Molybdenum: Her Nature and Deeds

The story of Molybdenum is key to several puzzles in The Book of the Long Sun narrative.

Definition

From Greek molybdos meaning lead. A hard, silvery-white metal; a vital trace element for plant growth used in fertilizers. It is also alloyed with other metals to harden and strengthen them. It resists corrosion at ordinary temperatures and is believed to be formed in super-novas, so that its origin is pre-solar.  

The word molybdenum comes from Greek for "lead". In alchemy,lead is the first and oldest of the seven primary metals, just as Molybdenum was the first resident of the cenoby on Silver St.  The goal of alchemists was to turn lead into gold. This leads once again to the puzzle of Moly and Hyacinth (of whom Chenille says "is pure gold").

The Puzzle of the Trunk

The silver color of the tin trunk Marble found in the cenoby attic is the same as the color of molybdenum -- a hint of who is its owner. When Marble first sees the trunk (LS3:5) she fails to recall the owner, "running down the whole list -- every sibyl who had ever lived in the cenoby -- without finding a single tin trunk among the associated facts." Later (LS3:8), inexplicably referring to the trunk is her own, she queries the word "footlocker": 

"One more time up the steps. One final time, and here was her old trunk [emphasis added]...

"Trunk evoked only her earlier search for its owner.

"Footlocker, that was it. Here was a list of the dresses she had worn before they had voted to admit her. Her perfume. The commonplace book that she had kept for the mere pleasure of writing in it, of practicing her hand. Perhaps if she went back into the attic and opened her footlocker, she would find them all."
Caldé of the Long Sun, Chap. 8

Now, did the trunk belong to Marble or didn't it? First she doesn't find it associated with any sibyl, then she says the trunk is hers. Then she searches under "footlocker," but what she finds is not its owner but the items contained in it. Finally she calls it her own again. This suggests that the identity of the owner is not located in her normal data tables; that she's drawing this information from her new parts.

Apparently, except for the rusted tin footlocker, things were not normally stored in the attic.  After a sibyl died, the belongings that were not willed to the other sibyls were returned to her family. Neither Mint nor Rose seems to have stored anything in the attic -- no old clothes or anything else. Yet in this metal box were clothes, perfume!, and even a journal kept for the pleasure of writing in it. Were sibyls required to give up perfume when they took their vows? Maybe. It is not said so, but it might be so. But why would she keep it (or the clothes for that matter)? And surely she was not required to give up writing in her journal. The trunk was serviceable, why store it in the attic? And how did it get there when Marble says she had not been to the attic for 184 years?

The Puzzle of the Painting

"Here was that picture again, the old woman with her doves, blessed by Molpe. A chubby postulant whose name she could not recall had admired it; and she, thin faceless, old Maytera Marble, flattered, had said that she had posed for Molpe. It was almost the only lie she had ever told, and she could still see the incredulity in that girl's eyes, and the shock. Shriven of that lie again and again, she nevertheless told Maytera Betel at each shriving -- Maytera Betel, who was dead now...

"Yet it seemed tonight that she remembered the painter, the little garden at the center of his house, and the stone bench upon which the old woman (his mother, really) had sat earlier. Posing gowned and jeweled as the goddess with a stephane, the dead butterfly pinned in her hair.

It had been embarrassing, but the painter had wonderful brushes, not in the least like this worn toothbrush of hers...

She could not have been a sibyl then, only the sibyls' maid; but the artist had been a relative of the Senior Sibyl's, who had agreed to let her pose. Chems could hold a pose much longer than bios. All artists, he had said, used chems when they could, although he had used his mother for the old woman because chems never looked old..."
Ibid, Chap. 8

The toothbrush is Rose's, that is clear enough. But did Marble pose for the painting or didn't she? She says it was a lie that she posed for it, remarkable in that she almost never lied. Yet, she seems to remember sitting for it.

The Puzzle of Marble's Wedding

There is another puzzle that is associated with this one, but not obviously. How did Marble convince Hammerstone that she was Molybdenum? 

Marble is convinced that unless Hammerstone were convinced that he was marrying Moly, he would not have married her. This is evidenced by the fact that she does lie.

But the only way Marble could have lied convincingly is if she declared her recognition of Hammerstone and that she was Moly immediately upon their first meeting. She would have had to go looking for Hammerstone. But even if she had planned to deceive him before they had even met, she could not do so without knowledge of the person she was impersonating.

Finally, the weakest point in Marble's impersonation is her claim that she, as Moly, was a maid at the cenoby "when the first bios moved into the city." Hammerstone knew what Moly was doing before he went dormant. How could he have been fooled? 

