The Clarkl Soup Kitchens Part 5

The boots are very warm, and I sent a letter of appreciation. I also sent a picture of one of the locals wearing the most colorful of the scarves.

March 26, 2144 We are going through a bit of a rainy period now. Rain is usually very heavy later in the year, but the planet has so much ice at the poles that rain can surprise even the oldest of the Clarklians.

The rain has had a pleasant result: the locals are coming to the dining room. The manager believes it has something to do with fellowship, a desire to see one's own kind when the weather is bad. I, on the other hand, think it is because it is easier to drive to our dining room than to shop for food in this weather.

The New Christian Congregation has opened an automat, and that service, I understand, is jammed when it rains. The Clarklians take food out of the doors faster than the Americans can stuff it in from the other side. The Congregation has a nice covered walkway that leads to the automat, and the locals are able to pick up food without braving the elements.

My little cabin is quite snug in this rain. The roof is good, and I understand it is rated for winds of up to 175 miles per hour, something we never see in Texas.

I have been keeping the floor warm all day, even while I am away, and the window is very steamy when I return. The exterior paint seems to be holding up under the rain.

The merchant was back yesterday to visit another American. Of course, this is not the time to paint, but I understand colors were selected and a mattress was sold.

I am thinking, in this rain, about a hot toddy.

March 27, 2144 About six hours of rehearsals today, with the winds howling outside.

Our sanctuary building is the least st.u.r.dy of the buildings in the compound. I understand the first Americans here built it themselves from plans that were developed for a modest church in North Dakota. Since that time it has had several new roofs, but the building remains the one not up to local standards.

Even those 121-square-foot dwellings are better able to withstand the cold and the winds than our sanctuary. The Clarklians build them like Fort Knox. I understand all those tiny houses have that expensive electric flooring, although probably not with platinum flakes throughout. The government keeps boiling water circulating through a special set of pipes so the water that runs to all houses is kept above freezing at all times. It sounds like a plumbing nightmare, with a requirement for three temperatures of water in each building.

March 28, 2144 My house continues to be snug enough. The winds from yesterday have somewhat subsided, and the sanctuary is warmer.

For the last several days, though, we have rehea.r.s.ed in our warmest coats and hats. It is easier, I think, to sing wearing a heavy coat than to accompany. But everyone, myself included, had to stop to wipe spectacles and noses throughout the day.

At the worst of this little storm, the temperature outside was about twenty below, Fahrenheit.

The Clarklians are used to it, and they did not feel the need to stay at home. Our dining room was nearly full yesterday.

Between the dining room's large building and the many cabins is an enclosed walkway, and the nearest entrance to that walkway from my cabin is about ten feet. Running that short of a distance in the cold was enough to convince me I want to go home.

Alas, my a.s.signment is only a few weeks old.

March 29, 2144 Much warmer today.

This was our Palm Sunday celebration, and the Reverend Walters was ready with the story of the entrance into Jerusalem. There is no vegetation here that resembles palm fronds.

The choir is sounding better with the Myllar and so am I. We recorded it at the early rehearsal today and played it back for ourselves, something that took about an hour and a half in total. Each person had one ear on the combined performance and one ear on his or her own voice or, in my case, instrument. We sat with the score and marked what needed improvement. The next rehearsal, in the afternoon, was better.

Somebody in America sent us some green robes, and the choir is determined to introduce them at the Easter services. I think they are hideous, but they are certainly a change from the black. One of the mezzos is pressing them.

One problem with my redecorated quarters is that people visit. Particularly women.

All the women here are old, old, old. The youngest is certainly ten years older than I, making her just under fifty. They are good Christian widows, for the most part, here for ten years to bridge the gap between widowhood and retirement. They want to talk, talk, talk, mostly about their children in America.

Is there any way to put up a Do Not Disturb sign on the door? No. It would be discussed at length in the staff lounge the next day, and attempts to visit me would be redoubled.

There is no place to hide. There is no library with carrels where a person can appear to be studying. There is no bar with booths. There is no Odd Fellows' Lodge.

I need to stay here at least until the wedding in Texas. Only then will I be safe from the grasping reach of that gold digger who has captured my mother's heart.

