Servant of the Bones

  Gregory still held the check, an offering, poised, in his left hand.

  "It's something I remember you saying once," said Gregory, the English rapid and natural now. "Nathan and I were in the room. I don't think Nathan heard it. He was with...someone else. I don't even remember who else was there, except my mother's sister Rivka, and it seemed there were old women. But it was here in Brooklyn, and we'd only just come. I could ask Nathan--"

  "Leave your brother alone!" said the old man, and this time it was English, confident, low, as natural to his tongue as Yiddish. Anger can do that, strip a voice down to the best way that it knows to speak. "Don't approach your brother Nathan. Leave your brother Nathan in peace! You just said yourself your brother didn't hear it."

  "Yes, I knew you would want it that way, Rebbe. I knew you wouldn't want me to contaminate Nathan."

  "Get on with this."

  "That's why I came to ask you. Explain it and I won't bother my beloved brother, but I must know." He went on. "That day, when I was a child, you spoke about a secret thing. A thing you called the Servant of the Bones."

  I was stricken. The words caught me utterly off guard. The shock only strengthened my form. I could not have been more stunned if he had turned and seen me. I called clothes to cover me, I called the clothes to cover me as he, the zaddik, was covered. And I felt myself immediately sheathed in black silk similar to his, warm and well fitted, and the air felt warm and the tiny lightbulb rocked on its frayed cord.

  The Rebbe looked at the bulb for a long moment, then back at his grandson.

  "Ah, be still, Azriel," I commanded myself. "And listen. The answers are coming now."

  "Do you remember?" asked the younger one. "A family secret? A treasure called the Servant of the Bones?"

  The old man remembered, but didn't speak.

  "You said," Gregory continued, "that once a man had brought this thing to your father in Prague. The man was a Moslem, from the mountains. You said that this man had given this thing to your father in payment of a debt."

  Ah, this zaddik possessed the bones! But he wasn't the master, no, never would he be, either.

  He looked hard and secretively at his grandson.

  "You were talking to old Rivka," Gregory pressed, "and you told her the things the Moslem had said. You said that your father should not have accepted such a thing, but your father had been confused because the words on the wooden casket had been in Hebrew. You called it an abomination; you said it should be destroyed."

  I smiled. Did I feel relief or anger? An abomination. I am an abomination. And this abomination can destroy both of you and your room of books; it can tear your house to pieces to the rafters! But who called me!

  I put my hand over my mouth in restraint. In the presence of a zaddik, I could not afford the most incidental sigh or sound. I couldn't afford to weep.

  The zaddik was still holding his peace, letting the young man reveal himself more and more.

  "Rivka asked you why you didn't destroy it," said Gregory patiently, slowly, "and you said that that was not an easy thing to do. You said it was like the old scrolls, this thing. It could not be destroyed irreverently. You spoke again of something written, a document. Do you remember this, Grandfather? Or do I dream?"

  The old man's eyes were cold. "You heard this at my knee?" he muttered. "Why do you ask me of this now?"

  Suddenly the old man raised his hand and made a fist and brought the fist down on the desk. Nothing moved, save the dust.

  Gregory didn't blink.

  "Why do you come here on the day of your daughter's funeral," the old man raged, "and ask me about this old tale! This tale, this secret or treasure, as you call it, that you heard when you were my eloi, my shining one, my chosen pupil, my pride! Why do you come speaking of this thing now!"

  The old man was trembling dangerously.

  Gregory calculated silently, then took a deep breath.

  "Rebbe, the check will buy so many things," said Gregory.

  "Answer my question! Money we have. We are rich here. We were rich when we left Poland. We were rich when we left Israel. Answer my question. Why do you ask about this thing now?"

  I could see no wealth in this room but I believed him.

  I knew his kind. He lived only to study Torah and to keep the law, and to pray, and to advise those who came to him daily, those who believed he could see into souls and make miracles, those for whom he was the instrument of God. Wealth would make no change in the life of such a man whatsoever, except that he might study day and night as he chose.

