The Inconvenient God

by Francesca Forrest

  “Th-they can’t? I… We… I didn’t know that,” Mr. Haksola said. Northwesterners are disconcertingly pallid at the best of times, but at that moment, Mr. Haksola had gone an alarming shade of gray. Abruptly, he pushed open the door to the guest house and held it for me. He nodded to the attendant at the reception desk and slid into a seat at one of the tables in the common room. I joined him.

  “Did you know that Ohin was an apotheosis?” I asked.

  The question appeared to add to Mr. Haksola’s distress, because his hands trembled like an old man’s as he attempted to pour hot tea from the pot the attendant brought us.

  “Yes. Yes, I suppose I did,” he said. He pushed one cup toward me and drank down his own before mine had cooled enough for me to even begin.

  I poured him a refill and took a sip of my own. “Do you know the circumstances of his elevation?” I asked.

  Mr. Haksola had just raised his cup to his lips. At my question, his hand shook so violently the tea spilled. He set down the cup and looked around for the attendant. “You need this information to decommission him?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  Mr. Haksola took a breath, took a sip of tea—successfully this time.

  “Maybe you know that in ancient times, all instruction at Nando University was oral,” he began, looking to me for confirmation.

  “Yes, I did know that.”

  He nodded and continued, “By the time the Northwest joined the Polity, only the seminary of Amaya persisted in oral instruction. Finally, two hundred years ago, the Ministry of Education mandated complete compliance with its standards for all institutions of higher learning—no exceptions. Amaya’s novices were required to pass a Ministry-approved written examination. When the seminary failed to submit an exam for approval, the Ministry said it would send one.”

  I winced inwardly. The Polity has a way of rolling right over passive resistance.

  “This apparently displeased some of the novices—maybe they were good at parroting prayers but couldn’t get the knack of writing, or maybe their learning was impeded by pursuits not worthy of their time. Be that as it may, rather than face the humiliation of failing the exam, those novices tried to stop it from being administered.

  “Back then, there was no railroad in these parts; examiners from the Ministry of Education traveled all the way from the capital by palanquin, carrying the exams in a lacquer box bound with iron. Disguised as bandits, the novices attacked the delegation and tried to make off with the box, but the delegation’s security detail easily repelled them and pursued them when they fled. One bandit turned and fought, which gave his comrades a chance to escape, but that one lost his life.”

  “Ohin,” I said, my lips tingling where his had touched them.

  Mr. Haksola inclined his head ever so slightly in acknowledgment. “His classmates must have elevated him out of sympathy for his foolhardy attempt and his unfortunate end,” he said dryly.

  I frowned. “That’s not possible. It takes great spiritual authority to deify someone. There’s no way students could pull that off, not even seminarians.”

  “They couldn’t?” Mr. Haksola’s lips twitched as he tried to frame a reply. “Then I, I guess…”

  “What do you mean, ‘you guess’? Doesn’t the university have a record of the event?”

  A half-choked laugh escaped from Mr. Haksola. “It’s ironic,” he said, “given what I just said about the written exam, but—” A chiming sound interrupted him. He glanced at his unicom. “That’s my alert. Afternoon rites are about to start at Amaya’s shrine. Can you change quickly?” He turned to the attendant. “Caretaker! Can the decommissioner use the suite you mentioned? And she’ll need it for the night too—the university will pay.”

  Further discussion of the Ohin situation had to wait. I hurriedly changed and accompanied Mr. Haksola to the historic shrine to the Northwest’s goddess of apples.

  Prayers were just beginning when we arrived. Given that it was the last day before exams, I wasn’t expecting many students to be present, but there was a healthy crowd of them, as well as a good number of people from Nando City—parents with small children, a few young unmarrieds, and elders as well.

  All were kneeling on patterned rush mats arranged in concentric half-circles around an ancient apple tree. A statue of Amaya, carved in apple wood and sheathed in gold leaf, sat in the first fork of the venerable tree, facing the mats. An apple rested in her left hand; her right she extended to her worshipers.

