A Creed for the Third Millennium (44 page)

They brought Dr Joshua Christian to New
York City in the middle of May, while the wind still moaned up the sunless
streets and the last ice still lingered in every patch of perpetual shade, for
it had been a very long, cold winter. He refused to make the short trip from New
York to his home in Holloman, though Mama begged and begged. All he did after he
arrived in the city was sit in the window of his
room high in the Pierre and count the paths he could see winding through Central
Park, then count the people he could see walking those paths. And walk, of
course. He hadn't given up walking.

'Judith, he's so sick!' said Mama after
he had gone to bed on the first night after they arrived. 'What can we
do?'

'Nothing, Mama. There's nothing can be
done for him.'

'But a hospital — surely there's some
kind of treatment he could have?' Though she asked it hopelessly.

'I don't know that sick is the right
word, even,' said Dr Carriol. 'He's just — gone away from us. I don't know where
he's going, and I don't think he knows either. But can you call that a sickness,
even of the mind? His is not like any mental or physical illness I've ever heard
of. And one thing I do know. Whatever it is he suffers from has no cure outside
of himself. After the March is over I'm hoping he will agree to go away
somewhere for a complete rest. He has not stopped in eight months.'

Even as she spoke to Mama, Dr Carriol
knew perfectly well that Dr Christian was indeed going to rest after the March.
It was all arranged, the private sanatorium in Palm Springs, the balanced
regimen of diet and exercise and relaxation. A week out of Sioux Falls she had
sent the heavies back to Washington; she could tell beyond a doubt that they
were not necessary. Curse herself for that insane outburst of rage she might,
but undoubtedly it had served one purpose; it had capped the well of fire in Dr
Christian that until then had seemed in perpetual threat of eruption.

James and Andrew and their wives were
scheduled to come to New York to make the March of the Millennium, but Mary
arrived from Holloman first, with the same end in mind. The moment Mama
set eyes on her only daughter she was
hideously reminded of Joshua, for she saw a person changed out of all
recognition — growing, yet not growing familiarly; bedevilled, but not by
familiar devils.

And then hard on Mary's heels the others
arrived. Both the younger brothers had mushroomed in self-confidence and
initiative, separated for the first time from their too-powerful senior sibling
and their suffocatingly single-minded mother. They had tasted the very special
freedom of being at liberty to alter Joshua's ideas to suit their own ideas,
secure in the knowledge that the changes they had wrought were safely abroad and
would therefore never be drawn to Joshua's attention. Oh, Joshua's ideas were
wonderful, but they didn't always fit the foreign mentality any more than his
choice of words always fitted the foreign language. Big clumsy clever Miriam had
grown in concert with James, but Martha the Mouse came back still Martha the
Mouse.

Of course when they arrived at the hotel,
Joshua was out walking somewhere; the first ecstasies of reunion between them
and Mama were over by the time he returned. Dr Carriol had absented herself too,
aware that the last place she wanted to be when Joshua walked in was there amid
the Christians.

So Mama had a small breathing space
between the younger children and Joshua. It was not a happy respite. She stood
wondering where her family was at this moment, versus where it had been at the
same time two years earlier. Long before Joshua had his restless winter, long
before he went to the Marcus trial, long before he produced Judith, long before
the book. It's the book. It's all the fault of that wretched book.
God in
Cursing!
Never was a book more aptly named. God has cursed the Christians.
And God has cursed me. But what have I done to deserve His curse? I know I'm not
very bright, I know I'm a rather wearing woman and I get on people's nerves, but
what have I done to deserve His curse? I brought up
my dear children alone, I never gave in, I never cried for mercy, I never
stopped looking into the future, I never took time out for myself to find a
lover or a husband or so much as a hobby, I never turned my face away from
trouble and pain. Yet here I am, cursed. I shall have to spend the rest of my
life on this earth in the company of my one daughter, and that will be hell, for
she hates me as much as she hates Joshua, and I don't even know
why
she
hates us!

