was breathing easily, and the oxygen tent had been removed. The intense time had taken its toll, however, on Petrovitch, who had not left this room; his underwear was sticky, and his skin itched, and his dark beard was almost as thick as the patient's.

The person tugging was the American.

'Good morning, Lew,' said Petrovitch.

'We need a translator,' said McCardle. 'Soon. Because I said to it when its eyes were open, "Requiescas," and it shut its eyes.'

‘
Yes?'

'That's Latin for "you rest." It you have ever seen a tombstone with "requiescat in pacem", you might recognize the word. It understands, Semyon, It hears.'

'Well, you talk to it.'

'I wish I could. I know very little Latin,' lied Lew. But it was only a partial lie. He really did not know enough to speak it, for Latin had been taught to him as a language for print, for only the written word had lasted. And they needed someone who could think in that language. And that left only the nun at Ringerike.

'The chances are very good,' said Petrovitch, 'that it will regain consciousness. Very good. I expect it, Lew.'

'Then let's talk to the nun about translating, now.'

'I prefer a Russian.'

'Fine. When?'

'That is a problem.'

Petrovitch shook himself fully awake. He looked at his watch. He had slept four hours. He could go on, he told himself.

'Are you still trying to promote that nun who identified the language?' he asked. He took Lew back to his office, where he made them both a drink from the little boy with the red plastic hat who pissed Ballantine scotch when you pressed the hat.

'Yes,' said Lew.

'Why ?' asked Petrovitch. As a Russian he felt he should be able to drink more than Lew, but this American seemed to have an inexhaustible capacity. Petrovitch decided not to take drink for drink.

'She's supposed to be good, according to the professor of Romance languages here at the university.' Petrovitch nodded, allowing that as an acceptable fact 'She's near.' Petrovitch nodded.

'I think we can expect the highest
scientific standards, and some
one who is not going to sell for cash the amazing inside story of the man dead for a couple of thousand years or so. You've got to think of that, Semyon.'

'Which is why I want the Russian. But I agree on the Norwegian holy woman, if we can get her.' Petrovitch pressed the little red hat as Lew wiggled his fingers signalling Petrovitch should continue pressing. When the tumbler was three-quarters full, McCardle made a cut with his hands.

'I don't follow,' said McCaidle.

'If I get a Russian, I must apply for one. That will take a while. But they are not going to just go looking for a linguist proficient in a dead Western language.
They are going to examine why I
would want that particular person, then examine how this whole thing might be a ruse to get that person, then examine the people examining the person, and, assuming that person wants to go in the first place, then there must be people to go with him. And so we will get a group of four translators, one of them speaking Latin hopefully, and the other three watching him, each other, you, me, John Carter, and then heaven forbid one of these people should decide he wants to see the West alone, and we all get yanked back. You think the KGB is just some people sneaking around with guns and secret weapons, and women luring scientists across our western border, or planting guerrilla movements hither and yon. I will tell you what they are. They are people out to justify exorbitant budgets, fine homes and heavy consumption of Western goods. And they don't want to lose their cushy jobs by doing anything rash. Therefore they don't do anything quickly. Therefore to get our translator we would probably have to put John Carter back in ice for another sixteen hundred years. Therefore, I accept the nun, but with precautions. We will allow the nun, but under the strictest controls and agreements.'

'If we can get her,' said Lew.

'If?' said Petrovitch.

They put in a request to the office of the metropolitan of Oslo, and, surprisingly, the mother superior called back, quite anxious to talk to both men. This within two hours of the call to the metropolitan's office. They could come up immediately if they wished, she said.

Lew cleaned his breath with a clove and gave one to Semyon. At first it stung, and then you had the feeling of breathing spiced air. Semyon bathed at the sink.

On the trip up, Semyon drove, despite his weariness, and explained how he got permission to work in Norway. He had to pretend to love his wife and two children.

It was the first time Petrovitch had talked of his personal life to Lew, and as Lew listened he thought how similar they both were in some respects.

'Yes. I do not love my children. They are spoiled. They are ungrateful and my wife has turned them against me. I tried to love them, Lew. And then I thought, why bother? What law says you have to love your children? And yet, I feel bad confessing. But
I had to show
I
loved them to be able to work here.
I
would die if I thought I could never return to my motherland. I have no intention of flying the coop, as you say. But you see the mentality of the KGB. Back home they have their insurance, which of course is meaningless, but it looks good on paper which they pass from one to another.'

