and lose nothing when you
rip it off.
Stan Rice, Some Lamb 1975
14
Follow me now, if you will, into consciousness.
Evals in the bright winter light of day. See how they shine. That's how I first knew them. This was a joke to them because evil was their word for bad, and their names were Eval. Three brothers out of Texas hired to kill the rich girl.
Down the crowded avenue, in a bath of noonday sun they walked, jostling each other, laughing, passing the cigarette, bold and hot for the kill. How they loved to look at themselves in the mirrors of shops, and this was New York, the biggest city in the world, the only city these Evals cared about, except for Las Vegas, where they will go with their earnings after they've "taken her out," which in their vernacular meant kill her.
They weren't never going back to Texas. Who knew what jobs "the man" might have for them? But first they had to kill her dead.
I could feel their easy malice, even as purely as they felt it--Billy Joel Eval in the lead, with the gun in his pocket and also the long sharp pick, such a cruel pick with a rounded blade of steel. And Doby Eval right behind with Hayden Eval "sucking hind teat," they taunted him, and all of them had those sharp weapons, long picks made of steel, oh, so ready to kill her but who was she?
There had to be a reason for my seeing this, there had to be a reason that I stood in the city of New York, breathing in the smells of New York as if I were alive, and visible, when I was neither, only knowing what a genii always knows...that he has been called again to duty, that once again his eyes and his mind have opened on a blazing and vital world.
You know how rebellious I was, I've told you, how indifferent, how perfectly willing to cut to pieces a despicable master. But what was happening here?
Loathing these rustic monsters was easy enough. I walked right by them! I saw them up close in their city-drab disguise, in quilted jackets of nylon and ragged cotton pants, machine-made shoes full of nails and hooks for the strings. Billy Joel couldn't wait to see her, couldn't wait to get close to her, and only Hayden held back, scared to tell his brother he didn't like it so much, killing this girl. If only they had known who paid them.
Who had paid them? "A man through a man through a man," said Doby Eval, "as if you can't figure that out?"
Suddenly I felt my feet hit the pavement. But I was too transparent for anyone else to see, gathering slowly, trailing them, coming up so close on them now that they might have looked back and seen me, if anyone could, and I wasn't sure anyone could.
"Who is commanding me?" I whispered. I felt my lips move. The crowd was as thick on this city street as any I'd ever beheld, and the wealth was closing in around me as if this were the marketplace of Babylon on the New Year, or the bazaars of Baghdad or Istanbul.
Through plate glass I saw the faceless white plastic goddesses of fashion in their magnificent fringe and fur, shine of true rubies, magical slippers made of thin steel straps to bind the foot fetchingly.
And all this with no explanation.
Well, you know me well enough by now, the sensualist I am.
Hand me the world in a cup and I'll drink it.
But this killing of the girl, this had to be stopped.
I closed in on them, walked among them, but still they couldn't see me, though I was feeling the shape of my body, the heat of it, the growing density. Yes, I was here all right, this was no garbled hideous phantasm in the wind.
There came the heat of the sidewalk beneath me, and something like the thud of my own feet in leather shoes, just make them plain like theirs. I knew the stench came from the engines in the street, and when I looked up, I saw the towers reaching the noonday clouds, yet lights blazing everywhere, in windows, behind written signs, all fueled by electricity.
What a modern world this was--teeming with the rich--what a city this was with the humpback dwarf and the cripple lurching past me, both wearing fine clothes and gold, and the screeching woman on the corner, long gone mad, ripped open a blouse of pure silk to show her breasts. Someone pushed her off the curb. Hordes of young men in severe dark suits, each with a tie at the neck of his shirt, walked fast and with purpose, though obviously all disconnected, separate, not even glancing at one another.
The Evals laughed.
"Oh, I'm telling you, this is one hell of a place, this New York, I'm telling you, just look at her, did you see that? Now, you know this broad we're taking out, she's not crazy like that, no way, now you do what I said..."
