And there certainly was nothing supernatural about this place and the raising of the dead in it. Everything-well, not everything but almost everything-could be explained in physical, not metaphysical, terms. This did not keep people from originating religious theories or reshaping old ones.
Those religions which had no eschatology of resurrection or immortality in the Western sense, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Taoism were discredited. Those which did have such, Judaism, Islamism, Christianity, were equally discredited. But here, as on Earth, the death of a major religion was the birth pang of a new one. And there were, of course, minorities who refused stubbornly, despite all evidence, to admit that their faith was invalid.
Jill, standing near Samuelo, ex-rabbi, present bishop of the Church of the Second Chance, wondered what his reaction had been that first year on this world. There was no Messiah come to save the Chosen People, nor, indeed, any Chosen People assembled together at Jerusalem on Earth. No Jerusalem, no Earth.
Apparently the shattering of his faith had not shattered him. Somehow he had been able to accept that he had been wrong. Although a superorthodox rabbi of ancient times, he had a flexible mind.
At that moment Jeanne Jugan, who was hostess, offered Samuelo and Rahelo a dish of bamboo tips and fileted fish. Samuelo looked at the fish and said, “What is that?”
“Toadfish,” Jeanne said.
Samuelo tightened his lips and shook his head. Jeanne looked puzzled, since the bishop was obviously hungry and his fingers were only a few centimeters from seizing the tips. These, as far as Jill knew, were not tabu according to the Mosaic laws. But they were on the same plate as the forbidden scaleless fish and so contaminated.
She smiled. It was much easier to change a person’s religion than his/her food habits. A devout Jew or Moslem could give up his creed but would still feel nauseated if offered pork. A Hindu whom Jill had known had become an atheist on The Riverworld, but he still could not abide meat. Jill, though of partial blackfellow descent, could not force herself to eat worms, though she had tried. Genetic descent had nothing to do with dietary matters, of course; it was social descent that determined food choices. Though not always. Some people could adapt easily enough. And there was always the individual taste. Jill had ceased eating mutton the moment she had quit her parents’ house. She hated it. And she preferred hamburger to beef roast.
The whole point to this reverie, she thought as she emerged from it, shedding thoughts as a surfacing diver sheds water, the whole point was that we are what we eat. And we eat what we do because of what we are. And what we are is determined partly by our environment and partly by our genetic makeup. All my family except myself loved mutton. A sister shared my indifference to beef roast and my love for hamburgers.
All my brothers and sisters, as far as I know, are heterosexual. I am the only bisexual. And I don’t want that. I want to be one way or the other, a gate that is latched, not swinging either way depending upon which way the wind is blowing. My internal wind which shifts from east to west or vice versa, twirling the windcock this way, or that way.
Actually, she did not want it one way or the other. If she had her choice-and why shouldn’t she?-she would be a woman lover.
Woman lover. Why didn’t she say to herself: lesbian? The English language was the greatest in the world, but it had its faults. It was often too ambiguous. Woman lover could mean a man who loved women, a man or woman who loved women, or a woman who was a lover.
There, .she’d said it. Lesbian. And she didn’t feet any shame. What about Jack? She had loved him. What about . . . ?
She had come up from the reverie only to dive down again.
Across the room, Firebrass, though talking to others, was looking at her. Had he noticed her tendency to become a statue, slumped, her head slightly cocked to the left, her eyelids lowered, and the eyes slightly rolled up? And if he had, then had he decided she was too moody and hence untrustworthy?