'You didn't have to explain, Semyon.'

'I wanted to. I also want you to know that I am grateful to my motherland. Without the Communist party, I never would have had a chance to go through medical school, or achieve the things I achieved. I may talk cynically, but I want you to know the nuisances and regulations and things like the KGB are a very small price to pay for what we have. A small price, Lew.'

'OK,' said McCardle.

'You have children?'

'Yes.'

'Do you love them?'

'Honestly, I don't know. One thinks I am as rich as the Shah of Iran, and the other thinks I am some capitalist devil and she's Che Guevara leading some revolution.'

'Does she shoot up things?'

'No. She sleeps around with people who talk revolution. Her big thing was sleeping with a black.

'What did you do? People from your part of your country are the biggest racists.'

'I think that's unfair. But I didn't do anything. I wasn't there Kathy, my wife, was there.'

'What did she do?'

'I don't know. She just told me about it and then got mad at my answer.' 'What was your answer, Lew?' 'I told her it was my daughter's pussy, not hers.' 'And what did she say?'

'She called me dirty-mouthed, trash cowboy - a peasant, sort of.'

'You were a peasant?'

'Yeah, I guess that would describe my father.'

'Was he a good man?'

'No.'

Tm sorry. Mine was a good man. I loved my father. I loved my mother. I wish I loved my children. I wish I hadn't married my wife She had such a lovely body She was a beautiful woman. Her family was important. She had everything to recommend her but a heart. And yet that is the last thing a young man looks at. They look at breasts, at asses, at faces, and they do not look at the heart. An eighteen-year-old is a perpetual erection. And when you're hard between your legs you are soft between your ears.'

'I kind of examined Kathy's heart,' said Lew. 'And I got exactly what I wanted when I was a graduate student.'

'I take it that it is not sufficient now?'

'I don't know,' said Lew. 'I'll find out when I retire. I am going to retire soon.'

'I would hate to have the kind of job that I looked forward to leaving,' said Petrovitch.

'It's all right. Hey, it's a great job.'

'Oh, that's good,' said Petrovitch kindly.

Petrovitch asked if McCardle wrote his wife.

McCardle said he phoned a lot.

'What do you do for company?'

'I find it,' said McCardle.

'Phoning is expensive. Now, I write on the seventh of every month. I do it early in the morning before I shave and that way I don't have to put it off. It's over with. Done.'

'Does your wife write to you. Semyon?'

'Always. I stack her letters and then open them all at once, just before I write. It's a good system. It gives the impression I remember everything she writes. A wonderful system.'

'Semyon, I don't think either you or I can honestly say at this point there is anything odd about the nun's sex life,' said McCardle, and at first Petrovitch didn't understand, but when he did he laughed so hard he almost lost control of the car.

They did not talk about the body back at the university. There was a gadget by which Petrovitch could be reached from the room if anything happened. He said it was almost as important to find out what Sister Olav was like as to attend the patient. Semyon had thought about what was happening.

It was an important thing they had between them in that body, he had concluded. It was more important than anything either of them had ever dealt with and, even though they might talk of their families, the body living on machines, hanging on this side of death, warm with life, lived between them as more than a link. Little John Carter was their environment.

'A scientific advance outlives everything around it,' said Petrovitch, coming to a stop. And he did not have to tell Lew what and whom he was talking about.

'Yeah,' said McCardle.

'I know you have special interests. And so do I, but we also have an obligation to everyone. To people we will never know, generations hence. Even if they don't know who we are.'

'I agree,' said Lew.

'I have legitimate worries about someone who dedicates her life to a religion, especially one to whom that time of Rome is of vital importance.'

'We will talk to her. I think she's honest.'

'Honest is not the point, Lew. I would not want a devout Marxist either. Our job, if we can succeed with John Carter, and I think now we have a very good chance, is first to find out the biological key in the blood that allowed his brain to freeze without massive crystallization damage, and secondly, to find whatever historical evidence is available. I am not relegating history to a second place out of prejudice. I am putting it there because if there is one discipline that tends to be unreliable, it is history. It's at the service, usually, of whoever pays for it.'