  Mr. Haksola brought me to the closest half-circle of mats, which appeared to be reserved for dignitaries, and we knelt between a distinguished-looking man with a trim white beard and one of the shrine attendants.

  Mr. Haksola joined in the call and response between the priest and the faithful, eyes closed. I closed my own eyes, intending to sit in respectful silence, but a gently admonishing voice said, “Why are you tormenting poor Ohin, hmm? Such a faithful and good friend to me.”

  My eyes flew open. There before me stood the statue of Amaya, her gold-leaf-covered hands on her gold-leaf hips, her head canted to the left as she gazed into my face. The statue was tiny: On my knees, I looked her directly in the eye.

  I could tell by the silence and stillness around us that I was in trance state again.

  “It’s merely my job, honored one,” I said. “I came at the request of the university.” Her steady stare demanded more from me. “Apparently he makes trouble for them.” Under the gaze of the goddess, this seemed like a weak reason. Why was the university rushing to decommission Ohin now, when they had been content to put up with his presence for two hundred years?

  “You must celebrate him before sending him into oblivion,” the goddess said—a binding injunction.

  “Yes, honored one. Let my actions be guided by your desire.” The words tumbled from my lips, not against my will, but not exactly with its consent, either. My will, in this situation, was irrelevant. A disquieting realization.

  The goddess smiled, and the gold that clad her became an apple-blossom-scented radiance that enveloped me, then spread outward, thinning and fading.

  And then it was gone. I was no longer in trance. The priest and the shrine attendants were standing where Amaya had been, and the other worshipers clustered around us a respectful few steps away, leaning in eagerly.

  “Madam. Am I right in understanding that you are the guest from the Ministry of Divinities?” the priest inquired.

  I nodded, still too disoriented to venture words.

  “And…were you communing, just now, with Amaya?”

  “Yes, your grace,” I managed.

  The crowd’s murmuring picked up; in my confused state, it sounded like the rustling of leaves in the wind.

  “May I inquire… Would you be so kind…” the priest left the words hanging, and I realized I was being invited to share Amaya’s words.

  “The message concerned the decommissioning of Ohin,” I began, which elicited a strangled moan from Mr. Haksola.

  “Did she say Ohin?” I heard a woman ask. “Isn’t that the dropout god?”

  The priest waved a hand, whether to silence the crowd or in dismissal of anything pertaining to Ohin, I wasn’t sure. He was focused on something else. In urgent tones he asked, “Your last words. What were the last words you said?”

  “What?”

  “You said, ‘It’s merely my job, honored one’ and ‘Apparently he makes trouble for them’ and ‘Yes, honored one,’ and then what?”

  “I said, ‘Let my actions be guided by your desires.’” The words felt strange in my mouth. The priest was staring at me with a terrible intensity.

  “What language is that? What does it mean?” he asked, a tremble in his voice.

  My mouth went dry: We were speaking the Polity’s national language. There are regional dialects, of course, and in isolated areas or recently incorporated territories, people may speak other tongues. But I grew up in the capital and have only ever spoken the national language
and market slang.

  “I didn’t realize I was speaking an unknown tongue. The words were just…the right words to answer the goddess with.”

  “Can you translate them?”

  I could feel the words forming in my mind. Now stop, I told myself. And say them in the national language. I did.

  The priest drew a notepad and stylus from his robes and inscribed rapidly.

  “Now please say again the words that the goddess spoke,” he requested. I complied, and he repeated the words back to me. Only then could I hear the difference between the words Amaya had spoken and their translation.

  The priest turned to the shrine attendants. “Now you say it,” he ordered. His stylus wavered over his notepad for a moment as the attendants repeated back the phrase. Then, with determination, he inscribed the words. The attendants looked uneasy.

  “Your grace, should you?” one asked.

  “Yes,” the priest replied, in no uncertain tones. “This is a gift from Amaya; we must not let it be lost again.” He turned to me. “I believe those words are from the ancient ceremonial tongue, the language of worship of Amaya. It was never written down—”

  “It was sacrilege to write it down,” murmured the attendant who had spoken up moments before, but the priest ignored her.

