“Which one?” Demarkian asked. “Move out or stay out?”
“Stay out,” Henry said. “I went to college and law school, and then I came back. Don’t ask me why. I mean, I remember my reasoning at the time, but looking back on it from this perspective, I think I must have been crazy. I was on my own, you see. My parents were dead, and I didn’t want to go corporate. There’s a reason they call them soulless corporations. I don’t know. I thought that it would be easier here, to get started on my own, to function on my own. And then there was Mickey Squeers, who’d done the same thing in his time. He took me in.”
“That’s the Squeers of Wackford Squeers, outside?”
“That’s right,” Henry said. “He’s been dead for years now, of course, but I don’t see any reason to change the name of the firm. Or maybe I’m just like Scrooge. Maybe I keep the name so that I don’t have to go to the expense of changing the sign. I hate that novella, don’t you, Mr. Demarkian? More sentimental treacle. More fuzzy suffocating nonsense that doesn’t do anybody any good and that does a lot of harm. We make a point of going on with business as usual at the Snow Hill Humanist Association, right through the holidays. Somebody has to step up and do something, or nothing will ever change.”
“Bah,” Gregor Demarkian said. “Humbug.”
Henry turned, but Demarkian’s face was completely blank. He might not have said what Henry thought he’d heard. Henry leaned over and took a pile of files out of one of the chairs and gestured Gregor to it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I’m assuming too much. Maybe you’re a religious man.”
“Not the last time I checked,” Demarkian said.
“Then you’ll know what I mean,” Henry said. “We have to do something about these people. We have to do something that brings this country back to the path of reason and science. We’re drowning in a sea of religiosity. We can’t be a leader in the twenty-first century if our minds are in thrall to the thirteenth. Never forget: When religion ruled the world, they called it the Dark Ages.”
Gregor Demarkian made no response at all to that. Henry sat down and clasped his hands. He was suddenly very nervous.
“Well,” he said. “I’m sure you didn’t come all the way over here this early in the morning to hear me natter on about fundamentalists and the religious right. Is there something I can do for you?”
The words came out in too much of a rush. Henry swallowed. There was something very disconcerting about this man. He was too still. And Henry didn’t really know what he thought about religion. He wished the man would talk.
Gregor Demarkian shifted a little on his chair. Henry twitched.
“Well,” Demarkian said, “for starters, I think you know both of the women who were murdered, Judy Cornish and Shelley Niederman. They were both plaintiffs in the lawsuit.”
“That’s right,” Henry said. “Most of the plaintiffs were from the development. I think Annie-Vic and I might have been the only Snow Hill natives proper. Oh, and of course, Miss Marbledale, who is on our side even if she isn’t a formal plaintiff. Although we talked about that, back when all this started. We thought it might be an interesting thing if the science teachers sued the school board. But some of them didn’t want to.”
“Some of your science teachers are sympathetic to the board’s position?”
“Oh, no,” Henry said. “Some of the other teachers are, the ones who don’t teach science, but the science teachers are squarely behind the teaching of evolution. It’s not that way everyplace. You wouldn’t believe how many science teachers across the country reject evolution and want to teach Creationism themselves. But that hasn’t been our problem here. No, the thing is, there’s no percentage in it. The science teachers are going to have to go on teaching here, and the town has already shown its willingness to elect a school board that will persecute anybody who doesn’t toe the line on its fundamentalist beliefs. Although, if you ask me, that’s just because too many of our own people are completely irresponsible.”
“Irresponsible how?”
“They don’t vote,” Henry said emphatically. “I’m serious, Mr. Demarkian. The people in the development, they represent the best hope Snow Hill has of emerging in the modern world. Finally. But they come from places where they don’t have to worry about this kind of thing. They come from New York and California and Connecticut, where nobody would ever think of putting Creationist nonsense into the schools. There are barely any people who believe in Creationist nonsense. But we’re here, aren’t we? And Snow Hill is full of the kind of people who would be more than happy to shove a ten-thousand-year-old earth down the throat of every child within screaming distance. So when the people from the development didn’t vote, and the people from town did, well, you see what we got. Franklin Hale and the God-intoxicated stupids.”