Job: A Comedy of Justice

by Robert A. Heinlein

  I wasn’t listening very hard as I was growing quite angry. Dicker with what? He knew that I was utterly without funds—didn’t he believe me?

  “So I’ll say good-bye,” Steve went on. “Alec, can you get that door? I don’t want to get out.”

  “I can get it.” I opened it, stepped down, then remembered my manners. “Steve, I want to thank you for everything. Dinner, and beer, and a long ride. May the Lord watch over you and keep you.”

  “Thank you and don’t mention it. Here.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a card. “That’s my business card. Actually it’s my daughter’s address. When you get to Kansas, drop me a card, let me know how you made out.”

  “I’ll do that.” I took the card, then started to hand Margrethe down.

  Steve stopped her. “Maggie! Aren’t you going to kiss ol’ Steve good-bye?”

  “Why, certainly, Steve!” She turned back and half faced him on the seat.

  “That’s better. Alec, you’d better turn your back.”

  I did not turn my back but I tried to ignore it, while watching out the corner of my eye.

  If it had gone on one half-second longer, I would have dragged her out of that cab bodily. Yet I am forced to admit that Margrethe was not having attentions forced on her; she was cooperating fully, kissing him in a fashion no married woman should ever kiss another man.

  I endured it.

  At last it ended. I handed her down, and closed the door. Steve called out, “’Bye, kids!” and his truck moved forward. As it picked up speed he tooted his horn twice.

  Margrethe said, “Alec, you are angry with me.”

  “No. Surprised, yes. Even shocked. Disappointed. Saddened.”

  “Don’t sniff at me!”

  “Eh?”

  “Steve drove us two hundred and fifty miles and bought us a fine dinner and didn’t laugh when we told him a preposterous story. And now you get hoity-toity and holier-than-thou because I kissed him hard enough to show that I appreciated what he had done for me and my husband. I won’t stand for it, do you hear?”

  “I just meant that—”

  “Stop it! I won’t listen to explanations. Because you’re wrong! And now I am angry and I shall stay angry until you realize you are wrong. So think it over!” She turned and started walking rapidly toward the intersection of 66 with 89.

  I hurried to catch up. “Margrethe!”

  She did not answer and increased her pace.

  “Margrethe!” Eyes straight ahead—

  “Margrethe darling! I was wrong. I’m sorry, I apologize.”

  She stopped abruptly, turned and threw her arms around my neck, started to cry. “Oh, Alec, I love you so and you’re such a fub!”

  I did not answer at once as my mouth was busy. At last I said, “I love you, too, and what is a fub?”

  “You are.”

  “Well—In that case I’m your fub and you’re stuck with me. Don’t walk away from me again.”

  “I won’t. Not ever.” We resumed what we had been doing.

  After a while I pulled my face back just far enough to whisper: “We don’t have a bed to our name and I’ve never wanted one more.”

  “Alec. Check your pockets.”

  “Huh?”

  “While he was kissing me, Steve whispered to me to tell you to check your pockets and to say, ‘The Lord will provide.’”

  I found it in my left-hand coat pocket: a gold eagle. Never before had I held one in my hand. It felt warm and heavy.

  XVI

  Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a

  man be more pure than his maker?

  Job 4:17

  Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause

  me to understand wherein I have erred.

  Job 6:24

  At a drugstore in downtown Flagstaff I exchanged that gold eagle for nine cartwheels, ninety-five cents in change, and a bar of Ivory soap. Buying soap was Margrethe’s idea. “Alec, a druggist is not a banker; changing money is something he may not want to do other than as part of a sale. We need soap. I want to wash your underwear and mine, and we both need baths…and I suspect that, at the sort of cheap lodging Steve urged us to take, soap may not be included in the rent.”

  She was right on both points. The druggist raised his eyebrows at the ten-dollar gold piece but said nothing. He took the coin, let it ring on the glass top of a counter, then reached behind his cash register, fetched out a small bottle, and subjected the coin to the acid test.