  “—and it was lost in the years after the seminary abandoned oral instruction,” he continued. “It was easier to teach in the Polity vernacular, especially since the examinations were in the vernacular. We’ve had no way to reconstruct Amaya’s tongue—until now. Are you staying here long? Amaya blessed you once; perhaps she will share more words with you.”

  Thoughts and questions were flying through my head. Of course, the Ministry of Education would have insisted that the exam be in the national language. Amaya had called Ohin her faithful and good friend. Had she opposed the move from oral instruction? As a goddess, had she seen what would be lost? Was she the one who had elevated Ohin?

  I knew where I needed to go for answers. “I think I may have an even better way to learn more words,” I said to the priest, getting to my feet.

  Most worshipers, realizing no more divine communications were imminent, had left the shrine. The distinguished-looking man to Mr. Haksola’s left, who’d been following our conversation with an expectant brightness, chose that moment to speak. “Your grace, it’s about the exam-blessing ceremony. I sent you a tentative schedule—did you have a chance to look at it?”

  The priest looked torn.

  “I’ll tell you what I learn,” I said quickly. “I hope to have more to share this evening.” We linked unicoms so I’d be able to be in touch, and then Mr. Haksola and I excused ourselves. I headed for the guest house to collect my regalia, Mr. Haksola hurrying alongside me.

  “You’re going back to Ohin’s shrine, I suppose?” he inquired. Sweat was beading on his forehead and temples; he looked unwell.

  “Of course I am! I still have a job to finish, and—”

  Mr. Haksola interrupted me. “The university would like to cancel the decommissioning—you don’t need to bother. The fee will still be remitted to the Ministry of Divinities of course, but please don’t trouble yourself any further. Relax at the guest house. Or maybe you’d like a tour of the campus? I can arrange to have someone take you around.”

  I stopped in my tracks and crossed my arms. Mr. Haksola blinked twice, but set his jaw.

  “What do you mean, the university wants to cancel the decommissioning?” I demanded. “An hour ago you were furious that I hadn’t accomplished it, and now you want to abandon it? Are you authorized to make that decision? Because I can’t believe your superiors have had such a complete change of heart during the time we were at Amaya’s shrine.”

  Mr. Haksola closed his eyes. “Yes. I have the authority. I’ll take responsibility for this.” It was as if he were confessing to a capital offense.

  “But why?” I asked. I thought of what had just happened at Amaya’s shrine—the goddess’s words of praise for Ohin. “It’s because of Amaya, isn’t it. She elevated him, and you don’t want to cross her.” But as soon as I said it, doubt flooded my mind. Why would Amaya deify her faithful and good friend as a champion of failures and dropouts?

  “No!” Mr. Haksola’s whole body quivered with the strength of his denial. “How can you even suggest such a thing? It has nothing to do with Amaya. She couldn’t possibly have created such a worthless god.”

  “Well someone did. And Ohin was a novice in her seminary.”

  “A lackluster novice who tried to sabotage an exam he couldn’t pass!” Mr. Haksola said, shaking his head.

  We resumed walking toward the guest house.

  “This is the situation,” Mr. Haksola said in a rush. “Tomorrow a joint delegation from three government ministries is coming for the groundbreaking of the new Infinitesimal Materials Center. It’s a real coup to have a premier research facility located here at Nando. We didn’t want anything going wrong, and certainly nothing that would—” His mouth twisted miserably. “I know there are some in the Ministry of Education who think Nando puts too much stock in its ancient glory, but this university fully supports the Polity, and we don’t want anything—or anyone—to detract from receiving its full support in return. We were hoping decommissioning Ohin would be a simple matter, but clearly it isn’t. So please just leave it.”

  “You wanted Ohin decommissioned because you thought he’d make a bad impression on the visiting delegation?” I asked, incredulous. “You do know that there’s a state-sanctioned Abstraction of Mischief, don’t you? And there are students who overindulge and flunk out on every campus in the Polity. The delegation won’t give Ohin or his followers a second thought.”

