The Long War

27

SO JOSHUA FOUND himself sitting with Sister Agnes reincarnate, in a shabby coffee shop in Madison West 5.

It was an odd atmosphere. Two people trying to get a grip on this inexplicable new world: a world where the dead could rise and sit cheerfully sipping a coffee while talking of old times . . . Two people not quite finding the words that needed to be said. As it was, however, for now, the smiles were doing the job.

Agnes sat upright, a bit primly, sipping her coffee. Maybe her features were just a little too regular, her skin a little too smooth, to be convincingly human.

But as far as Joshua was concerned, too many of the regulars in this coffee shop, mostly Low Earth construction workers, took a much too irreligious interest in Agnes’s new curves. ‘They ought to have more respect for the wimple.’

‘Oh, hush. All men are rudimentary creatures who respond to symbols a lot more basic than a habit and a crucifix.’

‘I can’t quite believe this is happening.’

‘Neither can I. And it’s hard to even believe I’m here to do the disbelieving, if you know what I mean.’

When he looked up she was smiling, that flagstone-cracking beam of a smile that had always made her look twenty years younger. Agnes’s smile wasn’t the kind of smile that the regular world would associate with the word ‘nun’. It was a smile that had always contained a touch of mischief, and also a terrible rage, kept in check until it was needed. This was what had enabled her to sustain the Home, and her many other projects, in the face of opposition from the Vatican on down. The smile and the rage.

She sipped her coffee quite convincingly, just as Lobsang’s ambulant units always had; he tried not to think about the internal plumbing that made this possible. Now she lowered her cup and looked on him with pride, it seemed. ‘Ah, me. And here you are, a full-grown man, a father, a mayor—’

‘Lobsang did this to you.’

‘He did,’ she said warningly, ‘though he used some careless talk from you as an excuse to do it, young man. We’ll have to have a serious chat about that.’

‘How? I mean—’

‘Either I was downloaded from my poor dying brain via some kind of neural scan into a bucket of gel, or I was brought back by Tibetan monks chanting the Book of the Dead over my already interred corpse for forty-nine days. Lobsang tried both ways, he says.’

Joshua smiled weakly. ‘That’s Lobsang, all right. “Always have a backup.” I came to your funeral, you know, but he kept the rest from me, I guess. I didn’t know about the reincarnation. Or the monks. They must have driven the Sisters crazy . . . Does anybody else know you’re back? I mean, at the Home—’

‘Yes, I got in touch with the Home as soon as I could. I asked for Sister Georgina, she was the least likely to go bananas when she picked up the phone and heard my voice, or so I thought. I got a note from the Archbishop, if you want to know. The Church picks up more secrets than Lobsang himself. But I’m not public knowledge yet. Of course I’ll have to come out, so to speak, some time, if I’m to assume my place in the world again. At least, thanks to Lobsang, I’m not the first, umm, revenant in silicon and gel, even if he is wrapped in a cloak of mystery. Enough people are aware of his origins; at least my basic existence might be accepted.’

‘What place in the world?’

She pursed her lips. ‘Well, Joshua, as you ought to know if you ever paid any attention, before my final illness I was deputy chief executive of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents most of America’s Catholic sisters. I was actually in the middle of a terrific fight with the Vatican itself, its Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That’s the Inquisition, to you. About a book by a Sister Hilary in Cleveland.’

‘A book? What about?’

‘The spiritual benefits of female masturbation.’

Joshua sprayed coffee. The male heads turned again.

Her eyes glittered, as if she was ready for the fight. ‘We’ve been at war with the Pope and his cardinals since the Second Vatican Council. Just because we think social justice is more important than opposing abortion or same-sex marriage. Just because we reject their patronizing patriarchy – which is why nuns become nuns in the first place, one way or another. Oh, I can’t wait to get back into the fray, Joshua. And with this new body I’m never going to run out of steam, am I? I’ll be the Energizer bunny of militant nuns.’

‘What’s an Energizer bunny?’

‘Oh my dear child, you have so much to learn.’

‘Tell me why Lobsang brought you back. Not for my benefit, I’m guessing?’

She snorted. ‘Maybe that’s ten per cent of it. Apparently, I am to serve as a moral compass for Lobsang himself.’

‘Hmm. That’s not necessarily a bad idea.’

‘Maybe so, but I remain astonished that he doesn’t realize that the pointer of my own moral compass is severely bent around the stop.’

He grinned. ‘I remember when you hit that papal nuncio with a shoe. We all enjoyed that, even though we knew nothing about the scandal that guy was wrapped up in at the time. Then about two years afterwards the cover-up was exposed, and we all wished that you had hit him with both shoes.’

‘Of course, at first, I hated Lobsang for bringing me back from the dead. What a cheek. While at the same time, if you can understand me, I was beside myself with gratitude that he did so.’ She looked down at her body, at her hands.