"Do what you said," cursed the brother Hayden.
I was neck and neck with them, I could smell their sweat and the cheap soap they had used to wash half of it away, and I could smell their guns, but that wasn't the way, the gun, the bullet, the explosion--I tried to learn it all as quickly as I could--they would use the sharp-pointed picks that each carried under his clothes.
"Why do you do this to her?"
I must have spoken aloud, because Billy Joel stopped, right shoulder jerking up, mouth pulled down on the ends as he stared at Hayden, and then told him, "Will you shut up, you son of a bitch, come on now, I'm telling you we couldn't have gotten out of here any way but this way."
"Sure and we do her and then we just run, just run, like little kids, just run!" said Hayden, shoving his brother with his left hand in the middle of the back, so the brother Billy Joel said, "You lay off, look, you son of a bitch, you see it, you see it, Doby, she's in that goddamn car, that's her car, look at that car."
The three came together, and I fell back, invisible still but totally formed or perhaps I should say conformed to the look of men around me.
I wanted to see her, this girl they meant to kill with their evil picks, as they ambled and danced now, letting the crowd stream past them, nudging each other to stop, there she was! The time had come.
Look. See the long black limousine by the curb, and the driver with his white hair opening the door for her?
Esther. Hair a mantle of dark curls, jet-black hair, as black as mine, and her eyes larger, and the whites of them were so shiny they looked as if they were made of pearls, and her long white throat bare to the swell of her breasts beneath a painted coat, a coat painted with the stripes of an animal not to look like the animal itself but to look like the painted stripes of one.
She didn't even notice them, these three common and visible terrors who were going to "take her out." The crowd shifted and broke to make an uneven path for her.
"What am I to do?" I whispered. "Stop this? Why is she to die, for what?" I didn't want to witness it.
She pushed wide the glass doors of the shop and passed inside, with the throng so thick that five people must have followed her before the Evals made their way in, and now they knew they were in trouble.
"Jesus, do we have to do it in here?"
By that Hayden meant that this was a palace of goods, a treasure house of furs and veils, of leathers dyed in all colors, and perfume rising from the glass tables as if from altars.
They didn't look so ordinary in here, these slithering swaggering bucolic men, no, rather like tramps from a waterfront, crawling out from under the rope with the rats to steal what men have dropped, but it was so crowded, even here, shoulder to shoulder, and cheek turned from cheek, as lashes rose and fell to make the eye private. And the noise was loud. No one took the proper notice--three clothed in filth tracking the beautiful woman.
And she the young queen with the dark shining hair and the painted coat came up the steps to the landing, her face innocent and bright as she reached for a long black scarf, a beaded scarf, a lovely twinkling thing, and caught it in her fingers, dangling from the hook, a scarf full of dark stitched flowers and shimmering embroidered designs, lovely, as if meant for her.
"Good afternoon, Miss Belkin." So the queen had a name, and the merchants of this time were no less clever than in any other.
But I saw Billy Joel had struck! In that one second, he had pushed against her slender back, Hayden
took her from the left, and Doby, as frenzied as Billy Joel, drove his pick from the right, so that the three wounds were made at once, and the life inside her lurched, and the language in her died, but not her heart. Her lungs filled with blood.
Geniuses of the kill, these cheap assassins. They walked right away from her, before she even fell, not even bothering to run, out of the door before she even tottered over the glass case. The scarf was still in her right hand. The woman bent over:
"Miss Belkin?"
I had to follow them. She was falling down dead, leaning over the glass, as if this was just a pain she had to feel and it would pass. She'd be dead in seconds! And I knew the killers, and the merchant lady didn't even know she was dying.
I shot through the front doors. I knew I shoved against the humans to move them out of my way. I felt them. I wasn't going to lose the Evals. I went up.
Over the heads of the crowd, I flew, formed but transparent, nothing anyone would notice, and quickly caught up with them.
The Evals had broken apart. But no one in this next block of shuffling hundreds seemed to notice them; what need was there to hurry? Billy Joel had a smile on his face, bright smile.