March 30, 2144 A nice day, just a degree or two below freezing. We rehea.r.s.ed in our sweaters and scarves.

I think the Bach is ready. Certainly the Reverend Walters thought it sounded good when he attended the rehearsal today.

These women do not bother the Reverend Walters. He is over seventy and really quite seedy. If somebody were to tell me he had spent his youth in a gin bottle, I would not be surprised.

Where is Mrs. Walters? n.o.body knows.

A Protestant clergyman without a good wife never gets anywhere professionally. He has to take the bottom of the a.s.signment barrel, perhaps in a homeless shelter or, even worse, in Clarkl.

April 1, 2144 My farmhand friend sent me an electronic message, suggesting we take another ride. I read that as his wanting another $20 bill, perhaps more. I have put him off until after Easter.

We have seven numbers prepared, one for Maundy Thursday, three for Good Friday, and three for Easter Sunday. Of these seven, Good Friday is good and the rest are fair.

Our timekeeping here is very loose. We have no exact idea of when the actual Full Moon takes place since our calendar is based on a day longer than twenty-four hours. Every month or so we skip a day, and we skipped March 31 to get back to something close to our Christian calendar.

We have been told to expect a visit by the Monarchs in the next few days. These visits, I have been told, are very much like royal progresses. The Monarchs visit our dining room, we smile, and the locals prostrate themselves.

I have never seen a Monarch, except in pictures, and I am very anxious to find out what the fuss is all about. The dining room manager a.s.sures me they never enter the sanctuary, so I have asked for a temporary job in the dining room during the visit.

There is no king and no queen. Instead, one Monarch is clearly the top dog, and the rest follow its lead. The top Monarch, I understand, is always the product of the former top Monarch and another Monarch, even though the mating of a Monarch and a Wolpter will result in a Monarch half the time.

So the top Monarch must be careful to mate with those of its own kind since the other Monarchs will select one of these offspring as the next top Monarch at the time of the succession.

The gossip here is that the current top Monarch, called the Vlogo, is rather effete and not given to spreading its genes. It has only three offspring for consideration, and this Vlogo is getting close to the time when offspring will be needed.

As for our Drones, I can't tell who is young and who is old. The adults look sufficiently vigorous and healthy. Certainly they are all getting enough to eat.

Monarchs are far more interested in mating with Seekers, Slinkers, and Carriers than in mating with the lower-cla.s.s Wolpters. These matches never create a Monarch, but they often create a Batwig, the companions of the Monarchs.

April 2, 2144 Our final day of rehearsal before the Holy Week services start in earnest. We have decided to take next Monday as a holiday, and I will play the services by myself. I also will play some of our recorded anthems, thus giving the choir a free day.

The Reverend Walters a.s.sures me the Monarchs will want to attend the Easter services. I don't really believe it, but I think we are as ready with the music as we can get.

Three women stopped by my cabin this evening with ham hors d'oeuvres. The canned ham was a gift from some do-gooder in Virginia, and it arrived just this afternoon. Of course, we won't serve ham to the locals since they are vegetarians.

I have seen no animals on Clarkl other than the human types that visit the dining room. The Reverend Walters a.s.sures me that great beasts roam the colder parts of the planet, never coming close to the equator. The locals do not ever consider eating them.

What I would do right now for a really fine steak!

April 3, 2144 The Maundy Thursday service was a triumph. The choir really sounded good, and the homily was fitting and not too foreboding about the terrible Good Friday events.

We had a few locals in the pews, too. We have been here for many, many years, and some of the Clarklians are aware this is our big week.

Some of the Americans from the New Christian Congregation's dining room were at the service, and so were some of the people from the farms. Ours is the only formal Christian service on this planet, as far as I know, and we expect to see even more Americans tomorrow and on Sunday.

This is my first Holy Week at the organ, too. I served as a volunteer subst.i.tute organist at our church at home, but the starting lineup was always on duty during Easter week. I rehea.r.s.ed with the choir once or twice, but I never got the call.

April 4, 2144 Monarchs everywhere today! They ate in the dining room and attended both services in the sanctuary!