Joshua just walked in and stood looking
at the little knot of his family clustered against the brilliant backdrop of sky
through a window, aureoles fuzzing their silhouettes, faces invisible. He said
nothing.

The eager chatter died instantly. The
faces turned. The faces changed.

And then, before anyone could gather
together an expression of joy and welcome, Martha fainted. The giant pair of
hands Dr Christian used to fantasize as delivering a stunning clap had
materialized. She didn't moan or sway or sweat or gag. She dropped to the floor
as from a blow.

It took quite some time to bring her
round, and by then everyone had his or her reaction to Joshua well under
control, could disguise their distress by pretending it was distress for Martha.
This Belsen victim could now be appropriately greeted as a long-lost and
intimidatingly famous brother. But the Mouse they had to take away, Mama fussing
and clucking until Mary just lifted her aside and shut the bedroom door in her
bewildered face. Shut her in the sitting room with James and Andrew and Miriam
and Joshua. Shut her in with her ruined world.

'Are you all coming with me to
Washington, then?' asked Dr Christian, stripping off his gloves and unzipping
his parka, laying them on a table.

'You couldn't keep us away with a team of
horses,' said James, and blinked quickly several times. 'Oh, dear, I must be tired!' he exclaimed. 'My
eyes are watering terribly.'

Andrew turned away, yawning and rubbing
his face. Then he cried with an exaggerated start, 'What am I doing here, can
you tell me? I should be with poor Martha! You'll excuse me, Josh? I'll be
back.'

'I'll excuse you,' said Joshua, and sat
down.

'Yes, indeed, we are certainly walking!'
cried Miriam with great heartiness, thumping James on his bowed back with loving
gusto. 'You walked through Iowa and the Dakotas, we walked through France and
Germany. You walked through Wyoming and Minnesota, we walked through Scandinavia
and Poland. And everywhere the people came, just as they did here. It's so
beautiful, dearest Joshua! A miracle.'

Dr Christian looked at her out of alien
black eyes. 'To call what we do miraculous is a blasphemy, Miriam,' he said
harshly.

A silence fell; no one knew what to say
to break its dreadful clutch.

At which moment Dr Carriol opened the
outer door and walked in. Even not knowing what exactly to expect, she was
startled to find herself descended upon by a loudly yelping Miriam and an
unusually demonstrative James, with Mama fluttering just behind them, and Joshua
sitting limply in a chair watching the gyrations as if they were happening on a
very old, very dim, silent piece of celluloid.

Mama ordered coffee and sandwiches,
Andrew came back, and they all sat down except Joshua, who chose that moment to
go to his room, for what purpose he didn't say. Nor did he come back. But they
said nothing about him to Dr Carriol. Instead, they concentrated upon the March
of the Millennium.

'It's under control,' she said. 'I've
tried for weeks to persuade Joshua to rest up beforehand, but he won't hear of
it. So the walk starts the day after tomorrow. On Wall Street. And he'll walk
from Wall Street mostly up Fifth Avenue, crossing to the West
Side at 125th Street and taking the George Washington Bridge into Jersey. Then
down I-95 to Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and finally Washington. Once
he's on I-95 we've worked out the perfect way to keep him apart from the crowd
yet very much among it. We've had a high wooden boardwalk constructed down the
median divider, and we'll let the people walk on either side of him, but below
him on the road itself. All normal truck and bus traffic will use the Jersey
Turnpike. I-95 is better for our purposes anyway, because it goes through the
cities rather than around them like the Turnpike.'

'How long do you think it's going to
take?' asked James.

'Hard to tell. He walks very fast, you
know, and I can't see him consenting to having his mileage planned ahead of
time. He outdistances most people quickly, which I imagine he wants to do, as it
gives new people a chance to be with him all the time. I don't honestly know,
because he's never discussed the actual technique of his walking with me.
Anyway, we've got a comfortable camping complex geared up to follow him, and as
soon as we have an idea of when and where he's going to finish each day, we'll
put the camp down as close by as we can. A park or some other public land.
There's plenty.'