  I made no comment. Silently he counted out nine silver dollars, a half dollar, a quarter, and two dimes. Instead of pocketing the coins at once, I stood fast, and subjected each coin to the same ringing test he had used, using his glass counter. Having done so, I pushed one cartwheel back at him.

  Again he made no comment—he had heard the dull ring of that putatively silver coin as well as I. He rang up “No Sale,” handed me another cartwheel (which rang clear as a bell), and put the bogus coin somewhere in the back of the cash drawer. Then he turned his back on me.

  At the outskirts of town, halfway to Winona, we found a place shabby enough to meet our standards. Margrethe conducted the dicker, in Spanish. Our host asked five dollars. Marga called on the Virgin Mary and three other saints to witness what was being done to her. Then she offered him five pesos.

  I did not understand this maneuver; I knew she had no pesos on her. Surely she would not be intending to offer those unspendable “royal” pesos I still carried?

  I did not find out, as our host answered with a price of three dollars and that is final, Señora, as God is my witness.

  They settled on a dollar and a half, then Marga rented clean sheets and a blanket for another fifty cents—paid for the lot with two silver dollars but demanded pillows and clean pillow-cases to seal the bargain. She got them but the patrón asked something for luck. Marga added a dime and he bowed deeply and assured us that his house was ours.

  At seven the next morning we were on our way, rested, clean, happy, and hungry. A half hour later we were in Winona and much hungrier. We cured the latter at a little trailer-coach lunchroom: a stack of wheat cakes, ten cents; coffee, five cents—no charge for second cup, no limit on butter or syrup.

  Margrethe could not finish her hot cakes—they were lavish—so we swapped plates and I salvaged what she had left.

  A sign on the wall read: CASH WHEN SERVED—NO TIPPING—ARE YOU READY FOR JUDGMENT DAY? The cook-waiter (and owner, I think) had a copy of The Watch Tower propped up by his range. I asked, “Brother, do you have any late news on when to expect Judgment Day?”

  “Don’t joke about it. Eternity is a long time to spend in the Pit.”

  I answered, “I was not joking. By the signs and portents I think we are in the seven-year period prophesied in the eleventh chapter of Revelation, verses two and three. But I don’t know how far we are into it.”

  “We’re already well into the second half,” he answered. “The two witnesses are now prophesying and the antichrist is abroad in the land. Are you in a state of grace? If not, you had better get cracking.”

  I answered, “‘Therefore be ye also ready: for such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.’”

  “You’d better believe it!”

  “I do believe it. Thanks for a good breakfast.”

  “Don’t mention it. May the Lord watch over you.”

  “Thank you. May He bless you and keep you.” Marga and I left.

  We headed east again. “How is my sweetheart?”

  “Full of food and happy.”

  “So am I. Something you did last night made me especially happy.”

  “Me, too. But you always do, darling man. Every time.”

  “Uh, yes, there’s that. Me, too. Always. But I meant something you said, earlier. When Steve asked if you agreed with me about Judgment Day and you told him you did agree. Marga, I can’t tell you how much it has worried me that you have not chosen to be received back into the arms of Jesus. Wi
th Judgment Day rushing toward us and no way to know the hour—well, I’ve worried. I do worry. But apparently you are finding your way back to the light but had not yet discussed it with me.”

  We walked perhaps twenty paces while Margrethe did not say anything.

  At last she said quietly, “Beloved, I would put your mind at rest. If I could. I cannot.”

  “So? I do not understand. Will you explain?”

  “I did not tell Steve that I agreed with you. I said to him that I did not disagree.”

  “But that’s the same thing!”

  “No, darling. What I did not say to Steve but could have said in full honesty is that I will never publicly disagree with my husband about anything. Any disagreement with you I will discuss with you in private. Not in Steve’s presence. Not anyone’s.”

  I chewed that over, let several possible comments go unsaid—at last said, “Thank you, Margrethe.”