  I felt my pulse, very strong. I felt the air in me. My strength had been steadily increasing since the words had been spoken. The bones had to be here. Yes, he had them, and somehow he had called me up. He had laid hands on them, or read the words, or spoken the prayer...it had to be this old man, but how was such a thing accomplished and why had I not simply destroyed him out of hand?

  Out of memory, like a comet came a face I knew and loved. Hundreds of years were bridged in a moment.

  This was the face of Samuel, of whom I've told you. Samuel of Strasbourg. This was the Master who had sold me for his children as I had once sold myself perhaps for the children of God. In my memory I saw the casket.

  Where was it now?

  The memory was bitter, a fragment; I wouldn't have it. Accusations would distract me and nothing about this past, even with Samuel, could ever, ever be changed.

  I stood in this warm room in Brooklyn, with another old scholar surrounded by dusty books, spells, charms, incantations, and I hated him. I despised him. He was far more virtuous, however, than Samuel had ever been, especially in the last moments when Samuel had told me to go my way to hell.

  I hated this Rebbe almost as much as his grandson hated him.

  And the grandson?

  What was he to me, this smooth-tongued Gregory Belkin with his worldwide church? But if he had killed Esther--

  I held fast. I let the temper and the pain melt in me; I asked of myself, be alive only, and be quiet.

  This young one, groomed as well as a prince, waited in patience in the same manner for the temper of the zaddik to cool.

  "Why ask me these things now?" the old man demanded.

  I thought of the girl, the tender girl, her head turned on the stretcher. How kind and awestruck had been her little whisper. Servant of the Bones.

  The old man suddenly lost control of his anger. He gave Gregory no time to answer. He went on with his raving questions.

  "What drives you, Gregory?" he asked in English. His tone was intimate suddenly, as if he really wanted to know. He rose from his chair and stood facing his grandson.

  "You put a question to me," he said. "Let me put a question to you. What is it in the wide world that you would have? You are rich beyond imagining, so rich that you make our wealth a drop in the sea, yet you make a church to deceive thousands, you fashion laws which are no laws at all. You sell books and television programs that say nothing. You would be Mohammed or Christ! And then you kill your daughter. Yes, you did it. I see into you. I know you killed her. You sent those men. Her blood was on the very same weapon which killed them. Did you do away with them as well? Was it your followers who used those assassins and then dispatched them? What is your dream, Gregory, to bring down on all of us such evil and shame that the Messiah cannot stay away a moment longer! You would take away his choice!"

  I smiled. It was a beautiful speech. Remembering nothing of Zurvan then, or anyone wise or eloquent, I nevertheless warmed to this speech, and to the conviction with which it had been made. I liked the old man just a little better.

  Gregory adopted the softened attitude of sadness but remained silent. Let the old man rave.

  "You think I don't know you did this?" said the Rebbe. He let himself slip back down into the chair. He had to. He was tired in his rage. "I know. I know you and have known you as no one else from the day you were born. Nathan, your own twin, doesn't know you. Nathan prays for you, Gregory!"


  "But you don't, do you, Grandfather? You said your prayers already for me, didn't you?"

  "Yes, I said Kaddish when you left this house, and if I had only a sign from Heaven, I would bring an end to your life and your Temple of the Mind and your lies and your schemes with my own hands."

  Would you, now?

  "That's an easy claim to make, Grandfather," said Gregory unperturbed. "Anyone can do things when he has a sign from Heaven! I teach my followers to love in a world where there are no signs from Heaven!"

  "You teach your followers to give you money. You teach your followers to sell your books. You raise your voice again to me and you'll leave my house without your answers. Your brother knows nothing of what you speak--this old childhood memory of yours. He wasn't there. My memory of that day is very clear. There is no one alive now who knows."

  Gregory raised his hand. Peace, forbearance.

  I was enthralled and tormented. I waited for the next word.

  "Grandfather, only tell me then what it means, 'the Servant of the Bones.' Am I such filth that to answer me is to desecrate yourself?"

  The old man trembled. His shoulders narrowed and drew up under his black collarless coat. He shuddered and in the light his knuckles were pink and sore to look at. The light spilled down on his white beard and on the mustache which covered his upper lip, and on the translucent lids of his eyes as he shook his head and rocked back and forth as if he were praying.

