Servant of the Bones

  The man in the car was very proud of the car, proud of the guards who traveled with him, proud of his fine wool coat and the neat trim of his thick curly hair.

  I drew in close to see him through the darkened glass: Gregory Belkin, her stepfather, founder of the Temple of the Mind of God, rich man. Rich beyond the dreams of kings in earlier times, because they couldn't fly on magic carpets.

  The car? Mercedes-Benz, and the most unusual of its kind, made from a small sedan and elongated by three perfectly welded and padded parts so that it was twice the length of the engines all around it, shiny and black, deliberately glamorous, as if carved of obsidian and polished by hand.

  It prowled for blocks before stopping, the driver quick to obey the rise of Belkin's hand.

  Then this proud high priest or prophet or whatever he deemed himself stepped unaided out into the light of the street lamp as if he wanted it to shine on his youthful clean-shaven face, hair clipped short on the back of his neck like a Roman soldier, yet softly curly despite its length.

  The full length of the dingy dirty block he walked, alone, past dismal boarded-up shops, past signs in Hebrew and in English, to the place he meant to visit, his guards sweeping the night before him and behind him with their glances, the raindrops standing like jewels on the shoulders of his long coat.

  All right. Was he the Master? If so, how could I not know it? I didn't like him. In my half sleep, I had seen him weep for Esther and talk of plots, and had not liked him.

  Why was I so close I could touch his face? Handsome he was, no one would argue with this, and in the prime of life, square-shouldered, tall as a Norseman, though darker with jet-black eyes.

  Are you the Master?

  Mastermind of the Minders, that was what the flippant and cynical reporters called him, this billionaire Gregory Belkin. Now he reviewed in his head recent speeches he'd made before the bronze doors of his Manhattan Temple, "My worse fear is that they weren't thieves at all and the necklace meant nothing to them. It's our church they want to hurt. They are evil."

  Necklace, I thought, I had seen no necklace.

  The guards who watched Gregory from their nearby cars were his "followers." This was some church of peace and good. They wore guns, and they carried knives, and he himself the prophet carried a small gun, very shiny, like his car, deep in the left pocket of his coat.

  He was like a King who is used to performing every gesture before a grand audience, but he didn't see me watching him. He had no sense of a ghost at his shoulder like a personal god.

  Well, I was not this man's god. I was not this man's servant. But I was his observer, and I had to know why.

  He stopped before a brick house. It was filled with glass windows, all of them covered. It had high-pitched roofs for snow. It was like thousands, possibly even millions, of other houses in this same arm of the city. The proportions of this time and place were truly beyond my easy measure.

  I was fascinated. His perfect black leather shoes were speckled prettily with rain. Why was he bringing us here?

  He went down a step and back the alleyway. A light shone ahead of him. He had a key for a little gate. Then a key for a door between lighted windows in the deep bottom floor of the house.

  We came in, he and I. I felt the warmth swoosh around me!

  Ceiling overhead. The night locked out. An old man was seated at a wooden desk.

  Smell of human beings, sweet and good. And so many other precious fragrances, too many to savor, or name.

  All ghosts and gods and spirits feast on fragrance, as I have told you.

  I had been starved, and nearly grew drunk on the smells of this place.

  I knew I was here.

  I was slowly taking form. But by whose direction? Whose decision? I loved it.

  No old words issued from my lips; I was becoming solid. It was happening, as it had in New York when I chased her killers. I felt it. I felt myself enclosed in the good body, the body I liked, though what that meant I wasn't sure.

  Now I know: I came visible and solid in my own body, or the body you see here now, the form I had when I was alive.

  No one else here knew. Behind the bookcase I stood, watching.

  Gregory Belkin had chosen for himself the very middle of the room, beneath a lightbulb with a frayed cord. And the old man at the desk, the old man could not possibly see me.

  The old man's head was bowed. He wore the small black silk skullcap of observant Jews. There was a green shaded lamp on his desk that was gentle and golden in its illumination.