  “Maybe not at any other time of year,” Mr. Haksola said in a low voice, “but Ohin always gets up to mischief at exam time.”

  “Ohin? The god himself? Not his followers?”

  Mr. Haksola made a sour face. “The mischief is miraculous in nature; it couldn’t be his followers.” He drew a tremulous breath. “The pranks always involve some kind of desecration of the national flag.”

  I pondered this. It’s true that the Polity doesn’t take kindly to seditious acts, especially ones that could be interpreted as attacks on national unity. I could understand the university’s wanting to eliminate a source of potential trouble.

  “I wish you’d told me from the start that Ohin was an apotheosis,” I said with a sigh. “If I’d known, I could have come better prepared.”

  Mr. Haksola’s face was a mask of defeated resignation. “It seemed better not to mention Ohin’s initial…delinquent act. I didn’t know that you would need the information.”

  My heart contracted. I was a Polity official. Of course Mr. Haksola hadn’t wanted to share Ohin’s story with me.

  We had arrived back at the guest house.

  “All right,” I said. “I understand. I won’t decommission him, but I am going back to his shrine. He still speaks Amaya’s ceremonial language. If I can get him to share more of it, maybe the seminary can recreate it.”

  Mr. Haksola’s face had gone that awful gray shade again. “Please don’t stir him up. That’s all I ask. For the university’s sake. For the Northwest’s sake.”

  I reached out and clasped Mr. Haksola’s clammy hand. “I won’t stir things up,” I said.

  Mr. Haksola nodded once, his head down between his shoulders, and took his leave.

  In the privacy of the suite Mr. Haksola had reserved for me, I made a new search, this time of the Ministry of National Unity’s database, for documentation relating to the exam incident two hundred years ago. There was a brief report: The government had categorized it as an act of delinquency rather than sedition. All the same, they’d posted a unit of the national police to campus to keep an eye on things for a full year. Then I accessed Nando University’s own historical archive, looking for any reference to Ohin’s apotheosis, but there was nothing. I tried searching on reports of vandalism or mischief making aro
und exam time, and sure enough, each year, stretching back over the decades, there was a cryptic notation: “Damages [O],” with no further explanation.

  I sighed. So, for most of the year, Ohin indulged students in their excesses, but on the anniversary of his death, he pranked the Polity. Even without knowing exactly what sort of prank he might get up to, it was easy to imagine it metastasizing into an ugly incident if the visiting delegation caught wind of it, or worse, witnessed it. And now that I had promised not to go through with the decommissioning, I was powerless to prevent it from happening.

  Then there was Amaya’s injunction. Would she still want me to celebrate Ohin now that I wasn’t “sending him into oblivion”?

  For the second time that day, I donned my decommissioner’s regalia and returned to Ohin’s shrine. I hadn’t made even half a circuit of the grounds before the beads of divine resin began to smoke.

  Ohin looked different this time. His fashionable long hair was gone—in fact, all his hair was gone. His head was shaved in the manner of a novice, and in place of the coveralls, he was wearing full, undyed woolen skirts, sashed at the waist, that I recognized from old scrolls as historical garb of priests of Amaya.

  “What have you done, decommissioner?” he demanded. “I was peacefully enjoying an eternity of lighthearted debauchery, and suddenly—” He ran his hand over his shaven scalp and turned slowly so his skirts unfurled like a flower around him. “Suddenly this.” His jaw clenched. “Why did you have to make me remember?” He closed his eyes, leaned his head back against his shrine’s dejected pine.

  “It wasn’t me,” I said. “It was Amaya.”

  Ohin pushed away from the tree, eyes wide now. “Lady of sunshine and sweet rain,” he whispered reverently.

  The words tingled in my ears.

  “What did you say? What is that?” I asked.

  “Lady of sunshine and sweet rain,” he repeated. “It’s from one of the salutations—how did I forget that? It’s one of our names for her.” The tenderness and respect in his voice was totally unlike what I’d heard from him during the morning.