There the peculiar commentary that Marble makes on her own lie about her identity:

"It was I, the one who prayed, who lied and lied too. I know that must seem illogical, yet it was so."
On Blue's Waters, Chap. 3

It certainly does seem illogical. Counting the lie about the painting, that's one more lie than we thought she had told.

Puzzle of Marble's Inheritances

During Marble's wedding, she displays a string of yellowed ivory beads on a silver chain (Exodus of the Long Sun, chapter 11). Marble says they originally belonged to Maytera Betel. The manner in which Marble references this necklace is jarring in that it seems to have little to do with the narrative.

Also, the hands that Marble inherited from Maytera Rose, are repeatedly referred to as "blue-veined hands of an elderly bio." This is not initially surprising since Rose was quite old...BUT Rose wasn't old when she originally got them -- at least not when she got the first one. She was only about 50 years old. Yet Blood, who saw Rose wearing one of the hands when he was a child, recognizes them and says to Marble that he saw Rose with a hand "like that one." Why would Rose have been given prosthetics that were made to look old?. 

Further complicating matters is that fact that, during a conversation with Horn, Silk the technology for making prosthetics was left behind on Urth AND that Rose does NOT have any of that type:

"This evening I was introduced to an elderly man who has a really extraordinary artificial leg, Horn. He had to buy up five broken or worn-out legs to build it, but it's an artificial leg such as the first settlers had----a leg that might have been brought from the Short Sun Whorl. When he showed it to me, I thought how marvelous it would be if we could only make things like that now for Maytera Rose and Maytera Marble, and for all the beggars who are blind or crippled. It would be marvelous to fly, too, of course. I've always wanted to do it myself, and it may be that they are the same secret. If we could build wonderful legs like that for the people who need them, perhaps we could build wonderful wings as well for everyone who wanted to have them."
Lake of the Long Sun, chap 1

This disagrees with Mint's belief about the origin of Rose's parts:

"I have heard it said that she was the oldest biochemical person in this quarter, and it may well have been true. She belonged to the last of those fortunate generations for which prosthetic devices remained, devices whose principles are lost even to our wisest."
Caldé of the Long Sun, chap. 2

Who is right? Mint or Silk? 

The Story of Molybdenum

Based on this evidence, I there seems to be only one likely explanation:

Molybdenum was a chem maid in the Sun St. cenoby from the time when the people first came to Viron. Her nickname was Moly, and she was a model one time for the artist who made a painting that was hung the cenoby: a painting of an old woman petitioning Molpe, patroness of smithcraft. Moly was the model for Molpe. 

It's not unexpected that Molybdenum, a female chem, would use perfume. Since chems are designed to appreciate the smell of good food in order to cook it, a side-benefit would be that could appreciate other good smells. The down-side was that they could not eat the food they could appreciate, and this is frequently mentioned by chems as a curse. 

She fell in love, chem-style, with a chem soldier named Hammerstone. But Hammerstone was sent into dormancy for 74 years and during this period, over 53 years before the events of the Long Sun story, a series of events culminated tragically for Molybdenum.

The number of sibyls was depleted to two; forty-year-old Maytera Rose was pregnant and found it difficult to keep her duties and perhaps inconvenient to be before the children too often -- although she and Betel covered up her pregnancy by claiming she was getting fat. Perhaps it was that Maytera Betel, old and increasingly feeble (possibly having contracted the same disease as did Rose later, requiring amputations -- perhaps diabetes or even leprosy), found it impossible to keep up with all the duties at the palaestra. Either way, the old worn-out chem maid, Marble was given duties of teaching the young children, but the parents complained about their children being taught by a maid. So at some point a decision was made for Marble to take the vows of a sibyl . But Molybdenum, whose parts were still in good condition, was pressed to volunteer her parts to Betel as prosthetics, presumably, to the point of dismantlement. There would be no more maids at the cenoby. 

This explains the meaning of the yellowed ivory beads on a silver chain that Marble inherited from Betel. The color of yellowed ivory (a bio material) is the same as the coloring of the betel nut. Inside each ivory bead runs a silver chain which is the color of molybdenum; Molybdenum, is holding Betel together. The necklace is a token of the parts Betel took from Moly. Rose inherited the necklace with Betel's parts, then Marble did the same.

Betel's name is a further clue, since betel is a narcotic made from the leaves of the betel vine mixed with mineral (shell) lime -- plants mixed with minerals.

This would also explain why Rose's prosthetics were made to look "elderly" if Moly's parts were originally adapted for old Maytera Betel. The ability to make prosthetics was left behind on Urth, but the ability to adapt chem parts to look human was not. Tarsier did just that with the chem bodies he adapted for the Ayuntamiento, making them look as their physical bodies once did. Considering Mint's abhorrent reaction to the Ayunamiento's whole body prosthesis from chems, it is not surprising that she was not told from where Rose got her prosthetics or was allowed to believe otherwise. 