  “Beloved, I do it for my own dignity as well as for yours. All my life I have hated the sight of husband and wife disagreeing—disputing—quarreling in public. If you say that the sun is covered with bright green puppy dogs, I will not disagree in public.”

  “Ah, but it is!”

  “Sir?” She stopped, and looked startled.

  “My good Marga. Whatever the problem, you always find a gentle answer. If I ever do see bright green puppy dogs on the face of the sun, I will try to remember to discuss it with you in private, not face you with hard decisions in public. I love you. I read too much into what you said to Steve because I really do worry.”

  She took my hand and we walked a bit farther without talking.

  “Alec?”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “I do not willingly worry you. If I am wrong and you are going to the Christian Heaven, I do want to go with you. If this means a return to faith in Jesus—and it seems that it does—then that is what I want. I will try. I cannot promise it, as faith is not a matter of simple volition. But I will try.”

  I stopped to kiss her, to the amusement of a carload of men passing by. “Darling, more I cannot ask. Shall we pray together?”

  “Alec, I would rather not. Let me pray alone—and I will! When it comes time to pray together, I will tell you.”

  Not long after that we were picked up by a ranch couple who took us into Winslow. They dropped us there without asking any questions and without us offering any information, which must set some sort of record.

  Winslow is much larger than Winona; it is a respectable town as desert communities go—seven thousand at a guess. We found there an opportunity to carry out something Steve had indirectly suggested and that we had discussed the night before.

  Steve was correct; we were not dressed for the desert. True, we had had no choice, as we had been caught by a world change. But I did not see another man wearing a business suit in the desert. Nor did we see Anglo women: dressed in women’s suits. Indian women and Mexican women wore skirts, but Anglo women wore either shorts or trousers—slacks, jeans, cutoffs, riding pants, something. Rarely a skirt, never a suit.

  Furthermore our suits were not right even as city wear. They looked as out of place as styles of the Mauve Decade would look. Don’t ask me how as I am no expert on styles, especially for women. The suit that I wore had been both smart and expensive when worn by my patrón, Don Jaime, in Mazatlán in another world…but on me, in the Arizona desert in this world, it was something out of skid row.

  In Winslow we found just the shop we needed: SECOND WIND—A Million Bargains—All Sales Cash, No Guarantees, No Returns—All Used Clothing Sterilized Before Being Offered For Sale. Above this were the same statements in Spanish.

  An hour later, after much picking over of their stock and some heavy dickering by Margrethe, we were dressed for the desert. I was wearing khaki pants, a shirt to match, and a straw hat of vaguely western style. Margrethe was wearing considerably less: shorts that were both short and tight—indecently so—and an upper garment that was less than a bodice but slightly more than a brassiere: It was termed a “halter.”

  When I saw Marga in this outfit, I whispered to her, “I positively will not permit you to appear in public in that shameless costume.”

  She answered, “Dear, don’t be a fub so early in the day. It’s too hot.”

  “I’m not joking. I forbid you to buy that.”

  “Alec, I don’t recall asking your permission.”

  “Are you defying me?”

  She sighed. “Perhaps I am. I don’t want to. Did you get your razor?”

  “You saw me!”

  “I have your underpants and socks. Is there anything more you need now?”

  “No. Margrethe! Quit evading me!”

  “Darling, I told you that I will not quarrel with you in public. This outfit has a wrap-around skirt; I was about to put it on. Let me do so and settle the bill. Then we can go outside and talk in private.”

  Fuming, I went along with what she proposed. I might as well admit that, under her careful management, we came out of that bazaar with more money than we had had when we came in. How? That suit from my patrón, Don Jaime, that looked so ridiculous on me, looked just right on the owner of the shop—in fact he resembled Don Jaime. He had been willing to swap, even, for what I needed—khaki shirt and pants and straw hat.

  But Margrethe insisted on something to boot. She demanded five dollars, got two.