We brought back the Maundy Thursday anthem for the second service, just so the exalted ones would not think we had only the two we rehea.r.s.ed for both services.

These ent.i.ties are frightful! Great blobs of skin protrude from their heads! I caught myself starring at them and forced myself to turn away.

The Reverend Walters brought out his complete stock in trade, starting with the annunciation, moving to the virgin birth, then describing the first miracle at the wedding, and finally telling the complete story of the crucifixion. My f.a.n.n.y was numb, and I, on the organ bench, had the softest seat in the house.

At the second service, he threw in the Sermon on the Mount for good measure.

He usually speaks for twenty minutes. At the first service he ran on for one hour and twenty minutes, and at the second service he clocked in at just under two hours.

The Monarchs did not leave! They listened to every word, translated into their language, as always.

A few heads nodded in time with the Bach, and those blobs wiggled and waggled.

I believe there were thirty Monarchs in total. The choir was facing the congregation, and their estimates range between twenty-five and forty.

The pecking order was clear to us. The ones in the front pew were the highest in status.

I wish we had performed the Myllar. That is the best of this week's numbers, and we were saving it until Easter.

April 5, 2144 The excitement has somewhat died down. We still had to complete our two services today, but our hearts were not really in them. The guests had gone.

The dining room manager has posted a list of exactly what the Monarchs ate. They were happy with the pumpkin stew and finished that off. They did not care much for the cabbage and corn fritters. They cleaned us out of apple pie, with our complete supply being rushed from the freezer to the oven to the serving line.

April 6, 2144 Easter went very well. The locals know this is our big day, and about three dozen came to the early service and a dozen came to the later service.

These locals, when there are a significant number of them, will applaud after something they like. We never hear this in a Texas Protestant church, but things are different in Clarkl. The Myllar was applauded politely, but the Saint-Saens number was so well received that we repeated it immediately. This was a first for me. The Reverend Walters sat at the altar, beaming, while we presented it a second time.

The staff came in their best clothes, half to each service. They carefully sat in the back so the Clarklians could have the best seats, but it didn't much matter. The sanctuary was quite empty. After the service, many of the kitchen workers sought me out and told me how much they had enjoyed the music. That was reward enough for me for the weeks of rehearsals.

The story of the resurrection is always stirring, and the Reverend Walters put more emotion into this sermon than any other I have heard. Of course, our faith is based on this event and its message of eternal life, but it is good to hear it each year.

Those green robes even brought a compliment or two, despite my aversion to them.

At the end of the day, I fell into my comfortable bed and slept soundly.

April 7, 2144 We had an easy day today, with two brief services with recorded choir music. I played both services at the piano, which is so much easier than the multi-manual, multi-pedal organ, and I felt as if I had had almost a vacation day.

Another call from my friend the farmhand. We decided to go on a drive after the early service tomorrow.

April 8, 2144 A fine day today, with no rehearsals and a nice drive along the road to Gilsumo.

As I suspected, my farmhand friend wants to earn more money. I spelled out for him exactly what he could do to earn $140, and he said he would think about it. A half hour later the deal was made, and I feel as good as I have felt since I left Texas. We agreed to meet about once a week, under the same conditions.

The dining room manager received a beautiful letter from a Monarch. We had to call the American emba.s.sy in Gilsumo to have it translated. The letter expressed thanks for the meals on the prior Friday. No flowery language, no comments about the apple pie they cleaned us out of, and no thanks for the church service or its music.

My mother is a good writer of letters. She has at least four letters on each s.p.a.cecraft that lands, and each one discusses the plans that are moving forward for my admirer's wedding. A dress has been selected, and this dress is the most beautiful garment anyone has ever seen. A florist has been engaged from Houston, and the estimate for his services has people near apoplexy. The local bakery is designing a cake for six hundred guests, the size of which has heretofore been unknown in my hometown.

Who is paying for all this? I have a good idea.

My brother has announced a dividend on the family's stock, and my net worth has increased by about seven percent in the months I have been away. He has a better touch with running the factories profitably than even our father had.

My sister is pregnant, again. This will be her fourth child, and my mother is all atwitter about the preparations for the birth, an event that is about four months away. One nurse has already been engaged to look after my sister, a woman who should know better than to conceive a child in her mid-forties.