But let us return to the story of Molybdenum...

Molydenum's belongings were placed in her tin trunk in the cenoby attic. But Moly lived on, her memories given to Betel. But Marble mourned and felt righteous indignation for the treatment of her colleague. When a "chubby postulant" asked Marble about the painting. she claimed that she, Marble, was the model for Molpe. That she was "flattered" shows the original model was a chem, for they presumably all looked alike originally. She went to Betel for shriving for the lie and, though it was not necessary -- theologically improper -- she brought it up at every shriving before Betel. Thus, she vindictively reminded Betel of her benefactor and reminded Moly-in-Betel that she was not forgotten. The painting was a metaphor for old Betel beseeching Moly (an image of the goddess of smithcraft). 

This explains the puzzles of the Painting, the Trunk, Marble's Impersonation, and why Marble "who almost never lied" was not exactly lying to Hammerstone either.

Hammerstone told Silk that when he was re-awakened he "didn't go looking for [Moly]," that he figured she had "found someone else." But that presumes he would need to look for her. His statement could suggest that he did not go back to the Sun St. manteaon for fear of what he would find. It could also mean that he returned to the Sun St. mantaeon, but she was not there, and whoever he spoke to there was not inclined to explain what had happened to her. She was gone without leaving a forwarding address (deliberately for all he knew), so he did not "go looking for her." 

When Betel died, Rose began to take Moly's old parts, which had presumably absorbed Betel's memories as well, and which lead to her increasing insanity. At Orpine's funeral during Kypris' theophany, Rose exhibits the same dissassociation that Marble would exhibit later. On Rose's death, Moly's parts fell to Marble who from that point on contained memories of all three.

It was natural that Moly-in-Marble would want to resume her life with Hammerstone.She did not lie when she told Hammerstone she was Moly. However, she had definitely married under false pretenses, and the motives of the other persons in Marble, including Marble herself, could not have been so honorable. At her wedding she pied the story of Marble-becomes-a-sibyl with that of Moly-becomes-a-sibyl, in order to hide the truth from Silk and Hammerstone simultaneously. For that reason, she chose her words with Remora-like delicacy:

"I was the maid, the sibyls' maid, when the first bios moved into the city. I got our cenoby ready for them, and in those days I used to look like...Teasle, a little...There were...six sibyls on Sun Street. I didn't have a room, you see. I don't really need one. But there were never more than six, and as time went on, fewer. Five and then four, then three. And then--and then only two, as it was with us dear [Mint], after I died...

"We couldn't do it all. There was just the two of us and young Patera Pike. And ever so many children, and so Maytera called upon..."

Hammerstone explained, "She drafted Moly."

"Upon me. I knew arithmetic. You've got to, to keep any sort of house. How much to buy for so many, and how much you can spend, that sort of thing. I kept a -- a diary, I suppose you call it, to practice my hand, which was really quite good. So I could teach the youngest their sums and letters, and I did.

Some parents complained, and...There wasn't any reason not to. I put my hand on the Writings and promised, and Maytera an Maytera Rose witnessed it and kissed me, and -- and then I got new clothes [emphasis added]...

"...I couldn't be Moly any more once I was a sibyl, or even Maytera Molybdenum. We all take new names..."

It was Marble who taught the children, but it was Molybdenum who kept a journal, which Marble-as-Moly knew to be in the tin trunk.

So it is logical when honest Marble says "she lied and lied too". She lied when she said she was Molybdenum, and then she lied when she said she wasn't.

And what happened to Moly? Betel took her hands. Rose would have much more, What became of what was left? The spare chem parts were rare and what was available was being used by bios. I contend that she accumulated biological parts to replace her lost chem parts, or perhaps became a human in a manner similar to the way the Ayunamiento became chems ~ just as Jonas somehow became human in The Book of the New Sun.  This completes the images Wolfe offers us in The Book of the Long Sun: Synthetic gods possessing bios, bio Ayuntamiento possessing chems, Rose almost completely artificial with chem prostheses; and Hyacinth becoming (somehow) human ~ from lead (Molybdenum) in to gold.

This has ironic importance in that Rose is the woman Silk loathes the most. Yet inside (I contend) ~ she is the woman he loves most: Hyacinth. And Rose, in becoming a chem, also is transformed into gold, for she says:

Now I'm just a message written on those teeny gold doodads you see in the cards. 
Caldé of the Long Sun, Chap. 10

[Nettle will have found another husband by this time, I hope. A good man. She was always a sensible woman.
(Which is, now that I come to think of it, what His Cognizance the inhumu used to say of Molybdenum.)
On Blue's Waters, chapter 1

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