  I learned, as she settled our bill, that she had wrought similar magic in getting rid of that tailored suit she no longer needed. We entered the shop with $7.55; we left it with $8.80…and desert outfits for each of us, a comb (for two), a toothbrush (also for two), a knapsack, a safety razor, plus a minimum of underwear and socks—all secondhand but alleged to be sterilized.

  I am not good at tactics, not with women. We were outside and down the highway to an open place where we could talk privately before Margrethe would talk to me—and I did not realize that I had already lost.

  Without stopping, she said, “Well, dear? You had something to discuss.”

  “Uh, with that skirt in place your clothing is acceptable. Barely. But you are not to appear in public in those shorts. Is that understood?”

  “I intended to wear just the shorts. If the weather is warm. As it is.”

  “But, Margrethe, I told you not to—” She was unsnapping the skirt, taking it off. “You are defying me!”

  She folded it up neatly. “May I place this in the knapsack? Please?”

  “You are deliberately disobeying me!”

  “But, Alec, I don’t have to obey you and you don’t have to obey me.”

  “But—Look, dear, be reasonable. You know I don’t usually give orders. But a wife must obey her husband. Are you my wife?”

  “You told me so. So I am until you tell me otherwise.”

  “Then it is your duty to obey me.”

  “No, Alec.”

  “But that is a wife’s first duty!”

  “I don’t agree.”

  “But—This is madness! Are you leaving me?”

  “No. Only if you divorce me.”

  “I don’t believe in divorce. Divorce is wrong. Against Scripture.”

  She made no answer.

  “Margrethe…please put your skirt on.”

  She said softly, “Almost you persuade me, dearest. Will you explain why you want me to do so?”

  “What? Because those shorts, worn alone, are indecent!”

  “I don’t see how an article of clothing can be indecent, Alec. A person, yes. Are you saying that I am indecent?”

  “Uh—You’re twisting my words. When you wear those shorts—without a skirt—in public, you expose so much of yourself that the spectacle is indecent. Right now, walking this highway, your limbs are fully exposed…to the people in that car that just passed, for example. They saw you. I saw them staring!”

  “Good. I hope they enjoyed it.”

  “What?”

  “You tell me that I am beautiful. But you could be
prejudiced. I hope that my appearance is pleasing to other people as well.”

  “Be serious, Margrethe; we’re speaking of your naked limbs. Naked.”

  “You’re saying my legs are bare. So they are. I prefer them bare when the weather is warm. What are you frowning at, dear? Are my legs ugly?”

  (“Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee!”) “Your limbs are beautiful, my love; I have told you so many times. But I have no wish to share your beauty.”

  “Beauty is not diminished by being shared. Let’s get back to the subject, Alec; you were explaining how my legs are indecent. If you can explain it. I don’t think you can.”

  “But, Margrethe, nakedness is indecent by its very nature. It inspires lewd thoughts.”

  “Really? Does seeing my legs cause you to get an erection?”

  “Margrethe!”

  “Alec, stop being a fub! I asked a simple question.”

  “An improper question.”

  She sighed. “I don’t see how that question can possibly be improper between husband and wife. And I will never concede that my legs are indecent. Or that nakedness is indecent. I have been naked in front of hundreds of people—”

  “Margrethe!”

  She looked surprised. “Surely you know that?”

  “I did not know it and I am shocked to hear it.”

  “Truly, dear? But you know how well I swim.”

  “What’s that got to do with it? I swim well, too. But I don’t swim naked; I wear a bathing suit.” (But I was remembering most sharply the pool in Konge Knut—of course my darling was used to nude swimming. I found myself out on a limb.)

  “Oh. Yes, I’ve seen such suits, in Mazatlán. And in Spain. But, darling, we’re going astray again. The problem is wider than whether or not bare legs are indecent or whether I should have kissed Steve good-bye or even whether I must obey you. You are expecting me to be what I am not. I want to be your wife for many years, for all my life—and I hope to share Heaven with you if Heaven is your destination. But, darling, I am not a child, I am not a slave. Because I love you I wish to please you. But I will not obey an order simply because I am a wife.”