  Very smoothly came the voice of Gregory.

  "Grandfather, my only child is dead, and I come to you with a simple question. Why would I kill my daughter, Esther? You yourself know there is no reason under God for me to have hurt Esther. What can I give you for the answer to my question? Do you remember this story, this thing, this Servant of the Bones? Did it have a name, was its name Azriel?"

  The old man was stunned.

  So was I.

  "I never spoke that name," said the old man.

  "No, you didn't," said Gregory, "but someone else did."

  "Who has told you about this thing?" the old man demanded. "Who could have done such a thing?"

  Gregory was confused.

  I leant my weight against the shelf of books, watching, my fingers catching the loose flaking leather of the bindings. Don't hurt them. Not the books.

  The old man sounded hard and contemptuous.

  "Has someone come to you with the legend?" asked the old man. "Has someone told you a pretty tale of magic and power? Was this man Moslem? Was he a Gentile? Was he a Jew? Was he one of your New Age fanatic followers who has read your abracadabra about the Kabbalah?"

  Gregory shook his head.

  "Rebbe, you have it wrong," he said with solemn sincerity. "It was only your talk of this that I heard when I was a child. Then two days ago, someone else spoke the words before witnesses: Azriel, Servant of the Bones!"

  I was afraid to guess.

  "Who was this?" asked the old man.

  "She said it, Rebbe," Gregory told him. "Esther said it as she was dying. The man in the ambulance heard it from her lips as she died. Esther said it, Rebbe. Esther said, 'The Servant of the Bones.' And the name 'Azriel.' Esther said it twice aloud, and two men heard her. Those men told me."

  I smiled. This was more of a mystery than I had ever imagined.

  I watched them intently. My face teemed with heat. And I knew that I trembled as the old man trembled, as if my body were real.

  The old man drew back. He was not willing to believe. His anger vanished. He peered into the younger man's face.

  Then came the voice of Gregory, purposefully and cleverly tender.

  "Who is he, Rebbe? Who is the Servant of the Bones? What is it, this thing, that Esther spoke of? That you spoke of? When I was a child playing on the floor at your feet? Esther said this name, 'Azriel.' Is that the name of the Servant of the Bones?"

  My pulse throbbed so loud I could hear it with my own ears. I felt the fingers of my left hand bear down slightly on the tops of the books. I felt the shelf against my chest. I felt the cement floor under my shoes, and I didn't dare to look away from either of them.

  My god, I thought, make the old man tell, make him tell so I will know, my god, if you are still there, make him tell Who and What is the Servant of the Bones? Make him tell me!

  The old man was too stunned to reply.

  "The police have this information," said Gregory. "They guard it jealously. They think she spoke of her killer."

  I almost cried aloud in denial.

  The old man scowled, and his eyes moistened.

  "Rebbe, don't you understand? They want to find who killed her--not that trash with the ice picks who stole her necklace, but those who put them up to it, those who knew the value of the jewels!"

  Once again, the necklace. I saw no necklace then and I saw none in my memory now. There had been no necklace around her throat. They had taken nothing from her. What was this diversion of the necklace?

  If only I knew these men better. I couldn't tell for sure when Gregory lied.

  The voice of Gregory grew lower, colder, less conciliatory. He straightened his shoulders.

  "Now let me speak plainly, Rebbe," he said. "I have always, at your behest kept our secret, my secret, our secret--that the founder of the Temple of the Mind was the grandson of the Rebbe of this Court of the Hasidim!" His voice rose now as if he couldn't quiet it. "For your sake," he said, "I've kept this secret! For Nathan's sake. For the sake of the Court. For the sake of those who loved my mother and father and remembered them. I have kept this secret for you and for them!"

  He paused, the tone of accusation hanging there sharply, the old man waiting, too wise to break the silence.