They had put three hundred people and ten seconds between them and the murder.
"I will kill you for this!" I heard my voice aloud. I felt the air inside me, swirling, as if I'd made myself solid enough to feed on the fumes that rose from the pavements, from the stalled engines, from the blasting horns, from the swarm of human flesh.
Come to me, garments like those of my enemy, as I am made flesh! I dropped down in front of Billy Joel. Reach for the pick. Get it. Kill him. I saw my fingers close on his wrist. He never clearly saw me, only felt the bone break. As he cried out, his brother turned. I drove the pick into Billy Joel, I took its wooden handle out of his belt and drove it in through his shirt, deep, the way he had driven it into her, only many more times.
Astonished, he spurted blood.
"You die, you filthy dog, you killed that girl, you die."
Hayden came towards me, right onto the pick, no trouble at all, and I gave him three quick thrusts, including one in the neck. There were people walking by, not turning their heads. Others were looking at the fallen Billy Joel.
Now only Doby was left and Doby had fled, Doby had seen them go down and was running about as fast as a human can run through the obstacle course of the crowd. I reached out, grabbed his shoulder...
"Wait a minute, man!" he said to me. I sank the pick into his chest, the same three times, to make it good, and pushed him towards the wall. People stepped out of our way, turning the other way. He slid down to the pavement dead, and a woman cursed as she stepped over his left leg.
Now I understood the genius of their crime in this crowded city. But there was no time to think on it. I had to return to Esther.
My body was formed, I was running, and I had to make my way, like any other human now, solid, back to the glass doors of the palace.
The air was filled with screams. Men ran into the emporium of clothes. I pushed to get close. I could feel my tangled black hair. I could feel my beard. All eyes were on her.
Out she came, laid and covered on a white linen stretcher. I saw her head tumbled to my side, her big glossy eyes, with their pearly whites so pure, her mouth leaking blood like an old fountain. Just a trickle.
Men screamed for others to get back. An old one wailed at the top of his lungs, bowing as he saw her. This was her driver, her guard perhaps, the gray-haired man. His face was furrowed, his narrow back bent. He bowed and cried out, he cried out in a dialect of Hebrew. He loved her. I pushed carefully towards her.
A white car came speeding to the spot, printed with red crosses and topped by swirling lights. The sirens were unspeakable. Might as well have been the picks through my ears, but there was no time to worry about my pain. She was still living, breathing, I had to tell her.
Into that car, they carried her, lifted high, like an offering over the crowd...Through the back doors she went inside, her eyes looking for something, for someone.
Gathering all my strength, I moved others out of my path. My hands--true and familiar and mine--hit the long glass windowed side of the white car. I looked into the glass. I felt my nose against it. I saw her! Her big sleepy eyes full of dreamy death, I saw her.
And she said aloud, I heard it, a whisper rising like a whiff of smoke.
"The Servant...Azriel, the Servant of the Bones!"
The door was open. The men ministering to her bent low.
"What is it, honey? What did you say?"
"Don't make her speak."
She stared at me through the glass, and she said it again, I saw her lips move. I heard her voice. I heard her thought. "Azriel," she whispered. "The Servant of the Bones!"
"They're dead, my darling!" I cried out. No one around me, pressing as hard as I pressed to see her, cared what I said.
She and I, we looked at each other. Then her soul and spirit blazed for one instant, visible and together, the full shape of her body over her, hair like wings, face expressionless or turned away from the earth forever, who can know, and then she was gone, risen, in a blinding light. I ducked from the light, then tried to see it again. But it was gone.
The body lay an empty sack.
The doors slammed shut.
The siren split my ears again.
The car roared into the stream, forcing other engines out of its path, people shifted and sighed and groaned around me. I stood stock-still on the pavement. Her soul was gone.
I looked up. Knees pushed against my leg. A foot came down hard upon my own. I wore the same kind of dirty string shoe as my enemy. I was almost toppled from the shallow curb.