'What about the people?' asked
Andrew.

'We estimate most people will only want
to stay with the March for one day, though there's bound to be a nucleus who
will stick with Joshua right to Washington. New people will join the March all
the way down I-95, and we're going to make sure these people have a chance to
walk with Joshua for a mile or so before he outdistances them. Transport is laid
on every inch of the way, so people dropping out will be able to find their way
home fairly easily. The National Guard is looking after food and shelter and
medical emergencies, while the Army will have the
responsibility of keeping people moving in an orderly manner. We have no idea
how many people will actually turn up to march, but we're catering for several
million. Oh, not all at once — all told. However, I think the first day will see
a minimum of two million people turn out to march at least some of the
way.'

'If Joshua is going to walk on a high
pathway, won't he be a sitting target for assassins?' asked Miriam
quietly.

'That,' said Dr Judith Carriol with great
deliberation, 'is a risk we've decided to take. Joshua refuses to walk between
two shields of bulletproof plexiglass, which is what we originally planned. He
also refuses to cancel the March, and he refuses an escort on his walkway. He
says he'll walk alone, and unshielded.'

Mama mewed softly, reaching out a hand to
Miriam, who took it comfortingly.

'Yes, Mama, I know,' said Dr Carriol.
'But there's no point in concealing this from you, you're better prepared. And
you know Joshua! Once he makes up his mind, there's no shifting him. Even the
President couldn't shift him on this.'

'Joshua is too proud,' said Andrew
between his teeth.

Dr Carriol raised her brows. 'Be that as
it may, I for one don't have any kind of feeling that he'll be attacked.
Wherever he's gone, Joshua has always been a calming influence, and I couldn't
begin to count the number of people he's moved amongst quite fearlessly and
without any protection. Never a hint of an assassin! Hardly a crackpot! It's
astonishing. Public response to the March has been uniformly good too. It's
along the lines of an old-time Easter festival, I suppose, though it's too late
in the year for Easter. But the winters are much longer than they used to be.
Easter was the original New Year, the welcome to spring and the rebirth of life.
So who knows? Maybe with spring coming later and later as the centuries pass, we'll
end by changing Easter to coincide with the new date of spring.'

James sighed. 'It's a new kind of world,
for sure. So why not?'

On the night before the March was
scheduled to begin, the family split up early. Mama was the last one to go,
after which Dr Carriol enjoyed sole possession of the big sitting room in the
Christian suite.

She went to the window and looked down on
Central Park, where the first contingents of marchers were setting up camp,
those who had come in from Connecticut, New York State, and even farther. Down
there she knew there were mummers and minstrels, dancers and clowns, puppets and
buskers and bands, for she had been walking herself; Central Park was harbouring
the biggest gathering of
commedia dell'arte
the world had ever seen.
Though it was cold it was not wet, and the mood of the campers was eager. They
talked to each other freely, they shared what they had, they laughed a lot, they
showed no fear or suspicion of strangers, they had no money, and they had no
cares. For two hours she had moved among them, watching and listening, and it
seemed to her that though of course he was not forgotten, somewhere along the
way to this gigantic starting point, those who had congregated in the park had
abandoned all thought of actually seeing Dr Christian himself. Everyone she had
quizzed there felt that if they really did want to see Dr Christian, they were
better off to remain at home and watch the March on television. Those who had
come in person had come to be a physical part of the March of the
Millennium.

'It's
my
idea! I thought of this!'
she wanted to shriek to them; but didn't; merely hugged her secret
triumph.

She had asked many how they were going to
get home again, though she knew better than almost everyone that the Army had
mobilized to undertake the most massive transportation of people
in the history of the country. Simply, she wondered how many of these willing
walkers had actually absorbed the weeks and weeks of preparatory messages. But
no one seemed concerned about getting home again. They just figured they would,
sooner or later; worry about getting home again was not going to be allowed to
spoil their great day.