  "Because you begged me," said Gregory, "I kept the secret. Because my brother begged me. And because I love my brother. And in my own way, Rebbe, I love you. I kept the secret so that you might not have the disgrace in your own eyes, and so that the cameras would not come poking in your windows, the reporters would not come crowding your stoop to demand of you how was it possible that out of your Torah and your Talmud and your Kabbalah came Gregory Belkin, the Messiah of the Temple of the Mind, whose voice is heard from the city of Lima to the towns of Nova Scotia, from Edinburgh to Zaire. How did your ritual, your prayer, your quaint black clothing, your black hats, your crazy dancing, your bowing and hollering--how did all of that loose upon the world the famous and immensely successful Gregory Belkin and the Temple of the Mind? For your sake, I kept quiet."

  Silence. The old man was sunk in silence, unforgiving, and filled with contempt.

  I was as confused as ever. Nothing drew me to either man, not hate or love, nothing drew me to anything but the remembered eyes and voice of the dead girl.

  Again, it was the younger man who spoke.

  "Once in your entire life, you came to me of your own will," Gregory said. "You crossed the great bridge that divides my world from yours, as you call it. You came to me in my offices to beg me not to disclose my background! To keep it a secret, no matter how many reporters questioned me, no matter how they pried."

  The old man didn't answer.

  "It would have benefited me to let the world know, Rebbe. How could it not have benefited me to say that I had come from such strong and observant roots! But long before you ever made your request of me, I buried my past with you. I covered it over with lies and fabrications so as to protect you! So that you would not be disgraced. You and my beloved Nathan, for whom I pray every night of my life. I did that, and I continue to do it...for you."

  He paused as if his anger had the better of him. I was mesmerized by both of them and the tale that unfolded.

  "But as God is my witness, Rebbe," Gregory said, "and I do dare to speak of him in my Temple as you do in your yeshiva, let me tell you this. She said those words when she died! Now you know it was none of your black-clad saints clapping their hands and singing on Shabbes who killed Esther! It wasn't my doe-eyed brother who killed Esther. It was not a Hasid who k
illed Esther. When the Nazis shot my mother and my father, neither raised a hand to stop the arm or the gun, is that not so?"

  The old man, perplexed and torn, actually nodded in agreement, as if they had moved far beyond then own mutual hatred now.

  "But," said Gregory, and he held up the check in his left hand, "if you don't tell me the meaning of those words, Rebbe, and I do remember them, then I shall tell the police where I once heard them. That it was here in this house, among the Hasidim whom Gregory Belkin, the man of mystery, the Founder of the Temple of the Mind, was actually born!"

  I was dumbfounded. I waited. I didn't dare to take my eyes off the old man. Still he held out.

  Gregory sighed. He shrugged. He walked a pace and turned and looked to Heaven and then dropped his hand. "I will tell them, 'Yes, sir, I've heard those words. Yes, once I heard them. At my grandfather's knee, and yes, he is living, and you must go to him to find out what they mean.' I'll tell them--I'll send them to you and you can explain the meaning of those words to them."

  "Enough," said the old man. "You're a fool, you always were!" He sighed heavily, and then more in contemplation than consciously, he said, "Esther said those words? Men heard her?"

  "Her attendants thought she was looking at a man outside the window, a man with long black hair! That's a secret the police keep in their files, but the others saw him and they saw her look at him, and this man, Rebbe, he wept for her! He wept!"

  It was I who trembled!

  "Shut up. Stop. Don't..."

  Gregory gave a soft laugh of nudging mockery. He stepped back, turning this way and that again, without ever lifting his eyes to see me, though his eyes might, in a better light, have passed over my shoes. He turned back to the Rebbe.

  "I never thought to accuse you, any of you, of killing her!" said Gregory. "Such a thought never came to me, though where have I ever heard such words before except from your tongue! And I walk in your door and you accuse me of killing my stepdaughter! Why would I do such a thing? I come here out of respect for her dying words!"

  The old man said very calmly, "I believe you. The poor child spoke those words. The papers told of strange words. I believe you. But I also know you killed your daughter. You had it done."

  Gregory's arms tensed as do the arms of men who are about to strike others, but he couldn't and wouldn't strike the Rebbe. That would never happen with these two men, I knew. But Gregory was at the end of his tether, and the zaddik was certain of Gregory's guilt.