  His beard and hair were snow white and very pure and beautiful, and two long curled locks deliberately framed his face. The flesh of his scalp was pink beneath the thinnest part of his hair, but the beard was rich and flowing.

  The books on the walls were in Hebrew and Arabic, Aramaic, Latin, Greek, German. I could smell the parchment and the leather. I drew in these fragrances and it seemed for a moment memory would spring to life, or out of memory would come alive everything I'd tried to murder.

  But this old man wasn't the Master either! I knew it immediately.

  This old man had no sense that I had come, none at all, but was merely staring at the younger one who had just entered, the strong straight one who stood rather formally before the elder, and removed from his hands a pair of smooth gray gloves which he was careful to put in the right pocket of his coat. He patted the left pocket. The gun was in the left pocket. Little lethal gun. I had a desire to hear it go off. But he wasn't here to shoot it.

  The room was so cluttered. Rows and rows of shelves divided me from the old man, but I could see over the tops of books. I smelled incense, and felt a flush of pleasure. I smelled iron, gold, ink. Could the bones be in this place?

  The old man took off his glasses, which were of the simplest kind, rounded in silver wire, flexible, and fragile, and peered most directly at his visitor, without rising from his chair.

  The old man's eyes were very pale, which struck me as it always does, as very pretty to look at--eyes that are more like water than stone. But they were small, and weak with age, and they didn't gleam so much as they accused from the heavy wrinkles of his face.

  Stronger, you are getting stronger by the moment. You are almost completely visible.

  I couldn't see the entire face of the younger man. I slipped even more to the far left side of him to conceal myself, and became whole and entire as I stood behind the bookcase, calculating my height at approximately his own.

  The rain was all over his black coat, and the coat had a seam straight down the back, and next to his neck, pushing up at the black curls of his hair, was a white silk scarf as fine as the scarf she'd clutched in death, a scarf that was probably still in the emporium of her killing. I tried to remember it, the scarf for which she had reached in death not dreaming of the significance of that last gesture, if indeed there was any significance to it at all. The scarf she had wanted was black but glittering, covered with beads. I think I told you this. But now I'm with them again, with them. Bear with me.

  The old man spoke in Yiddish:

  "You killed your daughter."

  I was astonished. So we come immediately to the point?

  The love I felt for her tormented me, as if she herself had come up to me and dug her nails in my skin and said, Do not forget me, Azriel, only she would never, never have done such a thing. She had died in characteristic humility; when she had spoken my name it was with wonder.

  That was too dreadful to see again, her dying.

  Go, fly, spirit. Turn your back on them all--on her death and on the old man's accusation, on this fascinating room with its enticing colors and aromas. Let go, spirit. Let them struggle towards the Ladder of Heaven without your intervention. After all, do souls really need the Servant of the Bones to drag them into Sheol?

  I wasn't going anywhere. I wanted to know what the old man meant.

  The younger man merely laughed.

  No disrespect, it was an uneasy, angry laugh of one w
ho would not be forced to immediate response by these words. The dismissive wave of his hand was not surprise. He shook his head.

  I wanted to move around him, look at him, but it was too late for that, I knew I had the full parts, that I stood, that my hands touched the books on the shelf in front of me, and I shifted very slowly to my left, so that the wall of books would hide me, lest the old man see me, though the old man showed no sign even now of realizing I was here with him.

  The younger man sighed.

  "Rebbe, why would I kill Rachel's daughter?" asked the younger man in Yiddish. "Why would I kill the only child I had?" The language wasn't easy for him. "Esther, my beautiful Esther," he said, sounding heartfelt and strong. He didn't like to speak Yiddish. He wanted his English.

  "But you did," said the old man in return. It came from his dry lips with hatred. He spoke now in Hebrew: "You are an idolator; you are a killer; you killed your child. You had her murdered. You walk with evil. You reek of it!"

  I was slightly shaken. I could feel it physically, the jarring surprise at the old man's wrath.

  The young man again played the game of patience, shuffling slightly, shaking his head as if humoring a half-naked prophet who won't stop raving on your doorstep.