April 9, 2144 We are back to daily rehearsals, after an easy few days.

The experience during Holy Week has not been lost on us. We took notes of which numbers the Clarklians especially liked, and we are trying to find similar tunes and, especially, arrangements.

We have decided to do a week of American Spirituals, starting in the next few days. We will record these and attempt to have about a dozen spirituals to send to the Deacon in Arizona within two weeks. Our prior submissions were distributed to the faithful, and some people are asking for more.

Of course, the music is not the finest. The interest is only that it was recorded on Clarkl, the location of our most distant missionary efforts.

These recordings are offered free of charge to anybody who is interested. The American government pays us enough to run this place, and American citizens need a reminder that we are here.

I have been sleeping well this week.

April 10, 2144 After a good Holy Week, our dining room is back to its poor numbers of meals served. I wish I could find out what the Congregationalists are doing to combat this decrease in work.

My farmhand friend has a.s.sured me the Congregationalists are building a new facility, one that nearly quadruples the number of seats in the dining room. How can they reconcile that effort with the fact that fewer Clarklians are coming for meals?

April 11, 2144 The dining room manager is using the results of the Holy Week's business to plan the dishes for the serving line. The cooks are up to their elbows in apples, paring and slicing. Tomorrow they will bake them into pies.

We have seven spirituals in various stages of rehearsal. I would like to have a good ba.s.s for Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, but we are making do with what we have. For those notes between E flat below the ba.s.s clef to the A above that note, I have to play them on the organ's foot pedals. I wish I could rearrange the piece, but what's it without the low notes? I'll fix the recording with my computer after we have completed it. The baritone will be surprised to hear himself!

The Reverend Walters was so pleased after the Good Friday services, when none of the Monarchs left before the sermon was complete, that he has lengthened all sermons since that time. He also has redoubled his fire and brimstone antics, talking about the terrible penalty in the afterlife for all this fornication we hear so much about here on Clarkl. I have not yet taken it to heart.

We found out the Vlogo was not among us last week. The Vlogo's only sibling was here, though, and that ent.i.ty was given the best seat.

It's funny to me that the best seat to the Vlogo's sibling was the one in the front and center. Back in Texas, the best seat in the sanctuary is as far from the altar as one can sit without being in the last row. The last row does not give your friends the opportunity to actually see that you were in attendance.

Of course, our Bible does not say anything about the meaning of adultery for androgynous beings. Or for sterile ones, either. What is so terrible about the Drones engaging in harmless s.e.x? No child is conceived, and no line of succession is questioned.

The Batwigs, also sterile, don't have much of a problem with all this fornication, so the Reverend Walters can let them know they are cleared for their rewards in the afterlife. If he ever saw an uppity Batwig in his sanctuary, that is.

I want to see a Slinker. They don't come here, and n.o.body knows much about them. A Slinker always has a Slinker parent, but when a Slinker mates with another type, the chances are very good the offspring will not be a Slinker. Only when a Slinker mates with another Slinker is the offspring certain to be a Slinker.

April 12, 2144 We filled the buffet line with apple pie, thinking the regulars would call their friends to come. The number of meals served stayed about the same. The pies were frozen and will be pulled out again in a few days.

Today we presented our first American Spiritual, Ezekiel Saw the Wheel, to the delight of the Reverend Walters. The locals were in short supply, but they nodded their heads with the music.

We had a small card game in my cabin after the last service, something we did not tell the Reverend Walters about. Cards are still thought to be an instrument of the devil, even when no money changes hands. We played gin rummy for about an hour, and then the diehards stayed on for three rubbers of bridge. n.o.body suggested canasta or pinochle.

There is a checkers board in the staff's lounge, and sometimes an animated game takes place. If the Reverend Walters walks in during a game, the players stop and join the conversation until he leaves. Can't take chances with eternal d.a.m.nation!

April 13, 2144 Two more spirituals today, recorded and ready for my final touches. Our rendition of Deep River was very fine, and Every Time I Feel the Spirit was nearly perfect.

I spent the evening with the recordings, sharpening the tenor's tone and giving the second sopranos more vibrato. These people try so hard!