‘But he gave you the choice of not going along with this, right? You could have gone off and led some independent – umm, life. Or—’

‘Or have him show me where my off switch is.’

‘How did he convince you?’

She looked thoughtful. ‘Well, I’ll tell you the truth. It was one particular conversation we had. Lobsang said about something or other, “Does not compute.” “Right,” I said . . .’

‘That was an ironic allusion, by the way,’ Lobsang had added.

They had been in a kind of gym, both in more or less incongruous tracksuits, where Lobsang was helping Agnes develop her physical reflexes.

‘What was an ironic allusion?’

‘The phrase “does not compute” was used in an ironic sense to imply bewildered exasperation,’ said Lobsang patiently. ‘It was not used unthinkingly as an error message in response to insufficient or contradictory information.’

‘Lobsang?’

‘Yes?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘You persist in thinking of me as a computer. I am trying to dispel that illusion. Why are you shaking your head?’

‘Sorry. It’s just, well, you’re trying too hard, I think.’

‘You may call me “Lobby”. Perhaps pet names will break the ice, do you suppose?’

‘Lobby . . .’

(‘Joshua, he kept pausing, waiting for me to carry on talking. Have you ever spent time with a foreigner who wants to practise his English on you? Lobsang was like that, in those first few days, anxiously trying out his humanity on me . . .’)

‘Look,’ Agnes said, ‘you’re going about it all wrong. You’re not a human. You can’t be a human. You’re a very intelligent machine. You’re more than human. Can’t you live with that? Being human isn’t about the brain, it’s all tied up with messy things like – well, organs and juices and instincts.’

‘You are describing your body, not yourself. In fact your former body.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Externally you were an animal, but that was not your self. Externally I am a machine, but you should not judge by appearances.’

‘OK, but—’

‘We could try the Turin test,’ said Lobsang.

‘Oh, machines have been able to pass the Turing test for years.’

‘No, the Turin test. We both pray for an hour, and see if God can tell the difference.’

And she had to laugh.

‘That was it? He made you laugh?’

‘Well, it was the first time he actually seemed authentically human. And he did keep on. It was like being licked to death by puppies. He wore me down in the end.’

Joshua nodded. ‘You know, if this works out even ten per cent, he’s going to be lucky to have you.’

She snorted. ‘You’d better ask him that. I’m learning to crack the whip . . . Joshua, I know you’ve had your differences with him.’

‘You can say that again. When I called him in to help you it was about the only time I’ve spoken to him since the Madison nuke.’

‘I think he misses you, you know. He spans the world, but he has few friends. If any.’

‘Which is why he has to manufacture them, right?’

‘That’s rather harsh, Joshua. On both of us.’

‘Yes. I’m sorry. Look, Agnes, as far as I’m concerned, however you got here, it’s just good to have you back.’

Now she looked oddly concerned. She took both his hands in hers, as she used to when he was small and there was something difficult she needed to tell him. ‘But you and I know the real question, Joshua.’

‘What question?’

‘I look like Agnes. I think like her. I can carry on her work. I feel like I’m her. But can I be her? I’m a nun, Joshua. Or Agnes was. And enough of a nun to know that there’s no place in Catholic theology for Tibetan-style reincarnation.’

‘Then what?’

She looked away, which was not characteristic of her. ‘My death, Joshua . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘I . . .. experienced it. What we call the Personal Judgement, or something like it. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. I encountered God. Or so it feels. So I believe.’ She raised her hands again and turned them over, inspecting them. ‘And now here I am in this miraculous new form. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.’ She twinkled a smile at him. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t ask you for chapter and verse. Maybe I’m some sort of electronic ghost – not Agnes at all, or at best a blasphemous mockery of her. Or maybe, instead, I’m here to fulfil the will of God, in a new way – in a world transformed by technology, to fulfil that will in a way that was never possible before. I feel I’m ready to accept the latter interpretation for now.’

He stirred the last of his coffee. ‘What does Lobsang want, do you think? What’s he trying to become? The guardian of the whole human race, maybe?’

She thought about that. ‘I rather believe that he might be more like a gardener. Which sounds nice and bucolic and harmless, right up to the time you remember that a gardener must sometimes prune . . .’

He stood. ‘I have to go back. My family have had a lot of problems since we got back here.’

‘I heard.’

‘About the nature of your new existence – well, I did spend a lot of time with Lobsang. I’m no theologian. My advice is, just get on with it. Do the good that’s in front of you. That’s what you always said.’

‘That’s true. Actually at some point I’m hoping for a bit of theological guidance from those fellas in fancy dress from the Vatican.’

‘I don’t care about the Vatican. As far as I’m concerned you’re my Agnes.’

‘Thank you, Joshua.’ She stood and hugged him. ‘Don’t be a stranger.’

‘Never.’