The car was beyond my sight, and the Evals dead not a hundred feet away, yet no one here in this melee knew, so crowded was it, and I thought--without context, without reason--of what was said about Babylon after Cyrus conquered it, that funny remark which the Greek historian Xenophon had made, or was it Herodotus, that so big was Babylon and so dense with people that it took two whole days before people in the middle of the city knew that it had been taken at all.
Well, not me!
A man said, "Did you know who that was?" This was English, New York talk, and I turned just as if I were alive and I were going to answer, only there were tears in my eyes. I wanted to say,
"They killed her." Nothing came out of my mouth but I had a mouth and the man was nodding as if he saw the tears. My God, help me. This man wanted to comfort me. Someone else spoke:
"That was Gregory Belkin's daughter, that's who that was," the man said, "That was Esther Belkin."
"Belkin's daughter--"
"...Temple of the Mind."
"Temple of the Mind of God. Belkin."
What did these words mean to me?
Master! Where are you? Name yourself or show yourself! Who has called me? Why have I been made to witness this!
"Gregory Belkin's little girl, the Minders--"
Which way?
I began to fade. I felt it swift and terrible as it always is, as surely as if the Master had commanded all the artificial and gathered particles of me, as it is written, Return now to your place. Just for a moment, I clung to the storm of matter, commanding it to sheathe me, but my cry was a wail. I stared down at my hands, my feet, such filthy shoes, cloth and string and leather shoes, slippers more than shoes, shoes on the pavement:
"Azriel, stay alive!" came the voice from my mouth.
"Take it easy, son," said the man beside me. And he looked at me as if he felt sorry for me. He lifted his arm to embrace me. I put my hand up. I saw the tears.
But the wind had come, the wind that comes for all spirits. I was losing my hold.
The man was looking for me and he couldn't find me, and he didn't know why, and thought it was his own confusion.
Then he and all those with him--and the great city--was gone too.
I was nothing now, nothing.
I struggled to see the crowd below, but I couldn't find the spots where the Evals lay dead in their blood still or were being taken away with such care as the queen with her dark hair, the goddess who had died seeing me. She had said it, I heard it, she had said, "Azriel, the Servant of the Bones." I had heard her as a spirit hears, though the man in the car with her might not hear something so small and tragic as her whisper.
The wind took me. The wind was filled with the wail of the souls, faces bearing down upon me, hands seeking to grip me, and turning my back on it as always, I let go. I saw the last dim outline of my hands for one instant; I felt the form of arms and legs; I felt the tears on my face. Yes, I felt that. Then I was a goner.
Into the bones, Azriel. I was safe.
So there you have the picture! Masterless, risen, to witness this, to avenge it? Why? The darkness overcame me like a drug. Safe, yes, but I didn't want to be safe; I wanted to find the man who had sent those Evals to kill her.
15
Time passed.
I felt it more intensely than usual. I knew that I was listening. I was there. I knew what the world was now, more or less, as always. Bear with me. I knew what men and women knew--those whom I'd seen and touched in the New York street.
The particulars made a moral impression. Emotion gradually accompanied the synthesis of knowledge. Ghosts don't have to interpret Ghosts don't have to be amazed, or shocked.
But the mind of the ghost, unfettered by flesh, can gather to itself indiscriminately and perhaps infinitely the sum of what is shared or valued by nearby human minds.
Awake once more in the darkness, I grasped the general and the spectacular--that we were nearing the end of the twentieth century of what men call the common era, that fossil fuel and generated electricity were indispensable to the everyday methods of eating, drinking, sleeping, communicating, traveling, building, and fighting, that micromachines of exquisite circuitry could store information in abundance, and that vivid moving pictures in which people appeared and spoke could be transmitted by waves or over tiny delicate fibers more precious than spun glass.
Waves. The air was full of waves. Full of voices speaking both privately and publicly--from telephones, through radios, televisions. The world was as fully surrounded by voices now as it was by air itself.