  "My teacher," Gregory Belkin whispered in English, "my model. My grandfather. And you blame me for her death?"

  This put the old man in a fury.

  He too spoke in English:

  "What do you want of me, Gregory? You've never come to this house without a reason." His fury was calm. This old man himself would do nothing about the death of this girl. He sat at his desk with his hands clasped on an open book. Tiny Hebrew letters.

  I felt the loss of her again, as if I'd been kicked and I wanted to say out loud, "Old man, I avenged her, I slew the three assassins with the leader's pick. I slew them all. They died on the pavements."

  I felt her as if I alone in this room held the candle in memory of her. Neither of these mourned her, accusations be damned.

  Why are you allowing this to happen, Azriel? Grief for those you don't know is easy. Maybe it is even exciting. But to be alone? That is to be alive. And you are most certainly secret and alone here.

  "You break my heart, Rebbe," said Gregory in English. Obviously the current American language was much easier for him. His whole body sagged with his soft whisper of despair. His hands were deep in his pockets. His flesh was a little chilled from the cold outside, and the room itself was stifling. I thought he was lying, and telling the truth.

  I fed upon the smell of them, never mind the wax, the parchment, the old reliable scents, I smelled the men--the old man's warm living skin that was so clear and fine, so free of disease that it had become silken in old age, pure like the bones of his living body inside it, which were no doubt so brittle now they could break at the slightest blow.

  The young man was immaculate and anointed with fine and subtle perfumes. The perfume rose from the pores of his skin, from the curls of his hair, from the clothing he wore, a subtle mingling of calculated scents. The fragrance of a modern monarch.

  I drew closer to the younger one. I might have been now two feet from him, to his left, and slightly behind him. I saw his profile. Thick eyebrows, smooth and neatly groomed and well formed, fine features, molded in good proportion; we would have called him blessed. He had no scar or blemish. Something indefinable to me enriched him and enlarged his power. When he smiled, which he did now sadly and imploringly, his teeth were perfectly white.

  His eyes were large, like her eyes had been, but not quite so beautiful. He lifted his hands, another form of plea, small, quiet. His fingers were fine, and the smoothness of his cheeks was fine; he had been nourished as she had, lovingly, as if the whole world all of his life had been his mother's breast. What did he lack? I couldn't find in him a fracture or sore, or break anywhere, only the indefinable enhancement.

  Then I realized what it was. He had the prettiness of the young, but he was past fifty years! How dazzling it was. How wondrous the way age sharpened his physical virtues, and made the glare of his eyes so much the more strong.

  "Speak to me, Gregory Belkin," said the old man with contempt, "and tell me why you've come, or leave my house now."

  I was again startled by the old man's wrath.

  "All right, Rebbe," the younger man answered, as if the tone and the manner were nothing new to him.

  The old man waited.

  "I have a check in my pocket, Rebbe," said Gregory. "I come to give it to you for the good of the whole Court."

  By this I knew he meant the Hebrews of the old man for whom the old man was the Rabbi, the zaddik, the leader.

  Flashes of memory came at me, rather like jagged pieces of glass--glimpses of my long dead Master Samuel. But it didn't mean anything and I pushed it aside. At this point, keep in mind, I could not recall anything of my past. Nothing. But I knew what this man was--venerable, powerful in holy ways, perhaps a magician, but if he was a magician, why hadn't he sensed that I was there?

  "You always have a check for us, Gregory," said the old one. "Your checks come to the bank without you. We take your money in honor of your dead mother, and your dead father, who was my beloved son. We take your money for what it can do for those whom they once loved, your mother and father. Go back to your Temple. Go back to your computers. Go back to your worldwide church. Go home, Gregory! Hold your wife's hand. Her daughter has been murdered. Mourn with Rachel Belkin. Is she not entitled to that much?"

  The younger man gave a little nod, as if to say, ah, things aren't going to improve here, and then he tilted his head to the right and shrugged respectfully and spoke again:

  "I need something from you, Rebbe," he said. Direct as it was, it was smooth.

  The old man lifted his hands and shrugged. He shifted in the light of the electric lamp, and sighed. His lips were full for the lips of an old man. A faint sheen of sweat appeared on the top of his head.

  Behind him stood more shelves of books. The room was so crowded with books it might as well have been made of books. The chairs were big, with their frames hidden inside their leather, and all were surrounded by books. There were scrolls, and scrolls in sacks, and scrolls of leather.

  One cannot after all burn or discard old scrolls of the Torah. These must be buried, and properly, or kept in someplace like this.

  Who knew what this old man had brought through the world with him? His English was not pure and sharp like that of Gregory, but carried with it the speaking habits of other tongues. Poland. I saw Poland and I saw snow.

  Gregory slipped his left hand into his pocket. There was the check, the piece of paper, the banknote, the gift that he wanted to give so badly. I heard it crackle as his fingers touched it. It was folded right beside the gun.

  The old man said nothing.

  "Rebbe, when I was very little," said Gregory, "I heard you tell a particular tale. Only once did I hear this story. But I remember it. I remember the words."

  The old man made no reply. The loose folds of his skin were shiny in the light, but when he lifted his white eyebrows he lifted the folds of his forehead too.

  "Rebbe," said Gregory, "you spoke once to my aunt of a legend, a secret...a family treasure. I've come here to ask you about what I heard."

  The old man was surprised. No. It wasn't that. The old man was surprised only that the younger man's words had some interest for him. The old man gave the silence a moment, then spoke in Yiddish as before:

  "A treasure? You and your brother--you were the treasures of your mother and father. What would bring you to Brooklyn to ask me about tales of treasure? Treasure you have beyond any man's dreams."

  "Yes, Rebbe," said Gregory patiently.

  "I hear your church swims in money, that your missions in foreign lands are lavish resorts for the rich who would visit and give to the poor. Indeed. I heard that your own fortune far outstrips that of your wife, or her daughter. I hear that no man can hold in his mind the exact amount of
the money you possess and the money you control."

  "Yes, Rebbe," said Gregory again, patiently in English. "I'm as rich as you can imagine, and I know you don't choose to imagine it, nor to dwell on it, nor profit from it--"

  "Well, then, come to the point," said the old man in Yiddish. "You waste my time. You waste the precious moments I have left to me, which I would rather spend in charity than in condemnation. What do you want?"

  "You spoke of a family secret," Gregory said. "Rebbe, speak to me in English, please." The old man sneered.

  "And what did I speak then, when you were a little boy?" the old man asked in Yiddish. "Did I speak Yiddish or Polish, or was it English then too?"

  "I don't remember," said the young man. "But I wish you'd speak English now." He shrugged again, and then he said very quickly, "Rebbe, I am grieving for Esther! It wasn't my wealth that bought her the diamonds. I wasn't the cause of her wearing them carelessly. I wasn't to blame that the thieves caught her unawares."

  Diamonds? There was a lie in this. Esther had worn no diamonds. The Evals had taken from her no diamonds. But Gregory was as smooth-tongued at this as anything else.

  How he played the part. How the old man studied him.

  The old man moved back just a little, as if the strength of the words had pushed him, perhaps even annoyed him. He scrutinized the young man.

  "You mistake my meaning, Gregory," he said in English. "I don't speak of your wealth or what she wore around her neck when they killed her. I mean you killed your daughter, Esther. You had her murdered."

  Silence.

  In the dimness I saw my hands visible against the books; I saw the tiny creases in the skin of my knuckles, and in the place where a man would have a heart I felt pain.

  The smooth-tongued one gave no sign of guilt or shame or even shock. Either infinite innocence or infinite evil suffused him and upheld him in quiet.

  "Grandfather, that's madness. Why would I do such a thing? I am a man of God as you are, Grandfather!"

  "Stop!" said the Rebbe. He lifted his hand.

  "My followers would never hurt Esther, they--"

  "Stop!" said the Rebbe again. "Get on with it, what do you really want."

  Rattled and smiling uneasily, Gregory shook his head. He collected himself to begin again. His lip trembled, but I don't think the old man could see it as I could.